TechRadar: latest computing news
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New Apple TV expected as stocks run out
Apple may be preparing to revamp its Apple TV set-top box following reports that another retailer is out of stock and is now refusing orders from customers.
Supplies of the £99 hockey puck have run dry at PC World and the retail park favourite seems unsure if they be replenished, according to The Verge.
Staff are also being told to say no to customers who wish to place an order for the device, say sources, which is an unusual move for the Dixons Retail-owned company.
PC World is the latest manufacturer, on both sides of the Atlantic to reveal shortages of the current generation Apple TV.
1080p video and iTV clues?
A refresh, which could even be revealed during the likely iPad 3 event next month, would surely see Apple embrace 1080p video streaming as the existing device can only muster 720p.
We may also get a redesigned user interface and more new features that could offer clues about Apple's rumoured plans to launch a standalone HD TV set in 2012 or 2013.
We'd also hope to see some new apps and services added to the mix as the set-top box has been a relatively empty vessel since it's launch in autumn 2010.
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Explained: Wi-Fi Direct: what it is and why you should care
Wi-Fi Direct: everything you need to know
The world is falling out of love with cables, but the Wi-Fi we know and love isn't always the best way to connect devices.
Wouldn't it be great if you could effortlessly connect Wi-Fi devices without messing around with access points and lengthy passphrases? That's what Wi-Fi Direct promises.
Wi-Fi Direct is a proper standard
It comes via the Wi-Fi Alliance, the global industry association in charge of certifying Wi-Fi kit.
Wi-Fi Direct is Wi-Fi without the internet bit
The idea behind Wi-Fi direct is that simple tasks need simple connections. For example, you might want to print from your laptop or smartphone to a wireless printer, or to share images with someone else in the same room, or to transmit video from your phone to your TV. None of these things requires an internet connection, but they do need to connect - to the printer, or to the other person's hardware, or to the TV. With Wi-Fi Direct, that bit's easy.
Wi-Fi Direct can have the internet bit too
If you have a Wi-Fi router connected to the internet, you can connect to that too.
Wi-Fi Direct doesn't need a wireless access point
Wi-Fi Direct devices can connect to each other without having to go through an access point: they can establish ad-hoc networks as and when required, letting you see which devices are available and choose which one you want to connect to. If that sounds very like Bluetooth, that's because it is.
Wi-Fi Direct uses Wi-Fi Protected Setup
You don't want any Tom, Dick or Harriet to be able to connect to your stuff - for example, you might not want to see what the neighbours are beaming to their TV on your TV - so Wi-Fi Direct uses Wi-Fi Protected Setup [PDF] and WPA2 to prevent unauthorised connections and keep your communications private. There are two ways to establish a connection: with physical buttons - "press the button on gadget X and then the same one on gadget Y", or with PIN codes.
Wi-Fi Direct knows what's nearby
Wi-Fi Direct includes two potentially useful things: Wi-Fi Direct Device Discovery and Service Discovery. Your device doesn't just know there are devices available; if developers have enabled it, your device will know what kind of devices are nearby and what's on offer - so for example if you're trying to display an image, you'll only see devices that you can beam images to; if you want to print, you'll only see devices that are or that are connected to printers. Crucially this can happen before you connect, so you don't waste any time trying to connect so something that doesn't do what you want it to do.
Wi-Fi Direct uses the same silicon
Manufacturers don't need to add extra radios to their kit: the idea is to have Wi-Fi Direct as part of the standard Wi-Fi radio. It's backwards compatible too, so you don't need to throw out your old Wi-Fi-enabled kit.
Wi-Fi Direct is part of DLNA, and Android too
In November, the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) announced that it was including Wi-Fi Direct in its interoperability guidelines, and Google has added Wi-Fi Direct support to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (for example it's in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus's networking options). DLNA says it "expects DLNA Certified and Wi-Fi Certified Wi-Fi Direct smartphones to grow strongly through 2016." That could be an awful lot of smartphones.
YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je2lWjfpywQ 
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Samsung Series 9 notebook UK release date revealed
Samsung has finally announced just when its new Samsung Series 9 laptop is launching in the UK, revealing that it will be here by the end of February.
The Samsung Series 9 notebook is being touted as the slimmest laptop in the world, with a lean frame which measures just 12.9mm – or 0.5-inches in old money.
It's a laptop that has the Apple MacBook Air firmly in its sights, boasting some impressive specs including an Intel Core i5 processor, up to 4GB memory and 128GB SSD.
Samsung has also added something called Fast Start; this allows the Series 9 to wake up and be ready for work in just 1.48 seconds.
Considering it takes most of the TechRadar team three teas and a bacon sarnie, this is pretty speedy.
Whole 9 yards
The Series 9 comes with 10 hours' battery life, a 180% brighter HD+ SuperBright Plus screen – which means outdoor light is no longer this laptop's Kryptonite – and the 13-inch version weighs a mere 1.16kg.
The Samsung Series 9 notebook UK release date is 25 February and will be initially available from John Lewis. It will then find its way to other retailers soon after.
brightcove : 1383929663001 
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TechRadar Deals: Today's deal: Official Apple earphones for £12
The Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic take the acclaimed Apple iPod Earphones and add a control capsule, located on the cable of the right earpiece, that includes a microphone and three buttons.
Here's what you can do with this convenient remote:
- Adjust the volume by pressing the + and - buttons
- Control music and video playback - including play/pause and next/previous - by pressing the centre button
- Record voice memos on supported devices
- Answer and end calls
And today you can get these earphones for for £12, saving 53% off the normal price pf £25.99.
Head over to TechRadar Deals to take advantage of this offer, but hurry - there are only 200 pairs available.
About TechRadar deals
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You can also sign up for our email newsletter and we will then email you regular deals that are at least 50% off goods and services from big name brands.
Visit TechRadarDeals.com to check out today's deal.
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Office on iPad photo isn't real, says Microsoft
A photograph from The Daily newspaper showing a version of Microsoft Office running on the Apple iPad is a fake, Redmond says.
In Tuesday's edition, the iPad-only paper claimed it had gone hands-on with a working prototype, featuring Word, Excel and Powerpoint in one complete application.
The report asserted that Microsoft had completed design work on the suite, which would soon be submitted to the App Store for approval.
However, the software giant has issued a statement saying the report is inaccurate speculation, while the photograph illustrating The Daily's report is a fake.
Daily denial
A spokesperson said: "The Daily story is based on inaccurate rumors and speculation," while a separate rep told Zdnet the photo is not a picture of a real Microsoft software product.
Microsoft, which is definitely developing the suite for Windows 8 tablets also refused to be drawn on whether it's even working on a version for the iPad.
In a further twist, on Tuesday evening, The Daily's editor told Zdnet's Mary-Jo Foley on Twitter: "We didn't fabricate either image. A working version of the app was demonstrated to us by someone at Microsoft."
The plot thickens, but one thing is for sure: Someone's telling porkies.
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Apple to give iTunes, App Store makeovers this year?
The iTunes store has not particularly seduced us with its design aesthetic to date, so we're not sure anyone will go into mourning over the news that its set for a makeover this year.
Both the iTunes Store and Apple's App Store look to be in line for a lick of paint as a reaction to new and much-loved services like Spotify but presumably also because it looks a bit old and boring.
Apple is said to consider the redesign "a top priority" which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows how much moolah the company makes through the digital storefront.
Spring clean
Apparently it's all about making the stores easier to use (aka buy from) through a more user-friendly interface and making it "a much more engaging experience".
We're just hoping that the App Store overhaul will make it a bit easier to wade through the oceans of apps available and find the good ones.
No word on when we'll see the fruits of this redesign work exactly, but the sources speaking to 9to5Mac about it in the first place reckon later this year.
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Opinion: What does it mean to be a PC?
What is a PC? Sounds like a simple question. And it used to have a simple answer. It's a computer with an x86-compatible processor and a copy of Microsoft Windows.
The only exceptions involved dubious standards of personal hygiene or a diagnosis on the autism spectrum. In either scenario, allowances for running Linux were made.
Today, things aren't so clear. Portable computers of all kinds are increasingly powered by ARM chips. In fact, some of the big research houses that crunch the data and work out the trends have been bundling tablets in with conventional laptop and desktop computers under the all-encompassing 'personal computer' label for a while.
More recently, Microsoft revealed that its upcoming ARM-compatible operating system, which appears to be more or less a port of Windows 8, will deliver the full Windows desktop even if there will be limitations regards the apps you can run.
Not that I necessarily think that Windows for ARM will be a terribly big deal. But it does feed into the broader picture where internet access and computing in general is becoming ever more mobile and ever less tethered to x86processors.
Already, more people around the world access the internet from a mobile device rather than conventional computers.
Cisco even reckons there will be many more mobile internet devices than people by 2016. And they'll very probably all be ARM powered.
At the same time, while Intel and AMD attempt to squeeze x86 chips into ever smaller form factors, ARM chips are heading in the other direction and becoming ever more sophisticated powerful. Nvidia, for instance, says it plans to offer multi-core ARM processors suitable for heavy duty server computers, probably in 2014.
As it happens, it increasingly looks like AMD might give in to the ARM architecture and use it for its own chips.
Whether that actually happens or not, ARM architectures are certainly due to take on capabilities previously reserved for high performance systems, such as 64-bit instruction sets and out-of-order execution.
It won't be long before a high end smartphone has all the computing power most consumers really need. And that raises the possibility of using a single device both on the move and docked on the desktop. Meanwhile, cloud and browser-based apps and services are increasingly making the argument you need that x86 ecosystem and broad compatibility seem pretty redundant.
Now, I don't want to get carried away. There's plenty to shake out and I for one think ye olde mouse and keyboard interface has plenty of legs left when it comes to getting stuff done. So, I'm not saying tablets are about to take over or anything along those lines.
But I can also feel the winds of change. Thus, my plan is to get hold of one of the latest transformable Android tablets and see if it can truly replace my precious laptop PC.
I'll still have my desktop and my smartphone, of course. So in terms of overall device count, nothing will have changed. But I reckon it will still provide an intriguing insight into what being a PC is all about.
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Apple threatens defamation suit over China iPad spat
Apple has written to the company which claims it owns the trademark to the iPad name in China, threatening to sue for defamation if it continues its campaign to have the tablet banned in the country.
The bankrupt Proview Shenzhen electronics company says it, not Apple has the rights to the iPad name in China and is demanding a huge pay-out from the manufacturer.
Cupertino insists it purchased the rights from Proview back in 2009.
Proview earned a minor court victory on Friday ensuring that the tablet be pulled from select stores in China's Guangdong province but plans to take its claims to 40 other cities across the country.
In response, Apple has gone on the offensive, telling the company to stop the lies or face the consequences.
False and misleading statements
In a letter emailed to Proview's chairman, Apple's legal representatives in Beijing write: "As you are well aware, Apple's holding company IP Applications Development ... legally purchased all the rights to the ten iPad trademarks owned by Proview ... specifically and expressly including the two trademark rights registered in mainland China by Proview Shenzhen."
"Proview Shenzhen and its agents continue to make statements about Apple to the public which are false and misleading" -- to wit, that Apple cut a deal with the wrong company. Proview has asked several regional Chinese courts to ban iPad sales until Apple pays the $1.6 billion it demands.
"On behalf of Apple, we formally reserve all rights to take further legal action against any individuals and entities for any damages that may result from defamatory statements and unlawful actions intended to wrongly interfere with Apple's business and business relationships."
In other words 'cut the nonsense or we'll sue.'
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Valve: We'd consider making hardware
Valve's Gabe Newell has hinted that the gaming giant will consider developing and selling its own hardware if it is the only way to innovate.
Valve's success with high-profile games and its Steam delivery system has been a big part in keeping PC gaming buoyant, but Newell appears frustrated with the lack of progress being made in hardware.
Speaking to Penny-Arcade, Newell confessed that the thought of making the kit that the company's games are played on has occurred.
If we have to
"Well, if we have to sell hardware we will," he said. "We have no reason to believe we're any good at it, it's more we think that we need to continue to have innovation and if the only way to get these kind of projects started is by us going and developing and selling the hardware directly then that's what we'll do.
"It's definitely not the first thought that crosses our mind; we'd rather hardware people that are good at manufacturing and distributing hardware do that.
"We think it's important enough that if that's what we end up having to do then that's what we end up having to do."
There are only a handful of gaming companies that could even allude to making hardware – but Valve is certainly among that group.
The prospect of Valve hardware appears remains small, but it's clear that a company that has kept the PC going as a gaming platform is keen not to get stuck behind ageing tech.
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In Depth: Apple iTV rumours: what you need to know
Apple iTV rumours: what you need to know
We love our Apple TV, but we're not sure Apple does: the firm's more interested in getting iPads into your living room than Apple TVs under your flat screen.
Apple says the Apple TV is a hobby, but it turns out Apple is thinking bigger. Much, much bigger: it wants to sell you the entire TV set, not a little box beneath it.
In a 15 February 2012 earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted again at the release of something bigger and better than the current Apple TV (credit CNN Money).
"With Apple TV, however, despite the barriers in [the TV set top box] market, for those of us who use it, we've always thought there was something there. And that if we kept following our intuition and kept pulling the string, then we might find something that was larger.
"For those people that have it right now, the customer satisfaction is off the charts. But we need something that could go more main market for it to be a serious category."
Here's all the rumours and speculation surrounding the next-generation new Apple TV.
Apple iTV design
Forget the current hockey-puck form factor: the rumour mill is unanimous that the third generation Apple TV will be a proper TV.
The Telegraph says that "sources within the company" say that Jeff Robbin, the man who helped create the iPod, is leading the team.
Remember that hockey puck we told you to forget about two sentences ago? You might want to remember it again, because 9to5Mac has found a reference to a new Apple TV (AppleTV3,1; the current model is 2,1) in the latest build of iOS. That could indicate an upgrade to the current Apple TV before the new sets ship.
Apple iTV specifications
Engadget predicts an A5 processor and 1080p video - neither of which are a huge surprise, granted.
Australian tech site Smarthouse says that the Apple iTV will come in three sizes, including 32-inch and 55-inch models.
Sources at "a major Japanese company who are involved in manufacturing the TV" reckon the sets will have the same processor as the forthcoming iPad 3, which presumably means an Apple A6.
Smarthouse isn't usually the go-to site for Apple rumours, but its report echoes similar claims by respected Apple analyst Gene Munster, who told the recent Future of Media conference that Apple will make its TV in a range of sizes.
The supply chain for the iTV is set to get going during the first quarter of 2012. That's according to Digitimes on 27 December 2011.
Apple iTV operating system
As with the current generation, the third generation Apple TV is likely to run iOS, albeit in slightly disguised form. Compatibility with other iOS devices is a given: current Apple TVs already accept video streamed via AirPlay and access shared iTunes libraries. We'll be amazed if the iTV doesn't get apps.
Apple iTV and iCloud
Steve Jobs told his biographer: "I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."
Apple iTV remote control
Munster says the iTV will come with an ordinary remote control, and will be controllable with iPhones, iPod touches and iPads, but the real remote control will be Siri.
Apple's voice recognition system will be the heart of the new Apple TV, enabling you to choose channels and control the TV's functions with voice alone. That means " the simplest user interface you could imagine" is voice.
Apple iTV AirPlay mirroring
After AirPlay mirroring from Mac to Apple TV was present in the developer preview of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, it's not a great leap to suggest that the Apple iTV could mirror the display of your Mac or iPad wirelessly too. AirPlay mirroring is 720p only at the moment - could it be 1080p compliant on in the Apple iTV?
Apple iTV programmes
While the iTV will get content from iTunes and iCloud, it's not going to be completely separate from current TV broadcasters: Munster says that you'll still need a cable TV subscription and decoder because Apple doesn't have enough content.
We're not sure whether it would play nicely with Freeview and Freeview HD here in the UK, but perhaps a DVB-T compatible unit will arrive as part of a second generation.
Apple iTV price
Gene Munster reckons that the iTV will be twice the price of a similarly sized TV. Ouch.
Apple iTV picture quality
If the iTV does appear, it won't leave manufacturers quaking in their boots. That's according to Samsung's Chris Moseley who told Pocket-Lint in early February 2012 that the firm isn't overly concerned with what Apple launches if it decides to enter the TV market
"We've not seen what they've done but what we can say is that they don't have 10,000 people in R&D in the vision category," he says.
"They don't have the best scaling engine in the world and they don't have world renowned picture quality that has been awarded more than anyone else."
Apple iTV release date
Most rumours predict a 2013 Apple iTV release date, but the more optimistic observers think Apple won't want to miss 2012's Christmas shopping season. The New York Times says that price, not technology, is the problem: Apple is waiting for the cost of large LCD panels to fall further before building iTVs.
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iPad 3 leaks expose Retina Display, 8-megapixel camera?
The Apple iPad 3 will definitely boast a Retina Display and will probably come loaded with an improved 8-megapixel camera if a pair of high profile leaks prove to be accurate.
The respected Apple news site MacRumors claims it has obtained a genuine iPad 3 display from the Apple production chain, which retains the same 9.7-inch form factor.
However, after close examination under a microscope, the site says it can confirm that the soon-to-be-announced new tablet will indeed boast the super high resolution display Retina Display.
The report says: "When comparing the iPad 3 display to one from an iPad 2 under a microscope, the difference in resolutions becomes readily apparent, with the iPad 3 display's pixels appearing to be one-quarter the size of those on the iPad 2.
"Extrapolating out, the iPad 3 screen should carry a full resolution of 2048x1536, exactly twice the linear resolution of the iPad 1 and iPad 2 which is 1024x768. Such a screen should be able to display much sharper images as compared to the previous generation iPads."
Better pics, longer life?
MacRumors blockbuster find was followed by reports from Taiwan showing photos of a purported iPad 3 casing, which appeared to present a larger camera lens and slightly refined rear casing.
Taiwan's Daily Apple publication says the parts, obtained "through special channels" prove that the iPad 3 will boast a better snapper than the two-megapixel offering currently housed on the iPad 2.
The report speculated that the larger lens meant an iPhone 4S-like 8-megapixel camera, while the slightly more tapered edges would enable Apple to accommodate longer battery life.
Recent guestimates suggest that Apple will unleash the iPad 3 in the first week of March, with reports last week predicting that March 7th will be D-Day.
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Tutorial: How to protect your passwords with KeePass
How to protect your passwords with KeePass
How many passwords do you rely on every day to live and function online? Think hard about all the accounts you have to log into – we're sure it reaches a dozen, including news sites, forums and others.
Do you leave them all logged in or do they generally all have the same password?
It's an uncomfortable question, because password management skills are something to which most of us would rather not draw attention. People in offices, for example, often write passwords on whiteboards.
The need for passwords is a problem that won't go away, but as we've seen recently, some cross-site scripting vulnerabilities rely on you leaving yourself logged into online accounts to do their fiendish work.
Luckily, there are ways of securely and portably managing all of your essential passwords. Why passwords?
Passwords have been around since antiquity. Guards would challenge people trying to enter restricted areas and only let them pass if they knew that day's word – hence the term. Used correctly, they're still an excellent method of securing access to resources.
The problem is that the need to remember so many of them means vulnerabilities quickly creep in. Today we have so many passwords and there are so many people trying to gain access to them that using some form of password management tool is becoming essential. The results of not doing so can be embarrassing to say the least.
How many times have you seen Facebook friends post shocking status updates, only to discover that a friend or family member had taken advantage of the logged-in account for a laugh? Beyond the embarrassment, reputations and even whole identities can be taken, and the rightful owner locked out, simply by changing the password on an account that's been left logged in.
Management tools
There are several excellent password management tools that will help you keep track of all the passwords you need for life online. They fall into four basic categories.
First, there are those that store your passwords securely on a local storage device and let you access them via a secret master key.
Next, there are those designed to run on mobile devices, such as smartphones. With the rise of cloud computing, there are now several password managers designed to follow you anywhere, which are accessed through a web interface.
Finally, there are hardware password management devices integrated into services, such as those used by banks which generate complex sequences of challenge and response codes to authenticate you.
What all these password managers have in common is the simple requirement to remember a single, master password that grants access to all the credentials they store. Many password managers will even fill in web forms for you, making login procedures more convenient.
Introducing KeePass
ANTI-VIRUS WARNING: Opt to run KeePass normally, otherwise the database won't be saved
KeePass is a free password tool used by millions of people every day. More importantly, it's open source.
Where your passwords are concerned, this is a good idea because it means that anyone can inspect the source code, compile their own executable and be sure that no keylogger or malware is lurking and skimming off their credentials.
KeePass is available from http://keepass.info. Click the link to download Portable KeePass Version 2.17 (the stable edition). This requires no installation and will let you store passwords on a USB stick. This in turn lets you carry your passwords around securely wherever you go.
Once the file is downloaded, open it and look at its contents. Drag and drop all the files onto a USB memory stick, then close the zip file to discard it.
To run KeePass, simply double-click KeePass.exe. After a few seconds, the interface appears.
The first thing we need to do is create a secure database to store our passwords. To do so, click File > New. Navigate to the USB memory stick, name the database if you like, and click 'Save'.
A new window appears. Enter a password in the 'Master password' input box. This is the password that will be used to encrypt the database and is the only one you'll need to remember. Make this as long and as varied as possible.
As you enter the password, KeePass will calculate its strength. Enter the password into the 'Repeat password' box then click 'OK'.
A new window appears allowing you to configure various database settings. The defaults should be fine for the moment, so simply click 'OK' to continue.
The main window changes to show two example password and username pairings. KeePass refers to these as 'entries'. In the left-hand pane are convenient groups into which your passwords will fall. You can rename these, delete them or create new ones by right-clicking this pane.
Add passwords
STRENGTH RATING: Adding a password to KeePass lets you assess its strength
To add a new entry to a group, select the group then right-click the main panel and select 'Add entry'. A new window opens. Enter a title, username and the password.
Again, KeePass will judge the strength of the password for you. Enter the URL for the login page where the credentials will be used, and finally click 'OK'. Now save the database by clicking the floppy disk icon at the top.
The most immediate way to use usernames and passwords saved in the KeePass database is to click on one, then click its URL in the lower pane of the user interface to bring up the relevant login page, and finally drag and drop the username and password into the input fields of the website. You can also right-click an entry, select 'Copy username' or 'Copy password' and paste the text into the input box on the website.
Note, by default, you have 12 seconds before the clipboard entry is erased to prevent malware stealing the pasted credentials.
You can also have KeePass attempt to automatically fill in the username and password fields when you visit a website and want to log in.
To do so, right-click the relevant entry and select 'Edit/view entry'. This makes the same window appear as when you added the entry's details. Click the 'Tools' button at the bottom of the window and a small drop-down menu appears.
Then click Select field reference > In username field. A new window appears. Due to a glitch, you must select the entry you want to modify again. Click both the radio buttons marked 'Username' in the lower part of the window, then click 'OK'. Click 'OK' on the parent window.
When you select the entry in the main user interface, the details including the URL appear in the lower pane. As before, click the URL to bring up the login page.
Return to KeePass, right-click the entry and select 'Perform Auto-type'. Back on the login page, the username and password fields should fill themselves in and log you in.
Most login pages allow you to enter a username then press [Tab], enter the password, and finally log in by pressing [Enter]. This is also the default action of Auto-type.
If you need to add an extra tab between username and password for Auto-type to log you in properly, you can edit the sequence by right-clicking on the entry, selecting 'Edit/ view entry' and clicking on the Auto-type tab on the resulting details window. Click the 'Override default sequence' button and you can add a new '{TAB}' to the sequence.
Securing KeePass
SIMPLE FORMS: You can make KeePass fill login credentials automatically by setting up the Auto-type facility
KeePass has a lot of options for customising its behaviour, chief among which are the security settings. To access these, click 'Tools | Options'. The resulting window has several tabs. Ensure the Security tab is selected.
The four most important checkboxes are at the top of the pane, and relate to the length of time before KeePass locks itself after periods of inactivity.
However, there are also some very useful options in the lower pane. Among these are the options for locking the interface and exiting KeePass instead of locking. These are very useful in situations where you need to get KeePass off the screen as quickly as possible and have it secure itself.
Also make sure you tick the box that locks KeePass if you suspend the computer. That way, if you're running it on a laptop when you're out and about, you can simply close the lid and the program will be locked and secure when you (or anyone else) next resume operation.
If you visit lots of websites every morning when you first boot up, you can also have KeePass run automatically when the current user logs in. On the 'Integration' tab, simply click the box marked 'Run KeePass at Windows startup (current user)'. If you use this option, you will have to remember to have your USB memory stick inserted when you boot up the computer.
Many of the other options might seem as if they've been included simply because they're possible, but lots of them are actually very useful. One such option is on the Interface tab. Clicking 'Drop to background after copying data to the clipboard' brings the window behind KeePass to the front. If this is your web browser, it's a convenient way of grabbing focus to paste a username or password into a website's login page.
MASTER PASSWORD: After you set KeePass to run at boot, the master password window should appear
So, KeePass can securely look after all your passwords, thereby requiring you to remember just one. It's easier to change just one password on a regular basis rather than needing to change perhaps several dozen, but change it regularly you must. In fact, you should do it every few weeks or so.
It's easy enough to do by going to File > Change master key. As long as you remember to take your USB memory stick with you, you will never forget the passwords to your accounts no matter where you are and no matter how many times you change their individual passwords.
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In Depth: Future shock: the next decade in computing
Future computing: The shiny Utopia
Almost nine years ago, I wrote about the next decade of the PC.
I predicted dual-core processors, no more CRT monitors or cables, solid-state drives, plug-and-play networking and the end of the PCI bus. I was right about all those.
We still have cables and spinning hard disks in a lot of computers of course, but it's a fighting retreat, nothing more.
I predicted a integrated PC with RAM, storage, networking, sound, video and processor, all built onto a single motherboard. The Raspberry Pi is a $25 system that will run Linux on a credit-card-sized circuit board, and you can buy it right now, so I was right about that too.
But I also predicted four things that didn't happen: a modular PC built from blocks like Lego, handwriting recognition replacing typing, a Google image search that doesn't rely on keywords, and computers that we use with the screen flat on the desk, like a piece of paper.
I predicted these things because I wanted them to happen and I hoped that predicting them loudly would help to bring them about.
I also didn't predict lots of things that have happened: the rise of iOS and the app, the way social networking takes up so much of our time, and World of Warcraft. I didn't see those, because imagining a whole new thing is much harder than extrapolating a trend.
I could argue that some of the things I predicted just haven't happened yet, but this would be disingenuous. My strike rate is 50 per cent, at best.
So why should my next set of predictions be any more accurate? They probably won't be. Making specific, testable predictions is always a risky business.
But I can improve my odds slightly with an each-way bet, so let's consider two alternative futures: one bright, one bleak.
Human ingenuity guarantees that the this tale of two cities will be exciting in both of them, but the path that progress takes in each could be startlingly different…
The shiny Utopia
You want to know what your PC will look like in ten years' time? I'll tell you: in ten years' time you won't have a PC.
Even now, if you have a desktop PC, it's only for one of two reasons: either you're too poor or you're too rich. Everyone else in the middle-income bracket has a gaming laptop now.
If you're too poor to afford one of those, your desktop is a compromise machine. It's a way of getting acceptable frame rates in an affordable, ugly box.
At the top of the pay scale, your laptop is an expensive slice of titanium to make PowerPoint slides on, and at home you have a money-no-object, seething beast with watercooling and lots of unnecessary LED lights, on which you play games at the same frame rates as everyone else.
These ecological niches are shrinking. The desktop PC is just a games console. Everything else it can do, you already have on your phone or your TV. It's an expensive console that requires expert knowledge to use and maintain.
The laptop is just a heavy netbook or tablet with rubbish battery life. In ten years' time, you will have an actual console and an actual netbook and nothing else. Neither of these devices will run Windows. You won't miss it one bit. For one thing, you'll be too busy playing games.
Within the next ten years we will finally cross the Uncanny Valley. Pre-rendered sequences used in animated movies reached the point of being arbitrarily close to real people with The Adventures of Tintin, but the next step is to do this on the fly, in a game engine.
You might think that Heavy Rain or Battlefield 3 were realistic, but you still mean realistic for a game. Breaching the Uncanny Valley means that characters in games will be literally indistinguishable from a video sequence of a live actor.
When that day arrives, the strangest thing will be how little difference it makes. Those Brobdingnagian levels of graphical processing will have finally managed to make the graphics invisible. You don't look at real people and marvel at their skin texture, you just take their appearance for granted.
How the PC…
The reason we still play games on a PC now is itself due to a historical oddity. PCs have a keyboard and mouse, and that makes certain kinds of games much easier to play. Those games only evolved because we were all using PCs. That keyboard will stay, but the mouse is on the way out.
On netbooks, it will be replaced with touchscreens. A netbook will essentially become just a tablet with a keyboard built into a clamshell case.
Consoles will also use touchscreens. Not the TV screen though; that would be highly inconvenient. Instead you'll use the touchscreen on your tablet, netbook or phone. It will sit on your lap to give you keyboard and trackpad functions in one, as well as an extra screen for easy-to-read status information, maps and inventory management.
The Wii U is already doing this with a dedicated touchscreen controller, but there is no reason for console and controller to be sold together. Bluetooth communication is perfectly capable of sharing your key presses and finger gestures from any device, and a simple app will handle the status display.
If it sounds too expensive to buy an iPad just to play on your console, just remember that this is instead of owning a whole other PC. You'll actually save money. Inside the box, your console will actually be a powerful PC, much as your Xbox 360 is now. You just won't ever find yourself lifting the lid to look.
Hard disks will be long gone. A combination of cloud storage and flash RAM will give you a box that starts up in five seconds and doesn't complain if you yank the power cord out accidentally. You won't find this especially impressive because you have already long been used to this behaviour from your other set-top boxes.
But behind the scenes, drivers will be automatically updating, files and save points will be backing up to multiple locations and security patches will be installing.
Various criminals, terrorists and delinquents will still find ways of hacking and infecting your console of course (I'm not rash enough to predict the end of cybercrime) but it will be much less of a problem. Remember how spam emails used to be a ubiquitous scourge? Then Hotmail and Gmail improved their filtering to some invisible threshold and the problem just sort of melted away.
The same thing is going to happen with viruses and trojans. The end of the PC means we will all do a lot less fiddling than we used to. With the operating system embedded and self-updating, there just isn't the same scope for idle hands to download dubious files. Take the idiot out of the driving seat and you don't hit nearly as many lampposts.
…Will disappear
Does this sound like an Orwellian police state? It's not. It's the consumerisation of technology. You are the last generation that will be expected – or able – to fix your PC. New inventions always begin as hobbyist toys, and then the case gets sealed shut with tamper-evident screws.
The utopian vision of the PC is that it disappears entirely from our conscious perception. The device is just part of your house, like central heating. The games are just another kind of TV programme, with an audience participation mechanism that's a little more complicated than texting in your vote.
Future computing: The zombie apocalypse
But what if the economy never picks up? What if everything goes to hell in a handcart and capitalism collapses?
Does that mean that in ten years' time we'll all be using ten-year-old computers and playing the same games as we are now? No, it does not. There will still be innovation, it will just move in a different direction.
The first casualty will be Microsoft. In ten years' time, that company will be entirely irrelevant to you. Microsoft's current business depends on you buying new PCs with Windows installed. It makes each new version of Windows bigger and more demanding than the last, so your current PC won't run it. That gives you a reason to upgrade, and when you buy a PC, you buy Windows.
In a bull market nobody minds, because buying new things is always fun. But when everyone is skint and the last four versions of Windows have just added 3D rotating toolbars and a new set of desktop wallpapers, you'll know the game is up.
Microsoft will retreat initially to the embedded operating systems of consoles and handhelds, but the long and vainglorious heritage of Windows counts for naught here. We don't care about backward compatibility because each device is self-contained. The huge existing codebase of Windows makes it slow to react to new technologies, and also just plain slow, so it gets outcompeted by more agile, specialised operating systems.
By 2022, the total installed base of Microsoft systems will be less than one per cent of all devices.
Google God
In its place, Google will rise as the new colossus, and at some point in the next ten years, it will quietly change 'don't be evil' from its informal motto to its third directive, behind 'don't get caught' and 'don't forget, we know where you live'.
Of course, Google makes its money from advertising, and advertising needs us to buy stuff, or the whole thing breaks down. But Google is everywhere now.
The Chrome operating system is only part of it; Google has essentially replaced the domain name system (DNS). It's already quicker to type 'Facebook' into the Google search bar than type 'www.facebook.com' into the address bar.
In ten years there won't be an address bar, just Google, and without the address bar, there is no point in registering domain names. They will still work of course, but you won't use them any more than you use numeric IP addresses now.
Google will sell its own name system that's much cheaper than a dot com and allows spaces, punctuation and mixed case. Better still, because it shows up on the search results, there's no requirement for each name to be unique.
If you register a word or phrase, you'll appear in a separate section on the results page, but anybody else can also register that same phrase and appear there as well.
You can't choose your position on the list; it's determined for each person searching, based on how significant you are to them. This makes it impossible to cybersquat, but of course, if you have to be top, it's easy enough to slightly change the wording of your Googlename.
Googlenames automatically link to your Google+ page by default and every Googlename comes with its own Gmail address. Even if you don't want to register one for your business, there is really no reason not to have one for yourself.
In ten years' time, it will already be quite common for parents to register a Googlename for their child at birth. The simple act of tying your Googlename to your Google+ account will kill Facebook.
There will be a big anti-trust lawsuit about it, but by the time it's all settled, everyone will be used to Google+ anyway and Facebook will never recover.
Gaming IRL
In 2017, 10 years after its existence was confirmed, Blizzard will finally release its next-gen MMO. It will be extremely polished and a lot of fun to play, but it will just be a massively multiplayer FPS set in a science fiction universe, which makes it essentially just Planetside, 15 years after we already had Planetside.
Meanwhile a new game genre will emerge. In the 80s we had the platformer; the 90s were all about RTS, and in the '00s it was the FPS. Now we have the augmented reality or AR game. Historians will trace the birth of this genre back to Zombies, Run!, an iOS and Android game released in 2012. This uses story elements and sound effects to immerse you in an imaginary zombie-infested world, while you're out running in the real world.
Running becomes the input mechanism for the game. You get a mission – to rescue a survivor before the zombies reach him, say – and to do it, you have to go outside and run. Your phone keeps track of how far and how fast you run, and plays in-game audio to let you know how well you're doing and how far behind the zombies are.
Zombies, Run! was a first-generation AR game. The running mechanic was like tapping the spacebar; the game didn't care where you ran, only how much you ran. That's because it was, at its heart, a running program and the developers didn't want to interfere with your existing routes. But later games will add GPS so that objectives appear at specific street intersections, and time-sensitive missions that can only be completed at night.
Your phone camera becomes a scanner to reveal things that exist at specific real-world locations, but which are only visible in the game world. These could be crime scene clues or power-ups, or it could reveal which people are also playing the same game as you – either as allies or enemies.
AR doesn't need to waste developer time and computing resources rendering a virtual world; it repurposes the existing world. This totally redefines the gaming landscape.
Gamers aren't couch-dwelling slobs anymore, they are delusional paranoiacs, running wild in streets. That's not necessarily better, but it's definitely different.
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Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar
This week we've reviewed Apple's new iBooks creation app for the Mac as well as a cracking pair of cameras and a cracking pair of graphics cards to boot.
There's also a great phone for the US, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx which takes the existing Razr and adds a huge battery.
Here's our full list of this week's reviews from the site.
Amazon's Kindle, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and even Apple's iBooks have been working on moving us away from reading physical books and embracing the digital revolution. But until now, there was very little to convince us how good an idea this could be, since the digital versions looked very much like their real-world counterparts, right down to the page turning effect.
But this is what Apple is trying to change with its new content creation app, iBooks Author. Its aim is to revolutionise modern textbooks by bringing interactivity to the learning experience.
Always liked the idea of an all-in-one camera with a massive zoom capability, but hated the often all too-plastic feel? Fuji's X-S1 may, nay will, cause you to re-evaluate the humble bridge camera. Whereas Fuji has previously applied an 'X' - its signifier of a premium camera
- to the Leica-like FinePix X10, for the first time it gives a superzoom that same distinction.
This means that the new 26x optical zoom Fuji X-S1 figuratively sits above the existing Fuji HS20 and HS30 models, even though the latter boast 30x zoom (maximum 720mm equivalent telephoto setting in 35mm terms).
AMD showed its hand first in this year's GPU arms race with Nvidia by turning it into last year's arms race. While Nvidia has kept shtum about its upcoming new 'Kepler' architecture and looks to do so until spring, AMD stole the march and released the first of its new 7-series cards, the AMD HD 7970, a few days before Christmas 2011.
That sure was odd timing, but it taught us a lot about AMD's new Southern Islands architecture, specifically the 'Tahiti' chip. The HD 7970's whopping £440 price made all those neat features all but irrelevant to the gaming masses though, so we're putting our hopes on this HD 7770 to deliver the best bits of the new AMD architecture for a more palatable price.
The new Canon PowerShot G1 X - commonly shortened to Canon G1 X, or even Canon G1X - occupies the top spot in Canon's prestigious G-series compact camera range, offering a truly impressive array of high-end features.
Launched at CES earlier this year, the new digital camera is aimed at advanced photographers in search of a high-quality, take-anywhere primary camera and/or backup for their DSLR. It may not be the compact system camera (CSC) that everyone was expecting to see from Canon, nor is it a direct replacement for the highly popular Canon PowerShot G12 - rather, it's something in between.
The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is the newest Razr to be released on the Verizon network. It takes everything you love about the Droid Razr, and fattens it up a bit with a whopping 3,300 mAh battery. That's a battery that's capable of 21 hours of talk time on a single charge.
And while we're excited to finally disconnect from that required midday charge, the true power of a battery that size comes in the form of 7 hours of LTE browsing per charge.
This week's other reviews
Audio systems
Edifier Luna5 encore dock review
Camera accessories
Camera lenses
Kenko Teleplus Pro 300 AF DGX 2x review
Desktops
Graphics cards
Mobile phones
Samsung Galaxy Xcover Extreme S5690 review
Monitors
Scanners
Software
Apple Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3 review
Storage
Samsung SSD 830 512GB (Notebook Kit) review
Televisions
Tripods
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OS X Mountain Lion compatibility: will your Mac take it?
Apple has announced OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the next step in what is a clear plan to iOS-ify the Mac.
But will your current Mac take the update? The first thing to know is that you will definitely need to have OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later because you'll need to download it via the Mac App Store.
We're not yet sure whether it's a requirement that you have OS X 10.7 Lion, though we wouldn't be too surprised.
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard phased out support for PowerPC processors, so once again things are Intel-only. Here's the full list of Macs and OS X 10.8 compatibility:
- MacBook Pro - you'll need to have either a 13-inch from mid-2009 on or a 2.2/2.4GHz 15-inch or a late 2007 or newer 17-inch
- MacBook - 13-inch 2008 in aluminum, early 2009 or later
- MacBook Air - it needs to be ate 2008 or newer
- Mac Mini - it needs to be early 2009 or newer
- iMac - it needs to be mid 2007 or newer
- Mac Pro - it needs to be early 2008 or newer
- Xserve - early 2009
Unfortunately those Macs that won't be able to upgrade are numerous, including all the plastic model MacBooks before 2008, pre mid 2007 MacBook Pros and Mac Mini/iMac and most notably the original MacBook Air. You know, the one that came out of that famous envelope. In terms of graphics support this means anything with the ATI Radeon X1600 or an Intel GMA 950 or x3100 integrated graphics card.
Even the 2006 and 2007 versions of the Mac Pro won't be able to install OS X 10.8
Obviously all these details are based on the OS X 10.8 Developer Preview and may change for the full release. One thing's for sure - our G4 PowerBook is looking decidedly old now.
