TechLifeApril 2021的目錄

Every now and then it can be handy to go back over the basics of an operating system, even if you’re a seasoned pro. After all, chances are that you may have forgotten something elementary along the way to mastery... On the other hand, maybe you are just starting out. You could be wanting to get a child up to speed with their first phone, or maybe you yourself have just gotten a new Android device and need a little help on where to start. So that’s where this issue’s massive guide to starting with Android comes in. From first steps, to connecting to Wi-Fi and sorting out Gmail, this guide has everything you need. However there’s more to this issue than just Android advice – as always there are…

An apparent benchmark listing for the so-called Apple M1X CPU may have given us a glimpse at next-generation Apple Silicon. The leak shows an Apple M1X with 12 cores, according to CPU Monkey, an increase over its predecessor’s 8, which will reportedly arrive in the form of 8 high-performance ‘Firestorm’ cores coupled with 4 efficient ‘Ice Storm cores’. The CPU will allegedly see an even more impressive upgrade in the graphics department. The leaked benchmarks, which are said to come from a “pre-sample” of the M1X, suggests the processor will feature a 16-core GPU with 256 execution units. The M1, found in Apple’s latest MacBook Pro and MacBook Air devices, features an 8-core GPU with 128 execution units, which suggests that its incoming successor could offer up to double the…

$2,699, www.asus.com Gaming laptops like the Asus TUF Dash F15, that packed mid-range performance in a thin and light package, have traditionally been much more expensive than your traditional gaming portable. Typically, if you wanted a gaming laptop that could power the latest AAA PC games at high settings and you wanted to comfortably carry it around with you in your backpack, you were looking at dropping a couple grand on it. However, this time, thanks in large part to Intel’s new 11th-generation Tiger Lake-H35 processors, the Asus TUF Dash F15 brings a luxurious gaming experience to a relatively affordable $2,699 price point at the spec we’re reviewing. Design When opening the Asus TUF Dash F15, we had to do a double take to make sure that this was a…

A family in England was weeding their garden when they unearthed a valuable treasure, a buried hoard of gold coins dating back to the 1400s depicting English monarchs from Edward IV to Henry VIII. The hoard, a stash of 63 gold coins and one silver coin, contains money minted over a period of nearly 100 years, from the late 15th to the 16th century. Four of the coins feature Henry VIII and, curiously, one of the initials of three of his wives: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. Upon finding the cache, the family, in the New Forest of Hampshire in southeastern England, notified the British Museum, which runs the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS). This program partners with local people who find historical artefacts in the United Kingdom…

Can I use an OLED TV as a monitor? Eliot Wise A Guru can’t control what you do in the privacy of your own home. You’re welcome to use just about any screen as a monitor. The question isn’t one of ‘can I do it?’, but ‘should I do it?’; mostly, Guru would recommend against using non-monitors as monitors, because monitors are meant to be used as monitors whereas non-monitors are not. TVs are built to be enjoyed from across a room, playing content from distinctly non-PC sources. In the case of OLED, though, things aren’t quite so cut and dried. The precision and speed of its pixel updates tends to be vastly superior to that of LCD-based TVs, particularly in newer models like LG’s CX series TVs, which is…

The Valheim roadmap for upcoming DLC has now been unveiled, giving us a look at all the upcoming content we can enjoy over the coming weeks and months. Valheim, which released last month in early access on Steam, is gearing up for some big additions. You can check out the full list of updates for the game just to the right, courtesy of developer Iron Gate AB. Right now, there’s no time frame for these updates arriving in the game other than at some point in 2021. Still, that’s an extensive list of updates and new content planned for Valheim. The first three updates are fairly enigmatic, and we’ve only got names to go on for each one. The fourth update becomes a little clearer however, stating that it’ll add…

$69, Switch, www.nintendo.com I’m fascinated by the relationship dynamics between the Super Mario cast in Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury. As I watch Bowser Jr. dispatch yet another goomba with a swish of his magic paintbrush in Bowser’s Fury, I wonder what the staff room at Mario HQ will look like as all the long-time foes watch with their huge eyes as Bowser Jr. not only joins forces with Mario for this brand new Switch adventure, but actively helps bring about their demise. In Bowser’s Fury, the new adventure arriving alongside the re-release of the Wii U title Super Mario 3D World, his dad has been overcome with rage turning Bowser into a gigantic foe that’s contaminating the peaceful land of Lake Lapcat with his anger. It’s not just…

$4,299, www.gigabyte.com The Aero 17 HDR first appeared in 2020, and we previously covered the XB release built around an Intel 10th Gen Core i7 CPU, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super GPU. The hardware we’re covering today, the new XC variant, retains main of the classic features of that design and also sports a 10th generation Intel CPU, but now the latest Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 graphics technology. With the discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080/3070 cards practically impossible to source, is the Gigabyte Aero 17 HDR XC the unsubtle answer to those that want the ultimate in portable performance? The external aesthetics haven’t changed noticeably from the previous Aero 17 HDR models. Structurally the ergonomics of the machine were dictated by the widescreen aspect of the 4K X-Rite…

$259, www.corsair.com The Corsair HS75 XB Wireless gaming headset for Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S is one of the best Xbox headsets you can buy right now. Heck, it could easily be one of our favorite gaming headsets ever – if it weren’t for those meddling Windows 10 drivers. Of course, the HS75 XB is branded for the Xbox and says right there on the box that it is “designed for Xbox,” so wouldn’t it work well with a Windows 10 PC? Spoiler: no. But we’ll return to that ordeal in a moment. From a comfort, sound, and design perspective, the Corsair HS75 XB Wireless shares a lot of traits and features with the Corsair HS60 Haptic and improves upon it in many ways. On the…

$329, www.klipsch.com The Klipsch T5 II were released last year, and cost$329 – the same price as their predecessors. That’s slightly cheaper than the Apple AirPods Pro, and a little more expensive than the best true wireless earbuds of 2021, the Sony WF-1000XM3. The Klipsch T5 II True Wireless are the latest earbuds from the heritage audio brand, bringing an updated design, new drivers, and improved connectivity to the original T5 earphones. Despite their high price, these true wireless earbuds lack the active noise cancellation that features in models such as the Apple AirPods Pro or the Sony WF-1000XM3. However, they do retain the excellent build quality of their predecessors, reprising the Zippo lighter-esque design of the charging case. The earbuds themselves have been upgraded, too, sporting a smaller, lighter…

US$139, www.daskeyboard.com Das Keyboard has a reputation for making a real typist’s keyboard, and the new Das Keyboard 4C TKL compact mechanical keyboard is a perfect showcase for why that is. The comfort of the keys are obviously the most important feature of note, and the Cherry MX Brown switches have a soft bump response, giving satisfying tactile feedback without being obnoxiously loud. The PBT charcoal grey keycaps are the perfect blend of textured and smooth that helps your fingers fly across the keys while striking with accuracy. The prominent bumps on the home keys anchor your hands and let your muscle memory do its thing. You’ll need it, too, since the black legend on each of the keys is easily lost against the charcoal backdrop. This is a touch-typer’s…

It would be easy to presume that a 4 or 5G connection is most important when setting up an Android phone or tablet, but Wi-Fi is incredibly useful and will make your Android experience more efficient. At home in particular, a valid Wi-Fi connection will offer greater speeds, more stability and no extra charges on your mobile bill, but it is also useful when out and about. Using public Wi-Fi offers all of the benefits previously mentioned, but we should state that using insecure public Wi-Fi, in particular connections that require no passwords, should be avoided at all times. Using a secure Wi-Fi connection will offer huge advantages for every task you undertake and can also improve every part of the experience. HOW TO Set up Wi-Fi in seconds 1…

Plex transcoding I recently opened up my Plex server running on a QNAP TS-251+ to a few friends to discover that transcoding does one of two things: If I enable hardware transcoding, the video frequently looks blocky and pixilated, but I can stream to multiple clients with no problems. But if I disable it, only one person can watch a transcoded stream without overwhelming the server. What can I do to improve the quality over hardware transcoding? Phil West TechLife responds: The problem here is your QNAP’s Celeron J1900 processor. Although it supports hardware transcoding through QuickSync, the processor’s onboard GPU is based on the old Ivy Bridge generation of Intel HD graphics. These are known for the poor quality of their transcodes, so the only way around this is…

REQUIRES iOS/iPadOS 14 YOU WILL LEARN How to change the default apps on iPhone and iPad IT WILL TAKE 5 minutes Apple’s iOS and iPadOS apps are great, but they’re not always the best choice for everyone. That’s why the App Store is filled with alternatives: Carrot Weather (and until Apple bought it, Dark Sky) as alternatives to Apple’s own Weather; Fantastical instead of Calendar; Firefox instead of Safari; and so on. But while Apple was happy to let you install alternatives, it kept its own apps as the default – so if you clicked a link, it’d open in Safari; if you clicked an “email us” button, it’d launch Mail. That has changed in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14. It’s only changed a little bit, though. For now, you…

Ashampoo UnInstaller 9 Make sure everything’s spic-and-span with Ascomp Cleaning Suite. Ashampoo UnInstaller 9 makes installing, testing and fully uninstalling software a breeze. Four dedicated deletion methods provide a cleaner system that Windows-default uninstallation facilities. Even software sideloaded through nested setups poses no problem. Ashampoo UnInstaller 9 takes the fear out of SPAM software or spyware, whether full-fledged application or browser plugin. The program follows a four-way strategy with full installation logging as method of choice. Download link: www.techlife.net/exclusives Ashampoo Disk-Space-Explorer 2018 Analyse the file distribution and disk space usage of your disks. The compact but powerful Disk-Space-Explorer 2018 provides a detailed overview of file distribution and disk space consumption. Unlike Windows Explorer, Disk-Space-Explorer 2018 lists results based on file types and helps quickly locate potential resource hogs. The file…

Following the collapse of the historic Arecibo Observatory telescope in Puerto Rico, China has opened the biggest radio telescope in the world up to international scientists. In Pingtang, Guizhou, stands the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the largest radio telescope in the world, surpassing the Arecibo Telescope, which stood as the largest in the world for 53 years before the construction of FAST was completed in 2016. Following two cable failures in 2020, the Arebico Telescope collapsed in December 2020, shutting down the telescope for good. Now FAST is opening its doors to astronomers from around the world. “Our scientific committee aims to make FAST increasingly open to the international community,” Wang Qiming, the chief inspector of FAST’s operations and development centre said. China will accept requests through 2021 from…

$1,399, www.dyson.com Dyson’s first robot vacuum, the 360 Eye, was a decent cleaner, but it was a little on the dumb side, offering few configuration and fine-tuning options. Step forward, the Dyson 360 Heurist, which offers better cleaning in the form of an appliance that you can train to work the way you want in your home. Boosting power over the original by 20%, the 360 Heurist is just about the most powerful vacuum cleaner I’ve used, easily dealing with mess on all surfaces from hard floors to carpet. Thanks to the motorised brush that runs the entire width of the vacuum cleaner, you get full suction power right up to the edges of rooms, doing away with the need for side-sweeping brushes. The 360 Heurist isn’t directly available in…

Amazon Game Studios has delayed its upcoming MMORPG New World once again, this time pushing it to August 31, 2021. New World was previously delayed from May to August 2020, and it was more recently pushed to spring 2021. Compared to its second delay, this move to August 31 is comparatively small. Amazon is also speaking in more specific terms with regards to dates and time frames, so while this isn’t necessarily the game’s final delay, it seems that New World is coming into some form. “We’ve been hard at work on compelling end-game features we believe are important to include at launch,” a development update explains. “These features won’t be ready for the spring timeframe that we had communicated.” Amazon Game Studios also affirmed that it’s used feedback from…

US$49, PC, Xbox, themediumgame.com There is a lot going on The Medium. It’s a busy mix of mechanics and story threads that jostle to fit in, never settling, and rarely trusting the player to enjoy themselves without a watchful hand to guide them. I spent a lot of time tapping the run button for example, because I wanted to move faster, but you can only run when allowed. And if The Medium decides you’re in an atmospheric moment you’d better damn well walk and soak it in. It feels like a story that someone spent so long thinking about, planning, and clearly loving, that they forgot about the bit where another person has to play it and panicked at the last minute that people might play it wrong. It’s part…

Pixel Starships: Galaxy TO INFINITY, AND BEYOND! Free with IAP Pixel Starships is one of those incredibly difficult games to put in a box. On the surface, it is a gorgeous, funny, surprisingly deep strategy MMO set in space with a clever AI system with various options for play and a strong team environment. Developed by an Australian team out of Melbourne, SavySoda, Starships has you building and running a large space freighter with varying objectives, from piracy to mining. Under the surface, it is still unquestionably clever to the point where the internet is full of guides on how to compete in the higher ranks – regardless of the currency issues it faces that I will touch on in a moment, it utilises an AI system of scripts based…

$239, www.oppo.com At the end of a busy 2020 for Oppo, the Oppo A15 was the brand’s cheapest Western smartphone offering yet. As such, you should set your expectations accordingly. The phone’s all-plastic body feels solidly built, if entirely unspectacular, and the presence of a micro-USB port is something of a blast from the past (to put it politely). While its rear-mounted fingerprint sensor isn’t exactly forward-thinking, it’s pleasingly quick and reliable. There’s no getting away from the fact that the Oppo A15 is a super-cheap phone. Its entirely plastic design is almost completely without embellishment. The rear of the device is a largely featureless expanse of plastic, shiny right up to the point at which it will be covered with greasy fingerprints. Your eye will probably be drawn to…

$149, www.edifier.com Part of the Edifier R1280DBs’ charm is its design. Compact and minimalist yet classy and seamless, these bookshelf speakers would fit just about any home or setup. The Edifier R1280DBs’ side panels are a lovely wood grain with a slightly darker, redder pecan finish while its top, front, and back are covered in durable gray plastic, which has probably helped keep its price down. It’s still an elegant-looking package, however, especially with the removable grills that cover its front panel. The active portion of the system resides in the right speaker, which also houses the inputs and the power switch. Its built-in amplifier has several input options on hand: two RCA inputs, an optical audio port, and coaxial digital port. There’s also a sub output here, which means…

$79, www.beatsbydre.com Although Beats hasn’t said it to us directly, the Beats Flex seems to be a direct sequel to the older BeatsX Headphones that it released in 2016. Both are wireless (but not truly wireless like the Powerbeats Pro or Apple AirPods) and look identical. The earbuds themselves are actually fairly light (18.6g), but the cord that runs between them is about 32 inches and wraps around the back of your neck. It’s a bit cumbersome having such a long cord wrap around your neck and, admittedly, having the two earbuds connected via a cable isn’t exactly what we’d consider the ideal solution in 2020. That said, the cable isn’t without its advantages: first and foremost is the fact that they’re harder to lose than fully wireless earbuds. The…

$59, myeufy.com.au We’ve tested many smart scales recently (in an effort to control creeping home-office-related weight gain -Ed), and the Eufy Smart Scale C1 is easily one of the best. Not only does it measure a wide range of health metrics, it does so with the absolute minimum of fuss so tracking your health takes only a couple of seconds every morning. The Eufy Smart Scale C1 has a sleek glass platform, and is available in black, white and blue. While many smart scales hide their contacts away beneath the glass, here they’re clearly visible, serving as a useful guide to help you position your feet correctly and ensuring a stable connection. The platform is a little smaller than most smart scales, measuring 28 x 28mm, which might make it…

3G provided internet access from your phone anywhere that you have a valid signal. Then 4G came and was able to provide the kind of speeds people were used to on their home computers. Recently, 5G has started to roll out with companies such as Samsung including it in its premium devices. We will show you how easy it is to connect to 4G, and even then you may find that all of the work has already been done for you by your network provider. Most phones will work the moment you turn them on, but it’s always useful to know what to do should you experience connection problems. A phone without a mobile internet connection is no way near as useful as one that has been enabled to use…

SKILL LEVEL Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts SUITABLE FOR… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 Jargon buster! HDR High Dynamic Range is a technology for more vivid images: the dynamic range is the difference between the brightest and the darkest parts of an image or video. WCG Wide Colour Gamut is related to HDR, but where HDR is about brightness WCG is about colours. WCG displays can show more colours than standard ones and look more realistic as a result. PICTURE PASSWORD A pattern you swipe over an on-screen photo to unlock your PC. Best tip! If Sync Settings is switched on, your personalisation can be applied to any Windows 10 PC you use. If all the things we love about Windows, one of our favourites is…

Although their appeal has been somewhat diminished by the wide availability of streaming services, a network attached storage device is still a great addition to any home. It can keep your data, media and documents stored in a central location that is secure, private and accessible to every device on your network. But while commercial NAS devices are cool, they’re also expensive. And that’s before you include the actual hard disks for storage, for which the sky is the limit on cost. But you can also roll your own NAS using free software and an older PC that you might have lying around. A five or even ten year old PC is likely to have more power than the cheap ARM-powered commercial NASs. So let’s take a quick look at…

$1,649 www.samsung.com Why buy a Galaxy S21 Plus when you could go for the cheaper Galaxy S21, or the all-singing, all-dancing, Galaxy S21 Ultra? It’s a fair question, and it’s one that has a simple answer: buy the S21 Plus if you’re after a phone with a larger screen and battery than the Galaxy S21, but don’t need all the bells and whistles – mostly photographic – of the Ultra. Samsung has now established the Ultra versions of its Galaxy S flagships as the devices to buy if you want all the latest and greatest tech that the Korean electronics giant can offer, which leaves the Galaxy S21 Plus in a slightly awkward position, with the extra money you’re paying over the ‘standard’ S21 getting you little more than a…

The Android 12 beta is live, with Google announcing that the first official Android 12 Developer Preview is now available to adventurous app developers. While we’re likely months from an Android 12 release date for consumers (last year’s Android update launched September 8), today’s beta sheds light on the changes coming to Android phones. You don’t have to wait until Google IO 2021 to find out. Android 12 beta features include better-looking images vs standard JPEG files, faster and more responsive app notifications, and more privacy measures – or at least the promise to be more transparent about the use of your data. Google is also making app compatibility easier across devices like foldable phones and Android tablets. The 19 new Android 12 features outlined are split into three categories,…

Astronomers have peered out into the vast expanse and spotted what they think is the farthest – and oldest – galaxy ever observed. GN-z11 appears to be the most distant and oldest galaxy ever detected. Astronomers led by Nobunari Kashikawa, a professor in the department of astronomy at the University of Tokyo, embarked on a mission to find the universe’s most distant observable galaxy to learn more about how it formed. “From previous studies, the galaxy GN-z11 seems to be the farthest detectable galaxy from us at 13.4 billion light years, or 134 nonillion kilometres [83 nonillion miles],” said Kashikawa. “But measuring and verifying such a distance is not an easy task.” To determine how far GN-z11 is from us here on planet Earth, Kashikawa’s team studied the galaxy’s redshift,…

Whether it’s the early reveal of the next Magic Leap One headset, new Cybershoes for the Oculus Quest or the Nuralink brain chips, it’s clear that the augmented and virtual reality spaces are maturing into powerful technology arenas. AI is showing no signs of slowing down either, considering Clearview AI is filing patents for commercial facial recognition tech applications and astronomers are using AI to find gravitational lenses that help us understand deep space better. The machines also seem to be pretty good at finding giant plastic plumes we’ve left in the ocean, in case we feel like ever removing them. AI AI car bingle valuer bot values at US$6.5bn Car insurance photo recognition tool gets a huge market valuation. $NA | cccis.com A company that uses AI image recognition…

US$29.99, PC, Switch, PS, Xbox, wbandainamcoent.euom There’s something rotten at the heart of Little Nightmare 2’s horror. An impressive unpleasantness that sticks to you long after you walk away from its strange, eerie world and twisted characters. I’m saying this is a good thing by the way, as this bizarre child-like place is quite literally nightmare fuel, somehow without any gore or jump scares. Everything just feels… wrong, in a way that seems to pull up some sort of almost primordial revulsion. It’s things like the leering face of the Teacher, who chases you without moving with an endlessly uncoiling, creaking neck. Or the ceiling bound Doctor that scurries above the beds under him, occasionally dropping down to check his patients below - people who hate themselves so much they’re…

$TBC, www.asus.com The Asus ZenBook Duo 14 UX482E, announced at CES 2021, is the latest dual-screen laptop from the company, which seems determined to make a case for a second screen on a laptop. Previous ZenBook Duos, plus the gaming-oriented Asus Zephyrus Duo 15 GX550, have hinted at the possibilities of the use of a second screen, but while we appreciated Asus trying something different with the laptop form factor, the second screen on those devices have never felt essential. With the ZenBook Duo 14 UX482E, Asus is hoping to change that. Design The most remarkable aspect of the Asus ZenBook Duo 14 UX482E’s design is the second screen, but we’ll get to that in a moment. On first taking the Asus ZenBook Duo 14 UX482E out of the box,…

$135, www.razer.com The new Razer Viper 8K asks a simple question: how much of a difference does an extra 7,000Hz make? When it comes to the polling rate of a mouse, quite a lot actually – especially if you’re a serious esports player. The polling rate of a peripheral is the number of times it reports its state to the computer every second, including its position, if buttons are pressed, if the mouse wheel clicked over, etc. The industry standard polling rate is once every millisecond, or 1,000Hz. The Razer Viper 8K, meanwhile, has a polling rate of 8,000Hz, so 8,000 reports a second, or once every 0.125 milliseconds. This gives the Razer Viper 8K an incredible level of responsiveness, such as smoother precision aiming, with button presses registering significantly…

$5,499, www.nikon.com.au We were blown away by the original Nikon Z7, which arrived alongside the Nikon Z6 in 2018 as the company’s first full-frame mirrorless cameras. For a first generation, both were instantly competitive, even class-leading in some areas, but neither was perfect – hence the arrival of the Nikon Z7 II and Z6 II. This second generation brings a sense of tweaking and refinement, along with a slight reorientation to address the critics. For instance, the Nikon Z7 II now has dual cards slots and twin Expeed 6 image processors to help enhance performance. High-speed 10fps burst rates are sustained for longer, while autofocus is more versatile, even if we’re not quite in pro sports territory here. Video features have been improved too, with internal 4K 60fps and Full…

One of the benefits of an Android device is the ability to use and to customise it for your exact needs. All Android devices look similar when first powered up, but the range of settings that you can manage is immense. This may make things feel complicated at first, but try out one or two areas and see which options work best for you, and then move on to the next until you are happy with how the device is running. You can adjust the display brightness, make the fonts bigger and do so much more just in the Display section. You can also view lots of useful data in Settings such as how much battery power you are using and the amount of mobile data you have consumed in…

REQUIRES macOS 10.14 or later YOU WILL LEARN About the key new features in Safari 14 IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes When Apple revealed the new version of Safari that’s included with macOS 11 Big Sur, it said this would be Safari’s “biggest update ever.” As well as providing faster browsing and, therefore, helping to prolong your MacBook’s battery life, the new version of Safari is packed with features that make browsing your favorite websites easier. It also provides stronger controls to protect your privacy online. The new features focus on three main areas – the revamped Start Page, improved privacy, and more versatile tab management. The Start Page can now be customized to suit your personal browsing preferences, with a new Options menu that allows you to select the…

Available in both Lightroom and Photoshop’s Camera Raw filter, the Hue, Saturation and Luminosity tools within the Color Mixer box give you a fine degree of control over the colours and tones in your images. Whether you want to subtly alter a colour or change it completely, these tools can help. Here we’ve made use of the Color Mixer tools to re-colour the backdrop without affecting the subject. This takes mere seconds with a targeted Hue adjustment, and doesn’t require any complicated selections or cut-outs. You simply enable the Hue sampler, then drag over the backdrop to alter the colour. If you want to delve deeper into controlling the hue, saturation and luminosity of colours in the image, you can experiment with Camera Raw and Lightroom’s local adjustment tools, which…

As well as altering background colours, the HSL tools are invaluable for all kinds of edits. In landscapes, a useful trick is to use the Luminosity on-image tool to drag down on blue skies to make them darker and richer, then switch to Saturation and drag upwards to make the blues more intense (as shown here in Lightroom CC). With beauty portraits, you can make the skin look slightly cleaner and fresher by lifting the Luminosity of the reds and oranges. And if any object in a scene lacks impact, like the petals of a flower or the greens in foliage, you can target and increase the Saturation with ease.…