TechLifeの March 2020 の目次

“The specs for the actual graphics processor seem legit, however. With 48 streaming processors, it matches the spec of the desktop-class RTX 2080 Super.” At CES 2020, AMD came out swinging with a group of GPUs, like the Radeon RX 5700M, for laptops that should see it compete in the portable market for the first time in years. However, Nvidia’s not going to take that lying down. We’ve seen a leaked Geekbench result (which you can have a look at here, if you’re interested – browser.geekbench.com/v4/ compute/4704729), spotted by renowned leaker Tum Apisak, that suggests that we’ll be getting a Max-Q Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super in the near future – however there are some details that are suspect. The specs reported in the Geekbench leak are a little fishy,…

How the diversity of structured and dynamic galaxies we observe today arose from the fiery chaos of the Big Bang remains one of the most difficult unsolved puzzles of cosmology. In search of answers, an international team of scientists has created the most detailed large-scale model of the universe to date, a simulation they call TNG50. Their virtual universe, some 230 million light years wide, contains tens of thousands of evolving galaxies with levels of detail previously seen only in single-galaxy models. The simulation tracked more than 20 billion particles representing dark matter, gases, stars and supermassive black holes over a 13.8-billion-year period. The unprecedented resolution and scale allowed the researchers to gather key insights into our own universe’s past, revealing how various oddly shaped galaxies morphed themselves into being…

“If you’re looking for a state-of-the-art TV - and don’t mind paying top-dollar for it - the Q950 should be at the top of your short list.” The Samsung Q950 represents the latest 8K TV from the manufacturer, combining all the benefits of last year’s Samsung Q900 8K screen with innovations first introduced the 2019 flagship Samsung Q90 4K TV that hit shelves earlier this year. Combined, the new Samsung Q950 offers an 8K panel and AI-enhanced image processing, plus wider viewing angles, an improved black filter and standard-setting HDR performance. If all that wasn’t enough, Samsung’s smart platform is the most comprehensive on the market. So if you’re looking for a state-of-the-art TV - and don’t mind paying top-dollar for it - the Q950 should be at the top…

In Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, you’re able to get through this first arc, including all the sub-stories, in about six hours. The year spent training is sped up, giving you snippets of Gohan’s transformation and Goku’s training in the afterlife without forcing you to defeat X number of creatures. Kakarot as a game understands what you’re here for – larger than life, planet-destroying battles. It offers plenty of those, while integrating RPG elements to give you a sense of growth and progress. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot covers the four main arcs of the story – Saiyan, Frieza, Cell, and Buu – but manages to cut out even more of the fluff than Kai does. As a result, you still get all the main story beats, but you also don’t need…

Wilderness and robots make for an evocative combination. Playing out like a very, very small-scale Far Cry, you’re dropped into a refreshingly Nordic open space that offers maybe ten minutes of exploration as you increase your arsenal enough to eliminate a robot threat. You start the game with no weapons, but pretty soon you’ll find an axe and then a shotgun, tools that make the smaller enemies at least rather trivial to deal with. The AI of those little spider bots is decidedly simplistic: they won’t stop chasing you, ever, until you’re dead. Or, more likely, until they’re dead, as they’re far slower and weaker than you are. The massive, War of the Worlds-style tripod enemies pose a deadlier threat, and remain an ominous presence even as you increase in…

Black Desert Mobile Free with IAP Black Desert Online, for better or for worse, is one of the most engaging MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online games) titles on PC and console. It’s entirely open world, has an engaging crafting and combat system, deep character customisation, player housing, and trading. So, when the developer, Pearl Abyss, announced the development of a mobile version, I was intrigued to see if they could replicate the PC experience onto mobile. I’ve spent about a month with the game so far and I’m impressed to see that for a launch title, it it has gotten a lot of things right. First off, the graphics are stellar – both environments and character/beast models are incredibly detailed, spell effects are multi-staged and grand, while the framerate at max…

Dell’s Inspiron line of laptops may not be its most premium family, but that hasn’t kept some of the best features and performance hardware from showing up here. The Dell Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 Black Edition (or Dell Inspiron 7390) is a testament to that, with exclusively high-end internals, a premium design, a 4K display, and a clever stylus slot that makes us wonder whether they actually beat Microsoft to the idea. The Dell Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 serves as a launching point for Dell’s latest Inspiron 13 7000-series laptops. That’s because Dell was quick to move on from this model. It was effectively the ultimate version of the Inspiron 13 7000-series just before Dell took the leap into 10th-Gen Intel Core processors. Design and display The Dell Inspiron 13…

While there’s no doubt that Samsung’s ‘QLED’ Quantum Dot technology delivers a premium experience, it also comes with a premium price tag attached. So it’s great to find that Samsung can also combine plenty of picture quality with a great smart system even when you step down to a non-QLED series like the RU8000. These use regular color filters, are illuminated by less aggressive backlight systems and, as a result, are far more affordable. The RU8000 isn’t particularly glamorous by Samsung standards - its screen frame looks and feels pretty plasticky, and it feels strikingly lightweight while you’re setting it up. Its desktop feet are a flare-free zone, too. And because they attach towards the TV’s bottom left and right corners, you’ll also need a pretty wide table or TV…

Balabolka Free, www.cross-plus-a.com/balabolka There are a couple of ways to use Balabolka’s free text to speech software: you can either copy and paste text into the program, or you can open a number of supported file formats (including DOC, PDF, and HTML) in the program directly. In terms of output, you can use SAPI 4 complete with eight voices to choose from, SAPI 5 with two, or the Microsoft Speech Platform. This free text to speech software can also save narrations as audio files in a range of formats including MP3 and WAV. For lengthy documents, you can create bookmarks to make it easy to jump back to a specific location and there are excellent tools on hand to help you to customise the pronunciation of words. With all these…

If you’ve built your own PC, you may need to install drivers yourself from various sources – start with your motherboard’s manufacturer. Look out too for related utilities – for example, MSI Live Update for MSI motherboards – that can simplify the sourcing of drivers (and subsequent updates) for you. Repeat for other core components – including your graphics card – before moving on to your peripherals like your printer or game controller. Struggling to find them all? Consider installing Driver Booster 6 (www.iobit.com/en/ driver-booster.php) to seek out drivers across your entire system, including updates not normally detected by Windows Update.…

1 SELECT INSTALLED APPS CloneApp is a portable app – after downloading on to your old PC, right-click CloneApp. exe and choose ‘Run as administrator’. Click ‘Select Installed’ to tick all the supported programs and Windows settings that have been detected on your PC. 2 BACK UP SETTINGS Go through the list, clicking on an item to see what gets backed up, and adding or removing programs as required. Once complete, click Backup – make a note of the backup location and click Yes, then wait for all your settings to be backed up. 3 TRANSFER TO NEW PC Once complete, transfer the entire CloneApp backup directory to your new PC, plus download a fresh copy of CloneApp to run on your new PC. Launch that and choose Settings. Click…

1 PARTITIONING TOOL If your new PC has a single hard drive that’s 256GB or larger, then now is the time (while it’s relatively empty) to partition it and separate your data from Windows to protect it against possible data loss. Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard (www.partitionwizard.com). 2 SPLIT A DRIVE IN TWO Open Partition Wizard, identify your system drive (almost certainly labelled C, and the largest partition on the drive) and click ‘Split Partition’. Use the slider to allocate the space you want for your data partition – typically all but 64-128GB. Click OK followed by Apply 3 MOVE USER FOLDERS Browse to ‘File Explorer > This PC’. Right-click the Documents folder and choose ‘Properties > Location’. Click Move, and select a suitable location on your newly formed…

Not all reinstalls require a complete wipe of your hard drive. A repair or refresh installation leaves your programs, settings and files in place, and restricts itself to installing a fresh copy of your Windows files over the top of your existing copy. If your problem is linked to a corrupt file or Windows setting, the repair installation can usually fix it. All repair installs share one common characteristic: you must launch them from Windows itself. You can’t boot from your install media and repair Windows through that; you need to boot into Windows, then start the repair process from there. If you’re unable to boot into Windows, therefore, you’ll need to turn the page and perform a full destructive recovery instead. Start the repair Starting a repair install varies…

Reinstalling Windows from scratch – namely, wiping your system drive to install a fresh version of Windows on to it – is the ultimate choice for anyone looking to revive a slow PC or resolve a major, non-hardware issue. Here we’ll step you through the entire process – if you’re simply looking to repair an existing Windows install, turn to our guide on the previous page. Before you begin, make sure your PC is fully backed up. A full reinstall really is destructive – nothing left on your C drive will exist once you’ve finished. If you’d like to transfer selected program settings from old installation to new, download the portable CloneApp tool (www. mirinsoft.com) to your backup drive. Once complete launch the tool by right-clicking CloneApp. exe and choosing…

So far, we’ve covered both traditional reinstall techniques, but there are other reasons – and methods – for reinstalling Windows. First up is the recovery option. Most pre-built PCs come with a built-in manufacturer’s recovery partition that enables you to restore Windows to its factory shipped condition. The main advantage of this method – aside from being cheaper and easier for the manufacturer, of course – is that your PC is restored to a guaranteed working state, with all the drivers it needs to function. The downsides are that a lot of extra unwanted software is usually installed alongside Windows, you need to exercise extreme caution not to lose everything on the drive, and that if the recovery partition corrupts – typically due to hardware failure – you’re left with…

Google says it has accomplished ‘quantum supremacy’. This is a fancy way of saying its Sycamore processor can do something unique. It worked out a complex maths problem in three minutes and 20 seconds. The search-engine giant says a state-of-the-art supercomputer would struggle to do it in under 10,000 years. This is because Sycamore isn’t just an upgrade on existing technology… it’s a completely different way of working. Sycamore is a quantum computer, meaning it’s supercharged by the strange behaviour of particles. This advanced processing power could help cure dementia or invent artificial intelligence, so it’s no surprise other tech firms are hard at work developing their own versions. Even governments are investing billions into their own research. In fact, the rivalry between the United States and China has been…

CREATE PERSONALISED MEDICINES Developing medicine is a long process. You can spend a lot of time and money just trying to find a molecule that can fight a disease. But with a quantum computer you could simulate complex drug designs in a matter of hours. This technology could even tailor treatments to a patient’s DNA, making them more effective and reducing side effects. As each one would be unique, it’d also be much harder for viruses and bacteria to develop drug resistance. COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE Predicting the weather is hard because there are so many environmental variables, such as temperature, humidity and wind conditions. Beyond not having an umbrella on hand, faulty forecasts can cause travel chaos for airlines and affect farmers’ crops. With a quantum computer, scientists could predict…

SKILL LEVEL Straightforward SUITABLE FOR… Windows 10 MARK’S BEST TIP! Right-click the File Explorer icon in the Taskbar to easily access your most frequently used folders. QUICK ACCESS A handy toolbar that offers shortcuts to the file and folder tools you use most often, so they are always available. RIBBON TABS Buttons are divided across numerous tabs to keep group-related options together and keep things tidy. NAVIGATION PANE The left-hand pane enables you to browse through the folders on your hard drive, network and removable media. MAIN PANE The contents of the currently selected folder. The type of view you’ve selected will determine how the icons look here. PREVIEW PANE File Explorer is able to show you the contents of some files without you having to open them. Handy. SHOW/HIDE…

REQUIRES MacOS High Sierra or later, Photos, Motif extension YOU WILL LEARN How to create a photo book within Photos using Motif IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes Apple discontinued its photo printing product service last year, but you can still print beautiful photo books in the Photos app, with the Motif extension. RR Donnelley – the company behind the Motif app – was responsible for physically printing Apple’s photo books (as far back as 2005), so the printed books from Motif are high quality, which is good news as this was one of the main strengths of Apple’s original photo printing service. Creating a great-looking photo book is as easy as it used to be, too, and you can tailor the exact look and feel; if you’ve got a particular…

1 SIRI IS CLEVER! Siri’s on–device intelligence learns from what you do with the apps on your iOS device. It uses that info to suggest things you might want to do based on observations of past habits, such as at a particular location or time. 2 REIN THINGS IN In Settings > Siri & Search, under Siri Suggestions are three switches you can turn off to prevent suggestions appearing on: the Lock screen; in Search results; and when you select text and tap Look Up. 3 APP–SPECIFIC CHOICE Lower down, tap an app to refine its Siri integration. The first item lets info from the app appear in Search’s results, Look Up, on the Lock screen, and in keyboard’s suggestions. Turn it off to stop suggestions for this app. 4…

Whether it’s recipes on a budget, an obsession with flowers, or filter-free photography, the Internet has created a space for anyone to share their skill or passion with the masses. While creating a website historically required sufficient knowledge of languages such as HTML and CSS, services now exist that allow you to build a website without a piece of code in sight. Launching in 2005, WordPress.com is one such platform that’s packed with everything you need to create a website using nothing more than a web browser. While we’ll admit that there’s a bit of a learning curve when first getting started, WordPress is one of the easiest platforms to master. So without further ado, let us walk you through the steps to setting up your very own blog. The…

Supremely efficient beings can now check their calendar, make calls, set reminders and receive immediate answers to questions during their shower time. Now that smart speakers have infiltrated just about every room in the house, the bathroom – which was traditionally the primary sanctuary for less talented singers – has become somewhat of an audio dead zone. Bathroom fixtures company Kohler Co. wants to change this however, partnering with Harmon Kardon to put a smart speaker directly in your shower head. In addition to being able to simultaneously immerse yourself in water and music, supremely efficient beings can now check their calendar, make calls, set reminders and receive immediate answers to questions during their shower time, thanks to Alexa integration.…

“Ashampoo UnInstaller 7 makes it easy to install, test and uninstall applications.” “Delete the browsing history, clear the download list, remove all cookies, clear the cache, clear saved form data, and forget saved passwords.” Eliminate pesky storage hogs Remove with no trace with Ashampoo Uninstaller 7. Full version worth $40 Ashampoo UnInstaller 7 makes it easy to install, test and uninstall applications. Unwanted software, browser extensions and toolbars are gone from your hard disk in just a few clicks! Never before has installation-monitoring for leftover-free uninstallations been so extensive and easy to use. Even legacy applications installed prior to UnInstaller can be completely removed thanks to in-depth cleaning! Finally, the innovative super-fast snapshot feature helps you track all system modifications with ease and clarity. Download link: www.ashampoo.com/techlife Weed out the…

As many counted down to the beginning of the new decade, for some of us the countdown continued until the 5th of January – when CES 2020 would begin. CES signifies the beginning of a new year with over 4,000 companies converging on Las Vegas to wow the world with their new products and services. While during prior years IoT represented the Internet of Things, in 2020 and beyond it will be – apparently – all about the Intelligence of Things. We’re expecting more from our devices and it’s time they think a little for themselves. Here are the highlights from the show floor. 05 LG Washing Machine and Dryer It’s certainly taken a while, but the laundry is finally receiving a tech update. LG has learned that we’re all…

With gaming mice like the Razer Viper Ultimate, Razer continues to step up its game. There’s a reason why both casual and hardcore gamers tend to gravitate toward the brand, after all, and it isn’t just because of its attractive packaging or black and green motifs. This mouse marks a notable improvement to the brand, and may be one of the best gaming mice on the market. However, with that step up in quality comes a major bump in price. The Razer Viper Ultimate will set you back a whole $249 – that’s a lot to ask for a mouse, no matter how svelte it is. To put it into perspective, it’s going up against the $169 SteelSeries Rival 650. Razer is hoping that its unique technology and convenient charging…

The 60-Second Quiz Pens at the ready, your time starts now! 01 On which platform did Microsoft Word first appear? A ZX Spectrum B Xenix C Smart toaster 02 What was the original name of Microsoft’s word processor? A Words B Multi-tool Word C Processing 03 Early on, Word was second fiddle to which DOS application? A WordPlanet B WordStar C WordGalaxy 04 Word was released on Mac OS in 1985. When did it reach Windows? A 1983 B 1989 C 1997 05 Which aspect of Word 1.1 did Byte magazine call a ‘farce’? A The ribbon interface B Its documentation C Comic sans 06 What name did Word go by for its Atari ST release in 1988? A Microsoft Docs B Microsoft Write C Microsoft CV and Cover Letter…

Creative director Hugo Martin confirmed that Doom Eternal “is a 22-plus hour game” in an interview with GameSpot. Raw game length isn’t worth much if the game feels padded or otherwise unnecessarily stretched out, but Martin said the studio is “hell-bent on engaging you from beginning to end.” The first two or three levels of Doom Eternal have more variety on display than the whole first game, Martin says.…

Xbox Series X backwards compatibility will go both ways, at least for the early years of the new console. Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty confirmed Microsoft’s commitment to making all new Xbox games playable within its current family of devices in a new interview. That means no console launch exclusives, at least not in the traditional sense. “As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,” Booty told MCV. “We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.” Booty said it’s still important that Halo will…

Avicii Invector isn’t your average rhythm-action game. The project, that aimed to enhance Tim Bergling’s brand of electronic dance and house music by combining it with interactive and mesmeric environments, began in 2015, but the Swedish club sensation passed away in April 2018. Hello There Games and Bergling’s team subsequently finished the game, with a percentage of the proceeds going to the Tim Bergling Foundation, which supports those with mental health problems. It imbues the final experience with profound poignancy beneath the upbeat sheen of the Swedish DJ’s party anthems. That final experience is 25 of Avicii’s biggest hits grouped into five distinct, but ravishing, worlds. Similar to Amplitude or Thumper, you match notes to a corresponding button on your pad – I prefer this to the keyboard controls, but…

Life is Strange 2 begins in suburban Seattle, where a fatal misunderstanding forces Sean and Daniel to flee their home. In his panic, Sean takes his brother on the run, aiming for his father’s family home in Puerto Lobos, Mexico, and the pair take the first steps on their year-long journey to the border. His decision provides an impressive backdrop to their adventure – but also forces Life is Strange 2 to immediately undermine its road-tripping raison d’etre. Rather than directly portray a 2,500km journey, developer Dontnod sticks to its series’ classic tropes. Exploration, dialogue, and character development are its strengths, but those are difficult to achieve within the confines of a Greyhound bus. Instead, the story moves from vignette to vignette, with each chapter set months after the one…

Attending Las Vegas’ Consumer Electronics Show has always seemed to require a special sort of madness. After all, who in their right mind spends the first week of January – a time, traditionally, of abstinence, or at least a bit of low-key living, after the excesses of Christmas and the New Year – in a city where the party never stops and the dinner buffets stretch off to the horizon? We would, if it’s all the same to you, much prefer to stay in bed. Nor has it typically yielded much of great significance to the videogame industry. It is the tech sector’s measuring contest, a place where fantasy becomes a passably prototyped sort of reality, where expensively developed and tenuously marketable solutions go in search of the their respective…

The Hue Play HDMI Sync Box from Philips leverages the company’s Hue light technology to create an immersive entertainment experience by adding lighting effects to your favorite shows and movies. If you weren’t aware, Hue lights matching what’s on a screen has been capable for a long time, just not for people’s TVs. Hue Sync has been available for desktop computers for over a year and it was a bit confusing why this functionality wasn’t available for the main place this would make sense. But, if the time was needed to make sure the Hue Play Sync Box was stable and accommodated the various complexities in the TV arena, then the wait was worth it. It’s a fantastic product for those who want it and will make those who don’t…

“While the camera arrays on modern flagship phones already offer a decent amount of versatility, they still can’t quite match what dedicated DSLRs and mirrorless snappers can do.” Smartphone cameras have come a long way in the last few years. In that short span, we’ve gone from single-lens shooters that needed excellent lighting to multi-lens technology that produces superb results in most scenarios – even at night. But while the camera arrays on modern flagship phones already offer a decent amount of versatility, they still can’t quite match what dedicated DSLRs and mirrorless snappers can do – and some of the latter’s strength and versatility certainly stems from the wide variety of specialised lenses on offer. That’s (in theory) where clip-on lenses for phones, like the Black Eye Pro Kit…

The next step with your new PC is to set up all your favourite applications, plus transfer across your carefully crafted settings from your old PC. Before going any further, we recommend taking a drive image of your old PC’s system drive using Macrium Reflect Free (www.macrium.com/ reflectfree.aspx). Save this image to your backup drive, then install Macrium on your new PC and take a drive image of its hard drive as your baseline backup: Windows 10, all updates and key system utilities only. Should you need to roll back for any reason, you’ll save yourself time by skipping the previous section’s instructions. Plus, with Macrium installed, you can mount your old PC’s drive image as a virtual drive to access any missing files – more on that over the…

When transferring programs and settings using CloneApp you may have already transferred some of your data too – specifically files stored in supported cloud-based folders like OneDrive and Dropbox. Transferring them this way before setting up your cloud sync accounts is actually a good idea – it’s quicker (and uses less internet bandwidth) for your new PC’s installation to compare all the files you’ve copied across with the copies in the cloud rather than download a fresh copy of them all to your PC, which could literally take days if you’ve hundreds of gigabytes to transfer. Even if your cloud provider isn’t supported, don’t rush to install and sync just yet. You can transfer those – and other files – using several alternative methods, but first stop for a moment…

Your new PC is ready and raring to go: your programs, settings and files have been safely transferred across and your old PC’s fate has been decided (the step-by-step guide reveals what to do if you plan to pass it on or dispose of it). But before you take full advantage of that extra speed and power, it’s time to make sure your new PC is at least as secure as your old one was. Start by setting up your backups if you haven’t yet done so – both File History and the old Windows 7 backup tools are accessible in Windows 10 via Start > Settings > Update & Security > Backup. File History is more flexible – it stores more versions of your files for example – and…

Start by stress-testing your desktop to verify that everything works as it should – sometimes the repair can introduce more problems than it solves, in which case if you’re running Windows 8.1 or 10 you can undo the changes. Go to Start > Settings > ‘Update & recovery’ > Recovery and look for an option to go back to your previous version – click ‘Get started’ and then follow the prompts. If the repair doesn’t appear to fix your underlying problem, Windows 8.1 and 10 users can take one more intermediate step – the reset or repair. It will see you waving goodbye to all those desktop programs you’ve installed (including MS Office and your third-party security software), but it will preserve your Microsoft Store apps, files and Windows settings.…

Once Windows is reinstalled, open Windows Update to bring Windows fully up to date – don’t be surprised if there are hundreds of updates still to apply in the case of Windows 7 and 8.1. Once it’s fully up to date, consider reinstalling Macrium Reflect Free and taking your first drive image – a vanilla backup you can restore in future instead of reinstalling Windows itself. Next, it’s a case of reinstalling your core apps. Once in place, open CloneApp from your data drive. If you click the Restore button, every single program setting you backed up will be restored – if there are any backup settings you don’t want to restore, select Options to locate the backup folder, then open it and move any program folders you want to…

1 PARTITION HARD DRIVE You’ll need to partition your drive to free up space on which to store your copy of Windows. The best tool for the job is AOMEI Partition Assistant (www.aomeitech.com/aomei-partition-assistant. html). Start by clicking Make Bootable Media under Wizards to create rescue media. 2 SHRINK MAIN PARTITION Select your Windows drive (typically C:) and click Resize/Move Partition under Partition Operations. Use the slider to free up at least 30GB space to the right of the Windows partition. If your drive is an SSD, click ‘Advanced>>’ and tick ‘Allow partition alignment…’ Click ‘OK’. 3 ADD NEW WINDOWS PARTITION Now select the newly created Unallocated space to the right of drive C and click ‘Create Partition’ under Partition Operations. Verify NTFS is the file system and click ‘Advanced<<’ to…

MICROSOFT STORE DVD player app missing I purchased the Windows DVD Player app from the Microsoft Store, paying $22.45 by PayPal. A few days ago, I was forced to reset my laptop, after which this app had disappeared. I’ve tried to get help from Microsoft support, but it’s been a very frustrating exercise. Can you please help? WILL JOBLING Ordinarily, any software you’ve purchased through the Microsoft Store should be available to download again after reinstalling Windows – open the Store, verify you’re logged into the correct account and then click the ‘…’ button and choose ‘My Library’ to view all previous purchases and installations. Select ‘Ready to install’ to filter the list further if necessary. After Microsoft instructed Will to pay for the app again, he decided to look…

1 ACCESS FILE EXPLORER’S RIBBON TOOLBAR File Explorer has a hidden toolbar that gives you access to numerous tools and options. To the far right of the window, next to the ‘?’ icon, click the small down arrow to expand the Ribbon into view – or press Ctrl-F1. If you don’t want the Ribbon visible at all times, you can still access its buttons via the Home, Share and View tabs. 2 THE QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR The Ribbon provides you with a huge number of tools, many of which you will rarely or never use. To speed up access to commonly used buttons, you can add them to the Quick Access toolbar in the File Explorer title bar. To add and remove buttons from this toolbar, click the down arrow…

1 CHOOSE YOUR PHOTOS Select the photos, or photo album, you want to use. Then go to File > Create > Book > Motif to open your new project. Choose the kind of book you want by check marking it and clicking Create. 2 THEME IT UP Give your project a theme – just click on one to get an idea of what the pages will look like underneath. Don’t worry too much about getting this stage perfect as you can change the theme at any time during the process. 3 TO AUTOFLOW OR NOT? Select the Autoflow Book option if you want Motif to do all the hard work for you, selecting and placing images as it sees fit. Or, click Don’t Autoflow and you can manually add as…

In the last issue we looked at firewalls – what they do and what they protect against. They’re a critical part of your home’s cyber security, keeping rogue hackers and programs from using your internet connection. But firewalls don’t discriminate, and they will block legitimate programs as much as illegitimate ones, and sometimes you have to go into your firewall and create an exception for a program that you do want to be visible to the internet. As we discussed in the last issue, it’s fairly easy to do that on a PC – whenever the program starts you’ll probably get a popup asking if you want to allow the program access to the internet. But your router is a firewall as well, and although the router automatically allows all…

At some point in a photographer’s professional career they will be asked to shoot a pet portrait. Professional customers reliably want images of their pets, and many photographic studios will be visited by four-legged subjects on a regular basis. However, more photographers have embraced the benefits of remote working, freeing themselves from the overheads of a fixed base. This, combined with the common request by clients to have portraits taken in their home, creates the need to work without studio lights and their associated accessories. The greatest challenge in any environment outside the studio is controlling the ambient light, to enable the photographer to shape the illumination of the subject. In addition to this, a person’s home may be filled with visual distractions and unphotogenic elements, which must be worked…

When it comes to sound and build quality, many audiophiles have been quick to dismiss Beats products The Beats Solo Pro could well be a turning point in the Apple-owned headphone company’s journey. While these are still unmistakably Beats headphones, the designers of these new over-ear cans have made some surprising tweaks to the brand’s normally bass-heavy sound profile, and the hardware has incorporated some notable improvements in terms of build quality. Beats iconic and instantly recognisable designs long ago turned it into the world’s most fashionable headphone brand, with a huge variety of colors and styles making it easy for anyone to find a set of cans that suits their own personal style. To borrow a quote from Eminem in the magnificent Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine-themed series The…

The movie is real, and it’s coming from The Legend of Korra creators at Studio Mir. The timing of the film’s release hasn’t been disclosed, though. A film title called The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf was listed on the WGA site on January 10, with a writing credit for Beau DeMayo: a writer on the Netflix show who scripted the third episode on the series. That was the extent of the details, until Netflix released a confirmation. “The rumors are true, a new Witcher story is in the works! The anime film, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, will take us back to a new threat facing the Continent. Brought to you by the Witcher team @LHissrich and @ BeauDeMayo, and Studio Mir the studio behind Legend of Korra.”…

No, you haven’t been sucked into a low-res video game – the new Tesla Cybertruck just looks like an animated armoured vehicle whose pixels are taking a while to render. When Elon Musk rolled out the Cybertruck in November 2019, the truck’s strikingly angular design certainly caught peoples’ eyes, but auto experts say the look has as much to do with function as form. “Unlike many pickup trucks, the Cybertruck has a unibody design, meaning the vehicle is built around a metal scaffolding” Unlike many pickup trucks, the Cybertruck has a unibody design, meaning the vehicle is built around a metal scaffolding. In standard pickup trucks, the vehicle’s body rests atop a metal frame that both supports the engine and absorbs physical stresses. The Cybertruck boasts a maximum towing capacity…

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, is worried about the state of the internet. “The forces taking the web in the wrong direction have always been very strong,” Berners-Lee told The Guardian. “Whether you’re a company or a government, controlling the web is a way to make huge profits, or a way of ensuring you remain in power.” In an effort to combat what he sees as the internet becoming a “digital dystopia,” Berners-Lee’s Web Foundation has launched a global action plan designed to prevent corruption and sinister manipulation online, and aiming to turn the web into a force for good. The Contract for the Web (contractfortheweb. org) is over a year in the making, worked on in conjunction with over 80 widespread institutions, and provides outlines…

1,482 days Was the lifespan of Windows 10 Mobile, released to manufacturing in November 2015, and officially reaching end of support on December 10 2019. Available on Lumia phones and a few obscure devices from the likes of Wileyfox, Win 10 Mobile couldn’t compete with Android or iOS, and Microsoft stopped active development in October 2017. 64 The number of qubits in Google’s Sycamore quantum computer, with which it has claimed quantum supremacy – carrying out a mathematical process in 200 seconds that would have taken a classical computer 10,000 years. 2004 Seems to be the number of the next version of Windows 10, the build previously known as 20H1, with both the fast and slow rings of the Insider programme currently testing it. 100KG The weight of the space…

AR contact lenses have somehow, almost overnight, become a product that one US startup is hoping to bring to the medical device market soon. If that wasn’t enough, some boss coder has managed to write AR software so you can collect digital powerups in real world go-karts. AI this month is helping us predict the weather at a microclimate level, 3D print environmentally sustainable housing and highlight potential issues in national power-line networks. While all this is great for humanity, it’s hard to feel that anything other than Stanford’s AI driven Delorean, which can be seen online performing millimetre-perfect drifts around a gymkhana track, is the most impressive achievement of AI this month. Joel Burgess VR Artec 3D Leo US$25,800, artec3d.com While most of us won’t have a spare 40-grand…

It’s a tale as old as time: girl meets alien warlord; alien warlord comes crashing through her bedroom wall; he steals her cat and maybe her heart. Then the girl grabs a laser rifle and heads out to get her cat back. Functionally, as a setup for a videogame, this mightn’t be all that different to ‘your princess is in another castle’, but paired with a bright art style that looks like it’s been scrawled onto your monitor in pastels, it’s exactly the kind of thing that makes me do the heart eyes. So, yeah, it was pretty much love at first sight with Super Crush KO. But this was a surface-level attraction, based on appearance and assumption, the kind that quickly fades. Sorry to say, this isn’t going to…

Mosaic’s sales pitch: forget the straightforward thrills of action and/or adventure, here’s a game that simulates the tedious grind of everyday life. Using point-and-click controls, you drag your character – an anonymous office worker with a wonky tie, a smartphone and not much else in the way of a discernible personality – through this loop five times, a full working week of low-level misery. Which raises the question: why exactly would you want a second life that’s just as rubbish as the first?If Mosaic was able to answer for itself, I suspect it’d be a mumble about art and mirrors and reflecting reality. There are some sharply observed moments here, like the daily elevator ride you share with two strangers. Seemingly the only control you have over your character is…

There’s something eerie about a public space that is devoid of people, a fact that this first-person horror utilises to its advantage. It’s set in an online FPS, but one where you’re the only player. Without revealing too much, the abandoned server you’re playing on isn’t quite as empty as the game initially suggests. A presence that makes itself known as you play a (seemingly futile) game of Capture the Flag. It’s this steadily growing anticipation that makes No Players Online so wonderfully tense to play – you just know something will happen as you run from capture point to capture point. But what will that be, exactly? As NPO comes to a close, and its cards are laid out on the table, it becomes clear that it owes something…

In recent years, CES’s main mark of significance to the game industry was in virtual reality, whose big players saw enough of a crossover between tech and games to justify an appearance at the show. This was a quiet year by comparison – no surprise, given last year’s release of Index and Quest. But there was a significant development from Nvidia, whose CEStimed GPU driver update added support for Variable Rate Supersampling, or VRSS. Exclusive to the RTX line of graphics cards, it supersamples the part of the frame the player is looking at, giving compatible VR games a low-cost boost in fidelity.…

“Not only can you stream top-notch PC games from your own collection; you can also enjoy fast-loading 4K HDR content and ambitious AI upscaling for 1080p video.” The Nvidia Shield TV has always been something of an odd duck in the streaming-player crowd. The first-gen model had a clever idea – half game console, half streaming box – but a cumbersome design. The second-gen model corrected a lot of the lingering issues, but still cost an awful lot of money (up to $300) in a market where 4K HDR streamers usually go for $50. With the new Nvidia Shield TV (US$150, with no official Australian price announced yet), the company is trying something a little different. Not only can you stream top-notch PC games from your own collection; you can…

“A stripped-back, minimalist design should allow F-Secure Sense to blend into most homes.” F-Secure Sense is a one-stop wireless router which prevents access to malicious websites and other threats, blocks trackers, and includes a firewall to protect all your connected devices from incoming attacks. Bundled apps help set up and manage the router, and provide further standalone protection when you’re on the go: URL filtering, download scanning, behavior monitoring, banking protection, parental controls and more (features vary depending on your platform). A stripped-back, minimalist design should allow F-Secure Sense to blend into most homes. Its ports, cables and buttons are tucked away at the back, leaving just a cream-colored box with a gently glowing LED clock. Sense otherwise supports all the standards you need – 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi over 2.4GHz and…

The latest from Rode is the convergence of its ever-popular NTG field-recording series and industry standard on-camera VideoMic range, and the resulting package is certainly greater than the sum of its parts. This microphone is housed in a rugged, aerospace-grade aluminium cylinder that still manages to be compact and lightweight, making it ideal for grab-and-go situations if you also consider its 30-hour battery life. Complementing its focused design is a minimalist control interface (two buttons and a gain dial) that allows for intuitive and rapid changes to core features, including high-pass filters and high-shelf boosts for enhancing recorded voice. One of the buttons can switch on a safety channel, allowing you to simultaneously record the same audio at a level 20dB lower, in case your main channel clips and you…

Your first steps with your new PC will vary slightly according to the route you’ve gone down. If you’ve purchased a laptop or off-the-shelf desktop PC then you’ll find Windows 10 will be installed, but paused at the initial setup process. If you’ve built your own PC and purchased your own copy of Windows, then obviously you’ll need to install that from scratch. Ready, get set… After switching on your new computer, you should be taken through the Windows 10 post-setup process where you’ll probably be asked to confirm your country and region, connect to your Wi-Fi network and sign into Windows using your Microsoft Account. If you’re coming from Windows 7 this may require clicking ‘Create account’ if you’ve not already got some form of Microsoft account (for example,…

If you simply want to transfer everything (possible) across from old PC to new, and aren’t worried about paying for the privilege, then take a look at EaseUS Todo PCTrans (www.easeus.com/free-pc-transfer-software/). This program makes it easy to transfer across programs, settings and files from old PC to new – you can transfer directly via your network or create an image file on your old PC that is subsequently transferred across and restored to your new computer. To transfer this data over your local network, download and install the program on both machines, then choose PC to PC on either machine, select your other PC and enter your user password. Choose which direction the transfer should take, then wait for the files, setting and data to be analysed. Finally, choose what…

What happens if, having transferred your files and disposed of your old PC (see over the page), you discover that you forgot to copy across a key file or setting? This is where that fail-safe Macrium Reflect backup we recommended you take earlier comes into its own. You can mount this as a virtual drive on your new PC in File Explorer, then copy any missing data from it to your new PC. To do this, install Macrium on your new PC if you haven’t already, then navigate to the drive image file and double-click it. Allow Macrium to launch, then place a tick next to the drive or drives and make a note of the drive letter each is going to be assigned (you can change these by clicking…

1 TAKE FAIL-SAFE DRIVE IMAGES Still not taken that fail-safe drive image? Install Macrium Reflect Free on your old PC as previously advised, then take an image of all your old PC’s internal drives and partitions to ensure you have future access to files and settings you may otherwise forget to take. 2 RESTORE TO FACTORY CONDITIONS Consult your PC’s support site for instructions on restoring it to factory conditions, having first verified all the apps that required activation to use have been deactivated – not just those you transferred across to your new PC (you never know when you might need them). 3 SHRED PERSONAL DATA Launch Eraser Portable (https://portableapps.com/apps/security/ eraser-portable) and choose File > New Task to set up a task to delete all unused space across all…

1 WINDOWS 10 Head to www.microsoft. com/software-download/windows10 and click ‘Download tool now’. Once downloaded, open MediaCreationTool.exe. When prompted, select ‘Create installation media’ and follow the prompts to create either a USB flash drive or an ISO file (for burning to DVD). 2 WINDOWS 8.1 Download the Media Creation Tool from www.microsoft. com/software-download/windows – input your language, edition of Windows 8.1 and PC architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) and then click Next. Choose to create either a USB flash drive or an ISO file and then follow the prompts to the end. 3 WINDOWS 7 Go to www.microsoft. com/software-download/windows7 and enter your product key – choose a 32-bit or 64-bit version as required. Once downloaded, double-click the file to burn to DVD, or use the Windows USB Download Tool (https://wudt.codeplex. com) to…

1 REBOOT FOR MEDIA If you’re running Windows 7, or have Fast Boot disabled, insert your boot media and start your PC. Look for a ‘Press any key to boot from CD or DVD’ option (even if you’ve booted from a USB flash drive) – press the key and you should find the Windows install process starts. 2 TWEAK BOOT OPTIONS If you boot back into Windows, restart your PC again, but this time press a key, such as [F11], when prompted to open a boot menu. Do so, select your boot media (choose UEFI if the option appears) to boot; otherwise, enter Setup to change the boot device order. 3 WINDOWS 7 WINDOWS 8.1/10 If Fast Boot is enabled, open Settings in Windows and navigate to ‘Update & recovery’…

Virtual reality keeps coming back, like a bad smell. Or a nice smell; a pleasing scent of sandalwood for the proponents of VR, as they insist that it’s “the future of gaming” or “the next level of immersion.” Some of us at TechLife are skeptics, while others think VR just hasn’t quite hit its stride yet. There are applications beyond gaming, too, with virtual reality headsets now being used in medical and architectural fields. The problem is that there have already been a few “futures of gaming.” First it was webcam body-tracking, then it was motion controls, then it was touchscreens, then it was motion controls again, then it was, uh, figurines with NFC chips in them? Yeah, we don’t know what Nintendo was smoking when it dreamed up the…

We traced the cause of this problem to the Bluetooth headphones’ built-in mic. Many users have complained of similar issues, and the workaround for those who don’t use the mic is to simply disable it: right-click the speaker icon in the Taskbar notification area and choose ‘Open Sound settings’. Scroll down to the Related Settings section and click ‘Sound Control Panel’. Switch to the Recording tab, right-click your Headset’s entry and choose Disable, which should resolve the problem. NICK PEERS INTERNET Can Wi-Fi boosters improve my internet connection? I have seen numerous adverts relating to a Wi-Fi booster that claims to provide stronger broadband throughout the house. It also alleges to provide a stronger, faster broadband download speed. This suggests that broadband providers don’t give you the speed initially promised?…

One of the coolest things you can do on your home network is set up your own game servers. Then you can invite only the people you want to be able to play onto your server, and set the parameters so the game plays the way you want it. You’ll be able to set it up to play locally or over the internet. Most game servers actually don’t require much processing power to run. You can run it on your main PC, or employ an older machine. So what games servers can you set up? Quite a few, it turns out, and this month we thought we take a look at how to get started. Steam games with servers Perhaps the biggest resource for people who want to run their…

“The beauty of black-and-white in the digital age is that you don’t need a home darkroom to achieve creative mono effects.” When colour film first came into production, many people thought that black-and-white photography was done for. Yet, over 80 years later and despite now producing images digitally, the format remains as popular as ever. Get past all the clichés about monochrome, and what you’re left with is the fact that it makes images all about texture, tone, light and shape – and that’s what makes it such a powerful tool for landscape photography, among other genres. The abstraction from colour allows the viewer to focus purely on the content of the image itself. The beauty of black-and-white in the digital age is that you don’t need a home darkroom…