Inhaltsverzeichnis für Xmas 2017 in TechLife

Baby’s Auto Lifesaver THE SENSOR OUT TO SAVE YOUR KID FROM A HOT CAR DEATH. babysautolifesaver.com | Goal: US$50,000 | Raised: US$4,582 from 26 backers | RRP: US$99 Creator Keith wants what’s best for your child — namely, not dying in a hot car, alone and forgotten. Having heard of one too many instances of parents leaving their kids in the car on a hot day and causing them to die, he decided to create a device to notify parents of their responsibility. The Auto Lifesaver is a device that slips into baby’s car seat and pairs to a device attached to the car underneath the wheel. If the driver leaves the car with the baby still inside, the car will start to honk its horn. Simple and effective —…

ONE WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR IQ SCORE IS TO “ACQUIRE AS MUCH KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL AS POSSIBLE”. WANT TO EXCEL AT YOUR JOB? YOU’LL NEED TO IMPROVE YOUR IQ! BEING CHARMING AND WITTY AIN’T ENOUGH. Even though a job interview primarily determines if your personality is suited to fit within a company’s profile, there’s a growing body of scientific evidence that suggests personality isn’t what determines career success. According to Psychology Today, the website that makes understanding ourselves and our brains easy, IQ is far more important as it encompasses not just basic intelligence, but also measures a person’s problem-solving skills, spatial manipulation and language-learning abilities. Psychologists suggest that if you don’t consider yourself particularly intelligent, one way to improve your IQ score is to “acquire as much knowledge and…

NO ONE LIKES bills, so any way to save a little money is welcome. But these days, there are loads of gadgets and methods that claim to reduce your electricity consumption and it’s hard to tell which of them is actually worthwhile. To help out, we tested some tech and crunched the numbers to see what will save money in the real world. INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES Around Australia, we have widely different power costs, temperature ranges and solar availability, which means that no one has the exact same power experience. In many cases, excellent savings can be had from switching to a better electricity provider. But it can also be tricky, and time consuming, to compare all the different options and fine print. To help out, the Government has a great…

Falstad TRANSFORM BORING EQUATIONS INTO EDUCATIONAL ANIMATED ART. www.falstad.com Whether you’re a teacher or a student, at university or high school, being able to visualise the often-abstract formulae and equations that dominate the subjects of physics and mathematics would no doubt come in handy. A programmer named Paul Falstad has made a swathe of interactive simulation tools available, completely free, on his own website. The simulations cover quite a few fields of study, including oscillation and waves, acoustics, electricity, magnetism and even quantum mechanics. Each of the applets is built using Java code and will feature a number of programmable parameters that will likely make sense to you if you’re actually studying the relevant field. Even if you’re not necessarily a specialist in the area, applets such as the string…

EVEN THOUGH YOU STILL CAN’T USE AN APPLE WATCH WITHOUT AN IPHONE, A CELLULAR CONNECTION GIVES THE WATCH 3 A MODICUM OF INDEPENDENCE, GIVING YOU ACCESS TO CALLS, TEXTS, EMAILS AND OTHER IMPORTANT NOTIFICATIONS IF YOU’RE OUT AND ABOUT WITHOUT YOUR PHONE. THE THIRD ITERATION of Apple’s smartwatch is here, and even though it looks exactly like the Watch 2 (which it replaces), there’s plenty of improvements under the hood that make the Apple Watch Series 3 a more worthwhile wearable. With optional onboard cellular connectivity and improved performance, this version is an easy sell. Add to that the fact that the GPS-only model costs less than what the Watch 2 did at launch and you’ve got an Apple smartwatch that’s at least vaguely affordable. Let’s cut to the chase,…

BENQ HAS TAKEN the first step to making a portable projector that’ll let you watch movies and shows without the need for an external player — and it’s done so by essentially whacking an Android smartphone under the hood. Although this should theoretically give it access to dozens of existing streaming apps (like say, Netflix, Stan or Foxtel Now) from the Google Play Store, the number of apps currently on offer is surprisingly limited. Instead of letting you access the Play Store and select the apps you want, the GS1 defaults to Kodi (with its so-called ‘10-foot media interface’) as its primary media playback software. Kodi is a powerful free media centre app that has the capacity to organise everything from a local media library to free streaming service plugins…

HARDWARE New drive isn’t visible I recently fitted a second internal hard drive to my desktop PC. I’ve double-checked the physical connections and verified it’s visible in the configuration utility that appears before you boot Windows, but there’s no sign of it in Windows at all. What am I missing? A driver? [ LEONARD GREEN ] Matt Hanson replies: It sounds like the drive hasn’t yet been initialised, which you can do in Windows. Right-click the Start button and choose Disk Management, which will list all the drives attached to your PC. You should see your new drive is visible here, but it’ll be marked as Unallocated. Right-click this space and choose New Simple Volume. Follow the wizard through the steps to set it up — the default choices will…

AWESOME! A NEW PC for Christmas! Of course, that means it’s time for the ‘new PC purge’. This is the ritual where a new PC owner has to go through a remove the crapware that came pre-installed, fix some of the more egregious settings in Windows and re-install all their favourite apps hopefully without getting adware or malware in the process. So here it is: your step-by-step guide to preparing a new PC for actual usability. STEP 1: REMOVING THE JUNKWARE The first thing we like to do when we get a new PC is to remove all the ancillary junk that the manufacturer decided to put on it without asking us. We’re talking about the pointless utilities, trial versions of security suites, pre-installed search engines and browser toolbars and…

PORTABILITY Some drones have fixed arms while others, such as this DJI example, have arms that fold close to the body, enabling them to easily fit into a backpack and be carried on public transport. CAMERA The majority of drones come with their own cameras, although some enable the attachment of a GoPro Hero, such as GoPro’s own Karma Drone or the Yuneec Typhoon. Higher-end drones like this DJI Mavic Pro Platinum have their cameras mounted on a gimbal, which offers Steadicam-like stabilisation for smooth shots. AUTOPILOT Being able to set a drone on a pre-determined flight plan or make it automatically track subjects can keep things simple. FLIGHT TIME Drones typically offer flight times of 10–20 minutes (this Mavic Pro Platinum is said to be good for up to…

Aurai eye massager CLOSE YOUR EYES AND GET THEM SQUIDGED. i-aurai.com Introducing you to a new line of Star Trek: Next Generation merchandise, starting with Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge’s new ocular implants! We’re joking, of course. (We’re all Star Wars fans here at TechLife.) [Speak for yourself! — Ed.] This is a “water-propelled eye massager”, designed to help prevent itchiness, eye strain, soreness, blurred vision and fatigue in the eyes caused by staring at your computer for too long. Instead of simply applying a cloth or packet of frozen peas to the face, however, the creators of the Aurai massager thought their new tech would be much cooler. It apparently gently massages with either cool or warm water compressions in a wave-like fashion rather than vibrations. It’s capable of…

ASHAMPOO ZIP 2017 & ABELSSOFT CLEVERPRINT COMPRESS AND EXTRACT WITH FINESSE CONTROL OVER 60 ARCHIVE FORMATS WITH ASHAMPOO ZIP 2017 FULL VERSION REQUIRES ONLINE REGISTRATION. The new Ashampoo ZIP 2017 is a compact and powerful file compression application that creates and extracts archives in over 60 formats with ease. The integrated ZIP engine is the fastest on the market with full multicore support and processes even huge files quickly. Well-structured and intuitive, the program helps beginners achieve great results instantly. Aside from traditional use cases like opening and creating standard archives, Ashampoo ZIP 2017 can also create self-extracting files and repair corrupted archives. Download link: www.ashampoo.com/techlifemagazine STREAMLINE YOUR PRINTING GET AN EFFICIENT, EASY-TO-USE PRINT MANAGEMENT TOOL WITH ABELSSOFT CLEVERPRINT FULL VERSION WORTH $60. CleverPrint minimises your printing costs…

THE CEO OF NBN CO, Bill Morrows, has claimed that, unless the service is protected from the threat of mobile broadband and the competition this poses, it will never make a profit. In an interview with Sydney Morning Herald, Morrows explained that while they currently earn around $43 a month for an average connection, this number needs to climb to $52 before they can even start recovering costs. “Forget about 5G”, Morrows began, “even the antenna technology using 4G is a viable alternative to NBN where the towers are already up”. There is currently a levy in place that charges fixed-line competitors a fixed monthly rate in order to subsidise the NBN rollout to locations that are difficult to connect, but Morrow is concerned that this levy doesn’t apply to…

IN WHAT COULD be the country’s second-largest data breach since the Red Cross leak last year (when medical information of over half a million blood donors was revealed), 48,270 personal records of employees in the public and private sector have been inadvertently exposed by a third-party contractor because of a misconfigured Amazon S3 bucket, a form of cloud storage. The information exposed — discovered by a Polish security expert — includes names, passwords, IDs, phone numbers, email addresses, some credit card numbers, and staff salaries and expenses. Thousands of personal files from the Department of Finance, Australian Electoral Commission and National Disability Insurance Agency have been compromised, while the most affected in the private sector was insurance company AMP. Other businesses affected include utility company UGL and Rabobank. Despite this,…

56% INCREASE IN AUSTRALIAN PODCAST LISTENERS SINCE LAST YEAR A survey conducted by the ABC has found that 56% more Australians are listening to podcasts this year compared to last. For those that do listen to podcasts, their listening frequency has climbed as well, with 79% of the audience having listened to a podcast within the last week (an increase of 19% from last year), and for the audience aged between 14 and 34, 71% have claimed to have listened to a podcast within the last 24 hours. Although Australians found ‘better content’ to be the most compelling reason to listen last year, this year, it has been overtaken by ‘more awareness’ of the format in general. $5 million THE AMOUNT IT WOULD TAKE FOR MOST YOUNG AUSSIES TO GIVE…

LIKE THE ORIGINAL MODEL, YOU CAN CRANK THESE UP TO FULL BLAST AND EXPECT THEM TO REMAIN FREE OF DISTORTION (THOUGH UTTERLY DEAFENING). NEARLY TWO YEARS after release, Bose has updated its astoundingly-popular QC35 Bluetooth headphones with a new set that appears to be almost identical to what it’s replacing. At first glance, you’d be hard pressed to see any difference at all, and they sound alike when they’re on your head, too. The original QC35’s rate as one of the very best sets of noise-cancelling headphones, and plenty of discerning heads have wrapped these comfortable headphones around their ears and enjoyed some of the best silence you can buy for $500. There’s no change for change’s sake here; Bose knows when it’s onto a good thing. That means the…

YES, ANOTHER PODCAST festival — it’s great! The number of podcast-related festivals around the world is on the rise (including the London Podcast Festival we covered two issues back), but the LA Podfest has a special place in your humble writer’s heart, being the first one she heard about. This festival took place early in October and was chock full of podcasts from interview-focused productions to standup and improv, and from movie reviews to storytelling. Some of the headliners of the festival are ones we’ve already looked at, including My Favorite Murder, Lovett or Leave It, Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction (yeah, that’s still going) and your humble writer’s personal favourite podcast of all time... The Dollop! While we’ve put pins in some of the other productions to visit at a…

Super Mario Odyssey IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, BECOME ‘EM! $79.95 | Switch | www.nintendo.com.au THE T REX arrives within the first half-hour, curled up and slumbering sweetly on the lush grass of the Cascade Kingdom — and, yes, you get to control it, courtesy of a ghostly hat named Cappy. Its big idea is certainly a daring one. A Mario game based on its star being sporadically hooked from the spotlight? Cappy represents the series’ most versatile ability to date. The first transformation is introduced by a cutscene that makes the capture process look positively nightmarish — for our hero, at least, as he plummets, wailing, into a whirling vortex. Then comes the punchline, as for a moment, we see the world through his eyes and hear a tentative,…

WITH 4K HDR-READY televisions quickly becoming the new standard in living rooms everywhere, it was only a matter of time before the Apple TV received its own Ultra HD update. Along with the ability to display at resolutions of up to 2160p, the new Apple TV 4K boasts HDR10 and Dolby Vision support, so your content is capable of looking truly fantastic — well, so long as your TV is up to snuff too. In an effort to put 4K movies and TV shows at the forefront of its upgraded media player, the Cupertino company has opened a 4K HDR ‘room’ within its iTunes movies app to make it easier to discover premium content — and the best part is that any titles you’ve previously purchased in Full HD will…

THE WORLD’S MOST popular step-tracking brand finally has its first real smartwatch. Its lack of apps means it’s no Apple Watch, and despite a few luxuries and innovations that make it a fine day-to-day companion, this is a fitness device for people who feel like they need to move more than they currently do. This tester loved the design, especially the sharp, clean edges, and the colour touchscreen is bright and easy to read and use, even in direct, bright sunshine. Fitbit’s included a small and large silicon strap in the box, and you can choose from an extensive collection of fashionable leather straps (sold separately, of course), making the Ionic the most style-conscious Fitbit ever. A single button on the left and two buttons on the right side of…

THE BSI SENSOR HAS CLOCKED UP A SCORE OF 100 FROM DXOMARK, THE ILLUSTRIOUS THIRD-PARTY COMPANY THAT STRESS-TESTS A CAMERA’S SENSOR USING SOFTWARE. IT’S THE HIGHEST SCORE GIVEN TO ANY CAMERA THAT DXOMARK HAS REVIEWED. OVER THE LAST 100 years, Nikon has learnt a thing or two about making great cameras, and the company has not disappointed with its latest pro DSLR. The D850 is a high-resolution full-frame masterpiece that successfully marries a 45.7MP backside-illuminated (BSI) sensor with 7fps continuous shooting — which can be bumped to 9fps if you use the optional battery grip — for a versatile, all-purpose DSLR that should please any professional photographer. In fact, the BSI sensor — a first for Nikon — has clocked up a score of 100 from DxOMark, the illustrious third-party…

NVIDIA’S DRIVE PX 2 CPU TECH WILL POWER AUDI AND VOLVO DRIVERLESS CARS. GENERAL MOTORS DIRECTOR of autonomous vehicle integration Scott Miller reportedly didn’t waste words in responding to claims by Tesla boss Elon Musk that his upcoming Model 3 car will have the tech to go fully driverless. But in calling Musk’s claims “full of crap”, Miller’s broadside also highlighted the competitive challenges car makers will face over the next five years, as they strive to differentiate ‘electric’ and ‘autonomous’ from ‘expensive’. However, with the general push to have driverless cars on the road by 2020, many questions still remain unanswered. Yet, it won’t just be the roads where autonomous vehicles will ride — they’ll be on the rails and possibly even in the air. FULLY DRIVERLESS CAR FOR…

THERE’S NOTHING WRONG with the way that Windows 10 looks out of the box, but after living with its understated blue aesthetic for a while, things can start to look a bit dull. Thankfully, there’s nothing to stop you from brightening things up a bit and transforming the appearance of the desktop, thanks to a number of built-in customisation options. Windows 10’s settings enable you to change window, Taskbar, Start menu and Action Centre colours, but that’s not all. A number of desktop themes are also available for you to choose from, meaning that with the right choice of desktop background wallpaper, you can tune your system’s overall look to suit your needs. We’ll also touch on a great third-party desktop tool called Rainmeter, which enables you customise your desktop…

Chinese phones can compete with the best After having used Apple phones for a number of years, I switched to a Huawei P10 Plus and, after a positive experience with that, I grabbed a OnePlus 5 when they recently became available in Australia — and I have to say, the competition that these Chinese-made Androids offer is strong. Plenty of the tech that the latest iPhones are showing off have been kicking around in Androids for quite some time — AMOLED displays, dual cameras, wireless charging — and while it’s fair to say that some of these features have been flawed on earlier Android devices, Apple seems just as likely to hit or miss with these developments. While Samsung may be seen as Apple’s main opponent, companies such as OnePlus…

Moment Drone THE BEST FOLDABLE 4K AERIAL CAMERA. www.momentdrone.com | Goal: US$50,000 | Raised: US$303,430 from 2,125 backers | RRP: US$349 There are thousands of drones on the market now, so what enticed so many backers to successfully fund this project to over 600% of its goal? We think it’s probably a combination of factors including its light weight (400g), auto-tracking functionality, 4K-capable video and photos, foldable body design which makes it easy to carry and also means you can prop it into different positions to take pics, its easy-to-learn smartphone controls, its safe design (so your fingers remain in one piece), stabilisation, auto fly home mode and more. While 15 minutes of flight time might not sound like much, it’s quite typical for a drone of this size and…

WE’RE NOTHING WITHOUT our brains — after all, it’s the one organ that puts us right on top of the food chain, and makes us the smartest animals on Earth. Right? Well, that statement’s true for the most part... except when our brains decide to play us for fools. In this month’s Get Psyched, we’ve delved into a handful of strange phenomena that can affect the human computing organ — and in some cases, even the experts aren’t entirely sure why these brain glitches occur. EARWORMS When was the last time a song got stuck in your head? If you’re like us, we’re guessing it happens at least once every couple of weeks (if only for an hour or two, and not always a song you might like). The weird…

THERE’S TATTOO DESIGNS AND STREET ART TO CHOOSE FROM, OR YOU CAN OPT FOR MORE ROMANTIC ARTWORK. [ FLOWER POWER ] The Green Gallery Green Screen DON’T STARE AT BANNER ADS WHEN YOU CAN ENJOY FLOWERS. Free | greenscreen.thegreengallery.com THERE ARE AD blockers available for almost every browser, but how many of them make you stop and smell the roses? Well, at least admire them. The Green Gallery Green Screen is a Chrome extension that swaps out banner ads for flowers. And not just any flower image — it’s art designed by four well-known talents in the creative space. There’s tattoo designs and street art to choose from, or you can opt for more romantic artwork. Once the ad blocker has been installed, you can click on the little leaf…

Soul Knight GOTTA CLEAR ONE MORE ROOM! Free with IAP | www.chillyroom.com MOBILE TITLES LIVE or die on their ability to be played in short bursts, so what happens when a game tries very hard to not be put down? Soul Knight faces this conundrum for two reasons: the first is that its format is moreish, and the second is that its moreishness is successful. There are several facets of Soul Knight that aren’t worthy of fanfare — the art style and soundtrack are passable, and the narrative, close to non-existent — but these are all entirely forgivable in the face of its focal gameplay mechanics, which take the form of a top-down arcade shooter with roguelite mechanics. To begin, you select from an unlockable array of classes (knights, druids,…

IF YOU’RE EVEN CONSIDERING USING IT FOR GAMES, IT’S WORTH PAYING EXTRA FOR THE RADEON RX 580 CONFIGURATION, AS IT’S CONSIDERABLY MORE POWERFUL AND IT COMES WITH A 4K SCREEN TO BOOT. DELL’S INSPIRON 27 7000s haven’t exactly been the most inspiring all-in-one PCs since they launched a couple of years ago, but with not a lot to lose, the company’s gone a little radical in its search for the next big thing. It’s done so by betting big on AMD components, throwing out the Intel parts and going all-in on an AMD Ryzen CPU and Radeon GPU combo. This transition has added a dedicated GPU to the 27-inch AIO equation, meaning these new models finally pack some real gaming grint.. However, this addition hasn’t been free and these new…

WINDOWS 10 BLENDS the best features of Windows 7 and 8.1, but there are still hurdles to overcome if you truly want to enjoy it. In this feature, we round up the most frustrating annoyances you’re likely to come across with your new operating system, and show you how to get the OS to work the way you want it to once again. You’ll discover how to restore features taken out of Windows 10, such as Windows Media Centre, make sure settings are correctly applied to protect your privacy and security, and resolve other issues with the minimum of fuss. Once you’ve worked your way through our list, you’ll have a Windows computer that’s working for you, and not the other way around. Without further ado, then, it’s time to…

IF YOU’RE NOT USING ICLOUD KEYCHAIN, THEN CERTAIN APPS ON YOUR MAC — SUCH AS MAIL — WILL USE A LOCAL ITEMS KEYCHAIN, WHICH IS ALSO ENCRYPTED WITH YOUR LOGIN PASSWORD. KEYCHAIN ACCESS IS a utility, provided with macOS High Sierra and earlier versions of the system, that manages your passwords and user account information. You can find the utility either by typing “keychain” in Spotlight, or by browsing to ‘Applications > Utilities’ in Finder. When you first set up your Mac and choose a login password, macOS creates a login keychain to store all the other passwords that you use or create. These entries are encrypted with the password for your user account, so that no one else can access them. (Naturally, each user account has its own login…

AS THE VIDEO streaming market has become more mature, it’s only natural that there’s going to be more and more specialisation. Not every streaming service needs to have the broad appeal of Netflix, and a number of services have sprung up to serve more niche markets. These services are designed to do one kind of content, but do it more comprehensively than anybody else. This month, we thought we’d look at some of these services. So if you have a hankering for anime, a desire for unlimited Bollywood, a love of documentaries or any other particular genre, read on. CrunchyRoll FOCUS: ANIME Free or $6.95 per month | www.crunchyroll.com One of the oldest specialist streaming sites, CrunchyRoll is the home of everything anime. It began life way back in 2006…

THE FUNDAMENTALS No matter what style of router you’re buying, there are always some things you should keep an eye out for. Some of the things we currently think of as critical in new routers include: * 802.11ac support * Gigabit on all wired ports * MU-MIMO * For modem routers (if the person has ADSL or FTTN), always look for a router that supports VDSL Some additional things that are definitely nice to have include: * Mesh networking. (This can be a dedicated mesh solution like Google WiFi or Netgear Orbi; or it can be a solution that supports roaming, such as D-Link’s Whole Home WiFi or Linksys Seamless Roaming on its MAX-STREAM devices.) * USB 3.0/3.1 ports for sharing media * 3G/LTE modem support (or, even better, built-in…

DOs DOWNLOAD RPAS LOGGER RPAS Logger, a free app, can show you the exclusion zones on a map. Many alternatives also exist. FLY IN DAYLIGHT Ensure you fly in good visibility and weather conditions, and in open areas away from tall buildings and pylons. KEEP YOUR DRONE IN SIGHT It’s your responsibility to ensure that you have direct visual contact with your drone at all times. GET PERMISSION If you fly your drone low over someone’s property without their permission, you could be liable for trespass. ENJOY IT! From the sinuous shapes of rivers and roads to ocean waves and autumnal forest canopies, there’s plenty to get your teeth into with drone photography! CHECK THE REGULATIONS If you want to carry out commercial photography, you’ll need permission from the Civil…