TechLifeの August 2020 の目次

Windows 10 has recently once again started displaying a nag pop-up that takes up the whole screen when it appears, which could have some users worrying that their system has installed an update without their knowledge somehow (or that their PC has even been reset). The full-screen nag prompt enthusiastically addresses users on the subject of ‘making Windows even better’, and as you might guess, the way you can do this is by hooking up your PC and account with other Microsoft services which are linked in the pop-up. They include Office 365, OneDrive, Your Phone and Windows Hello, and some folks may get déjà vu when seeing this screen, because it’s the exact same one presented to users after first setting up Windows 10. Windows Latest highlighted the fact…

If you’re looking for a great way to ‘explore’ while stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, this might be the perfect option. The 3D tours show the ancient Egyptian sites in stunning detail, allowing viewers to virtually ‘walk through’ different parts of the ruins, much like how the navigation on Google Street View works. Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities began posting the tours as a way to share these wonders with people who are staying at home to help ‘flatten the curve’ during the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry announced on its Facebook page. One of the tours currently on offer – the tomb of Menna – features “one of the most visited and best preserved” of the elite tombs from the 18th Dynasty of 1549 BCE to 1292…

While Zoom may have taken over the 2D remote meeting space, VR has its own novel online meeting platform that could be argued offers an even better meeting experience than the traditional ones you formerly dragged your meat puppet to. It’s also created the fertile environment for a classic flight sim developer MicroPose to begin work on a cooperative WW2 airoplane bomber game that has us genuinely excited. AR continues to throw up developments and Wallace and Gromit has a new interactive augmented smartphone experience. AI this month might be developing a solution to make plastic from extracted greenhouse gasses and Nvidia seems to have a machine learning algorithm that can write its own game code from watching videos. XR Survival VR $TBC, vr.arvilab.com Getting stranded on a deserted island…

$56.95, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, www.tripwireinteractive.com You’re going to need a bigger shark. When you start out in Maneater, the open-world bull shark adventure that’s all about wreaking bloody vengeance, you’re just a pup. You’re able to crunch through a few catfish and turtles but still at risk from barracuda and shark hunters. Progress in this game is marked by furious, joyous binge eating of everything in sight, allowing your shark to gain body mass, age up, and take on bigger and bigger prey. Like its hero, the game is a single-minded machine of delightful destruction, and a piece of undeniable, over the top entertainment. The game guides you through this progression with missions. Spoiler, all the missions involve killing and eating things, and not much else. You’ll have…

From $2,649, www.microsoft.com It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the Surface Book 3 is a beautiful device. Everything about it screams quality, from the rigid feel of the keyboard half of the laptop, along with the chrome Microsoft logo on the back of the device. This is the flagship product in Microsoft’s Surface lineup after all, so a certain level of quality is to be expected. The best part of the Surface Book 3 design however, stemming from the fact that it hasn’t changed much from last time, is the availability of ports on offer. The keyboard deck of the Surface Book 3 has two USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 USB-C port, a Surface Connect port, which is used for…

$399, www.nvidia.com We’re spoiled for choice when it comes to inexpensive streaming devices. But what if you’re after a bit more ‘oomph’ from the gadgets serving your TV? Enter the 2020 edition of the Nvidia Shield TV Pro. An Android-powered set-top-box / games console, it’s about as powerful as streaming devices come, and is jam-packed with features that will tempt movie and video game fans alike. Whether you’re after high-spec PC gaming streamed to your TV, or 4K movies in multiple HDR formats, it’s got you covered. In the box you get the console itself, a new-and-improved remote control and access to 20 great (if ageing) PC games that can be streamed over the internet as part of the GeForce Now service, which you can expand upon with your own…

“The absence of a 3.5mm headphone port and lack of audio over USB means you’ll be out of luck if you do run out of batteries on the go, but the impressive battery life and affordability this presumably allows for makes up for it.” $129, www.sony.com.au First thing to notice – these are on-ear headphones rather than over-ear, meaning that their cups won’t surround your ears but rather rest upon them. This makes them considerably more compact, but arguably a little less comfortable (it also impacts the audio, but more on that later). Aesthetically, there isn’t too much to say about these Sony cans, but their subdued and simple appearance does wonders to broaden their appeal given that the aim here is accessibility. They’re available in a tasteful black, white,…

Many modern lenses feature some form of image stabilisation system, which enables you to shoot handheld at up to three or four stops slower than would be possible with a non-stabilised optic. Manufacturers vary the nomenclature for these systems: Canon uses IS (Image Stabilisation), Nikon favours VR (Vibration Reduction), and among the makers of third-party lenses, Sigma labels it OS (Optical Stabilizer) while Tamron calls its system VC (Vibration Compensation). Stabilisation is a great feature to be able to call on when you’re shooting in low light or when you want to freeze fast-moving action, as you can increase your shutter speed by up to four stops – from, for example, 1/15 sec to 1/250 sec. Some lenses even include a stabilisation system with two settings, to compensate for vertical…

This is the aperture that delivers maximum sharpness across the frame. As a lens doesn’t produce the same level of sharpness throughout its aperture range, by determining its ‘sweet spot’ you can ensure you capture the sharpest shots possible. The sweet spot is usually in the mid-range aperture settings of f/8 to f/11, with sharpness tending to fall off at the minimum and maximum apertures. So your choice of aperture not only affects depth of field; it also plays a part in ensuring sharp shots. (Macro lenses are an exception to ‘sweet spots’, as they are designed to offer edge-to-edge sharpness even at narrow apertures). Find the sweet spot for your lens online at our sister title www.digitalcameraworld.com…

This technique can be used with any lens, and enables you to shoot using its ‘sweet spot’. Focus stacking blends several images that have been focused at different points, to produce a single image that contains the sharpest parts of each shot, and is therefore sharp from foreground to background. It is straightforward to do, and can be carried out in dedicated software or in Photoshop. STEP BY STEP: SET UP THE CAMERA 1 CAMERA SUPPORT Steady the camera. Use an aperture of f/8 or f/11. Make sure the highlights and shadows haven’t been clipped. 2 SET YOUR FOCUS POINTS Starting at the bottom of the frame, focus on a relevant point and take a shot. Move up the frame and repeat. 3 FIRE THE SHUTTER WITH CARE To avoid…

GARMIN FORERUNNER 945 From $999, garmin.com WE’RE IMPRESSED Offers more fitness features than its rivals; great battery life; as good for the gym as the track, monitoring weight training, intervals and treadmill running. WE’D IMPROVE High price point; lacks the versatility of other true smartwatches. THE LAST WORD If you’re looking for a dedicated fitness smartwatch, the Forerunner 945 is your best bet. This is undoubtedly a specialist running watch, rather than a generalist smartwatch – which is reflected in the price and feature set – but with its multi-purpose tracking and offline maps, this should be the fitness fan’s go-to watch. APPLE WATCH SERIES 5 From $699, apple.com FITBIT VERSA 2 From $299, fitbit.com WE’RE IMPRESSED Improved anodised aluminium lightweight design; always-on AMOLED display; improved battery life. WE’D IMPROVE…

Keyboard Maestro $59 FROM Stairways Software, keyboardmaestro.com NEEDS OS X 10.11 or later Your Mac already has a whole range of handy built-in timesavers thanks to keyboard shortcuts and trackpad swipes. Keyboard Maestro takes that a step further, enabling you to automate a huge number of tasks with both pre-programmed and custom options. You can automate almost any task you can think of. Launch apps at the touch of a button, rearrange the windows on your desktop, control your music playback, fill out website forms – all these features and more can be activated with a touch. The app can manipulate text, too. With a few quick clicks you can complete calculations, expand text abbreviations into full words and phrases, create reports, convert images to text, and use multiple clipboard…

THIS MONTH Q&A Your questions answered WINDOWS Use Dropbox in Windows 10 MAC Easily sync your devices iOS Group your tunes in iOS ANDROID How to get the best from your Android camera SECURITY & PRIVACY Backup vs Sync HOME NETWORKING Running Linux on Windows FITNESS Gear up with Strava PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS Ready, steady, throw DIGITAL DARKROOM Blur backgrounds in Lightroom Game folder permission problems I have a new Asus TUF gaming laptop. I copied a game folder from my desktop PC to a thumb drive, then to my laptop to keep the saved files in sync when I traveled. When I got back, I tried to copy the files back to the thumb drive but got the error, “Your organisation does not allow you to place this file here.”…

What’s better than a 75-inch 2000nit QLED TV from Samsung? A 75-inch 2000nitt QLED TV that’s water and dustproof… that’s what. If you’re anything like us our first thought was that an outdoor TV is a great way to keep binging that series if anyone happens to tell you to: “go outside and get some sun”. But Samsung’s ‘ The Terrace’ is also pretty sweet for watching the FOOTY!!! outside since the anti-reflective screen can deal with any vexatious sunbeams and the IP55 splash-proofing will mean the brewski that just overflowed from your mate’s beer bong won’t do any long term damage to the screen.…

3D printing is quickly becoming mainstream as a growing number of businesses now use this technology to improve their speed and flexibility while reducing costs. New research from LearnBonds has revealed that revenue from the global 3D printing industry is expected to continue its surge and grow by 155 percent to reach US$40.8bn in value by 2024. As 3D printing enables the production of complex shapes using less material than traditional manufacturing methods, it is widely used for small production runs, prototyping new products and in education and medicine. According to Wohlers Associates annual report, the global 3D printing industry is expected to be worth US$16bn this year. However, in the next two years, the market revenue of this industry is forecast to reach US$25.5bn. Statistics show that this strong…

“With 8GB of RAM and 128GB SSD, Windows 10 and its built-in apps ran fine.” $1,129, www.microsoft.com The design of the Surface Go 2 is pretty much identical to the original Surface Go, which means it’s essentially a slightly smaller and lighter version of the Surface Pro. As far as budget devices around this price point go, the design is solid with some premium touches. The dimensions are 245mm x 175mm x 8.3mm for the Surface Go 2 tablet itself. That’s the same as the previous model, and at 0.55kg it’s slightly heavier than the original. Those dimensions make it slightly smaller than the iPad Pro 11, it’s biggest rival from Apple. That has dimensions of 9.74 x 7.02 x 0.23, which means Apple’s device is slightly thinner, and at…

$8,499, www.optoma.com Short-throw projectors are arguably changing the way you can set up your home theater. Gone are the days when you have to mount a projector to the ceiling or make sure nothing is in front of it. Now, you can simply plop a projector down in front of your screen or surface. Just take a look at the Optoma CinemaX P1. At a hefty$8,499, the projector certainly isn’t cheap – and is reserved more for those who are building a dedicated home theater space and want a quality image to match – but for those who can afford it, it presents spectacular images without any of the fuss of traditional projection systems. Here’s what it’s like to test one out. Design The Optoma CinemaX P1 is built to…

GaGu obviously doesn’t like to date these pieces, knowing full well that his oeuvre will one day act as the Manual for Civilisation by which a future society will rebuild their gadget acumen from the ashes, but damn: this staying at home business is tough. It’s not a great shift for Guru himself, you understand, as your favourite uncle basically never leaves Guru Towers in usual circumstances. But the family, coughing and wheezing outside Guru’s hermetically sealed office room, are struggling to cope. GaGu’s proposed solution was to purchase an Oculus Quest in order to entirely block out the horrors surrounding him. Alas, Guru’s idea was far from unique. Apparently he is not the only one in need of a distraction, and new Quests (and Nintendo Switches, and all kind…

From the rumours, it looks like Fable 4 is almost definitely happening. 2020 could well be the year we finally see the game too, as it feels appropriate to fall into part of the upcoming Xbox Series X games line-up, which will be revealed a little more at an incoming July event. There’s reason to hope at least, anyway. With the release of the Xbox Series X this ‘Holiday 2020’, we’re at least hoping that Fable 4 will be a part of the console’s future. It is apparently in development at Playground Games, the studio that has brought you the glorious Forza Horizon series. We know that courtesy of a huge Fable 4 leak that emerged a while back, which revealed that a massive chunk of the gameplay, and core…

$49, PC, www.origin.com With Eco Lifestyle, every Sims 4 neighborhood from Glimmerbrook to San Myshuno can have an eco-footprint directly affected by your gameplay. Even if you decide to live off-the-grid and use alternative fuel sources to help nudge that eco-footprint closer to green, just like in the real world, the green living ain’t easy. You could say that Eco Lifestyle is the most political expansion pack in The Sims 4. Sure, the developers have made it clear that they’re not forcing you to play the environmentally woke way, but it’s hard not to wince as your Sim routinely coughs in the smoggy environment of the more industrialised neighborhoods. The concept is solid - since there are so many opportunities to dumpster dive for goodies, recycle unused items, and craft…

$599, store.hp.com The new HP Chromebook x360 12b is another entry into the market of affordable laptops, though at its list price of $599, it’s far from being one of the most affordable Chromebooks we’ve seen. HP has gone for style points with the Chromebook x360 12b by using a metal chassis and 360-degree hinge like those found on an increasing number of the company’s products. This gives the base of the laptop a sturdy and high-quality feel. The display portion, however, is still backed by a plastic shell with a soft finish. Altogether, it feels like a well built machine. The keyboard feels fairly traditional for a Chromebook. It’s decent, with some nice pop to the keys, but there’s nothing that stands out. The lock key placed in the…

$839, www.samsung.com One of the Galaxy S10e’s more attractive features might, ironically, be its smaller size. As main flagships get ever-larger, a contingent of consumers have steadily gone for smaller phones – just look at the popularity of the iPhone SE (RIP) – and the S10e is as manageable as top-tier phones get with a width of 2.75 inches (curiously, the iPhone XS is the smallest of its generation, and the S10e is smaller by a hair). The S10e otherwise looks like a shrunken version of its pricier siblings, with a few exceptions. Samsung didn’t include the Galaxy line’s Infinity Edge tapered display in this less expensive model, so you’ll have to accept a flat front screen with more noticeable bezels. As it’s the smallest of the S10 line, the…

$699, www.dyson.com.au First came a hair dryer, then a styling set, and now Dyson has expanded its beauty range further by adding flat irons to its catalogue. Called the Corrale, the hair straightener takes its name from the word ‘corral’, meaning to gather things into one place, and refers to the iron’s headline feature – its “flexing plates”. Each manganese-copper alloy plate is only 65 microns thick – the width of a human hair – and bends slightly to gather strands of hair within each lock you’re straightening within the plates without splaying. This means that tension is spread evenly through each strand, reducing the number of times you’ll need to work the hair to style it and, thus, protecting it from heat damage and saving you time. Each plate…

“Audio quality is punchy and rich, sounding great in games of all stripes, and pretty good for music and movies as well.” $309, www.asus.com It’s a sad fact of life that as you pack more features into a product, the price is going to rise accordingly. Dropping three C-notes on a pair of gaming headphones might seem excessive to most, but if you get what you’re paying for - clarity of sound, unique and cool features, and an impressive degree of freedom, then the cost is worth it. And that’s definitely the case with Asus’ latest set of cans. One of the Go 2.4’s best new features is USB-C charging and wireless connectivity. This not only offers superb charging times - you can get a few hours charge in less…

Digital imaging technology has made capturing sharp photographs more achievable than ever before. Across the board, from an entry level camera to a pro-spec DSLR, image sensors are capable of producing sharpness that would have been unthinkable in the days of 35mm film SLRs. In fact, with a modern sensor married to a quality lens, and as long as your focusing is on point, you can shoot sharp shots pretty much all of the time. But there are occasions when poor camera technique or sub-par settings will result in images that look soft. This can be frustrating if your main interests are photographing fast-moving objects, or subjects from distance, like wildlife. Although you may initially want to blame your lens when you come away with a soft shot, there are…

When you shoot using JPEG quality settings, your camera applies a filter to the resulting images. This sharpens them and boosts the colours and contrast. This is why raw files can look slightly soft and washed-out when you compare a JPEG to a raw version of the same shot on the camera display. You can change the amount of sharpening applied to JPEGs in-camera by creating a user-defined Picture Style, and adjusting the sharpness setting. If you shoot in raw, a default sharpening effect is applied when you bring the image into raw-compatible image-editing software, like Lightroom or Camera Raw. When to sharpen an image Sharpening is one of the most important steps in post-processing images. While ‘capture’ sharpening is applied to JPEGs in-camera, and to raw images upon being…

Dropbox is an app that, at its heart, synchronises a folder on your PC with other computers – the same files are available everywhere. You can also access them via the web on any device, although the files aren’t stored on your device unless you choose to download them. In many ways, it works very similarly to Microsoft’s OneDrive. Dropbox isn’t really meant as a cold storage system – its plans for lots of storage are rather expensive, and it’s recently been targeting business users over consumers. But for managing the stuff you’re working on right now, it’s unparalleled. We often work across multiple devices and use it as the main place to store our files instead of Documents. What’s more, you can share files with other people, and easily…

One of the great features of a smartphone is that you always have a camera with you, plus the ability to send photos and videos directly from it. Only a few years ago it would be normal to carry a digital camera with you when travelling, but the ever-improving quality of phone cameras and their convenience now makes them adequate for all but the most dedicated photographers. But the best phone cameras tend to be in higher priced devices. To avoid spending big bucks, we investigated what you can do to get the best from your smartphone camera at any price level. Our test phone price points ranged from $130 to $1,000+ with a Umidigi A3 Pro, a Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro, and a Samsung Galaxy Note8. The Samsung…

In this column we have, for the most part, assumed that readers are using Windows for their home networking applications. Statistically speaking, most of you probably are. Unfortunately for Windows users, however, many of the very best home networking apps – particularly server apps – are only available on Linux or other flavours of Unix. That’s not the end of the world, however. You can still run all those apps on Windows with just a little bit of effort, and this month we’re going to look at the basics of how you can do that. This will help us in future TechLife issues, where we’ll walk through setting up some of the very best home server apps you can get. The most obvious way is through some kind of virtual…

There is nothing more energising than a fun portrait that uses a creative approach. For this shooting tutorial we’re going to show you how to capture an action portrait using two external flashguns, a diffuser panel, a reflector, a black backdrop and a bag of flour. When it comes to finding a model you’ll need to find a willing participant who doesn’t mind getting messy. For this photoshoot we had a mini one who was more than happy to get covered from head to toe in flour, and had a great time in the process! We advise when working with children to give strong and clear direction, as they are slightly more unpredictable than adults when throwing flour. Flour is a fine white substance, so it can be a real…

5G is a new thing, and new things are scary… especially when your favourite community Facebook group keeps posting how scary 5G is. Thankfully there’s a really simple solution to all your 5G concerns: a USB thumb drive shield. The 5GBioShield thumb drive includes a heaps-scientific ‘magneto-electric fog shield’ that uses a ‘quantum nano-layer’ of something to block all the bad vibes you get from 5G. While a teardown of the product by the BBC revealed that there was no real 5G-blocking tech inside, at least you’ll still be safe from any potential negative effects of 5G, cause… ya know, everyone already is. We’re holding out for the company’s next products: a $600 coronavirusrepelling fidget-spinner and a free secure Zimbabwean prince money transfer application.…

From $1,999, www.apple.com/au As we’ve seen with other recent MacBook releases, Apple hasn’t changed much at all about the basic design of the 13-inch MacBook Pro – when the laptop’s closed, at least. It comes in the same Silver or Space Gray color, and dimensions are roughly the same, at 304.1 x 212.4 x 156mm. This is slightly thicker than the previous model, which had a depth of 0149mm. It’s also slightly heavier at 1.4kg, versus 2019’s 1.37kg. The difference won’t be too noticeable for most people, and it’s still reasonably light for a pro laptop. However, there are plenty of 13-inch laptops out there that are thinner and lighter. The Dell XPS 13 (2020), for example, weighs in at 1.27kg. Ports-wise, you’re again only getting four Thunderbolt 3 ports…

Spearing the sky like monolithic elephant trunks, the Pillars of Creation are a vast star-forming region located in the Eagle Nebula, about 7,000 light years from Earth. These tendrils of gas and dust, made colourful by the radiation of bright young stars smouldering within, became a Milky Way landmark thanks to an iconic visible-light image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. Now NASA scientists have shared a new view of the pillars, focusing instead on the infrared radiation normally invisible to human eyes. In the new image, also taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, the colourful pillars fade to ghosts of their former selves, revealing a kaleidoscope of newborn stars within the dust. The pillars, which span about five light years in length – that’s about 3.5 times…

$1,299, www.sony.com.au The Sony ZV-1 is like a Sony RX100 Mark V that’s been redesigned for YouTubers. The end result isn’t perfect, but it does fix most of the criticisms we had of the Mark V when it came to video shooting. Along with the Canon G7X Mark III, it’s one of the few compact cameras that’s been designed primarily for video. First, the good bits. The best new feature is a side-hinged articulating touchscreen. This kind of screen is better than a tilting one for shooting video, because it leaves the top and bottom of the camera free for attaching accessories. Crucially, it also flips around 180 degrees to face forwards, allowing those operating one-person YouTube channels to frame their shots without needing someone behind the camera. Sadly, Sony’s…

The latest Destiny 2 expansion, Beyond Light, will support free cross-gen upgrades for PS5 and Xbox Series X players, alongside all expansions for the game. Announced as part of a recent Destiny 2 reveal stream, players who buy Beyond Light on PS4 and Xbox One can expect to upgrade their copies of the expansion for free when they move onto next-gen consoles. Game director Mark Noseworthy confirmed that all content you own, past and present, will also be cross-gen. Destiny 2: Beyond Light will be part of the Xbox Smart Delivery service, which ensures that your purchases will play best on whatever platform you’re running them on. Bungie also confirmed that PS4 purchases will upgrade to PS5 for free. The studio will share more Destiny 2 next-gen news over the…

$29.95, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC , www.minecraft.net Boiled down to its rudiments, Minecraft Dungeons is made up of three things; fighting, collecting, and levelling. The 10-hour campaign whisks you and up to three other friends across a number of diverse levels filled to the bucket with enemies and loot, and it’s your job to explore every nook and cranny, dispatching mobs via classic point-and-click combat embellished with plenty of Minecraft flavoured twists. There’s even a story to follow along with if you need some narrative context to all the hacking and slashing but, honestly, it’s nothing to write home about. There’s an evil king with a mystical orb of power who you need to take down… aaand that’s about it. While I appreciate the production value boasted by Dungeons’…

Pascal’s Wager $10.99 Many of the complaints that put people off investing time in mobile games tend to focus around depth and difficulty. The wide gulf across devices, controls, operating systems, and graphical power tends to restrain developers from completing more ambitious projects that would commonly find themselves on consoles. Touch is a big part of this – the reason the Nintendo Switch is so popular is due to the fact it supports a wide range of control schemes, as it comes built with a set of controllers. Pascal’s Wager attempts to be one of the most ambitious mobile games I have ever played. It features a 50-hour long main story quest, fully-voiced cutscenes and a hybrid control system (both innovative touch screen controls and full controller support). It features…

$1,999, www.asus.com As with other gaming laptops in Asus’ TUF series, the Asus TUF A15 is a big, chunky device that’s a far cry from Asus’ Zephyrus range – but then, that’s part of the appeal. As the ‘TUF’ moniker alludes to, the Asus TUF A15 places build quality and durability at the forefront of its design. This isn’t a rugged laptop that you could drop from a height and not worry about it, but it’s a gaming laptop you’d happily chuck in a backpack and take to friends’ houses and LAN parties. Some ultra-thin and light gaming laptops feel so delicate that you’d be frightened of taking them out of the house – not so with the Asus TUF A15. It’s certainly a design that doesn’t shy away from…

$269, www.tp-link.com/au A few months back we reviewed Asus’ RT-AX3000 router which was a largely unremarkable router but for the fact that it was the first unremarkable router we’d seen that supported Wi-Fi 6. In a market that was full of large, expensive, ostentatious, spiky-looking spaceships, it was the first, sober-looking ‘affordable’ model we’d seen. Now, here’s a second soulless specimen from TP-Link. Could it be heralding Wi-Fi 6’s market maturity and, if so, will that help the technology proliferate amongst the masses? Our first impressions raised our hopes… this thing really is dull looking. You can even find it on sale as a ‘white-box’ unbranded product which typically means it’s avoided visiting a decent, industrial design studio. It’s a box with four, plasticy sticks sprouting from it. Routers looked…

$459, www.denon.com The Denon DHT-S216 doesn’t look all that striking, but its neutral look allows it to fit right in with any home entertainment center. It measures about 35-inches wide, 2.35-inches high and 4.7-inches deep, making it a good companion for your 55-inch TV, but be careful that it doesn’t block the IR sensor on your TV – it comes with plastic spacers, but no mounts, brackets or screws inside the box. The back has a decent array of ports, including HDMI ARC, Toslink optical, Aux-In, plus another HDMI input for additional use cases. Rounding it out is a plug for a wired connection to a subwoofer. That last part should be of particular interest because it applies to third-party subs, too. You don’t have to use a Denon one…

$249.95, au.kobobooks.com Unlike more traditional tablet-like ereaders such as the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Aura One, the Libra H2O’s asymmetrical design closely resembles the Forma and the Kindle Oasis. One bezel is much thicker and wider than the rest, providing lots of space to comfortably and securely hold the device without covering the screen. A pair of physical buttons on that same bezel are used for page turning, and the ereader’s battery is housed inside this area of the chassis, with the microUSB charging port on the side of this thick spine. However, the difference between the Forma and the Libra is that the latter has a 7-inch E Ink Carta HD display (the same as the Oasis) as compared to the 8-inch screen on the Forma. The Libra H2O…

The most common cause of soft shots when you shoot handheld will be camera shake. This means that the camera moves slightly while the scene in front of it is being exposed to the image sensor. We can blame shutter speed for this – in particular the choice of a speed that’s slow enough to capture the movement (under 1/30 sec, for example). In the hands of a fine-art photographer, intentional camera movement is a useful creative tool, but for anyone aiming to get pin-sharp photographs, unintentional camera movement will be a catastrophe. While the shutter speed needs to be fast enough, the focal length of your lens also plays a big part in determining how fast the shutter speed should be. There is a straightforward way of making sure…

Depth of field refers to the extent of the sharpness of an image. If an image is noticeably soft in front of and behind the point of focus, then its depth of field is shallow; if the image is sharp from front to back, then its depth of field is broad. Depth of field decreases the closer you are to a subject, so accurate focusing is vital to ensure that your subjects are sharp. This is why narrow apertures are used in macro photography (see below). Even then, when you shoot extreme close-ups, the depth of field may be only a matter of millimetres. As a rule of thumb, there’s roughly double the amount of depth of field behind a focal point than there is in front of it. See…

Whenever you get a new Apple device, it’s likely you have a go-to list of essential apps that you always install first. Whether that’s professional-grade apps like Adobe Photoshop or social media favorites such as Facebook and WhatsApp, we’ve all got our favorite apps that we can’t live without. But there’s much more to discover if you dig a little deeper. The Mac and iOS ecosystems are absolutely chock full of small developers and independent programmers making superb software that can take your Apple kit to the next level. The trouble is that many of these superb apps are actually hard to find, buried in the darkest recesses of the App Store or the web. That’s where we come in. We’ve scoured every corner of the web to find the…

OnyX Free FROM Titanium Software, titanium-software.fr NEEDS macOS 10.15 or later Sometimes, macOS doesn’t behave as it should. There are a few built–in things you can try, but they’re often deeply hidden, confusing to use, or both. OnyX is a brilliant app that gives you power–user features with no cost attached. If you suspect that macOS isn’t working properly because something is broken, OnyX can come to the rescue. The app lets you repair your disk permissions, rebuild Spotlight and Mail indexes, and restore various databases and caches that may have become corrupted. As well as that, you can use OnyX’s many tools to perform a spot of spring cleaning on your Mac, cleansing caches, logs and cookies that could be slowing your system down. OnyX really is a powerful…

Syncing is a wonderful thing: Just last night we were finishing a Keynote presentation on iPad that we’d started on our Mac and rehearsed on our iPhone. But Apple’s approach, to sync via iCloud, has some flaws: It isn’t interested in devices that don’t have an Apple logo on them – and it can sometimes be a little hesitant to update things, as we’ve learnt the hard way when our devices didn’t have the files we thought they did. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a cross-device sync that gave you complete control of everything? Enter SyncMate, which syncs data with iOS, iPadOS and Android devices, all your cloud storage services such as Google Drive and Dropbox, multiple Macs, mapped network drives and Microsoft Office services too. SyncMate 8…

Remote Cheerer $TBC, yamaha.com/en/news_release/2020/20052501/Sport is a critical component in most people’s daily lives, and while lockdown conditions are perhaps one of the best environments for watching your favourite game on the TV, it’s also the worst conditions imaginable for the health of sports professionals. Fortunately, Yamaha is here to make sure your favourite multi-millionaire sports star has the support they need to bring home the win with its new Remote Cheer app. The smartphone app connects to speakers in the stadium and delivers encouragement directly from your phone to the players. TALO - Smart Toothbrush $282, igg.me/at/talobrush/x#/ So what’s the biggest issue in the developed world these days? Yep ... you guessed it: having to brush your teeth. Fortunately there’s an Indegogo campaign that is hoping to take some of…