APCNovember 2021的目錄

“it's not a surprise that the beckoning call of free protection against the vast majority of threats to a Windows PC is having an impact.” Well well, Windows Defender turns out to be all most people need. From being the much-maligned unwanted child of the security industry, to now offering system security equal or better than the paid options. Talk about disruptive! This nullifies the main selling point of the popular security suites, and it's been heading in that direction for a while. They all saw the writing on the wall, and a security suite today offers much more than simple AV and malware protection. That's why they're called suites, and is also why the term 'anti-virus' has been pushed out of the marketing and branding message progressively over the…

For the past few years, Microsoft has been predicting a future where you don’t need a password, thanks to the use of verification codes, biometric identifiers or authentication apps. Now, the company is putting its money where its mouth is and allowing you to take the password off your Microsoft account. Those who opt out of passwords will be able to use Microsoft’s Authenticator app for Android or iOS, Windows Hello facial recognition or fingerprint sensing, security keys or verification codes sent to phones or emails to sign into Microsoft’s apps and services. “Passwords are incredibly inconvenient to create, remember, and manage across all of the accounts in our lives.” Microsoft’s studies suggest that one in 10 people reuse passwords across different services, while 40 percent use a formula that…

Western Digital has introduced the industry’s first 20TB hard drives that integrates an iNAND UFS embedded flash drive (EFD) to improve performance, reliability, and capacity. The company’s OptiNAND architecture does not use 3D NAND memory for caching, but to store various metadata to enhance key characteristics of hard drives. Western Digital’s 20TB HDDs with OptiNAND technology are based on nine 2.2TB ePMR (energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording technology) platters, triple-stage actuator technology for more precise positioning of read/write heads, an iNAND UFS drive of unknown capacity that uses 3D TLC NAND memory, and the company’s custom system-on-chip (SoC) that controls the drive as well as communication between the HDD and the EFD.…

$849 | www.xfxforce.com Gamers are crying out for affordable GPUs. For all the talk about big Navi, RTX and ray tracing technologies, those cards are all priced at levels well above what the majority of gamers are willing to spend. Both the 6700 XT or RTX 3060 have crept back up to well over $1,000. At around $849 (and rising), the 6600 XT is still an expensive GPU. Does it offer enough value to compel gamers to upgrade from cards they’ve been using for years? We have XFX’s Merc 308 card in for review, but first, let’s take a look at what’s under the hood. At around $849 (and rising), the 6600 XT is still an expensive GPU. Does it offer enough value to compel gamers to upgrade from cards…

$499 | www.msi.com The X570 chipset is over two years old, a long life in relative terms. Rather than release a new chipset that wouldn’t have really been any different, AMD went with a refresh. X570S boards come with upgraded connectivity options including faster than Gigabit LAN or Wi-Fi 6E. Add in a fast PCIe 4.0 x4 drive or two and you’ve got boards that are right up to date. The S in X570S denotes silence. That means no more tiny chipset fans! One of these new boards is MSI’s MPG X570S Carbon Max. This midrange board looks the goods, but is it worth upgrading to? Looking over the board, your eyes will immediately be drawn to the large heatsinks that dominate the bottom half of the board; this board…

$180 | corsair.com It is tough to upgrade something that’s already quite good. But Corsair managed to do so with the RM850x power supply, improving the efficiency at light loads, adding one more EPS connector, and using a top-notch magnetic levitation fan. Corsair’s RMx line is among the most popular in today’s mid-segment PSU market, so updating was a daunting task. The use of a magnetic levitation fan is a great asset. The rifle bearing used in the previous generation RMx line was good, but there is no comparison with the ML fan that the new units utilise; Rifle and fluid dynamic bearings cannot cope with high operating temperatures. The only problem is the more aggressive fan profile, but updates from Corsair mean the new RM850x batches have lower average…

$659 | rog.asus.com With the anticipated arrival of game streaming services like Google Stadia and Nvidia’s GeForce Now not too far off in Australia, the prospect of running demanding computer games on devices like smartphones and ultrabooks is almost a reality. While playing triple-A PC titles on a smartphone will undoubtedly be incredible, you still can’t beat playing games on a bigger screen, but Asus’ latest portable monitor might mean you can get the best of both worlds. Ideally you’d use the ROG Strix XG 16 Portable monitor with Asus’ very own gaming phone – the ROG Phone 3 – but it’ll work with any smartphone with a USB Type-C socket. Currently this means you can play your favourite Play Store games on a 15.6-inch IPS display at Full HD…

$TBA | gskill.com The G.Skill Z5i is one of the best-looking cases we’ve seen in the last year or so. Its hinged curved tempered glass panels allude to the interior with subtlety and grace. The front I/O is a smooth sheet of brushed aluminium, bound into the rest of the aluminium frame, and littered with triangular perforations that run around and through the heart of the case itself, ensuring that airflow is plentiful. On top is a simple yet effective mesh vent, while the base is a surprisingly premium plastic composite, with integrated underglow RGB lighting, and G.Skill logo cutout, all of which is controllable via your motherboard. There’s no denying that the Z5i is a bold design, the lines are sharp, the aesthetic exceptionally clean, and its premium materials…

$350 | corsair.com Corsair is going big, with a new full-tower PC case. The 7000D Airflow is the case built to house chunky cooling solutions, and it certainly lives up to its name. Let’s start by talking about fans and radiators. The 7000D comes with three non-RGB 140mm fans, but there’s space for plenty more – the front can handle up to four 120mm fans (or three 140mm), and the same goes for the upright cooling bracket that sits behind the cable cover plate on one side. At the top of the case, there’s a removable rail bracket that can support 420mm of radiator space, and there’s naturally a vent for a single pre-installed 140mm fan at the rear. The massive 80-litre interior allows for some chunky builds, with extended…

macOS 10.11 or later | US$89.99/year (3 device); US$109.99/year 3 devices) | f-secure.com Total is F-Secure’s top-of-the-line security product for Mac, and comprises three products, which you install separately. F-Secure Safe offers core antivirus protection, backed up with ransomware protection, browsing and banking protection, and parental controls. It’s easy to install, and steps you through the process of giving the app the access it requires. The main interface is straightforward, but bare. Configuration is virtually non-existent – a stark contrast to the likes of Bitdefender and Norton. There are just two types of virus scan: full or ‘choose what to scan’. Most other controls are on/off with a handful of advanced controls buried in the app’s entry under System Preferences. Parental controls offer a bit more tweaking, although even here…

With more than 34 million units sold, the Raspberry Pi is not only one of the world’s most popular computers, it’s also one of the most important. Designed to help kids learn about technology, this inexpensive, single-board system is the leading choice for makers, developers, and hobbyists who want to do everything from building industrial robots to setting up retro arcade machines. Whether you’re aged eight or 80, if you love technology, the Raspberry Pi is for you. And with models costing from $40 to $150, it will suit any budget. Whatever you do with your Raspberry Pi, you will need an SD card with an operating system on it. The official Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) is a popular choice and a great start for many projects. It’s available…

If you find that the identification isn’t accurate, first check your model’s accuracy for that item in the Edge Impulse Model Testing tab. You can add more photos by following the Data Acquisition steps and then selecting Retrain model in Edge Impulse. You can also add more items by labeling and uploading in Data Acquisition and retraining the model. After each retraining, check for accuracy and then redeploy by running WebAssembly within Deployment. If you want to go further with machine learning, check out Pimoroni’s new BrainCraft HAT for the Pi 4. It features a 240×240 TFT IPS display for inference output, slots for a camera connector cable, a five-way joystick, two microphones, audio outputs, and much more. Most importantly, it has a controllable fan to keep the thing cool…

You’ll need • Raspberry Pi 4 or Zero • 16GB or larger microSD card • HDMI-to-CSI bridge or HDMI-to-USB capture dongle • USB female-to-dual male Type-A splitter • USB C to Type-A cable • 5V, 3 Amp power supply with USB Type-A output. You’ll be plugging a type-A cable into it, so the official Raspberry Pi power supply won’t do Those who have needed to access a PC remotely will probably have tried VPN or other applications such as TeamViewer. However, this kind of software only works within the remote computer’s OS, which means it can’t access the BIOS, reboot, install an operating system or power on the computer. There are several solutions that make it possible for you to remote control a PC independently of its operating system, but…

Besides running a Bitcoin node RaspiBlitz enables you to run a node on the “layer 2” Lightning network. The Lightning network permits Bitcoin transactions to take place off the main blockchain so they can be confirmed instantly rather than subject to the median six-minute confirmation time that is part of the Bitcoin fabric. It’s possible to generate some income by running a Lightning node, but not necessarily something you should jump into unawares. Since the network lacks the democratic (but lengthy) consensus mechanism of the main network, you could operate a rogue node and attempt to double-spend coins or otherwise cheat the system. However, there are ominous-sounding Watchtower services that detect improperly operating Lightning nodes and penalise them. Lightning nodes are connected to blockchain wallets, and these must contain sufficient…

Cooling M.2 drives I’ve spent several weeks seeking advice on this topic, but haven’t found a spec for the recommended operating range for M.2 drives. All I’ve found are mixed messages suggesting they do need cooling and they don’t need cooling. People have asked the question because they were concerned after seeing high temperatures via monitoring software like Speedfan and CrystalDiskInfo. There’s also a question over whether to purchase cooling with a fan or without. My first attempt was to mistakenly purchase an EZDIY=FAB 5V ARGB M.2 Heatsink for my Gigabyte Z370 HD3 motherboard, which doesn’t have a 5V location to plug it in. Instead, I’ve ordered a Sabrent M.2 2280 Heatsink that has no fan. One final question: do you recommend using thermal compound paste instead of the “thermal…

Over the past few years, we’ve introduced a blend of powerful and robust as well as nifty and nimble command-utilities that help you perform a variety of tasks. Everything from everyday text editing, connecting with remote machines, performing backups and other administration tasks can be done from the terminal. A key matrix for determining the vitality of a Linux distro, or the hardware that it runs on, is system performance. Depending on your purpose, you can choose from a variety of dedicated tools to monitor the different components such as CPU frequency, temperature and memory utilisation. But if you favour the CLI, like us, you’ll rather enjoy working with S-TUI. With S-TUI, which is an acronym for Stress-Terminal UI, you can simultaneously monitor CPU temperature, frequency, power and utilisation. The…

The original Macintosh (or “Mac” for short) is an iconic machine that brought home desktops to the masses and established a line of computers that is still going today. Its compact form, cool styling, and elegant graphical interface immediately won the hearts of creative people worldwide, and would influence many desktops that followed. However, it’s now very difficult to find original Macs in good working order, and it’s even harder finding working Macintosh floppy disks. This leaves emulation as the only way most people can now experience these machines, which can be tricky in itself. So, after a brief history tour, let us guide you through the process of emulating the Macintosh. Development and release Launching in January 1984, the Macintosh was the first successful home computer to use a…

$35.95 | PC, XBS/X, PS4/5, Switch | forgottencitygame.com The Forgotten City is a time loop game, one that makes excellent use of its magical reset button. You begin the adventure in the present day, stumbling into some ancient Roman ruins filled with golden statues before being whisked back in time through a portal. You arrive in the same Roman city, but now it’s pristine and all those statues are living people. What happened to them? Why were they turned into gold? The answers to those questions require lots of conversations with the citizens, who are almost without fail well-crafted characters, many with troubling secrets and interesting stories to tell. And the time loop is your best weapon, transforming you from a confused newcomer to a detective in a city full…

$42.95 | PC | koshutin.com The narrative of what you do in HighFleet sounds mesmerising. You negotiate with local warlords for alliances! Crack codes! Design new ships! Fly them around in intense combat, dodging bullets and launching missiles! All presented as their own little minigame or mechanic. It’s also cleverly put together, with an interface that has you accessing the different parts of the game experience through the window of your flagship. The core problem with HighFleet is that it’s filled with minigames, and every minigame has frustrating obstacles. There’s a whole system for launching stealth attacks, but I can barely even see how or why that matters. Take combat as an example: you can have several ships, but you only actually control one at a time, in a twin-stick…

RELEASE October 2000 DEVELOPER Atomic Games PUBLISHER Mattel Interactive LINK bit.ly/2ViLhqN During the frigid southern winters, the bush behind my house became a battlefield. Every night I’d meet my friends there and distribute our collection of toy guns and then we’d reenact the scenes we had seen in war movies. I vividly remember sitting in the snow, back against a tree, pretending I was pinned down by my friend who was now a German sniper. I was ten years old and blessed with an absurdly active imagination. Immersion was everything, so crawling for an hour through freezing slush just to get to safety was not out of the question. This was just one of the ways my childlike fascination with war manifested itself. Between gory drawings of battlefields or watching…

IROBOT TRAIN AI VAC TO AVOID POOMAGEDDONS Roomba founder dares you to test its ‘obstacle’ avoidance. Robot vacuums are generally a great addition to the modern household, but they do have a kryptonite that turns them from little automated cleaning Mogwais into disgustingly destructive Gremlins: dog poo. Even Roomba’s creator commented ‘we see this a lot’ in 2016 when a particularly graphic event known as the poopocalypse began circling the web. So we’re pretty stoked to see that iRobot has harnessed the true potential of AI by training its latest Roomba j7 to identify and avoid any doggy dynamite. iRobot founder and CEO Colin Angle even said in an interview “We’ve been working on it for a long time and we’re guaranteeing that it works”. The internet has been challenged.…

SECURE-PDF Security toolbox for PDF files including encryption and signing. The PDF format is used worldwide to distribute graphically processed documents. However, editing the documents is usually associated with high costs because good PDF editors are quite expensive. The cheaper alternatives on the other hand, lack the important functions to make PDFs secure, for example by encrypting, digitally signing or adding watermarks. Secure-PDF puts an end to this: Encrypt your own or other people’s PDF documents with up to 256 bit key strength (AES). Add a password to open it so that users can only view the encrypted document by entering the correct password. Secure-PDF can set watermarks as well as the owner information of a PDF document – even without previous knowledge of how to use PDF documents! Download…

Chia Coin is an alternative cryptocurrency coin designed to be a greener solution to the whole cryptocurrency craze, and it started off incredibly strong, leading to crushing HDD shortages. However, the currency has now tumbled to roughly 15 percent of its initial peak over the last three months, so miners are reportedly fleeing to other platforms. According to a report from VNExpress, some miners are now dumping drives and reselling ‘renewed’ used SSDs as brand new. Miners initially purchased massive amounts of storage for Chia plotting, triggering shortages of SSDs and HDDs. Since then, the cryptocurrency has tumbled in value. Naturally, some miners will try to exit the business and move onto something else, but they’ll need fresh capital. That means selling off the existing hardware they used for Chia…

The semiconductor industry is one of the most complex ventures on the planet, with a supply chain relying heavily on natural resources. We are now at an inflection point for the semiconductor industry – mostly due to its most basic prime matter, rare earth metals which are used as elements for the manufacturing of semiconductors, having seen tremendous price increases in the last year. An interplay between COVID-19-weakened supply chains, soaring demand, and political tensions between the US and China are being pointed as major forces behind the increases. Even as both superpowers vie for economic supremacy, with China’s control of the rare metal earths and the US’ blacklisting of several China-based companies and even China-bound exports, the escalating tension between them likely will only push prices of those key…

While we were waiting for our PS5 to arrive, we got busy on the DualSense controller. There’s enough new stuff packed in to make this a meal on its own: Major tech specs • Space-age adaptive triggers • Top-of-the-line haptic system • SIE CXD9006GG – likely a custom Sony chip doing all the work • Dialog DA9087 PMIC • Realtek ALC5524 audio codec • Nuvoton NAU8225 3.0 W Class-D Audio Amplifier • 5.7 Wh Li-ion Battery Key findings The new design is so sleek that there are zero visible screws. We aren’t fazed though – where there’s a seam, there’s a way! The black trim cover around the joysticks unclips with ease, revealing two screws near the tips of the handles. Two more screws are hidden under the L1 and…

$5,999 | msi.com If someone wrote you a blank check and said get whatever gaming laptop you want, then you’d probably go for something like MSI’s GE 76 Raider. Everything from the keypad to the GPU is top shelf and supercharged. While you probably wouldn’t want to make it a regular thing to carry around this 2.9kg 17.3-incher, it is at least possible to move it from place to place when you really need to. There’s quite a range of units available locally spanning from devices with an 11th generation Intel Core i7 CPU, Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU and a QHD 165Hz screen for $3,299, to a device with a Core i9 CPU, Nvidia 3080 GPU and a 4K 120Hz display for $7,299. Considering this oversized laptop is designed to…

$1,900 | www.qnap.com Aimed at small to medium businesses, the six bay TVS-675 uses a unique ZhaoXin KX-U6580 CPU, featuring eight cores that buzz along at 2.5GHz. There aren’t many 64-bit X86 alternatives to Intel and AMD, so it’s great to see the Chinese-designed-and-built CPU making its way into the world. The TVS-675 can run the QNAP QTS NAS OS or the ZFS based QuTS Hero 128-bit operating system. Thanks to a ZhaoXin C-960 GPU, it also supports real time hardware transcoding. Our test model came equipped with 8GB of DDR4 RAM , but up to 64GB can be installed. In addition to the six 3.5-inch drive bays, the TVS-675 also has two M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 x1 slots for adding SSDs. There’s also two Gen 3 x4 PCIe slots…

$649 | lg.com A PC monitor that pleases both gamers and productivity peeps? Sounds like a stretch, but that’s the new LG UltraGear Ergo 27GN880-B’s basic proposition. The gaming half of the equation is covered by 144Hz of Nano IPS panel tech. LG claims it’s good for 1ms response times. That’s courtesy of the grey-to-grey metric, not the tricksier MPRT measure, which can flatter to deceive regarding the subjective experience of pixel speed. Support for both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync flavours of adaptive refresh is also included. Combine all that with the popular 27-inch form factor and 1440p native resolution (2560x1440 pixels), and you have a solid base for a gaming panel. There are panels with more pixels. There are monitors with higher refresh. But that 144Hz, 27-inch, 1440p,…

Android | Free with IAP Ever wanted to learn the piano but was put off by the expensive lessons? Piano Academy allows you to learn how to play via your phone, tablet or even real-life Piano via detecting the notes you play and capturing them into the application. Piano Academy starts slow – introducing you to notes, reading music, and playing in concert before gradually expanding the range to have you playing with both hands as well as banging out hits from both classical and contemporary pop. There are also some great little games included that help you work on coordination, rhythm and more. It’s a solid app that is easy enough to be used by both children and adults – I was able to go from zero knowledge to…

After decades of reviewing antimalware products it feels incredibly weird to say that you don’t need to buy them anymore because Windows is finally inherently protected. But fair’s fair, Windows Defender has consistently done everything we’ve asked of it and deserves the title of Best in Show. However, if such a verdict and a 30-year history of regarding the term ‘Windows Security’ as being an oxymoron, still gives you anxiety, know that Bitdefender’s free version is still a great, lightweight alternative. You still need protection Of course, saying that you don’t need protection for a computer nowadays is ridiculous – online threats, especially to companies, continue to proliferate. In many cases the weakest link in the chain is the user and it’s increasingly simple to click on the wrong thing…

01 Download Etcher You’ll find Linux, macOS and Windows builds at https://etcher.io. Linux ships as a zipped AppImage, so once unzipped, run chmod 755 on the file (or select Properties > Permissions and check the box). Double-click the AppImage to run it (or do so from the CL). 02 Prepare the target Insert your SD card, select the Flash from file option and navigate to your downloaded image. Click Select target and a menu will show available devices (hard drives are hidden to prevent overwriting). Select your SD card reader, and check there’s nothing important on it. 03 Write the image Hit Flash, enter your password and wait for the progress bar. You’ll be offered the chance to write the same image again (eg. if you’re preparing a fleet of…

You’ll need • Raspberry Pi 4 or Pi 400 (one unit per room) • 8GB (or larger) microSD card, U3 cards recommended. One per room • 3.5 mm audio cables • Amplified speakers or a receiver with 3.5mm/phono audio input • Power supplies for your Raspberry Pis • Optional: Smartphone or tablet Multi-room audio systems can cost a pretty penny, but who needs to buy an expensive set of wireless speakers when you can use some Raspberry Pis and any 3.5mm wired speakers to achieve the same effect? We’ll use our Pi 4s and speakers/receivers (with 3.5mm audio inputs) to play music from a streaming service perfectly in sync via Bluetooth from our phone, tablet, or computer. We’ll show you how to do this with a single speaker and Raspberry…

You’ll need • Raspberry Pi (any model) • GrovePi or GrovePi Zero • Adafruit 1.3-inch Bonnet (or other display) • GrovePi Sensors (temperature, moisture, light) With more extreme weather conditions predicted in the future, the green-fingered amongst us may need to keep a closer eye on their plants. Temperature is one variable that can be displayed and graphed by a Pi with an LCD display, so for this project, we’ll take that idea a step further by measuring a range of environmental variables. Thermistors and most other components that measure such factors, are analog in nature, so they aren’t immediately suitable for the Pi, which only has digital (GPIO) inputs. However, thanks to HATs like the GrovePi, it’s easy to get your Pi talking to analog sensors. We used a…

You’ll need • Raspberry Pi 3B+, 4 or Pi Zero W • 8GB (or larger) microSD card • Raspberry Pi Cam, HQ Camera, Infrared Camera or webcam • Monitor/power supply/HDMI cable Home security camera systems have exploded in popularity and decreased in price over the past few years. Yet there are some drawbacks: vendors often charge a monthly fee to store your data; and you might not want to share video and photos from inside your home with a third party. MotionEyeOS is a distro that enables you to turn a Raspberry Pi with a camera into a home video-monitoring system, where the photos and videos can either stay on your device (and home network) or, if you choose, be uploaded automatically to a cloud-storage service such as Google Drive…

Length of time: 2-3 Hours Level Of Difficulty: Medium It’s fair to say that when we first set eyes upon the G.Skill Z5i, we were impressed. On first appearance, the Z5i is an exceptionally beautiful chassis, complete with an aluminum frame, curved tempered glass panels and baked in RGB lighting, including a neat little underglow that makes us think back to the glory days (if you can call them that) right at the start of the Fast and Furious franchise. We were lucky enough to get an early sample just as it was announced, but at the time of writing the Australian RRP wasn’t finalised. Still, it got us thinking about what exactly to build inside this thing? We wanted something a little special, a little different, and a bit…

YOU’LL NEED • 8GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive • Internet Connection. • Another PC or Laptop The prodigal son has arrived, Windows 11 is here in all of its insider glory, complete with quirky new taskbar layout, updated start menu, and enough options-baked-into-options to make even the most enthusiastic PC nerd happy. That said, in the world of Windows you often get two camps of people – those who like to perpetually update their machines, never performing a clean reinstall no matter the bugs or issues, and those people opposite to that. The ones who will happily flatten everything at the drop of a hat if it means a cleaner system. And let’s face it, with the myriad of problems that occurred moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8 and…

IT WILL TAKE 20 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to loop in Logic and export to Ableton YOU’LL NEED Logic Pro X Creating and recording music on your Mac is a popular and fun way to use your machine, but what about performing? Whether you’re a rock band or a bedroom techno overlord your Mac can be a really powerful tool when you want to play live. In this tutorial, we’ll look at two big-name apps, Apple’s Logic Pro and Ableton Live. They aren’t the only options – most loop-based music apps can happily play live too – but they’re the most popular choices. Ableton is a familiar sight on big stages; unlike Logic it was created specifically for live performance. But with the arrival of Live Loops, Logic has…

MORE FIRST-PERSON PLAYSTATION EXCLUSIVES COMING TO PC The two most recent Uncharted games are coming in 2022. Console exclusives are fast becoming a thing of the past, with more and more first-party Sony games coming to PC. Following the release of Days Gone and Horizon: Zero Dawn on Steam, the company has confirmed the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection is coming, which bundles Uncharted 4 with its standalone expansion The Lost Legacy. The port will be handled by Iron Galaxy Studios, which has done similar work on titles like Diablo 3, Overwatch and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, among others. The collection is releasing some time in “early 2022,” when it’ll hit PS5 as well. While Microsoft has all but given up on console exclusives, opting to release all of…

Free | PC | bit.ly/postbird Here’s a game about delivering mail around a picturesque French village. Despite being a bird – creatures that notably have wings – you deliver packages by bicycle, pootling through the narrow streets, skidding round corners and hurtling up ramps The best thing about Postbird is being in its endlessly sunny world. It’s a vivid and painterly setting, and a joy to barrel around on your bike. But you can also hop off to grab a collectible, take part in a minigame, or just deliver the mail. There’s some (very light) puzzling to the postal delivery, as apparently people in Provence don’t write names on their packages. They instead put a little sticker that tells you something about the recipient – a sticker you have to…

$56.95 | PC, XB1, PS4 | store.steampowered.com Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector is the latest attempt at putting some of the scale of tabletop 40K onto our screens. Which is to say, it’s another turn-based tactics game about the Space Marines. But rather than generic armoured lummoxes it features one of the more interesting flavours: Blood Angels, the marines you get into if you watched too many horror movies when you were young. Blood Angels suffer from Red Thirst, making them literally and figuratively bloodthirsty. In Battlesector this means they get more momentum points, which are normally earned for kills, the closer they are to their enemies – the enemies in this game being the dinobug alien Tyranids. When a unit gets 100 momentum they ‘surge’, getting a movement bonus and the…

“Championing technology doesn’t mean we’re unrelenting yes-men and -women, however, and APC aims to be as objective as possible in all our coverage.” 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.…

A new Alder Lake benchmark has been posted with a for sale listing, potentially showing a sample from Intel’s next-gen CPU series running in its new Gear 4 mode. According to @harukaze5719, this latest leak comprised a Core i5-12600K 10-core CPU running the AIDA64 cache & memory test, with a kit of DDR5 memory operating at DDR5-6400. Memory bandwidth was impressive at around 88-90GBps. However, memory latency took a huge hit, running at a sluggish 92.5ns. According to the listing, the system ran with Gear 4 enabled. In the last decade, Intel hasn’t released a single architecture that approached 92.5ns of memory latency. Only AMD’s original Zen architecture was capable of such laggy behaviour, and it was known for its memory bottlenecks in that first-generation iteration. Intel first introduced gear…

$705 (2TB), $1,375 (4TB) | www.seagate.com We’ve been waiting in anticipation for the release of Seagate’s FireCuda 530 series of PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives. If you tend to think of Samsung or WD when it comes to high performance SSDs, you can add Seagate to that shortlist. Let’s not mess around, the FireCuda 2TB and 4TB drives we have in for review are at least the equal of any SSD on the market. They are confirmed compatible with the PS5 as well. Both the Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB and 4TB are 2280 (80mm length) M.2 drives. Both make use of brand-new high-performance Micron 176-Layer TLC NAND paired with a Phison PS5018-E18 controller. The rated sequential read and write speeds for both capacities is 7300/6900 MB/s. the smaller 1TB and 500GB…

$339 | www.nzxt.com Some boards focus on functionality, others overclocking, others value for money, and others still on bling. Nzxt’s N7 B550 might be pigeon-holed into the latter category, but surprisingly, there’s no RGB on the board itself. What it will do is appeal to users looking for a white-themed board that’s ultra-clean and feature rich. Is the N7 B550 a board that clean-build purists should consider? The N7 B550 is Nzxt’s first AMD motherboard, though it has released several boards with Intel chipsets. The first thing you’ll notice are the shrouds that cover most of the board. It creates a unique aesthetic; perhaps only the Gigabyte Vision-D compares to it, though that’s a step up in price. Nzxt partnered with Asrock for the N7 B550, but it’s not a…

$965 | asus.com/au The cost of high frame rate and high resolution gaming monitors has come down a lot in price over the last couple of years, but gamers are still generally required to choose between these two features. Since both high resolution gameplay and ultra-fast refresh rates seriously stress modern GPUs, it has historically made sense to focus on one or the other, but for those with cash to splash there haven’t been many no-compromise options if they did want something with both features. The TUF Gaming Monitor from Asus has been designed to fill this gap in the market, and it isn’t even as expensive as you might think. This generous 28-inch 16 by 9 display offers a large viewing space with minimal bezels, which is sure to…

$599 | asus.com Every professional photographer has their own particular workflow, but there’s always something you could add to your kit to improve it a little – or in this case, maybe a lot. Asus’s ProArt Display 14 is a colour-accurate portable FullHD monitor that’ll connect directly to your camera so you can check images on the fly to ensure you’re not missing the shots you need. The PA148CTV can be mounted directly to a tripod via the thread at the bottom centre of the screen or positioned on a table with the rear kickstand so you can position it at a convenient height, exactly where you need it. This can then be connected to a camera via the included micro HDMI cable or the two USB Type-C sockets. While…

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR From $29.99 per month www.adobe.com AFFINITY DESIGNER $84.99 www.affinity.serif.com Before we pit these two rivals against each other, let’s take a step back in time to where it all began. The year is 1987, Adobe has just released its first piece of software called Illustrator for the Apple Macintosh. It was, and still is, a vector art and design software that by today’s standards looks pretty darn basic. However, in the late 1980s, this piece of technology completely revolutionised the art of graphic design. Before computerised work, creating a piece of design was a massive task and extremely time-consuming. Everything had to be done manually, including rulers and french curls, and typography was created letter by letter. One page of set type may even take a day or…

Linux | www.koozali.org Koozali SME Server exists in an interesting niche of distros that have successfully managed to abstract the process of deploying a feature-rich gateway network server behind a point-and-click interface, significantly streamlining the cumbersome process. You can use SME as an effective gateway server that manages your network’s connectivity to the internet. Not just for orchestrating the flow of network data to and from the computers inside your network, but also securing it in the process, minimising the risk of intrusions. Its developers describe SME as a communications server that can be configured in one of three operational modes. The first is as a gateway server, which asks SME to take over firewall duties, and act as the external web and mail server. Second, SME can be used…

Earth, September 1st, 1859. Colours flash through the night sky above New England, gold miners in the Rocky Mountains are woken by the brightness of the Northern Lights, visible as far south as the Caribbean. Telegraph operators across the world receive electric shocks from their equipment, which continues to operate, despite being disconnected from the power supply. The Sun, August 31st, 1859. A complex system of magnetic field lines suddenly twists, releasing a large quantity of plasma into space. This takes 17 hours to cross the 150 million kilometres to the Earth, which is at just the right place in its orbit to be hit by what today we’d call a coronal mass ejection. The largest geomagnetic storm on record, the Carrington Event caused widespread electrical disruption and power blackouts…

You’ll need • Raspberry Pi 3, 4 or 400 • 8GB (or larger) microSD card • Raspberry Pi Camera or a USB webcam • Power supply for your Raspberry Pi • Smartphone for taking photos • Selection of Pis or other objects for classification We’re going to train our Raspberry Pi to identify other Raspberry Pis (or other objects) with machine learning (ML). Why is this important? An example of an industrial application for this type of ML is identifying defects in circuit boards. As circuit boards exit the assembly line, a machine can be trained to identify a defective circuit board for troubleshooting by a human. Some facial recognition and face mask identification tutorials also require tedious command line package installs and Python code. This project eliminates all terminal…

For multi-device sync, repeat the setup stages we described above for each extra device. You can flash the same image from earlier if you’re using the same model of Raspberry Pi. With the same Bluetooth device connected as before, music can now stream to all Raspberry Pis and their connected speakers. You will only need to connect one Pi via Bluetooth to your phone, tablet, or computer to stream to all Raspberry Pi Balena Sound speakers. That’s it! You can now create multi-room and multi-device sound experiences in your home with your Raspberry Pi devices, while DJing from your smartphone, tablet, or computer like a pro. Audiophiles probably won’t care much for Bluetooth audio, nor the headphone output on the Raspberry Pi. Fortunately, there are a variety of DAC (digital…

You’re not going to get rich mining Bitcoin on a Raspberry Pi. Even with dedicated ASIC mining hardware, it’s hard to compete with industrial operations in countries with subsidised electricity supplies. It’s the same for other cryptocurrencies too – see www. tomshardware.com/uk/how-to/mine-cryptocurrency-raspberry-p. Running a full node involves regularly syncing the Bitcoin blockchain, which at present is 350GB and growing, so you’ll need some large external storage – a 1TB or larger external SSD. Yet you can still use RaspiBlitz to turn your Pi into a full Bitcoin node and store your bitcoins locally – you’re essentially self-sovereign as you haven’t entrusted your keys to others and you aren’t relying on other nodes to supply information. To quote the RaspiBlitz manual: “Not your node, not your rules”. Put some storage in…

So, this was an experience, to say the least. At first glance, the G.Skill Z5i is a beautiful-looking thing, with curved panels, brushed aluminum, intuitive lighting, and a fantastic premium feel. But the reality is once you get under the covers and start tinkering with the build, the problems just start to spring up. Are we happy with this build? In a way yes, it fills the brief of building in this chassis, we got it done, in time, with all the hardware we brought to the table without any swaps. But deep down, it’s not one we’re proud of. It was frustrating to deal with, and the lack of consideration for some of the basics of decent case design resonates quite badly Are we happy with this build? In…

IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes YOU WILL LEARN How to give Apple Music a retro makeover YOU’LL NEED Apple Music, Vinyls app ($4.99, macOS 11 or later/iPadOS 14.1 or later) Apple Music is a wonderful service. It’s the ultimate jukebox, the greatest ever music collection, an always-on, always-updated compendium of the most exciting artists of all time. Vinyls looks like a record player emulator, and it is: it takes the Apple Music interface and adds a spinning record, complete with tone arm. But it makes good use of hardware too. But sometimes we can’t help feeling that it’s maybe a little too modern, a little too shiny, a little too digital. Remember the feeling when you pressed play on a tape deck or dropped the needle onto a vinyl record?…

Robots are very cool and the Raspberry Pi GPIO is the ideal way to control them. We can do this using Scratch. In this tutorial we shall learn the basics of working with the GPIO in Scratch by first controlling an LED before applying the same principle to control the motors of a robot. If you’re unsure as to how to build a robot, we have a short guide in the boxout which may just help. So let’s build a robot! Scratch 3 should come pre-installed on your Raspberry Pi OS image, but just in case it’s missing it can be installed from the main menu, under Preferences > Recommended Software. Scratch 3 is found in the Programming category; place a tick in the box and click Apply to install.…

We all love the PC for the computing power it delivers, but these days, there’s equally as much fun to be had with the booming world of microcontrollers and single-board computers – and the latest micro:bit V2 Go is no exception. Over the last couple of months, we’ve shown how you can code it not only with any PC, but also your Android tablet and smartphone. But what makes the micro:bit board a great learning tool is the list of built-in sensors that allow the board to interact with the physical world. This month, we look at how you can have fun with this combination of sensors and compact, low-cost micro-computing, plus how it’s bringing STEM to life in the classroom and how sensors are helping develop new solutions in…

$99.95 | PC, XB1, XBS/X, Linux, Mac | store.steampowered.com It’s been 15 years since the original; time enough to forget how silly Psychonauts can be, and the startling places those jokes can take us. Of course, for the game’s inhabitants, it’s been but three days: wannabe Psychonaut Raz left Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp on a rescue mission – seen in VR adventure, Rhombus of Ruin – and we rejoin him in its aftermath. A video fills all that in, but first-hand experience is recommended given the juicy callbacks throughout. And what a start: a Mission Impossible-style con to fool a villain inside his own mind, only for a dental fixation to infect the plan. With its heroes’ power to enter and influence the psyche I always thought Psychonauts did…

Free | PC olorfiction.itch.io/nodomus Nodomus is going for an emotion that’s awe, perhaps. And with a splodge of horror thrown in too. Rather than being somewhere from a first-person perspective, you’re viewing the camera feeds of several drones, which are fixated on some possibly dreadful event. You can’t move the drones, but you can zoom in and out, and turn the volume up and down. My best guess is we’re watching an alien entity fight a winning battle against humanity – we have a ringside seat as it attacks a factory and, possibly, a spaceship. The feeds are plagued by convincing video effects including flickering and constant static. But this obfuscation is what makes the game so compelling. If you’re anything like me, you’ll flick back and forth, back and…

Free | PC sonicrumpets.itch.io/ killspiracy-tv Killspiracy TV feels pretty authentic to first-person shooters of the late ’90s, even as it ditches their typical level design for procedural mazes. In each, your goal is to rescue a bunch of cultists – cowl-wearing types with televisions for heads – before hoofing it back to the entrance portal, if you can find it. I like the outlandish enemy and weapon designs, and the stages themed around graveyards, pyramids and other atmospheric settings. There are some impressive visual effects, including a low-poly mist I could stare at all day. But I spent much of the game lost, trudging between samey corridors. Cultists initially appear as twinkling guiding lights in the distance, but the game offers no such help when you’re trying to stumble your…