Movies Games and Tech

A Night at the Kinect Sports Ski Chalet

Andrew Edney

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Oct 30, 2011

Last week in Central London, UWHS were invited to the Kinect Sports Ski Chalet for the launch for Kinect Sports: Season Two for the Xbox 360. We donned our warm clothes and set off in search of adventure.

We were greeted outside the venue by two gorgeous huskies.

We were then led into the ski chalet for some food and drink to warm us up.

We were here for the launch of Kinect Sports: Season Two, which is the latest Kinect game.

Here is how Microsoft describe Kinect Sports: Season Two:

Step up to the plate, reach for your driver to tee off, or serve up an ace as the most popular Kinect franchise returns with “Kinect Sports: Season Two” — only on Kinect for Xbox 360. With six thrilling new sports to jump into and enjoy, “Kinect Sports: Season Two” pulls the whole family off the couch and turns your living room into a world-class sports arena where intuitive, full-body gameplay and friendly competition reign supreme. Following the top-selling and award-winning “Kinect Sports: Season Two,” the second season amps up the action and delivers sporting gameplay like you’ve never seen — or felt — before!

“Kinect Sports: Season Two” sprints out of the box at full speed, taking full advantage of the revolutionary Kinect technology and its latest exciting features, such as in-game voice commands and enhanced motion tracking. Bringing the family together and introducing Challenge Play to Xbox LIVE and living rooms worldwide, “Kinect Sports: Season Two” harnesses the power of friendly competition to provide a more immersive experience for everyone from casual players to top-notch athletes and hardcore sports fans.

There were a number of Xbox 360’s set up throughout the chalet for us to play with and get some hands-on time with.

Along with the games, Chemmy Alcott who is Britain’s number 1 female downhill skier, ranked 8th in the world and 3 time Olympian, was on hand. So I felt no pressure what so ever when she asked me if I wanted to challenge her to some skiing!

Needless to say she won, but it was a really good race and a very good way to experience the game. It was a real privilege to both meet and race her and it was great talking to her about her experiences and what she thought of the game.

Review of the ioSafe SoloPRO Waterproof and Fireproof Hard Drive

Andrew Edney

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Oct 29, 2011

3

Review of the ioSafe SoloPRO Waterproof and Fireproof Hard Drive

Do you need a backup drive capable of being both fireproof and waterproof? Would you like some data recovery services thrown in just in case? Then look no further than the SoloPRO from ioSafe.

Who are ioSafe?

From their website:

ioSafe is the technology leader of disaster proof hardware. Since 2005, our patented technology provides unparalleled physical security protection against fire, flood and theft for thousands of homes and businesses. Like an aircraft black box, ioSafe adds physical security and protection to irreplaceable data.

Encryption and network security are often used to protect data. Wildfires and hurricanes care little about whether the data is encrypted. Firefighters won’t ask your permission before hosing down your entire computer system. Any offsite vaulting strategy will have vulnerability for the most important data in your business – the data you just created – not the data from last week. Backing up even one terabyte of data to the cloud could take up to 10 months with the typical business or home connection.

Physical security of data is often overlooked. Nearly every business, large or small has vulnerabilities. ioSafe specializes in hardware to help protect vulnerable data wherever it may reside. Designed to be bolted to the floor, survive building collapse or padlocked to anything immovable, our steel outer casings combined with fire and flood protection are designed to provide the ultimate physical security for external data storage.

According to IDC, over 100,000 external desktop hard drives are sold every day. By 2014 digital content in an average US home could total almost 12 terabytes according to Coughlin Associates! The higher download speeds and slower upload speeds have made it impractical to perform online backup for anything more than a few gigabytes. To upload a terabyte, nevermind 5 or 10TB to the cloud anytime soon will be impractical for all but the largest of businesses.

ioSafe high security technology gives you the choice between a pretty red unprotected drive and a fireproof, waterproof external hard drive starting at less than $150 and storing up to 2TB. Which drive do you want protecting your business data or your family photos and videos? How much are they worth to you?

Specifications

Operational Details

Single 3.5 SATA disk: 1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB, 3TB capacities available¹
Quiet forced air cooling
Multi-platform compatibility with Mac & PC/Windows
Microsoft Windows Server & Linux (fully supported with eSATA)
USB 3.0 or eSATA/USB 2.0 Interface

¹ 3TB support limited to Windows 7, Server 2008, Linux and Mac

Disaster & Security Specifications

Fire protection – 1550°F, 1/2 hour per ASTM E119
Flood / Submersion protection – to 10 feet water depth, 72 hours
Proven data protection and recovery
Tested per UL, FCC and CE Standards
Physical theft protection
Cable lock or floor mount
Kennsington® Lock Compatible

Support

1 Year Data Recovery Service (DRS) Standard (3 and 5 year plans available)
3 Year manufacturer’s warranty for defects Standard (5 year available with purchase of 5 year DRS upgrade)
Up to $2500 included for forensic recovery service
Advanced Replacement included for warranty/DRS exchanges
Expedited shipping for DRS support

Inside The Box

ioSafe SoloPRO External Hard Drive
USB Cable
eSATA Cable (eSATA model only)
Power Supply
Owners Manual and Warranty

Electrical

Electrical — AC input
Voltage: 80 ~ 264 VAC at 50/60 HZ
Typical Power Consumption: < 25W

System Requirements

Intel Pentium II 350 Mhz-compatible or Mac G3 processor & greater
USB for Microsoft Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS 8.6 & greater or Linux based NAS devices
eSATA for full support of Windows Server or Linux Server systems
For USB 3.0 or eSATA/USB 2.0 speeds, the system must support applicable specifications

Operating Environment

Operating: 0-35° C (95°F)
Non-operating: 0-1550°F, 1/2 hr per ASTM E119
Operating Humidity: 20% – 80% (non-condensing)
Non-operating Humidity: 100%, Full water immersion, 10 feet, 3 days

Physical

Size: 5.0″W x 7.1″H x 11.0″L
Weight: 15 lbs

The ioSafe SoloPRO Data Recovery Service

The ioSafe SoloPRO Data Recovery Service (DRS) provides a one time use, no questions asked data and hardware recovery service. For any loss, no matter the reason. Whether your business is a victim of a drive failure or a natural disaster — we’ve got you covered.

With the ioSafe SoloPRO DRS you get to enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing your data is protected by the best data recovery service in the industry.

One time use, no questions asked, data recovery service

Up to $2500 for forensic data recovery

Free Advanced Replacement for expedited recovery

Direct access to ioSafe’s experts — one point of contact

Replacement hardware pre-loaded with recovered data

When we say “any reason” we mean it. It doesn’t matter what happens. We’ve got you covered.

Need a few examples? We’ve got that covered too :

Fire damage
Flood damage
Accidental damage
Human Error
Disk failure
External Enclosure failure
Accidental deletion
Viruses
Power failures
An intern dumps soda on your drive
Anything you can think of…

QNAP Updates TurboNAS v 3.5 Firmware

Jim McCarthy

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Oct 29, 2011

1

QNAP updated TurboNAS v 3.5 firmware recently. Read on for details.

We told you about QNAP’s version 3.5 firmware here. TurboNAS is the firmware that manages QNAP’s NAS products.

Here is some detail on QNAP:

About QNAP System, Inc.

QNAP Systems, Inc. is a privately held company founded in 2004 and is dedicated to bringing world class NAS storage, professional NVR video surveillance, and network video players to consumer, small/medium business, and entry level enterprise market segments. QNAP leverages not only hardware design but also a growing core competency in software engineering that is precisely focused on bringing to market products that offer the highest available performance coupled with outstanding reliability, scalability, and ease of installation and use. QNAP is a multi-national company with headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, and subsidiary offices in China and the United States.

And here are the release notes for v 3.5.1 build 1002:

[What’s New?]

– None

[Enhancement]

– [AFP] Shortened the waiting time to connect to the NAS from Mac OS X 10.7 Lion via the AFP protocol.

– [LDAP] Enhanced the compatibility with Apple Open Directory.

– [RTRR] The real-time remote replication feature supports Mac OS X 10.7 Lion FTP server.

– [Web File Manager] Moving the files on the same disk volume by Web File Manager becomes faster.

[Major Bug Fixes]

– [ACL] Folder owner permission became invalid after changing the upper layer folder permission.

– [AD] Users cannot login Active Directory when the password contains a space character.

– [iSCSI] An iSCSI LUN larger than 2TB cannot be formatted by regular format on Windows.

– [Access Right Management] The user group members became invalid after one of the user accounts was deleted.

– [Access Right Management] The host access control settings for an external drive cannot be stored after system reboot.

– [Download Station] Fixed the connection issue with RapidShare.com for file download.

– [LDAP] The LDAP group list cannot display UTF-8 characters correctly.

– [Wi-Fi] The gateway cannot be changed to Wireless LAN on single LAN ARM-based NAS models.

– [Surveillance Station] Added missing camera models from 3.5.0, D-Link DCS-900(A/ B1/ B2) and Panasonic BL-C111.

As you can see, this is a maintenance release that adds cameras to the surveillance station and fixes some bugs, so if you are running a 3.5 TurboNAS, go ahead and upgrade.

I am working on a review of 3.5, so stay tuned for that.

About QNAP Our Story About TurboNAS 3.5 Turbo NAS 3.5.1 Build 1002 Release Notes

Sneak Preview of the new Evolve User Interface

Andrew Edney

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Oct 29, 2011

0

Sneak Preview of the new Evolve User Interface

Evolve have given Inside CI a sneak preview of it’s new user interface, and it looks really good!

Here is what Inside CI posted:

Media server specialist Evolve have given Inside CI a sneak preview of its new user interface for lifeStation servers – and it’s looking good. The new Evolve GUI will be part of the brand’s next software release, Prime V2.0, due for release in the run up to Christmas.

As you can tell from the images, it’s quite a change from the previous, commonly used My Movies interface. The revamp will apply to all the brand’s Life range of servers.

The new UI adopts a fashionable tablet-styled titled grid, which gives quick access to a variety of content at the same time: music and movies, digital photography, downloads, live TV and internet feeds.

According to Evolve the “titles are dynamically driven based upon the user’s content, and refresh every 10 seconds giving the interface an exciting fresh feeling while in use. Making a selection is simple: point, click, and enjoy the animations as tiles spin to provide further detail of the media set.”

The brand describe it as a “real leap in what should be expected from a high end media system.”

The Prime V2.0 upgrade will also include a new output option for lifeStation servers – four audiophile-grade analogue outputs to supplement the main output. These can be controlled independently, in two groups of two, or in simultaneous ‘party mode’. The pricing for audio output option has yet to be announced.

For more click here.

AWIECO Windows Home Server News

Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney

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Oct 29, 2011

1

AWIECO have made a couple of announcements today about their AWIECO Windows Home Servers.

The first is that the AWIECO Server available for order with WHS 2011 in 5 languages (German, English, French, Spanish and Dutch).

The second is that the ServerCenter add-in updated to v0.8.2. Customers can now change displayed information, brightness and contrast of display.

We hope to have our AWIECO Server soon, so watch out for a review soon.

More information is available on the AWIECO website

The Apple iPhone 4S – My First Two Weeks

Apple

Andrew Edney

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Oct 29, 2011

3

The Apple iPhone 4S – My First Two Weeks

I have been a long time fan of the iPhone, and when the iPhone 4S was released two weeks ago I picked one up. I have now been using it for two weeks and thought I would share some thoughts and experiences of it.

Siri

Siri is one of the big new features only available on the iPhone 4S (today). Siri enables you to get things done by just asking – for example, you can say you want to add a calendar event or send a text message.

By default Siri is switched off, so you have to enable “him” or “her”.

Here in the UK we get a Male voice, where as in the US they have the option of a Female voice. You can change it by changing your language setting to English (United States) but then the software looks for certain words and ways of speaking – certain things I asked didn’t work as well when set to US as apposed to UK.

Siri works quite well, when it works. I cant tell you the number of times it hasn’t worked, or given me some bizarre response.

That being said, the programmers have a real sense of humour and have some responses available to the obvious questions:

Battery Woes

Oh where do I start???

Having used an iPhone 4 for well over a year, I could get a full days use of it, including having certain location services enabled, and my email accounts set to Push my emails to the phone.

So given that Apple were promising at least an hour additional battery life out of the iPhone 4S I was somewhat surprised how quickly my battery was going down, even when I wasn’t actually doing anything.

It was quite unnerving just sitting watching the battery remaining percentage literally tick down in front of my eyes. I was getting about half a day out of the battery and not actually using the phone that much at all.

For the first time in a very long time I saw the dreaded red battery logo and my phone shut down.

Needless to say I wasn’t very happy.

I did some quick research and noticed that I wasn’t the only person having this problem.

Some people were saying it was expected as the 4S has a more powerful processor (ok, but Apple said it had at least an hours MORE battery, not LESS).

Others advised turning off various services – ok, I thought, I can do that.

So I turned off a few things and the battery still went down quickly.

In the end I had to turn off the following just to get a “working” day’s use of the phone (at that’s not even using the phone that much as an actual phone):

Siri
all Location Services
Wireless
Bluetooth
Push email
and a few other things

so basically I have to turn off most of the functionality that makes having an iPhone worth having. Basically I am almost back to having just “a phone to make phone calls”.

So Apple, hurry up and release a fix already!

Final Thoughts

So, the question I get asked the most at the moment is “was it worth upgrading from the iPhone 4”? Well, to be honest, the answer today is No, it wasn’t. At least, not today. The battery issue is frustrating me the most. I’m not seeing significant improvement in the speeds (although I am seeing some) and while Siri is fun for a but, ultimately right now, here in the UK, it’s not that much use.

I am happy with the camera functionality (not that I use the camera that much, but it’s certainly nice to have it available), plus the HD video shooting capability is great.

If you have an iPhone 3 or 3GS, then it certainly is worth upgrading – no question about it.

I assume that Apple will release an update at some point soon to fix the battery issues, they always do.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy with the 4S, I’m just not as happy as I could be…..

Do you have an iPhone 4S? What do you think?

Exclusive: Review of the Tranquil PC iOne PC

Reviews
Tech

Andrew Edney

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Oct 29, 2011

0

Exclusive: Review of the Tranquil PC iOne PC

Recently we told you about Tranquil’s iOne PC and then we had an exclusive unboxing. Today we have our exclusive review, so read on….

Here is how Tranquil describe the iOne:

The newest edition to the Tranquil range is here, the iOne. It is milled out of a solid block of aerospace grade aluminium onsite in our new machine shop before being anodised locally to the highest standard. It does not only offer great looks but due to its manufacturing process it’s the most solid piece of kit we have had the pleasure of manufacturing, our precision milling machine mills within a tolerance of 0.001mm giving superb CPU cooling contact. The chassis is also completely sealed protecting the motherboard, memory and hard disks to give overall better protection and longevity of the product.

The iOne is fitted with Intel’s D525MW motherboard consuming a mere 15w but offering a high performance from its dual core 1.8GHz processor, supporting up to 4GB of DDR3 memory and a maximum of 1TB internal storage. The iOne is an ideal computer for the home user and excels in industry due to its solid design, with the option to have a 2^nd LAN port iOne would also be ideal as a firewall.

The iOne is also the smallest computer we have ever designed measuring in at 186mm (w) x 199mm (d) x 55mm (h) incl feet, and weighing approximately 4KG, not light but it was a 8kg solid block of aluminium prior to being machined and has a real feel of quality when held.

Who are Tranquil PC?

From their website:

Tranquil PC, a UK based family company, was formed in the early part of 2003, by Managing Director, David Thompson. David is a passionate designer and entrepreneur, who has always committed his time and invested his skills into developing innovative products and building business to supply new markets. He started his first business at 16 years of age and went on to win the prestigious Queens Award for Enterprise in 1982. Tranquil PC is now a world leader in the field of low energy IT systems. The move to brand new premises in 2007, and the appointment of new technical / sales staff has broadened the range of products and services offered.

Specifications

CPU / Cooling : Intel Atom D525 / Fanless

RAM : DDR3 (SODIMM) 2 slots 4GB Max

HDD Support : 1x 2.5″ (max 1TB)

PCI Support : None

Main board : Intel D525MW

Front panel : Power SW, Power LED

Rear I/O : 12VDC, PS2 (2), USB2 (4), GBE LAN, RS232, Parallel, VGA, Audio (in/out), 2nd Lan option

Internal : SATA (2), MiniPCIex (1)

Environmental : Acoustics (0dBA with SSHDD)

Power consumption : <15W with 1x SSHDD installed

A Closer Look at the iOne

Google TV Software Update Coming

Gadgets
Tech

Jim McCarthy

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Oct 28, 2011

0

Google announced an impending software update today. Read on for details.

Google TV’s blog announced some software updates today, first for the Sony equipment and shortly afterwards for the Logitech ones. Here is what they had to say:

An Update on Google TV

In the 1970s, there were just a few networks on TV. Cable changed things by adding hundreds of new channels like HBO, ESPN, and MTV. The Internet marks a new chapter for television. This chapter is not about replacing broadcast or cable TV; it’s not about replicating what’s on TV to the Web. It’s about bringing millions of new channels to your TV from the next generation of creators, application developers, and networks. With over three billion views a day, sites like YouTube are proving the demand for Web entertainment is already big, and this entertainment is coming to the living room. The Google TV platform contributes to this evolution by enabling new content creators to add to the programming you already enjoy on your TV. Given so much choice, we’re committed to delivering the best way to discover and engage with the high-quality entertainment on your television, whether that comes from your cable or satellite provider (DISH, Comcast, DIRECTV, etc.) or from the Web (YouTube, Netflix, and thousands more). The initial version of Google TV wasn’t perfect, but launching it gave us the opportunity to learn. These are still early days, and we’re working hard to move forward with each update.

Today, we’re announcing a software update for Google TV. In this release, we focused on four areas of user feedback:

1. Keep it simple
The interface is now much simpler. The new customizable home screen gets you to your favorite content quickly. And within “all apps” you can see all of your shortcuts, similar to your Android phone or tablet.

2. Make it easy to find something worth watching
We’ve improved search across the board for content from Live TV, Netflix, YouTube, HBO GO, and more. But what if you don’t know what to search for? There’s now an app called “TV & Movies” that let’s you easily browse through 80,000 movies and TV episodes across cable or satellite, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and many other sites. If you’ve opted in to recommendations, we can better predict what you want to watch next.

3. Make YouTube better on TV
We’re launching a new YouTube experience specifically built for Google TV. It is now fast and easy to get to your favorite HD-quality YouTube entertainment. And we’ve integrated YouTube more closely with Google TV search, so that you can turn virtually any topic – mountain biking, cooking, etc. – into a channel.

4. Bring more apps to TV
We are opening up the TV to the creativity of content creators large and small through Android Market. Android developers can now bring existing mobile apps or entirely new ones to TV. Initially, the number of apps won’t be large – apps requiring a touch screen, GPS, or telephony won’t show up – but 50 developers have seeded the Market with cool and useful apps for the TV. We’re excited to see the number of apps grow.

This software update will be coming to Sony devices starting early next week and Logitech devices soon thereafter. We look forward in the coming months to announcing new software updates as well as new devices on new chipsets from multiple hardware partners.

Google TV has been slow to start, but if you already have a device, an update is on the way shortly. I’ll be interested to see what other devices arrive on the market in the near future.

GoogleTV Blog Post

Nokia Announces Two Windows Phone Devices at Nokia World

Microsoft

Jim McCarthy

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Oct 28, 2011

1

Nokia Announces Two Windows Phone Devices at Nokia World

Nokia held an event in London the other day where they announced two new Windows Phone 7.5 handsets. Read on for details.

Nokia announced two new Mango handsets: the Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710. First up, let’s see how Microsoft described the Lumia 800:

At a glance

With the Nokia Lumia 800 every detail floats to life on the surface of the curved 3.7” ClearBlack display, bringing striking clarity, indoors and out. And with a seamless, deep-dyed body, and cutting-edge 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, you’ve got a revolutionary smartphone in the palm of your hand. Specific colors vary by country. Check with your local retailer for more information.

Highlights

Seamless design with curved glass and one-piece body

ClearBlack floating 3.7” AMOLED display

Carl Zeiss 8MP wide angle lens

Coming first to UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and Netherlands.

Phone specs

Display

800×480 (ClearBlack floating 3.7” AMOLED display)

Processor

1.4 GHz Single Core / Qualcomm

Camera

Yes (8MP, Carl Zeiss lens with LED flash, autofocus, and HD video)

Battery Life

8 hours/16 days

This is a beautiful looking phone. Technical specifications include WCDMA and quad-band GSM, perfect for European customers. I was a little disappointed that there is no front facing camera, and if this handset is to come to the US, it will have to be on AT&T or T-Mobile as it is GSM. Here is a picture that shows the handset:

The phone can be preordered now. Vodaphone is charging £199 on pre-orders.

Nokia also announced a lower-end phone with a plastic back called the Lumia 710. Here is how Microsoft described the Lumia 710:

At a glance

The Nokia Lumia 710 with Windows Phone. A different day, a different look. Xpress covers can be swapped out for an extra splash of color—and even matched up with your Start screen. Not to mention the super-fast Internet Explorer Mobile web browser, which lets you follow the next big story in real time, with easy online sharing to bring friends into the conversation. Specific colors vary by country. Check with your local retailer for more information.

Highlights

Add apps, swap colors, swap covers

Get your social network updates in one place

ClearBlack display lets you see clearly indoors or outdoors

Coming first to UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and Netherlands.

Phone specs

Display

800×480 (ClearBlack 3.7” WVGA)

Processor

1.4 GHz Snapdragon Single Core

Camera

Yes (5MP with LED flash and autofocus)

Battery Life

8 hours/18 days

This is also a quad-band GSM and WCDMA phone, and also lacks a front-facing camera. Here is a picture:

There are currently no pre-order options for the 710.

Microsoft and Nokia are off to a good start with these phones. Neither phone is 4G, and these are single core processors onboard, so they lag behind the latest Android handsets, but I have high hopes for Windows Phone 7 handsets as they continue to roll out new phones.

Xbox Companion Application Demoed At Nokia World

Jim McCarthy

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Oct 28, 2011

1

At Nokia World 2011, Ben Rudolph from Microsoft demoed the Xbox Companion Application for Windows Phone 7. Read on for details.

Ben Rudolph AKA The PC Guy (@BenThePCGuy on Twitter) demonstrated the WP7 Xbox Companion application on the floor of Nokia World 2011 the other day. First off, let’s see how Ben described the application earlier this month:

The app, which will be completely free for Windows Phone users, is an amazing little tool that will let you Find, Learn more about and Control content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace on your Xbox 360.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a beta copy of the app to try out with my Xbox and I have to say that it’s really impressive. Here’s an actual scenario I ran through with the app and my Xbox the other day:

Finding Content: Just like on your Xbox, the Xbox Companion gives you instant access to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog of games, movies, music and TV shows. I used it to search “Featured Content” and pulled up the X-Men: First Class.

Learn more about what you’re watching, listening to, or playing: Once I found the movie and touched the movie tile, the Xbox companion app took me to an info page that has all the related details about. And the content is really rich, too – for example, when I swiped to the “cast” page and touched an actor’s name, like star James McAvoy, I was taken to other movies starring him. From there, I could easily learn more about the other movies, their cast, etc. It’s an infinite road of interactive content.

Control & Play: Once I selected the content and hit play, the Xbox Companion flips into “controller mode” in which I could navigate my Xbox, or control video playback of your video. The best part here is that controls are virtually instantaneous – easily as fast as using my controller or a TV remote.

Now for Ben demoing the application at Nokia World, click on this link:

Xbox and Windows Phone Companion App

Very cool video. This application is expected to be out soon, so if you have a Windows Phone 7 and an Xbox, download it and check it out! And thanks for the demo, Ben!

Ben’s Video Demo

HP To Keep PC Business

News

Jim McCarthy

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Oct 28, 2011

0

HP announced today the completion of their study on spinning out the Personal Systems Group (PSG) and they are retaining that business. Read on for details.

HP announced the retention of PSG today:

HP to Keep PC Division

Continued combination of HP and its Personal Systems Group expected to deliver greater customer and shareholder value

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct 27, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced that it has completed its evaluation of strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group (PSG) and has decided the unit will remain part of the company.

“HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG. It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “HP is committed to PSG, and together we are stronger.”

The strategic review involved subject matter experts from across the businesses and functions. The data-driven evaluation revealed the depth of the integration that has occurred across key operations such as supply chain, IT and procurement. It also detailed the significant extent to which PSG contributes to HP’s solutions portfolio and overall brand value. Finally, it also showed that the cost to recreate these in a standalone company outweighed any benefits of separation.

The outcome of this exercise reaffirms HP’s model and the value for its customers and shareholders. PSG is a key component of HP’s strategy to deliver higher value, lasting relationships with consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and enterprise customers. The HP board of directors is confident that PSG can drive profitable growth as part of the larger entity and accelerate solutions from other parts of HP’s business.

PSG has a history of innovation and technological leadership as well as an established record of industry-leading profitability. It is the No. 1 manufacturer of personal computers in the world with revenues totaling $40.7 billion for fiscal year 2010.

“As part of HP, PSG will continue to give customers and partners the advantages of product innovation and global scale across the industry’s broadest portfolio of PCs, workstations and more,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “We intend to make the leading PC business in the world even better.”

More information is available at http://www.hp.com/investor/PSG-Decision.

On the webcast, HP confirmed that spinning off PSG would cost $1.5 billion in one-time separation costs and would result in $1.0 billion of real estate, accounting and other overhead costs that would have to be duplicated if PSG were to be spun off. In addition, since PSG is HP to so many customers world wide, retaining the number one PC business in the world creates value for HP.

As for webOS, HP promised an answer on its fate in the next few months.

So the former CEO’s strategy appears to be pretty much reversed five weeks after Whitman got the job.

HP Press Release

aTV Flash (black) RC 1 Now Available for AppleTV 2

Apple

Andrew Edney

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Oct 27, 2011

0

Today Firecore released RC1 of their aTV Flash (black) software for the AppleTV 2.

Here is what they said:

We are pleased to announce the release aTV Flash (black) Release Candidate 1 (RC1) for the 2nd generation AppleTV. RC1 is a major update for aTV Flash (black) and adds a number of exciting new features include a brand new ‘grid view’ browsing mode, huge subtitle related improvements, and countless other performance and playback related improvements.

Keep reading to learn more about what’s new.

All-New Browsing Options

We’ve added an all-new grid view which allows you to browse through media by simply viewing a grid of posters, instead of a list.

From the grid view you can press the center (select) button to get more details about the movie through the ‘Pre-Playack Screen’ or if you’re in a hurry just press play/pause to start the movie right away.

The list view has also gotten a healthy overhaul as well. Movies and TV Shows are now listed using the prettier ‘fetched’ name instead of the actual filename. Additionally metadata is fetched and cached in bulk, so there’s no more waiting for cover art and metadata to load.

Note: You can switch between the Grid and List views through the Media –> Settings menu.

What’s new in RC1?

Added grid view and pre-playback view options

Added bulk metadata fetching with growl-like status

Added fetched names in list view

Added hardware decoding for .m2ts files

Added support for embedded subtitles (MKV, M4V, etc…)

Added support for ISO (DVD) files

Added TV Show metadata fetching

Added metadata correction for Movies and TV Shows

Added movie title in Top Shelf (instead of filename)

Added DSI ping for better operation with AFP shares

Added folder tagging

Added metadata view indicator

Added support for metadata overriding using xml files

Added DVD menu buffering

Added support for subtitles with invalid timestamps

Added support for AppleTV 4.4 (iOS 5)

Added subtitle ‘Weight’ setting

Added option to show/hide local files

Improved data buffering and playback performance

Improved XSUB subtitle support

Improved network error handling

Improved filename parsing for metadata fetching

Improved NAS drives support and increased connection timeout

Improved video loading process

Improved DVD menu handling

Improved playback position detection

Improved memory footprint

Improved SMB share handling

Resolved DVD subtitle issues

Resolved Voiceover related issues

Resolved audio synchronization issues

Resolved problems when streaming from an AirPort Extreme

Resolved AFP related issue when resuming after a long pause

Resolved issues that caused the first subtitle section to be skipped

Resolved performance and crash related issues for certain DVD files

Resolved audio playback issues when the connection to Last.fm fails

Resolved potential issues in shares handling and filename processing

Resolved AFP related crashes

Resolved .dvdmedia extensions and folder images not hiding

Resolved floating crash during metadata fetching

Resolved various cloud backup issues

Many other miscellaneous fixes

Splendid! Where can I get it?

If you’re already running a version of aTV Flash (black) the new RC1 version can be installed through the Maintenance –> Manage Extras menu. If you need to re-install aTV Flash (black) links for the new version can be found in your account under the Downloads tab.

New users can pre-order aTV Flash (black) here.

Note: Installing RC1 requires AppleTV 4.2 or later.

The Home Server Show Episode 158 Out Now

Windows Home Server

Andrew Edney

-

Oct 27, 2011

0

Dave at the guys at the Home Server Show have released episode 158.

Here’s what Dave has to say about this weeks show:

It’s been a while since we have had a marathon podcast so I’ve got 1:45:00 for you this week! Ray Newberry from http://theosquest.com joins John, Jim, and myself to talk about servers, CrashPlan, pfSense, unTangle, drive extender, HP Microservers, and lots more. We also go over some bandwidth issues when restoring files from backups on Windows Home Server 2011 as well as other issues. This was a fun one and the live stream chat was lively! Enjoy.

As usual you can listen to the show from here.

Kingston Launch the new DataTraveler 109 USB Flash Drive

Storage & NAS

Andrew Edney

-

Oct 27, 2011

0

Kingston Launch the new DataTraveler 109 USB Flash Drive

Today Kingston launched a new USB flash drive called the DataTraveler 109.

Here is the press release:

New Small and Fashionable Kingston USB Portable Storage

Active Storage in Fun Colours

Preloaded with urDrive software: includes built-in Photo Viewer, Web browser, MP3 player, access to games and online backup

Small, capless design easily attaches to a lanyard or key ring

Stylish design in fun colours

Sunbury-on-Thames – October 27, 2011 — Kingston Digital Europe Ltd, an affiliate of Kingston Technology Company Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the launch of the Kingston DataTraveler® 109. The Kingston® DataTraveler 109 is a slim, stylish USB Flash drive available in seven fun colours, and comes with urDrive, a free preloaded application that helps organise your files, photos, videos music and more.

“Kingston’s DataTraveler 109 is a fashionable USB Flash drive that makes it fun to connect and share photos, music, videos and more with friends and family,” said Krystian Jaroszynski, product marketing manager Flash, Kingston Technology. “Most USB Flash drives offer passive storage, which simply allows users to store and retrieve their data. urDrive offers engaged, active storage that allows users to easily access and organise files, view photos and even play music, all on the USB drive.”

Once the software is launched, the interface is very easy to use and includes many features such as a built-in Photo Viewer, Web browser and MP3 player. urDrive also offers access to games and online backup for even more storage beyond the USB. For complete features of Kingston urDrive go to: http://www.kingston.com/flash/urdrive/

Available in 8GB and 16GB, with each capacity offering seven different colour combinations, Kingston DataTraveler 109 also features a handy key loop that lets users easily attach this stylish, tiny drive to a lanyard or keyring. The Kingston DataTraveler 109 USB Flash drive is backed by legendary Kingston reliability plus a five year warranty and 24/7 technical support.

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Who are ioSafe?

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New Small and Fashionable Kingston USB Portable Storage