Table of contents for January 2021 in TechLife

Some more details have been revealed concerning Microsoft’s mysterious CloudPC service thanks to a recently posted support document. The document provides further confirmation that the service is in development, although few details remain available regarding how it will function. The document marks the first time that Microsoft has publicly referred to the “CloudPC” service, which previously had only been mentioned via unofficial leaks. Nevertheless, there is quite a bit of unsubstantiated information regarding CloudPC available. The service is expected to launch sometime in early 2021 and is expected to deliver a Desktop as a Service solution, giving business customers a modern, elastic, cloud-based Windows experience. It will be built on top of Windows Virtual Desktop and will see Microsoft manage the service, meaning that companies won’t have to look after…

$2,899, www.asus.com The design of the Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 GU502 will be familiar territory to those who have encountered a Zephyrus laptop before. Although it’s far from the thinnest or lightest laptop in the world, with dimensions of 360 x 252 x 18.9mm and a weight of 1.9kg, it’s impressively svelte for a gaming laptop. Asus claims it’s 25% thinner and 45% lighter than traditional 15-inch laptops, and when it comes to the likes of the HP Omen 15, the Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 GU502 easily beats it in the portability stakes. Straight off the bat, then, if you’re looking for a gaming laptop that’s easy to carry around with you, the Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 GU502 is well worth considering. The laptop has a rectangular design that can…

$749, www.xbox.com The Xbox Series X isn’t an essential purchase – at least, not right now. But that isn’t to say it’s not a fantastic piece of hardware, with a lot of potential. The next-gen Xbox is super-fast, surprisingly quiet, and delivers the kind of performance that we’ve previously only seen from high-end gaming PCs, ensuring that games – both old and new – look and perform better than ever before. The design of the Xbox Series X is a major departure from its predecessors – the upright tower design is more reminiscent of a desktop gaming PC, although you can position the console horizontally, too. Measuring 15.1 x 15 x 30.1cm and weighing 4.45kg, the cuboid-shaped console is matte black all over, apart from a green hue inside the…

VR is taking a trip down memory lane this month offering a remastered version of the classic 90’s puzzler Myst and bringing the Medal of Honour franchise to the 3D gaming realm. AI is back to saving the world by helping the blind run autonomously and giving you kitty a voice through a ‘meow’ translation app. On the other hand, some researchers are designing AI robot swarms that’ll build infrastructure for the US army, while others try to get AI to autonomously acquire goals by playing RPG games... so the moral tug of war for machine learning continues this month. AI also lands a major Zucker-punch on Facebook’s CEO with an almost intelligible poetic performance. VR Neatsy AI 3D foot sizing app 3rd party software for ordering shoes for the…

Hades, the stylish dungeon crawler from Supergiant Games, has been named as this year’s winner of the Critic’s Choice category in the Golden Joystick Awards 2020. A beautiful and brutal tour through the Greek underworld, the game has found a legion of fans who can’t get enough of its fast-paced action, mythical weapons, and its cast of beguiling characters. Plus the fact you can of course pet Cerberus, Guardian of the Underworld, who is a very good boy. You play as Zagreus, son of Hades, desperate to escape his deathly home and make it to Mount Olympus. Enemies and hazards stand in his way, but gods like Zeus will drop in to lend a helping hand in the form of buffs. You won’t succeed on your first try, but every…

US$49.99, Xbox, PC www.footballmanager.com Every aspect of Football Manager is vital, from training to transfers, but the place you immediately notice improvements is on the pitch. The game still doesn’t flaunt the FIFA-esque visuals plenty of fans desire, but every animation from shots flying into the corner to last-ditch sliding tackles look more fluid and natural. Player behaviour has gone the same way too. Last year, it would be nothing short of a miracle if a player scored a one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Now, the striker is very much favoured, as would be the case in real life. Cutting the ball back across the face of goal has been non-existent in Football Manager for years too with wingers preferring to blast the ball into the side netting, baffling armchair managers everywhere.…

US$32.95, PlayStation, PC www.bugsnax.com Young Horses is making quite the name for itself by creating rather unusual games. Following on from Octodad: Dadliest Catch – a game about having a suit-wearing octopus for a dad – Bugsnax will see you play as a journalist called in to investigate a remote island by the name of Snaktooth, where odd creatures called Bugsnax have been discovered. You’ve been sent a sepia-toned video by Elizabert Megafig, an explorer of infamous proportions, and she wants you – specifically you – to come on down to Snaktooth to check it out. Aside from the core quest to find Elizabert, most of your time will be spent exploring Snaktooth for yourself, and building up your collection of the titular Bugsnax. As the name suggests they’re part…

“Every phone is a compromise between cost and quality, and the Moto G9 Plus gets the balance just about right, we think.” $399, www.motorola.com.au If you’re buying a phone on a budget then you’ve got a whole host of handsets to pick from, and quite a few of them are made by Motorola. The Moto G9 Plus is here to join the likes of the Moto G9 Play and the Moto G 5G Plus down at the affordable end of the market – it’s a crowded field, but that does at least mean there should be a phone out there for everyone. What you need to know about the Moto G9 Plus is that it’s $399, and it has a big and bright screen, a long-lasting battery, and a decent…

$1,499, www.samsung.com The Samsung HW-Q950T soundbar, the company’s flagship model for 2020, is here – but should you buy it? Samsung’s new flagship ups the channel count from its predecessor to a remarkable Dolby Atmos / DTS:X-friendly 9.1.4 configuration, despite sporting a slimmer form, and introduces a host of genuinely useful new smart features. All without costing more than its illustrious HWQ90R predecessor. It’s great to see that the soundbar is now slimmer, which means it will fit more comfortably under a range of different-sized TV. Its newly angled front corners are stylish, too. However, we preferred the metallic grille finish of Samsung’s previous soundbar generation to the new Kvadrat felt one we see here. Plus, the decision to move the small onboard display from the front edge to the…

$299, www.hypershop.com The Sanho Corporation is a small computer and office electronics business that is based in Fremont, California and was started by Singapore-born entrepreneur Daniel Chin in 2005. Under its Hyper branding, it sells a wide range of computer and mobile device peripherals including chargers, battery packs, cables and docking stations. Amongst its latest designs are three new docking stations, and it’s one of those, the HyperDrive GEN2 18-in-1 USB-C Dock, that we’ll be looking at today. The case feels substantial, and it also provides an effective means to cool the internal electronics, which can consume up to 9.5 watts according to the specification. What’s fascinating to us is how dock makers decide what ports go on the front of their equipment and what goes on the rear. This…

Maps Travel anywhere Google Maps offers some of the most accurate and complete online maps in the world. The coverage has improved over the years thanks to a huge investment by Google and you can also use it to navigate anywhere. Current traffic conditions are a feature and so it can also be used in place of a commercial navigation solution. The level of detail for each establishment you locate is impressive, thanks to the connection to Google Search, and the Street View feature adds even more realism to the experience. No matter what type of mapping requirement you have, this is the ultimate solution for any occasion. It is quite brilliant. Gmail Stay connected If you use Gmail, you will want to download the associated app. It includes all…

Initially, it would be fair to say that Android tablets struggled to compete in terms of apps available and even the suitability of each app. Many apps were simply stretched to fit the larger screen and this led to concerns about usability, but in short order app developers started to embrace Android tablets and create apps that were worthy of the platform. Samsung and other manufacturers then jumped on board and today we have a vast array of tablets available that push the boundaries of what a mobile computer can do. If you want a mobile experience that is close to a full computer in your hand, an Android tablet is the ideal way to go.…

Whether it’s sending basic messages through Gmail, uploading videos to YouTube, sharing photos or hooking up for a face-to-face video chat through Google Hangouts, communicating is made easy through the company’s numerous free services. We’re really only scratching the surface in this guide, but for now we thought it important for you to get accustomed with some of the respective services’ lesser-known features, which can make using them even more intuitive and speed up your productivity no end. Since Gmail is used by people at work and at home on a massive scale, we have focused mainly on cool tips for getting the most out of that service – such as interesting ways to manage your inbox and how to activate a truckload of keyboard shortcuts to cut the time…

The labels feature is a useful aspect of Gmail that helps you to organise your message into categories – such as work, family, sport, school, or any category that you want. Essentially, labels do the same job as folders but with one major advantage: you can add more than one label to a message. Only you can see your created labels, so whether you mark a message with ‘BFF’ or ‘Read when hell freezes over’, the sender will never know. Creating new labels is a quick and easy process, and once created they will sit in the sidebar to the left of the Gmail interface. From here you can click on their drop-down arrows to change aspects of them and adjust the settings, and then you can easily apply your…

1 Gmail Offline lets you read and respond to emails offline by storing emails as they are received on your computer. Emails written offline are delivered when online. 2 Ad Block prevents pop-ups and spam sites from disturbing you. It also has a great selection of filter options and the ability to hide sections of certain pages. 3 FVD makes downloading video files through your browser easy. Once a video is detected on a webpage, click the FVD widget and a download link appears.…

1 In a Google Document, highlight a piece of text you’d like to get more information on. Right-click and click ‘Explore Highlighted text’. This will open a research pop-up window within Google Docs. 2 Depending on the content of the text you selected, you’ll get varying results. At the top of the pop-up will be a summary of the wording as best compiled by Google, followed by web results. 3 Use the tabs at the top of the ‘Explore’ column to access web info, pictures and any related content from your Google Drive. It’s a handy way to access key information quickly to help with any project.…

1 Omnibox can do much more than access websites. If you don’t know the name of the site you’re after, type in some relevant keywords and let Google find it. 2 You can do equations in Omnibox, using the +, –, * (multiply) and / (divide) icons. Type in an equation for an instant result, then continue with more operations. 3 It can do weight and measurement conversions too. Phrase the conversion in the form of a question using numerals; eg ‘How many gallons are in 4 litres?’…

With your audio hopefully now residing nicely within the software arrangement window, you can start the process of editing. Editing is the process of cleaning, or enhancing, audio using the tools available within the software. If your recording features multiple voices, it’s good practice to either lower the volume – or remove completely – parts where a specific person isn’t talking as this removes any background noise and allows the listener to focus entirely on the subject. Look for peaks in the wave file too; in the example above the audio clips slightly in the part we highlighted. In Audition, you can lower the volume of parts like this quickly and easily using the Clip Gain function, making it ideal for doctoring plosives or sibilance. Be careful using this too…

THIS MONTH Q&A Your questions answered WINDOWS Shortcut Windows 10 MAC Calibrate your Mac's display iOS Sort out your social life ANDROID Telepresence robots and Androids SECURITY & PRIVACY Snooping Android 11 HOME NETWORKING Optimising your network for games FITNESS Are you getting enough sleep? A/V HDMI 2.1 explained PHOTOGRAPHY Double distance focusing DIGITAL DARKROOM Create amazing dog portraits Blu-ray ripping I am building a new PC to be used to rip a large collection of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and I would like your thoughts as to which hardware would make the task faster. I use a software package called Pavtube to do the conversion. The software has an option to speed up the process by enabling Nvidia’s CUDA cores on the graphics card. I see when I look…

REQUIRES iPhone, Howbout app, iOS 11 or later YOU WILL LEARN A smoother way to make social plans IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes GENIUS TIP Howbout isn’t just for arranging real-world meets: you can also use it to share a virtual video meet-up in popular apps such as Zoom or Skype. Trying to get all your friends together can sometimes feel like herding cats: when Alex and Jai are free, Arusa and Jamie aren’t. If the simplest social activity seems to involve endless emails, calendar checks and texts, you’ll be delighted to discover that there’s an easier way to sort out your social life: Howbout. Howbout, formerly known as Zyng, uses calendar sharing to make your social planning much smoother. Simply connect to your friends (if they don’t already use…

A viable nuclear fusion reactor, one that spits out more energy than it consumes, could be here as soon as 2025. If a fusion reactor reaches that milestone, it could pave the way for a massive generation of clean energy. During fusion, atomic nuclei are forced together to form heavier atoms. When the mass of the resulting atoms is less than the mass of the atoms that went into their creation, the excess mass is converted to energy, liberating an extraordinary amount of light and heat. Fusion powers the Sun and stars, as the mighty gravity at their hearts fuses hydrogen to create helium. But an enormous amount of energy is needed to force atoms to fuse together, which occurs at temperatures of at least 100 million degrees Celsius. However,…

What’s the best drone for a hike? Chris Henson Ho ho ho: drones don’t walk, silly! They fly! Once Guru has served his full life sentence in dad joke jail, he will recommend you something that does automated person-stalking, because presumably you want a device that’s going to film you huffing and puffing your way along a trail for some kind of ill-advised posterity, you narcissist you. You actually have a choice between person-recognition tech or drones that latch on to a GPS signal. There’s a vaster selection in the former bracket, with DJI’s latest Mavic Air 2 leading the pack. It’ll fly for around 30 minutes, and can transmit video from up to six miles away if you’re just looking to check the trail ahead for bears or unruly…

$69, Switch, www.nintendo.com Nostalgia is a strange beast. It can distort and twist your view of something old and forgotten into cherishment and longing, as though you’re desperately trying to revisit something from past years for some obscure reason. Through Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, I discovered it’s possible to have nostalgia for something that’s barely four years old. That would be The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a prequel to the Nintendo Switch adventure, set 100 years before Link stumbles out of a cave to be greeted by a ruined world. There’s major differences between the two games, the most pronounced being the musou hack-and-slash combat, popularised by Koei Tecmo’s long standing Dynasty Warriors series, used against hordes of enemies by…

$429, www.dell.com The Dell S2721D, along with the rest of the Dell S series monitors, is all about bringing a quality experience without breaking the bank. At its $429 price point, the entry-level Dell S2721D offers a reasonable package. The 27-inch 1440p screen has a 75Hz refresh-rate which should satisfy any casual gamer. Meanwhile, users more interested in a monitor for video or photo editing will be satisfied with the vivid IPS panel that hits 99% of the sRGB colour gamut. Just be mindful of some caveats – built-in speakers provide limited audio clarity and they don’t get very loud. For a QHD monitor in 2020, not supporting high dynamic range (HDR) is also disappointing, but not terribly surprising in such an affordable display. Anyone willing to overlook those flaws…

$479 (38mm), $499 (42mm), withings.com Every smart watch and fitness band out there will tell you your heart rate, which they do via optical sensors that look at blood vessels to measure variation in blood flow. Fidelity is generally low, but absolutely good enough for taking a quick check or monitoring your heart rate during exercise. But, only the Withings ScanWatch can do a medical-grade ECG (electrocardiogram), measuring with astonishing accuracy the electrical impulses in your heart that are used to get a super accurate reading. Just launched in Australia, it beats the Apple Watch (and many others) with this feature, and, is approved by the Australian government’s Therapeutic Goods Administration as a medical device. This makes it a game-changing product and – for many – a potentially life saving…

“Overall, audio is great. Not the best out there but it certainly hits the spot.” $349, www.jabra.com.au Jabra isn’t a company shy of innovation. More often than not, the Danish audio brand is first to market with cutting-edge in-ear headphone designs, pioneering more compact form factors while retaining the great sound quality the firm is known for. Thankfully, the same goes for the brand new Elite 85t earphones. As the name suggests, they follow in the footsteps of Jabra’s last release, the Elite Active 75t, with a very similar design. However, the main difference here is that they’re not aimed at sports (although they are still rugged enough to be used for low-impact fitness thanks to IPX4 water-resistance). Instead, these buds focus on improving the audio experience and boast ANC,…

When you think of Google, search engines and emails may come to mind, but there is a lot more to the company than just these runaway successes. It is true that Google dominates search and email, but did you know that YouTube is owned and powered by Google and so are many other online services that you may already be aware of. Over time, Google has grown from a company that provides the best search engine on the internet to one that can power almost every aspect of our computing lives. Google now provides the most popular email service in the world and enables people to store billions of documents online. It provides ultra-fast broadband and the operating system for the most popular smartphones – it sometimes feels that everything…

You will likely know the most popular apps and services that Google runs, but there are other apps that the company has either acquired or developed over time that may surprise you. Some of these apps offer no obvious indication at all that Google is involved, but you can be assured that they will work flawlessly and bear all of the hallmarks of the Google system behind the scenes. Reliability, accuracy and speed are obvious throughout. From community-based navigation to image editing, Google’s reach extends way beyond the obvious and into a variety of areas, but ones that remain eminently useful. The company is now even delving in to the world of home automation, too, but no matter what unusual Google app you use, chances are that it will work…

In the very early days of Android, the iPhone was receiving all of the headlines and was trying to drag early adopters away from traditional phones such as the Treo 650 and other smart niche devices. It was clear, however, that a new approach was needed for smartphones to gain mass market appeal and so Android was quickly developed to offer as complete a system as was possible at the time. Phones dominated by screens were created alongside more traditional units with hardware keyboards, but it would be fair to say that the early versions were somewhat experimental. Just like the iPhone, the features were limited not just by the ability to create powerful software, but also by the slow mobile networks available at the time. Google invested heavily, both…

It’s all too easy to view Android as a smartphone platform, but with Google’s expertise in general web connectivity, and with online services being able to connect multiple devices together as one entity, there is a lot to look forward to. You can already send all of your films and photos to your TV using an accessory and you can use your Android device as your entertainment hub when driving. Add to this the ability to control various devices in your home and you can start to imagine where all of this will end up. Android does not have a direct affiliation to a desktop operating system like the iPhone (Mac OS) or Windows Phone (Windows), but this is actually an advantage. It will be able to work as a…

The Chromecast is an extremely well-priced accessory that plugs into the back of a TV. Your Android device can then stream films and video clips to it wirelessly to offer a much better experience than watching on a phone or tablet. On top of this, you can cast apps to the TV as well and enjoy games as you would with a dedicated games console. Viewing photos is easy too and the actual Chromecast app will display a series of customisable photos on the TV when you are not using it. Support for Netflix, YouTube, and other well-known services is included as well to round off a complete feature set. The setup process is simple and the system works reliably, which makes it one of the most useful accessories available…

Google’s product portfolio is packed full of services to help you communicate with others – be it via email through Google’s Gmail service, via videos uploaded to your YouTube channel or via text messages through Chat. Also accessible through Google is the Hangouts service. This allows you to instantly hook up with people from your social circles using your computer’s webcam and chat in real-time, which is the next best thing to meeting up in person. Hangouts is an ever-present feature of Google and can be accessed by clicking on the Hangouts icon in the top-right corner of the interface. Here you can choose to create a new Hangout, hook up with people you have hung out with previously by selecting them from the list, or you can make yourself…

Getting organised with Google’s huge array of web, mobile and tablet apps goes way beyond syncing your emails and calendars and setting up a few bookmarks for your favourite sites. It is now possible to shift your entire life onto Google, utilising its free services to better manage everything from everyday tasks, to the running of your business, and keeping up to date with your stocks. The key is how you implement these tools into your life. A lot of what’s available through Google’s web browser, Chrome, is not always hugely advertised. There are a lot of great unknown tricks and tips for speeding up your workflow and streamlining the way you and your devices communicate with Google. In the following tutorials you will learn how to make the most…

If you’re finding yourself getting distracted by your phone at work then check out the Chrome Desktop Notifications extension. Sync your Android device’s notifications with your Chrome web browser with this Chrome extension and Android app. So whenever you receive a notification for a missed call, for example, on your Android device, it’ll be forwarded to Chrome, which will display the push notification in a pop-up window on your desktop, allowing you to screen calls and messages from there. This will also be useful when your device is on silent but you want to monitor its activity. Check out these steps to learn how to install and run the Desktop Notification service. There is currently no such extension for iOS devices, but several other Chrome-to-iOS extensions are available. Chrome Forward…

Over the years, instant messaging (or IM) has evolved into a full-fledged, feature-rich medium for communication. Besides simple text messages, a typical IM session includes the exchange of images, audio and even video streams. While the primary users of IM are home users, IM has also been adopted for use by companies behind corporate firewalls. Both kinds of users have a different set of requirements and a plethora of messaging services have popped up to satiate the growing demand for instant messaging. In their bid to outdo the competition, virtually all of the popular IM services use their own home-brewed proprietary protocol. However, one thing many of them overlook is security. To offer a better communication experience to their users, these publicly accessible services route all your private exchanges via…

There is a lot to be said for using a mouse or trackpad to get around Windows and the programs you use, but keyboard shortcuts can be so much faster. In this article we’ll reveal some of the most useful keyboard shortcuts for Windows 10. Try not to feel intimidated... you don’t need to learn all of them at once! There are a lot of shortcuts to learn, but you can gradually start to use one or two to start with, then add a couple more when you’re familiar with them. Keyboard shortcuts don’t give you any extra options or features, but they can really speed up everyday computing tasks. If you are typing, there’s no need to move your hands from the keyboard constantly to grab the mouse. Just…

Tired of being beaten in online games because of lag? You’re Australian – of course you are. Due to geography we generally have a pretty poor experience with online gaming – but there are some things you can do to help the situation, and this month we’re going to look at a few. What is (and isn’t) important for games Games have somewhat unique needs. Unlike streaming, downloading or browsing, their bandwidth needs are typically not very high (unless you’re actually streaming games, as with Stadia or Cloud Gaming With Xbox Game Pass, in which case the bandwidth needs are extremely high). A 25mbps connection should be more than enough for gaming needs. Bandwidth only becomes an issue when congestion does – if you have a bunch of people in…

The HDMI cables connecting your Blu-ray player to your television, projector or soundbar work perfectly well, and that’s all that matters, right? Not quite. If you’re thinking of buying a new TV in the near future, you may have seen HDMI 2.1 appear on the specification sheet. HDMI 2.1 is a new standard that has increased bandwidth, supports higher frame rates, and can carry not just 4K, but up to 10K video from your source to your screen. For anyone into home cinema, HDMI 2.1 is a big deal. It supports Dynamic HDR formats, such as Dolby Vision and HDR10+, which allow the television to adjust its picture based on frame-by-frame information and make your movies and TV shows look their best. Also implemented in the most recent HDMI 2.1…

For decades, the core technique for precision focusing was the hyperfocal method, especially in landscape images. This makes use of pre-calculated focus distances to quickly set a lens for an acceptable level of sharpness throughout. It is calculated using the formula H = f² / Nc + f, where H is hyperfocal distance, f is focal length, N is f-stop and c is circle of confusion. However, while generally suitable, hyperfocal focusing doesn’t always deliver optimal results. The values used are based on outdated parameters, namely the circle of confusion, which refers to the physical size of a blurred point of light, measured in milimetres. The term “acceptable sharpness” is also objective, and was originally based on the quality of lenses and film available in the 19th century. In today’s…

$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. While there is a place in the world for the Ultra, Pro, Plus and Max models out there, it’s getting harder to swallow the growing price of their ‘entry-level’ siblings. Every major manufacturer has begun steering the full range of its primary lineup in the premium direction, making for rapid price increases across the board. You can pay around $1.5K for an iPhone 12 or Samsung Galaxy S20 right now and it’ll be far from the top model in their respective ranges, then there’s the fact of how rapidly their prestigious place in the lineup will be usurped. This isn’t…

For anyone who’s ever dreamt of starting a career as a podcaster, streamer, or musician, being stuck indoors due to the current global crisis does have one potential upside: it’s an awesome opportunity to get the ball rolling. One of the biggest barriers to entry to this scene, however, is acquiring all the kit you’ll need to sound professional. Thankfully, recording-industry giant Audio-Technica has just released a Content Creator Pack, with three crucial tools for anyone aiming to capture studio-grade audio. Included in the pack is the ATR2500x-USB condenser microphone, ATH-M20x studio monitor headphones, and a handy boom arm to help position the mic where you’d like (and also look the part in the process). The pack retails for $349, but we’ve already seen some retailers discount it to $299…

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three scientists for their work involving some of the cosmos’ most mysterious, darkest secrets: black holes. Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford in the UK received half of the prize “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity,” while Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles and Reinhard Genzel of the University of Bonn and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany jointly shared the other half “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy”. For his part, Penrose showed with eloquent mathematical models that the very existence of black holes is a direct consequence of Albert Einstein’s most famous theory;…

$749, www.playstation.com We were hoping for great things from the PS5, and Sony’s next-gen console delivers. Sony has re-imagined the key parts of the experience – from a simpler setup and new well-thought-out user interface, to a revolutionary controller and added bonuses for PS Plus members – and the result is a console that we can’t help but be impressed with. Sure, there are problems with how few first-party games there are at launch – and it would have been nice to see support for previous generations of PlayStation titles, not just PS4 games – but the PlayStation 5 feels like a solid investment nevertheless, and we’re confident that the PS5 experience will improve with age. Design If gaming consoles had weight classes, the PS5 would be in the heavyweight…

Since the release of the limited edition device, viewers of YouTuber ‘stacksmashing’, who hacks and dismantles consoles online, have been asking him if it can play Doom. Stacksmashing’s latest video demonstrates how he was able to hack the Nintendo Game & Watch in order to port Doom: “It’s not yet performing great, I had to remove a lot of textures, sound had to be disabled, there screen resolution is slightly reduced, and there’s still a lot to do before you can enjoy the full game.”…

The morning the PlayStation 5 came out, on November 12, you could kinda use the new DuelSense controller on PC, but with no way to configure it or tap into its rumble motor or motion controls. By the end of the day, developers at Valve had already released a Steam beta build that made it easier to plug in the controller and start using it, though without those advanced features. Six days later, the DualSense was almost fully working with Steam, including rumble, gyro, and the trackpad. Within just days, Valve had made sure one of the most exciting new features of the next-gen consoles was compatible with our PCs, too. The DualSense can’t do everything on PC that it can do on the PlayStation 5, just yet. Steam’s isn’t…

From $1,099, www.apple.com/au With the new Apple Mac mini (M1, 2020), we finally see the smallest Mac get a much-needed update. And it arrives with some bold promises, as Apple is claiming up to three times faster CPU performance than the previous Mac mini, and up to six times the graphical performance. That’s all thanks to Apple’s new M1 system on a chip (SoC). Debuting in the new Mac mini, the new MacBook Air (M1, 2020), and the new MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1, 2020) laptops, the M1 allows the new Mac mini to compile Xcode up to three times faster, play intensive games, and render complex Final Cut Pro scenes much faster than the previous model, all while retaining its small and compact chassis. Design Like the new MacBook Air…

The logical extension for Android is to take the already mobile form of the smartphone and miniaturise the experience so that you can access the most important features from your wrist. Android Wear devices obviously work as watches when worn and can display the time continually in a low power mode, but they also do much more. New emails, messages and notifications will immediately be sent to the watch so that you never miss anything and you can also measure your heartbeat and steps when exercising. You can check the weather, track flights, navigate and do much more without ever touching your phone, and the advantages do not stop there. Just like the main Android operating system, multiple manufacturers have got involved and we now have a variety of Android…

Imagine for a minute an operating system that is always protected from viruses and malware, and which you never need to update. Now, imagine being able to download from thousands of free apps that all work together, and having every Google service available to you by just logging in once. Well, you do not need to imagine any of this because it is available in Chrome OS, which runs on Google’s Pixel Slate, and many other Chromebook devices beside. Built for both work and play, the device is a sleek tablet, but purchase the optional Slate Keyboard accessory and the Pixel Slate begins to work as a laptop. With the Pixelbook Pen you can write and draw on the screen.…

Drones are currently receiving a lot of attention, and much of it is quite negative, but the potential future uses for this technology are actually very positive. Google has already started testing drones in Wing (formally Project Wing) to deliver goods to customers, which would potentially greatly speed up receipt and also cut a lot of waste out of the traditional delivery systems we still use today. It sounds bizarre, but Google has tested delivering a package using a drone, which lowers the package by a type of fishing line from 150 feet in the air. This type of technology would be ideal for so many of the items that we currently purchase, and will likely be more environmentally friendly and safer. Concerns remain over safety and the privacy implications…

Google Tasks is a lesser-known feature of Gmail that can prove to be an incredibly useful to-do list. With Tasks you can just click and type to add new tasks, set due dates or add notes, and then tick each task off as you complete it. Your task list stays up to date no matter how you access it (which you can do via other Google services such as Calendar and through your mobile device’s Gmail app), and it’s always with you wherever you go. When used through your desktop computer via Gmail, Tasks will be displayed in an ever-present window in the corner of your inbox, so you can easily add emails as tasks – for instance, if there is an email you need to respond to and you…

Google is no longer just a search engine – it now offers a collection of high-quality web apps which are now in competition with software such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as a series of other brilliant web apps and services. A web app is just the same as an app you would have on your smartphone or tablet, but it runs through a web browser such as Firefox or Chrome. What can be a little jarring about this transition into web apps is the fact that you are no longer installing a piece of software onto your computer, nor are you opening up files as you would have done in the traditional way on your computer. Instead, everything is accessed through Chrome, although there is desktop…

Google created the Drive online storage service to benefit users who wanted to access their files from various computers instantly. The cloud service for Drive is fantastic, and the web apps which allow you to run certain files from it make accessing your files from anywhere simple. As organised as you can be with Drive, it can be problematic if you find yourself away from your main computer and the files you need to access are not on Drive, or cannot be run on Drive or the computer that you are on. This can especially be the case for files that are specific to certain computer software, which won’t run on Drive and may not be installed on the computer, such as a Photoshop .PSD file. To get round this,…

Since the discontinuation of Google Reader, Feedly is going to be your new home for all your favourite site and news feeds, compiling the articles you want to read into one tidy space. Feedly comes with a fantastic categorising system, which allows you to set up news feeds under specific categories. The only downside of this category system is once you have read an article and want to save it, you can only save it to a single archiving folder, which cannot be categorised or ordered. However, what you can do instead is categorise articles by tags. A tag is a singular descriptive word which is somehow relevant to the content of an article. Tags are present in almost any kind of news article or blog post. They help categorise…

With your hardware all set up, you’ll need to carry out the same housekeeping within your software. Using Adobe Audition as the example, make sure you have your audio routing set the way your mixer, USB microphones or audio interface require. In the example above, we’ve set Audition to use our Presonus Studio audio interface, and have inputs one and two receiving signals from two microphones connected to the interface. For monitoring – listening back to our recordings – we have the two outputs set to send the audio to our studio monitors, and our headphones for live monitoring when recording. Now the audio routing is set up, you can ‘arm’ the individual tracks to record. Recording in most audio software applications is a two-step process; you tell the software…

REQUIRES macOS Catalina, a colorimeter such as the Datacolor SpyderX Pro. YOU WILL LEARN How to calibrate your Mac’s display both manually and by using a colorimeter. IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes Most modern Macs look great straight out of the box thanks to the inclusion of Retina displays that meet P3 display standards for colour accuracy. However, if you’re doing colour-critical design work, photography, or video editing and need to make sure the colours you see on-screen are truly true to life, then there are some handy extra steps you can take. These steps are particularly important if you’re using a third–party external monitor that may have some display quirks of its own, or should you want what comes out of your printer to be a faithful facsimile of…

Photo shoots rarely go exactly to plan, especially if you’re working with children or animals. While photographing the dog here, my idea was to create a shot with water drops flyi AFTER t from the dog’s head at all angles. But it proved tricky to get the dog to play ball, and even when I managed to get a usable shot, it didn’t have the scattering of water drops I wanted. However, I did have other frames where the dog wasn’t right, but the water drops were plentiful. This meant I could piece together the drops and the dog from different frames to craft the shot I wanted. When you have several similar shots of the same thing, all taken under the same conditions, it can make sense to piece…

Rolla €179, rolla.tech To all the high voltage rollers out there, there’s a new Rolla battery pack in town and it’s here to keep your camera equipment rolling. This 27,000mAh battery pack is pretty much the same as any other portable battery except that if you wrap it around your waist it doubles as a stunt bomb vest. This appearance makes it extra challenging to get through customs, a major bonus for anyone who’s experienced how easy it is to move camera equipment around the world. This Kickstarter was canceled due to a lack of funding, but will re-launch soon according to the owners. Clutch Creations - Cross-body Phone Strap US$50, kck.st/381KC0R Phones are pretty much our whole lives these days. They’re our primary source of education and entertainment, they…