Table of contents for No.285 - July 2018 in PC Pro

WIN one of our £2,000-worth of prizes. See p65 THIS MONTH’S FEATURE about bill shocks is close to my heart. Indeed, my pulse is still recovering from receiving an excess data charge of £40 after adding one of my children to BT’s Family SIM plan. As with so many people we heard from as part of our article, I was caught out because I hadn’t read the small print. How handy for each of the companies in question. “It’s there in black and white,” they can crow, “so it’s your responsibility, not ours.” And lo and behold, the courts will normally agree with them. While there’s always a chance you can cut your bill by appealing to the goodwill of the company, you will still end up paying to some…

1 Prime passes 100 million Amazon announced it had passed the 100 million member mark for its Prime subscription service, as CEO Jeff Bezos delivered a rare glimpse into his psyche to shareholders. He wrote that customers were “divinely discontent”, forcing the company to continually raise standards. He also revealed that meetings at the company begin with silent reading of six-page memos… 2 Officials point finger at Russia over hacking The UK security services (and the US) stepped up the rhetoric against Russia, blaming the state for a series of attacks on internet infrastructure around the world. According to officials, hackers working for Russia have over the past three years compromised alarge numbers of corporate routers, switches and networking equipment for espionage purposes and “future offensive operations”. 3 ZTE to…

PREMIUM LAPTOPS Dell XPS 13 9370 Ultraportable from £1,249 from dell.co.uk This 2018 update to the all-dominant Dell XPS 13 keeps tweaks to the minimum: slimmer bezels, eighth-generation Intel Core processors and the promise of even longer battery life are the key benefits. Just note that Dell has embraced USB-C ports at the expense of the old-fashioned Type-A. REVIEW Issue 284, p54 ALTERNATIVES Microsoft Surface Book 2 A unique and versatile laptop with a screen that detaches to become a tablet – the £1,830 version is our pick of the bunch. From £1,149 from microsoft.com/store REVIEW Issue 281, p48 Lenovo Yoga 920 An ultra-thin convertible from Lenovo that not only looks great, and has supreme power, but lasted for an impressive 12 hours in our battery tests. £1,199 from lenovo.com…

@bazzacollins These are dangerous times for the power user. They’re coming for us. The shallow masses who are perfectly happy doing the word processing in a web browser and “editing” their photos with an Instagram filter are in the ascendancy. The browser is the new OS, so they’ve been saying for a while. Who needs full-fat Windows or macOS? Well, I do, for one. That horrible word “convergence” is once again in fashion, with operating systems and long-established applications slated for a good converging. But convergence necessarily means compromise, and that’s rotten news for those of us at the extremes – those who need the full file system, who crave the command line, who still worship at the altar of x86. Rumour has it that the desktop-oriented Chrome OS and…

This month, the bonus software edition of PC Pro comes with a full copy of Emsisoft Anti-Malware (see p66). It protects against ransomware, bots, trojans and potentially unwanted applications such as browser toolbars, which can be intrusive and may even spy on your online activity. And with hourly updates against 300,000 new threats every day, you’ll be even better protected when you head home than you were when you arrived at the office this morning. 1 configure emsisoft anti-malware Emsisoft Anti-Malware is ready to use out of the box, and the simple interface makes it easy to carry out various security tasks. Tap Scan on the application homescreen to get started, then either Quick Scan or “Malware scan to check your system”. Alternatively, you could opt for Custom Scan to…

Each of the smart speakers on test this month is awarded a star rating out of five. To calculate this score, we consider a range of factors, including the general capabilities of the voice assistant, the specific design features of the individual unit, and how convenient and ergonomic any physical controls are. Sound quality is also an important factor. We assess this by listening carefully to a variety of standard tracks on each unit – in both mono and stereo where supported – paying attention to the depth, balance and overall tone of the sound, at both moderate listening volume and maximum volume. We also measure the maximum sound output of each speaker while playing a standard passage of music, using a calibrated sound meter app running on an iPad…

PRICE £117 (£140 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285plus The Echo Plus looks identical to the original 2016 Echo, except that it’s available in a space-age silver finish as well as the classic black and white options. That means it stands quite a bit taller than today’s standard Echo, and has a twisting volume control at the top, which we find much more pleasant than the up and down buttons that are now otherwise standard. Inside, as befits the “Plus” designation, you will find upgraded audio hardware in the form of a bigger tweeter. This makes a very perceptible difference: music instantly gains a clarity and presence that the regular Echo simply can’t match. It’s still mono, of course, and the low-end is solid rather than scintillating. Despite the larger size, it’s…

PRICE £108 (£129 inc VAT) from store.google.com The Amazon Echo may have come first, but the Google Home is no mere imitation. It’s a credible rival with distinctive strengths – and weaknesses. That the device has a character of its own is obvious from the moment you set eyes on it. Next to the textured cylinder of the Echo, its two-tone design and angled top make much more of a statement. The upper section comes only in white, but the grey fabric speaker cover can be replaced with a jaunty coral fabric, or – for a more industrial look – metal shields in carbon or copper. The interface is more futuristic, too. While the Echo’s ring of LEDs is clearly visible around its top edge, the Home conceals them beneath…

PRICE £100 (£120 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285spot Physically, the Echo Spot looks like a bedside clock – and when dormant its circular 480 x 480 touchscreen shows a colourful clock face (there are 23 styles to choose from). Like the Show, it can also cycle through upcoming calendar entries, news alerts and so on – although, since the screen’s only 2.5in in diameter, it can be a little hard to read from across the room. The Spot isn’t exactly a small device, mind. A sizeable bezel surrounds the display, and the rounded casing bulges out behind it: the black model is a bit more slimming than the white, but whichever you choose the footprint is slightly larger than that of an Echo Dot. Happily, its sound quality is vastly better,…

PRICE Zipp, £192 (£230 inc VAT), Zipp Mini £133 (£160 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285zipp Libratone’s Zipp and Zipp Mini speakers take their names from the chunky fastener that secures their boldly coloured fabric covers. They also sport distinctive leather straps that encourage you to pick them up and go: with a claimed ten-hour battery life, these speakers don’t need to be chained to a mains socket. Unlike JBL and Ultimate Ears’ battery-powered speakers, however, they’re not waterproof. That’s not the only way in which Libratone’s characterful speakers differ from other contenders. Rather than being designed as smart speakers from the beginning, they’re regular Bluetooth speakers that have been retrofitted with updated firmware to work with Alexa – and, sad to say, it’s not a good fit. For a start, while…

PRICE £46 (£55 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285zolo If you’re looking for a small, low-cost Alexa device, but can’t tolerate the hollow sound of the Echo Dot, the Halo could be just the thing. It has a tiny 70 x 70mm footprint, with a low-rise design that won’t dominate your desk, yet crams in a speaker that’s three times the size of the Dot’s. To be clear, we’re not talking blow-your-socks-off hi-fi here. You’re never going to get thundering bass from a device this size, and we measured the Halo’s maximum volume at a fairly restrained 68dBA. Even so, it gives an impressively full-bodied sonic performance that’s in a different league to the Dot’s. The low end is warm enough to fill out the sound, while the upper frequencies never become…

PRICE 8 SC Standard, £266 ex VAT (1st year free) from 3cx.com If you’re just getting ready to switch to VoIP, you may understandably be nervous about hosting your own IP PBX – but 3CX’s Phone System 15.5 is wonderfully simple to set up. For a start, it supports a huge choice of deployment options. The software runs on both Windows and Linux hosts, so you can run it on a dedicated server, virtualise it in Hyper-V or VMware, or host it on a cloud server from the likes of OVH, 1&1, Amazon Web Services or Google. Another great thing about 3CX is that it’s absolutely free to get started. You can sign up for a permanent four-SIM licence without paying a penny, and test it for as long as…

PRICE From £14.95 per month exc VAT from sipgate.co.uk If you’re seeking a simple cloud-based IP PBX, Sipgate Team ticks plenty of boxes. The Light package starts at only £14.95 per month for three users, and can be upgraded in small increments so you don’t pay for more VoIP than you need. It’s called “Light” for a reason, mind. Your monthly subscription doesn’t include any calls to landlines or mobiles; you can of course pay for these individually, but for most businesses it will make sense to invest in an add-on call package. The UK Call Pack bundle, for example, starts at £44.95 per month and includes unlimited VoIP calls to UK landlines and mobiles, regardless of duration. Porting across existing landline numbers costs extra too, with prices starting at…

PRICE Appliance with 1yr Total Security Suite, £429 exc VAT from watchguard-online.co.uk The Firebox T15 is the new entry-point to WatchGuard’s family of tabletop security appliances – but it’s no lightweight, with features that rival much bigger, more expensive appliances. That’s because it works with WatchGuard’s Total Security Suite, which provides a huge range of enterprise-grade network-security functions, including web filtering, application controls, anti-spam and gateway antivirus. Your first year’s subscription to Total Security is included in the price, after which you’re looking at an ongoing annual cost of around £290 exc VAT. It all works through a range of proxies, which control different traffic types – and on first contact, each one opens up a wizard to help you with setup. For web-content filtering, for example, we simply chose…

EXPERT ADVICE FROM OUR PANEL OF PROFESSIONALS Both of my big Synology installations have two SSD cache drives in them. These are standard SSD drives that you fit, but you then configure them to be cache rather than storage. Doing this is a piece of cake, and it should make things faster. Looking at the statistics, I get a pretty good set of cache hits from the SSD drives, so they’re clearly doing their job. When I configured both Synology NAS drives, I set up all the disks in one big volume. I prefer to have one big pool and then to share out access via shares. Others might disagree, saying it’s better to have pools of volumes, splitting the hard drive count into a number of selections. To be…

Who knows where the whole Cambridge Analytica mess will have ended up by the time you read this. One thing is certain, however: the knock-on impact on Facebook. Forget about the £25 billion wiped off its share value overnight, and the legal/regulatory action that might come from the revelation that 87 million user profiles were used without informed consent. The impact I’m talking about right now is both positive and negative. Positive, in so far as the story does appear to have finally alerted folk to the danger of taking part in those “What kind of animal am I?” and “What is my real political leaning?” type surveys that plague Facebook. Yet people who do know better still participate on the basis of “what harm will it do?” My answer…

I wrote this column – my photo is there for a reason – but one day not all the words in your favourite magazines, newspapers and websites will be written by humans. It’s already happening, with trials afoot to use machine learning to cobble together short But Reuters is stepping away from machine-written stories to instead focus on building artificial intelligence tools that help journalists do their jobs both faster and better. The newswire giant launched Lynx Insight, an AI-powered data-crunching tool that does everything from look at financial reports to suggesting story angles. For example, it could help with contextual details, such as how long it’s been since a company has posted such a long stock slump. Humans can dig out such data themselves, of course, but it takes…

Darien Graham-Smith The task? To put 16 smart speakers through the UK’s most in-depth tests. Who better to do so than our own smart Darien Graham-Smith? From p74 Crispin Horsfield Proving that you never stop learning when it comes to technology, our guest columnist shares the lessons learned from his 40-year career on p116 Dave Stevenson There’s a tech revolution going on, but this time it’s fighting on the side of analogue – from Filofaxes to cameras. Dave meets the refuseniks from p42 Paul Ockenden How do you keep tabs on a house with no broadband and no electricity? Paul puts a connected camera from Vodafone through real-world tests on p113…

G-Drive Mobile Pro SSD Hard drives for creative professionals working with 4K and 8K video must maintain consistently blistering data transfer speeds. Western Digital offshoot G-Technology’s latest portable drive is aimed squarely at such occupations. The G-Drive Mobile Pro SSD promises sustained transfer rates of 2,800MB/sec, which the company says enables users to edit multi-stream 8K footage at its full frame rate in real-time, or quickly render virtual reality projects at full resolution. The device pushes the Thunderbolt 3 connection to its limits, with the port also providing power to the device to minimise additional cables. The drive comes in 500GB and 1TB capacities (but static devices in the same range push capacity to 16TB). The devices are also designed to be survive life in the field, having survived drops…

@njkobie Working from home removes a lot of stress. You trade the delayed commutes on crowded trains for naps, for example. But as a journalist, I spend a lot of time on the phone, often with people who live far away. This week, I’ve spoken to academics in Australia and privacy advocates in Canada. Thanks to the internet, I need not rack up massive long-distance phone bills – handy as one of the downsides of working for yourself is paying your own bills. Instead of calling on my mobile phone – who has a landline these days? – I can dial my interviewees on Skype or set up a Google Hangout. As brilliant as both are, they raise an issue of etiquette: should I leave my video on? This is…

In her “Pessimist’s guide to the future” (see issue 283, p124), Nicole Kobie is sceptical about smart buses. She’s right to be. Here in rural Wiltshire we were ahead of the game 20 years ago with the Wigglybus, whose route was determined by whoever phoned it to divert to their village. The bus was a spectacular failure that was always empty, and it didn’t even connect with the mainline trains. After a few years, the Wigglybus was withdrawn and replaced. Its replacement was a conventional timetabled bus service – which, of course, still doesn’t connect with the train service. Wiltshire has shown the world that smart rural transport doesn’t work. Nevertheless, once electricity and the internet arrive I’m told we won’t need transport any more. Quentin Howard Our star letter writer…

The biggest, best, most exciting products in tech – tested, evaluated and reviewed PRICE 32GB Wi-Fi, £265 (£319 inc VAT) from apple.com We’re used to Apple launching products in darkened halls, with the hush of an expectant crowd only broken by the generous distribution of adjectives. “Magical.” “Wonderful.” “Amazing.” “Cool.” By contrast, Apple’s keynote unveiling of the new iPad felt positively downbeat. The keynote wasn’t even in a glamorous location: Apple chose Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago. This signals a gear change for the iPad. Apple is clearly aware that it’s already reached the vast majority of home users and professionals who are going to buy tablets, and it’s switching its gaze to potentially the biggest market of all: schools. This is the first iPad to be…

Recommended This, quite simply, is a product we would recommend you buy – if it meets your needs. A-List The best buy in its category right now. The product will also feature on our A-List, starting on p16, updated each month. Labs Winner Each month we run a group test, or Labs. This product has managed to beat all others to top position. The pcpro.link Throughout the magazine you’ll see pcpro.link shortcuts. Enter these into the address bar of your browser and it will take you to a particular page, which will either be too long or awkward for us to publish or will take you to the precise shop from which to buy. If it’s Amazon, note that we have an affiliate deal in place so we will receive…

PRICE £235 (£282 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk Only four new CPUs are being released by AMD for now, with the fastest second-generation Ryzen model being the Ryzen 7 2700X. That means there’s no direct replacement for the Ryzen 7 1800X yet, but don’t fear: the new CPU has a 100MHz advantage in base frequency, and while the Ryzen 7 1800X could reach a maximum frequency of 4.1GHz using XFR, the new CPU can reach a lofty 4.3GHz. And across more than just one core too. As such, it’s not just quicker than the 1800X in lightly threaded tasks, it could be much faster in multithreaded tasks too. There’s not much new in terms of basic hardware. Yes, the die has shrunk from 14nm to 12nm, but we’re still dealing with…

PRICE £608 (£730 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285yama The iMac has always been a style icon, so Apple can hardly blame Iiyama if it borrows many of its design cues – right down to the silver strip at the bottom and the glorious 5K resolution. It’s only a shame Iiyama stuck to those thick bezels: a three-sided borderless design would look even better. Where this glamorous 27in 5K monitor differs from the iMac is its fully adjustable stand. Along with pivot, tilt and height adjustment, the XB2779QQS offers full 360-degree rotation, instead of the more common 180-degree range. If even that’s not enough for you, a 100 x 100mm VESA mount means you can replace the stand completely. You access the OSD through a set of touch-sensitive buttons at the bottom…

WIN Synology DS918+ THREE NAS DRIVES WORTH £520 EACH Synology’s powerful DS918 + offers a cracking set of features, whether you’re buying for personal or business use. There’s space for four hard drives, giving a maximum 48TB of storage: you’ll need to buy and fit these drives yourself, but that’s an easy process. Add the easy-to-use features that Synology is renowned for, from video surveillance to simple backup, and it’s an excellent addition to any technologist’s home. synology.co.uk WIN Iiyama ProLite XB3270QS-B1 WORTH £289 Thanks to Iiyama, we have one feature-rich, height-adjustable and flicker-free 32in monitor to give away. With an IPS panel featuring a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution, it promises excellent colour reproduction with wide viewing angles to meet the demands of both graphic design and the modern workplace.…

PRICE £441 (£529 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285xz2 Remember when a 5in handset was considered large? Now a 5in handset is considered so small it deserves the word “Compact” at the end of its name, but that’s an apt adjective. Like its bigger brother, the XZ2, it’s all smooth corners and sides, with a slightly curved back. It’s a nice looking phone, even if Sony has replaced the reflective glass on the XZ2’s backplate with an anti-scratch, polycarbonate coating. It feels comfortable in the palm, but one slight drawback is the location of the fingerprint reader. Older Sony phones used to have this as part of the power button on the side of the handset, but now it’s harder to reach on the back plate. A bigger casualty is Sony’s removal…

PRICE £75 (£90 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285echo If you’re reading this, you already know the Amazon Echo: it’s the king of the smart speaker market. In the US, it’s estimated that more than 70% of smart speakers sold to date have been Alexa devices. That’s part of what makes the Echo such a compelling choice. When a third party wants to add voice control to a smart gadget, the sheer weight of numbers behind Alexa means the Echo is generally the first platform they turn to. There’s now a huge range of household devices that connect to Alexa, from routers to cameras, phones and thermostats, allowing you to control them by barking commands from the comfort of your sofa. As you’d expect, Alexa also works with Amazon’s Fire TV devices.…

PRICE £266 (£319 inc VAT) from apple.com Apple’s late arrival in the smart speaker market means it’s playing catch-up with Amazon and Google – but the HomePod might be special enough to persuade Echo or Google Home devotees to switch. It doesn’t look particularly assuming. Actually, it looks rather bland. A fabric mesh (in either white or “Space Grey”) covers the entire exterior, save for a black plastic blob on top. Neither branding nor controls are visible – the only physical connector is the power cable. Address it with “Hey, Siri!”, though, and a familiar luminescent circle appears on the top surface to show it’s listening. Touch-sensitive volume controls also appear on the same surface as needed. Not blown away? Start playing some music and you just might be. We…

PRICE £41 (£49 inc VAT) from store.google.com The tiny Google Home Mini is, self-evidently, the company’s answer to the Echo Dot. In fact, it looks rather classier than Amazon’s miniature device, with a (non-exchangeable) white, charcoal or coral fabric exterior. It sounds far better than the Dot, however, thanks to its 40mm full-range driver. To be clear, music lovers won’t swoon at the quality: the bass is quite rumbly and uncontrolled, and there’s little crispness to the treble. For background music, though, it’s vastly more listenable than its rival, and the maximum volume of 68dBA is louder than the Dot’s 62dBA. That said, the quality of the sound drops off as you dial up the volume, with an unpleasant harshness to the tone at full blast. While the Mini may…

PRICE £149 (£179 inc VAT) from uk.jbl.com JBL makes a whole range of Bluetooth speakers, and at first glance there doesn’t appear to be anything particularly special about the Link 20. Look closely at the top, however, and you’ll spot the distinctive multicoloured logo of the Google Assistant. Indeed, as far as the software’s concerned, this might as well be a regular Google Home unit. The Link 20 integrates right into the Google Home app, and it can do very nearly anything Google’s own hardware can, from music streaming to checking your calendar. The only major feature that’s been held back is the ability to make phone calls from the device. Although the Link 20 works just like a real Google Home, it’s physically much less showy, with push-button controls…

PRICE £166 (£199 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285son Sonos specialises in multiroom audio, and the One looks and feels like a mature bit of audio hardware. It sounds fantastic, too: at moderate volume, the bass is reassuringly weighty, yet wonderfully precise. The overall tone isn’t quite as excitable as the JBL Link 20’s, and the mid-range gets a bit oversaturated at maximum volume – but you’ll rarely want to turn it up that far, as the Sonos One goes up to a deafening 84dBA. The One also does a pretty good impression of an Amazon Echo. You can address it as “Alexa”, instruct it to stream music, control smart home devices, access skills and so on. As is usual with third-party products, however, you can’t change the wake word, and you…

As I’ve lamented before, friends and family have more or less stopped seeking my opinion on which smartphone or laptop they should buy. I can see why: the technology has progressed to a point where the shiny widget that catches their eye in the shop is almost certainly good enough for their needs – so why bother asking? When it comes to smart speakers, however, we’re nowhere near that point. If you don’t know the ins and outs of the market, it’s very possible to end up with a device which is quite wrong for you. And so, for the first time in ages, friends and colleagues are once again coming to me for advice. Which device will work with all my existing gear, they wonder? Which gives me all…

PRICE Model BF4002GSMBox, from £828 exc VAT from voipon.co.uk BeroNet’s gateway appliances are designed for businesses who want to switch to VoIP without ditching their existing PSTN equipment. This model comes with four PSTN ports, and also offers a pair of SIM slots, which can help reduce call costs by routing calls to mobile numbers over cellular networks. For those who make a lot of mobile calls, there’s a quad-GSM version too, plus an optional ISDN module. The appliance comes in the form of a sturdy aluminium desktop box (the casing acts as a heatsink, so it’s completely silent). The sockets face the front; the PSTN connectors line up along the bottom, while above sit two small push buttons that release a pair of SIM-card trays. The gateway will work…

Cyber kill chain? That sounds scary. That might be explained by the fact that it’s a military term. The “kill chain” is the complete sequence of an offensive attack: in the context of warfare it can be expanded to “find, fix, track, target, engage and assess”. For computer-based attacks, Lockheed Martin developed the concept of the cyber kill chain, which starts with reconnaissance and then moves through delivery, exploitation and other stages in pursuit of the attacker’s final objectives. Is this something I need to know about? I’m not planning on attacking anyone. The kill chain isn’t just about planning attacks: it’s also a powerful defensive principle. The closer you are to the start of the kill chain, the better your chances of stopping an attacker in their tracks. In…

PRICE £249 exc VAT from printerland.co.uk Xerox’s WorkCentre family aims to tempt small businesses to think big: the bargain-priced 6515DNI combines print, scan, copy and fax functions, and features a fast 28ppm LED print engine with plenty of connection options. Those include both Gigabit Ethernet and a little wireless 802.11n dongle that slots in at the rear. Unlike some printers, the 6515DNI can use both at once, and it also supports AirPrint and Wi-Fi Direct, along with NFC tap-to-print services for Android and Google Cloud Print. Getting set up is a breeze, thanks to the setup wizard that pops up on the big 5in colour touchscreen the first time you turn it on. This walks you through configuring network connections, access security and apps; it’s a very similar interface to…

Of the two invites to land in my in-tray in early 2018, I was sure that Tilburg wouldn’t be as interesting as Las Vegas. Despite an over-concentration of IT sector events in Sin City, it’s a reasonably safe bet that a small town in the middle of the Netherlands holds no secrets more intriguing than those on offer in America’s playground. Which just goes to show how wrong safe bets can be: Dell’s event in Tilburg was about as gritty and genuine to the mission as it gets. Also: huge. I’m writing this in the Hotel Last Resort in Germany, on the evening of the Dell site visit and tour, and my feet really hurt. It’s an enormous building. I think the only tour that punishes the feet as enthusiastically…

SWARMS OF DRONES could soon take to the air to check farmers’ fields or be sent swimming in groups to monitor pollution, while robots already work together in distribution warehouses. But what happens if one gets hurt, breaking a rotor or arm? Dr Danesh Tarapore has been training robots to be more resilient, learning to compensate for faults or damage. Picture a dog with only three legs – it runs to chase after a thrown ball just fine, said Tarapore. Robots sent out in the real world need to learn to do the same, and thanks to a £250,000 grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, his work is set to continue. Here’s how Dr Tarapore is teaching broken robots new tricks. Where did the idea come from?…

I’m not sure which was worse. Was it watching Zuckerberg sit on his “big boy” cushion attempting to persuade the US Senate that he and his company were jolly good chaps? Or the sight of Senate committee members asking questions of marginal relevance of a company that had paid them $381,000 in campaign contributions since 2007, according to the Center for Responsive Politics? Although I admit that the smirk was wiped off my face at the assertion by Mr Zee that Facebook was all in favour of regulation, just so long as it was the right sort of regulation. But enough of him and the Great Facebook Meltdown To Come. I’ve been slowly getting back onto Twitter this month. Not in any radical way, of course, because all the things…

Background and analysis on all the important news stories THE PROCESS OF auctioning 4G and 5G spectrum is flawed and contributes to slow infrastructure development in the UK, according to industry experts. The government is set to receive £1.4 billion from the recent 5G spectrum auction, orchestrated by telecoms regulator Ofcom. Although the auction provides welcome funds for the Treasury, it also means that carriers pay more than they might to secure use of the airwaves, leaving them with less money for investment in their networks and pushing up prices for consumers. “The UK 5G auction raised less than the 3G and the 4G, so it wasn’t such a burden on the operators,” said Kester Mann, a 5G specialist analyst with research company CCS Insight. “Having said that, it was…

Dovey Cake Design doveycakedesign.co.uk This high-end cake design company, which is based in south Oxfordshire, specialises in weddings – and, bizarrely, is blocked by TalkTalk Kidsafe. The PawTraits Exhibition thepawtraitsexhibition.co.uk A charity photography website raising money for animal welfare. Apparently blocked because it includes “sex” in the URL. It’s blocked by Virgin Media, TalkTalk and BT. Sipcam sipcamuk.co.uk Sipcam is an agricultural products company selling weed, insect, and disease prevention wares. It’s blocked by ISPs Sky, Three, O2 and Three. Tunnel Bear tunnelbear.com A VPN service blocked by many filters, which take a dim view of “anonymisers”. Blocked by TalkTalk, O2, EE, Vodafone, Sky, Three and Virgin Media.…

PC Pro readers and experts give their views on the world of technology @dariengs When Windows 10 was first revealed back in 2014, I was naturally interested in its new features – but what intrigued me most was its promise to bring the desktop and mobile app experiences into unity. At the time, hopping from phone to laptop to browser had become a fact of life, and I was getting decidedly fed up of dealing with multiple versions of everyday apps and services, all with different experiences and feature sets. I even thought this could be the feature that persuaded me to ditch Android and switch to Windows Phone. Well, we all know how that turned out. But it’s lately become apparent that the dream might not be dead –…

In recent weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about the future, which is surprising when the world’s politicians are conspiring to make us wonder if there’ll even be one. It feels as though a bunch of technologies that we once thought revolutionary, then took for granted, are all at once maturing so as to deliver on their original promise. It started as I was reviewing Greg Milner’s book Pinpoint, about the history of the GPS system. An excellent read, it tells you about those non-obvious applications for which GPS is used most, beyond the satnav in your car: agriculture, transport logistics, timing (and, of course, delivering smart bombs, for which it was invented). I concluded that, unlike the telescope or telephone, GPS actually enhances the planet rather than our senses.…

It’s not just on the desktop where operating systems are getting smarter about security. Historically, Android has been notoriously susceptible to malware, since its open design allows users to install even untrusted code. In response to this, the current version of Android (8, codenamed Oreo), introduced a new feature called Google Play Protect. This continuously scans your apps for vulnerabilities or known malware. Android’s app sandboxing model also keeps every application isolated, so that it can only access its own data. If it tries to load your contacts when it shouldn’t, or pull in your Instagram feed without your permission, it will be blocked. There are still advantages to third-party security apps, however. Avast Mobile Security, Kaspersky Mobile Antivirus and AVG AntiVirus Free for Android – all of which can…

Getting into analogue might seem easy – whether you’re about to give up Outlook in favour of a Filofax or start shooting 35mm, eBay and a series of unfortunate Buy It Now decisions are only a few clicks away. However, unless you’re already familiar with your chosen old-school technology, the initial excitement may fade once you realise that analogue hobbies rarely come with the shallow learning curve of modern gear. “People can be scared to get things wrong,” said Charlotte Longworth of the London Analogue Photography Meetup. Particularly when it comes to film – every under-exposure and missed focus costs real money. But, “you have to do things to learn how to do it.” The internet holds plenty of help: Alex Batterbee of London On Board explained that YouTube is a…

The week after Apple announced the new iPad, I spent the thick end of £400 more on the iPad Pro. Why? Two big factors swung it for me. Firstly, the screen. The extra 20% of space afforded by increasing the screen size from 9.7in to 10.5in is significant, especially with my failing eyesight and my desire to edit photos on this thing. (The 12.5in felt like a jump too far, like smuggling a monitor into your laptop bag.) The iPad Pro also benefits from the 120Hz refresh rate. The claim that this makes reading from the screen comparable to reading from paper is top heavy on the hyperbole, but it’s definitely a step up from the regular iPad screen. The Wide Colour Display will also help me with proofing colours…

PRICE £20,067 (£24,080 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk PC Specialist has been making professional workstations for a few years now, and the company recently introduced a dual-socket system called the Axiom, based on the latest Intel Xeon processors. We asked the company to send us its top-end specification; what we ended up receiving could well be the most powerful workstation we review all year, and probably for a few years to come. Core power The component that pushes this system into the performance stratosphere is the processor. But I should say components, as there are two of them: this workstation sports twin Xeon Platinum 8180 CPUs, which are currently the most potent workstation processors you can buy. Each has 28 cores with Hyper-Threading, for a total of 56 threads. So this…

PRICE £161 (£193 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk There was a clear sweet spot in AMD’s first range of Ryzen CPUs: its six-core Ryzen 5 models. Thankfully, the replacement for the Ryzen 5 1600 and 1600X is one of the first chips out of the blocks with this second generation. Incredibly, AMD’s launch price for the Ryzen 5 2600X means that it can be found for under £ 200 inc VAT, which is a chunky £ 50 less than its predecessor. The higher frequencies and improved boosting algorithms found in the 2700X (see p55) are also present with the Ryzen 5 2600X. Its base frequency is the same as the Ryzen 5 1600 and 1600X at 3.6GHz, but its maximum boost frequency is 100MHz higher at 4.2GHz. Importantly, it can boost…

PRICE £499 (£599 inc VAT) from huawei.com While the Huawei P20 Pro (see p68) is a far more interesting phone than the plain P20, this cheaper alternativee appears to have much in its favour. It’s compact for a phone with a 5.8in display, has a high-spec camera with unusual talents, and the price is tempting for such a high-end phone. It’s pretty, too. Our main photoo shows its two-tone Pink Gold gradient-finish, which looks stunningning with its mother-of-pearl sheen. However, it’s also available in an eye-catching Twilight gradientfinish, just like the P20 Pro. All models have colour-matched chrome edges, softly curved edging to the front and rear glass panels, and a front-mounted fingerprint reader below the screen. The volume and power buttons sit in their customary places on the right-hand…

PRICE £42 (£50 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285dot The baby of the Echo family, the diminutive Dot squeezes a fully functional Alexa “brain” into a little hockey puck that can be discreetly tucked away on a shelf or desk. As befits such a low-profile role, it comes only in plain black or white. However, if you want to show it off there’s a selection of coloured fabric and leather cases at prices between £10 and £12. Despite its size, the Dot features the same seven-microphone array as the regular Echo, meaning voice recognition is impressively sharp and accurate. Its controls and capabilities are entirely identical to those of its bigger brother – you can ask questions, control your lights, play music and so on. The key difference is that there’s no…

PRICE £167 (£199 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285show The Echo Show features a 7in LCD touchscreen, which lets Alexa play videos as well as music. That might not sound very useful for a living room device, but it’s ideal for the kitchen, where you can stick on a sitcom for company while you’re slaving over your Quorn Bolognese. It’s not exactly a cinematic experience, but it’s as sharp and colourful as you could reasonably ask. The experience isn’t perfectly slick, though. Browsing and selecting videos involves a degree of scrolling around with the touchscreen, so you lose the effortlessness of voice control. The range of content is disappointingly narrow, too: Amazon Prime members have the run of the Prime Video library, but there’s no Netflix or BBC iPlayer. YouTube is also…

PRICE £75 (£90 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285kit The Alexa-powered Voice One costs the same as a regular Amazon Echo – but with plenty of original design touches, it’s an interestingly different proposition. For a start, the Voice One is relatively large: it’s taller than an Echo Plus, with a footprint almost as big as the Apple HomePod’s. The LED ring on the front is surrounded by a volume dial, and flashes when you turn it (although there’s no visual feedback to tell you what level is actually selected). Above it, there’s a microphone mute button – the light ring turns red when the Voice One isn’t listening – while below a source button lets you switch between Alexa, Bluetooth and 3.5mm line inputs. At the bottom sits a play/pause control,…

PRICE Blast, £108 (£129 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285blast; Megablast, £141 (£169 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/285mega Ultimate Ears’ Alexa-powered Blast speakers have a real outdoorsy style. Beneath their tough rubber exteriors lurk sizeable internal batteries, lasting for 12 hours on the smaller Blast and 16 hours for the imposing Megablast. They’re IP67-rated too, so you don’t need to worry about dirt or water splashes. As usual, configuration is split between a dedicated Ultimate Ears app and the regular Alexa app, but the former just handles basic connection settings, so there’s no confusion. And it’s delightfully easy to configure your phone as a portable hotspot for the Blast, so Alexa continues to work while you’re out and about. Smart features are mostly present and correct. Predictably, there’s no voice calling, and you…

PRICE From £7.99 per month exc VAT from ringcentral.co.uk The first thing that might catch your eye about RingCentral Office is the price: this cloud-hosted VoIP service starts at just £7.99 per month on a yearly contract. And if the entry-level package isn’t right for you, you can try any other tier for a month to make sure you get the right one. Even after you’re signed up, services are easily customised to cope with changes in demand. In truth, the £7.99 package is quite limited. It comes with just 100 minutes of bundled outbound calls per month, and doesn’t include features such as inbound freephone numbers or internet faxing. Growing businesses may well be more interested in the Standard option, which is still very cheap at £14.99 per month,…

Recon First, the attacker researches their target, gathering information about possible vulnerabilities. Weaponize Next, the attacker creates (or acquires) a malware or exploit kit that can make the best use of the vulnerabilities they’ve found. Deliver The malware is now delivered to the target, via means such as a malicious link or attachment – or perhaps a social engineering trick. Exploit This is the execution of the exploit itself. For example, a privilege-escalation attack might be used to gain access to sensitive data. Install “Back door” software is often deployed on the target network, so the attacker can maintain access over a prolonged period without being detected. Command & Control An intermediary server – often one that’s been compromised without the knowledge of the owner – is frequently used to…

The two key issues for me are reliability and support. Many people get hung up on SLAs and uptime guarantees, but there are two problems: first, although 99.9% sounds great, over the course of a year your website can be down for nearly nine hours – a whole working day. In business terms, that could be an awful lot of lost revenue. The second problem with service level guarantees is that if the hosting is down for longer than nine hours – say, a week – the recompense is usually just a refund of your hosting fees for that period, or occasionally a little more. It’s in no way tied to the money that you’ll lose from lost orders and, in the longer term, lost customers. If you can’t rely…

My first proper IT job was in the early 1980s. It was for a corporate video firm in Box, near Bath. I’d started an electronics business a few years earlier, building industrial and scientific equipment, but since this was a bit specialist, I also did work for local sound studios. It was as a pro-audio engineer that I approached Spafax Television to see if it had any work – and to my good fortune, it had a problem routing video and audio between edit suites and the video tape recorders. This was the era of early microcomputers, so I used a Dragon 32 and designed and built PCBs populated with relays to switch the various channels. As I’d demonstrated knowledge about computers, Spafax offered me a contract to join a…

We explore the trends and technologies that are set to shape the future The future of the internet is at a crossroads, with the direction set by regulators who are finally giving due weight to the importance of privacy. The most obvious sign? That US and UK politicians alike are ready to slap down Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, summoning CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg to answer questions over the missteps made by the world’s dominant social network. “It’s a really big moment, a cultural awakening about what’s happening with our data,” said Laura Tribe, executive director at OpenMedia. “My biggest hope is… that we can have a conversation as a society about how we want this to go. It’s about trying to build something that’s…