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REVIEWED Elite: Dangerous

The original space sim is back, and there’s 400 billion reasons to play it. ISSUE 13 | MARCH 2015 | HTXT.CO.ZA

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Contents

www.htxt.co.za March 2015

ISSUE #13

Need To kNow: News

SUPER SHOTS ON THE CHEAP

nce upon a time, I was in The Wire. Now I’m in an iPhone movie. Not me, of course, but that was the plaintive cry of actor James Ransone, who starred in Sundance-feted Tangerine last year. Tangerine, critically acclaimed, commercially successful, was shot entirely on an iPhone 5S, and unsurprisingly many of the cast were worried it wouldn’t be taken seriously. The fact that it was is testemony to how powerful our pocket computers have become. So why, when top ranking films are shot on phones, are we leading with a feature about old fashioned interchangeable lens cameras (p17)? Because no matter how good phones get, there’s nothing more satisfyingly creative than holding a “proper” camera in your hand for taking photos. And, more importantly, the chances are high that your photography will improve significantly when you trade up to such a system. But you don’t have to spend a fortune. We’ve got four awesome examples for around R10 000 to compare, Operator’s sub-r500 Steppa is firs and we like them all – even the cheapest among them. t of its kind. We’ve also got an exclusive guide to lowobile costopera solar tor MTN has power for your home, and reviews of the launc best hed games important for South Africa. SouthsoAfrica’s first Andr Sadly, MTN has confir med that there oid-p owered smartphone far this year. What more could you want? Read on. ’s

MTN launches supercheap smartphone

that’s available on pre-pay for less than R500. It certainly an African first, and may even a world one: as far as we know, there’s no other smartphone in this class PUBLISHER: Brett Haggard – brett@htxt.co.za available for less than $50 anywhere. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Adam Oxford – adam@htxt.co.za That makes it quite a milestone in MANAGING EDITOR: Tiana Cline - tiana@htxt.co.za putting high-tech handsets within the HARDWARE: David Greenway – david@htxt.co.za reach of everyone. Which is awesome. GAMES: Deon du Plessis – deon@htxt.co.zaThe phone itself isn’t, of course, hugely PHOTOGRAPHIC WRITER: Charlie Fripp powe – charlie@htxt.co.za rful. It’s based on a Qualcomm WRITER: Lungelo Shezi – lungelo@htxt.co.za reference design, so it has a 1GHz single core Snapdragon processor, a 3.5in ch SENIOR DESIGNER: Quinton Hoffmann –screen quinton@htxt.co.za and a mere 2MP camera on board. More limiting is the fact that there’s ADVERTISING: Dorothy Haggard – dorothy@hypertext.co.za only 512MB of memory and 1GB of storag Sengezo Jubane – sengezo@hypertext.co.za e on-board. The screen is a decent enough multitouch affair, which takes up most

It’s a milestone which puts hightech handsets within the reach of everyone…

of the front of the device. There’s no physical keyboard. It also runs a positively ancient versio n of Google’s Android OS, Gingerbre ad. Still, that does still mean it’s able to access BlackBerry Messenger, which is hugel y

no plans to upgrade the Steppa to a more recent version of Android, although local hackers are investigating the possib ility of unlocking the phone and flashing a custom firmware. There’s an FM radio though, along with a microSD port for upgrading the storag e. What you don’t get, however, is a fast HSPA radio for high speed internet access – you’ll have to settle for plain old 3G. All in all, though, it’s a heck of a phone for the price. Not even Nokia can come close with its Asha range of semismartphones, which start at about R799 and don’t have access to half the numb er of apps and services the Steppa has. Like the sound of this super budget smartphone? See our full review at

WANT TO KNOW MORE? USE Bit.ly

htxt.africa’s Tech Made Easy is At the bottom of almost every produced by: Hypertext Media, 102 on 11th, article in Tech Easy Climate Cha nge willMade Cause more Highlands North, 2192, Johannesburg storm dam agesee you’ll in one sa of these strange More news at Contact Us: sts from short codes.Two It’sscienti a Bit.ly adress Wits have published a paper which says Email: info@hypertext.co.za shortening link, which means that that South Africa may be at when you type it into web go to htxt.co.za Tel: (011) 023-8001/4 increas ed riskyour of tropical storm damag browser it will take e. you to a longer Fax: 08654 83304 Our content is licensed under a Creative 6 | tech made easy | March 2014 Commons Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike 4.0 International Licence. Other rights may apply for non-original materials.

I am a cy bit.ly /nww6kr about clURL one with more information forming over Madagaswhat you’ve just read. Give it a car

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FaCebook buys whatsapp For r200bn Facebook has just dived into its war chest again to make another big purchase, this time it’s buying the popular messaging service WhatsApp. bit.ly/1npd8wj

Typ e into this c you ode r bro web wse r WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 1

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MediaShareWireless Wireless MediaShare MediaShare Portable wirelessWireless streaming for Portable wireless streaming for Portable wireless streaming for your tablet or smartphone your tablet or smartphone your tablet or smartphone

STORE, STREAM & SHARE...Anywhere! STORE, STREAM & SHARE...Anywhere! Tablets and smartphones are often limited by their built-in STORE, STREAM SHARE...Anywhere! Tablets andcapacity smartphones are& often limited by their built-in storage and their ability to access content saved

storage ability limited toWireless, access content elsewhere. Withand the their MediaShare you built-in cansaved access Tablets andcapacity smartphones are often by their elsewhere. With the MediaShare Wireless, you can access and enjoy your files without wires or an internet connection. storage capacity and their ability to access content saved and enjoyWith yourthe filesMediaShare without wires or an internet connection. elsewhere. Wireless, you can access STREAM and enjoy your files without wires or an internet connection. STREAM • Connect up to 5 devices to the MediaShare and share video, music, STREAM • Connect up to 5 devices to the MediaShare and share video, music, photos and data. photos and data. • Connect up to 5 devices to the MediaShare and share video, music, USB/SD CONNECTION photos and data. USB/SD CONNECTION • Built-in USB port and SD Memory slot allows easy access to content from a USB USB/SD CONNECTION • Built-in USB porthard anddrive SD Memory slot allows easy access to content from a USB drive, portable or SD memory card*. drive, portable or SD memory card*. • Built-in USB porthard and drive SD Memory slot allows easy access to content from a USB WIRELESS drive, BRIDGE portable hard drive or SD memory card*. WIRELESS BRIDGE • Upload and download content wirelessly to and from your tablet or smartphone. WIRELESS • UploadBRIDGE and download content wirelessly to and from your tablet or smartphone. RECHARGING SMARTPHONES • Upload andFOR download content wirelessly to and from your tablet or smartphone. RECHARGING FOR SMARTPHONES • The integrated 3000mAh battery can be used as a powerpack for your smartphone. RECHARGING FOR SMARTPHONES • The integrated 3000mAh battery can be used as a powerpack for your smartphone. •

The integrated 3000mAh battery can be used as a powerpack for your smartphone.

Scan the QR-Code to watch video. to Scan the the QR-Code watch the video. Scan the * USBQR-Code drive, hard driveto or SD memory card not included. watch the video. * USB drive, hard drive or SD memory card not included. * USB drive, hard drive or SD memory card not included.

Mitsubishi Chemical holdings Group Mitsubishi Chemical holdings Group Mitsubishi Chemical holdings Group

Contents ISSUE #13

Need to know

Photos made easy

The most important news this month

4 6

n d s n.

Do good with Forgood The matchmaking app that pairs volunteers with good causes. Educating entrepreneurs The SA-designed boardgame to encourage you into business. From Payments to Pi Tech news from Ekhureleni’s new government gateway to Raspberry Pi Mk 2. Robo-pundit! Latest NFL game makes a startling prediction, plus LEGO! Alone in the Dark The original surivival horror is back, but it may have lost that something special.

The best reviews

Ultimate buyer’s advice for you

www.htxt.co.za March 2015

24 27 28 30 33

Helping you get more from your camera.

34 36

How to...

The ultimate guides to everything.

38 42 44

Survive loadshedding for under R1 500 Build a solar powered back up battery for your essential kit. Supercharge Chrome Make Google’s fast and friendly browser more awesome. Understanding IFTTT Get your phone to automate tasks with If This Then That app.

The stuff at the back

Budget SLR cameras Mirrorless or traditional SLR? We’ve got interchangeables all covered here. Phone cases Suit up your smartphone with one of these tough tunics . Asus ROG G20 A tiny games PC with gigantic pixel pushing power. Elite: Dangerous The biggest, spaciest space game ever. It’s what you make of it. Dying Light Zombie hunting shooter with a few unsual twists. Mobile games Five awesome iOS and Android wonders to play this month.

Photo news Olympus calling with a camera for your phone, plus more. Take perfect portraits SA photographer Brett Field on the secrets of a wedding shoot.

Rounding off the mag nicely.

47 48

Win! A 3G tablet Awesome dual core, dual sim Android slate to give away. This month in stats The numbers that madeth the month.

12 WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 3

TECHNOLOGICALLYSUPERIOR

The world’s mosT loved Telescope has evolved

The first ever Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope with fully integrated WiFi Now you can leave your hand control behind and slew to all the best celestial objects with a tap of your smartphone or tablet. Connect your device to NexStar Evolution’s built-in wireless network and explore the universe with the Celestron planetarium app for iOS and Android. Available 6”and 8”. 6”, 8” or in 9.25” SCT. iPAD and iPHONE SHOWN NOT INCLUDED

AvailableAvailable from specialist astronomy retailers and selecteddealers other dealers nationwide. from specialist retailers and selected nationwide. is distributed SA byby G &David L Agencies. Trade enquiries welcome. CelestronCelestron is distributed in the UK &inIreland Hinds Limited. Trade enquiries welcomed.

WWW.GLAGENCIES.CO.ZA www.celestron.uk.com ® andand ® areare Celestron® NexStar® registered trademarks CelestronAcquisition, Acquisition,LLC LLC in in the the United United States States and in dozens Celestron NexStar registered trademarks ofof Celestron dozens of of other other countries countriesaround aroundthe theworld. world.All Allrights rightsreserved. reserved. ® and ® are Agencies is an authorised distributor and reseller Celestron products.The TheiPhone iPhone® and iPad iPad® and other countries. DavidG&L Hinds Ltd is an authorised distributor and reseller of of Celestron products. are trademarks trademarksof ofApple AppleInc., Inc.,registered registeredininthe theU.S. U.S. and other countries.

JN280814-CELESTRON-EVO-AAS-5STAR.indd 1

28/8/14 09:42:25

/8/14 09:42:25

NEED TO KNOW: NEWS

Going beyond clicktivism Meet forgood, the SA “dating site” for good causes.

“U

sually we work with adults,” says Lorna Arnott of the Association for the Physically Disabled, “But in this instance we were helping a child with disabilities who had just lost both their parents. They had to move in with another family, but the shack needed developing to accommodate this child’s needs. “We basically put up a wish list of building materials and volunteers and time, as well as financial assistance,” Arnott continues, “And we received lots of donations, including clothing.” Arnott’s appeal went out over forgood, an online service which matches South African non-profits with volunteers and donors which officially launches today. It’s described by CEO Andy Hadfield as a “dating site for good causes, we hook two people up and hope something good happens.” The premise behind forgood is simple. Charities and non-profit organisations (NPOs) can list an advert asking for goods or volunteers and civic minded browsers can pick one or more to help out. Likewise, people who have time, goods or a specific skill they want to donate can create an advert offering that up to the world and an

More stories at go to htxt.co.za

NPO can get in touch to say they need it. “The moment I realised this was going to work,” says Hadfield, “Was when I cleaned out my cupboard and found I had a big bag of clothes I was never going to be able to fit into again. I put up an advert on forgood and within four minutes got a call asking for them. Then I got 40 more calls from other NPOs who also wanted them, and realised I’d found our first major bug…” Aside from the ability to mark an advert as closed, Hadfield – a serial entrepreneur – says he’s also working on a partnership which will allow goods donated through forgood to be transported at cost and that the app should be able to create pickup and delivery points on the fly too. Platforms for volunteering do exist overseas, says Hadfield, but nothing has taken off locally in the same way. forgood’s ambitious aim is to achieve the kind of scale where it’s sustainable, and still be relevant to the local market. For the latter that’s by maintaining a database of vetted NPOs to ensure the system isn’t abused on the demand side, which should – he says – maintain the site’s credibility. Eventually, the plan is to allow users to rate charities as worthy of volunteering for, and potentially

HOW BIG DATA IS SLOWLY CHANGING DISASTER RELIEF An interview with author Patrick Meier on how the crowd has transformed disaster relief and humanitarian operations worldwide. Bit.ly/1uuBycm

to introduce some form of due diligence on volunteers too. As for the problem of hitting a critical mass of users which will make it attractive to charities, that’s where the business plan starts to come in. Unlike a fundraising platform like Justgiving, forgood is neither registered as an NPO nor is it taking a cut from charities or donors. The gap spotted by Hadfield and Japhet, which could make it a sustainable business lies in the third type of customer it hopes to attract: corporate CSI departments. “Big corporations have HR departments that specifically look for volunteering opportunities for their staff as part of their CSI obligations,” explains Japhet, “These tend to be run by people who are superpassionate about a specific cause, and companies struggle to find enough opportunities to meet targets.” Enter forgood, which will produce a white labelled dashboard that can create a feed from its “Causes needing…” sections onto a firm’s intranet, and encourage staff to offer up goods and services of their own into the larger forgood platform. Bit.ly/16cTZqv

FOODIES, PHILANTHROPY AND FEEDIE. IT’S TIME TO TAKE A PIC OF YOUR MEAL A clever app from South African model Topaz Page-Green that feeds the hungry with food selfies. Why not try it the next time you’re at Tashas? Bit.ly/1wAkZbY

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NEED TO KNOW: NEWS

Educating entrepreneurs: the SA startup that wants to make finance fun

“T

here needs to be a change in the ethos, kids should know about how to run businesses from as early as primary school,” says Ontirestse Mosiane, the inspiring 22-year old Johannesburg-based entrepreneur and founder Corporate Youth. Corporate Youth, which Mosiane started about four years ago, began life as a media company, producing a digital magazine which preaches the ethos of a lean startup. The magazine is still going, but like any good entrepreneur, Mosiane knows when to pivot around a new idea. Today, the firm’s core business about helping transform young South Africans from being job seekers to becoming creators. Mosiane believes that in order to encourage more South Africans to become entrepreneurs, schools need to present the idea of working for yourself as a career option, instead of only focusing on subjects like accounting, law, medicine

More stories at go to htxt.co.za

6 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

and science. To achieve this, Mosiane began by providing articles and advice on entrepreneurship, but today Corporate Youth has grown to a team of six that produces its own financial education board game called Shareholder. At first glance Shareholder looks a lot like Monopoly. It’s even played in a similar manner. But the entire aim of the board game is to teach players about investing in and selling shares, and how the stock market works. Corporate Youth hosts a regular game night at JoziHub, the co-creation space in Milpark where the company is based. They target tertiary students through once-a-month events which also include a short seminar hosted by a speaker from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Mosiane often taps into the pool of diverse startups available at JoziHub to help grow Corporate Youth, Shareholder and create new partnerships. Shareholder

HOW TVS GETS MADE: PICS FROM LG’S GERMISTON FACTORY But when you look at all the screws, circuitry and tiny bits and pieces that go into making a TV, it seems baffling that they all fit together so well. Bit.ly/1Kngl6j

is currently available for purchase from the Corporate Youth website and Kalahari. Working with existing entrepreneurs and adults who want to understand more about business, however, is only part of the plan. Mosiane has recently been contracted by the North West Department of Education to tour rural schools with an entrepreneurship and business workshop that includes getting students to understand stocks and shares. Corporate Youth is also looking at turning Shareholder into a mobile game that anyone can easily access. “It would be great if Shareholder would one day be featured as content on the tablets that are being rolled out to schools around Gauteng,” Mosiane adds. What’s next for the Corporate Youth? This year Mosiane says the company wants to venture into creating games that teach kids how to code. Bit.ly/1LHnwK0

MOOVIT (BY SAME DEVELOPERS AS WAZE) WORKS IN CT Moovit, a brilliant real-time (but also free) public transport smartphone app for Windows Phone, Android and iOS, now works in the Mother City. Whoop. Bit.ly/1F1zDNv

NEED TO KNOW: NEWS

Local startup Parcelninja attracts R20m in investment funding

arcelninja has just attracted R20m in investment funding through C5 Holdings, a UK-based specialist data and cyber security fund manager. That sum is, according to the release we received, “… one of the biggest investments in South Africa’s online retail market”. Parcelninja is focused on providing warehousing and delivery services to the local ecommerce market. It was started in 2013 by Justin Drennan, Ryan Drennan and Terence Murphy under the WantItAll.co.za umbrella. Parcelninja refers to itself as an “ecommerce enabler”, offering services to South Africa ecommerce websites that reduce overheads and improve delivery times. It also encourages entrepreneurs to

start their own etail websites, as Parcelninja does a lot of the heavy lifting for them. “Ecommerce is growing in South Africa, and Parcelninja is there to assist online shopping companies by removing the most expensive and time consuming parts of the business,” said Drennan. The trio have a lot of experience in the ecommerce field, having started WantItAll, contributing to Superbalist’s growth and even helping Makro to manage its ecommerce services. Most encouragingly, all of Parcelninja’s systems have been developed in South Africa and their design has been based on the best global ecommerce strategy implementations. Bit.ly/1DAi1Y0

Wind and solar energy saved SA R5.3 billion last year

R SA Nek Nominations founder launches “random acts of kindness” online movement

ast year, Nek Nominations swept across South Africa after local entrepreneur Brent Lindeque put a unique twist on the viral international binge-drinking trend by turning it into an opportunity to do good. Lindeque is at it with Random Acts of Kindness 2015. #RAK15 works pretty much in the same way as Nek Nominations – you do one random act of kindness a day, film yourself, post the video online using either YouTube or Facebook and challenge your friends to follow suit. “Start with a simple, small act that changes your own daily reality, even slightly ” Lindeque explains on the #RAK15 website. The website was created to post information about the campaign and updates on other #RAK15 nominations from around the globe. “In 2014 we touched over one million people around the world by inspiring global citizens to take time out of their day to do something kind for someone else. This year we want to double that,” Lindeque said. Bit.ly/1BRC8hI

WHY HAS STANDARD BANK BUILT A SKATE PARK IN ITS BASEMENT? According to Vuyo Mpako, the bank wants to get employees thinking and acting with the energy of a startup, constantly generating ideas. Bit.ly/1D8P6fm

enewable energy is still very much on the back-burner for the South African government, but if you need any further proof that it can dramatically ease the burden of electricity supplier Eskom’s fossil fuel generation, look no further than a recent Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) study. According to the study, wind and solar energy saved South Africa around R3.7 billion, which would have otherwise been used to support the generation of electricity through diesel and coal. “The benefits earned were two-fold. The first, derived from diesel and coal fuel cost savings, is pinned at R3.7 billion. This is because 2.2 terawatt-hours of wind and solar energy replaced the electricity that would have otherwise been generated from diesel and coal,” said Dr Tobias BischofNiemz, the chief engineer at the Integrated Energy Research Centre at CSIR. According to CSIR, “the second benefit of R1.6 billion has been derived from almost 120 hours of ‘unserved energy’ avoided due to the contribution of wind and solar projects.” Bit.ly/1z76omJ

GOOGLE MAPS THE GREAT AFRICAN INDOORS Everyone’s favourite search giant has added some South African locations to the list of places it knows intimately... like the airport and top shopping centres. Bit.ly/1vpUUjC

SUPERFAST SATELLITE TO BRING CHEAPER INTERNET IN 2016 Yahsat confirmed that its Al Yah 3 satellite has passed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR) - great news for both Brazil and South Africa. Bit.ly/1zxiYiP

WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 7

NEED TO KNOW: NEWS

Ekurhuleni launches new online payments portal

n December last year many residents in the Ekurhuleni metropolitan area experienced issues when it came to viewing their municipal statements on the metro’s online payment portal. Thankfully, the metro has released an updated online portal which it says will now make payments easier to keep track of and to view statements online. The e-siyakhokha online payment system now sports an overhaul which will address a number of technical glitches, including the functionality to detect statement integration failure.

Using e-siyakhokha, residents can also now pre-date their payments, so that they can ensure a fully paid municipal bill when they will be away from home, like when traveling on holiday. “The municipality sincerely apologises for the inconvenience caused to customers who could not view their December statements. Ratepayers are encouraged to continue utilising the online platform that has been introduced for their convenience,” said Ekurhuleni spokesperson Themba Gadebe, in a media statement.

Bit.ly/1LHbAIh

A new cab-hailing app to rival Uber in SA

new cab-hailing app called Taxify is set to launch in South Africa. Taxify is an international service that launched in Europe in 2013 and currently operates in the US, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Taxify partners with businesses in each country to run the service – local ICT company Revnetek SA being the South African partner. Taxify has a four different apps – a taxi and driver app for taxi ordering, and a fleet management and despatch app for taxi companies to manage their businesses efficiently. What sets Taxify apart to other personal transport apps like Uber is that the taxis aren’t licensed to Revnetek SA – Taxify simply acts as a link between customers and taxi services. “Taxify is not a taxi company, we connect taxi users with taxis. We only do business with legally registered taxi companies and drivers who have valid PDP licenses, taxi permits and paying passenger insurance,” said Trevor Joseph, CEO of Revnetek SA, to htxt.africa. Taxify will be officially launching in Johannesburg and Cape Town first although the app is already available for download on Google Play and iTunes. Over 250 vehicles have already been registered on the service and Revnetek SA hopes to exceed 500 vehicles by 31st March. Bit.ly/1HR8QZb

More stories at go to htxt.co.za

8 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

HOW BIG IS AFRICA’S POTENTIAL FOR SOLAR? The World Bank is investing in a massive global project to work out how much energy there is in them thar hills, quite literally. Bit.ly/16cZmG7

WANT TO SEE UFOS IN SOUTH AFRICA? GO TO KZN There’s a very active UFO community here which documents suspected alien sightings. And they’re more common than you’d think, especially in Durbs. Bit.ly/1uTfCmg

NEED TO KNOW: NEWS

Raspberry Pi, the sequel, is a quad core computer for R446

he credit-card sized computer that spawned dozens of rivals and gave hackers and school kids a low-cost PC upon which to design their projects is back. The Raspberry Pi Foundation in the UK has just announced an upgraded RPi 2, which sticks to the size and price of the original but upgrades all the key parts. The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, for such is it called, is already available from RS Online in South Africa for R446.86. According to the RPi Foundation, 100 000 boards have been manufactured for initial stock. The RPi 2 is built around a 900MHz Broadcom BCM2936 system on a chip,

which features four ARM Cortex A7 cores. For reference, the iPhone 6’s A8 processor is a dual core A7 chip, albeit one clocked slightly faster. There’s a full gigabyte of memory on the RPi 2 now, but the graphice processor is the same as the previous gen B+. Raspberry Pi Foundation boss Eben Upton told The Register that the upgraded Pi was now a fully functioning PC without any of the compromised performance issues that made the original Model B better suited to dedicated tasks than general purpose computing. According to the Upton, the new board is six times faster than the B+. Bit.ly/1ECunCt

SA fire detector to compete in Swiss startup competition

T Infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay is back online

nfamous internet torrent website The Pirate Bay (TPB) has seemingly sprung back to life after being taken offline by Swedish police in late December last year. About two weeks after the Swedish police raided a facility that housed the website’s servers, the site came back online, sporting a pirate flag on a placeholder website. While that site wasn’t functioning, a full working website booted up yesterday. The site features a phoenix on its landing page, purportedly signalling a new beginning for the company, and a rise from the being offline after the shut-down by government forces. TPB staff have also had their access from the moderation panel revoked, as the organisation claims that it will make the site more manageable and somewhat reduce the risk of being shut down again – for a third time. Former staff have also revealed that they might be forming their own torrent website.

he Cape Town shack fires that broke out on New Year’s day in 2013, displacing thousands of Khayelitsha residents, have inspired a group of young South African engineers to come up with a solution. Meet Lumkani, the innovative startup that has created a device to curb the scourge of fires in urban informal settlements. And this February, the Lumkani team of six (David Gluckman, Francois Petousis, Emily Vining, Paul Mesarcik, Samuel Ginsberg and Max Basler) will be jetting off to Geneva to take part in the Seedstars World global competition after competing in and winning the South African regional leg last July. “The key to our success is our diverse perspectives, backgrounds, training and experience which come together to tackle a very significant yet avoidable social challenge. Our first product is an innovative fire detector designed to decrease shack fires and their spread therefore mitigating the loss of life and property in slums across the globe,” says Gluckman. The Lumkani is essentially a networked heat-detector. Unlike other alarm systems which detect smoke and then fire, Lumkani has developed an early warning system which uses rate-of rise of temperature technology to accurately measure the incidence of dangerous fires and therefore limit the occurrence of false alarms. Bit.ly/1CV4ZFY

Bit.ly/1z9BDCy

WANT TO BE PART OF SOUTH AFRICA’S WIKIPEDIA COMMUNITY? Wiki Meetups are regular (or often spontaneous) face-toface meetings of Wikipedia editors organised by local editors in cities all worldwide. Bit.ly/18JC8t6

A LOCAL GLASS DEVELOPER ON GOOGLE’S CHANGE OF VISION Just because Google’s wearable technology has been removed from the market, it doesn’t mean that development for the technology is going to stop. Bit.ly/1F1taBX

HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING SOUTH AFRICA? A report by ND Global Adaptation Index ranked 178 countries worldwide according to how vulnerable they are to the risks of climate change. Bit.ly/1K6CBmw

WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 9

NEED TO KNOW: GAMES

Videogame accurately predicts outcome of a major sporting event

f you doubt that sports games are actual simulations of real life sporting action, get ready to be amazed: EA’s annual American Football game, Madden NFL, knew which team was going to win the 2015 Superbowl long before the game got underway. It even got the score right: 28-24 in favour of the New England Patriots. More than that, it accurately predicted that one of the teams would come from behind to take the game, which is exactly what

happened – the Seattle Seahawks raced to a commanding lead in the first half, but were outplayed in the third and fourth quarters. Madden also almost nailed the exact number of yards thrown by the winning team’s quarterback: the game predicted Patriot quarterback Tom Brady would throw 335 yards over the course of the game and score four touchdowns. His actual performance on the night? 328 yards and four touchdowns. Amazing.Bit.ly/1LGZ0IT

Leaked screenshots promise an even crazier Just Cause 3

2015 LEGO game lineup includes Jurassic Park, Marvel’s Avengers

s the year goes on, we get the sense that it’s going to be a really, really good one for games and tech. LEGO games are getting some new entries that are sure to please their fans, both young and old. We’ve been told by our local Warner Bros. reps that we’re getting LEGO games for Jurassic Park and the Avengers movies, as well as ports to mobile game systems of some older LEGO games. LEGO Jurassic Park will let people play through scenarios from all four dino-themed flicks, and yes that includes the upcoming Jurassic World. LEGO Marvel’s Avengers will have scenes from 2012’s The Avengers, as well as ones from this year’s sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and naturally both will star a huge selection of LEGO-ified characters from the films. Both games are due out later this year. Bit.ly/1LGXUNf

More stories at go to htxt.co.za

10 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

othing sums up the essence of the Just Cause series quite like the image of someone standing atop a speeding jet, taking on two gunships singlehandedly. Which is why it should come as no surprise that that’s exactly the sort of thing the leaked screenshots for the next game in the franchise demonstrate. Nine images have been making the rounds and while there has been no official confirmation that they’re definitely from a recent build of Just Cause 3, it’s a pretty sure bet that’s exactly what they are. The official silence is likely because they’re currently embargoed, and Square Enix/Avalanche Studios are none too pleased at having their thunder stolen. Whatever the case, there’s no denying these screens are gorgeous and strongly indicative of a game that’s even more over-thetop than its predecessors, and absolutely jam-packed with explosions and insane stunts. Just Cause 3 is due out in June of this year for PC and the two new consoles. We can’t wait. Bit.ly/1zBBs3x

THIS BEAUTIFUL PARISIAN APARTMENT ISN’T REAL, IT’S COMPUTER GRAPHICS This is not a real-life walkthrough of an actual flat in Paris – it’s a tech demo built on the latest version of Unreal Engine 4. Wow. Bit.ly/1z7wgyV

DYING LIGHT FOR PC NO LONGER SUPPORTS MODS Techland apparently doesn’t like gamers modifying its latest zombie smash-fest, and has issued a patch that prevents them from doing exactly that. Bit.ly/1yzfQjO

NEED TO KNOW: GAMES

Hands the Da

DETAILS • Developer: Pure FPS • Publisher: Atari • Genre: Survival horror • Platform: PC

We preview Atari’s sixth game in the survival horror series. It’s very different.

he news for fans anxiously awaiting something great from the venerable Alone in the Dark franchise isn’t good: we’ve been hands on with a beta based on a slice of what the full game will bring when it comes out in the next few months, and as at this stage it’s, well, not great. Gone is the slow-paced, exploratory fright-fest that was the original Alone in the Dark; instead, what you get in this new game is Left 4 Dead-like shooting that throws a never-ending wave of enemies at you, with a bit of Alan Wake-esque use of light thrown in to justify the Illumination subtitle. Light is good, basically, it makes the bad monster things vulnerable and you must shoot them when they’re all lit up and weak, but you must do it without being overwhelmed or getting caught in the immunity-bestowing dark. Throughout each level, you must create light patches by hitting switches or turning on generators that power lights or solve some other puzzle whose completion involves making more light somehow, and while it can be harrowing looking for the next

More games at go to htxt.co.za

12 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

FORZA HORIZON 2 – RACE THROUGH A MASSIVE WIDE-OPEN WORLD One of the most successful racing franchises ever, having sold millions of copies to date, and it’s exclusive to Microsoft’s Xbox platform. Bit.ly/11nlNXN

THE SIMS 4 – ELECTRONIC ARTS LIFE SIMULATION Manipulate, customise and personalise the lives of the tiny virtual people you create who are modelled after friends, family or just plain fantasy. Bit.ly/1uVSyn2

NEED TO KNOW: GAMES

ds-on with Alone in Dark: Illumination switch/generator/puzzle initially, that sense of tension doesn’t last and is soon replaced by annoyance. That’s because your Hunter has limited stamina that drops to zero far too quickly, forcing him to run-walk-run-walk his

way around the levels, often leading to him getting caught up in mobs of enemies if a wrong turn is taken. Because as fast as you kill them, the buggers respawn in a never-ending stream of annoyingness, and taking the wrong turn is quite easy. At least initially. Once you’ve learned where things are, it’s a relatively simple matter of running there, doing what’s needed and moving on. Levelling the Hunter’s skills up is apparently possible – the idea is to go through the various interconnected levels, slowly uncovering the supposedly horrifying story of a desolate mining town under the influence of a force locals call The Darkness while dealing with the never-ending flood of creatures that are out for your blood. What you actually get is a game with nicelooking but ultimately empty levels, stupidlooking enemies that clearly, someone’s three year old thought were scary, brain-dead AI and guns that sound like whiffle bats having

a coughing fit. None of these signs bode well for the game’s future, but in fairness there is still time to address them. Here’s an example of how stupid the AI is currently: on several occasions we barred access to the player’s character by closing a gate, only to see monsters bunch together on the other side like morons and mill about awkwardly like they were protesters who’d arrived at the rally too early. On other occasions, they’d actually try to break the door down, making their behaviour even worse for its inconsistency. Perhaps even more annoying is that the game in its current form provides no feedback that you’ve actually hit the thing you’re shooting at, and the weapons you’ll use sound muted and dull. There’s no punch to the action, just a robotic move, press button/light fire/solve puzzle, shoot, move that just isn’t a whole lot of fun. The close, over-the-shoulder camera doesn’t help matters, either, obscuring more than it reveals. Illumination tries to create a tense atmosphere with its endlessly-spawning enemies, and admittedly it proved tough on occasion to juggle shooting them with switching on lights, managing ammo levels and performing some light puzzle-solving so it’s definitely trying. On the other hand, playing this with friends could make things a lot more interesting (AITD:I supports four-player co-op) as there are another three classes – Witch, Priest and Engineer – each with their own abilities – including some magical ones, apparently – that could be more fun to use than the Hunter’s guns. But even if that’s true, it undermines the game’s core premise entirely: that of being ALONE in the dark. We can’t begrudge the devs for wanting to

put a new spin on an old franchise, but still. Perhaps SEVERAL PEOPLE TOGETHER IN THE DARK didn’t have the right ring to it. It’s not altogether impossible that the other three character classes are so much fun to play that the Hunter’s blandness will be forgotten when the game finally launches, which of course begs the question why they weren’t featured in the beta to drum up some enthusiasm for what currently appears to be a rather humdrum title. We didn’t get to play with anyone because the beta was single-player only, and that may have soured our view of the game unfairly, but where things stand now Developer Pure FPS has a lot of work to do before this next Alone in the Dark hits store shelves. That is, if they want it to be anything more than a cynical cash-in that trades on the good will of fans of the franchise.

DEAD RUN – IT’S ADDICTIVE AND THERE ARE HATS

FIFA 15 – IS IT REALLY BETTER THAN PES THIS YEAR. REALLY?

CALL OF DUTY: ADVANCED WARFARE

“What you actually get is a game with nice-looking but ultimately empty levels and stupid-looking enemies… none of these signs bode well for the game’s future.”

Developed by local studio Twoplus Games, this endless runner will have you accidentally killing Megan Fox or William Shatner. Bit.ly/18JxECI

FIFA 15, the 22nd iteration of Electronic Arts’ venerable soccer series, is a stable, effective and slick football simulation game. It’s time to get kicking. Bit.ly/1zkitLI

“We can’t begrudge the devs for wanting to put a new spin on an old franchise – perhaps SEVERAL PEOPLE TOGETHER IN THE DARK didn’t have the right ring to it.” The currently-listed date for the Alone in the Dark: Illumination is “Spring 2015” (European spring, that is), it’s PC-only and will be available via Steam. Going on what we saw in the beta, this is one game that could really use a long delay. Bit.ly/1vpOReW

The best Call of Duty since 2007’s Modern Warfare dragged the series into the 21st century. Well done Sledgehammer Games. Bit.ly/11nboLL

WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 13

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EVERY

DAY!

Stay up-to-date with South African tech-related news, features and reviews at our website, htxt.africa! We really hope you’re enjoying this issue of htxt.africa’s Tech Made Easy, because we think it’s a unique magazine in South Africa in that it’s completely independent, 100% locally made and full of expert advice that’s both comprehensive and accessible no matter how familiar you are with the subject. The thing is, we’re also fairly sure that you’ll be left wanting more. Which is why you should head over to htxt.africa now.

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ech Made Easy is just a small subsection of what we do on our main website. Every day we carry South Africa’s best news about technology, gadgets, games, business start-ups, geek culture and more. We have the broadest editorial remit of any similar site in the country, and we’re passionate with it. We believe that all across Africa, technology is changing lives - and that the more we write about it and the more you read about it the better the chance is that it will be for the better. So if you want buying advice, gaming tips, web security specials, online activism and the most interesting stories about how technology is being used right here in South Africa and across the continent, join us.

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SUPERTEST

BUY THE BESTâ&#x20AC;Ś

Low cost SLR or mirrorless cam! Interchangeable lenses are the best, even on a budget.

rom the first time you pick up a camera and fire off that first frame you know that this is something that is going to cost you money. The biggest problem with photography is that you can never have the right gear, no matter what you promise yourself. You bought a little point and shoot camera just to take pics of the kids and family, but now the bug has bitten and you realise that there is so much more that you could be doing, if only you had the right camera. Fear not, the step up to an interchangeable lens camera is not as expensive as you think and it is going to open up so many shooting horizons that it is definitely worth the cost. Before you make this upgrade you need to decide what it is that you want your camera to do, because the cameras that are available all take pictures, but some of them do a whole host of other things as well.

SEE THE CONTENDERS ON THE NEXT PAGE. WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 17

SUPERTEST

DETAILS • 3inch screen, 460k dot resolution • DIGIC 4 processor • 1080p HD video, 25p, 24p R5 999

CANON 1200D A SUPERB FIRST-TIME DSLR EXPERIENCE

f you ask anyone to name one camera brand, there is a good chance that they will say Canon. No one can dispute the fact that the company has made some fantastic cameras and is one of the worlds leading brands in this arena. So, a Canon, is a Canon is a... Not actually, because Canon is so well respected they are relying on their fantastic top end models to sell the not-sogreat bottom end ones. The Canon 1200D is a little bland to look at. When we unboxed it there was no overwhelming urge to grab it and run out the door searching for great light. This may be a little unfair because the looks “maketh” not the camera, but it sure would help.

HANDLING

The camera does feel good in hand, the rubber handgrip ensures good control and a textured rubber area for your thumb is a welcome addition. The body however does feel a little cheap. The controls on the camera give a good number of external controls, along with a Q button to give quick access to the most commonly used options on the rear screen. The control layout is straightforward and functional. The four navigation buttons bring up ISO sensitivity, drive mode, white balance,

18 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

and autofocus mode options. Taking up the space around them you will find exposure compensation, movie record/live mode, menu, Quick Control, playback, and display buttons. We did find the 3inch LCD a little hard to view in very bright situations, but in normal lighting it’s fine, with good colour and easy to read text and options.

IMAGE QUALITY

One thing that Canon always seems to get right is image quality, The 1200 D features an 18-megapixel APS-C sensor, and dishes images as good as most other cameras in the price range. The colors look appealing at the default settings and these can be easily tweaked to your liking. As with other cameras in this range, ISO performance is good up to a point, but then it goes downhill quickly. It would be best to stick to the ISO 100 – 800 ranges for useable images, and it doesn’t have the performance of the Pentax opposite here. The camera does have some great beginner features such as Auto Lighting Optimiser and Highlight tone proriority.

PERFORMANCE

Lets face it, this is not the fastest kid on the block, but it’s plenty swift enough for typical

kids’n’pets photography. No one is seriously expecting to go out a shoot international sport on this camera. The 1200D can shoot at a rate of 3.1 frames per second for an effectively unlimited number of JPEG images, this goes down to only 6 when shooting raw though. The 18-55mm kit lens does not inspire, as it looks and feels cheap. The performance is not bad compared to other lenses in the price range and we suppose that’s what really counts Speaking of price, the 1200D is excellent value compared to others in this test. Overall we feel that Canon could have done more with this camera to make it a little more appealing to entry-level users. Is it a bad camera? Definitely not. Is it as good as the competitors? Not by a country mile.

DETAILS Handling

Image quality

Performance

Value

Overall

SUPERTEST

PENTAX K-50

A WEATHERPROOF ALL-ROUNDER FOR BEGINNERS

DETAILS • Solid Weather resistant body • Good handling • Reliable image quality R10 7999

entax may not be the choice of camera for, say, the news journalist or pro sports tog, but the firm has always excelled at making high quality cameras for the enthusiast. The Pentax K-50 is a prime example of Pentax’s commitment to provide good cameras at a price point that most can afford. And if you are thinking of purchasing your first interchangeable lens camera, this is a great place to start.

HANDLING

The K-50 is a sturdy little camera that fits well in your hand, the grip is sculpted to fit your middle finger, although we did feel like the shutter button was not quite in the right place, but that will all depend on your hand. The polycarbonate covered steel chassis has ports, buttons and knobs sealed by rubber gaskets to keep out dust, dirt and rain. Its solid construction makes this camera feel like it cost a lot more than it actually did. All of the buttons and dials are within reach, however a lock of some sort on the main dial would be great as did get bumped onto a different setting once or twice. On the camera body you have easy access to dedicated keys for vital shooting functions (including EV compensation, ISO, white balance, and self-timer/drive mode). While it doesn’t have the most customizable controls, you are able to make small adjustments to the behavior of the AF/AE-Lock button and set the left-side RAW/Fx button to control one of six different settings.

IMAGE QUALITY

This is where the wars are won and lost, because unless the images are

better than your old point and shoot, you have just flushed a wad of cash down the loo. Even if the camera can make you a cup of coffee. The K-50 has a 16MP APS-C CMOS sensor and makes use of the new SAFOX IXi+ Auto Focus module. You understood that, right? Seriously though, is that just PR speak for it takes nice pictures? No, it is not, because this camera actually performs, the images are good. All in all, the images we took with this camera could stand toe-to-toe with some of the more expensive cameras that we’ve tested. It performs well in low light, too, with just a little noise creeping in at about the ISO 12800 mark. It does go right up to ISO 51200 but as in other cameras this is just the PR ponytails trying to sell you pipe dreams. There are plenty of image dynamics on the camera, it has several options for adjusting parameters such as contrast, saturation, color temperature, high and low key and sharpness (i+/-4 steps) and it can have the camera adjust for highlights/shadows.

PERFORMANCE

Lets start with the 18-55mm kit lens that comes with the camera, as far as “kit” lenses go this one is quite good. The barrel

operation is very smooth and it finds focus very quickly, even in darkish conditions. The camera’s autofocusing is generally pretty swift, especially when using one of the 9 cross-type AF points. The Automatic White Balance (AWB) does a good job of accurately representing colours, even when shooting under artificial or mixed lighting conditions In certain high contrast situations some of our images were slightly under-exposed, but if you keep an eye out for these conditions, it is easy to fix with a push of the exposure compensation button. A good package and would definitely be on our list of cameras to consider.

DETAILS Handling

Image quality

Performance

Value

Overall

WHO IS THE WINNER! WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 19

SUPERTEST

SAMSUNG NX300

HIGH PERFORMANCE CSC WITH FOLD OUT TOUCHSCREEN ere is where things get interesting plenty of information, and responsive touch and very different, because the focusing, although we’re not a huge fan of Samsung NX300 is definitely theses, as it seems like just another thing that different compared to the other cameras in could get broken. Our biggest issue however is the lack of a this review. Here is a camera that will appeal viewfinder, be this optical or digital. Having to both those upgrading from a point and shoot camera or from only using a cellphone to hold the camera out in front of me while shooting is just wrong! to take pictures. This is a DSLM (digital single lens mirrorless) with an APS-C sized sensor. With it’s retro looks and a host of IMAGE QUALITY features that will appeal to the young folk out The NX300 boasts a 20.3MP APS-C there, this is a camera that will do well. CMOS Sensor and it the resulting images Is it what we would suggest choosing if really surprised me. The image quality in upgrading to your first interchangeable lens both JPG and Raw are great. The colours camera? are vibrant and skin tones are very natural, obviously depending on what tweeks you have made. Even more impressive is the NX300′s HANDLING The build quality of the NX300 is fantastic, handling of high ISO, even at ISO 3200 the clean lines and sturdy materials make for a noise levels are barley noticeable. Auto WB is pretty good overall, but compared to the great looking camera. The main control dial is however in a very unfortunate place as it other cameras in the test could definitely use some work. will get bumped onto a different setting while it is in your bag or being carried on a strap. The size of the camera makes one-handed PERFORMANCE operation impossible. To use any of the When a camera does this much, we know function buttons on the right hand side, you from the start that the battery life is not going have to hold it with two hands. I think that to be great. While it may be awesome to Samsung would have been better served share your images direct from you camera to making this camera a little bulkier. Facebook, this is not so cool, If you run out The 3.3inch tilting AMOLED display of battery before your shooting day is done. is excellent. Bright, easy to see in sunlight, The NX300 has a Hybrid AF capable sensor

is surprisingly good. The contrast detection AF also worked really well in low light. If touching screens is your thing, then you will love the touch focus feature. There are a ton of other features including HDR, filters and being able to the camera to talk to your smartphone and tablet. This is a camera that will do well with the Instagram and Facebook crowd, but I am still in two minds about the NX300. Yes, it is tons of fun. The build quality is great, the images are good, but would we pick it as our “go to” camera for when the moment counts and we really want to get that picture? We’re not convinced. Bit.ly/1KSiqHF

DETAILS Handling

Image quality

Performance

Value

Overall

6 DETAILS

• Full HD 1080p 60fps Video Capture • 3.31” AMOLED Tilt Touch Screen Display • Hybrid Auto Focus System • Dual Channel WiFi via SMART CAMERA App • Touch AF and Touch Control LED R8 495

WHO IS THE WINNER! 20 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

SUPERTEST

FUJI X-PRO1

et’s pretend just for a second that you have a few extra rand to throw around when making the upgrade from your point and shoot to your interchangeable lens camera. Meet the Fujifilm X-Pro1, because this camera is one to be taken very seriously. Here is a camera that takes the Leica form factor, but has none of its drawbacks. These “little” cameras are like the superheroes of the photography world with superpowers, like the ability to produce stunning images at high ISO with little to no noise. This is without a doubt one of the best cameras on the market today, despite the fact it’s also one of the oldest.

HANDLING

Fujifilm has pretty much got it spot on as far as size and weight go with this camera. It is big enough to make your old compact look silly, yet not so small that it looks silly when you put a longer lens on it. Because of its build quality this feels like a camera that will last a lifetime, the textured and matt black finish with white engraving

A MIX OF TRADITIONAL AND DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

add to the retro appearance. The grip is further enhanced by the moulded grip on the right side. There are only two controls on the front panel; a three-position focus mode dial and a toggle switch at the top right to switch between EVF and OVF modes. The Magnesium alloy top panel features a huge shutter speed dial, the on/off switch and shutter button and the exposure compensation dial. The last of these is my biggest bugbear with this camera however. There is no locking feature for the exposure compensation dial and we managed to bump this numerous times, forcing us to apply a bit of gaffer tape to it in the end. Al the buttons on the rear of the camera fall nicely to hand and the simplicity of the layout means that you are not hitting buttons by mistake.

IMAGE QUALITY

Fujifilm’s 16MP X-Trans sensor claims to avoid moiré by employing a different pattern of filters which more closely resembles the random nature of film grain. So instead of

the traditional two-by-two Bayer pattern, the X-Trans sensor employs a six-by-six repeating pattern with a less regular arrangement of coloured filters within. Simply put, this camera makes great images. The images out of this camera are comparable to this writer’s Nikon D800, both in studio and on location. We were blown away at the colour reproduction, the sharpness and the lack of colour casts in weird lighting conditions. JPG images straight out of the camera are really good, and the RAW images are even better.

PERFORMANCE

The X-Pro1 is equipped with a hybrid viewfinder, which allows the option of switching from the electronic (EVF) to the optical viewfinder at the flick of a switch located on the front of the camera. The autofocus on the X-Pro1 is better than it used to be when the camera first came out, and the original focusing issues have been sorted out with the new firmware. It does require a little care and attention to work effectively in some circumstances but that’s no different to any other camera. The battery life is slightly above average compared to other cameras in this range especially if you use the optical viewfinder. The 18-55mm lens was the best out of all the cameras tested, build quality is fantastic, the operation was smooth. We would recommend the XPro1 to anyone, it has all the features you need and the fact that it looks so good is a definite plus.

DETAILS DETAILS • Fantastic build quality • Great Image quality • Hybrid Auto-Focus R11 995

THE WINNER

his group really had some very different cameras in it and the scores were pretty close. If we are sticking to the title of this test then, the winner has to be the Pentax K-50. It is a great little camera, especially if you are moving up from a compact to your first interchangeable lens camera. The K-50 has everything you need and its solid build quality means that it will do well by you until you make the step up to your next camera (trust me, it does not end here). However, if you do have that spare cash lying around… there is no way that you should go home with any else but the Fujifilm X-Pro1.

22 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

Handling

Image quality

Performance

Value

Overall

’S EDITORE CHOIC

Turning amateurs into proâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

stockist of major photographic brands

Tel: 011 880 2885 Fax: 086 685 8132 KAMERAZ - Shop L12, Rosebank Mews 173 Oxford Road, Rosebank

Web: www.kameraz.co.za Mail: info@kameraz.co.za Find us on facebook: http://goo.gl/3XitwWW

SUPERTEST

WHICH…

Type of smartphone case is right for you? Three cases that offer three different types of protection go head-to-head.

echnology breaks. It’s that simple. Look at last year’s bendy iPhone 6 issue - #bendgate - or the many, many examples of people dropping phones in toilets bowls and bubble baths or just taking them for an unintentional swim.

Even dropping a smartphone so hard (or at the wrong angle) and they completely shatter. If you’ve ever experienced one of these frustrating scenarios, you probably wished at the time that you had a really decent case

LIFEPROOF FRĒ

to protect your smartphone. Thankfully, there are a number of great cases available. Below, we take a look at three that provide different levels of protection – from rock-solid to purely aesthetic.

STRONG AND RUGGED, ITS MAXIMUM PROTECTION

DETAILS • Models: iPhone 5/5S/6, iPad Air/Mini, Galaxy S4/S5 • Extras: Built-in screen protector, headphone jack R700

ifeProof makes some amazing cases which are guaranteed to protect your smartphone from just about anything. The Frē model is particularly tough, in the sense that it will protect your most precious form of communication from water, dirt, shock and even snow. Included in the box is the case, a screen cleaning cloth and a headphone adapter. Which also leads us the about the only negative about the case: it makes the iPhone 6 about one-and-a-half times thicker than when it doesn’t have a cover on. It’s bulky, but there is good reason for it – LifeProof cases 24 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

are all about withstanding situations and this particular model can be submerged in two meters of water for about an hour. That means that all the ports and the entire phone needs to be water-tight, and to do that, more plastic and clips are needed to create a seal. You still have full access to the screen, and it actually responds pretty well with the built-in screen protector. You will, however, definitely notice that it is there. Because the case makes the phone so much thicker, a headphone adaptor is needed as the original iPhone headphone’s jack just isn’t long

enough to reach the screw-sealed port. Dropping a phone may be one of the biggest causes of damage, and this case tries to overcome any accidents by exceeding US military drop specifications. Overall, the Frē (which is also available for Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and 4) is the epitome of smartphone protection. If you are looking for something that will secure your smartphone from almost any mishap that could possibly happen, this is it. Sure, it’s a bit bulky and not particularly stylish, but it will save you from the robot apocalypse. That we can be certain of.

SUPERTEST

OTTERBOX SYMMETRY

IT LOOKS GREAT AND OFFERS A STURDY LEVEL OF COMFORT

DETAILS • Models: iPhone 6/6 Plus, 5/5S/5c, Galaxy S4/S5 R450

f you don’t feel the end of the world is nigh, or have R700 to drop on a phone case, you might to opt for OtterBox’s new Symmetry line of tough cases. Symmetry aims to give you a bit more protection that your standard case, but it’s not as gung-ho about making your phone virtually indestructible as LifeProof is. OtterBox has been in the smartphone protection business since 1998, so it knows what it’s doing. In the past, its cases lacked flair but Symmetry is trying to bridge that gap by giving something to protect your phone with that doesn’t look like an army tank. It’s like a smartly-dressed samurai, if you will. Available for both Apple and Android smartphone models, the dual-material construction absorbs shock and can withstand drops from a reasonable height. The edges of the screen wraps around the front of the phone, so even if it falls flat on its face, it should be able to withstand force. TÍhe dual-material construction absorbs shock and can withstands drops from a reasonable height. Where the stylish part comes in, is that the case is available in a wide variety of designs and colour pairings – from a solid teal to a rose-pink with small diamond details, to the general solid black and red and grey accents. It’s not waterproof and doesn’t come with a screen protector, but it’s a really great option if you want to protect your phone from bumps and dings without making it as thick as a brick.

THEKASE CUSTOMISABLE CASES

CREATE YOUR OWN DESIGN ON A COVER OF YOUR CHOICE

heKase recently launched its first South African store in Rosebank, Johannesburg, and while it has a wide range of cases available for most of the popular brands, it’s not about what they sell, but how they sell it. TheKase has a multitude of designs that you can choose from, and once you know what you want, it prints your smartphone case right there in the store. It takes about seven minutes to do, and it’s ready for use as soon as it pops out the machine. If you would rather have your own image on the back of your phone, you can also upload your own picture, or take one to the store for printing. The silicone case is slightly thicker than a smartphone skin, and pops onto the phone without any hassles. The cases look great, but provide almost no protection to the device other than preventing scratches on the back cover and chips on the edges. Other than that, it’s good quality silicone and the printing looks great. If you are looking for something that is aesthetically pleasing, then TheKase is a good option. You will be able to customise your phone cover and it will stay as slim as it was before – all at the expense of having very little protection. So if you aren’t prone to dropping your phone everywhere you go, then you shouldn’t have a problem at all.

DETAILS • Models: iPhone 6/6 Plus, 5/5S/5c, Galaxy S4 Mini/S5 R350

CONCLUSION

he three different covers provide very different levels of protection for everyday situations. We absolutely love the fact that you can design your own cover for about the same price as overseas websites, but we are also suckers for something that will be able to withstand a bear attack. Taking all those factors into account, it really boils down to what you are looking for.

If you know that you will be in the outdoors often, go for the Frē. Middle-of-the road? Well, then Symmetry is going to be your hero there. And if you just want to show off your awesome new Batman cover that you designed yourself, TheKase will have a printer ready for you. Bit.ly/1FxsvbK

WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 25

REVIEWS DETAILS • Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit Single Language • CPU: Quad-Core Intel Core i7-4790 @ 3.6GHz • Memory: 16GB DDR3L 1600MHz • Dedicated Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX780 with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM • Onboard Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4600 • Storage: 128GB SSD + 1TB 7200RPM SATA HDD • Keyboard & Mouse: Included • Optical Drive: DVD Disc Burner • LAN: Gigabit Ethernet • WLAN: Wireless-AC • USB: USB 3.0 x 2, USB 2.0 x 6 • Video Out: 1x HDMI, 2x DVI, 1x DisplayPort R22 999

ASUS Republic of Gamers G20 Gaming PC ASUS has packed a high-performance Core i7 gaming PC into a sleek, compact console.

ome of the biggest names in PC components are turning to the small form-factor to set their gaming PCs apart, and they’re not alone. ASUS is one of the latest to throw its hat into the SFF ring with the Republic of Gamers G20 Gaming PC, a tiny but stylish micro-ITX tower that’s just smaller than an Xbox One, with a whole lot more power. The G20 gets its potency from the combination of Intel’s Core i7-4790 processor and NVIDIA’s GTX780 graphics card. (Two years ago, the 780 was near the top of NVIDIA’s graphics card line-up, trumped only by the ridiculously overpowered Titan and Titan-Z cards.) Together, these two components deliver the bulk of the G20’s gaming performance, which, as it turns out, is very good indeed. Together with the system’s solid-state primary drive and 16GB of RAM, these components chew through any task you care to throw at them, making both Windows and gaming performance more than worth the price tag. There’s even a second hard drive, a 1TB 7200RPM drive for storing non-essential data and installing those huge games. But it’s the G20’s looks that might sell

you on it long before you’ve even started up your first game. It features odd angles and a somewhat more alien look than even Alienware manages with its X51 desktops thanks to the weird-looking “writing” etched into its plastic casing and some oddly-angled edges, and the effect is undeniably striking. Combined with customisable lighting that can be set to any of 16 million colours with the included software, the G20 really looks the part of the badass gaming monster that it is. To keep the case so slim and compact, ASUS removed bulky power supplies entirely and used external power bricks instead, exactly like those for laptops. It forces you to find three plug points (the third for a monitor) just to boot the G20 up, which is a bit of an inconvenience but worth it for the tiny overall footprint on offer. The G20 has eight USB ports, an Ethernet jack, HDMI outputs and regular 3.5mm jacks for multi-speaker setups, as well as a slimline DVD reader/burner. Perhaps the nicest unexpected extra is its built-in AC-class WiFi, which absolutely flies if you have the requisite AC-class router to go along with it. The G20 is a brilliant little gaming

machine. It pumps out gorgeous graphics at high frame rates at very high details, and general Windows use is nice and zippy. That’s what 16GB of RAM and a fast SSD gets you. It’s just not very upgradeable thanks to the specially-machined case that doesn’t encourage exploratory fiddling. But thanks to some great performance hardware, you won’t need to upgrade for a few years yet. While you could build yourself something a lot more modular and comparably powerful for less cash, it wouldn’t be as small or look nearly as good, and those are the two things the G20 excels at. Bit.ly/17XoJ0D

SCORES Look & Feel

Build Quality

Gaming Performance

General Performance

Value for money

Overall

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REVIEWS

DETAILS • Publisher: Frontier Developments • Platform: PC (Mac and Linux to come) • Genre: MMO • The good: Epic scale the entire universe is your playground. • The bad: Lack of player interaction. R715

Elite: Dangerous Seeing beyond the stars with Frontier Developments.

here are two ways to look at Elite: Dangerous, a game which places you as the pilot of a small single seater spaceship armed with a tiny laser and a pocket full of cash and sends you off to find your own way in space. You’re not, strictly speaking, alone – it’s a massively multiplayer online game, so there’s a lot of other humans flying around – but most of the ships you’ll meet are NPCs of one form or another. To its critics it’s an ambitious and beautiful looking game with a great ship and combat system, that’s let down by the fact that in between all of those 400 billion stars there’s just not a lot to do. The missions are repetitive and characterless, space stations mostly look the same. There’s no overarching story or increasingly difficult mission areas to open up, like a traditional MMO, and what is in the game is just confusing most of the time. There are loads of ways to play Elite: Dangerous, detractors will concede. You can trade, work missions, engage in piracy or bounty hunting and even work your way up through the ranks of the Federal or Imperial navy by fighting in factional wars. You can mine raw materials from asteroid belts – but not craft them into higher value gear as in something like World of Warcraft. Some will want to play Elite: Dangerous as Kirk-like explorers, visiting new worlds and being rewarded with the discovery of new astronomical phenomena and saleable star maps. 28 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

Even the critics will concede that the ships are hugely customisable, and there’s a fair variety of craft types too. Earning enough money to buy a decent one is outrageously tough, though. And, they counter, the game is confusing and lacks polish. It’s a massively multiplayer online game (which in itself is source of much controversy) in which players can’t actually interact with each other (yet). The size and scale of the game is its biggest short coming: 400 billion stars and just a few hundred thousand player. Why bother being online at all? Then there’s the one dimensional diplomacy with NPCs. Compared to similar space epics like, say, the Freelancer series it just lacks focus and narrative. Sure, you can fly around in big ol’ space, but why? To it’s fans, however, Elite is a game about the journey, not the destination. The bones of this game carry little flesh, but for the players who “get it” they’re a skeletal framework that you build around. You don’t eat the meat. You are the meat. It sounds like an excuse for lazy game design, but look at the Elite: Dangerous subReddit. No other game has pages and pages of players sharing stories about their exploits with each other, always embellishing on the details that the game didn’t provide. To the game engine, you might simply be delivering a small cargo of goods to a faction in need a few light years away, to the imaginative player it’s a straightforward milkrun that went awry

when you were interdicted out of hyperspace by a random stranger. For a game with only the most cursory and spurious of plots, the fact that it has inspired so many stories and a culture of storytelling is truly remarkable. Let your imagination go and appreciate Elite’s epic scale and it’s hard not to fall in love with the ambition and breadth of opportunity. Even if it does get a bit grindy at times. There’s still a long way to go for Elite: Dangerous. Some of its failings - notably the lack of player interaction - are being addressed in an up and coming patch, but the game is epic in scale like no other. There’s an exceptional number of ways the devs can grow the game over time. Who knows what weird civilisations live out in the Eastern spiral arm? No-one’s gone there to find out yet. We’ll still be playing when they do. Bit.ly/1vRD7C7

SCORES Ships

Space

Controls

Longevity

Overall

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REVIEWS

DETAILS • Publisher: Techland • Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One • The good: Everything from gore to humour to seriously fun ways of getting around. • The bad: Over-use of identical character models for no good reason. From R699 (PC) to R899 (Xbox One, PS4)

Dying Light A better Dead Island? Good night. Good luck.

ying Light is everything you liked about 2011’s Dead Island – zombies, gore, an emphasis on melee weapons – but with far better graphics and an amazing 360-degree movement system that has you running up walls, jumping over obstacles and hanging from ledges like a free-runner possessed. It’s a first-person parkour shooter with zombies, in other words. And the story isn’t too shabby, either. Instead of being stuck on an island surrounded by zombies, you’re G-Man Kyle Crane, sent into a zombie outbreak in the middle of a huge new, nonisland setting, the fictional and rather Turkishlooking city of Harran. Your task is to help the survivors, while staying on the lookout for something your handlers are interested in. Story aside, what will keep you coming back for more is the game’s amazing melee combat system. Where Dying Light does borrow from Dead Island is in its depiction of a zombie apocalypse where guns are scarce, and you must instead beat zombies to death with whatever is lying around. That means pipes, hammers, blades, pieces of wood, bats, crowbars and the occasional sword are your go-to weapons, and taking out the undead means getting really, really close before socking them in the face. As you might imagine, moering zombies is a bloody business indeed, and Techland has spared no gory detail. Heads cave in with a wet smooshing sound, bits of skull go flying everywhere, limbs come off when chopped or bludgeoned, bodies disintegrate when hit by explosions and blood goes everywhere.

A good fight will find your character out of stamina, out of breath with a broken, bloody weapon in his hands, bodies strewn all over the place with blood and guts tingeing the scenery crimson. This definitely isn’t a game for the faint of heart. And as you level up, you’ll unlock moves and abilities within your three primary skill categories – Power, Survival and Agility – that make dealing with the zombie hordes just that much easier. It also makes the combat pretty spectacular: beating zombies to death with pipes is great and all, but it’s even better elbow-punching, ground-pounding and headstomping them from a first-person perspective. Despite the ability to quite literally run up walls, getting overwhelmed in Dying Light is a very real threat and approaching every encounter with some sort of strategy is gently encouraged. Zombies are easily dealt with on their own or in small groups, but in clumps they can quite easily take you out if you’re not careful. Fortunately, the game provides you with a ton of weapons and a clever crafting system that lets you build useful things like grenades, molotov cocktails and even exploding ninja stars to help you thin the numbers. The gist of the whole “Dying Light” name and the slogan of “Good night, good luck” is that night and day in the game are like, well night and day in terms of how they play. Day time means sluggish zombies for the most part that are fun to mess with. If you’re smart and keep an eye out, you can have heaps of fun beating them all to death, one at a time or in small groups. Night, on the other hand,

brings out a whole new type of zombie, called Volatiles. These bastards are not only freakishly fast and strong and can climb anywhere you can, but they actively seek you out. Getting spotted and chased to a Safe Zone is as panicinducing as that sounds, because if they catch you – and they will – it’s dirt nap time. Fortunately, Dying Light really nailed the whole “running away” thing, because sprinting around the map and leaping over, under and around obstacles is a real pleasure thanks to the game’s free-running system and some damn fine controls. Dying Light’s gorgeous – and gory – visuals make it feel like a zombie apocalypse that doesn’t pull any punches; the melee combat and crafting systems both have a lot of weight; the story doesn’t venture too far into “ridiculous” territory and the main character is interesting in his own right. And even with a few niggles, Dying Light is a hell of a fun ride. Bit.ly/1JkVtBk

SCORES Graphics

Parkour & Controls

Open World Size & Believability

Story

Multiplayer

Overall

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REVIEWS

Five games to keep iOS fans tapping New games for your iPhone and tab that go beyond “surprisingly good” and venture into “Wow this is amazing!” territory.

TOTAL DESTRUCTION n Total Destruction, players must knock down 2D buildings made of wood by placing explosives wherever they believe will cause the most structural damage. Gems are earned for successfully completing levels and bonus objectives, which can be spent on more powerful destructive tools. It’s a simple yet addictive game that will have you tapping long into the night. Free

PUNCHY! ove a good cartoon brawl? Punchy! has your back. The premise is simple: punch your opponent into submission while blocking his attacks, but don’t be fooled, it takes a surprising amount of skill and co-ordination to pull off considering the simple one- and two-finger controls. Play on your own against AI boxers or against a friend in one-on-one battles. Free

LAMP AND VAMP his clever roguelike will challenge your strategic mind as you attempt to guide your little vampire to the castle of his dreams while dodging Slayers. The action is turnbased, but one wrong move early on and you could find yourself painted into a corner, so to speak! Use vampire powers wisely to get out of jams and your deductive brilliance to ensure you remain one step ahead of the humans who want you dead. R29.99

RADIATION ISLAND t’s 1943, you’re a survivor of the Philadelphia experiment, but you’re also marooned on a mysterious island with nothing but the clothes on your back. All that stands between you and certain death is your wits and your ability to craft tools and weapons with which to gather food, build shelter and, ultimately equip yourself explore the island to reveal and solve its mysteries. R36.99

EXILES n this epic sci-fi RPG you’ll shoot aliens, solve mysteries and explore the vast planet of Aurora 9 as you discover more about a plot by a corrupt governor to enslave its people and attempt to escape the world. Its open-world explorability resembles Fallout in space in a way, and when its bits all come together it offers some amazing moments from tense battles and its utterly gorgeous visuals. R59.99

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Olympus wants to turn your phone into an Micro Four Thirds camera

e quite liked Sony’s unusual QX series of lenses which launched last year. The odd add-ons are a self-contained camera inside an SLRstyle lens that pairs with a smartphone over Bluetooth turning your handset into the brains of a decent compact camera. It’s a neat idea, with one drawback: most smartphones already have good cameras, is a bulky extra like the QX really worthwhile? Rival Olympus certainly thinks so – it’s just unveiled the Olympus Air, a very similar

lens which works in almost exactly the same way. It’ll hookup to any smartphone, pair with a dedicated app and take high quality photos. (We say high quality because apparently it’s compatible with the Micro Four Thirds system of lenses inside Oly’s pro- and enthusiast interchangeable lens cameras.) The Olympus Air will be available in Japan next month, and boasts a 16-megapixel Live MOS sensor and can purportedly take up to 320 shots on a single

charge. Aside from being able to connect with your smartphone wirelessly, Olympus is also claiming that the Air is capable of producing “SLR-quality” images. There is no word on pricing yet and it looks like this may be only be available in Japan for the time being, but it’s one we’d certainly like to try out soon. Find out more at this link: Bit.ly/16NgKC1

Massive 50.6MP full-frame DSLR added to Canon line-up

tretching the constraints of 35mm sensors, Canon has just added the EOS 5DS and the EOS 5DS R to its line-up – both of which come in at 50.6 megapixels. Canon claims that it is the “highest number of megapixels ever seen in a full frame sensor.” In terms of sensitivity, both models have an ISO of 100-6400, which is expandable up to 50-12800. Adding something that has never been offered before, both models new in-camera crop shooting modes: 1.3x, 1.6x and 1:1. Even when cropped to 1.6x, the still images will be taken at 19MP. “Created to ensure every detail of your exquisite landscape or highfashion studio shoot is in focus, the EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R feature an advanced 61-point AF system,

with 41 cross-type points, using EOS Intelligent Tracking and Recognition AF (iTR) to track both faces and colour. To reduce image blur, Canon’s Mirror Vibration Control System uses cams to drive the cameras’ mirror up and down in a highly controlled fashion, avoiding all sudden stops and softening the shutter-release sound,” Canon explained in a press statement. Canon also added the world’s widest-angle rectilinear zoom lens to its repertoire, the EF 11-24mm f/4L USM. “The EF 11-24mm f/4L USM is designed to open up an entirely new world of creative opportunities, thanks to its super wide 11-24mm focal range,” Canon ended. Bit.ly/1zFicBE

WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 35

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INTERVIEW: PHOTOS

Shooting for the top Wedding photographer Brett Field on how to be a success.

s photographers, we are always searching for perfect light, and most of the time the quality of light available when we need to shoot is not ideal and definitely not perfect. When you are shooting for a client, you need to make sure that the light is perfect. Tech Made Easy spoke to international wedding photographer Brett Field, whose work not only demonstrates the above, but also takes it to the next level. “It’s not enough to know your camera. You need to know how to push your camera to its limits and then manipulate it even further with different combinations of settings and lighting setups to get unique results. Having a variety of lighting options gives you endless options in any lighting condition,” explains Field. Field started off his career by offering his services as an assistant to gain exposure and experience with the right photographers. “I stepped out of an executive boardroom only to work as an assistant (not second shooter) carrying bags of kit on the crowded tube and streets around London and venues in South Africa,” says Field. “Just make sure you are carrying the right persons bag,” he adds. When you are shooting commercially or shooting a wedding you have to be able to control the light to make sure that your pictures are everything that you, and more

importantly your clients want. You can’t tell the client that the light is not right, there is no do-over, and you have to get it right first time.

“You need to know how to push your camera to its limits and then manipulate it even further with different combinations of settings and lighting setups to get unique results.” The only way to ensure that you will be able to do this is with off camera lighting. “I love off camera flash and constant lighting. They allow me to pioneer my high fashion inspired wedding photography. I never go to shoot a wedding without my Elinchrom Quatra Ranger, Manfrotto LEDs and torches. They are expensive, but

worth every cent. Essentially I have studio quality light even when on location,” says Field. There are a number of ways that you can use the flash remotely, the most basic of these is with an off-camera flash cord. These are essentially hotshoe extension cables, with one end slipping onto the camera’s hotshoe and the other end locking onto the base of the flashgun. If you want to place the flash further away or use more than one external light, then you will have to look at a wireless trigger system. There are many different models available with different features. Selecting one will depend on your budget. Most photographers look for ‘technical’ imperfections when judging a photograph. “For me an amazing photograph needs to encapsulate emotion, lack distractions and captivate the viewer,” says Field. Field limits his wedding bookings to just 20 per year. This allows him to dedicate a lot of time to each and every wedding. “I have time to get to know my clients. I find people fascinating, so getting to know them feeds this fascination,” says Field. By the time the wedding day arrives, he says he feels like an excited guest who has the privilege of shooting a friend’s wedding. Bit.ly/1zshyTh

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MOBILE COMPUTING MOBILE COMPUTING I live each and every day to the fullest. I’m out the door in the morning and don’t stop until I get home at night. I need my electronic devices at my side – protected and accessible – keeping Ime live each and every day tomakes the fullest. I’m by outdesigning the door solutions in the connected. Case Logic it simple morning and don’t stop until I get home at night. I need my that fit my devices and my style. electronic devices at my side – protected and accessible – keeping Case Logic. Life, Simplified. me connected. Case Logic makes it simple by designing solutions that fit my devices and my style. Case Logic. Life, Simplified.

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HOW TO…

How to beat loadshedding on a budget Take your tech solar for less than R2 000!

ike it or not, loadshedding is here to stay. The latest reports suggest that maintenance at Koeberg nuclear power station will be ongoing until May at least, and that we remain at risk of rolling blackouts until then. Now’s the time to work out how to keep your tech turned on, so you can carry on enjoying HD Netflix while all around is dark. If you’ve got a couple of hundred thousand rand to spare, you could go completely off the grid, and for less than R10 000 you can pick up a decent petrol generator which will keep your essentials

up and running during hours of darkness. But we’ve found someone who’s got a much better – and cheaper – plan than either of those solutions. A DIY solar set-up gives you a modicum of energy independence for now and the foreseeable future, and will keep the essentials running at a fraction of the price. Less than R1 300 in fact. Here’s how one Gauteng hacker beats loadshedding and reduces their reliance on the grid. Engineer, entrepreneur and coder extraordinaire, Toby Kurien invited us to his home/office to see the set-up he’s built for himself.

COST FOR BASIC SOLAR BACKUP

Total cost R1271.58

Solar panel – 50W Solaire SD Eco Plus, R680.58* Charge controller – Steca Solsum 6.6F 6A, R275 Batteries – Deltec Lead Crystal 12V 7.2Ah, R296.40 Cables & connectors – approx R20 Optional inverter - Mean Well 300W Modified sine wave, R710 *You can get away with a 30W panel at half the price if you’re not running a laptop from it.

OUR THOUGHTS ON A STANDARD UPS BACKUP

The easiest and most convenient way around loadshedding is to buy a bunch of Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS). These are basically big batteries which plug into the mains power, and have a power socket on the back. The battery is constantly charging, so that when the mains goes off whatever is plugged into the front carries on working without a blip. The problem with UPSs, however, is that they’re expensive – starting at around R1 500 – and only tend to last for an hour or so. As most loadshedding periods are four hours long, they aren’t especially practical. Kurien adds that in his experience, many UPS boxes are badly made and don’t maintain the battery properly, so they need replacing after a year or so (and this mirrors

INVERTER OR NOT? ON THE NEXT PAGE. WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 39

HOW TO…

A portable panel means you can move it around.

our own experience). So what does the budget minded geek do? Hacks their own solution, of course. Kurien says that originally, he started playing with small solar panels and batteries because he works from home in an area notorious for lightning strikes. His thinking was that if he could put his network connection and laptop on an independent power supply, he’d be able to keep working even if everything in the house was unplugged. And what he’s built is essentially a bunch of low cost, reliable UPS systems which run entirely off of solar power, keeping his laptop, modem, router and even gate motor up and running all day, every day. For less than the cost of the cheapest UPS we could find in South Africa, Kurien has a neat system which keeps his essentials running all day and night long. The fact that it isolates him from loadshedding is merely an added bonus.

PICKING THE PANEL

The core of the system is a solar panel, it’s where the energy comes from and – during the day – what provides direct power to Kurien’s gear. At home, he says, his laptop and gate motor have been running smoothly on solar power, with battery back-up for when it gets dark. In addition, he runs a WiFi router, an iBurst router, a Telkom LTE router and a Raspberry Pi media centre (with USB storage) from two panels and batteries. Fortunately there’s a huge number of cheap solar panels out there, many designed for camping and 4×4 enthusiasts. They’re simple sheets of photovoltaic circuitry, with two cables coming out of the back. They provide direct current (DC) electricity at a rate dependent on the panel size, the amount of sun and the conversion efficiency. The challenge, says Kurien, is in the latter. Most panels are less than 20% efficient, so

40 | TECH MADE EASY | MARCH 2015

go for one as big as you can. If your laptop draws 20W at peak, get a 50W panel. You won’t regret over-provisioning for the sake of a hundred rand.

GETTING THE POSITION RIGHT

Much has been said about where to place solar panels for maximum efficiency, and how to keep them pointing at the sun. Some roof mounts include motors that keep shifting the panel to its optimal angle. Kurien’s advice, though, is to put a bracket on the wall at about shoulder height – that way you can move the panel easily if you want to use it elsewhere, and adjust the angle as you need too. Plus, it makes it easy to clean – and a clean panel is a more efficient one.

CONTROLLING THE CHARGE

The second piece of kit isn’t absolutely necessary, but it is a good idea all the same. Charge controllers generally have three sets of terminals to wire in to. The first goes to the positive and negative terminals on the solar panel, and takes energy in. The third goes out to the kit you want to power. The middle terminals here lead to the battery, and either divert energy to charging the battery or draw power back when the panel switches off. Kurien says that if you are going to use

a charge controller, get a good one. Cheap ones don’t regulate the charge to the battery correctly and either end up running the cells too flat or over charging them. Both of those things shorten the lifespan of lead acid batteries enormously. Less than 50% charge will see a build up of lead sulphate on the electrodes that’s almost impossible to remove, for example, and they can be expensive to replace. A good quality charge controller isn’t expensive, he says, and will make your battery last for years to come.

DON’T SKIMP ON THE BATTERY!

There’s no shortage of big 12V batteries capable of charging from a solar panel and discharging into your gear – but as with everything beware false economies. Car batteries, for example, are big and heavy and not designed for the kind of deep discharge you need to keep your router up for a long time. What you’re looking for is the kind of battery designed for a burglar alarm. These are small and portable but carry enough charge to keep electronics going for plenty of time – exactly how much charge will be written on the side and expressed in amp hours (Ah) or milliamp hours (mAh). If you want to do the maths, you can work out

HOW MUCH POWER DO I NEED? Almost every electrical device in your home will have its power requirements written next to the plug in very small print. This should tell you how many amps it draws and the voltage requirements. These will usually be slightly exaggerated – the requirement should be a maximum, not the average draw. Remember that in a DC circuit, there’s a straightforward calculation that Watts = Volts x Amps, also known as Ohm’s Law. So if you are connecting a router to a battery (via a DC-DC converter, see opposite) and are missing one of the numbers, you can work out amps required by taking the rated power (Watts) and dividing it by 12V. It’s equally important to remember that Ohm’s Law doesn’t work for AC gear, so if you’re running a TV through an inverter (see below), you’ll need to physically measure the power draw of the TV yourself, with a specialist wall socket meter.

HOW TO…

how many amps each piece of kit draws and therefore how many Ah you need in storage. One amp hour is equivalent to connecting a piece of kit that draws one amp for sixty minutes. So a 0.7A router connected to a 7Ah battery should last 10 hours. Kurien says that he swears by Lead Crystal batteries from Bushpower. These are slightly more expensive than traditional lead acid batteries, but they are far more reliable and will last years longer. A 12V, 7.2Ah Lead Crystal battery – enough to keep most of your electronics going by itself – costs R296, compared to R165 for a comparable lead acid one.

An inverter adds an extra load, and will eventually drain the battery even if your gear is off.

INVERTER OR NO?

An inverter will take the low voltage DC power supplied by the solar panel and battery and convert it into high voltage AC power required by anything that plugs into the mains. The problem is, says Kurien, that almost all mains-powered electronics have a built in rectifier – which does exactly the same job in reverse. The internal workings of your LED TV, for example, are all DC-powered. Converting AC to DC (or vice versa) is a tremendously inefficient process, so plugging a laptop charger into an inverter is likely to lose you around 50% of your hard earned energy coming in from the solar panel. You can increase the efficiency by investing in a “pure sine wave” inverter, but they do cost more than “modified sine wave” ones. Luckily, most gear can be run without an inverter. For anything that has a USB charging port or cameras or laptops, see if you can find a car charging kit. A cigarette lighter adapter that can wire directly onto a battery via a DC-DC converter will cost you R37 from Communica.

IT’S ALL IN THE CABLE

There’s more good news for gear like your modem or router. Anything that relies on a wallwart for power can probably be run directly from the battery. The wallwart is just a small rectifier and transformer designed to take mains electricity and turn it into low voltage DC power for whatever piece of kit is on the end of it, so you bypass this, and Communica also sells a wide variety of male plug ends, one of which will almost certainly fit the size and shape of the power in socket on your technology. Be careful though – attaching this straight to the battery will almost certainly cause some damage. Get a variable step down transformer (aka DC-DC The joys of USB charging, straight off of a high capacity battery.

converter) that will convert the 12V out of the battery into exactly the right voltage for your gear first.

THE BIGGER STUFF

Theoretically, you can run your TV, pool pump and fridges from a similar system, but you’ll need to do the maths. In our tests, a 42inch LED TV drew 48W peak power at 0.7A, and a 24inch computer monitor pulled 27W at 0.3A. Both of these, however require 240V mains power – even though modern screens are pretty energy efficient, you’ve got to factor in loss of power by running through an inverter to your capacity calculations. Basically, unless you’ve got a really big battery, you’re not going to keep them up and running for four hours, although as modern TVs are so energy efficient you might get two hours from a standard car battery. You’ll get more if you’re brave enough to rewire the insides and go directly from solar to the monitor bypassing the inverter, but you’ll also run the risk of destroying your TV and voiding the warranty.

GOING FURTHER…

One of the benefits of hacking together your own system like this is that you don’t have to do it all at once. Unlike a massive rooftop installation, you can add extra batteries and panels as you need or can afford. Kurien says that his next big plan is to switch out his mains powered light bulbs at home for 12V LED ones, and get all of his domestic lighting onto solar. Bit.ly/194X65R

WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 41

HOW TO…

How to superpower your Chrome browser If you’re new to the world of alternative web browsers, here’s how to install extensions in Google’s Chrome.

hrome extensions are extra features and functionality that you can easily add to Google Chrome. By using extensions, you can customise Google’s browser with features you like, while keeping it free of things that you don’t use.

STEP 1: GO TO THE CHROME WEB STORE Open Chrome. If you don’t have it, download it from Google.com/chrome. Head over to the Chrome Web Store

by entering https://chrome.google. com/webstore into the address bar and pressing enter. On the left corner, you’ll see Apps, Extensions and Themes. Click Extensions.

STEP 2: FIND YOUR EXTENSIONS

Enter the name of the extension you’re after into the Search box, and press Enter. Once it comes up, click the blue Free+ button. If you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, finding extensions can be tricky

as there are thousands to choose from. Our advice is to read through the descriptions, check the number of downloads and, most importantly, see what the rating of each is in order to find the extensions best-suited to your needs. A good rule to follow is that the higher the rating, the more effective, useful and stable the extension is likely to be. Once you’ve found an extension you want, simply hover your mouse over it and click the blue + Free button and you’re done. Bit.ly/1A4EjU8

10 TOP CHROME EXTENSIONS Tech Made Easy’s hit list – a wide range of useful things like blocking internet ads, fooling sites into believing we’re not in SA and more.

2. HOLA BETTER INTERNET

1. ADBLOCK This is undoubtedly the handiest extension in our Chrome arsenal, as it blocks banner ads and YouTube video ads completely. It’s free, but you’re encouraged to donate to the software’s author if you’d like to. But perhaps most importantly, get Adblock because it’s not Adblock Plus. That’s a similarly named advertisement-blocker which recently reached an agreement with Google, Microsoft and other big companies in which it now receives money so as... to not to block their ads. Rather defeats the object then.

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Want to access Hulu and Netflix via your browser, but you keep getting told it’s not available in your region? Hola gets around that by fooling websites and internet-based services into believing you’re in another country entirely using some clever VPN proxy trickery. To use it, simply install the extension, click on it and choose the country you’d like to use and voila, Hola does the rest. Your internet connection may slow down a teensy bit as Hola does all the hard work, but it’s worth it to get access to all of the blocked international video content we’re denied as SA residents. But best of all, it can be easily deactivated with a few clicks of the mouse when it’s not needed.

HOW TO…

3 AND 4. MASKME AND LASTPASS These password managers sit quietly in your browser, offering to create complex passwords for services you sign up for, saving those password and automatically filling them in when needed. All you need to remember is a single master password, but be careful, if you forget that you’re doomed. Like, properly – there is literally NO WAY to retrieve it. So be sure to be sure.

5. HOOTSUITE

6. POCKET

Do you Tweet from multiple accounts? Use Facebook and other social media services a lot? Hootsuite lets you monitor and manage it all, right from within Chrome. This is especially useful when attempting to keep work and personal Twitter accounts separate, and will prevent things like Tweets from your personal account that you wouldn’t want your professional contacts to see.

You probably come across articles and videos in your daily web-surfing that you’d like to read or watch, but you don’t have time for in that very second. Pocket lets you create a list of articles and videos that you can go back and watch or read when you have time. Best of all, it has an app for other operating systems like Android and iOS, allowing you to synchronise that list across multiple devices.

7. MULTIPLE ACCOUNT CHECKER FOR GMAIL This handy little extension is brilliant for those with more than one Google Mail account, as it lets you switch between them all quickly and easily. It also shows you a preview of your inbox’s contents without forcing you to open Gmail in a browser window.

8. GRAMMARLY Thanks to this clever bit of code, there’s no longer an excuse to confuse lose with loose, their with there or any of the other words people commonly get wrong on the internet these days. Grammarly plugs into your browser and monitors what you write while using specific services (Twitter, Facebook, Gmail), looking out for these sorts of mistakes, and helpfully highlights them for you so that you have the chance to correct them before hitting Send on that important email, Tweet or status update. Basically, it’s there to stop you from looking like a fool on the internet.

10. AWESOME SCREENSHOT APP

9. AWESOME SCREENSHOT: CAPTURE & ANNOTATE

To get more mileage out of Awesome Screenshot: Capture & Annotate, grab this app from the Chrome Web Store. It allows you to annotate the screenshots you capture quickly and easily without having to load up another, possibly bulkier application.

Do you often need to capture a section of your screen to an image, or even an entire web page that scrolls down for miles? Then Awesome Screenshot will come in quite handy: to start a capture, simply click on its icon and choose what you want to do - capture the entire screen, a complete web page, a specific area or any of a number of other options. The app then saves it, and does things like let you make annotations, upload the image to Google Drive and more.

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HOW TO…

Understand and use If This Then That

One of the most useful apps you’ll ever download for your smartphone.

etting to grips with IFTTT on your phone can be a little daunting at first as it requires a bit of an understanding of what are, essentially, programming principles. The app can be found on both Google Play and the iTunes store. It gives people a way to trigger actions on their phones automatically that cause other things to happen. If the

phone detects the trigger action, which can be as straightforward as arriving at a certain location, someone tagging you in a photo on Facebook or your phone joining a specific WiFi network, it immediately performs the task you’ve set to launch once that condition has been met.

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO CREATING YOUR OWN RECIPE How to automate camera photos being uploaded to your Dropbox account after they’re taken on an Android phone.

1 2 3

Get and install IFTTT for your phone from your app store. Create an account and sign in.

Go through IFTTT’s brief intro slides, then press on the mortar and pestle seen in the top right corner of the app.

Now press the Plus symbol; this takes you to a screen where you can browse through the user-created recipes, or start your own.

Press the round blue and white Plus at the bottom right of the screen, then on the square blue and white plus.

This is where you choose the “trigger” event. For our purposes, navigate to Android Device, choose Camera, then press the plus next to Any new photo.

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Now press on the big red plus for the Then service. Find and press on the Dropbox icon.

Before channels can be used, they must be activated. Press on Continue to activate the Dropbox channel.

Once that has happened, you will be given the option to be notified every time the recipe runs. We recommend setting that to no – it gets annoying otherwise.

Now, every time you take a picture, the photo will be uploaded to a folder in your Dropbox. Bit.ly/1yvV4Ra

THE RECIPE CHANNEL? IFTTT uses what it refers to as “recipes” to accomplish this. You can create your own, or download recipes created by other IFTTT users, and there are literally thousands to choose from. Chances are, if you can think of a sequence of events you’d like to automate, someone else has already created a recipe for it. To make it easy to create your own recipes from scratch, IFTTT works with what its developers refer to as “Channels”. Channels are groups of internet services, and recipes are created by using actions from within those channels to trigger events that make use of services and functions within other channels. What makes IFTTT so useful is that once you’ve set your rules up, you can forget about them. The actions you’ve automated just become part of how your phone works, and your life, in theory, gets a little easier.

COMPETITION

WIN! A 3G TABLET FROM XTOUCH WORTH R999

Superb dual sim 7inch Android tab up for grabs!

t’s good, but WiFi isn’t enough to cut it any more in our always-on world any more. We want our kit to work wherever we are, and give us access to all our email and entertainment on the go. And so long as you’re not standing in range of a cellphone jammer, that’s exactly what the 7inch, Android powered PhoneTab PF73 from XTouch is designed to do. Designed around a dual core processor and running Android 4.2, the PhoneTab PF73 is a low cost slate that will bring the internet to the masses, where ever they are. It has WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 built in, but the star of the show is the 3G modem for internet access any time of the day or night. And what’s more, thanks to its dual SIM setup you can set it up for the widest possible coverage with a choice of networks. It’s light, too. The PF73 weighs in at just 291g, making it highly portable and at 10.7mm high it’s also one of the slimmest tablets for the price around. And we’ve got one to give away, courtesy of the kind folks at XTouch. Ideal as a travelling companion or a second screen for the kids, if you want to stand a chance of winning one simply answer the question below.

POINT YOUR BROWSER AT WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA/XTOUCHMA

RCH TO ENTER!

TO ENTER To stand a chance of winning an XTOUCH PhoneTab PF73, simply point your browser at www.htxt.co.za/xtouchmarch and answer the following question: Which version of Android is named after a popular chocolate bar? 4.0 4.2 5.0 The closing date is 31st April 2015. See the entry form for T&Cs.

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STATS

SA tech

The numbers that sum up the rest of the month

in stats

Sony’s new Google Glass-like AR spectacles cost R10 000 a pop. The catchy name? They’re called the SmartEyeGlass SED-E1.

Bit.ly/17lb4PB

Sony’s latest PS4 action game, The Order: 1886, isn’t very

long. You can probably finish it in just 6 hours.

Bit.ly/17lc5au

The Joburg designed and built Cheetah 3 3D printer can print 1m3 models at 10x the speed of ordinary printers. It’s not cheap though – it costs R100 000 off the shelf. Bit.ly/17lbhCy

High fidelity music streaming site Tidal is the latest online entertainment portal to launch in South Africa. You can access 75 000 songs with 0 compression for $9.99 a month. Bit.ly/17lbkOD

Enjoy this free copy of htxt.africa’s Tech Made Easy? There’s loads more stories like these, plus in depth features and news published daily at our website www.htxt.co.za.

974 508 267 The number of incidences of data theft around the world last year, according to French security outfit Gemalto. Drone designer DJI has added an SLR-style camera to its latest quadcopters. They’ll take Micro 4/3 lenses from Olympus and Panasonic.

NEXT MONTH

And if you want even more, keep your eyes peeled for issue 14 from 1 April in all good technology retailers.

CMY

PF73 PhoneTab