Vista is finally here

After a tumultuous 5 years in development and much feature hacking, the successor to Windows XP was finally released to consumers today.

Windows Vista promises a more secure, stable and prettier Windows than has ever gone before and seems to deliver on most of those but most reviewers seem to agree that it's not a must-have upgrade and is simply a 'warmed-over' version of XP.

Certainly there's been a lot of comparison with Mac OS X Tiger and it does appear as though a lot of the features Microsoft has been touting as significant, such as live desktop searching and 3D / transparency effects to name but two, have been around for sometime in the Mac world.

But for the masses of PC users out there, I'm sure it will be fun and interesting to finally get to use a nicer looking, stable operating system. And with more than 100m computers predicted to be using it worldwide within 12 months, that will be quite a few people!

It's about time Windows dragged itself into the 21st century but the real test will be when people can compare it to Leopard, coming this spring.

iPod shuffle now in five 'brilliant' colours

Apple just released 4 new colours to go with the standard silver iPod shuffle. You can now also choose from pink, orange, green and blue. Same price at £55.



Check out the Apple store for more details.

Intel and IBM both announce chip breakthrough

In similar but separate announcements over the weekend, both Intel and IBM announced what some are calling the biggest breakthrough in computer chip design since the 1960s.

As chips get ever smaller, down past the current 65nm level, the problem is that the silicon dioxide used to insulate and control the flow of electrons to the transistors has to be made so thin it leads to increased energy leakage and unnecessary heat generation, thus making the chips much less efficient.

Now both Intel and IBM are planning to use a new material they're calling 'high-k' which is metallic rather than based on silicon. It offers better insulation and less leakage and so enables the chip manufacturers to keep shrinking transistors and fitting more onto each chip.

This all translates to me and you into smaller, faster, more efficient and cooler, next generation 45nm chips which will ensure that Moore's law of doubling the number of transistors on a chip every 24 months continues for the next few years at least.

Intel will begin production of their new 'Penryn' chip based on the new 45nm process later this year and IBM will follow in 2008.

Wii news channel goes live

Nintendo launched the Wii news channel on Friday, a day early. We've already got the weather and internet channels and this update adds to the useful little things your Wii can do in addition to playing games.

It works like a simplified RSS reader really, it downloads the latest headlines and you can choose to read items by selecting from national, regional, international, sports, arts/entertainment, business, science/health and technology categories.

You then see a list of all the stories in that category and can either simply read them one at a time or see a 'slideshow' where it will automatically run through the headlines in full screen.

The clever part comes when stories have geotag information associated with them and it then plots them on a representation of the globe, just like the weather channel does. So as you go through the slideshow, the globe spins around and highlights the location of the story. Very cool.

You can also just manually spin around the globe and zoom in and out on regions and it will show you a stack of papers on locations to show you how much news there is. You can click on it and read or spin around to somewhere else. It even shows any photos that are attached to the story as well.

Overall a very nice new feature and I really feel Nintendo are leading the way here with simple, TV-based interfaces for browsing information rich content like news and weather. It works so well with the Wii remote because you can just point at things on the screen, so it's very much like using a mouse - certainly much easier than a normal joypad.

To see a video of the news channel in action, check out this YouTube video and you can see some pics here.

PS3 UK/PAL launch details confirmed

Sony confirmed the details of the PS3 launch in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand last night. 23rd March is the day and £424.99 / €599 / A$999.95 / NZ$1,199.95 are the respective prices.



There will be one million of the consoles available in Europe, with 300,000 of those likely earmarked for the UK. It will only be available in the premium 60GB version initially, the cheaper 20GB version may be available later in the year depending on demand.

There are going to be around 30 games available at launch including Resistance: Fall of Man, Genji: Days of the Blade, Call of Duty 3, The Elder Scrolls lV: Oblivion and Formula One Championship Edition to name a few.

With the Xbox 360 having already sold 10 million units worldwide and the Nintendo Wii selling 700,000 units in Europe in December alone, Sony are definitely playing catch-up. The high price of the PS3 won't help, you could buy a premium Xbox 360 AND a Wii for only £35 more than a PS3.

Nevertheless, it will surely sell out at launch. It's just whether it can keep selling once the hype has died down. With rumours that stores are struggling to shift the gaming behemoth in the US and Japan post-Christmas, it will be interesting to see if there is a similar pattern over here.

Review: Google Reader

I've recently moved away from a combination of FeedDemon (at work) and NetNewsWire (at home) to Google Reader for all my RSS reading.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the result and it makes it a lot easier to read feeds at work on my PC and not have to worry about syncing read items with my Mac at home through NewsGator.

With Google Reader, as it's all online, I get the same view wherever I am, even on my mobile. It works a treat in Safari as well (faster than in Firefox in fact).

The basic functions of any RSS reader are there: the ability to show expanded or list views, OPML file import/export, the ability to display only unread items etc. There are also a few other really handy features, like the ability to 'star', 'share' or 'tag' interesting items you come across in your feeds.

Starring works in much the same way as in gmail and is effectively a way of bookmarking an item so you can easily find it later on. I find it useful to star items that I want to blog about later so I can quickly refer back to them.

The sharing facility is a great idea, it enables you to create your own list of selected items from those that you are reading. People can then either look at a page of your shared items or subscribe to a feed so they can see what interesting items you deem worthy of sharing. You can see this in action by looking at the 'What we're reading' section on the right hand side of this blog.

You can also tag items that interest you, a more versatile form of starring, so that you can easily file or categorise items with any tag description. The tagging can also be used in combination with sharing to make public all items with a specific tag.

So the basics work well and there are some nice more advanced features. So far so good. But there are definitely some strange omissions as well (yes, before you say it, I know it's only a Google labs app).

Probably the most obvious is the lack of any kind of search tool. And this is from Google, the search king? Very strange. I would definitely like to be able to search through my subscriptions to find items I have already read but forgot to tag or star first time round.

Similarly, I'd like to be able to run permanent searches against my feeds. So if, for example, I always wanted to see a list of items in my feeds that contained the word 'apple' I could see them in a permanent list. In much the same way that you can search Google News and create feeds and email alerts from the results.

It would be nice to integrate this with your tags, so you could see items you had previously tagged with certain descriptions and then choose to display all items across all feeds that also contained that tag keyword or phrase. It would then start to become seriously powerful.

The other main thing I miss from the desktop apps (particularly NetNewsWire) are the powerful keyboard shortcuts. I used to navigate around my feeds a lot using the arrow keys for moving between and up/down the list of feeds and items.

In Google Reader you can use some keyboard shortcuts but it's not anywhere near as easy as with a desktop app due to the limitations of sitting inside a browser. I'd love to just be able to use the arrow keys, enter and space rather than shift+n/p or shift+o. It'd also be nice when spacing through unread items if when you got to the last item in one feed, it would take you to the first unread item of the next feed on pressing space again.

Mostly though, with the exception of search, these are smallish gripes. I'm happy now I have one RSS reader that I can access from any computer or mobile device with access to the internet. And I do like the now very familiar Google UI, it's clean, simple and does everything it needs to.

One final cool feature to mention is the 'trends' that have been implemented to track how many items you read, from which feeds, how often they publish etc. In the last 2 weeks (since I started using it) I've got these stats:

From your 61 subscriptions, over the last [2 weeks] you read 1,660 items, starred 38 items, and shared 22 items.

I can definitely recommend Google Reader, I won't be going back to a desktop app now. There are no doubt many more improvements planned so it can only get better. But if you can't live without searching then hold off for now and keep an eye on the Official Google Reader Blog to see when it's implemented but I'm sure that won't be too long.

LG's Super Multi Blue Player (BH100)

You've probably already heard about LG's dual-format player that can handle both HD DVD and Blu-Ray. Well after having gone from rumour to unveiling at CES only last week, the Super Multi Blue Player (BH100) is now apparently in US shops already!

No word on a UK release yet but for anyone concerned about jumping off the fence and into either camp, this provides you with a 'third way'.

It's the first next-generation video device to play both high-definition disc formats and with Warner Bros releasing hybrid dual-format discs as well, together they could provide you with an insurance policy should one of the formats actually win this ridiculous war.

I'm certainly not ready to commit to either format yet and I'm sure many people feel the same way, so I welcome products like this and hope this is a trend that other manufacturers and studios will follow.

Apple TV and other Macworld news

OK, so the iPhone wasn't the only thing Apple announced yesterday but it was all I had time to cover! So here's the other stuff.

Apple TV

As expected, the second major product launch was Apple TV (formerly iTV), the set-top box of tricks for streaming and storing iTunes content from your Mac or PC for playback on your TV.

The details are much the same as reported last year but just to recap, it's a slim, set-top box with a 40GB hard drive, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, ethernet, HDMI, component and optical output, USB 2.0 and an included Apple remote.



It supports output for either high or enhanced definition TVs in 1080i 60/50Hz, 720p 60/50Hz, 576p 50Hz (PAL format), or 480p 60Hz.

It works pretty much like an iPod in that it syncs with iTunes but it does so automatically across your wireless (or wired) network. So if you download a new album, podcast, TV show or movie on your Mac, or upload a new photo album from your camera, it will all automatically sync to your Apple TV ready for viewing on your big screen TV.



It uses the latest draft 802.11 'n' specification wireless technology but is also backwards compatible with the older 'b' and 'g' 802.11 varieties. With the extra speed of the new 'n' WiFi it can also stream video directly from your computer without having synced it first.

It syncs with up to 5 computers (even visiting friends' computers!) and sets itself up pretty much automatically with minimal configuration needed from you.

It definitely looks pretty cool and I would find it useful as I use EyeTV to record Freeview programs quite a bit, so I can use this as an easy way of watching that recorded content on my TV without having to burn it to disk (although it will mean exporting it to iTunes first).

Airport Extreme

To go hand-in-hand with the Apple TV and enable you to take full advantage of its new draft 802.11 'n' specification wireless, Apple also announced an all-new Airport Extreme base station. The new spec offers up to five times the performance and up to twice the range of networks created with the earlier 802.11 'g' standard.



It turns out all the latest Core 2 Macs have been shipping with 'n' spec wireless cards, so you'll be able to take advantage of that extra speed across your whole network if you are lucky enough to have recently bought one.

Connect almost any external hard drive to the USB port on the back of your AirPort Extreme and AirPort Disk turns it into a shared network drive. Anything on the drive instantly becomes available to anyone on your network, Mac and PC alike. The same USB port also allows you to share a printer throughout the network.

Apple, Inc

As if confirming their increasingly clear consumer electronics strategy Apple Computer, Inc is no more. Steve Jobs announced at the keynote that the company is to be known simply as Apple, Inc from now on.

It seems to make complete sense, they haven't been just a 'computer' company for quite some time now. After the announcements of the last couple of days, if I were an executive at Samsung, Sony or Philips I would be quite worried. Apple is coming.

Apple announces incredible iPhone

Apple announced the iPhone today at Macworld San Francisco. A clearly excited Steve Jobs introduced the device to a standing ovation and astonishment from the crowd.

In some ways 'iPhone' is not an apt description of the multi-functional device at all. Apple describes it as "a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching - into one small and lightweight handheld device."

"iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone."



iPod

iPhone uses iTunes to sync with your Mac or PC in just the same way as an iPod so all your music, audiobooks, videos, TV shows and movies can be enjoyed on the 3.5 -inch widescreen display.

Mobile phone

iPhone allows you to make calls by simply pointing your finger at a name or number in your address book and it will automatically sync all your contacts from a PC, Mac, or internet service such as Yahoo! or Gmail. It also introduces a new 'Visual Voicemail' feature that allows you to go directly to individual voicemail messages without having to listen to them in order, just like email.

SMS messaging is handled using an on-screen software keyboard with predictive input and error correction. The interface is very iChat like and is more like sending instant messages than text messages.

It also features an integrated 2-megapixel camera and iPhoto-like photo management software that is far more sophisticated than current mobile phones.

Internet communications

iPhone features a rich HTML email client that can fetch or be pushed your IMAP or POP3 email in the background and a mobile version of Safari which is the most advanced web browser ever on a portable device. It automatically syncs bookmarks from your PC or Mac and includes built-in Google and Yahoo! searching. It's fully multi-tasking, so you can read a web page while downloading your email in the background over WiFi or EDGE.

The iPhone's Maps application integrates with Google Maps to offer map, satellite and local information, all controlled with the touch screen interface enabling you to easily move around and zoom in or out.

The iPhone also borrows Widgets from OS X to give you quick access to weather, stocks and other data in real-time through the internet.

Technology

It's a pretty incredible device and has to be seen to be fully appreciated. The multi-touch screen and OS X operating system looks extremely intuitive and well thought out with the rich HTML email, full-featured web browsing, and desktop-class applications such as widgets, Safari, calendar, text messaging, Notes, and Address Book.

The iPhone is also well connected with quad-band GSM, EDGE, 802.11b/g WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0.

To top it all off, the iPhone can sense when you rotate it from portrait to landscape and automatically changes the contents of the display, so you immediately see the entire width of a web page or a photo in its proper landscape aspect ratio.

A proximity sensor detects when you lift iPhone to your ear and immediately turns off the display to save power and prevent inadvertent touches until it's moved away. And an ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display’s brightness to the appropriate level for the current light level, enhancing the user experience and saving power at the same time.

Conclusion

iPhone shifts the landscape of the mobile industry just as the original Mac did for home computing and the iPod did to the music industry. I honestly think it's that significant.

Steve Jobs said during the speech that it's "5 years ahead" of anything else and I think he's right. The seeming simplicity and ease of use sets a new standard for mobile operating systems, like only Apple could, and belies the complexity and breadth of features beneath.

My only real concerns are with the absence of any 3G connection for high-speed data when not in reach of a WiFi network and the relatively limited 4 or 8GB storage capacity.

3G and a second camera on the face of the iPhone would allow for video calling and could also be integrated with iChat for VoIP video calling, which would be truly awesome.

8GB of storage worries me as well. My nano has 8GB and that is not enough to get my music library on, let alone all my email, photos and video! I would have expected more like 16GB to make the device capable of holding a decent amount of content or at least some kind of memory expansion via SD or something. On the other hand, for a mobile phone, 8GB is way more than the average device.

Overall though, this is an absolutely stunning product. Just reading the transcript of the keynote as it was taking place, I was completely gob-smacked at what Apple have managed to achieve with the iPhone. It's up there with even the most fervent rumours but now it's a reality.

It's much more than just a mobile phone with music playing features, it's a Mac in your pocket.

To see the iPhone in action make sure you head over to the Apple site and watch the QuickTime demos. It really will amaze you.

CES roundup

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is under way in Las Vegas this week and there has been a deluge of new products announced from all the major manufacturers.

A lot of them are not that interesting or significant (to me anyway), so I'm going to try and cut through the crap and highlight here some of the things that interest me and hopefully you.

Xbox 360 IPTV

Microsoft kicked of proceedings with their keynote, of which the most interesting thing to come out was the announcement that in late 2007 they will be offering TV over your internet connection direct to your Xbox 360. They gave a demo at the keynote and there are some screen shots and a video about as well.

It does look quite cool and allows you to do Sky+ type things as well as some intriguing ideas such as recording a TV program in the background while playing a game in Xbox Live! Could be interesting competition to Apple's forthcoming "iTV" as well.

Microsoft really do appear to be trying to cram everything they can into the 360. They also announced that they have shipped just over 10 million 360s to date.

Samsung Blu-Ray player and 1080p TVs

Samsung announced the BD-P1200, their second generation Blu-Ray player. It's slimmer, cheaper and better specified than the previous BD-P100 and should be hitting the US in June.



Samsung also announced 3 new 1080p LCD TVs in 40, 46 and 52 inch varieties featuring 3 HDMI 1.3 ports, 12,000:1 contrast ratio and 1920x1080 resolution among other things.




Pioneer A/V receivers

You're gonna need some sounds to go with your new TV and Blu-Ray player, so how about one the of the four new monster Pioneer receivers: VSX-517, VSX-817, VSX-917V, and VSX-1017TXV (pictured).


Featuring satellite radio (big in the states), iPod integration, 120Watts over each of the 7 channel outputs and THX Select 2 certification for the top of the range beast.

Toshiba REGZA LCD TVs

Four new 720p LCDs in 26, 32, 37 and 42-inch screen sizes and updates to the 42, 46, 52 and 57-inch 1080p Cinema Series, which include 120Hz anti-motion blur technology, ethernet port and HDMI 1.3 connectors with Deep Color and xvYCC support. They also found the time to introduce two new 26 and 32-inch models that include a built in DVD player!

Philips wireless HDMI

Hate that clutter of wires behind your TV? Everything seems to be going wireless these days and HDMI is no exception with Philips announcing a new solution with enough bandwidth to send an uncompressed HD stream of up to 1080p resolution. It's based on an ultra wide band frequency so shouldn't interfere with other wireless stuff like your WiFi network or DECT home phone.

Sharp's new Aquos TVs

Sharp announced 4 new lines of TVs, from the top of the range, 8th Generation 1080p capable D92-Series to the more affordable 720p capable D43-Series with others in between. The D92s feature 15,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 4ms response time, 120hz refresh rate and 3 HDMI ports.



New Panasonic plasmas

Last but not least, Panasonic announced a new 42" prototype 1080p plasma, possibly the holy grail as far as I'm concerned, as well as new 50, 58, 65 and 103-inch plasmas. Also new HD camcorders, Blu-Ray and home theatre stuff.


Phew, that's about it. Now, get ready for the Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld tonight, it looks like it's gonna be a big one.

Xbox 360 version 2

It looks like Engadget and Xbox-Scene have uncovered a new prototype version of the Xbox 360, codenamed "Zephyr". Features seem to include an HDMI port (for 1080p output), a new 65nm chip (for cooler running and less power consumption) and a larger 120GB hard drive.



Good news for people like me who are intending on buying one this year, not so good for those of you that have already bought one!

Click through to the links above at Xbox-Scene for more pics and video proof!

Mario Kart DS shortcuts video

I know there are a few people reading this blog that love Mario Kart DS (including me), so I thought I'd post this link to a great video montage by Nintendo Europe showing loads of shortcuts on various courses!

There are quite a few tricks in there that are new to me and there's a great demonstration of a blue shell dodge right at the end of the video (it does look pretty difficult to pull off though).




Watch, learn and practise! See the video here.

[Via DS fanboy]

Gadgets of 2006

Before we get into the 2007 stuff (and next week there's plenty going on with CES and Macworld), I thought I'd have a quick look back at my 2006 gadgets.

It was a good year, an excellent one actually. At the beginning of 2006 there were a couple of things I was really hoping for in the year to come - a new iPod nano with at least 8GB capacity and a redesigned Nintendo DS.

My wishes came true and both were delivered (and duly purchased) in the form of the 2G nanos and DS lite. I love them both (in sweet black).

Other highlights were my TomTom GO 510 sat-nav, Sennheiser CX 300 earphones to go with my new nano, Plantronics Voyager 510 bluetooth headset and last but in no way least, my Nintendo Wii.

I'm really pleased with all of my gadget purchases in 2006 and can happily recommend any of them. But if I had to pick one that was the stand out favourite, which would it be?

It's a hard choice. I now don't really go anywhere in the car without my TomTom, it's excellent and I love the traffic updates and bluetooth hands free features.

But what about the DS, playing New Super Mario Bros. was simply awesome, not to mention Brain Training and Mario Kart DS. And then there's the 8GB nano, I use it almost every day and think it's about as perfect as an MP3 player can get.

Or should it be the Wii? I don't think I've had it long enough yet to truly decide. I love all my gadgets, it's like asking me to choose my favourite child (I imagine).

But I have to choose one. And it has to be the iPod nano 8GB. I'd wanted one from the moment they released the original in 2005 - 4GB just wasn't enough for me. The 2nd generation nano is everything a great gadget should be - small, sleek, gorgeous and brilliant at what it does. It's what the nano should have been in the first place but Apple got it right second time around. I honestly can't fault it in any way.

The Wii would probably have pipped the nano to the top of the list if it had been around a little sooner in 2006 but it feels more like a 2007 product to me as I only really started playing it over Christmas. The DS lite comes a very close third and TomTom fourth.

So there you go. 2006 was a great gadget year. What will 2007 bring? Maybe a new Mac or will I finally take the plunge and grab an HDTV and Sky HD? Who knows, I'll keep you posted.

What were your favourite 2006 gadgets? Post in the comments and let us know!