Tabla de contenidos para January 2021 en APC

Microsoft is testing updates to Windows 10 that don’t require an entire operating system (OS) overhaul. Yesterday, Microsoft released Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.1070.0 to its beta channel. The Feature Experience Pack lets the company update certain features that are being developed separately from Windows 10. “Currently, only a limited number of features are being developed this way, so we are starting out very scoped,” a senior program manager at Microsoft, wrote on the Windows Insider blog. “By testing this process first with Windows Insiders, we hope to expand the scope and the frequency of releases in the future.” This update will be provided to Insiders through Windows Update, but they will need to be on 20H2 Build 19042.662 already.…

A developer using the handle @imbushuo on Twitter has posted Geekbench versions 4 and 5 scores that compare Windows 10 on Arm on an M1 computer with the Microsoft-made Surface Pro X. Windows on an M1 got a single-core score of 1,288 and multi-core score of 5,685 whereas the Surface Pro X’s scores were roughly 800 and 3,000 in those respective benchmarks. Per MSpoweruser, the Surface Pro X benchmark was made using the SQ2 Arm-based chip that was co-developed by Qualcomm and Microsoft for Microsoft’s latest Surface Pro X computers. As the report notes, while these results are probably not conclusive, early indications are that Apple’s new M1 chips can run Windows on ARM better than Microsoft can, which would be quite something.…

Facebook has a problem: Fake news is popular. So popular that the company threatens to lose growth, or even contract if it’s too aggressive in telling people that popular news stories are factually inaccurate. As part of the company’s “Break Glass’’ initiative that was set up to combat misinformation in the event of a contested 2020 US election, Facebook established a NEQ (News Ecosystem Quality) ranking to quantify the reliability of news sources and prioritise posts from reputable outlets. Once it became clear that Joe Biden would be the next democratically elected president of the United States, Facebook dramatically increased the weighting of its NEQ prioritisation to boost the visibility of established news organisations and suppress more dubious and polarising sources like Breitbart and Occupy Democrats. While many employees asked…

There’s nothing quite like the thrill of building a computer, but there’s an equally exciting way to scratch your building itch: Raspberry Pi. Launched in 2012 and now in its 4th major generation, Raspberry Pi is the inexpensive ARM-powered, single-board computer that will change your tech life. The Raspberry Pi 4 has enough quad-core performance to do web surfing, productivity work and programming, but if you buy one expecting to use it as a substitute PC, you’ll be disappointed. What makes a Raspberry Pi compelling is its ability to power all kinds of project you wouldn’t or couldn’t use an x86 PC for. Want to build a Game Boy-sized console emulator powered by Intel or AMD? Good luck cramming your micro ITX mtherboard and PSU into the case. How about…

6800: $949, 6800 XT: $1,049 | www.amd.com “Perhaps the most remarkable architectural end result is the leap in power efficiency. Without any change in process technology, AMD has managed to significantly increase shader counts and frequencies without resorting to brute force to do it.” It’s a fantastic time to be a PC gamer. Not only do we have some great new and upcoming games, but we also have powerful new graphics cards from Nvidia and now AMD to play them on. Nvidia’s Ampere cards have had time in the spotlight but now its AMD’s turn with the release of the all new and long awaited ‘Big Navi’ RX 6800 series consisting of the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT. They are soon to be joined by the flagship RX 6900…

$2,299 | asus.com Asus has a flair for laptop innovation that’s seen it do amazing things, like create compactable vents on its first Max-Q gaming laptops, build our favourite premium laptop using a new AMD Ryzen processor, and create an awesomely productive second screen on its Zephyrus Duo units – but occasionally it gets things wrong… and we kinda wish it’d let these things die. In this particular instance we’re talking about the ScreenPad touchscreen trackpad, which, while still better on the UX435 than it has ever been previously, still manages to detract significantly from the overall experience. Whether it is the limited set of custom-built applications, the almost-useable but still janky interface, or the fact that it prioritises apps and second display functionality over being a usable trackpad the…

“What you get out of it will depend greatly on your existing expertise in security and your propensity for getting stuck in to a configuration environment that can be simultaneously simple and perplexing.” $79 | www.yubico.com Cybercrime was rocketing long before COVID threw napalm on the bonfire. If you think that’s hyperbole just enter your email address at www.haveibeenpwnd.com and have your password history regurgitated along with the surprising sources of who got hacked and spilled your details. Locking down your passwords and accounts has never been more important and, to this end, Yubico’s latest YubiKey 5C NFC security key seeks to add an extra layer of security to all of your computer, mobile, application and web operations. YubiKeys have been around for over ten years. This latest model is…

Steam | Free | store.steampowered.com Epic | Free | www.epicgames.com/store From its launch in 2003, Valve’s Steam digital game store has had things pretty much its own way. In 2013 it held 75 percent of the market, and in 2017 represented 18 percent of global PC game sales. In 2019 it had 95 million active monthly users. It has branched out into game controllers, gaming boxes and even an operating system. If there was ever any doubt that PC gaming is huge, then Steam is all the evidence you need. There have been competitors, of course. Who remembers Games For Windows Live? They have tended to be single-publisher stores, however, such as Ubisoft’s Uplay and EA’s Origin. It wasn’t until 2012 that it got competition, when GOG – a previously retro-only…

Linux | www.twisteros.com Since 2012 Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian) has been the dominant OS on the Pi. Initially a crude yet effective OS, over time it’s evolved into an exceptional platform for makers. That supremacy may soon be challenged by Twister OS, a version of Raspberry Pi OS that offers much more. Twister OS is based on the latest Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit image and has been developed for use on the Raspberry Pi 4. It can be used on the 3B+, but performance will suffer. Twister OS’s origins means that projects such as the GPIO, Camera and all of the add-on boards will be fully compatible. Everything that comes with Raspberry Pi OS is present on Twister OS, but looking through the menus it soon becomes…

It’s been two years since Nvidia unveiled the Turing architecture, ushering in the new era of ray-traced graphics for games. OK, let’s be frank: Ray-tracing adoption in games has been sluggish and often underwhelming. More accurate reflections, slightly improved shadows? Yawn. We want it all: Reflections, refractions, shadows, global illumination, caustics, ambient occlusion! The problem is that each of those effects increases the burden placed on the ray-tracing hardware and your GPU, so developers often picked one or a few effects at most. But that all changes with Nvidia’s Ampere architecture. Take everything that was great about Turing and basically double down, and you get an idea of what Nvidia has planned for Ampere. We had a full review of the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition in APC 487, the…

01 GET VIRTUALBOX Head to www.virtualbox.org and download VirtualBox 6 for your operating system, be that Windows or OS X. Install it and be aware you’ll need at least 20GB of drive space to store the virtual OS file. You’ll also need the Ubuntu ISO file from www. ubuntu.com/desktop/download. Once installed, start it and click the “New” button and call it “Ubuntu.” 02 CREATE A MACHINE Choose Ubuntu, and the bits should match the ISO you downloaded, then click “Next.” Under Memory we’d recommend 2,048, but if you have an 8GB PC, 4,096 is best. You can leave all the rest as default settings, apart from the dynamic hard drive size. The default is 8GB, but we suggest at least 32GB if you can spare. Finish and click “Start” to…

$1,798 | tinyurl.com/APC489JWC JW Computers GMR Infinity 5600XT This system is rather special – it comes with a Chinese market-only CPU! Quite how JW Computers has gotten its hands-on stock is a mystery, but what it does allow for is R5 3600 levels of gaming performance at a low price. Paired with an RX 5600XT, this system is set for RTX 2060 levels of gaming performance without breaking the bank. The sole 500GB SSD could be a limiting factor for some people longer term. The B450 motherboard while ageing, is still relevant with Ryzen 5000 series CPU support coming via a BIOS update, meaning there is plenty of upgrade paths available in the future if needed. For a system focused solely on gaming, this price is hard to beat and…

“Integrated graphics are a lot more viable for gaming than they were a few years ago, at least. The Ryzen 5 3400G only costs $239 and can handle gaming at 1080p on medium to low graphics. No dedicated GPU saves space and effort as well as cash, and there’s still the option to add a more powerful graphics card later on.” Length of time: 1–2 hours. Level of difficulty: easy 01 PREPARE THE CASE As usual, start the build process with a stripdown of the case. The Raijintek Ophion Evo makes this nice and simple; the only things that really need removing at this stage are the two glass side panels, each of which is secured by four thumbscrews with rubber washers. These side panels are a bit delicate and…

One of the simplest ways to get yourself a website is through WordPress. This free and open-source platform is the world’s most popular, and it’s easy to see why. Although it started out as a blogging tool, it has since expanded to become capable of handling everything from personal websites to online shops. We’re going to start at the beginning by getting your site installed, set-up, secured, and ready for action. While the simplest way to set up WordPress is through signing up for a free account at www.wordpress.com, we’re focusing on self-hosted solutions, whether through a third-party web-hosting platform like GoDaddy or Bluehost, or directly from your PC. The boxout opposite reveals what to look for in a web host, but if you already have web-server capabilities via a…

1 VIEW INSTALLED APPLICATIONS Click an app to read a description or launch it. Click ‘Add application’ to add other Wineskin apps to the list. 2 CONFIGURE YOUR WRAPPER control-click an app to access various options for configuring and tweaking it. 3 GET HELP Click Community to access an online help forum dedicated to Porting Kit or to contact the developers. 4 RATINGS Other Porting Kit users rate the game’s performance based on its graphics – click Rate Here to add yours.…

Screen Time is designed to show you how you use your phone and help cut down your usage. It is not perfect, though. Sure, you can limit how much time you spend on your device, but you only get a couple of choices over how to do that. Your usage data is more or less restricted to the number of pickups and notifications you had. It is fine, but not outstanding. OffScreen offers features that Screen Time lacks, from multiple focus modes to detailed stats on how you use your device. It also incorporates tools that Apple has scattered about iOS (like bedtime reminders) in one place, making it much easier to manage your time on – and off – your iPhone. A lot of OffScreen’s features require an upgrade…

01 CATEGORISED DATA OffScreen’s main screen shows your iPhone usage broken down into a range of categories. At the top is a timer showing how long you have used your phone today. Each section has a card, which you can tap to get more detail. 02 DRILL DOWN Tap Pickups. You will see a weekly overview of how many times you unlocked your phone each day. Tap Day to get an hour-by-hour breakdown for each day. Underneath is a summary of average pickups, highlights, and more. 03 VIEW HISTORIC DATA Tap the calendar icon in the top-right, then select a date. You can browse statistics from this day as you do for today’s data, with everything sorted into categories. Tap Back to Today to return to the present.…

Hang around YouTube long enough these days and it won’t be long before you run up against videos claiming to be new colourised versions of film shot back at the turn of the 20th century. The videos are often up-scaled to 4K-resolution and with excellent smoothing techniques that your brain says can’t be 10 years old, let alone 120. However, it’s all the work of new machine learning techniques, one of which is the popular ‘Deoldify’. It’s not perfect, but can do a pretty decent job. This month, we’ll show you how to colourise black-and-white photos for free. Machine learning to the rescue! Artificial Intelligence or ‘AI’ is the media catch-phrase for all things to do with computers, algorithms and the concept of ‘learning’. However, this ‘machine learning’ is being…

$84.95 | PC, PS4/5, XB1, XBX/S | dirtgame.com What is Dirt 5 for? I don’t know the answer, and I’m not sure Codemasters does either. The problem, is that recently Dirt Rally and its sequel came along. It was so brilliant it reminded us how much we missed pace-notes, and realistic offroad handling. Just like that, we like the old style of rally game again. The one Dirt was invented to revitalise. Which leaves game number 5 without a clear raison d’etre. All the core elements, its essential Dirt-osity, were devised as a deliberate departure from sim-minded, realistic driving. But right now, as Dirt Rally 2 enjoys a passionate community and sim-racing esports gain momentum, sim-minded, realistic driving is exactly where the excitement is. Of course, you might really fancy…

$43 | PC, XB1, XBX/S | thefalconeer.com The Falconeer takes place in a unique world that sits somewhere outside our own, a world that slowly drew me in as I progressed through the story. A huge expanse of water littered with islands controlled by warring factions, the tale that this place tells is interesting enough to prevent you from skipping through the NPC chatter that precedes each mission. As a falconeer, you’ll dive to increase speed and flap in place to reduce it, stretching your falcon’s wings out to turn when necessary. The accompanying squawks, flaps, and screeches work in tandem with the wonderful animation to give a convincing sense of being in control of a bird. Or at least, a small/normal sized person on top of one. While the…

A pair of screws that attach the PCI Express riser cable inside Nzxt’s H1 chassis can cause an electrical short and pose a fire hazard. As a result, Nzxt has temporarily stopped selling the chassis and has advised its reseller partners to do the same. The issue came to light a couple of months ago, with a Reddit user claiming they saw smoke come from their H1 case when first powering up their PC. Then a few weeks ago, another Reddit user with the same chassis said they saw “flames come out of the case.” Having identified the problem, Nzxt is sending out repair kits to H1 owners, which contain “two new screws that address the issue along with instructions to replace them.”…

One of the ways that enthusiasts tinker with their processors is through overclocking: the attempt to get more performance by changing frequencies and voltages, up to the limits of the system. Another way is through undervolting – removing voltage from the processor to help lower temperatures and offer higher thermal headroom (or lower power consumption). It all depends on the silicon, and if it can support it: AMD (and Intel) have to set hard limits for production to enable sufficient yield and costs, but users on certain products can always poke the hardware to try and get something more. With this in mind, AMD is improving its range of overclocking tools to allow for adaptive undervolting of Ryzen 5000 processors. “The company states that this adaptive methodology will allow for…

Now that the RDNA2-based RX 6000 series has launched, it’s worth revisiting one of the enduring topics that pops up regarding AMD’s GPU driver quality, or lack thereof. AMD has experienced periods where its drivers have been under par. Some of the poorer periods go back to a time when AMD was struggling to remain solvent and even before that during the ATI days, but more recently some issues persist including intermittent black screening with its RX 5000 series cards. I haven’t personally experienced any such issues, though I tend to use fresher Windows installations with less accumulated rubbish on them. “Now that AMD has experienced its Ryzen moment with its new RDNA2 graphics cards, the time has come for it to prioritise its driver development while enthusiasm is at…

We’re taking a sneak peek inside an FBI tracking device, similar to the one Yasir Afifi found on his car. Disclaimer: We love the FBI. We’ve worked with them on several occasions to fight crime and locate criminals. We’ve helped them with instructions on gaining entry into certain devices. We have nothing against them. Major tech specs • Battery pack • GPS antenna • XEMICS XE1201 Ultra-low-power single-chip transceiver • RFM RF1172 SAW (surface-acoustic-wave) filter • Magnetic mounting bracket KEY FINDINGS • We finally have one of these on the teardown table! The components of the system are all attached to a vehicle with powerful magnets. What tech keeps this device powered? Let’s remove the battery pack’s end cap. It’s powered by four lithium-thionyl chloride D-cell batteries. Each cell is…

From $999 | microsoft.com We weren’t expecting Microsoft to release a Go variation of its Surface Laptop range in 2020, or ever really, but we’re certainly glad it did. The original Surface Go and the Surface Go 2 have been dominating the best affordable/ student laptops roundups for the last couple of years, so there’ll be no shortage of people interested in this new more midrange clamshell. While it might ditch the tablet form factor, the Surface Laptop Go has a 12.45 inch display that is still touchscreen and the unit feels super portable and compact, weighing in at 1.11kg. The resolution isn’t quite FullHD at 1536 by 1024 pixels, but it maintains a pixel density of 148 PPI to look surprisingly good with the brightness cranked up. Out of…

$1,500 | www.synology.com/en-au Synology’s DS1621+ is an SMB-oriented, six-bay NAS that’s an update to the DS1618+. The six bays are easily accessible for hot-swapping hard drives and can be locked to avoid pilfering passers-by. Setting up is simple: you just need to insert your drives, connect to a network and then run Synology’s ‘NAS finding tool’ – either on a PC or mobile. From there you can choose the RAID configuration that best suits your performance, capacity and redundancy requirements. The DSM operating system hasn’t changed much over the years and it’s all the better for it. With so many media and storage management systems coming and going over the years (the latest being Google Photos) it’s great to know that Synology’s ecosystem only evolves over time: adding new features,…

$110 (base unit), $152 (kit) | www.raspberrypi.org The Raspberry Pi Model B has had the same board layout since the Raspberry Pi B+ arrived in 2014. Sure, the Raspberry Pi 4 swapped the Ethernet and USB ports around, but the basic design has persisted. So when we received a parcel from Raspberry Pi Trading and opened the box to find a white keyboard, we were somewhat puzzled as to the contents. But not for long. Within this compact and well-designed keyboard is a Raspberry Pi 400, a variant of the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB that’s been designed specifically to make the most of its new surroundings. The device is being sold as a single unit for $110 or as a $152 kit with mouse, power supply, cables, micro SD card…

Mac OS X 10.11 or later | $140-$700 | devontechnologies.com DEVONthink is a universal inbox for every kind of information, enabling you to store, find, and reuse any kind of content. If you’re already a DEVONthink user, you’ll be pleased to discover that version 3.5 brings an updated sidebar, more options for automating repetitive tasks, syntax colouring for Markdown, better web page capture, and improved performance and stability. DEVONthink comes in three versions: Standard ($140), Pro ($199), and Server ($499). Server is for teams, and Pro takes the Standard edition’s features and adds OCR for scanning documents, the ability to automatically stamp and number documents, email archiving, custom metadata and item grouping. There are lots of ways to get data into DEVONthink. You can import or link to external files…

One of the benefits of going with an Android phone for your daily driver is that you’ve got an almost limitless number of ways to customise it. While iOS remains mostly locked down in terms of how you can tweak its look and feel – even after iOS 14’s changes – Android lets you plot a pixel-by-pixel remake of your device, if you want. From simply changing the wallpaper to installing a completely different launcher, you’ve got plenty of options – and it can make you feel like you’ve gone out and bought a brand new phone, without any of the associated costs. Whether you’re an Android veteran or a complete newbie when it comes to Google’s mobile operating system, we’ll guide you through some of the best customisation options…

Naturally, everything under the Ubuntu hood has been refreshed. The 5.4 kernel brings support for new hardware and fixes for old. What most home users will be interested in is the desktop, and you’ll find that Gnome 3.36 looks and behaves better than ever. It seems like there’s been a two-year game of bug whack-a-mole, both within Gnome and Ubuntu’s take on it, to address annoying performance and memory issues. But with this release, it’s as smooth as the inferior type of peanut butter. “The darkening” has come finally to Ubuntu. Like so many desktops and programs it now offers a dark mode, which some people find easier on the eyes. Light or dark, we think you’ll love the new bold icons and Yaru theme. Gnome’s application folders feature –…

01 MAKE ROOM To create an empty partition for your Ubuntu installation, you’ll first have to squeeze your existing Windows partition. Fire up the Disk Management tool in Windows, and right-click your main partition that’s typically assigned the drive letter C. Then select the “Shrink Volume” option from the pop-up menu. 02 SHRINK WINDOWS This brings up the Shrink dialog that shows you the total size of the hard drive and the maximum amount of space that you can squeeze out of the selected partition. To create a new partition, specify the size of the partition in the space provided in megabytes and click “Shrink” to start the process. 03 UPDATES AND PLUGINS After your computer boots from the Ubuntu installation medium, it will display a checklist. Toggle the two…

01 ACTIVITIES Clicking here (or, alternatively, pressing the Superkey) launches the Activities view. Helpfully, this shows you previews of your running programs on the system. 02 SEARCH BOX Start typing in the Activities view (there is no need to click in the box) to search Apps, Docs and anything else you may need to find. 03 CALENDAR AND NOTIFICATIONS AREA Click here to control music, see any appointments (if you’ve connected an appropriate service) or activate Do not Disturb mode. 04 STATUS MENU Network settings (including VPN), volume controls, and application indicators can be found here. The button in the bottom left launches the all-important Settings tool. 05 APPLICATIONS MENU Click here to open/close a view of frequently used applications. You can see all installed applications from the selector at…

“Following last month’s changes, we’re now focused on trimming the price and making small improvements. Multiple price drops on components in both builds (CPUs, our power supply, and the Asrock motherboard in the AMD build) have given us a bit of money to play with, but we’re keeping it sensible.” With the builds well and truly shaken up last issue, it’s now time to introduce some new cases. The Intel and AMD builds at each price range will still share the same case, and for our budget systems it’s the simple but effective Corsair 4000D Airflow. Following last month’s changes, we’re now focused on trimming the price and making small improvements. Multiple price drops on components in both builds (CPUs, our power supply, and the Asrock motherboard in the AMD…

This build proved slightly more complex to assemble than we’d hoped, but that may have come down to our ham-handedness while trying to plug in tiny I/O cables inside this cramped case. The finished product looks good and runs great, though, with satisfyingly low temperatures and noise across the board. In fact, our PSU and GPU fans spend a great deal of time not spinning at all, thanks to the low power draw and heat generation. The processor doesn’t blow us away in terms of performance, and our rather basic cooling solution means that throwing any CPU-heavy loads at this system isn’t going to work well, but it handles games reasonably well without getting too hot. Post-testing, we installed Ryzen Master and activated its autooverclocking functions, which eked around five…

01 FIRST STEPS After downloading the program installer from its website, open Porting Kit and choose File >= New Custom Port. Type in the name of the application you’re installing to easily identify it. Click OK. An installer wizard will open. 02 SET WINE VERSION Click Next, skim the license agreement and click I Agree. You’ll be prompted to select an engine – choose the latest 32-bit version (WS11WineCX19.0.1-1 or later). Leave the dependencies unticked and click Next. 03 CHOOSE DESTINATION Click Next again to select destination – Applications >= Games folder by default, so click Change Install Location to change it to Applications or to create a new subfolder inside Applications for Windows apps. Click Save. 04 SELECT APP INSTALLER Click Install and wait while the app wrapper is…

01 POMODORO TIMER On the Focus screen, tap Pomodoro. Tap Default next to ‘Focus on’ and pick a category. To change the length of your session, slide the bar on the tomato icon; you can choose between 10 and 120 minutes. Now tap Start to Focus. 02 COUNTDOWN TO SUCCESS Tap Countdown on the Focus screen. Like Pomodoro, you can choose a category for your session. While Pomodoro is designed for short study periods, Countdown mode lets you stay focused for up to 24 hours at a time. 03 ADD TIME The final option is Add Time, which works like a stopwatch that tracks how long you stay on target. Choose a category, then tap Start to Focus. When you are finished, tap the pause or end buttons in the…

We all love a good story – after all, telling stories around the fire is as old as human language itself. Audiobooks – and radio dramatisations – continue that tradition into the modern age, and thanks to your phone and PC, give you the opportunity to listen to your favourite books wherever you are. In this guide, we’ll show you how to bring all your audiobooks – whether on CD or in the cloud – into one central library. You’ll add tags to make them easy to identify, plus discover how to listen to them from your PC or phone. Let’s get storytelling… Set up your Audiobook library There are three principal places to source audiobooks: on CD, with unabridged editions spanning dozens of discs; from an online vendor (the…

Marvel’s Avengers fails to win hearts and minds It seemed like a no-brainer: a blockbuster Marvel’s Avengers game featuring playable versions of each key Avenger, with a substantial single player component and a long-in-the-tail game-as-service model. But it looks like Marvel’s Avengers hasn’t done particularly well for Square Enix, following the game’s launch in September. In addition to the not-quite-scientific matter of declining player counts on Steam (they don’t take into account console engagement, for example), Square Enix company president Yosuke Matsuda indicated during a recent investor Q&A that COVID-19 is partially to blame. “In addition to the amortisation of [ Marvel’s Avengers’] development costs, another significant factor associated with the title was the fact that we undertook a major advertising campaign at the time of its launch to make…

Free | PC, Mac, Linux dustyroom.itch.io/ empty Empty is a game about stuff, more specifically getting rid of it, as you Marie Kondo your way around a sequence of rooms, ridding the colourful 3D spaces of all their clutter. But Empty is a puzzle game. Rather than dragging the unwanted items into a skip, you have to vanish them instead, by lining each up against a surface of the same colour. Turn the scene so that the orange lamp is facing the orange wall, and the lamp will disappear, while the wall will turn white so that it can’t be used again. Oh fantastic, you think, the lamp’s no longer blocking the green desk, so let’s rotate the room until that lines up with the green ceiling. You see how…

$38 | PC, PS4/5, Mac | bugsnax.com Grumpuses love turning into bugsnax. And they aren’t shrieking monsters. They’re regular people, albeit bean-like and snaggletoothed. They’re cute, actually, and when they aren’t becoming snack foods, they even edge past wackiness and sentimentality and slice into human experience. I didn’t care for the actual bugsnax catching in Bugsnax, but working through the grumpuses’ insecurities was sweet – like a sweetiefly or a sprinklepede, perhaps. As you may have guessed, the bugsnax are literally bug-like snacks: grapeskeetos, pineantulas, sandopedes, and so on. You play as a nameless journalist who has been summoned to investigate these bugsnax by their discoverer. Except, when you arrive at Lizbert’s island, she and her partner Eggabell are both missing, and the settlement they established is in ruins. The…

ASIO ‘incidentally’ collecting COVID Safe app location data Intelligence agencies don’t seem to have used the data yet. The Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) published a report in November stating that ASIO has been “incidentally” collecting data from the government’s COVID Safe app, alongside other personal information. The report notes that although agencies have downloaded COVID app data, there is no evidence to suggest that any of this information has been decrypted, accessed or used in any way. The collection seems to have occurred alongside the broad collection of data under specific warrants, which is permitted by the Privacy Act and the IGIS has deemed that the agencies under its jurisdiction have sufficient policies in place to avoid intentional collection of COVID Safe data. Solomon Islands…

APC is Australia’s oldest consumer technology magazine – having been consistently in print for forty years, since our first issue way back in May 1980 – and we take that heritage and responsibility very seriously. While our focus is obviously on the personal computer the very definition of the PC has changed and shifted markedly since the early 1980s. As such, we touch on many other areas of tech, too, from smartphones and apps to peripherals, accessories, and beyond. We have two goals: to find the best modern tech and to help you make the most of it. We’re also an open church in terms of platforms. We know most people aren’t wed to a single brand’s products and use a variety of devices. And, like you, APC’s journalists want…

Workplace communication has been a major focus of the year, with companies left and right taking advantage of the fact that many employers cannot yet return to the office. Many have been pushing their business tools and productivity apps, while others have been focused on ways to expand their business to better accommodate for the new status quo. The latest expansion comes in the form of Salesforce, as it has announced its acquisition of Slack for a staggering US$27.7 billion. Slack went public last year for US$19 billion before seeing its shares fall. But the offer from Salesforce, which provides a suite of sales and marketing software tools, highlights just how important it is to meet the new remote workplace demands. Together, the companies plan to combining their extensive app…

The first game I booted up on my freshly unboxed Xbox Series X was the 2010 RPG classic Fallout: New Vegas. The first game I booted up on the PlayStation 5 was the 2010 indie platformer Super Meat Boy. No, not Watch Dogs Legion, or Dirt 5: I delayed the gratification of console ray-tracing and next-gen beauty in favour of the reassurance that yes, finally, console companies have woken up to themselves. The question of backwards compatibility has plagued the console world for decades, but the PlayStation 5 and new Xbox consoles are far from the first to offer such exhaustive support for their previous gen software. The PlayStation 2 was backwards compatible with the PSOne, and the first wave of PS3 consoles were also backwards compatible (the feature was…

It’s clear AMD has a new-found love for cache. Reworking the L3 cache on Zen 3 appears to be paying dividends when it comes to CPU performance, but AMD is going a step further with Big Navi, adding what it calls the Infinity Cache, with 128MB of basically L3 cache to reduce bandwidth contention. Officially, the chip is Navi 21 and will show up in Radeon RX 6900 XT, 6800 XT, and 6800 GPUs. But taking a cue from the enthusiast community, AMD has adopted the name Big Navi. And it really is big. Big Navi contains 26.8 billion transistors, which is just five percent shy of Nvidia’s GA102 chip. But the way AMD and Nvidia are using those billions of transistors is very different. Looking at the die shot,…

US$250 | clockworkpi.com Clockwork DevTerm An awesome looking portable code analysis tool for true cyberpunks. Indie hardware manufacturer Clockwork, best known for its popular Gameboy clone the GameShell, has developed a portable coding machine that looks like it’s straight out of Snowcrash. The DevTerm, as this old-school-looking portable laptop is known, consists of a mechanical keyboard and a screen that lies flat just above it in a similar style to the earliest laptops. The lightweight computing device is powered by a Raspberry Pi CM3+ Lite or a similar Clockwork Pi mainboard, so it’s only really capable of running things like server tests and code debugging on the Linux OS. 1TB $500 | shop.westerndigital.com WD Black D50 Game Dock Add an ultra fast SSD expansion drive to your gaming laptop dock.…

$899 | www.msi.com Nvidia’s RTX 30 series is further fleshed out with the release of the highly anticipated RTX 3060 Ti. While most of us lust over cards like the RTX 3080, we need to remember that they cost a lot in relative terms. Most gamers spend their hard earned dollars on cards a little more worldly. We have the MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X Trio on hand for review. At $899 it’s not what we’d call a budget card, but if you’re looking for a quality 1440p gaming GPU, the 3060 Ti might be just what you’re looking for. “When it comes to performance, the RTX 3060 Ti is faster than the 2080 Super and it destroys 2070 and 2060 class cards. Only the 2080 Ti from the…

$2,049 | www.draytek.com.au The rack-mountable DrayTek VigorSwitch P2540x stands out with a massive 54 ports all up, and a very competitive $2,049.95 RRP. Of the ports, 48 are Gigabit Ethernet (supporting eight link aggregation groups) with PoE of up to 30W each. Our only niggle is that it’s limited to 400W overall (8W per port), meaning that it is possible to run out of power before running out of ports. It then has six 10GbE SPF+ slots for high speed connections. While overkill for many smaller businesses, the P2540x is well equipped for those medium or larger size enterprises with substantial networking needs. Key uses might be running a security camera array, a VOIP phone system, data services or linking in remote sections of larger premises. Importantly, the six SPF+…

$999 | store.google.com The Google Pixel 5 is boldly bucking a trend in the smartphone market that this journalist would be very happy to see vanish entirely – the four-figure flagship. Google hasn’t necessarily solved this issue, but it does seem to have taken a very solid step in the right direction with this year’s lineup. The Pixel 5 is one of three handsets Google dropped on us in 2020 – the other two being the mid-range Pixel 4a and 4a 5G. There’s no Pixel 5 XL in sight, instead the regular ‘5’ has been given the premium treatment where it matters and had the luxurious fat trimmed to keep it (just) under $1,000. “While the Galaxy S20 from Samsung features a 1440x3200 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, the Pixel…

Free (IAPs) | noto.ink | NEEDS iOS 13 or later While Apple’s Notes app has gained functionality in iOS, it’s still fairly basic, and Pages is better suited to long-form writing. Noto is a dedicated note-taking app for iOS (and also for the Mac) that lets you add rich media content, while keeping its focus on usability. It’s free but some features like adding attachments and exporting require a Pro subscription ($1.49/month,$16.49/year, or $38.99/lifetime). Noto is straightforward, with a library view where you can create, open, and rearrange your notes. To the right, or fullscreen if you prefer, is the note canvas. There are two ways to enter information: creating it inside the app or dragging and dropping content from other apps. With the first method, tapping on the canvas…

Ampere adds support for HDMI 2.1, which provides up to 48Gbps of bandwidth. It also has DisplayPort 1.4a, which only has 32.4Gbps of bandwidth. Neither one has enough bandwidth to do 8K (7680x4320) at 60Hz without compression, but both can use DSC to spit out 8K60 with HDR. That’s still four times as many pixels as 4K, which means even on a 3090 it’s still going to be a problem. Enter DLSS 2.1. DLSS 2.0 has three modes: Performance (4x scaling), balanced (3x scaling), and quality (2x scaling). Even with performance mode, DLSS would need to scale a 4K signal to 8K – it could probably do it, but 8K upscaling is going to be more demanding than 4K upscaling. The solution: DLSS 2.1 adds a new ultra-performance mode with…

Coming from Windows or macOS, Ubuntu at first glance appears dramatically different. But don’t worry, soon it will feel just like home. Your first port of call might be the Applications menu, which you can access by clicking in the top left of the screen, or by pressing the Super (Windows) key. This shows any running applications, or if there aren’t any it will show frequently used ones. So the first time you click it this view will be barren. You’ll find a grid of installed applications by clicking in the bottom right, so have a nose around to see what interests you. The standard install includes everything you need to get started, and tries to avoid bundling things that you don’t. Perhaps we should have mentioned earlier the minimal…

We get it. A new Ubuntu release, even an LTS, isn’t the cause célèbre it once was. But we’ve always said that this lack of ground-breaking change is a good thing. It shows that Ubuntu has reached such a level of maturity that refinement, and not radical rewriting of the rules, is the optimal path. We also understand that there are plenty of other distros suitable for beginners (and let’s stress here that Ubuntu is popular with professionals too), and maybe some of those don’t get the attention that Ubuntu does. All that aside, Ubuntu remains one of the most popular distros among Linux users in general. “We’ve always said that this lack of groundbreaking change is a good thing. It shows that Ubuntu has reached such a level of…

Our new case for the mid-range builds is the PCO11-Dynamic from Lian Li, a sleek dual-chambered chassis with tempered-glass windows and tons of space. Lian Li has always been a high-quality choice when it comes to PC cases, and the PCO11-Dynamic is no exception. We’ve also got a new PSU for the Intel build, the MasterWatt 650, to provide a little choice when it comes to powering systems. Either power supply’s fine for our builds here. Both machines are getting a new cooler, the dual-fan A500 from Corsair (also seen in this issue’s build feature). It’s a beefy (but not too noisy) air cooler with swappable brackets that make it compatible with both AM4 and LGA 1200 CPU sockets. We looked into replacing the GPU these two machines share, but…

Broken Alienware? My monitor is an Alienware 25 and it says it will display 240Hz, but if I go to my settings to change it to 240Hz the screen goes black and then nothing happens until it reverts automatically to 60Hz. Do I need to have an Nvidia graphics card, or can I use it with an AMD graphics card? GREGORY MUENZER APC responds: There are two versions of the Alienware 25 monitor, and which model you have will determine which card you’ll need. The G-Sync version (model number AW2518H) requires a G-Sync compatible card, which basically means GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost or higher. If you have an AMD card – any Radeon RX model – you’ll need the FreeSync version (AW2518HF). One final consideration: 240Hz mode is…

There are several ways to run Windows-only apps on your Mac, but only one allows you to run them directly from your Mac desktop, and that’s Wine (winehq.org). Its command-line nature makes it fiddly to use, but thankfully more user-friendly variants exist. Of these, CrossOver for Mac 19.0 (bit.ly/cwwindonmac) is by far the best way to get Windows apps working on your Mac, but it’s not free: prices start from US$20.95. Luckily, there are several free alternatives – they’re not quite as user-friendly, but of these Porting Kit (portingkit.com) still manages to take a lot of hassle out of the process. “One fly in the ointment is that you’ll have to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) to use it in macOS Catalina. This requirement is likely to be removed from…

Everything in computing is polarised. Nvidia or AMD? Apple or Windows? PC gaming or console? There’s a whole plethora of argument-inducing debates to be had and statements and brands to align yourself with. And that is very frustrating, because a lot of the time it genuinely gets in the way of real progress and learning. Nowhere is this more evident in computing than with the “debate” surrounding the application of thermal paste. When you take a step back and think about it, it sounds insane. How can arguments descend out of this madness? Surely the way someone applies thermal paste isn’t worth having a fight over? This journalist has to admit he didn’t always think like that. There was one way of applying thermal paste, and that was it. It…

01 SAY GOODNIGHT Tap the settings gear icon, then tap Night Owl Reminder. Tap Bedtime to choose when you go to bed. OffScreen will remind you to put your phone down at this time. You can choose how often and how aggressively it reminds you. 02 KNOW YOUR LIMITS Use the Challenge settings to adjust how assertive OffScreen is in reminding you to have a break. For example, tap Continuous Use Challenge, then raise or lower the limit to set when the app suggests you take a breather. 03 IN SHARP FOCUS Focus mode can be adjusted in settings too. You can alter the number and duration of pauses you are allowed, the style of white noise the app plays, which apps are allowed through the Focus firewall, and more.…

01 FRE:AC CONTROLS The buttons provide shortcuts to frequently accessed tools and settings, including the all-important rip button. 02 JOBLIST All tracks requiring processing are listed here. Use the controls on the left to quickly select all, deselect all or invert selection. 03 METADATA Although fre:ac enables you to edit the currently selected track’s metadata, it’s quicker and easier to use Kid3. 04 MONITOR PROGRESS Progress bars show you how far the ripping process has got – both for the current track and the overall selection. 05 OUTPUT FOLDER You’ll need to set this manually for each audiobook CD you rip owing to issues with fre:ac’s automated tools. 06 MONITOR TRACK LENGTH When dividing audiobooks into roughly equal ‘parts’, the figure next to ‘X’…

01 SET COMMON TAGS Choose File >= Open to select all your audiobook’s files and click Open – they should appear highlighted in blue. Tick all the tags that will apply to all tracks: Album Artist, Artist, Album, Date, Genre and Composer, and fill in each field. Add your artwork by dragging the file to where it says ‘Drag album artwork here’. Click Save to save your changes. 02 ADD TRACK NUMBER Next, you need to tag each file with its specific track number. To do this, verify all files are still highlighted, then choose Tools >= Number Tracks. Make sure the Destination is set to Tag 2, click Save Settings to make this default going forward, and click OK. Select each file in turn to verify the correct track…

$89.95 | PC, PS4, PS5 | likeadragon.sega.com Playing a Yakuza game without series stalwart Kazuma Kiryu in the leading role takes some getting used to. But luckily for Yakuza: Like a Dragon, it’s easy to warm to new hero Ichiban Kasuga. He has all the strength and determination of his predecessor, but with a goofy sense of humour and an endearing enthusiasm for everything he does – whether that’s taking on the Korean mafia or employing a chicken to run a sweet shop. Ichiban starts out as a low-level yakuza in Kamurocho, the Tokyo red light district that serves as the main setting for most of the Yakuza games. But after a series of unfortunate events, he ends up homeless in Yokohama. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is about Ichi getting…

Free | PC, Mac, Linux | dustyroom.itch.io/ sparvagn In each cityscape, you have to manage a couple of tram lines long enough for all the waiting passengers to be collected. The trams move automatically, but you can pause them momentarily by clicking on them – and if you don’t, a collision will occur sooner or later. However, leave them paused too long and they might be bashed from behind by another tram running on the same line. And that makes all sorts of mess. There are red tracks, featuring red trams, and blue tracks featuring blue ones, with the different colours operating at different speeds. Multiple trams soon appear on each criss-crossing track, but you can only halt one of each colour at a time, giving you another thing to…

Free | PC, Mac, Linux | bit.ly/35XL5hL This asks you to imagine the world on the other side of that pane of glass. What’s going on in the lives of your neighbours? By clicking on four apartment windows, in any order you desire, you’ll witness glimpses of their lives, as they struggle with relationships and work-life balance. You’ll drop in on each twice before witnessing the resolution, which takes the form of direct interviews with the cast and seemingly a few of the (real) developers of Beyond Your Window. It’s an unusual ending, and I enjoyed how it leant against the fourth wall, coolly smoking a cigarette, but it didn’t seem to change based on the few decisions I had made throughout the stories. You’ll influence some quite a lot…