Tabla de contenidos para January 2019 en TechLife

THUS, THIS ISSUE’S FOCUS ON IN-CAR TECHNOLOGY, FROM GPS DEVICES TO CUT DOWN ON WRONG TURNS, TO DASHCAMS AND EVEN ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEMS FOR YOUR CAR. I’M ONE OF those travellers that really loves getting lost. I mean, often I like it more after the fact, but there’s an undeniable attraction - for me at least - to realising you’ve somehow wandered off the edge of your mental map and into Here be Dragons territory. In fact, just aimlessly wandering around is a great way to get a real sense of wherever you’re staying. I last did this in, of all places, Marrakech, which is a wonderful and remarkably challenging place to realise you’re lost. And it was great, because it really forced me to engage with the locals and…

USUALLY WITH A new iPad there’s one new feature that stands out, but this time around there are several such features, as Apple overhauls its most powerful (and most expensive) tablet. The first thing that will grab the attention of anyone picking up the iPad Pro 11 is the new screen, as it’s stretched closer to the edges of the device, with the formerly thick bezels reduced in width. The 11-inch screen itself has been upgraded by Apple to a Liquid Retina display, something we first saw on the iPhone XR when it launched recently. It doesn’t have the same stunning effect you get from an OLED display, such as you’ll find on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4, and given the high price the new iPad Pro commands, not having…

TIM BERNERS-LEE HAS watched his creation become an abusive platform with the spread of fake news, hate speech and political manipulation. Now he’s launched a global campaign to save the internet. At the opening of the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, recently, Berners-Lee has asked governments, tech companies and the public to sign a “contract for the web” to ensure people’s rights and freedoms are protected online. The contract, published on the World Wide Web Foundation website, has already been signed by more than 50 organisations and calls for immediate action. Dubbed the “Magna Carta for the web”, the document requires governments to ensure its citizens have access to the internet at all times “freely, safely and without fear”. It also asks tech companies to make the internet affordable to…

1. START THE CLOCK A ‘start’ signal is activated by the onset of an event that lasts a familiar amount of time, such as the three minutes it takes to boil some water in a kettle. 2. SYNCHRONISATION This triggers specific cortical nerve cells (which usually fire at different speeds, shown in A) to briefly fire together at the same time (B). They then return to their original firing rates, but because they all started simultaneously their activity follows a particular pattern. 3. DOPAMINE A subtype of brain cells called spiny neurons monitor the cortical neurons’ activity, keeping track of how many times their firing patterns repeat. When the event finishes – in this case, once the kettle has boiled – bursts of dopamine are sent towards the striatum. 4.…

APPLE’S MACBOOK AIR (2018) isn’t a bold reimagining of its iconic original MacBook Air, arguably the first ever Ultrabook, but it brings enough new features and upgrades that make it the best entry-level MacBook with a Retina display the Cupertino company has made. This year’s update includes updated hardware, a much-improved screen and a thinner and lighter design that makes it more easily portable – finally justifying the ‘ Air’ moniker. These welcome updates and new additions do come with a caveat, however: the MacBook Air (2018) is the most expensive MacBook Air to date. So, while the MacBook Air remains one of the more affordable ways to get a MacBook, do the new features justify the higher price tag? DESIGN When the first MacBook Air launched 10 years ago…

THE CHALLENGES THEMSELVES ARE DIFFICULT AND DELIGHTFULLY SILLY, WITH SOME FEATURING BOSS FIGHTS WITH SQUARE ENIX PRESIDENT YOSUKE MATSUDA AND PLATINUM GAMES PRESIDENT KENICHI SATO. NIER: AUTOMATA, PLATINUM Games’ action-packed robot drama, is getting a Game of the Year edition, according to the ESRB. Nier: Automata Game of the Yorha Edition recently appeared in the organization’s official ratings board, which is sound evidence of an impending release, though Platinum Games has not officially announced anything at the time of this writing. Nier: Automata originally released in February 2017, and it received a Game of the Year-esque revamp on Xbox One earlier this year with the release of its Become As Gods Edition. This special edition came with the game’s only major DLC – confusingly titled 3C3C1D119440927 – which includes new…

THERE HAS BEEN a huge trend among the best gaming laptops over the last year or so: make them as thin and light as possible, while shoving in as much power as you can. And, if you have the cash, laptops like the Razer Blade and MSI GS65 Stealth are absolutely worth it. BUT, FOR A lot of people, these options are simply too expensive. So, what kind of laptop do you go for in 2018 when everything seems to be so expensive? Well, budget laptops like the Dell G3 can deliver competent gaming performance at a budget price – just don’t expect too many bells and whistles. For instance, you’re not going to get Thunderbolt 3 or Windows Hello on this machine, but with a Coffee Lake H-series processor,…

BEFORE INTERFACES SUCH as Apple CarPlay, no one minded if their car’s dashboard only offered the most basic of digital information. There was a clock, for example, and if you were lucky you might have even be told what temperature it was outside. But as smartphone technology improved, drivers quickly demanded more from their vehicles. After all, why should the phone in your pocket have a better screen and more responsive user interface than the one in your car, which cost considerably more? To their credit, car manufacturers are faced with five, or even 10-year product cycles, so no matter how advanced their infotainment system looks at launch, it is bound to look dated well before the car gets its first facelift. That’s where Apple CarPlay comes in. Powered by…

IT’S NEVER A bad idea to have a dash cam mounted in your car - you never know when you’ll need footage from your windshield. Finding the best dash cam in 2018 can feel overwhelming; there are so many models out there, and many companies make more than one. But, once you find the best dash cam for you, it can be one of the most crucial bits of tech you own, coming in handy in the event of an accident, or in case something really amazing happens on the road that helps you become YouTube famous. We’ve sifted through some of the top dash cams to nail down the very best dash cameras for 2018. It’s important to point out that dash cams are much more than GoPros mounted…

OUR DREAM DEVICE WOULD HAVE THE BUILD QUALITY AND DESIGN OF THE IPHONE XS MAX, SCREEN AND STORAGE OF THE GALAXY NOTE 9, PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE OF THE MATE 20 PRO AND CAMERA AND STOCK ANDROID OS OF THE PIXEL 3 XL. FAILING THAT, OUR MONEY’S ON THE HUAWEI. All of the handsets reviewed in this feature come in at well over the thousand-dollar mark, which means your wallet can take quite a beating if you purchase outright. Thankfully, contract plans are available that spread the purchase price out over two or three years to a more budget-friendly monthly fee. We’ve analysed the available plans and come up with the best three options per handset, based on the entry-level model (except where otherwise indicated). Note – these comparisons were…

THERE’S A LOT of choice in the world of office suites these days. You can stick with Microsoft, of course, making sure you’ve got the absolute latest and greatest with 100 percent compatibility with Office file formats, or you can go for one of the many free alternatives such as LibreOffice or the FreeOffice software we’re looking at here. Thirdly, there are online suites such as Google Docs, or Microsoft’s own Office Online. Whatever you choose, the chances are you’re not going to just be creating documents for your own pleasure. You’re going to want to share them with other people. Microsoft’s file formats, based on the Open XML standard (DOCX, XLSX etc) are used for this a lot, and every office suite can read and write those files. FreeOffice…

MESSAGES IS ONE of the most widely used apps in iOS, thanks to its ability to send SMS and MMS messages, as well as those that use Apple’s iMessage protocol. By default, the app always tries to send using iMessage – for which the recipient needs to have a valid Apple ID and be connected to the internet. If that’s not possible, it will send messages via SMS (or MMS if it’s an image or video and the respective network providers allow it). We’re covering several less well used features of Messages here, including group conversations. Like regular messages, group conversations can be iMessage, if all the recipients meet the criteria, SMS or MMS. Here we’re focusing on the iOS version of Messages, but most of the features are also…

WHEN CRASHPLAN DISCONTINUED its Home product, it was a big blow to DIYers. CrashPlan was a backup software solution with one feature that really set it apart from the rest: the ability to set another PC as a backup target. You could back up your PC to your mother’s PC over the internet, and she could back up her PC to yours. You could back up your office PC with your travel laptop, and vice versa. That way your could create your own little resilient cloud backup system, without the annual cost or trust issues of using a cloud service like Carbonite or Mozy. We’ve been searching for an alternative to CrashPlan, and so far the best we’ve found is a great little backup app called BuddyBackup (www.buddybackup.com). In some…

CAPTURE YOUR SCREEN WITH EASE CAPTURE SCREENSHOTS AND VIDEOS WITH ASHAMPOO SNAP 9 FULL VERSION WORTH $40. Ashampoo Snap 9 is the ideal screenshot and video recording solution for your PC. Capture anything you see on your screen as images or videos and add additional information, e.g. texts or arrows. A picture is worth a thousand words - if it is done well! Use the integrated text recognition to copy entire pages of text or share your processed images with friends and family. Whether you need to explain, document or simply demonstrate - Snap 9 is always the best choice! Download link: www.ashampoo.com/techlifemagazine NEUTRALISE SPYWARE ENTIRELY STAY PRIVATE WITH ABELSSOFT ANTILOGGER FULL VERSION WORTH $33. Abelssoft AntiLogger is especially developed to detect and neutralize spy-ware. To harden your…

TECHLIFE IS AUSTRALIA’S most practical mainstream technology magazine, having been in print since 2012, when we launched as a redesigned and modernised version of Australian PC User. The latter was first printed in 1990, and we take that 25-year heritage seriously and strive to be both ethical and transparent in our coverage of technology and any other topics we broach. Like our sister magazine, APC, we have two main goals here at TechLife: to track down the best of modern tech and to help our readers get the most from 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 in their lives. And like you, TechLife’s journalists want to know what’s good…

$14.4 Billion AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT APPLE HAS PAID TO THE IRISH GOVERNMENT IN BACK TAXES AND INTEREST, FOLLOWING AN EU COURT CASE. THE EU ARGUED THAT A ‘SWEETHEART’ DEAL BETWEEN THE IRISH GOVERNMENT AND APPLE WAS ILLEGAL, AND GAVE THE IPHONE MAKER AN UNFAIR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. 16 NUMBER OF HYDROGEN-POWERED TRAINS THAT SHOULD BE RUNNING ON GERMANY’S NATIONAL RAIL NETWORK BY 2021. THE FIRST TWO TRAINS, MADE BY ALSTOM, ARE ALREADY IN SERVICE ON THE CUXHAVENBUXTEHUDE LINE IN THE NORTH OF THE COUNTRY.AN ELECTRO-HYBRID TRAIN, POWERED BY BATTERIES, IS ALREADY IN SERVICE NEAR THE CAPITAL, BERLIN. 80,000 NUMBER OF TONS OF PLASTIC IN THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH BEING TARGETED BY THE OCEAN CLEANUP PROJECT. The aim is to use a high tech, U-shaped boom, dubbed the Ocean Cleanup…

THE ORIGINAL SURFACE Laptop from Microsoft was a gallant first attempt in the professional ultrabook space, but it was too light on power to be useful for creatives, and Windows 10 S was a bit restrictive for a professional laptop (it works much better on the new Surface Go 2-in-1 tablets). Fast forward a year however and Microsoft has transformed the Surface Laptop line from a promising category into a refined and on point device that meets all of our initial expectations. The heart of the new Surface Laptop 2 is a quad-core Intel processor that starts with a Core i5-8250U (there’s no Core m3 model this year) and ranges to include a Core i7-8650U (the same CPU on Microsoft’s gaming-capable Surface Book 2 tablet). This power jump isn’t just…

THE CHARGE 2 really pushed the upper limit of what we could be expected from a dedicated fitness tracker when it launched towards the end of 2016. All-day heart-rate monitoring, connected GPS fitness tracking and automatic sleep tracking were features traditionally exclusive to more expensive smartwatches until the Charge 2 squeezed them into an affordable fitness tracker. So it’s not surprising that it’s been the company’s biggest seller, shipping more than 35 million devices worldwide. While it’s been more than two years since the release of its predecessor, the new Charge 3 has largely the same elevator pitch, namely: it’s a fitness tracker that offers enough features to compete with smartwatches without costing too much. As such, many of the legacy features that made earlier Charge devices appealing still contribute…

LOTS OF FUN – AT FIRST… $69 | PC, PS4, XO | fallout.bethesda.com I’VE PLAYED A lot of Fallout 76 solo, which is mostly doable with the exception of public events designed around groups and the occasional blunder of winding up toe-to-toe with a powerful monster. It’s a relief so much of Fallout 76 can be tackled alone, and in some cases it’s actually better that way: all that reading and listening to the story is easier without carrying on a conversation with friends at the same time. But I’ve teamed up with pals and strangers, and not only is it a fun way to explore and fight, it doesn’t stop you from going your own way. Being on a team doesn’t mean you need to be your partner’s constant…

RECLAIM YOUR KINGDOM – WITH CARDS! $40 | PC, PS4, XO | thewitcher.com IN THE WITCHER 3, Gwent is a card game that depicts warring armies. In Thronebreaker, warring armies are depicted by the card game Gwent. The difference is important: where The Witcher 3’s Gwent was a fixed minigame with consistent rules, Thronebreaker’s card-based combat warps and shifts based on the current situation. Usually, that means war, but sometimes it means a drinking game, a boss fight against a tough monster, or a stealth mission to slip past patrolling guards. If you’ve come to Thronebreaker to play pure, unadulterated Gwent, look elsewhere—to the free multiplayer version, Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. This singleplayer story is primarily an adventure RPG about a queen, Meve, and her journey to take back…

Survival Heroes THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Free with IAP survivalheroes.snail.com/ THE BATTLE ROYALE genre, where around 100 players all drop into a large battlefield and fight until only one (or a team of 2-4) remains, has exploded across all gaming platforms within the last year. Games like Fortnight and PUBG Mobile have rocketed to the top of the charts thanks to the exciting, challenging, visceral, and relatively quick action it provides. Survival Heroes builds on this genre by melding it with arguably the second most popular, the MOBA, where a hero is controlled with a top down perspective to attack other heroes and non-player enemies. Like Fortnite, Survival Heroes offers players either a solo or team experience, where you drop out of the sky and onto a particular area…

THE TV STREAMING box industry is heating up. As cord-cutters increasingly ditch their cable subscriptions and turn to streaming, many are looking for a full-featured, smart-home compatible streaming box that they can use to access content like Netflix, YouTube, and others. Xiaomi is the latest to enter this streaming market with the new Xiaomi Mi Box S. But Xiaomi has some tough competition to go up against. For starters, there’s Apple, which arguably dominates the space with the Apple TV and the newer Apple TV 4K. But there are dominant Android-based devices in the space, too: The Nvidia Shield TV is probably the most-loved and most powerful Android TV streaming box as it not only can play 4K content and serve as a PLEX server, but can also stream games…

WHENEVER I TRAVEL overseas, one of my most vital pieces of kit are my noise cancelling headphones, which can drown out the incessant engine drone on long haul flights. But I travel a lot more than most, so that kind of high-end kit isn’t necessary for most people simply wanting to drown out a noisy train or a bus full of school kids – and that’s where Plantronics’ new headphones come in, a reasonably priced and not too flashy pair of cans that are dialed in for the humble commute, not the jetset crowd. The Plantronics BackBeat GO 810 features a comfortably padded headband and a touch of bling in the gold-like finish on the inner-band material. The cups sit well over your ears, and all the controls are well…

THE BEST GPS isn’t necessarily your phone. We know that’s a bold statement, but look no further than this article for some of the best sat navs on the market, GPS gadgets for your car that will ensure you won’t get lost the next time you’re in an unfamiliar place. Few things are more frustrating than becoming hopelessly lost, especially when you’re on your way to do something fun, or have an important appointment to get to. The stress of driving around aimlessly just isn’t worth it for most drivers. Smartphones may have supplanted sat navs for many people, but phones don’t have the same robust navigation capabilities as a dedicated GPS device. Plus, running navigation drains your phone’s battery to unusable levels. We tested each of these devices, putting…

VIVALDI IS A new web browser from Jon von Tetzchner, one of the co-founders of Opera. It offers customisation, and access to Chrome plugins. But relevant to recent privacy concerns is Vivaldi’s approach to protecting personal data. If you use a mainstream browser, you might want to switch to Vivaldi to gain control over how some sites access and potentially exploit your personal data. There are also some excellent features, including a note-taking ability. If you use Safari, you may also want to consider switching to Vivaldi to access extensions not available for Apple’s browser. But bear in mind the possibility that extensions may access personal data independently of the browser. One drawback of Vivaldi is the lack of bookmark synchronisation. It is possible to import bookmarks from other browsers.…

ADJUSTMENT LAYERS ARE one of the simpler concepts of Elements, but that doesn’t mean they are any less pivotal for your editing endeavours. The adjustment layers are basic tools that control the colour, lightness and the tone of your pictures, and they can all be masked so that you can pinpoint your adjustments to specific parts of your images. Levels in particular are one of the most important adjustments in Elements. The adjustment enables you to alter the tone of your picture – the whites, the blacks, the darker and the lighter shades – and by using the RGB channel drop-down menu, you are able to target the red, green and blue tones in the pictures, in addition to the dark and light shades. The Levels adjustment is so great…

Amazon Audible for Dogs WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOF? $20, $16.45 per month | Audible.com.au/dogs Playing an audiobook to keep your dog calm when you can’t be home is a good idea. Is it a good enough idea to justify a standalone subscription service? No... no it’s really not. Despite this unanimously understood fact, Amazon has gone ahead and done it anyway. And it’s really leant into this inevitable faceplant, hiring animal behaviourist Dr Susan Hazel to curate custom ‘Classic’ and ‘Aussie’ literature collections that you can pay for every month or buy outright, with real money. It’s even roped in Osher Günsberg (the non-bachelor from The Bachelor) and his pup Frank to try sell this steaming pile of doggy-doo. Tech authority believes AI toilets are the future AI’S LATEST…

Flying pig or just a pizza? After reading your tech reporting on page 12, issue 84, I must ask: why do Australian government bodies and motoring associations think they can do it better than Google and Tesla who have already spent billions on developing and testing the autonomous car? With many deaths already reported using this technology we are also facing the possibility of having flying pizzas splatting our windscreens and causing further accidents. I just don’t understand the haste in adopting some technologies when the tech giants can’t guarantee that hackers won’t cause havoc already seen in health care and communications systems worldwide. I don’t wish to seem a Luddite but am concerned for the future based on past events as technologies can be sometimes more prestigious and other…

WHEN IT COMES to Australia’s broadband and cable internet, there’s little debate about how we stack up against the rest of the world. The most recent Ookla Speed Test Global Index ranked us 55th in the world, behind counties such as Kazakhstan and Slovenia. Another study has found similar results, but this time with a slight silver lining. The results of testing conducted by OpenSignal, a wireless coverage company, has revealed that 33 countries have faster mobile internet than they do home internet — and guess who’s sitting at the top of that list? The study found that Australians experienced a full 13Mbps difference on average between their Wi-Fi download speed and mobile download speed, with Lebanon, Qatar, Oman, Greece, and the Czech Republic (respectively) also experiencing over 10Mbps difference.…

There’s an underwater drone that could save the dying Great Barrier Reef AND IT’S CALLED LARVALBOT. It might have a weird name but the LarvalBot has been designed to spread coral babies across the Great Barrier Reef in areas that have been damaged by climate change. It’s an autonomous underwater drone that began life in August 2018 as the RangerBot, monitoring the reef and protecting the corals from the predatory crown-of-thorns starfish. Redesigned as the LarvalBot, the drone can be directed to a particular location on the reef to deposit coral larvae that have been bred in special floating enclosures till they’re able to survive in the wild. The drone is capable of distributing a large number of coral babies in a “larval cloud” if necessary, blanketing an entire area…

CREATING A WEBSITE used to be the domain (geddit?) of professional designers and coders, but thanks to free website builder applications, these days it’s something anyone can tackle. The problem is that there are so many website creation applications and services vying for attention that it can be difficult to know which one to opt for – this is where we can help. We’ve collated the very best free website builders available, including a mixture of offline software and online tools. It’s usually quicker, easier and more efficient to create and edit a site entirely online with a WYSIWYG editor, but if you want complete control over every aspect of your site’s design and web hosting, you’ll need a desktop-based free website builder. So whether you’re looking to create a…

Emojibuilder EXPRESS YOURSELF! phlntn.com/emojibuilder As its title may suggest, this website allows you to build custom emojis from a collection of parts and components of existing emojis. These range from the ubiquitous smile of the smiley to the more obscure alien face and dollar-tongue. The interface is really quite simple, with a selection of faces, eyes, mouths, and accessories on the left-hand side from which to draw from, and the canvas in the centre. Once you’ve selected a few of the face-pieces, you can then change the order in which they overlap, adjust their X-Y coordinates, or change their scale and rotation. If you think you’re in too deep, you can clear the canvas or completely randomise it, and if the array of components isn’t enough for you, you can…

The first pictures to come out of the Monster Hunter film adaptation were not particularly reassuring, with Milla Jovovich posting Monster Hunter set photos of her hanging out with fellow cast members decked out military uniforms. There wasn’t an oversized sword in sight. The latest photo, however, couldn’t come from anything other than Monster Hunter. It shows Jovovich as Natalie Artemis, this time no longer decked out in modern military gear, accompanied by Tony Jaa, who looks almost exactly like Monster Hunter: World’s Field Team Leader, right down to the ridiculous Giant Jawblade. Artemis’ gear is equally inspired by Monster Hunter World, and you might recognise the swirly pattern on her top from the Odogaron chest piece, specifically the male version, from the game. And yes, that’s a slinger that…

HAS THE 16TH CENTURY EVER LOOKED WEIRDER? $79.95 | PC, PS4, XO | www.darksiders.com IN KEEPING WITH the trend of the last two Darksiders games, this third instalment marks a transformation for the series. Unlike the semi-open world bloat of the sequel, Darksiders 3 is a lean Metroidvania with pacing similar to Dark Souls. If it weren’t for the critical bugs and performance issues that plague the game at launch, it’d stand among the greatest adventure games of the generation. As the game progresses, protagonist Fury is able to transform into different guises, each of which offer different benefits: one allows her to perform a fiery double jump, and another lets her glide in the air, to name two. The combat is satisfying and dexterity-driven, though occasionally fidgety and overwhelming…

DISCOVER THE FATE OF A STRICKEN MERCHANT SHIP. $24 | PC | dukope.com THIS IS A first-person puzzle game from Lucas Pope, creator of the acclaimed Papers, Please. It’s completely 3D, but rendered with a bold, beautiful art style that recalls the 1-bit dithered visuals of old Macintosh adventure games. But the Obra Dinn is no less atmospheric for it. In fact, the sense of place created by its hard lines and limited palette is quite remarkable. As you explore the ship you’ll find piles of sun-bleached bones that used to be the crew, and activating the pocket watch near them will whisk you away to a static, but wonderfully detailed, vignette of the seconds before they died—be it an unfortunate accident, a brutal murder, or something altogether weirder. And…

FOLLOWING ON THE heels of Google’s own Home Hub smart display (see TechLife 84, page 20), Lenovo’s joined this quickly-developing area with its own much bigger take on the “smart speaker with a screen”. And despite that display, this still is very much a device that’s intended to be voice driven. That’s done by waking Google Assistant with a voice command (“OK Google” or “Hey Google”) and then issuing instructions or asking simple questions – things like “set a timer for 30 minutes” or “what’s the weather tomorrow” – with the screen then providing more information alongside the usual Assistant voice responses. The display will also show certain info just based on time of day – like the weather and your calendar in the morning; the addition of a screen…

IT’S FAIR TO say that the Panasonic Lumix LX100 II is more of a incremental update than a massive overhaul, hence why Panasonic probably felt it merited a ‘Mark II’ designation (a first for a Lumix camera) rather than a whole new model name (many people were expecting the Lumix LX200). If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – the original Lumix LX100 was one of our favorite compact cameras, and while it’s been a little overshadowed in recent years, it’s still a nice camera to use. The good news then is that the Lumix LX100 II feels just like its popular predecessor: a portable, responsive premium compact camera with a fast lens and appealing external controls. The new grip makes it better to hold, and the increased resolution is…

IT SHOULD GO without saying that using your smartphone while driving is unsafe and, in most places, illegal. For years the answer was to suction-cup a sat-nav system from the likes of TomTom or Garmin to your windscreen, replacing the often-terrible mapping system of the car itself. Then smartphone mapping apps improved and those started appearing on windscreens instead. But so did their hundreds of daily notifications and distractions in the form of emails, Instagram Likes and non-stop WhatsApp group chats. The solution is to marry your car’s physical controls, designed to be safely used while driving, with the power of a smartphone. This resulted in Apple and Google coming up with solutions for their customers; CarPlay for iPhone owners and Android Auto for Android fans. WHAT IS ANDROID AUTO?…

HOLIDAY IN THE SUN HOORAH! YOUR SUMMER VACAY IS FINALLY HERE. MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TIME OFF, AND ENSURE YOU REACH YOUR DESTINATION IN STYLE, WITH THESE HOLIDAY MUST-HAVES FUJIFILM X-T20 CAMERA This well-designed and compact camera with a three-inch touchscreen is ideal for travel and takes cracking photos. Budding photographers can change controls themselves, or select the auto mode. $899, fujifilm.com SONY WH-1000XM2 HEADPHONES are essential as you travel, to distract yourself from delays and screaming kids. With best-in-class noise cancellation that adapts for your head shape as well as factors like pressure changes on a plane, plus a lightweight over-ear design, these are comfortable enough for napping anywhere. $499, sony.com.au SNAPCHAT SPECTACLES SUNGLASSES with a built-in camera are ideal for holidays. Grab 10- or 30-second video clips,…

With almost every smartphone using a different type of processor, it can be difficult to compare performance based on specs alone. This is where industry benchmarking software can help. Using a series of computational, memory and graphics test, these benchmarks can give you a good idea how each device performs relative to others. That being said, you’re going to get excellent performance at the premium end of the market no matter which device you end up with, so long as you’re rating it on day-to-day performance. It’s when you throw more challenging tasks at it like 3D gaming and video editing that the beefier specs spring into action. But it’s worth getting the best hardware possible so it’s future-proofed for several years. While the firepower in the latest smartphones is…

WINDOWS Strange entries appear at startup I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon at startup – command-prompt windows briefly flash up and disappear. I ran AutoRuns and have discovered a long list of entries marked ‘Uninstall 17.x.x.x’ listed as ‘Windows Command Processor’. What are these, and is it safe to delete them? JACKIE KENT Nick Peers replies: They’re all linked to OneDrive. They’re small scripts designed to clean up old versions of OneDrive after it’s updated. They’re supposed to delete a  redundant folder, then remove themselves from startup, but often they get left behind and the entries start to mount up. This is a bug with OneDrive itself, but despite several references online, there’s no definitive way to stop it happening. Thankfully, you can at least clean them out periodically…

Easy access to security options is a welcome feature, but Vivaldi also includes tremendous customisation and interface options. One great feature is the ability to have a window that displays multiple websites in the same panel. Vivaldi does this by using Tab Tiling. To start, open two or more tabs by using command-T. Next, drag one of the tabs over the other until the latter one dims, then let go. Repeat with other tabs. Once all the tabs are contained in one Tab Stack, control-click it and choose Tile Tab Stack to see the websites side by side.…

THESE DAYS YOU CAN SIMPLY TAKE A CORRECTLY EXPOSED SHOT OF THE SKY AND A CORRECTLY EXPOSED SHOT OF THE FOREGROUND, THEN BLEND THE BEST  BITS OF EACH IN SOFTWARE. DIGITAL CAMERAS HAVE largely done away with the need for carrying a stack of optical filters around. In the heyday of film photography, you might have required a set of colour correction filters to warm up or cool down the light, depending on what type of film you had loaded in the camera. But a digital camera’s white balance control lets you change the camera’s colour response from shot to shot. Special-effects filters – such as diffusers to create a soft-focus look, or star filters to add a starburst effect to light sources – have largely taken a back seat…