Is Innovation Back in Cupertino?
APPLE WATCH DIGITAL EDITION
OCTOBER 2014
CONTENTS
OCTOBER 2014
COVER STORY
IPHONE 6 AND IPHONE 6 PLUS We look at the latest iterations of Apple’s industry-leading phone to see if bigger really is better. Is Apple’s wearable the tock of the town? Read our hands-on with the Apple Watch in What’s New Now.
REVIEWS
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Motorola Moto 360 Nikon D810 Sen.se Mother Blue Microphones Mo-Fi InteraXon Muse
HARDWARE Digital Storm Bolt II Asus RT-AC68U Dual-band Wireless AC1900 Gigabit Router
SOFTWARE & APPS Panda Free Antivirus 2015 Our Favorite Apps
Digital Storm Bolt II
FEATURES THE FASTEST ISPS 2014 Which Internet provider is the fastest in the U.S.? It may not be the one you expect—or where you’d expect to find it.
7 IMPORTANT TRENDS IN LAPTOP DESIGN Portable PCs have changed a lot in recent years, and current trends can give us a good idea of what we’ll be using in 2015 and beyond.
HOW I FOUND MY FAMILY ONLINE Thanks to a vast array of online resources, exploring every branch of your family tree is quicker and easier than ever before.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
WRISTS ON WITH THE APPLE WATCH Apple’s latest product aims to revolutionize smartwatches. We spent some time with it to see if it will.
FASTEST MOBILE NETWORKS CANADA Canadian smartphone users have better mobile Internet choices than ever. Here’s a look at speeds in the Great White North.
HOW LOW CAN INTEL REALLY GO? Intel has set its sights on the ARM-dominated world of mobile devices, wearables, and the Internet of Things.
TOP GEAR LAUNCH WINDOW
OPINIONS DAN COSTA First Word
SASCHA SEGAN
As Always, Apple Is Late, But Not Too Late
JAMIE LENDINO
We Audiophiles Will Miss the iPod Classic
DOUG NEWCOMB
Who Should Be the SelfDriving Car’s Moral Compass?
Brand religion is epitomized by Apple, and that’s why Microsoft will never compete. JOHN C. DVORAK
Last Word
DIGITAL LIFE GET ORGANIZED Managing Video Files
TIPS
Flickr Tips for Photo Fanatics
TECH ETIQUETTE
Putting On a Happy Facebook
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FIRST WORD
G At Least Apple Is Never Boring
DAN COSTA
oing to an Apple product launch is a mixed bag for a journalist. For those of us on the East Coast, it inevitably involves a plane ride across the country on less than ten days’ notice. The event itself is entirely scripted and devoid of any news that doesn’t fit neatly into the onstage presentation. If there’s a hands-on period, you can be certain it will be brief and a security guard will be ready to stop you lest you try anything unauthorized with the products. Benchmarks? Forget about ’em. Indeed, you could argue that if the event is livestreamed, there is no news value in attending the event at all. And yet, we keep going. And, despite all the limitations, Apple never disappoints. This time, Apple made news by finally unveiling the Apple Watch, launching the Apple Pay mobile payment service, and annoying 500 million iTunes customers by loading a completely unwanted U2 album into their iTunes libraries. (Apple has since built a tool to let users remove it—bye-bye, Bono.) The Apple Watch won’t ship until 2015, but having played with a demo unit, I can report that it’s pretty impressive. The interface is tailored to the form factor better than on any other watch I’ve seen and it isn’t too bulky. No one has really succeeded in the smartwatch space so far, but the same could be said of tablets before the iPad. Then there was the news that Apple would finally embrace NFC and let users use their phones to process credit card payments. The same way you swipe your ATM card for a cup of coffee, you will now able to tap your phone. A lot of Android users can do this already, but making it work on iPhones is
going to be a huge boon for adoption. With all this news, it can be easy to overlook the fact that Apple also announced the iPhone 6. More than half of the iPhones on the market are more than two years old. People are ready to upgrade. There are two types of Apple customers: those who were happy with last year’s incremental upgrade of the 5s, and those who were disappointed. The thing is, both of these groups are going to buy the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. According to research done by Statista, fully 90 percent of iPhone users stick with Apple when buying a new phone. No phone on the Android platform commands that kind of brand loyalty. The number one reason people buy Android phones is because of the larger screen sizes. Now that the iPhone is available in 4.7- and 5.5-inch models, Apple has solved that problem. And just in time, because this new phablet market is booming. According to IDC, in 2014 worldwide phablet shipments will reach 175 million units—more than the number of laptops sold in the same period. You can read Lead Mobile Analyst Sascha Segan’s take on the new iPhones in this issue. But considering that Apple sold more than four million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices in the first 24 hours of presale, it seems clear that the phones are the most important products Apple will launch this year. We’re thrilled to cover them—and all the year’s other major releases. Even if we’re still jet-lagged.
dan_costa@pcmag.com PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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What’s New Now WRISTS ON WITH THE APPLE WATCH
FASTEST MOBILE NETWORKS CANADA 2014 HOW LOW CAN INTEL REALLY GO? TOP GEAR LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
NEWS
Wrists On With the Apple Watch BY SASCHA SEGAN
There are a whole bunch of problems in the smartwatch world. Apple solves one of them: This smartwatch finally looks fashionable.
T
here’s a lot needed to make smartwatches a real category. Apple has figured out some of it: The company knows UI design, and wow, can it do fashion. But the first-generation Apple Watch looks expensive and thick, with short battery life. That isn’t to insult Apple specifically—no other smartwatch maker has gotten over those hurdles, either.
Apple Watch Feature Watch Distinguishing features on the Apple Watch include: Digital Crown: Scroll, zoom, and navigate, and interact with Siri, without obstructing the screen.
I got to strap on an Apple Watch in demo mode. It’s a lump, just like most other smartwatches nowadays: a block of smooth metal that, at 38mm, is almost exactly the same size as LG’s G Watch. It’s pretty thick, too. The 42mm version is the same thing but even larger. There’s something about the design and case materials that just puts Samsung’s and LG’s models, especially, to shame. A lot of it’s about the leather and metal bands, but the all-metal body plays a considerable role, too. Samsung’s smartwatches have a bunch of fashion bands, but they tend to look gaudy and slightly off. Apple’s case and bands have that harmonious Apple finish and balance. The whole thing is more premium looking and feeling than Samsung’s, LG’s, or Sony’s entries, and smaller than Motorola’s gorgeous but pizza-pie-sized Moto 360. It was obvious from the time I spent with the Watch that the software wasn’t anywhere near complete. We weren’t allowed to use the watch completely freely. But the UI is beautiful and intriguing. Your Watch-enabled iPhone apps appear as a sort of “cloud” that you can pan around and zoom into; arranging the apps into areas in the cloud acts as a kind of folder scheme. I took a closer look at the maps and messaging apps. The maps look terrific; you can pan by dragging and
Force Touch: With this new technology, the Apple Watch can tell the difference between a press and a tap. Taptic Engine: A special haptic feedback mechanism provides alerts you can feel. Wireless: 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 4.0 functionality.
zoom with the watch dial. Messages pop up and can be responded to with preselected answers. This is going to rely a lot on either Apple’s smarts at guessing possible answers or on Siri’s voice recognition for responses. The touch-messaging app seemed totally insane. It’s like you’re now living in a game of Pictionary. I’m extremely biased here because I like words, but trying to communicate to someone entirely through scribbles and emoji seems really crazy. Also, the trick where you transmit your heartbeat to the Watch’s subtle haptics felt creepy, although I could see how some people would consider it extremely romantic. For some reason, I bet that feature will take off in China. As for battery life, that was a no-go topic in the demo room. When I asked about battery life, the Apple reps responded that the Watch would be very easy to charge. That is not a good sign.
The touchmessaging app seemed totally insane. It’s like you’re now living in a game of Pictionary.
APPLE WATCH SPORT Designed for more active watch wearers, the Apple Watch Sport has an anodized aluminum case, an Ion-X glass screen, and a durable fluoroelastomer band.
APPLE WATCH EDITION APPLE WATCH A stainless steel casing, sapphire crystal screen, and six diverse band options characterize the basic, sensible Apple Watch line.
The Apple Watch Edition is as elegant as the product gets, with an 18-karat gold case, a sapphire crystal display, and a selection of bands in bold, personality-flaunting colors.
There are a whole bunch of problems in the smartwatch world. Apple solves one of them: This smartwatch finally looks fashionable. The combination of the Apple Watch’s two size choices and wide selection of bands for all three families means there are more than two dozen possibilities for customizing the Watch to your unique tastes and style. There could literally be an Apple Watch for everyone. The Apple Watch might also be offering a radically new, more usable UI, although it’s hard to tell before the software is fully baked. But this feels a lot like iPhone 1.0—remember, the iPhone that didn’t even run apps? It feels like the entire smartwatch industry is handicapped by technological limits that make these devices thick, clunky, and battery-hungry. Apple has brilliant designers who have made astonishing strides with this product, but the company just can’t change the parts that are available to it. We’ll see more in early 2015, when the Apple Watch is released. PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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WHAT’S NEW NOW
NEWS
Fastest Mobile Networks Canada BY SASCHA SEGAN
I
2014
n our second-annual test of Canadian wireless service, we found that the “big three” Canadian carriers offer excellent LTE speeds and coverage across the nation’s top metro areas, and solid 3G coverage in smaller cities. Bell and Rogers, especially, can really teach U.S. carriers how to build urban LTE networks. In fact, for the first time in five years of Fastest Mobile Networks, we have a tie at the national level. With the results weighted for population, Bell and Rogers tie for the fastest network in Canada. Rogers’ LTE network had blazing
download speeds for large files; Bell’s network had superior upload speeds and often better webpage download times. The two networks diverge at the regional level, though. Rogers reigned supreme in Quebec and the Vancouver area, but Bell had a better overall experience in southern Ontario and the big Alberta cities. Regional carriers had their day, too, with Eastlink and MTS both winning their respective coverage areas. Given the two big carriers’ respective strengths, we recommend Rogers most heartily for people who love streaming media such as YouTube, though Bell will ring the truest for selfie-uploading content creators. The major carriers are expanding LTE coverage and improving speeds. They’re deploying 700MHz spectrum to improve coverage in areas such as the Atlantic provinces, and we saw both Rogers’ and Bell’s speeds improve compared with last year’s tests in many cities. Telus appeared to have some network configuration issues during our test drive, but as it shares many network elements with Bell, its performance could definitely improve. WHERE WE TESTED We expanded our drive-testing range this year to include 15 of the 16 top Canadian population centers, plus some smaller cities such as Fredericton, NB. In larger cities, we took 20 samples across the central city and its suburbs. In most smaller cities, we took eight to ten samples. We also expanded our testing to check out wireless speeds and coverage across three less urbanized areas. In Quebec, we drove along Autoroutes 40 and 50 between Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec, with a stop in Trois-Rivières. In Nova Scotia, we meandered north from Halifax to the New Brunswick border via Truro,
ON THE ROAD PC Magazine staffers took these photos as they drove through nearly two dozen cities and other regions testing Internet service as part of Fastest Mobile Networks Canada 2014.
New Glasgow, and Pictou. And we made a big circle through New Brunswick stopping in Moncton, Miramichi, Fredericton, and Saint John. We drove rental cars with HTC One M8 phones in them that had been donated by HTC for the test. Each car had separate Rogers, Bell, and Telus 3G and 4G phones. We chose the HTC One M8 because of its overall excellent network performance and its support of the fastest networks for every carrier. Because Bell and Telus share towers in many areas, we alternated using the Bell and Telus devices. We also had one Eastlink, MTS, Wind, or Videotron device depending on the area in which we were traveling. The phones were all running the latest versions of the Sensorly testing software. WHAT WE TESTED This is Fastest Mobile Networks, so we’re focused on speed and reliability. We didn’t test call quality, dropped calls, or overall coverage, although we did factor in whether our phones were able to make a connection on their assigned network. Mobile networks are constantly changing, and almost always for the better. And because speeds vary based on tower location, network load, device used, and even the weather, we can’t predict performance in a specific location; rather, we’re giving a snapshot of a few days’ worth of usage in several locations across a metro area. HOW WE TESTED To test Canada’s mobile data networks, we used fieldtest software from Sensorly, loaded onto HTC One M8 phones running Android 4.4.2. We used separate phones for the Rogers, Telus, and Bell HSPA+ and LTE networks, with one device locked to each network. Because Telus and Bell share towers
ON THE ROAD
in many areas, we toggled the Bell and Telus phones so they weren’t running at the same time. In the appropriate cities, we also brought a Wind HSPA+ phone, a Videotron HSPA+ phone, an Eastlink LTE phone, and an MTS LTE phone. Wind provided its own M8 phone; we put the other carriers’ SIM cards into unlocked, compatible HTC One M8 units provided for us by HTC. We loaded the phones into a rental car equipped with power inverters, to run the phones all day long, and drove them around our metro areas. In the five most populated metro areas—Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver—we stopped in between 20 and 23 locations for 20 minutes each, over the course of two days. In the other cities, we stopped in between eight and 13 locations over the course of one day. Most of our testing occurred during business hours from July 31 to August 28, 2014. In addition, we ran three sets of tests in more rural areas: along the Ottawa-Quebec corridor with two stops in Trois-Rivières, and also in central Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Sensorly’s software ran a suite of tests every two minutes: a “ping” to test network latency, multithreaded HTTP upload and download tests including separate “time to first byte” measures, and the download of a 1MB webpage with 70 elements. We also noted how often we saw blocked connections and how often phones dropped off of their assigned networks, which we counted as a “network availability” score. We averaged the results from each location into a single result for the location, and averaged all of the results obtained while driving between locations into a “mobile” score. The final city result was an average of all of the location averages, with the “mobile” score counting as two locations.
ON THE ROAD
NATIONAL WINNERS: BELL AND ROGERS (TIE) Bell and Rogers trade wins city by city and feature by feature. Rogers’ download speeds are unmatched across much of Canada, but Bell’s lead on the other factors helped it pull ahead in a slight majority of our cities. We’d say that Rogers has Canada’s fastest downloads by a long shot, but Bell has a better-balanced network. Of the other carriers we tested, Telus suffered because of what appeared to be network configuration issues causing some of our Web tests to fail, and it lacks the 2,600MHz spectrum that’s boosting Rogers and Bell’s speeds. MTS, Eastlink, and Videotron all turned in excellent performances in the regions they serve.
WINNERS BY CITIES & REGIONS
MAP KEY:
City
Region/ Province
1. Calgary: Bell
11. Nova Scotia (Central): Eastlink
2. Edmonton: Bell
12. Southern Ontario: Bell
3. Fredericton/Central New Brunswick: Bell
13. Ottawa: Rogers
4. Halifax: Eastlink
15. Quebec: Rogers
5. Hamilton: Bell
16. St. John, New Brunswick: Bell
6. Kitchener/Waterloo: Bell
17. Toronto: Bell
7. London: Rogers
18. Vancouver: Rogers
8. Moncton: Bell
19. Victoria: Bell
9. Montreal: Rogers
20. Windsor: Bell
10. Niagara Region: Bell
21. Winnipeg: MTS
14. Quebec City: Rogers
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WHAT’S NEW NOW
NEWS
How Low Can Intel Really Go?
I
ntel is making its strongest push to date into the realm of devices dominated by computer chips designed by ARM and its licensees, including smartphones, tablets, wearables, and the intelligent, connected systems found in homes and cars that have been dubbed the Internet of Things (IoT). The chip giant kicked off its annual Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco with a showcase of new processors, platforms, and ecosystembuilding programs designed to hit ARM and its cohorts on their own turf. Intel’s new Core M (“Broadwell”) processors, for example, are the first manufactured with the company’s next-generation 14nm process, which reduces power draw considerably without sacrificing the performance of previous-generation parts.
Photo courtesy of Intel
BY DAMON POETER
EVERYTHING’S CONNECTED Instead, with its new Edison platform and seemingly out-of-nowhere Quark lineup of tiny, reduced-feature chips, Intel is now going all-out to get a piece of the IoT and wearables markets.
Intel has been aiming lower, in terms of TDP and die size, than even the device markets that Core M and Atom are targeting.
DELL VENUE 8 7000 Dell claims its Atompowered, Androidrunning Venue 8 7000 tablet is the world’s thinnest. It sports an 8.4-inch, 2,560-by1,600 OLED display.
Photo courtesy of Intel
The low power draw of Core M processors enables fanless tablet and two-in-one designs, opening the door to truly thin but fully powered PC products with long battery life—the kind that should theoretically compete well with premium tablets powered by ARM chips. Meanwhile, Intel’s other, older line of ultra-lowpower devices, Atom, is also set for a refresh. Dell joined Intel to show off its new Venue 8 7000 series of tablets, slated to arrive later this year. These sport nextgen Atom Z3500 series processors, as well as Intel’s RealSense 3D photography technology, and are set to become the “world’s thinnest tablets” when they’re released in time for the holiday season, the two companies said. But that’s not all. Intel has been aiming lower, in terms of TDP and die size, than even the device markets that Core M and Atom are targeting. And no, we’re not talking about smartphones.
KEYNOTE
That aggressiveness certainly makes a lot of sense—scratch a tech industry expert these days and you’ll get a new high-water mark for bullishness on just how big IoT is set to become in the next five to ten years. The question, however, is whether Intel can make a mark in these spaces after flailing for so many years. Take Core M—its promise as a game-changer has Patrick Moorhead, analyst for Moor Insights & Strategy, predicting that 2015 could be “the year of the PC” as Intel’s Broadwell helps usher in demand for laptops that can also serve as slates, aided by the growing feeling that many consumers have grown weary of the limitations of standalone tablets. On the other hand, even as Intel wows many of us with Broadwell, ARM and its licensees haven’t exactly been standing pat either. Case in point, Apple’s new A8 processor, which will power the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, as well as the next-generation iPad in all likelihood. “The Apple A8 will more than likely be a beast of a mobile chip,” said Moorhead. “It has twice the transistors of the A7, which surprised everyone with how well it performed. The A8 is smaller, too, as it is fabbed on a 20nm process, which means that battery life will be very good and it’s affordable to manufacture.” The A8 probably won’t compete directly against Core M, but it’s another sign that the war of attrition between Intel and ARM is fierce. Here’s Intel delivering a punch with its coolest, least-power-hungry Core-branded chips to date. Here’s Apple and ARM countering with a second-generation 64-bit processor design that takes another little chunk out of Intel’s narrative of x86 superiority. The good news for Intel is that it finally does seem to be punching its own weight in the mobile device space. What’s more, there are some signs that there may be trouble in the erstwhile paradise of ARM’s open ecosystem, where ARM
Photo courtesy of Intel
Intel’s CEO, Brian Krzanich (left), and president, Renée James, deliver the keynote address at IDF 2014, held in September at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
THE INTERNET OF THINGS, NOW IN YOUR EARS
licensee Nvidia is suing ARM licensees Qualcomm and Samsung over alleged patent infringements related to GPU technology. Oddly enough, it may be even lower down on the power stack, in the world of IoT and wearable devices, where Intel may now be showing its strongest hand. As Moorhead noted, Intel was uncharacteristically quick to roll out Quark once it sensed this market was for real, in contrast to its sometimes monolithic attempts to cope with mobile. Intel now has a couple of wearable devices—the MICA smart bracelet and fitness-tracking earbuds by SMS Audio—set to hit the market soon. Both may well have ARM chips inside them, as did some reference designs Intel showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. If so, rather than a knock on Intel, that might be a sign of an evolving appreciation for the value of getting product shipped over slavishly trying to shoehorn the Intel architecture into all system designs. “Intel has done a really good job starting from scratch in the smallest IoT markets with Quark,” Moorhead said. “It’s a grounds-up design and I’m actually surprised how quickly they got it out. Intel isn’t targeting the lowest-priced sensors, but rather bringing real intelligence and connectivity to the table. “What more people need to better understand is that the instruction set has very little to do with things like battery life. I have confidence that x86 will provide the right level of power and performance for these applications. But Intel will need to focus a lot on the software ecosystem, as [it isn’t] the standard in this market space.”
Photo courtesy of Intel
Krzanich shows off the fitness-tracking SMS Audio BioSport In-Ear Headphones.
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SHINING LIGHT The Edison platform is a tiny computer that Intel has designed as a development system for wearable devices.
Photo credits: Martijn Cruyff (inset); Intel
THE ECOSYSTEM IS EVERYTHING Intel CEO Brian Krzanich spent quite of bit time talking about Quark, Edison, and the IoT during his IDF keynote address. One of Krzanich’s points of emphasis was what he called the “maker’s world,” his term for Intel’s burgeoning ecosystem of developers building creative new IoT devices and wearables. Fostering those sorts of folks as the company builds its IoT portfolio is something that could play to one of Intel’s core strengths: the chip giant’s long history of working with partners of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the biggest OEMs to the smallest DIY enthusiasts and overclockers, from the motherboard makers to the white box channel. The IoT is exciting to many right now, especially those who have grown bored with the lack of inventiveness in PCs and mobile devices, precisely because innovation in IoT and wearables is coming from many different quarters, not just from the biggest companies with the most money to exploit economies of scale. Intel, at least historically, has shown itself to be better positioned than many to work well with lots of different kinds of partners—if the company lives up to its CEO’s pledge to help the “makers” build their world, it could be once again.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
TOP GEAR
What We Love Most This Month BY EVAN DASHEVSKY
MAGELLAN WIRELESS BACK-UP CAMERA Back in March, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ruled that all cars manufactured in the U.S. after May 1, 2018, must be equipped with rearview cameras. If your car doesn’t already have eyes in the back of its hood, you can easily (and affordably) update your ride with the Magellan Wireless Back-up Camera. It automatically streams video from the back of the car to a Magellan GPS navigator or any compatible video systems with a 3.5mm A/V input. The company recommends professional installation. $149.99 magellangps.com
WHAT’S NEW NOW
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What We Love Most This Month BY EVAN DASHEVSKY
94FIFTY SMART BASKETBALL SENSOR Basketball is a game of precision. It demands players shoot a rubber ball through a small, raised hoop from 20-plus feet away—and do it on a continual basis. To help build accurate muscle memory, smart sports designer InfoMotion created the connected 94Fifty basketball. It utilizes in-ball sensors to quantify player behavior. The system offers real-time feedback to help players pinpoint the perfect three-point shot arc (46 degrees from the hoop), increase shot speed, make stronger passes, and much more. $249.95 shop.94fifty.com
WHAT’S NEW NOW
TOP GEAR
What We Love Most This Month BY EVAN DASHEVSKY
DYSON HOT + COOL FAN HEATER As another winter creeps around the bend, we’re reminded how the humble space heater remains mired in design purgatory. Leave it to Dyson to bring a bit of stylish future sheen to the long-neglected personal heater space. As its name implies, the company’s Hot + Cool Fan can be used for both heating and cooling purposes. But unlike other similar machines, Dyson’s entry has no visible heating elements or fast-spinning blades. The Hot + Cool Fan comes in a variety of metallic colors and is a stylish addition to any space. $399 dyson.com
WHAT’S NEW NOW
TOP GEAR
What We Love Most This Month BY EVAN DASHEVSKY
HARMAN KARDON AURA This wireless speaker creates a rich, omnidirectional sonic experience via its six high- and midrange transducers in addition to a built-in subwoofer. But for all its top-shelf sonic awesomeness, the Aura’s main draw may very well be its elegant, minimalist design. Even if you hate music, this speaker would be a welcome fixture to any room—its ability to amplify sounds and built-in support for Bluetooth and Apple AirPlay is just an added bonus. $399.95 harmankardon.com
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WHAT’S NEW NOW
LAUNCH WINDOW
Hot Future Tech Releases Wondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
1 PARROT BEBOP DRONE parrot.com Release: Q4 2014 The Bebop is a drone from Parrot that’s lighter and smaller than the company’s flagship AR.Drone 2.0, so it’s safe to fly indoors. The company claims the Bebop’s onboard processor is eight times more powerful than the one on the AR.Drone 2.0, and it’s equipped with a 14megapixel fisheye camera for recording video and shooting photos with a 180-degree field of view. You’ll be able to control the Drone via Wi-Fi using a free mobile app, which shows you what the camera sees.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
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Hot Future Tech Releases Wondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
2 BLOODBORNE playstation.com Release: March 2015 Exclusive to the PlayStation 4 console, Bloodborne was developed by From Software and director Hidetaka Miyazaki (Dark Souls). It’s set in the ancient, abandoned, and cursed city of Yharnam, which is plagued with a mysterious illness that’s turning inhabitants into murderous psychopaths and horrifying monsters. The player needs to shed blood to unlock Yharnam’s secrets and (hopefully) stay alive.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
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Hot Future Tech Releases Wondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
3 EARIN earin.se Release: February 2015 The Earin Bluetooth aptX earbuds are the tiniest we’ve ever heard about, weighing only 0.18 ounce and measuring a mere 20mm tall and 14mm wide. Just in case that’s too small and they fall out of your ears, you’ll be able to get small Concha locks, which grip the contours of your ears, or you can get a tight fit with the included foam tips. We’ll certainly get these in as soon as they’re available; we want to hear how big a sound can come from buds this tiny.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
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Hot Future Tech Releases Wondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
4 ELECTRIC OBJECTS electricobjects.com Release: May 2015 There’s a lot of beauty to be found on the Internet, but displaying the best pictures has traditionally meant using a monitor that’s hooked up to a networked PC—not very convenient. The Electric Objects is a self-contained computer with a 23-inch 1080p display that’s designed for showcasing e-art. Because it connects to your mobile device via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, you can display anything that catches your eye from the Internet, and change pictures whenever you like.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
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Hot Future Tech Releases Wondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
5 OM/ONE omone.tilt.com Release: December 2014 It’s tough to innovate with Bluetooth speaker design. You mostly get a rectangular box with a variety of styles and/or features, such as waterproofing. The Om/One is a little different. It levitates. In the air. Levitation is where speakers are heading, naturally. There aren’t many benefits to having your speakers float in the air, apart from perhaps eliminating the transmission of sound vibrations to the surface they would normally sit on. Otherwise, the Om/One just looks cool.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
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Hot Future Tech Releases Wondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
6 AIRTAME airtame.com Release: January 2015 The folks at Danish company Airtame had enough of wires and cables when trying to connect their devices to their TVs, so they created an HDMI dongle that connects with almost any device running almost any OS, mobile included, to stream what you want to your TV. You’ll be able to duplicate, extend, and share your display to your Airtame-connected TV, which brings Apple TV and MacBook Pro–style functionality to any platform.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
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Hot Future Tech Releases Wondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
7 SAMSUNG GEAR S WATCH samsung.com Release: October 2014 The Gear S is a smartwatch that doesn’t necessarily need a companion smartphone, as onboard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G will let you make and receive calls and texts without your phone’s data connection. This may mean that you’ll need a separate carrier plan, though. The Gear S has a deeper curvature than its predecessors, resulting in a more comfortable fit, and the curved 2-inch screen will display Samsung’s own Tizen wearable-oriented OS.
WHAT’S NEW NOW
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Hot Future Tech Releases Wondering what’s coming out in the world of technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar tells you when the best new stuff ships. BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
8 VSN MOBIL V.360 vsnmobil.com Release: October 2014 At first glance, the V.360 looks more like a Bluetoothconnected wine glass than it does a 360-degree, 1080p camera. Despite its fragile looks, VSN Mobil has integrated IP67 shock, dust, and water resistance into the V.360. And you could confuse it for an Android device when you discover it has a quad-core, 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor. But it uses the CPU to process the images and videos itself, and then relays the image to the companion app for smooth streaming on your mobile device.
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9 SENSE hello.is Release: December 2014 Hello’s Sense comes with a sleep tracker called Sleep Pill that attaches to your pillow to track your movement while you sleep using a six-axis accelerometer and gyroscope. The main Sense unit contains ambient light, noise, temperature, humidity, proximity, and particulate sensors to analyze just about everything that has an impact on your quality of sleep. It relays all the information it collects to your mobile devices via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE.
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10 SCIO consumerphysics.com Release: March 2015 Scio is a molecular sensor that connects to your mobile device to give you information about nearby objects, such as the consistency of the food you eat (how much fat there is in your salad dressing, for example). Or you’ll be able to tell the well-being of your plants and whether they need water or additional nutrients. The Scio is the kind of device that gets smarter the more people use it, so once it comes out, get out there and analyze!
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Opinions SASCHA SEGAN JAMIE LENDINO DOUG NEWCOMB
Self-driving cars will also present moral dilemmas. DOUG NEWCOMB WHO SHOULD BE THE SELF-DRIVING CAR’S MORAL COMPASS?
Sascha Sega
OPINIONS
As Always, Apple Is Late, But Not Too Late
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pple is late to the phablet game. It’s not quite as late to the smartwatch game, but it’s not exactly the first mover there. It’s way late to the mobile-payments game, as anyone in Japan or Europe will be happy to tell you. That means it’s time. Let’s face it: Apple isn’t an innovator of big, brand-new technology ideas. It’s a popularizer and a mainstreamer, which is what gets a lot of anti-Apple folks into a huff. It takes existing technologies, polishes them into art, and tells compelling stories about them that grab the imagination. Apple’s never been shy about this, though. It called the Mac “the computer for the rest of us” in 1984—not the first computer, just the computer for the non-techy people. For the past 15 years or so, Apple has trailed three or four years behind many of the innovations it later popularized. USB was announced in 1996, but Apple sped its adoption in 1998. Diamond came out with the first MP3 players in 1998; Apple followed with the iPod three years later. The first modern smartphones, in my mind, all hit around 2002-2003; Apple came into the market in 2007. Tablets, of course, would be the longest gap: The Tablet PC had been kicking around since 2002 when Apple came to the market in 2010. That’s all to say that on Apple’s clock, it’s the perfect time to introduce a phablet, and it’s
Sascha Segan is the lead mobile analyst for PC Magazine. His commentary has also appeared on Fox News, CNBC, CNN, and various radio stations and newspapers around the world.
Sascha Sega
probably even a little early for a smartwatch. It’s interesting to note that, having taken off in 2011, the phablet is the category that bridges Steve Jobs’ death and Tim Cook’s arrival; maybe that was a period when Apple was a little distracted by the transition. Things get much, much more interesting with smartwatches and mobile payments, though. Each category has been slow to take off in the U.S. in part because of a problem that Apple has experience fixing, and each one fits firmly into the Tim Cook era of Apple. Mobile payments haven’t happened here because of inadequate partnerships, leading to inadequate audience. Mobile payments rely heavily on having a critical mass of users, and all the feuding solutions out there have never been able to get critical mass. Once there’s critical mass, banks and retailers will fall in line. Apple is the only phone maker with enough clout to push its own payment solution through the carriers, and thus offers a huge number of users to any retailer that wants to work with it. Smartwatches have a bunch of problems, but Apple can most directly address the UI and design issues. Smartwatches so far have been physically clunky and frustrating to use, just like the MP3 players before the iPod (and just like many people found smartphones before the iPhone). Apple is extremely good at developing fashionable designs and writing software people find easy to use. I’m not sure Apple can do anything about battery life, though, which could be the category’s remaining Achilles heel. So Apple can genuinely add something to each of those categories, and then it will be able to use its unparalleled communication skills to massively increase those markets.
Sascha Sega
DON’T RAGE AGAINST APPLE We’re now seeing the larger iPhones, the Apple Watch, and Apple Pay, and tens of millions of people—maybe even hundreds of millions—in the U.S. think that they’re brand-new ideas. They’ve never heard of the Galaxy Gear or the Moto 360. (Once again, the phablets are a bit of an outlier here.) But they know about Apple’s products. They might even find them usable. The fault isn’t in the lack of marketing budget— Samsung has enough money to plaster the universe with ads. It’s that the marketing isn’t actually connecting with anyone. Maybe it’s a little self-serving for a writer to say this, but engineers and marketers can’t change the world alone. There’s a whole middle step they’re missing. They need artists to imbue their inventions with dreams, writers to explain them, storytellers to tell people how they fit into the world. Samsung has great engineers. So does Nokia. So does Sony. But nobody has better writers, storytellers, and artists than Apple. sascha_segan@pcmag.com
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The fault isn’t in the lack of marketing budget— Samsung has enough money to plaster the universe with ads. It’s that the marketing isn't actually connecting with anyone.
Jamie Lendin
OPINIONS
We Audiophiles Will Miss the iPod Classic
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t’s finally official: After almost 13 years on the market, and four years without changes, Apple has quietly discontinued its iconic iPod classic music player, removing it from the online store. When the first model, introduced on Oct. 23, 2001, was launched, it was a revelation, albeit a pricey one ($399!). It was super easy to use and gave you access to a then-unheard-of 5GB of music. Later editions were less expensive and offered more storage. The iPod line eventually spelled doom for not just the millions of cassette- and CD-based portable music players that preceded it, but pretty much all other MP3 players available on the market as well, including the six that were available before the iPod launched. (Anyone remember the Diamond Rio?) This isn’t an obituary for the entire line, given that you can still buy iPods. The app-supporting iPod touch will likely be available for some time to come, and the familiar, clip-on iPod shuffle and larger iPod nano both ride on for now. But in a world where the smartphone does more and more of what used to require separate devices— rendering obsolete entire categories of products like camcorders, point-and-shoot cameras, voice recorders, personal digital assistants, and others—it’s only natural that there eventually wouldn’t be enough demand for a dedicated, high-end MP3 player.
Jamie Lendino, managing editor of Consumer Electronics for PC Magazine, has also written for Laptop, Sound and Vision, Popular Science, and other publications.
Jamie Lendin
A MUSIC LOVER’S DREAM That said, the iPod classic has been a darling of audiophiles for years, thanks to its expansive 160GB of internal storage—something you still can’t get on a flash-based iPod touch without spending considerably more money. That’s overkill for most people, but just right for anyone who listens to Apple Lossless or other uncompressed recordings for the best possible sound quality. You can bet many of those audiophiles will be none too pleased that the maximum available capacity for an iPod touch remains at 64GB. And not everyone will want to drop $399 on a new 128GB iPhone 6 with a cellphone plan. The iPod classic line has also been good for more casual listeners. It’s very simple to use; once you learn how the Click Wheel works, chances are you’ll never have a problem with it, at least for listening to music. And it works with plenty of third-party docks and speakers. But the iPod classic was slower to cue up music and prone to failing early, thanks to the moving parts inside. And the iPod classic could skip on occasion, although its look-ahead memory buffer typically prevented that from happening. USHERING IN A NEW ERA It’s tough to understate the iPod’s impact. Keep in mind that when the iPod first launched, the iTunes Music Store didn’t exist yet—that didn’t arrive until 2003. Before that, iTunes was a software music player. And you had to rip your own MP3 or AAC files from CDs, and transfer them between your computer and MP3 player with a USB cable. Eventually, the world moved on to buying songs and albums digitally, and now, increasingly, streaming them all from the cloud.
Jamie Lendin
Apple also refined the iPod’s interface over the years—first moving from a wheel of buttons to a center-mounted wheel with four buttons above it, and then finally, to the Click Wheel itself, with buttons embedded in the disc. Photo and video playback capability were introduced in 2004 and 2005, along with an expanded lineup of iPod mini, iPod nano, and iPod shuffle models. Then 2007 brought us both the first iPhone and the iPod touch; as soon as it became clear how popular these products would be, it began to become obvious that the iPod as a standalone music player wouldn’t live forever. At its September 9 event, Apple unveiled its first entirely new product in four and a half years: the $349 Apple Watch. Not everything Apple introduces catches on: The Power Mac G4 Cube and iPod Hi-Fi are two examples that didn’t last very long. But four of the biggest and most revolutionary tech products of the last 20 years— the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad—all came from Apple. Whether the Apple Watch will do the same thing for watches that the original iPod did for portable music players remains to be seen. But despite all the naysayers about smartwatches, one can look at Apple’s incredibly successful run and only wonder if it cracked that category, too. So although some iPod models still live on, and the iPod classic’s demise was long expected, it’s a bit sad to see it finally go. Now Apple’s mobile device lineup is now almost entirely touch-based, with the exception of the iPod shuffle. And the music player that anchored the iPod lineup and sparked a revolution in consumer electronics is no more. jamie_lendino@pcmag.com PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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Four of the biggest and most revolutionary tech products of the last 20 years—the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad— all came from Apple.
Doug Newcom
OPINIONS
Who Should Be the Self-Driving Car’s Moral Compass?
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here’s no question that self-driving cars will become a reality someday, and I would argue that they’re already here in some respects. Like any new groundbreaking technology, self-driving cars will not only cause unforeseen consequences—such as perhaps reducing the number of organ donors by drastically cutting down on the number fatal accidents—but also cause some legal and regulatory quandaries. Will it be okay for a drunken person to use a self-driving car to get home from a party? Can parents send their kids to school each day in an autonomous vehicle, like they do with a humandriven bus? And, of course, who will be at fault when a self-driving car crashes? These are all questions that will eventually be answered—and legal scholars and others are already working on them. But self-driving cars will also present moral dilemmas like the “trolley problem,” a philosophical question that’s been debated for decades and has received renewed attention now that we’re close to machines like self-driving cars being asked to make essentially moral decisions. Simply put, the trolley problem questions whether sacrificing one person’s life so that many others can live is justified. The philosophical
Car tech expert Doug Newcomb has written for Popular Mechanics, Road & Track, and other publications, and is the author of Car Audio for Dummies.
Doug Newcom
parlor game gets its name from a scenario in which a person has to decide whether to pull a lever at a Y intersection and divert a trolley to a track to which one person is tied in order to save five people who are tied to the other track. In real life, it can apply to sticky questions such as whether torture is justified in helping save the larger population from terrorist attacks. But it may become a genuine predicament for not only manufacturers of self-driving cars and lawmakers, but also passengers. The robotics blog Robohub took the trolley problem and applied it to self-driving cars in the form of the “tunnel problem.” An autonomous car on a single-lane mountain road is about to enter a tunnel when a child crossing just inside the entrance trips and falls. Does the car continue straight and run over the child, or does it swerve and hit either side of the tunnel entrance? Robohub polled its readers on both how the car should react in this scenario and who should decide how the car responds. Although the poll only included 113 participants (20 female and 93 male, and 43 percent were between the ages of 25 and 34), the answers were interesting. And in some cases surprising. Most of the participants (64 percent) decided that the car should continue to drive straight and hit the child, whereas 36 percent said the car should swerve and hit the entrance to the tunnel instead. And though 24 percent said it was a difficult decision and 28 percent said it was moderately difficult, almost half (48 percent) saw it as an easy choice. Robohub wrote that this indicates that the respondents were “pretty confident in making a decision on this regardless of whether they believe the car should” hit the child or the tunnel wall.
Doug Newcom
The survey also asked readers who should make the determination on what a self-driving car does if it encounters a tunnel problem: the manufacturer, lawmakers, or whoever is in the car at the time. The majority of participants (44 percent) responded that a passenger should make the decision, 33 percent said that lawmakers should choose how the car responds to such scenarios, and only 12 percent said that manufacturers should get to decide. (The remaining 11 percent said “others.”) Although this is a relatively small sample of opinions, it suggests that companies making selfdriving cars will need to, of course, engage with government regulators, but also consider passengers’ opinions when confronted with a tunnel or trolley problem. And possibly include what Wired called an “ethics setting” in a selfdriving car. Setting aside the possible liability and legal quandaries, would you want to make the decisions as a passenger in a self-driving car in tunnel problem scenarios, such as whether to hit an SUV on one side or the compact car on the other, if a semi was stopped in front of you? Or would you prefer that the vehicle producer or politicians make your decisions for you? Self-driving cars are coming, and so are answers to such questions.
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Would you want to make the decisions as a passenger in a selfdriving car in tunnel problem scenarios?
Reviews CONSUMER ELECTRONICS Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Motorola Moto 360 Nikon D810 Sen.se Mother Blue Microphones Mo-Fi InteraXon Muse
HARDWARE Digital Storm Bolt II Asus RT-AC68U Dual-band Wireless AC1900 Gigabit Router
SOFTWARE & APPS Panda Free Antivirus 2015 Our Favorite Apps for October
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Apple’s New iPhones Get Big and Bigger The biggest feature on Apple’s newest iPhones is that they’re bigger, and yes, that’s a big deal. Both the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus offer more screen real estate, and, as of this writing, few apps take advantage of both phones’ screen features. Either way, Apple has put its beloved operating system and gorgeous third-party apps into a body that no longer looks and feels cramped. Which phone is right for you depends on your preference (and hand size), but from my standpoint there’s now a too-big iPhone, a too-small iPhone, and a justright iPhone: the iPhone 6. PHYSICAL DESIGN AND BATTERY LIFE Apple has figured out where the limit is for a one-handed device, and with the iPhone 6 it’s just teetering on it. The iPhone 6 is 2.64 inches wide, a bit wider than the 2013 Moto X—at 2.57 inches, my perfect
iPhone 6
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one-handed phone. Still, at 5.44 by 2.64 by 0.27 inches (HWD), it’s wider but slimmer than the iPhone 5s, and tapered and smooth: more organic and less industrial. The iPhone 6 Plus, at 3.06 inches, is way past the comfort threshold—in fact, measuring 6.22 by 3.06 by 0.28 inches and weighing 6.07 ounces, it’s bigger and heavier than some of its phablet competition. Apple has maintained its premium feel. Compared with any Samsung phone now available in the U.S., or even my beloved Moto X, the iPhone 6 feels classier and made from more expensive, if not tougher, materials. (Durability, alas, hasn’t been shored up at all. Get a case.) Because it’s so slim and rounded, the iPhone 6 slips very easily in and out of a pocket. This is something of a liability on the 6 Plus, as the smooth metal back makes that phone harder to hold than, say, Samsung’s grippy Galaxy Note models. Apple moved the power button off of the top, where it’s been for years, and onto the right side, where it sits on many competing phones. The headphone jack, Lightning port, and speaker are located on the bottom edge, just as before. Apple says that the A8 processor’s advantage comes more in battery life than speed, and I found the iPhone 6 to have significantly better battery life than the iPhone 5s—on our toughest battery test, I got 4 hours, 33 minutes on the iPhone 6’s 1,810mAh battery, as compared with only about 2 and a half hours with the
Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus PROS Super-premium feel. Easiest smartphone OS, with the best third-party apps. Fast Wi-Fi. Excellent low-light camera performance. CONS Phone calling performance is just okay. iPhone 6 Plus is really big.
iPhone 5s and a spectacular 7 hours with the Galaxy S5. The 6 Plus, with a 2,915mAh battery, lasted 4 hours, 43 minutes; Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 tablet lasted 5 hours, 46 minutes. (Of course, if you don’t turn on the gigantic screen a lot, you should expect better life still.) ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM The iPhone 6 has a 1,334-by-750-pixel display at the same 326ppi as the previous iPhone 5s; the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch, 1,920-by-1,080 display. To maintain compatibility with earlier apps, the phones default to zoom them on the screen, making everything larger at the cost of an almost imperceptible amount of sharpness; new apps take advantage of the added space. (And if you like bigger text and elements, you can lock the whole system into zoom mode, and even increase the font size overall.) A couple of features help make the 6 Plus’ larger screen more usable. Tapping on the Touch ID button brings the UI elements halfway down then screen, where they’re more reachable. And you can run dualpaned apps when the phone is in landscape mode; as of this writing, few apps are utilizing this useful feature, though that will of course change in time. Apple says the screen viewing angle is better, but in my experience that’s mostly because the device is slimmer and more tapered. At extreme angles, you don’t end up with the body of the phone in the way of your viewing. I did notice the icons seemed to leap out of the screen even at extreme viewing angles when compared with the iPhone 5s. CALL QUALITY, NETWORKING, AND WI-FI Apple’s phones have always been just “goodenough” voice phones, and that’s the case here. Both phones have a very warm, round voice tone in the earpiece, and plenty of volume. The speakerphone is just adequate, though the 6 Plus’
Apple Pay Combining a Near Field Communications (NFC) antenna, a dedicated encryption and storage system called Secure Element, and Touch ID fingerprint recognition, Apple Pay promises easy and safe contactless payment for purchases made at the Apple Store and more than 220,000 other merchants in the United States. Apple even states that Apple Pay does not record your purchase history.
is slightly louder. Transmission quality through the microphone was a bit wobbly and thready, but that may have been the Verizon network; it did sound, though, like the phone was struggling with noise cancellation in our very noisy area test. In terms of future-proofing, there’s mixed news. The iPhones support carrier aggregation, which Sprint and AT&T, especially, will use to make their networks faster over the next year. But they don’t support Band 12, which T-Mobile will use to expand its network reach. So far, only Samsung’s Galaxy Avant supports Band 12. Wi-Fi speeds have really been boosted here. Measured against our test Meraki MR16 802.11n router, I got considerably higher Wi-Fi speeds on the iPhone 6, the 6 Plus, and the Samsung Galaxy S5 than on the iPhone 5s. Although the iPhone 6 models support the 802.11ac standard, their newer chipset improves performance even on slower networks. LTE speeds were already excellent on the Verizon network with the iPhone 5s, thanks to the device’s support of Verizon’s so-called “XLTE” spectrum; nothing’s changed here, Verizon-wise. PERFORMANCE AND APPS The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus run on a 1.4GHz, 64-bit Apple A8 processor, as compared with the 1.3GHz A7 in the iPhone 5s. That translated to the best Geekbench and SunSpider benchmark scores we’ve seen yet. Geekbench scored about 16 percent better than the iPhone 5s. Raw CPU performance was on par with the 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 in the Samsung Galaxy S5 with all cores firing, but Apple’s processor delivered much more power with just one core active. (I found the 6 Plus to be a shade faster than the ordinary 6 in our tests, but not enough to matter.) As usual, apps that really take advantage of the A8 haven’t been written yet, and real-life browser
Inside iOS 8 With the new iPhones comes the latest version of Apple’s iOS 8 mobile OS. Among its features: New apps: A simpler Photos app, better voice and video options in Messages, Mail with instant options for dealing with emails, and Health for activity and heart rate tracking. QuickType: The OS will predict what you’re trying to type and give you context-sensitive words to enter automatically. Family Sharing: Share app purchases with up to six people in your household. Smarter utilities: More useful Notifications and Spotlight tools.
performance felt the same as on the 5s. But if you do something really CPU-crunching like video exporting, you’ll see a distinct difference. Exporting a movie in iMovie, I found the iPhone 6 to be 27 percent faster than the 5s and the iPhone 6 about a third faster. PHOTOS AND MULTIMEDIA Both iPhone 6 versions come in 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB models. The 64GB model is obviously the sweet spot. Games and movies now regularly clock in above 1GB each, so 16GB just won’t cut it. Apple lent us 128GB models, which reported as having 114GB available. Both phones have a main 8-megapixel camera and a 1MP front-facing camera, which shoots in HD, takes in more light, and now has a ten-photo burst mode. Now let’s talk about optical image stabilization (OIS), which is supposed to improve low-light still photo performance by reducing jitter (and thus blur) at low shutter speeds. The iPhone 6 Plus has OIS on its main camera, and the 6 doesn’t. Both of these iPhones have the best low-light cameras I’ve seen recently, and the 6 Plus’ OIS didn’t make a huge difference to me. In an extremely low-light indoor test, the 6 Plus did turn out more details and truer whites than either the 6, the iPhone 5s, or the Samsung Galaxy ZOOMING IN The iPhone still has the best low-light camera you can buy, and new Focus Pixels up focus speed, but the 6 Plus’ optical image stabiliation is no huge improvement.
S5. But outdoors at night, the 6 Plus’ better light collection actually led some city street scenes to look slightly washed out. The iPhone 6 performed better. OIS also has no effect on video—both phones take fine 1080p video at up to 60 frames per second (fps) and 720p video at up to 240fps—so I just don’t see it as a reason to automatically get the 6 Plus over the 6. And the iPhone 6 is more comfortable to hold as a camera. The phones’ new Focus Pixels did noticeably improve focus time by about half. You can still snap a shot before focus locks in, but it’s really difficult. That’s nice. In terms of playing other media, these are iPhones. They play all your media. The 6 Plus, of course, really stands out with movies—you can now watch them in full 1080, with no loss of detail or clarity as was the case on earlier iPhones. CONCLUSIONS Bigger isn’t always better—the right size is better. I still believe phones (rather than “phablets”) should be usable as one-handed devices. Unlike with the iPhone 6 Plus, you can take a photo with the iPhone 6 while waving at someone without worrying you’re going to drop the phone. You can text while carrying a bag without worrying you’re going to drop the phone. You can hold it
SNAPPIER SNAPPING The iPhone 6’s front-facing camera takes in more light and has more features so you can do more during your FaceTime chats.
up to your head comfortably. You can enjoy a larger keyboard without having to give up flexibility. The iPhone 6 Plus has it tougher: The iPhone 6 is better at being an iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is better at being a phablet. Perhaps a flood of dual-paned apps for the 6 Plus will change my mind, but for now Samsung offers more ways to use your mini-tablet like a tablet: dual-window multitasking, a better one-handed mode, and the pen, all with a higherresolution Super AMOLED screen and advanced power saving. The Galaxy Note 4 also gives you 16GB more storage for the same price as the 6 Plus, along with a memory card slot that can significantly expand that storage capability. Unless you have huge hands or poor vision, or unless you intended to use your iPhone 6 Plus as an iPad mini mini, I think the iPhone 6 is massively more practical. The iPhone 6 Plus is a follower, not a leader; it’s clear Apple is reacting to a trend of people demanding huge phones. Though Apple has successfully extended its super-simple OS and huge software ecosystem into the larger size, it hasn’t made a good argument as to how 5.5-inch devices should be used differently from big, fat phones. That problem doesn’t exist with the iPhone 6, which feels less cheap than Samsung’s Galaxy S5, has a better camera than the HTC One M8, and has the OS and app support that Microsoft currently lacks. If you’re a casual smartphone user who really doesn’t care which OS your phone runs, and all you want is a solid experience, get a 64GB iPhone 6. It’s the right iPhone, at the right size, for right now. SASCHA SEGAN
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Android Powers This Classy Motorola Smartwatch
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ntentionally or not, manufacturers releasing smartwatches running Android Wear are technically wristwatch designers. For the most part, they’re leaving the operating system and its functionality in Google’s able, OSdeveloping hands. Motorola understands its Moto 360 is a vessel for Android Wear, so it has to appeal to the largest possible crowd of watch wearers. And what better way to do so than with the classic, timeless, round watch face design? The 360 is a bit large, and may have its shortcomings, but it’s a good start that can only improve as each model is released, and especially as Google further develops Android Wear. DESIGN As a wristwatch, the Moto 360 is good looking, if large and somewhat featureless. As a smartwatch, it’s absolutely gorgeous. Sure, it’s a little ungainly at 0.45 inch thick, and there’s the oversized 1.81-inch diameter and 1.56-inch Gorilla Glass display. But its face is mostly screen rather than bezel, and the result is stunning. Despite the premium materials,
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the Moto 360 is surprisingly light at 1.72 ounces (with a leather band). I was expecting the Moto 360’s 320-by-290-pixel, 205ppi screen to be a little sharper, but it’ll suffice. A large part, if not the largest part, of what makes or breaks a wristwatch is its face, and here you get to choose between seven built-in designs. Five of the faces are classic analog-style or variations thereof, with a sophisticated look. The other two, which are digitalstyle, aren’t that inspiring. The possibilities to add face styles and designs are endless; that’s an exciting prospect, assuming developers jump on board. Our review unit was all black, with a brushed steel casing and a leather band made in partnership with the Horween Leather Company. The only deviation from the color scheme was a gold-colored band around the crown (the button or dial that’s usually found on the right of most analog wristwatches). You can also get the 360 with a polished stainless steel color scheme, with a gray or black leather band. Stainless steel link straps, in polished or black styles, will be available later this year. In design at least, the Moto 360 is the nicest-looking smartwatch that’s been released so far. The Moto 360 is IP67 water resistant, but not waterproof. That means you can wear it in the shower, but you’d probably be wise to take it off if you get the leather band option. Yet, even if you have the steel band on your 360, you’d have to take it off before swimming. ANDROID WEAR The Moto 360 connects to any Android device running Android 4.3 or higher via Bluetooth LE, which is a boon compared with the Samsung Gear 2’s limited compatibility with a subset of Samsung devices. Setup is painless, and simply entails downloading the free Android Wear app onto your
Motorola Moto 360 PROS Beautiful design. Premium materials. Snappy performance. Runs Android Wear. Compatible with any Android device running 4.3 or higher. CONS Voice recognition needs work. Weak battery life. Display could be sharper. Not waterproof.
WATCH ON THE LINE Motorola’s Moto 360 is a stylish companion for your Android phone, but expect future versions to improve functionality.
compatible phone or tablet, and following the steps to link it with the Moto 360. Unlike the Gear 2, Sony’s SmartWatch 2, or Pebble smartwatches, the Moto 360 isn’t a platform from which you use separate, miniature versions of apps. Rather, Android Wear acts as an extension of your Android device that’s designed to let you control Google apps on your phone via Google Now and voice, as well as receive their notifications. Some third-party apps are compatible with Android Wear, including Facebook Messenger, Pinterest, RunKeeper, Uber, WhatsApp, and several more. It’s not the widest variety, but you can bet other major developers will incorporate Android Wear and Google Now compatibility into their apps in the near future. You feel slight but noticeable vibrations from the 360 when you get incoming calls, texts, emails, reminders, and calendar notifications, and they appear on a translucent white banner that takes up the display’s bottom third. The 360 doesn’t have a speaker, so don’t expect audible alerts. Using your finger to swipe up on the notification banner presents you with more details, such as the recent history of an email conversation, or the timing and location of a calendar event. Swiping right on the banner shows you actionable options that you tap to enable, such as Reply Via SMS, Silence Notifications, and Open On Phone. You can discard notifications by swiping left. It’s not immediately intuitive at first, but once you catch on, it becomes second nature. There’s no on-screen keyboard with Android Wear, probably because typing on relatively tiny watch screens would be a nightmare. So, replying to emails or texts is a vocal affair, and it’s only really meant for quick replies rather than long conversations. Using the voice commands during testing, the Moto 360 usually understood quite well that I wanted to send a text message or an email to a specific contact, but when it came to dictating the message itself, I had less
luck. More often than not, it wouldn’t register anything the first time round, at which point it would tell me it “didn’t catch that, try now.” But trying again often didn’t work, either, and it only caught the end of my message. We expect that software updates can fix this, but for now, it’s too difficult to send emails and texts from scratch. Despite the Moto 360’s classy and decidedly non-sporty aesthetics, it would be odd if a smartwatch didn’t have some sort of health or fitness monitoring features. Indeed, there’s a pedometer as well as a heart rate monitor, both of which worked well in my tests, though the 360’s strap materials aren’t exactly designed with exercise in mind. PERFORMANCE Swiping through options and menus produced some choppy animations on occasion during testing, but the Moto 360’s OMAP 3 processor and the 512MB of RAM make for a fairly snappy experience. That said, Motorola is adamant the Moto 360 should be a traditional, time-telling wristwatch first, and smartwatch second. In terms of design, the company succeeded. But apart from the Pebble Steel, which has an e-paper–style display that’s always on, no smartwatch maker has yet come up with a good solution for waking the display to tell the time. On the Moto 360 (and other smartwatches like the Galaxy Gear 2), you have to make an obvious “I’m checking the time, now” gesture with your arm, or use an exaggerated twist of the wrist, both of which work about 70 percent of the time and not always quickly. When you consider that the Moto 360 is intended to replace a real watch, forcing users to make that time-checking gesture is neither good nor fast enough. The reason the display isn’t on all the time mostly comes down to battery life. The Moto 360’s 320mAh battery lasts about a day, and you’ll definitely need to ON THE CLOCK Motorola designed the Moto 360 as a time-telling watch first and a smartwatch second.
charge it before going to bed every night; it seems somewhat less than what we saw with the Galaxy Gear 2 and Sony SmartWatch 2, both of which lasted roughly two days on each charge. At least the Moto 360 offers Qi wireless charging capabilities, so you can use either the included wireless charging base or any Qi-enabled wireless charger. I used the 360 to give me turn-by-turn directions to certain locations, and it worked surprisingly well. Using the necessary voice commands with the 360, my Nexus 5 opened Google Maps and set up the location without my having to touch a single screen, and off I went. The 360’s screen was on only when I needed it, displaying visual instructions of my next move, and my Nexus 5 would repeat the instructions aloud, too. But I wouldn’t say it’s a safer solution than occasionally glancing at the Maps app on your phone, as the information displayed on the 360’s screen is too small for you to check while driving. CONCLUSION Despite the Moto 360’s imperfect aspects, I didn’t want to take it off my wrist. It’s not trying to be an ultrafunctional standalone device like so many smartwatches before it, but instead do a few things and do them well— and at that it succeeds. Its other shortcomings, such as occasionally spotty voice recognition, are partly, if not mostly, to do with Android Wear, a nascent OS that needs time to mature. If you like its slick looks, and you want a smartwatch for your Android device, the Moto 360 could be the one for you, and it’s certainly our favorite Android Wear device so far. But if you can wait till battery life improves and waterproofing becomes standard, you may still want to skip this generation. ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
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A Full-Frame Camera for Serious Photographers The Nikon D810 is a full-frame camera with a high-resolution 36-megapixel image sensor, tank-like build quality, and loads of features that will satisfy pro photographers and EDITORS’ CHOICE enthusiastic amateurs alike. The image sensor omits a low-pass filter, which maximizes detail, and the 51-point autofocus system locks onto subjects with ease. The D810 isn’t revolutionary, but it’s a superb choice for anyone in need of a serious camera. DESIGN AND CONTROLS Weighing just under 2 pounds without a lens, the 4.9-by-5.8-by-3.3-inch (HWD) D810 is hefty. It’s built
Nikon D810 $3,299.95 (body only) L L L L H
tough, with a magnesium alloy chassis, dust and moisture sealing, and a shutter that’s rated to 200,000 cycles. The shutter mechanism has been improved from the D800’s to introduce less vibration, which makes for sharper photos. The front of the D810 houses a depth-of-field preview button, the programmable Fn control, and the front control dial (positioned for your right hand), plus a focus toggle lever with control button, the Bracket button, the flash release, and the flash power compensation control (for your left hand). On the top plate is the drive mode control dial that lets you set the camera’s behavior when you trip the shutter. The top of that dial includes buttons that adjust white balance, image quality, metering pattern, and ISO. Also on top are a monochrome information LCD, a button to adjust the shooting mode, the power switch and shutter release, a button to start recording movies, and the Exposure Compensation. Playback and Delete controls sit on the top-left corner of the rear of the D810, and below them you’ll find a column of buttons that include Menu, Lock/Picture Control, Plus, Minus, and OK. Controls on the right side of the rear include the AE-L/AF-L and AF-ON buttons, the i button (for configuring Live View options), and the Info button. There’s also a joypad for navigating the menu and selecting the active focus point, and the Live View button with a toggle switch to change between still and video modes. The 1,229k-dot-resolution 3.2inch rear display has a 4:3 aspect ratio, so there’s room for a strip of information when using the camera in Live View and shooting at the sensor’s native 3:2 ratio. The optical viewfinder is a solid glass pentaprism that delivers 100 percent of the frame to your eye,
Nikon D810 PROS High-resolution full-frame sensor. 5fps burst capture. Fast 51-point autofocus. Wide ISO range. 1080p60 video capture. Time lapse, intervalometer functions. Sensor omits low-pass filter. Sharp rear LCD. Loads of physical controls. Uncompressed video output via HDMI. CONS Expensive. Small Raw mode limited to 9MP. Time lapse limited to 8 hours. No integrated Wi-Fi, GPS.
and you can see the area covered by autofocus. Current shooting settings run across the bottom of the finder and are displayed in blue via OLED. You can select any of a number of framing aids, including a virtual level and a “rule of thirds” grid, to appear in the finder. The D810 doesn’t include Wi-Fi or an integrated GPS, though you can add these features by purchasing an Eyefi Mobi SD memory card or any of a number of Nikon products. FEATURES AND AUTOFOCUS You’ll find a few new features on the the D810, as well as enhancements to some functions that were included in the D800. There’s a completely new metering mode, Highlight-Weighted metering, which is useful when shooting scenes where your subject is lit much more brightly than the surrounding area. The Live View experience is generally crisper thanks to the higher resolution of the D810’s rear LCD and a refresh rate that looks quicker to my eye. When focusing manually in Live View you’re still able to magnify the frame to ensure you’ve focused perfectly, and you can use Split-Screen Display Zoom to split the screen into
WHY NOT WI-FI? The Nikon D810 does not come equipped with GPS or Wi-Fi, but those features can be added with various Nikon add-ons (such as the UT-1, above).
GETTING PHYSICAL Lots of physical controls make it easy to instantly access the camera’s many functions and options in a flash.
two boxes that you can move independently and zoom in to the same size. The D810 includes both interval still and time lapse movie modes. The still shooting mode is a bit more robust with options; you can set a start time, set shots to fire anywhere from once per second to once per day, and run up to nine intervals, each with a maximum of 9,999 images, at a clip. Exposure Smoothing, a new feature for both modes, compensates for slight changes in exposure, which prevents a flicker effect, but will still show more dramatic changes in light as your interval or time lapse progresses. To record movies in camera you’ll use the time lapse mode. You’ll have to start it manually and at most images can be captured 10 minutes apart, for a maximum of 8 hours, though the battery might run out of juice first. For longer time lapses you’ll want to invest in the optional battery grip ($616), which effectively doubles shooting life, or the EP-5B Power Supply Connector ($56.45) and EH-5b AC Adapter ($118) to run the D810 off of AC power. The D810’s 51-point autofocus system inherits some of the improvements that were first seen in the D4S, notably the Group Area AF function with ties a group of five points together. There’s also a 3D tracking option, which is available when shooting with continuous focus enabled, to automatically track a subject. The D810 is quick to lock focus on a static subject: less than 0.1 second in bright light and in about a second in very dim conditions. Live View focus locks on in about 0.8 second in bright light and 1.4 seconds in dim light.
PERFORMANCE The D810 starts, focuses, and fires in just about 0.6 second, which you’d expect from a camera of its class. Its continuous shooting rate is 5fps, a pace it can keep for 18 Raw+JPEG, 25 Raw, or 100 JPEG images when shooting at full resolution. When paired with a SanDisk Extreme Pro 90MBps UDMA 7 CompactFlash memory card, the D810 required 14.7 seconds to write a full Raw+JPEG burst to the card, 10.4 seconds to do the same for a Raw burst, and 7.7 seconds for a JPEG burst. You can start shooting again during this duration. There’s also a Small Raw (9-megapixel) shooting option, but that actually gets you fewer shots in a burst (19) due to the processing required to downsample the image to a lower resolution. There are no other resolutions available for Small Raw. If you need to shoot faster, you can set the camera to a 1.2x or 1.5x crop mode, which pushes the continuous rate to 6fps, and if you shoot in the 1.5x crop mode with the battery grip attached, 7fps is possible. The D810’s image sensor omits an optical low-pass filter, which is designed to smudge away some very fine detail in order to reduce the possibility of color moiré effects appearing in images. But even when I was photographing some chickens (feathers often exhibit color moiré), I didn’t notice any false color
PICK A LENS, ANY LENS In addition to its numerous other prolevel features and enhancements, the D810 gives you access to Nikon’s vast library of lenses, so you’ll have just the right one for any shooting situation.
effects. If you do run into them, software applications like Adobe Lightroom include tools that can remove them with ease. When shooting JPEGs at default settings, the D810 keeps noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 3200, and shows just 1.7 percent at ISO 6400. Detail is excellent through ISO 12800, even though image noise is about 2.2 percent at that sensitivity. If you’re looking to get the most out of the D810, you’ll switch to Raw capture. It can capture 36-megapixel Raw images at 12- or 14bit color depth, and also offers a 9-megapixel 12-bit Small Raw capture mode. The D810 captures an incredible amount of detail when shooting in Raw, even at ISO 25600. At ISO 51200 the noise is a bit more offensive, but still good overall. The D810’s video features include the ability to output uncompressed 1080p footage to a field recorder via its mini HDMI output, zebra patterns to indicate blown highlights, a microphone input and headphone jack, and adjustable audio level control. If you opt to record compressed footage to a memory card, you’ll have your choice of frame rates (24 to 60fps at 1080p, and 50 or 60fps at 720p) in QuickTime format. Full manual control is available when recording video, and you can quickly adjust the resolution and other settings when in Live
View video mode via the i button. Footage shows an incredible amount of detail, although there is evidence of the rolling shutter effect during very quick camera movements. That’s to be expected from a full-frame camera, however. In addition to the connectors used for video functions, the D810 features a USB 3.0 port, a PC Sync flash socket, a remote control socket, and a standard hot shoe. It has two memory card slots—one for CompactFlash memory and the other for SD, SDHC, or SDXC cards. You can configure the slots in a number of ways, including writing Raw to CF and JPEG to SD, full-time mirroring of files to both cards, and simply using the secondary slot as overflow storage that kicks in when the primary slot is full. CONCLUSION The Nikon D810 doesn’t look like a huge upgrade from the D800 on paper, but the little differences in handling and operation give it a more refined feel. The D810’s resolution makes it possible to make large prints with lots of detail; when you add in quick autofocus, good burst speeds, prolevel video features, and access to Nikon’s extensive library of lenses, you end up with a versatile tool that can capture incredible images in a large variety of situations. If you don’t have a pro’s needs or budget but still want a full-frame camera, consider the Canon EOS 6D or Nikon’s D610. Otherwise, we highly recommend the D810, and name it our Editors’ Choice among its professional D-SLR peers. JIM FISHER PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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For Easily Connecting Your Home, Mother Knows Best
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ow much does your mother know about you? Does she know how much exercise you get, whether you took your medication, and if you slept well last night? A new connected home and health unit by French company Sen.se, called Mother, could know all this about you and more. She looks like a mod Matryoshka with glowing eyes and a Mona Lisa grin. Acting as a hub, the Mother connects to Motion Cookies, which are small sensors that can be programmed using a simple app to measure or track a whole variety of things around your home, from how much activity you get to whether and when your kids brushed their teeth. Mother sends alerts, too, by email, text message, voice calls, or even just by making a noise, to let you and your family members know about these different activities being tracked. She’s an unusual and slightly expensive companion, and although it’s tough to recommend buying one at the moment, there’s definitely something intriguing about the kit. If you’re interested in having a connected home but live in a place that’s impossible to network (a rental, for instance), and have the time and patience to do the proper tweaking, Mother is a good second choice.
Sen.se Mother $299 L L L H m
HOW IT WORKS Out of the box, Mother is easy to set up, with printed instructions that include plugging the device into a power outlet and connecting it to a router via an included Ethernet cable. The Mother signals she’s connected properly through her eyes, which light up, or blink if she’s not connected to the Internet. Enabling and programming the four included Motion Cookies to track various aspects of your life takes a little more effort. Each Cookie requires a coin cell battery (also included, plus one spare), which is simple enough to slip into place. The Cookies are color-coded and have unique names (mine are Brisk Cupcake, Thin Mochi, Known Loquat, and Young Damson). My Mother’s name is Josefa, which is printed on the base. If tracking only four things in your life doesn’t seem like enough, you can connect up to 24 additional Motion Cookies. One enormous benefit: You can change a Cookie’s job at any time. Say you track your activity for a month or two, and then realize you’re not paying attention to the data anymore. You can just reprogram the Cookie and make it do something else. That flexibility adds a lot of value to Mother. The Mother and Cookies communicate over their own network using a proprietary radio standard on the 915MHz frequency band (in North America) or 868MHz (in Europe). According to the company, Motion Cookies and Mother have a range consistent with a home Wi-Fi network. Considering that Mother is literally tethered to your router, Cookies should be able to communicate with Mother from any place in your house you get a Wi-Fi signal. In testing, however, I found it a little more complicated than that to make sure the Cookies and Mother were communicating, as I’ll explain shortly.
Sen.se Mother PROS Combines connected home unit with fitness, health tracking. Wide array of accessories included. Sensors may be reassigned to do a new job at any time. CONS Pricey. Requires a fair amount of adjusting to get sensors to work as desired. Could use a better accessory for fitness tracking.
WHAT THE COOKIES CAN DO As you continue setting up the system, you’ll spend at least 10 minutes programming the Motion Cookies. This programming all takes place on the Sen.se website, where you create an account and have a dashboard to monitor activity and make changes. The website is pretty userfriendly in walking you through the remaining setup. There’s also a mobile app for iOS and Android, called Pocket Mother, that lets you manage the sensors and alerts associated with them. At present, you can configure the sensors to monitor doors, sleep, presence (knowing who is home), fitness (as a pedometer), medication, temperature, toothbrushes, coffee pods (for use with any pod-based machine, such as from Keurig or Nespresso), and movement (“Check” tells you when an object moves, or “Cartoon” adds sound effects when an object moves). More apps are in the works, including one for tracking house plants in need of watering, and one that senses when you drink water and can remind you to hydrate more frequently. Also included in your Mother kit are some accessories for the Cookies, like putty and Velcro straps, so you can attach the sensors where they need to be. The medication monitor is my favorite application. The app asks what kind of container you have for your meds (blister pack, pillbox, bottle, and so on) so it knows how much motion and what kind of movement is associated with the patient taking a dosage. If a pill bottle is simply picked up and put back down, the sensor and app do not recognize it as a valid intake, although they will still record the motion and tell you that the bottle moved. You can set the times of the day when medication should be taken, and enable notifications—email, on-screen app notification, text message, voice call, and so on—to send reminders. MOTHER IN ACTION I set up a bottle of Vitamin D pills by attaching a Cookie to it, and the first night Mother recorded my intake
ONE EASY COOKIE By attaching a Motion Cookie, you can make Mother track objects’ locations and how often they’re interacted with. And you can reprogram a Cookie’s function any time you want.
appropriately. The next day the weather was sweltering, so I moved the pills to the refrigerator. For the next two days, Mother didn’t record an intake because, I’m assuming, the pill bottle never strayed far from the fridge, which has a stainless steel door. The bottle was perhaps 40 feet away from the Mother, but the wall and refrigerator door just didn’t let the signal through. I relocated the bottle to the living room next to Josefa for a day, and the previous days’ intakes finally did show up. That’s a nice perk: Cookies can store some historical information in between syncs. Still, I realized I had to adjust the location of the Cookies to make sure they were able to sync with Mother freely. I mounted a second Cookie to my front door to monitor when it opens. The developers warned me that metal doors can interfere with the communication, and that it helps to buffer the Cookie with a piece of cardboard or wood (which I did). The monitor worked once or twice and then became very unreliable, not recognizing several times when I opened and closed the door. I dug into the dashboard settings and increased the sensitivity to the highest setting. It worked, but now I get a few alerts each day when it seems the wind or my dog jiggles the door. The third Cookie went on my bed under the fitted sheet to track my sleep. The instructions say to place it about chest height on your mattress. From the bed, that Cookie synced pretty well. My only issue here is that I typically wake up, take care of a few things around the house, and later return to make the bed. The jostling of making the bed is registered by the Cookie as my final rustling before I wake up. (This problem seems fairly common with mattress-based sleep tracking systems.) It takes a little bit of trial and error to get some of the Cookies right.
My fourth Cookie became a motion tracker, counting the number of steps I take in a day, like any other fitness tracker on the market. The Cookie fit easily in my pocket or in my purse, but it was easy to forget about it in either of those locations. Unlike other fitness trackers, which tend to be either wristbands or tiny clips that fit on the front of a bra strap, the Cookie is a flat little biscuit. I didn’t want to attach it to my keys, because sometimes I take walks without them, and in the end I never figured out the best solution for letting Mother track my daily activity. A QUICK CONNECTED HOME I love that the Sen.se Mother is both a health and wellness system—with its ability to track medication intake, sleep, and activity—and a connected home device, alerting you when doors open and close or when your coffee supply is running low. It’s a good way to dip your toe into the connected home fad without networking your entire house, and fun for people who like to tinker; if that’s not you, this is not the product for you just yet. Give it a few more months to mature. But if you revel in making adjustments and learning by trial and error, Mother will certainly keep you happily busy. JILL DUFFY
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Blue Microphones Mo-Fi $349.99 L L L L m
Unique Headphones Pack Powerful Audio Blue Microphones is known for its wide range of quality vocal and instrument mics, from super-affordable USB models to pro-level gear with designs based on the heyday of radio. The Mo-Fi, however, is the company’s first headphone pair. It’s for serious listeners—and EDITORS’ CHOICE everything, from its inspired, bizarre design to its internal analog amplifier, feels different and new. The audio performance is extremely powerful, and there are three listening modes. This is the most involved headphone design we’ve seen, but in the end only sound matters, and at that the Mo-Fi delivers.
DESIGN The Mo-Fi’s plush headband morphs into what look like robotic arms, to which the heavily cushioned circumaural earcups are attached. The cups are actually shaped like ears, and they’re extremely comfortable. The Mo-Fi looks heavy (and it is), but Blue made this bulky, chunky, visually hypnotic design pleasant to wear for hours without discomfort. A dial on the headband applies variable tension so that the earcups are as firmly against your head as you want them to be. The headphones ship with two detachable cables: one with an inline remote control and microphone, one without. A Power switch is located above the jack for the cable on the left ear—this is also where the micro USB connection for the charging cable is located. (A charging cable and a wall plug adapter are included.) The power switch is the least graceful aspect of the design—it’s tiny, so it’s hard to tell at a glance what mode it’s in. Even the click-stops don’t feel superprecise, so you sometimes need to check to see if you’re in On or On+ mode. More space between the modes on the switch, or just a different design altogether for this function, might have been more successful. Beyond that, the design is handsome, insanely innovative, and well executed. Powering the headphones is essential for getting the most out of them, but they shouldn’t be used while they’re charging—you’ll almost definitely hear some interference. The Mo-Fi is equipped with a smart feature, thankfully, that will shut down the circuitry when it hasn’t played audio for a while. This saves battery life, and it’s a good thing, because the switch is so small, it’s easy to forget the headphones are on. (The amber backlighting when the headphones are charging is a nice visual touch, but the lights failed to remain on as they should when the unit was powered.) In addition to the cables mentioned, the
Blue Microphones Mo-Fi PROS Extremely powerful audio output with excellent bass response, high frequency clarity. Cool retro design with innovative compression band for secure fit. Can be used in passive and active modes, as well as active with enhanced bass response. CONS Bulky design. Some aspects, like the Power switch, could use a little tinkering. Bright sound signature not for everyone.
Mo-Fi ships with an airplane jack adapter, a quarter-inch headphone jack adapter, and a black carrying pouch. PERFORMANCE We are essentially reviewing at least two headphone pairs thanks to the Mo-Fi’s passive, On, and On+ modes. The switch powers up an internal amplifier, which is all analog. That’s a rarity, and one that means one important thing for purists: There’s no digital signal processing here. That said, there’s plenty of boosting, cutting, and sculpting. As is often the case, I often favored the passive mode. The headphones are not nearly as loud in passive mode, which hardly matters—in On and On+, the headphones get so incredibly loud, you could do serious damage to your ears if you aren’t careful about your sound source volume levels when you switch over. Plus, the highs are less bright and the bass less pumped in passive mode—and the Mo-Fi’s drivers in this mode sound a bit less glossy, a bit more accurate. Flip the switch to On mode, and your ears are immediately greeted by not only a boost in volume, but a sheen of treble and enhanced, rich bass. On+ is not the extra bass mode that some might expect, though it does sculpt the lows and low-mids more. It’s more likely to add lows to tracks that don’t have a bunch of low end to begin with than it is to bring out the subwoofer potential of a dance track. But, without a doubt, that subwoofer potential is already on display to a generous degree in On mode. With the knowledge that passive mode lacks the sheen and richness of On mode, and On+ adds bass presence to tracks that might not otherwise have
I’D RATHER BE BLUE The unique design of the Blue Microphones Mo-Fi headphones makes them comfortable to wear for long periods. They can get loud, however, so watch your music’s volume levels while listening.
much, let’s focus on what could be considered the default mode for the Mo-Fi: On. In this mode, tracks that pack tremendous sub-bass presence, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” are delivered with a bass response you can feel. Unlike with most pairs that really boost the lows, however, it always sounds natural and well defined. The lows don’t overtake the mix—things always remain crisp, but on electronic mixes like “Silent Shout,” the Mo-Fi sounds like it’s packing a subwoofer, yet its presence is more nuanced than over the top. On Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” the drums receive plenty of bass boosting, but they maintain a natural sound. The Mo-Fi gives Callahan’s vocals a beautiful richness, mainly because the low-mid presence is matched by a perfectly crisp high-mid edge that helps them stay out in front of the mix. This is not a superflat sound, but it’s very musical and dynamic, and distributes the boosting evenly and maintains balance. Critics might say it can sound overly bright, but it won’t be a deal breaker for most listeners. Simply put, at moderate volumes, this track sounds amazing through the Mo-Fi. Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild” actually shows some of the Mo-Fi’s restraint—the subbass synth hits on this track are not insanely boosted. Here the attack of the kick drum loop gets as much
attention as the vocals and the sub-bass synth—a powerful, but balanced, sound. And classical tracks, like the opening scene in John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound jaw-droppingly beautiful through the MoFi. You hear the size of the room the opera was recorded in and the resonance of the lower-register strings, but it all sounds real, not boosted and sculpted. I’ve never tested a headphone pair like the Mo-Fi. At times, I loved it. At others, it seemed like it was trying to do too much—I’m less a fan of the arguably superfluous On+ mode, for instance. I wouldn’t recommend the Mo-Fi for studio tracking, partially because the powered mode doesn’t really offer a flat response, but mainly because there are also plenty of more affordable options for monitoring your mix. Blue Microphones has made a high-end consumer headphone pair with all sorts of tweaks and features. Are the three listening modes and internal amplifier overkill? Not for those who want more control over the audio output of mobile devices like the iPhone, which aren’t exactly made with audiophiles in mind. The massive design is heavy but exceedingly comfortable, and the audio output is the most powerful of any pair we’ve tested. The sound signature may be sculpted in the powered modes, but that doesn’t mean the Mo-Fi doesn’t sound excellent. If you’re shopping in this price range but prefer a passive, less involved headphone pair, both the Sennheiser HD6 Mix and the V-Moda Crossfade M-100 are terrific options. If you wish to spend less, consider the Sennheiser HD 558 and the Griffin WoodTones Over-the-Ear Headphones—both of which offer powerful, enjoyable audio performances in varying price ranges. The Blue Microphones Mo-Fi is not flawless, but the sheer creativity of its gracefully executed, complex design nets it our Editors’ Choice award. TIM GIDEON PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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InteraXon Muse $299 L L L L m
Calm and Collect Yourself With This EEG Headband
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ently lapping waves. A birdcall in the distance. These sounds are the feedback you hear when you train your mind to focus and be calm using Muse by InteraXon. It’s a headband that monitors the electrical activity of your brain and pairs with a mobile app to coach you through mind exercises. Although the technology behind an electroencephalography (EEG) machine may sound complicated, Muse and its app make the experience of using one remarkably easy. You can train with Muse in as little as 3 minutes a day. It’s a fascinating device, if currently limited in what it can do. InteraXon CEO Ariel Garten says the company will be introducing other uses for Muse in the future, and until that happens, my assessment of the device is that it’s best suited for early adopters and anyone who is specifically interested in at-home biotech. Then again, if you have $300 burning a hole in your pocket, go for it. It’s fun, simple, insightful, and it really can teach you some relaxation techniques.
MUSE AT A GLANCE The Muse device is an adjustable and lightweight headband. You wear it across your forehead, with two arms tucking behind your ears like a pair of glasses. On the back of each arm is a micro USB port for charging. Muse has a single button that’s flush to one of the earpieces for turning it on. A thin strip of light illuminates on the earpiece when it’s active. Along the forehead band is a thin strip with sensors. The earpieces also contain sensors. As Garten explained to me, “Muse reads your brain signals using seven EEG sensors, which use four EEG channels. There’s reference on the forehead, two grounds, and two reading channels on the forehead, and those are all made out of conductive silver ink. On the ears, you have two smart-sense conductive rubber sensors. They are carbon-impregnated rubber. They’re able to read the differential between your forehead and your temple, or frontal is more accurate (the area just behind your ears), so they’re able to read the actual activity across your head.” Garten, who has also been a neuroscience researcher, told me that the device is “true clinical-grade EEG.” For such a sophisticated device, its instructions for use, particularly as mapped out in the companion app, are simple and clear. THE APP To use Muse, you need the Muse Calm app (available for iOS and Android). When you launch it and set up an account, you must also turn on Muse and make sure Bluetooth is enabled on your device. Headphones are highly recommended, as the majority of the app experience is audio-based. Muse must fit snugly on your head to ensure a good connection. The arms are adjustable, and I found that once I set them to the right size, subsequent setups were almost effortless. The app tells you rather quickly
InteraXon Muse PROS Extremely easy to set up, use. Comfortable. Lightweight. Uses clinical-grade EEG. Generates interesting data reports based on your brain signals. CONS Expensive. Limited capabilities at this time.
how to adjust Muse, and that you need to sit still to prevent a “noisy signal.” A narrator in the app explains how to fit the band, and then a diagram appears on screen that illustrates whether your brain signals are being received clearly. This diagram remains in the lower-left corner of the app throughout your Muse Calm training, so it’s easy to know when something goes wrong. When you’re ready to begin a training exercise, you start with a calibration session. You need to calibrate every time you use Muse, not just on the first setup, but it only takes about 60 seconds. The narrator tells you to close your eyes and think of things in a category, such as fruits, games, colors, historical figures, movies, and so forth. You get three categories within a 60-second period. This calibration session is used to collect data about your brain signals when you are in a very active state. Then, when the actual training starts, the screen shows a beach scene and a countdown clock, but your eyes should be closed throughout the session, so you don’t really get to see it. The audio instructions explain that you should sit still and do nothing more than inhale and exhale, while counting through your exhalations. That’s it.
KEEP CALM AND CARRY THIS APP The Calm app is an integral part of the Muse system, helping you set up the headband, train in its use, step through the process, and analyze the data you receive from it afterward.
As you do this meditation-like exercise, Muse and Muse Calm give you audio feedback. When your brain is active, the sound of wind picks up. When you’re neutral or calm, the wind dies down and you hear lapping water. If you get deep into a state of calm focus, you might even hear a bonus bird land and chirp in the distance. You can adjust the length of the session to be 3, 5, 7, or 12 minutes. You can also choose between having a female or male narrator, and you can set the wind to light, medium, or intense. At the end of the session, you can see your results. RESULTS The results appear in a variety of representations: line graphs, pie charts, simple three-part breakdowns (time spent calm, neutral, and active), and so forth. You can view your results for the current session as well as look at how you’ve improved over time. Each session earns you points, which add up to unlock features in the apps that provide additional insights about you. I enjoyed training with Muse over several days and did indeed improve the amount of time my brain reached a state of calm focus—the outlier being my very first session. The first time I used Muse, I got my highest score and five bonus birds (it took me a full week of practice before I heard any more), but I think that was in part because I didn’t know what to expect. It’s easy to clear the mind and focus when you don’t know what’s going to happen or how to compare it with previous trials. But once I started to learn the cues of Muse a little better, the sounds of increasing wind and such, I found myself distracted by them. I’d start thinking about the fact that I had been hearing a steady audio stream of lapping water.
And merely thinking about these things brought the wind back. It’s like telling someone to not think of a pink elephant. As soon as the suggestion is there, you can’t help yourself. One thing you’ll notice quickly if you use Muse is that even slight movements, like clenching your teeth or furrowing your brow, greatly affect the data. Fidget just a little, and the winds blow. Sitting still is definitely part of the exercise. With time and practice, I’m getting better, which in a sense has become motivation for me to stick with it. WORTH THE BENEFITS? The real purpose of Muse is to help you train your brain to focus, making you more calm, which is a skill anyone can use. The intended health benefits are to improve overall wellness and make you happier. I can’t attest to that personally, but InteraXon points to one Harvard study that supports the claim. Muse’s training is quite different than that of Lumosity, which drills you through games of mental agility. And if that’s what you need, it’s a pretty neat tool that provides empirical results, though Lumosity is quite expensive. InteraXon plans to release additional apps and tools that will be compatible with Muse. Imagine, for example, if the lighting in your bedroom could automatically adjust based on the brain activity that Muse senses, dimming the lights to help you calm down. But right now, Muse is only for teaching you to have a focused rather than distracted mind. If that’s worth $299 to you, then I definitely recommend Muse. If you’re on the fence about whether you would need or want such a device, then wait until it has more uses. JILL DUFFY
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It’s like telling someone to not think of a pink elephant. As soon as the suggestion is there, you can’t help yourself.
REVIEWS
HARDWARE
Digital Storm Bolt II $3,489 L L L H m
Midrange PC Gaming at an Enthusiast PC Price
W
ith its attractive copper paint job, the Digital Storm Bolt II certainly catches the eye, and this small-form-factor gaming desktop houses some very powerful components. It will be right at home on your desk, or as part of your living room entertainment setup. But the fact that the compact chassis can only hold one GPU means that the Bolt II’s gaming performance is closer to that of a midrange system, even though the system is priced to compete with high-end gaming rigs.
DESIGN AND FEATURES The Bolt II measures about 16.5 by 4.5 by 14.25 inches (HWD), so it can sit on most desks, and it’s small enough to fit just about anywhere you can place a gaming console. This is part of the system’s appeal, as it can connect to an HDTV and become both a gaming and home theater PC. The system’s “Copperhead” automotive paint scheme looks terrific and is a definite conversation-starter. The slot-loading Blu-ray burner means you can watch HD movies, as well as burn files to optical discs. A media card reader on the PC’s front edge supports older card tech like CompactFlash and Memory Stick, in addition to the ubiquitous SD card format. The Bolt II didn’t come with a keyboard and mouse, because hard-core gamers usually have a favorite set already. Digital Storm did, however, pack in a wireless Xbox controller; this works with many games and the Steam Big Picture environment, which is optimized for easy navigation of your game library on an HDTV. The side panel has a window so you can see the liquid cooling system bolted to the CPU socket, and the case door and rear of the chassis are perforated to let air into the system and out over the radiator. The system’s I/O ports (three USB 2.0, two USB 3.0, headset, and microphone) and card reader are on the side of the system, which suggests that Digital Storm is expecting you to put the Bolt II on your desk, to the left of your display, so that the ports are within arm’s reach. On the back, you’ll find digital and analog audio ports, an Ethernet port, a PS/2 port for a keyboard or a mouse, and eight more USB ports (four each 2.0 and 3.0). The Nvidia
Digital Storm Bolt II PROS Compact. Beautiful copper paint job. Excellent components. Includes rewritable Blu-ray drive, wireless Xbox controller. Tiered warranty on tech support, parts, labor. CONS Pricey. No internal expansion room.
GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card has four output ports (two dual-link DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI). The Asus Z97I-Plus ITX motherboard also has its own DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA ports, but you’d likely never use them, as they connect to the processor’s integrated graphics instead of the video card. The system includes 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless connectivity. Because the system is fully loaded, there is no room inside the chassis for upgrades, unless you’re willing to replace an existing component. Other large systems have much more internal expansion room, though it can be argued that those systems will need the enhancements sooner rather than later. Digital Storm includes a very good, tiered warranty on the Bolt II: lifetime tech support, three years for labor, and one year for parts. PERFORMANCE Performance is the reason you’d spend almost $3,500 for the Bolt II, and it’s certainly no slouch. That’s thanks to an overclocked 4.7GHz Intel Core i7-4790K processor, 16GB of system memory, a 500GB solid-state drive, and the video card. Its PCMark 8 Work Conventional score was an excellent 3,988, beating the 3,686 of the latest Velocity Micro Edge Z55, which has a higher list price. Multimedia scores were equally good: 51 seconds on our
Handbrake test and 2 minutes, 18 seconds, on the Adobe Photoshop CS6 test. This is faster than the competing Acer AG3-605-UR39, Cyberpower Zeus Mini, and Lenovo X510. On our all-important gaming tests, the Bolt II turned in a very smooth 68 frames per second (fps) on Heaven and 82fps on Valley, both at Ultra quality. This means that many AAA games will be playable on 1080p screens, with all the eye candy turned on. That said, the midrange Cyberpower Zeus Mini’s frame rates were only a little behind on both tests (58fps on Heaven, 73fps on Valley), so all but the most critical folks won’t be able to tell the difference. Both the Digital Storm Coridium and Velocity Micro Edge Z55 returned triple-digit frame rates on both tests. The 3DMark scores showed similar ranges: The Bolt II edged out the other single-GPU systems, but the dual-card systems, whether using Nvidia’s SLI or AMD’s CrossFire technology, blew everyone away. The Bolt II is priced like a high-end system (it’s only $800 less expensive than the Velocity Micro Edge Z55), but its single video card—however powerful it may be—means that its performance is closer to that of midrange systems, like the CyberPower Zeus Mini, which costs about $1,500 less. Sure, it has some serious performance mojo and a beautiful paint job, but in the end, $1,500 is a lot of extra cash in your pocket. The Bolt II is a good system for the user who wants a gaming rig for the living room. But the Velocity Micro Edge Z55 holds onto its crown as high-end gaming desktop champ, due to its higher performance and extra internal expandability. JOEL SANTO DOMINGO PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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REVIEWS
HARDWARE
The Fastest Router Ever for 802.11ac Devices If you’re looking for an 802.11ac router with terrific range and throughput, Asus’ RTEDITORS’ CHOICE AC68U Dual-band Wireless-AC1900 Gigabit Router topped our tests on both measures. It also has solid small business features and a highly polished interface. Its performance is a bit less notable in 802.11n mode, but if you have 802.11ac devices, or if you have a tricky wireless environment that tends to cause coverage problems, the RT-AC68U is a particularly good choice. DESIGN AND SPECS The RT-AC68U has a sharp design, with a gold Asus logo and snazzy decorative diamond pattern on the chassis, and the router measures 6.0 by 8.0 by 6.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 1.4 pounds. One design change I don’t care for is the addition of a non-removable stand. The router is supposed to operate better in a vertical position, but I would still prefer being able to choose whether to use it.
Asus RT-AC68U Dual-band Wireless AC1900 Gigabit Router $199.99 L L L L m
Across the front are ten tiny LEDs displaying status for the WAN and LAN ports, power, the wireless bands, and USB device connections. The rear panel has four Gigabit LAN ports and a WAN port, one USB 2.0 port, and a USB 3.0 port. The USB ports support not only external USB drives, but also printers and 3G/4G mobile broadband devices that can be used for connection failover. The RT-AC68U uses a Broadcom wireless controller and features that company’s TurboQAM technology. As a result, the router supports up to 600Mbps at 2.4GHz and up to 1,300Mbps on the 5GHz band. SETUP To set up the router, all you have to do is follow the included Quick Start Guide. The setup page automatically opens after you connect your computer to the router’s LAN port and launch a Web browser. The Quick Internet Setup Wizard walks you through the rest of the routine setup process. First, you set a password to access the router’s interface under the administrator’s account. The router then detects the WAN connection. Unless you like to tinker with settings, there isn’t a lot more to do; the router automatically sets the SSIDs and the encryption level to WPA2 Personal with AES encryption. There’s even a nice feature that lets you click a check box to copy settings for the 2.4GHz band—such as encryption level, SSID, and so on—to the 5GHz band. The last thing you have to do is assign a password to each wireless band. One problem I noticed during setup is that the wizard doesn’t automatically check to see if a firmware update is available. As it turns
Asus RT-AC68U Dual-band Wireless AC1900 Gigabit Router PROS Topped our speed, range tests in 802.11ac mode. Advanced features suited for small business. Clean, polished user management interface. CONS Not much benefit over previous models for networks with only 802.11n wireless clients. Does not automatically notify you of new firmware. Stand is not removable.
out, there was one available when I was testing. I was able to manually upgrade the newer router without a hitch, however. INTERFACE AND BASIC FEATURES Asus has one of the most stylish router management interfaces there is, hands down. The design is clean and easy to work with, and it has an appealingly futuristic look that almost reminds me of the controls for a video game. The interface’s home page displays just about all the information the typical user might want to know, such as which devices are accessing the network, WAN status, and wireless network details. The network map displays each connected device’s name and IP address. Features such as parental controls, QoS, firewall, and security are all accessible via this interface. The parental controls aren’t as extensive as I’ve seen on other routers. You can only really set time limits on when specific devices can access the Internet, block content by keyword or URL, and block networking services such as telnet. These aren’t bad things to be able to do, but they’re by no means a complete set of parental controls. From the interface you can manage connected USB devices. You can also download the AiCloud app to manage connected USB drives via iOS or Android mobile devices.
Asus has one of the most stylish router management interfaces there is, hands down.
STYLISH AND SIMPLE The RT-AC68U’s management interface is excellent, providing plenty of information in an attractive, easy-touse package.
ROOM FOR THREE Asus’ RT-AC68U router comes with three detachable external antennas.
ADVANCED FEATURES The RT-AC68U offers some advanced features that make it ideal for SMBs and techies who want to tinker. First, you can configure up to six guest networks: three on each band. Also, the router has a full built-in VPN server, not just VPN pass-through support, which is what most consumer routers offer. You also get advanced customization options for additional tweaking, including AP isolation, and the ability to set the multicast rate, enable jumbo frames for the LAN, disable the HW accelerator, and more—options that are typically in access points for the SMB. The RT-AC68U also offers robust IPv6 support. It’s not a device that’s on the same level as a business access point, such as the Meraki M16, which supports many simultaneous connections and is managed with a controller, but it can work just fine for a SOHO network. PERFORMANCE The RT-AC66U is a fine performer. In 802.11n mode, its 90Mbps average throughput on the 2.4GHz band was better than the 68.5Mbps I saw from its predecessor, the RT-AC66U. Is that throughput difference enough that you’ll notice significantly improved performance? Probably not, though you’ll likely receive better wireless signal coverage with the RT-AC68U. It was our fourthbest performer ever in the range tests at 2.4GHz, its throughput dropping just 9 percent moving from 5 to 30 feet away from the router. In the same test, the RT-AC66U’s throughput dropped by 25 percent. But the RT-AC66U clocked faster throughput in 5GHz 802.11n mode, showing 170.5Mbps—faster than its newer cousin’s still-respectable 148.5Mbps.
That’s not a huge difference, but the RT-AC68U did test slower in this mode. Also, there was no significant difference in range testing. At 30 feet, the RT-AC86U dropped signal throughput at 11 percent, only a tad better than the RT-AC66U’s 13 percent loss. The older router is a good deal if you have only 802.11n clients, especially if you plan to connect to them at 5GHz. That same argument cannot be made, however, with clients that support 802.11ac. The RT-AC68U is the topperforming router in my 802.11ac-mode tests in both speed and performance. It turned in an amazing 290.5Mbps, whereas its predecessor only averaged 129Mbps. The second-fastest router in this mode is the Trendnet AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Router, which averaged 283.5Mbps. Range was also the best among routers theoretically capable of 1,740Mbps and higher. The RT-AC68U actually delivered better throughput as the range increased, going up by 5 percent as the distance increased from 5 to 30 feet. The RT-AC66U’s throughput had dropped by 3 percent by that distance. Netgear’s Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band WiFi Router, a premium 802.11ac router in the same league as the RT-68U, increased its throughput by 2 percent at 30 feet. ASUS’ MATURE 11AC ROUTER FOR TECHIES There is no question that if you want a router for 802.11ac clients, Asus’ RT-AC68U is your best choice. The simple setup and excellent interface make it easy enough for novices to use at home, but its advanced features and granular controls make it attractive for techies and small businesses. Despite the annoying new stand and the lack of automatic firmware update detection, this is an outstanding product—and our Editors’ Choice for 802.11ac routers. SAMARA LYNN PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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If you want a router for 802.11ac clients, Asus’ RT-AC68U is your best choice.
REVIEWS
SOFTWARE
Robust Features Elevate This Free Antivirus Tool Having two distinct lines can be tough for an antivirus software vendor: Your products can compete with one another. Panda Security is no longer in that position. Before now, the EDITORS’ CHOICE company offered both Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition 3.0 and Panda Cloud Antivirus Pro Edition 3.0 in parallel with Panda Antivirus Pro 2014. Panda Antivirus 2015 is now the entry-level product, and it’s both easy to use and extremely effective. SIMPLE INSTALLATION Two clicks start Panda’s installer. If you accept all defaults, it sets Yahoo as your default search provider and changes your home page to Yahoo-powered
Panda Free Antivirus 2015 Free L L L L H
MyStart; you’re free to opt out if you want. A full scan of my standard clean test system took slightly more than 30 minutes, which is about average. A repeat scan ran slightly faster, but nothing like the super-fast repeat scan I experienced when testing Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015. SOLID PROTECTION Panda’s on-access scanning doesn’t spring into action until you attempt to execute a file, and the software did a good job blocking malware at launch. It deleted threequarters of the samples before they could execute.
Panda Free Antivirus 2015 PROS Free. Easy to use. Quick install. Excellent lab results. Near-best score in hands-on malicious URL-blocking test, hands-on malwareblocking tests. Useful bonus features. CONS Mistakenly identified one utility as malware.
SECURITY EVENTS Panda reports recent security events and breaks down the malware it detects into four categories.
A few of the samples did manage to launch; Panda caught some of those later in the process. Its detection rate of 86 percent is tied with Bitdefender’s for the best among products tested with my current sample set. Panda’s overall score of 8.0 points can’t beat Bitdefender’s 8.3, but it’s better than the rest of the current group, including Kaspersky Anti-Virus’ 7.9. AVG AntiVirus FREE 2014 and various others tested with my previous malware collection made a significantly better showing. That was a different set of
samples, though, and the independent testing labs give very good scores to Panda, Kaspersky, and Bitdefender. As part of my testing, I installed about 20 PC Magazine utilities. Panda’s behavior-based malware detection identified a temporary file created by one of them as malicious, though when I looked at the detailed log it merely said “suspicious.” I submitted the file to VirusTotal, to be sure it wasn’t actually infected. All of the 53 antivirus engines hosted on VirusTotal gave it a clean bill of health, even Panda. You’re not likely to run into this kind of problem with widely distributed software. The best way to keep malware from infesting your system is to never download it in the first place. Panda protects against malicious downloads in two ways. First, it blocks all access to known malware-hosting sites; second, it scans all downloads and immediately deletes malicious ones. I test a product’s malicious URL blocking using a feed of the latest catches by MRG-Effitas. I launch each URL that points to an executable file and note whether the antivirus software blocks the URL, zaps the downloaded file, or sits around doing nothing. Despite being just hours old, many of these URLs are already defunct. I keep trying until I’ve checked 100 or so.
PHISHING PROTECTION Though not at the very top, Panda’s phishing protection proved more effective than most of the competition’s.
Panda blocked 64 percent of the malicious downloads, 51 percent at the URL level and 13 percent by eliminating the downloaded file. That’s the second-best score for an antivirus product since I began this test. Top honors go to Avira Free AntiVirus. Kaspersky and Bitdefender blocked very few malicious URLs; they clearly rely more on other layers of protection. The same mechanism that blocks access to malicious URLs also saves you from giving away your login credentials at fraudulent (phishing) URLs. In fact, the warning message is exactly the same.
When I ran the first round of my antiphishing test, Panda detected nothing. My Panda contacts were able to duplicate a situation in which the URL-filtering mechanism doesn’t install properly. They recommended a full uninstall and reinstall to fix the situation, and that worked. If you’re not sure your Panda installation is filtering URLs correctly, try the Phishing Test Page supplied by the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. When I tested it with a collection of the newest suspected phishing URLs, Panda’s detection rate lagged 19 percentage points behind Norton’s. That’s not the greatest, but quite a few products have done worse. Panda came in 16 percentage points behind Firefox and 15 points behind Chrome. On the plus side, it beat Internet Explorer’s SmartScreen Filter by 23 percentage points. Leave this feature turned on, but make sure your browser’s antiphishing protection is running, too. Panda participates in testing by almost all of the independent labs I follow, and they all give it top marks. West Coast Labs and ICSA Labs both certify Panda’s technology for malware detection and removal. Out of the last 12 tests by Virus Bulletin, Panda participated in eight and earned VB100 certification in six. VB100 is a tough test; a single false positive is enough to cause failure. Indeed, Panda’s two failed tests were both due to a single false positive each. AV-Test Institute rates security products in three categories: protection, performance, and usability, assigning up to six points in each category. In the latest test, Panda earned a perfect 18 points from the Institute, along with Bitdefender and Kaspersky. The whole product dynamic test by AV-Comparatives attempts to test products in an environment as close as possible to the user’s real-world experience. Panda earned Advanced+ in this test, the highest rating. It also took Advanced+ in a test specifically aimed at measuring how well products remove malware that they’re known to detect. IN PROCESS Panda’s process monitor summarizes how many processes are running and accessing the Internet, and which have most recently launched.
BONUS FEATURES Panda does reserve certain features for its Pro edition, among them firewall protection and chat-based support. The free edition does have its own set of bonus features, however. Malware can spread from one computer to another using the AutoPlay feature of USB drives, as long as the victim computer has AutoPlay enabled. Panda’s USB Vaccine actively disables AutoPlay on any USB drive, regardless of whether the computer has that feature enabled. You can set it to automatically vaccinate every USB drive that connects to your computer. Sometimes malware prevents Windows from booting or actively interferes with security software. Using Panda’s Rescue Kit you can create a bootable USB drive that will clean up in such situations. In addition, Panda Cloud Cleaner promises to remove advanced viruses that are beyond the abilities of the basic antivirus tool. Tech-savvy users can invoke the Process Monitor to see just what’s running on the system and which processes are using Internet connections. A detailed view even lets you see what URLs a process has visited. Each process gets a security rating, and if you see a malicious process that somehow got past Panda you can terminate it. AN EXCELLENT CHOICE I have to applaud Panda for putting full-scale protection into its entry-level free product. It gets fantastic scores from the labs and in my own hands-on tests, in both cases on par with the top commercial antivirus products. And it even comes with a number of useful bonus features. Panda Free Antivirus 2015 joins AVG AntiVirus Free 2014 as our Editors’ Choice picks for free antivirus protection. NEIL J. RUBENKING
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I have to applaud Panda for putting full-scale protection into its entrylevel free product.
REVIEWS
APPSCOUT
Our Favorite Apps
Yahoo Aviate Launcher
Android
Free
L L L L m If your Android home screen is a mess, try the Yahoo Aviate Launcher. It gives you a new and simple screen with ten app icons at the bottom, and themed connections, an alphabetized app list, context-sensitive screens of apps and widgets, and Favorite People contacts when you swipe in various directions. It’s designed for Android 4.0 or better, so if your phone supports an older OS you might not get the optimal experience. But overall, Aviate Launcher is ideal for anyone who doesn’t want to spend time manually customizing their phone.
REVIEWS
APPSCOUT
Our Favorite Apps
March of the Dinosaurs EDITORS’ CHOICE
iOS
$1.99
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Numerous fossil discoveries and advances in CGI animation have made it possible for TV specials such as National Geographic’s The Great Dinosaur Escape to credibly reconstruct what life might have been like for those great beasts when they roamed the Earth. The March of the Dinosaurs iOS app enhances that show’s content with interactive virtual reality dinosaurs, textual descriptions of each species, and more to summon the Canadian Arctic in the late Cretaceous. The exquisite story the app tells will be fascinating and enjoyable for dinosaur lovers of all ages.
REVIEWS
APPSCOUT
Our Favorite Apps
Hyperlapse
iPhone
Free
L L L L m There seems to be a bottomless well of photo and video effects that can form the basis of a whole app: filters, HDR, slo-mo, tilt-shift, and collages, just to name a few. The time-lapse video shot in motion—aka hyperlapse—is now having its day in the sun, spurred by the popularity of fast-moving GoPro videos. Instagram is getting in on the action with Hyperlapse, a free app that makes creating these videos easier than ever and offers good stabilization features as well. Any iPhone-toting video buff will want to download this.
REVIEWS
APPSCOUT
Our Favorite Apps
Networking Cables
Android
Free
L L L L m Our tech world may be going increasingly wireless, but the backbone of a network is still wires. If networking is your career, or if you’re an enthusiastic hobbyist, you’ll want the free Networking Cables app as part of your utility kit. It gives you quick, take-anywhere (even without an Internet connection) reference information on twisted pair, coaxial, and fiber cables, as well as detailed diagrams of cable pinouts so you’ll never have to remember the difference between straight-through and crossover-patch cables again.
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Features THE FASTEST ISPS 2014 7 IMPORTANT TRENDS IN LAPTOP DESIGN HOW I FOUND MY FAMILY ONLINE
FEATURES
THE FASTEST ISPs
2014 BY ERIC GRIFFITH
Thousands of tests from all over the U.S. have revealed America’s speediest Internet provider. Is your ISP the fastest?
M
egabits per second, or Mbps, is the most important measure available today for the actual download and upload throughput of an Internet connection. That’s the actual “speed” of a connection; the advertised speed is the available bandwidth (or capacity) of the pipe between you and the servers that make up the Internet as we know it. The two items, real-world throughput versus advertised bandwidth, seldom match up. The speed you get is typically less than your Internet service provider promises, sometimes far less depending on the amount of overhead on a connection. Testing the connection is the only way to know what you’re getting. That’s where Speedtest.net comes in. Provided publicly by Ookla, it’s an industry standard used by ISPs around the world that lets customers check performance. For the fourth year in a row, PC Magazine and Ookla have teamed up via pcmag.speedtest.net, from which we pull the results from the last 11 months to determine which ISPs used by PC Magazine readers are the fastest. On the pages that follow, get ready to compare advertised speeds with what you actually get and see if they come close. We’ll also break down the residential ISPs to favor from region to region, state to state, and even from one major metro area to the next. We don’t go by throughput alone, though you can see which ISPs have the best (or worst) upload and download speeds. We instead use a formula that takes 80 percent of the all-important download speed and adds it to 20 percent of the upload speed, creating an index number: the PC Magazine Speed Index. We use the index score to compare and contrast all the ISPs and locations; the highest index is what we consider the fastest. The majority of results here reflect the big-name cable, DSL, and in some cases fiber-optic providers. Naturally, we can’t include every single ISP in the United States—there are thousands, with the majority being small regional or local ISPs that may indeed have some absolutely outstanding speeds. But we require at least 50 tests from unique IP addresses for any vendor to receive inclusion. That’s why, despite a couple of years of operation, we still don’t have information on Google Fiber (to name one such vendor). It simply doesn’t have enough users who took our test in the past year. The same goes for your own local ISP.
THE FASTEST ISPs IN THE UNITED STATES There’s no question, the United States lags way, way behind many other countries when it comes to Internet speeds. Ookla’s own Net Index country list rates the U.S. 25th out of 194 countries as of press time, based on a national average download speed of 29Mbps. But that’s a huge improvement over last year’s 19.1Mbps, when the U.S. came in at 31st place. It’s getting better and better out there as the private companies that provide our Internet are trying a little harder. All of the top ten fastest ISPs in the U.S. saw an increase in their Speed Index scores over the last year. Of course, they’re not trying too hard, as they have many customers over a barrel—the majority of us can’t really shop around for new broadband. Having multiple ISPs in a single area is a luxury. No one had a major bump in speed quite like Midcontinent Communications (or Midco), which this year lands in the No. 1 slot with an unparalleled Speed Index of 46.8. Last year it came in at No. 2 with 27.8. Midco’s download speed alone went from 33.1Mbps to 46.8Mbps on average, year to year. It’s a shame that the company’s MidcoNet Xstream Wideband service is limited to just a few states in the north central area of the country, but it’s likely that the company’s size keeps it nimble enough to provide such outstanding service for its customers. We knew this day would come, but second place goes to longtime Fastest ISPs frontrunner Verizon FiOS. It’s been the speediest ISP going since we started these stories in 2010, and the gold standard in what customers want in a connection—namely, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH). And between 2012 and 2013 it even had a speed increase, as it pushed out an update to all its users.
METHODOLOGY The results in this article were taken from a total of 156,655 individual tests completed from October 1, 2013 to August 13, 2014 at pcmag.speedtest.net. Speedtest.net collected both download and upload speeds for each test, measured in megabits per second (Mbps). We used those results to calculate an index score for a better one-to-one comparison, where downloads count for 80 percent and uploads 20 percent. For an ISP or location to be included in results, we required tests be performed by a minimum of 50 unique IP addresses. Speedtest.net requires a Web browser running Adobe Flash 10 or higher and JavaScript. (Ookla’s iOS and Android mobile apps did not factor into this story.) On the back end, Speedtest.net performs a “fill the pipe” test. Rather than testing the upload and download speed of a single file, it uses multiple broadband threads (the broadband applications that can be used by a browser) to measure the total capacity of the “pipe.” This leads to numbers higher than some other Internet speed tests out there, sometimes even higher than the rate of broadband speed you’re paying for. A note about PowerBoost: This is a marketing term used by Comcast; other cable-based ISPs use similar technology. It ramps up the initial speed of a connection to faster than what it will sustain. For example, someone with a 20Mbps-rated Internet connection can find his or her initial connection jump up to 40 or 50Mbps, but only for a few seconds. It occurs on a per-transfer basis, and most Internet activity, especially Web browsing, sees a boost from it. It doesn’t last long, though, and therefore doesn’t have much impact on long downloads or streaming. Speedtest.net uses a blend of boosted and unboosted data to determine overall speed.
But whereas many ISPs are expanding their fiber-optic offerings, Verizon decided long ago to ditch any plans for future expansion. Though FiOS did see a small uptick in speed in our results, from a Speed Index of 31.6 to 32.8 this year, it wasn’t enough to keep up with an aggressive player like Midco. FiOS was, however, ahead of the cable providers that make up the rest of the top ten. It remains the top ISP in four out of the six regions of the continental U.S. It’s also worth pointing out that FiOS has an astronomically good upload speed to go with its download speed— that’s a function of almost symmetrical fiber connections that other residential technologies don’t even try to replicate. And the PC Magazine audience considers FiOS the utter pinnacle of great customer service. The cable providers are in a constant game of one-upping, mostly for bragging rights because they don’t typically compete directly—that’s a talking point Comcast uses to justify its current attempt to merge with Time Warner Cable. It also claims a merger would give both companies the scale needed to make things even faster. We’re sure Midco would beg to differ. That said, the major cable companies have all improved, but none has jumped as much as Optimum Online, the residential service of Cablevision. Optimum went from an index of 21.9 last year to 30.0 for 2014. Part of that may be because it sold some services in the southwest to Charter Communications last year. Optimum Online service is now concentrated in the New York tri-state area and parts of Pennsylvania. Charter also saw a speed increase from last year, but fell from No. 6 to No. 8. That’s in part because of higher jumps from other providers like Wave Broadband (making its debut in the top ten), Cable One, and the return of Bright House Networks to the list of consumer ISPs. Comcast, the biggest cable provider in the country, managed to snag the No. 4 spot with a Speed Index of 27.4, a nice increase from 23.1 last year.
MIDCONTINENT COMMUNICATIONS WINS!
If you live in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, or Wisconsin, there’s a chance you have the option of getting MidcoNet Xstream Wideband service, with speeds of 12Mbps to 200Mbps downstream. It doesn’t sound like much compared with gigabit Internet speeds, but Midco’s ability to consistently deliver high speeds have earned it the clear distinction of the fastest ISP in the United States.
VERIZON FIOS WINS!
Verizon’s overall speed increase wasn’t enough to keep it in the No. 1 slot, but FiOS remains the best example of widespread fiber-to-the-home service in the U.S., with unparalleled upload speeds and outstanding customer service to boot. It’s the leader in four out of six regions of the continental United States. FiOS won’t expand to new markets, but if you’re lucky enough to live in an area where it’s available, PC Magazine readers say that you’d be a fool to look elsewhere for Internet service.
FASTEST ISP BY
REGION
IN THE UNITED STATES
When we say Midco is fast, we mean it, but that doesn’t help people in the 46 states (plus the District of Columbia) where Midco isn’t available. Depending on what part of the country you reside in, there are other ISPs to consider.
This is important because where you live is a huge factor in what provider you can use. No single American ISP is actually available nationwide—not even a full Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would make that behemoth available in all of the lower 48. (The exception to the rule is satellite Internet providers, but because the absolute slowest ISP in our list of 34 was satellite provider Hughes Network Systems, with a Speed Index of 3.2, that’s not the way to go if you can avoid it.)
MIDCONTINENT COMMUNICATIONS No surprise here. National winner Midcontinent Communications would naturally be tops in the North Central area where it’s headquartered. This is the third time MidcoNet Xstream has won for the North Central area, and its score may never be beat if it continues to improve service the way it has been doing year to year.
NORTH CENTRAL NORTHEAST NORTHWEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH CENTRAL SOUTHEAST
INDEX OF
46.8
FASTEST ISP BY
REGION
IN THE UNITED STATES
When we say Midco is fast, we mean it, but that doesn’t help people in the 46 states (plus the District of Columbia) where Midco isn’t available. Depending on what part of the country you reside in, there are other ISPs to consider.
This is important because where you live is a huge factor in what provider you can use. No single American ISP is actually available nationwide—not even a full Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would make that behemoth available in all of the lower 48. (The exception to the rule is satellite Internet providers, but because the absolute slowest ISP in our list of 34 was satellite provider Hughes Network Systems, with a Speed Index of 3.2, that’s not the way to go if you can avoid it.)
VERIZON FIOS FiOS has the most minor of stumbles in its overall score for the Northeastern U.S. (at 32.5, down from 32.7 last year), but that’s not enough to take away from one obvious fact: FiOS is absolutely the fastest ISPs to be found from Virginia up to New England.
NORTH CENTRAL NORTHEAST NORTHWEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH CENTRAL SOUTHEAST
INDEX OF
32.5
FASTEST ISP BY
REGION
IN THE UNITED STATES
When we say Midco is fast, we mean it, but that doesn’t help people in the 46 states (plus the District of Columbia) where Midco isn’t available. Depending on what part of the country you reside in, there are other ISPs to consider.
This is important because where you live is a huge factor in what provider you can use. No single American ISP is actually available nationwide—not even a full Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would make that behemoth available in all of the lower 48. (The exception to the rule is satellite Internet providers, but because the absolute slowest ISP in our list of 34 was satellite provider Hughes Network Systems, with a Speed Index of 3.2, that’s not the way to go if you can avoid it.)
WAVE BROADBAND COMMUNICATIONS A bright welcome to a new winner for the Fastest ISPs: Cable provider Wave Broadband hails from Kirkland, Washington, but provides service all the way down into Oregon and Northern California, including the San Francisco Bay Area. It offers high-speed service at 110Mbps down at the top tier of service, plus 100 and 55Mbps tiers, all of which must be working well to deliver a Speed Index of 26.0, keeping it just ahead of Comcast and last year’s winner, Charter Communications.
INDEX OF
26.0
NORTH CENTRAL NORTHEAST NORTHWEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH CENTRAL SOUTHEAST
FASTEST ISP BY
REGION
IN THE UNITED STATES
When we say Midco is fast, we mean it, but that doesn’t help people in the 46 states (plus the District of Columbia) where Midco isn’t available. Depending on what part of the country you reside in, there are other ISPs to consider.
This is important because where you live is a huge factor in what provider you can use. No single American ISP is actually available nationwide—not even a full Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would make that behemoth available in all of the lower 48. (The exception to the rule is satellite Internet providers, but because the absolute slowest ISP in our list of 34 was satellite provider Hughes Network Systems, with a Speed Index of 3.2, that’s not the way to go if you can avoid it.)
VERIZON FIOS In the Southwest, including the Los Angeles area, Verizon leads once again, earning a 34.3 index, well above last year’s 28.3. FiOS again manages the trick of getting an upload speed that many other ISPs can’t even get for downloads: 24.1Mbps. It really does make all the difference.
NORTH CENTRAL NORTHEAST NORTHWEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH CENTRAL SOUTHEAST
INDEX OF
34.3
FASTEST ISP BY
REGION
IN THE UNITED STATES
When we say Midco is fast, we mean it, but that doesn’t help people in the 46 states (plus the District of Columbia) where Midco isn’t available. Depending on what part of the country you reside in, there are other ISPs to consider.
This is important because where you live is a huge factor in what provider you can use. No single American ISP is actually available nationwide—not even a full Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would make that behemoth available in all of the lower 48. (The exception to the rule is satellite Internet providers, but because the absolute slowest ISP in our list of 34 was satellite provider Hughes Network Systems, with a Speed Index of 3.2, that’s not the way to go if you can avoid it.)
VERIZON FIOS Right now, FiOS is offering its best speeds in the South Central states. The Verizon fiber service managed to jump from 28.8 rating to 39.2 this year—the fastest Speed Index FiOS earned at this level.
NORTH CENTRAL NORTHEAST NORTHWEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH CENTRAL SOUTHEAST
INDEX OF
39.2
FASTEST ISP BY
REGION
IN THE UNITED STATES
When we say Midco is fast, we mean it, but that doesn’t help people in the 46 states (plus the District of Columbia) where Midco isn’t available. Depending on what part of the country you reside in, there are other ISPs to consider.
This is important because where you live is a huge factor in what provider you can use. No single American ISP is actually available nationwide—not even a full Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would make that behemoth available in all of the lower 48. (The exception to the rule is satellite Internet providers, but because the absolute slowest ISP in our list of 34 was satellite provider Hughes Network Systems, with a Speed Index of 3.2, that’s not the way to go if you can avoid it.)
VERIZON FIOS Like last year in the Southeast, none of the cable providers could even get close to Verizon FiOS’ speed. This year, it improved all the way to an index of 32.6.
NORTH CENTRAL NORTHEAST NORTHWEST SOUTHWEST SOUTH CENTRAL SOUTHEAST
INDEX OF
32.6
#1 SOUTH DAKOTA
INDEX OF 43.2
TOP 10 STATES Last year was the first time we received enough tests from the District of Columbia to include it in our Fastest ISPs list, and that was all it took for the capital to get rated as the fastest “state” for Internet access. That was based on a Speed Index of 39.9; this year D.C. got a higher rating of 42.9, but that wasn’t enough to make it the fastest. That title goes instead to South Dakota, with 43.2. That number is likely helped along by the number of tests that came in from our No. 1 ISP in the land, Midcontinent Communications. And that’s a major bump from last year’s index of 22.1—the best improvement of index rating of any state from last year. Delaware was last year’s No. 2; in 2012 it was No. 1. At third place, you’d think the First State was slowing down, but it’s exactly the opposite: Delaware’s index shot from 27.5 last year to 40.6 this year. The fact that that wasn’t enough to keep it even higher just shows how much better Internet speeds are getting overall. Other big improvements: Maryland’s jump from 26.4 to 30.5, New Jersey’s move from 23.5 to 30.5, Rhode Island’s skip from 22.9 to 30.5,
Massachusetts’ hop from 21.6 to 30.6, and Utah’s leap from 21.6 to 33.8. New in the top ten this year: Pennsylvania and Mississippi. What states have the slowest Internet averages? Not Wyoming, which was the worst in 2012 before jumping to 47th last year with a 9.0 index; this year it got 43rd place with a 13.6. Last year’s slowest connections occurred in Montana, but it jumped from an index of 7.2 back up to 13.2 this year. No, this year’s slowest state is apparently Kentucky at 9.1—at least that’s up from last year’s 8.1. Kentucky is just behind Alaska at 9.2, one of the few states to drop its index score from year to year; in 2013, Alaska got an 11.0. What are the fastest ISPs in the most populous states? Verizon FiOS in California (34.2), Texas (39.2), Pennsylvania (41.2), New Jersey (36.0), and Virginia (37.1). The other five most populous states all have their own ISP leaders: Florida has Bright House Networks (25.4 index); New York has Optimum Online (30.7); Illinois has Charter Communications (34.3); Ohio has Time Warner Cable (13.1); and in Massachusetts it’s Comcast (35.9) just ahead of FiOS.
#10 PITTSBURGH, PA INDEX OF 28.7
#5 KANSAS CITY, MO INDEX OF 35.5
#9 AUSTIN, TX INDEX OF 22.7
#4 BALTIMORE, MD INDEX OF 37.4
#8 RICHMOND, VA INDEX OF 31.2
#3 PHILADELPHIA, PA INDEX OF 37.5
#7 TAMPA, FL INDEX OF 32.3
#2 ALEXANDRIA, VA INDEX OF 38.7
#6 WILMINGTON, DE INDEX OF 33.0
#1 WASHINGTON, D.C. INDEX OF 40.8
TOP 10 CITIES
The trend in last year’s Fastest ISPs roundup was for the smaller cities, not the major metro areas, to have the fastest average speeds. Washington, D.C., was on top, but after that it was smaller places like Silver Spring, MD (pop. 71,452), and Bradenton, FL (pop. 50,672), that shined. This year, the ten fastest municipalities in our list—based on an index number generated from all the local ISPs, mind you, not just the fastest ISPs in town—show a bigger mix of major and minor cities. D.C. is again in the lead with a Speed Index of 40.8, but is accompanied by metro areas such as Philadelphia (37.5), Baltimore (37.4), Tampa (32.3), and Pittsburgh (28.7). They mix with smaller cities like Alexandria, VA (38.7),
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Kansas City, MO (35.5, and home to Google Fiber), and Austin, TX (29.0). Note also that the nation’s capital’s lead score is a little better than last year’s 39.4. All the cities in the top ten that made it again had improvement, in particular Alexandria, which went from 23.1 last year to 38.7 this year. Major metropolitan areas tend to be where you sometimes get some choice in ISPs. The big providers with lots of customers get more responses (and thus a better chance to show up higher in our results) when we narrow things down by city. That’s why across several major cities— including Houston, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), Minneapolis, Denver, Miami, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago—Comcast’s Xfinity service came in as the top ISP. Other top ISPs in major cities: in NYC (across all the boroughs) it’s Optimum Online; in L.A. and Dallas the top is Time Warner Cable; and in Phoenix and San Diego it’s Cox Communications.
OCTOBER 2014
FEATURES
7
IMPORTANT TRENDS IN LAPTOP DESIGN
The design evolution of portable PCs can tell us a lot about the computing industry of today—and even more about where it will be heading tomorrow. BY BRIAN WESTOVER
E
very year, dozens of new laptops come to market, sporting the latest hardware, boasting of new capabilities, and flaunting innovative designs. But just like anything else, tomorrow’s successful trends are impossible to distinguish from today’s fads and experimental faux pas. What we can do, however, is take a look back and see where the trends of today started, and which forward-looking designs sowed the seeds that would grow into today’s—and tomorrow’s—top laptops.
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ULTRABOOKS The biggest trend in personal computing today is the ultrabook. Over the last two years, the once-staid laptop has shifted to become not only more mobile, with an emphasis on lightweight designs and improved battery life, but also more versatile, with the addition of touch capabilities. Take, for example, the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus, one of the best ultrabooks we’ve reviewed. The 13inch laptop measures only 0.54 inch thick, and weighs a little more than 3 pounds, making it immensely portable and easy to use on the go. The internal battery lasts for more than 8 hours of use and for days on standby, which means you don’t have to worry about packing a charger just for getting through the day. All this comes with impressive performance and a gorgeous 3,200-by-1,800 Quad HD+ touch screen. Until the second half of 2011, the ultrabook was still just a concept. But it became a potent reality with the Asus Zenbook UX31-RSL8. Though that Zenbook was not even the first ultraportable laptop we reviewed, it was the first to hit the market under the ultrabook rubric that proved what the new category was truly capable of. It set what would become the new standard for laptops that gained power without having to sacrifice portability.
SAMSUNG ATIV BOOK 9
APPLE MACBOOK AIR
The Zenbook ditched several features in favor of thinness, shedding the optical drive and several ports, slimming down to a respectable 0.66 inch thick. With more than 6 hours of battery life and excellent performance, the Zenbook UX31-RSL8 easily set the tone for the then-nascent category on the Windows side of the computing industry. But the computer that took the thin-and-light concept mainstream was, of course, not a Windows machine. That distinction instead belongs to the 13inch MacBook Air, the second iteration of Apple’s super-thin, all-day work-or-play laptop and the standard against which even PC ultrabooks are still compared. The MacBook Air stepped up the ultraportable concept with a newer Intel Core processor, offering a surprising amount of productive capability for a system that could fit inside a manila envelope. Apple proved to everyone that a computer could be light, portable, and long-lasting—without breaking the bank. ULTRAPORTABLE GAMING LAPTOPS Though the ultraportable concept caught on for consumer systems, common wisdom suggested the aesthetic would never come to gaming laptops. After all, gaming rigs are built for performance, and the sort of high-octane processing and graphics hardware used in such powerhouse machines is too large, too hot-running, and too power-hungry to work in the confines of an ultraportable, right? If the current crop of gaming ultraportables is any indicator, those ideas are a little out of date. Video card manufacturers are now making GPUs with sleeker profiles and more efficient processing, letting gaming PCs pack more capability into ever-moreportable systems. The current MSI GS70 Stealth (GS70 2OD-002US) may not offer the sort of facemelting frame rates seen on larger gaming laptops,
ASUS
ZENBOOK UX31-RSL8
MSI
GS70 STEALTH
but thanks to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M discrete GPU, it offers playable performance whether at home or on the road. There was a time in the not-so-distant past that the very idea of offering ultraportable gaming laptops was unheard of. It wasn’t until 2012 when Razer, before then just a gaming peripheral company, introduced the Razer Blade, that gaming really went ultraportable. The 6.6-pound laptop looked like a Mac painted black, but under the hood the Blade leveraged Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors and Nvidia’s robust mobile graphics to deliver playable frame rates in major games, even on the go. Since then, the Blade lineup has continued to evolve, and other companies have introduced thin-and-light gaming laptops of their own. FLIP CONVERTIBLE HYBRIDS The idea of a laptop that doubles as a tablet isn’t even close to new; the first Microsoft Tablet PCs came out more than a decade ago. But after Apple’s iPad brought tablet computing into the mainstream, the need for devices that bridge the gap between laptop and tablet grew, and Intel began pushing for hybrid products that did just that. Over time, we’ve seen several different approaches to the convertible design, with systems that slide, pivot, and flip between tablet and laptop modes. The design that’s clearly come out on top is that of Lenovo’s Yoga systems. They use a 360-degree hinge that opens up like a laptop, then opens further, letting you fold the display back around into a tablet configuration. Though many competitors like Dell and HP have new hybrids that use similar folding hinges, Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro is still the best of the bunch.
RAZER BLADE
LENOVO YOGA 2 PRO
The plenty of Yoga-inspired laptops selling now (or slated for later this year) all owe a great deal to the original Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 , which debuted in late 2012. Its innovative design offered both literal and figurative flexibility, so you could use the system as a laptop, tablet, or either of two display modes in between. The simplicity of the hinge has a straightforward appeal, especially for shoppers confused by more complex designs that twist and latch.
4
PIVOTING CONVERTIBLE HYBRIDS Though plenty of attempts have been made to find other mechanisms for convertible hybrids, only the pivoting display seen on the Dell XPS line has offered a real alternative to Lenovo’s Yoga hinge. The pivoting display is bordered by a sturdy frame that makes switching between laptop and tablet modes quite simple, and the elegant pivoting display is impressive both on a geewhiz level and as a technical achievement. The current Dell XPS 13 is an excellent example of this design, and it will soon be arriving on Dell’s rugged Latitude line. The pivoting display found its home on Dell’s premium XPS line, but it had humbler beginnings. It first appeared in 2010 on the Dell Inspiron Duo, a convertible netbook that represented an early attempt to take on the ultra-hot iPad released that April. It wasn’t particularly impressive as either a tablet or a netbook, but the design was intriguing, and when Intel’s big push for hybrid devices began, the rotating display took center stage in several advertisements and made a cameo appearance in The Dark Knight Rises.
DELL XPS 12
5
DETACHABLE HYBRIDS Convertible designs are only one half of the hybrid category. Other systems take a more literal approach, using a detachable tablet that docks to a separate keyboard for use, like a traditional clamshell laptop. Tablets, however, don’t usually allow for the same sort of cooling hardware that laptops and ultrabooks do, forcing design teams to build tablets around low-powered Atom processors. The latest round of improvements has dramatically improved the performance of Atom CPUs and the devices that use them. Our current favorite in the detachable hybrid space is the Asus Transformer Book T100TA, which pairs a 10-inch Windows tablet with a docking keyboard. We were impressed with improvements to the usual Atom-powered performance, as well as the system’s dramatically low price (it started at $349). The detachable hybrid is still pretty new on the market, with the mainstream instigator still on store shelves. The HP Envy X2 had the look and feel of a premium product, but its reliance on a lowpowered pre-Haswell Atom CPU meant that performance was a bit underwhelming. Nonetheless, it was the first modern detachable to hit PC Labs, but it definitely wasn’t the last.
ULTRA HD (4K) DISPLAYS One new arms race in the laptop category is over screen resolution, with the sprint to get Ultra HD (4K) displays with 3,840-by-2,160 resolution into premium systems. The first to deliver on the promise is the Toshiba Satellite P50T-BST2N01, but you can expect to see similar displays show up on laptops from Lenovo, Asus, and other manufacturers in the next year. The P50T-BST2N01 is also a pretty good laptop in its own right, offering Intel
ASUS TRANSFORMER BOOK T100TA
HP ENVY X2
TOSHIBA SATELLITE
Core i7 processing and Nvidia graphics. Toshiba might be the first manufacturer to reach the 4K finish line, but it was Apple that fired the starter pistol with the Retina display on the 15-inch MacBook Pro it introduced in 2012. Full HD (1,920-by1,080) displays had made appearances on several premium laptops before it, and a few systems had ventured into higher resolutions, but the Retina display brought super-high-res screens into vogue. The public was already accustomed to the display quality of the iPhone, but bringing that same level of pixel density and clarity to the laptop was a more daunting task.
APPLE MACBOOK PRO
CHROMEBOOKS The last major trend we’ll examine here might not have as big an impact on the outward design and features of the laptop, but in some ways it’s a bigger shift away from the laptops of the past, and it’s sure to change PCs in the near future. The Chromebook is Google’s own answer to overly expensive laptops. These inexpensive devices are more like reimagined netbooks, boasting just enough hardware for Web browsing and just enough of an operating system to support the Chrome browser. As of right now, you can pick up Chromebooks from Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, or Samsung for $300 or less, making Google’s inexpensive Web-centric devices some of the most affordable tech products on the market. Our current favorites are the Acer Chromebook C720P-2600, which is a compact 11-inch model with a touch screen, and the HP Chromebook 11, which comes with a Verizon LTE mobile Internet connection that frees the Chromebook from the limitations of Wi-Fi.
ACER CHROMEBOOK
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But all of the Chromebook hoopla is pretty new, seeing as the Chromebook didn’t even exist before 2010, when Google sent its own CR-48 Notebook out to reviewers and influential Web users to show off what a Chrome OS– powered device might look like. The stripped-down demo units grabbed a lot of attention, showing skeptical users how the cloud-based Chrome experience could compete with that of traditional PCs. Since then, the Chromebook has emerged as a hot seller, with models from Acer and Samsung topping Amazon’s Best Seller lists, and Chromebooks popping up in homes and schools across the country. There are still a few issues for Chrome users to watch out for, but the actual user experience has improved in the intervening years and will continue to get better.
THE NEXT GENERATION OF LAPTOPS Laptop sales may have begun slowing in recent years, but companies’ attempts to reinvent the category have shown that it still has a lot of life left in it. Given major improvements in performance, mobility, and hinge and screen design, the laptop’s potential is greater now than ever before. But what will the future look like? Though systems will continue to get slimmer and more powerful, the changes should go far beyond weight and dimensions. As convertible and detachable systems work through their growing pains, you’ll likely see the hybrid approach and touch functionality become as ubiquitous as clamshell designs and touchpads are today. Screens will get better and cheaper—expect 1080p to become the budget option. And Chromebooks are already proving how likely it is that everything under the hood will soon be more deeply integrated with the cloud and the full range of personal digital devices. One thing's for sure: PCs will continue to hold a central place in our ever-more-connected lives, and we’ll keep reporting on the developments as they happen. PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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OCTOBER 2014
FEATURES
HOW I FOUND MY FAMILY ONLINE
From family tree websites to Facebook to DNA testing and beyond, there are more ways than ever to learn about your family’s history—and yourself. BY GRANT BRUNNER
S
earching for your family history is an exercise in frustration. Depending on your country of origin and specific ancestry, your grandparents might be as far back as the paper trail goes. If you throw a curveball into the mix, such as adoption, you’ll have even less information to go on. Even under the best circumstances, all genealogists are going to hit brick walls at some point. Wars, natural disasters, language barriers, and family infighting can make research incredibly difficult. But don’t lose hope. For the better part of the last decade, I’ve used technology to find cousins and ancestors I didn’t even know existed. And with some time and effort of your own, you’ll be well on your way to finding your long-lost family, too. I’ve spent thousands of hours researching my family tree over the past seven years, and I’ve ended up making connections I could have never anticipated. Truth be told, my time spent researching my genealogy has influenced my identity and permanently changed how I view my family from a big-picture perspective. Ethnically, culturally, and genetically, my family is much more diverse than I could have ever imagined. Thanks to tools like collaborative family trees, social networks, and direct-to-consumer DNA testing, I’ve finally found the truth about my family, and now I get to share the fruits of my labor. OVERLAPPING TREES More than anything, collaborative genealogy is what got the ball rolling for me. My mother had a family bible with a few generations of grandparents listed inside of it, and I thought that’s where I would stop with my little family tree project. I can clearly picture myself telling my mother, “Oh, I’m just going to make a family tree up to my great-grandparents.” In retrospect, I find that claim hilariously inaccurate. After a few minutes of fooling around with some family tree software, I had myself a symmetrical little tree with my name at the bottom, but it turns out that just wasn’t enough. Within a few hours, I started looking around the Web for more generations to add to my burgeoning tree, and I
stumbled on the concept of collaborative genealogy. Sure, searching through historical records is a vital aspect of research, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the squirt of dopamine you get when you find that your family tree overlaps with that of a complete stranger. By using websites like FamilySearch.com and Ancestry.com, I quickly found more leads. The further back I went, the more overlap there was with other genealogists’ trees. I used what little data I started with, searched for matches in other trees, and rapidly compiled loads of information. Before long, I found my first major breakthrough: Mareen Duvall. This Huguenot fled religious persecution in France and ended up in the Province of Maryland in the mid 1600s. Mareen is my ninth-great-grandfather, but it turns out he’s also an ancestor of Barack Obama, Harry Truman, and Dick Cheney. Discovering that I had so many well-documented relatives was an absolute thrill, and my parents got a real kick out of hearing about our famous distant cousins. But there is a dark side to all of this. Mareen Duvall was a successful plantation owner in colonial America, and with that comes the harsh reality of slavery. For the first time in my life, I came face-to-face with the reality that my ancestors owned other human beings. My stomach was in knots when I first saw hard evidence that an ancestor—my ancestor—participated in chattel slavery. With that realization, I needed to take a break, and come to terms with the fact that not everything I’d find would be cheery.
JUST A NAME AND A LOCATION After a few weeks away from genealogy, I decided to come back and focus on finding some of my living relatives. I knew my dad had a half-sister somewhere in Arizona, but all I had to go on were a few names and her last known location. For privacy reasons, much of the information about living people is difficult to find through traditional means. Even if someone did have her most recent contact information, most genealogy websites go out of their way to obscure it from the public. I needed to try something else. I could have started trolling “people finder” websites, or even hired a private investigator to find my lost family members. But starting with Facebook is a lot easier, and at least marginally less sketchy. I took the few names that I knew and filtered the results by city. There were plenty of hits, but I was able to use a little bit of context (rough age estimates, publicly listed relatives) to narrow the pool of possible matches to a manageable level. Then I started sending out messages and offering as much information as possible. I explained who I was, who I was looking for, and why I was trying to make a connection. Months went by with very little luck, but I eventually received a reply from someone who turned out to be my cousin’s son—my first cousin once removed. He assured me that my aunt was alive and
PLANTING YOUR FAMILY TREE There are lots of software- and Webbased tools to help you keep track of the relatives and ancestors you know and discover new ones you may never have heard of. Our favorite is Ancestry.com’s Family Tree Maker, which is incredibly easy to use and offers a stunning amount of information and options for creating charts and diagrams.
well, and informed me that my father is now a great-uncle three times over. Today, years later, I’m still in touch with my family members across the country, and I get to see pictures of my long-lost cousins on a regular basis. IT’S ALL IN THE GENES Of course, the written record doesn’t tell the whole story. At best, government and church records will be incomplete windows into the lives of a subset of your ancestors. At worst, those records are peppered with errors or missing completely. The most we can hope for is a paper trail going back a few hundred years. Some of my branches have reliable trails back into the early 1500s, but most of them go completely cold in the 1800s. I wanted to go back much, much further. To find the truth about my “deep ancestry,” I needed to take a DNA test. With our current direct-to-consumer tests, I knew that the results wouldn’t be refined enough to identify specific cities or regions, but I’d get a big-picture look at where my ancestors lived. I ordered kits from 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, and National Geographic’s Genographic Project, extracted my cells, and sent off the kits to be processed. My results were available a few weeks later, and I was completely gobsmacked. I expected to see results from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and Western Europe. I had even heard rumors about the possibility of some American Indian ancestry, so that was at least on my radar. As it turns out, my perception of my ethnic makeup was off in a number of ways. The British, Scandinavian, and Western European ancestry proved accurate, but there wasn’t even the slightest trace of American Indian markers in my DNA results. That doesn’t
ANCESTOR MAPPING This map, produced at FamilyTreeDNA.com, shows the countries and regions from which Grant’s ancestors hailed. A number of similar Web tools can help you find out this information about your family— and a whole lot more.
GEORGE H.P.S. SHAFFNER
GEORGE MILLARD SHAFFNER
ROBERT SHAFFNER
Grant uncovered lots of new information about his family, including the three generations of Shaffners shown here.
rule out the possibility completely, but as it stands, there is no evidence. I did, however, have a significant amount of Ashkenazi and Middle Eastern DNA. That came as a major shock. Obviously, many European populations came through the Middle East, but it seems that some of my ancestors stuck around there longer than others. After seeing my results, I decided to have numerous members of my family tested as well, and I quickly determined that my maternal grandfather’s family is where my Jewish ancestry came into play. I didn’t suddenly begin keeping kosher or anything like that, but it certainly gave me a greater context for my family’s diverse history. CLIMBING THE FAMILY TREE If I was researching my genealogy ten or 20 years ago, these methods simply wouldn’t have been viable. Online family tree collaboration tools have matured only in the last few years, the ubiquity of networks like Facebook is a recent phenomenon, and direct-to-consumer DNA testing simply didn’t exist at all before the last decade. Without those tools, I most certainly wouldn’t have looked past the handful of generations in my family bible. Thanks to the technology at my disposal, I have a deeper understanding and appreciation of my entire family tree. PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION
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HELP OTHERS RESEARCH It’s easier than ever to sort through obscure records about your family, but a lot of critical data still hasn’t been digitized and thus isn’t searchable online. You can help change that by devoting a little of your spare time to the cause. Options include downloading the FamilySearch.org indexer, for entering vitals on scans of old documents, or BillionGraves.com, where you can either type in data on photos of tombstones or use your GPS-enabled smartphone to take pictures for indexing by others.
GET ORGANIZED Managing Video Files
TIPS Flickr Tips for Photo Fanatics
TECH ETIQUETTE Ask Alex: Putting On a Happy Facebook
Digital
e
DIGITAL LIFE
GET ORGANIZED
Managing Video Files
Videos are memories, so don’t let yours clutter your computer. These tips will help you arrange and archive your clips like the pros. BY JILL DUFFY
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hooting video is more convenient and accessible today than most of us could have dreamed even a few years ago, making it tempting to clutter up your computer and smartphone with clips of family vacations, videos of your dog eating bugs (guilty as charged), and other slices of life. You should want to keep them all and edit them into short films that you’ll want to share or just rewatch yourself. That’s what they’re for! But you shouldn’t toss them all willy-nilly onto your computer’s desktop. How you think about your files matters tremendously when it comes to organizing them in an effective way. Here are some tips.
GETTING STARTED ORGANIZING YOUR VIDEOS To organize your video files, it’s important to understand just how many copies of videos you’re likely to have. For starters, there are the raw files—the unedited videos you’ve shot. They typically stay on your phone or camera until your transfer them to a computer or other storage location. Second, when you import your videos into a video editing software program, you’ll want to make sure you select the option (or adjust the settings) to create a copy of the raw file. Making a copy at this stage ensures that your original raw files remain unedited as your true first copy, which you might want to save. Third, you’ll have all the assets you’re going to join together to make a final, produced video. This batch of files will include graphics, voice-over audio, and still images, in addition to the clips from your footage that you plan to use. And, of course, you’ll have your final edited video. You’ll want to take care to organize the raw footage and the final edited video. These are likely the two most important types of video files. For all the other file types in between, you can simply rely on the default settings in the video editing program. DIGITIZE OLD FOOTAGE Some households have stacks of old, non-digital footage. If you’re organizing and consolidating all your videos, you’ll want to digitize any VHS tapes or film you have. There are a number of services, such as YesVideo and iDigitize, that specialize in converting non-digital video to digital. Some services give you the option of transferring the old footage onto DVDs or hosting it online. Whichever option you choose, just be sure you make a backup of all the files, too. More on archiving and backing up a little later.
GET YOUR VIDEOS OFF YOUR PHONE —AND FAST! If you’re typically shooting videos on your phone, transfer them to your computer and delete them from your phone. Video files eat up a lot of space, so it’s better to keep them on a computer that has much more space to spare than a mobile device. It’s also safer on a computer; if you lose your phone and those videos aren’t backed up, they’re gone for good. Consider using SugarSync, a mobile app with an automatic backup feature for not only photos but also videos. SugarSync can automatically save all your videos directly to your SugarSync account, and then sync them to your computers as well.
NAME YOUR FILES THE SMART WAY I recommend starting your filenames with numbers in the year-month-date (YRMODA) format, so that the files list chronologically. As an example of how this convention works, video footage from my family’s Fourth of July vacation this year to New Paltz would start with “140704”: “14” for the year 2014, “07” for July, and “04” for the day. I would probably add some more keywords after that to help me remember, resulting in a final filename like “140704_NewPaltzTrip.” Alternatively, “140704_NewPaltzTrip” might be the name I use for a folder where I’ll put all my related videos. That way, I can name the files a little more specifically, such as “140705_NewPaltz_birthday” and “140704_NewPaltz_fireworks.” If you don’t shoot a lot of videos in a given month, you can even get away with a four-digit year-month (YRMO) only. For example, “1407_NewPaltzTrip” still conveys plenty of information. The YRMODA system is amazingly convenient and efficient if you remember your videos in terms of when you shot them. Even if it’s an event, you can probably remember that your sister’s gradation was in May 2011 (which translates to “1105”) and that 2009 Thanksgiving footage will be in one of the videos starting “0911.” So what do you do if you remember your files by something other than date or event? All that really matters is that you come up with a system that you like, that’s easy to remember, and that fits the way you think about your data. I’d also suggest making sure your system results in unique filenames so you don’t end up overwriting files accidentally.
MASTER YRMODA Storing your files in folders named using the yearmonth-date (YRMODA) method makes it easy to sort the folders chronologically, and quickly find the videos you want, when you want them.
TAGS, YOU’RE IT Using tags and keywords will help you sift through a lot of footage and other assets when you’re looking for something specific. Most services will append date and location information themselves, but you can usually add more.
USE FOLDERS, AND ADD TAGS AND KEYWORDS Michael Chang, CEO of YesVideo, says some video digitizing services automatically tag your videos by date or location. If the service you use doesn’t do that, take the time to organize the files into folders at the very least. If you have a lot of footage, you probably don’t want to rename every single file, so instead put them into larger category folders. I recommend naming these folders things like “1996_videos” and “1997_videos.” Adding tags to your videos helps tremendously if you have a lot of footage and you frequently slice together different videos. “Tagging or annotation is a key component, especially when it comes to personal videos being preserved as one’s legacy,” Chang told me. “Thanks to ever-evolving software, you can now create a video scrapbook, which can be wonderful ways to organize your videos.” Though my inclination would be to use tags that describe the content of the video itself (“grandma,” “soccer game,” “boat”), PC Magazine’s video producer, Chris Synder, told me that it helps to include words that point to the type of asset, such as “b-roll” and “audio,” too. Add these tags at the same time you upload your videos, while the footage is fresh in your mind. Doing so is much more efficient than rewatching your videos later to remind yourself what’s in them and add tags.
ARCHIVE AND STORE YOUR FINISHED VIDEOS ELSEWHERE When you’re finished editing your videos, you’ll typically export the final file. If you then upload it to Facebook, YouTube, or some other site, that copy can be considered one of your backups, which is good. You always want a backup of your files. But if you’re posting some videos to YouTube and saving others to a private Dropbox account, your video files are going to be all over the place. A better method is to always export your final videos locally when you’re done making them. Hopefully you regularly back up your computer, so those files should be safe. But because video files take up a lot of space, eventually you’ll want to move them all to an external hard drive, cloud storage solution, or some other storage space. Chang likes cloud storage best. “We absolutely recommend moving all your videos, old and new, to the cloud,” he said. “Every year, thousands of pieces of media are destroyed in floods, fires, and other natural disasters. If those memories weren’t saved online anywhere, they are lost forever.” He sees no harm in taking advantage of as many services as you can. For his own files, Chang says he uses Amazon Cloud Drive, Dropbox, and Google Drive. If you’re going the multi-cloud storage route, try to compartmentalize, such as by using Dropbox only for business-related videos but Google for home videos. That way, you’ll remember where to go to find your files when you want to retrieve them.
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SHOOT A LOT? KEEP A SEPARATE RECORD Consider yourself a semipro video creator? Start keeping a separate record of what you shoot. PC Magazine’s Chris Snyder finds that his system is highly effective in part because he uses another database to schedule shoots. Whenever he needs to find video from a particular shoot, he can look up the date in the database before he starts browsing his files. You don’t need a hefty database. Even a simple spreadsheet cataloging the shoot date, subject, environment, and any other details would go a long way toward helping you find all your files in an efficient manner.
DIGITAL LIFE
TIPS
Flickr Tips for Photo Fanatics Yahoo gives you 1TB of space for storing images online. Learn how to make the most of it with this underappreciated photo tool. BY ERIC GRIFFITH
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hough some might say that Flickr, which Yahoo bought in 2006, has become the “poster child for Yahoo’s failures,” we’d argue that Flickr is the best photo-sharing service going. (It’s earned a PC Magazine Editors’ Choice award or two over the years.) With new video support and mobile apps, to say nothing of an unprecedented 1TB of storage, Flickr is amazing for those who are serious about pictures and photography. These tricks will help you get the most out of Flickr, both mobile and desktop, in every way.
create unique email addresses to do just that. In addition, there are email options to send an image or video directly to a blog or to Twitter.
EXTRA EMAIL PRIVACY/TAGS If you want some extra privacy for your images, append the following to the address: “+friends,” “+family,” “+ff,” “+private,” or “+public.” The first three make the image in the email visible only to people you consider friends, family, or both; the “+private” means only you see it; “+public” naturally means it’s visible to all. The syntax would be foo13bar+friends@ photos.flickr.com (where the “foo13bar”
USE THE FLICKR SHORTENER
part is your unique, magic email address
When you share a link to Flickr, the site will
assigned by Flickr).
automatically use a shortened URL from
To tag the image, just add “tags:”
the Flic.kr domain (rather than flickr.com,
followed by a comma-delimited list of
which is three precious characters
tags to assign, in either the subject or
longer). To generate your own shortened
the body of the email.
Flickr URL, go to URLkr.com and enter the full Flickr.com URL. Cut and paste the resulting shorter URL as needed. Or on the Flickr site, when looking at a picture click the Share icon (the arrow) and under Code select Link to see it. It should be the same as one generated by URLkr.
EMAIL: STILL THE KILLER (FLICKR) APP Although most people upload photos direct from smartphones these days, don’t forget email with pictures attached. That’s still a huge way to share. It’s easy to send a picture to Flickr for storage. Access your Flickr email settings and
VIEW IMAGES AT HIGH RESOLUTIONICE MAIL The typical photo page on the Flickr website shows you an image that fits on the screen. But if you want to view or download the picture in question at the highest possible resolution available, add “sizes/o” (that’s the letter “o,” as in “original”) to the URL. You’ll get a page viewing the original size of the image. “l” would show the large version, “m” for medium, and so on. Click the Sizes on these pages to get all versions from 75by-75 thumbnail on up to 2,048 pixels
AUTO UPLOAD MOBILE PHOTOS
wide, and then one extra if the original is
The new versions of the Flickr apps for iOS
if the owner allows it.
and Android feature the ability to automatically upload to Flickr every single image you take on the smartphone or tablet. Pictures are all marked as private until you go into the app or the website and change it, or until you share them via Flickr to another service, such as Facebook. All those photos are added automatically to an album called “Auto Sync.” Make sure you have your “Background App Refresh” turned on for Flickr in the iOS settings. (There are reports of a bug that makes this work only sporadically on iPhones, so keep looking for app updates.) If you use a regular digital camera, you can still upload directly (maybe not automatically) with some of them that support Wi-Fi, or use an Eye-Fi card that puts Wi-Fi in the camera in place of the standard SD card used for image storage.
even larger. These sizes are only available
LABEL FOR SAFETY By default, most Flickr images are considered and marked as safe, meaning they’re okay for anyone to see, of any age. But you can label images as moderate (when you’re not entirely sure it’s okay for a global audience) and restricted (when you absolutely know for sure it’s not for the kids). Change the individual safety level of each picture by viewing it from the Web on a PC (you can’t change it on the mobile apps)—just scroll down to
SEARCH FOR CREATIVE COMMONS IMAGES
Additional Info. You also have the option
There are more than 27 million Creative
so all the images you upload get set to
Commons images on Flickr you can use
moderate or restricted. Definitely do not
for your presentations, brochures, fake
try to set an obviously adults-only image
friends, you name it. You just need to
to safe—that’s a good way to get your
know how to find them. Thankfully there
account banned. Your “buddy icon” can
are multiple tools to make it possible. You
only be safe; if Flickr finds different, you
can search by color, by tag, by your own
get a warning. After two incidents, the
pathetic drawing, even by letters that
company will delete your account.
appear in the image.
SET PHOTO LICENSING Photographers generally own the complete copyright to what comes off of their camera (unless it was taken by a monkey). Flickr allows image owners to use Creative Commons licenses, so if you want to make the image a bit more open source and available to the masses for reuse and remixes, that’s an option. Set a default license type for all uploads, or go into each image and change it as you see fit. When viewing an image, scroll down and click “All Rights Reserved” to change it to a CC license of your choosing.
of setting default filters on your account,
FILTER BEFORE YOU SHOOT We all love Instagram for applying cool filters to photos we want to upload. But Instagram only puts the filter on after you take the image. Flickr’s update for iOS has live filters with names like “Iced Tea” and “Dublin” that let you see what the effect looks like before you take the shot. There are 14 filters to try. Click the color Venn diagram icon to access them. The filters also work for taking videos. Unfortunately, live filters haven’t come to the Android app yet, but you can still apply them after a still shot.
DUAL EXPOSURE/FOCUS IN APP When Flickr updated its iOS mobile app, it added features you don’t get on the integrated iPhone/iPad camera software. One of the coolest is the ability to perform a two-finger tap on the screen and lock focus and exposure in two separate areas of the picture. Focus is the blue square, exposure is the red circle. An extra touch on each will lock it in, even if you move the device, rather than continuously focus and expose the image on screen as usual.
SWIPE FOR COMPOSITION OVERLAYS Whether you like the rule of thirds, portrait framing, or the Fibonacci spiral for composing the best pictures, the Flickr iOS app’s camera has you covered (with those and more). Swipe left or right, or up or down in landscape mode; you’ll get a new overlay that will help line up everything in the shot.
folder is synced to your PC. Then, instruct the operating system to use that local folder as the source for wallpapers. In Windows, right-click the desktop and select “Personalize,” click “Desktop Background,” then in Picture Location point to the folder. Select “Change picture every...” and choose a time frame for rotation. This works for making screensavers, too. In MacOS, right-click the desktop, pick “Change Desktop Background,” then in the
SHOOT VIDS LIKE VINE After Vine debuted its square-shaped, 6-second video recorder and sharing service last year, Instagram followed suit. Flickr now offers a version on its apps, with a 30-second limit and (on iOS) the ability to do a quick undo of the last bit of your shot. It’s not like Vine or Instagram in that you don’t press and hold the screen to record; a tap of the red button starts and stops the recording, so you lose the granular control that makes stop-motion recording possible.
AUTO ROTATE FLICKR SHOTS AS WALLPAPER Lifehacker and Hacker News came up with this excellent way to use Flickr (or any photo sharing service) as a source for constantly adding new wallpapers on your desktop computer, utilizing IFTTT for the automation. Simply tell IFTTT to monitor your Flickr account or a public group, and use the recipe to copy all the images to a folder in Dropbox or a similar service. That
left column find and select the folder. Then check off the box next to “Change Picture” and set the timeframe you want.
DELETE A FLICKR ACCOUNT Whether you have too many Flickr accounts or just don’t want yours anymore, it is possible to get rid of your Flickr account. Just keep in mind that it takes at least 90 days for all the info to leave Yahoo’s servers, even if it isn’t publicly accessible. That also gives you a 90-day grace period to change your mind and come back to the service. To delete, go to your account, and click the link at bottom reading “Delete your Flickr account.” You’ll have to give some “OK” replies to prompts, but after that... buh-bye.
PICK A POPULAR CAMERA Wondering just what kind of camera was used to create your favorite images on Flickr? The service will tell you, in the data under each picture (if it’s available in the metadata of the photo—most digital cameras assign it). Visit the Flickr Camera Finder at any time and see current stats of the most popular cameras used across the site. At press time, the top four cameras are all iPhones; number five is Canon’s EOS Rebel T3i. You can narrow it down by camera type, too—the top pointand-shoot is Sony’s DSC-RX100.
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DIGITAL LIFE
Ask Alex
Q
TECH ETIQUETTE
Putting On a Happy Facebook. BY ALEX COLON
If you want to take a break from Facebook, should you warn people first? Or just deactivate your account?
—Separation Anxiety I was unfriended on Facebook, what should I do? —It’s Complicated
Alex Says: Don’t deactivate your account. When you do, your profile disappears from Facebook and people aren’t able to search for you. So even if you post a status update that says “Taking a break from Facebook for a while. See you all again soon!”, that will disappear as well. And that’s going to lead a lot of people Untiore to think they’ve been defriended. There are two better ways, and they depend on cone nis how you use Facebook now.doluptas et
Alex Says:
dolorerum fugiant Are you primarily a passive user, replying to messages and sharing the occasional quunte iunt estion photo? If so, I think you can comfortably step away without needing to warn nist, tem faccab anyone. If somebody really needs to getide in touch with you, they should know where to find fgfgfk you in realvoloressimet life. labo tafe. If you’re a more active user (think: Your day starts with writing happy birthday Timeline posts from your phone in bed), give your friends a heads-up before you suddenly stop sharing BuzzFeed quiz results. A simple status update is fine: just something people can see on your Timeline so they know they can find you elsewhere. It’ll be less mysterious than deactivating your account and vanishing.
Have a question for Alex? Send it to askalex@pcmag.com
DIGITAL LIFE
Ask Alex
Q
TECH ETIQUETTE
Putting On a Happy Facebook. BY ALEX COLON
“They” say it’s bad to connect social networking accounts because doing so annoys people following you in multiple places. Shouldon I keep my crossposts to I was unfriended Facebook, what should I do? —It’s Complicated a minimum? —Less Is More?
Alex Says: “They” are right. There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing all of your social networking streams clogged up with the same exact posts.
Alex Says:
That said, I think there’s some room for crossover. For instance, the occasional Untiore well-filtered photo on Instagram of a hamburger you just ate might also be worth cone nis doluptas et goes for that cute video of your sharing with your Facebook friends. The same dog rolling over you just postedfugiant to Vine. But if you post a lot of photos or videos, dolorerum then they should primarily reside on a network dedicated to photos or video. It’s quunte iunt estion really just common sense.
nist, tem faccab ide voloressimet Facebook andfgfgfk Twitter can get a bit trickier. It’s fine to post the occasional update or link to bothlabo networks, but in general, you should treat them as separate tafe. entities. Don’t crosspost live Twitter commentary about the Oscars to Facebook, and don’t share random photos of you and your friends on Twitter (unless you’re famous). Consider your audience. In general, remember this rule: If you need to think twice, post once.
Have a question for Alex? Send it to askalex@pcmag.com
DIGITAL LIFE
Ask Alex
Q
TECH ETIQUETTE
Putting On a Happy Facebook. BY ALEX COLON
What’s the proper way to tell a parent that you will block them on Facebook if they don’t cut it with the embarrassing comments they’re making? I was unfriended on Facebook, what should I do? —It’s Complicated —Parental Controls
Alex Says: It’s no secret that parents and Facebook don’t always mix. Of course, you can take the preemptive measure of not friending them to begin with, but it sounds like it’s a little too late for that. Unfortunately, there’s really no good way to tell them to cool it with the commenting unless you’re a cold and Untiore heartless person.
Alex Says: cone nis doluptas et Here’s the thing. I have plenty of friends with parents (not to mention some other dolorerum fugiant family members) who like to comment a little too much, a little too aggressively, quunte iunt estion or just a little too... oddly. But in a way it’s kind of endearing. Sure, no one wants tem ide up” every time they post a picture, their mom to nist, write “My littlefaccab baby is all grown but is it really fgfgfk that muchvoloressimet worse than one of your friends saying “Great shot”? labo tafe. So instead of threatening to block your parents, try your best to appreciate the fact that they want to have an active part in your life, however embarrassing it may be. And remind yourself that, without them, you wouldn’t have a Timeline for them to comment on in the first place.
Have a question for Alex? Send it to askalex@pcmag.com
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LAST WORD
T Hysteria or Religion?
JOHN C. DVORAK
he intrigue that surrounded the release of the new iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch was something to behold. It is endlessly fascinating to me how worked up people get before and during the ramp-up of a new Apple product. With the iPhone 6, the public was treated to months of speculation, including an inordinate amount of attention paid to the supposed “sapphire” screen—which never actually appeared on the product. It was when I heard an odd reaction on a Fox News discussion show called The Five—one of the shows I monitor for the No Agenda Show podcast, looking for outrageous commentary—that I finally realized that Apple is less a company than a religion. In discussing the iPhone 6, the panelists were all-in on the products with zero thought or pause. They all seemed to already have an iPhone 5 and were planning to immediately buy the iPhone 6. I’ve seen the same thing on supposed techcentric shows, most of which are podcasts nowadays. Because Steve Jobs is dead and this phenomenon is steady, it has nothing to do with Jobs’ fabulous charisma or his unique ability to sell almost anything. I’ve always wanted to think that the phenomenon was mass hysteria. And for a while I considered the idea that we are dealing with mere brand fanaticism such as you would find in the 1960s with “Ford versus Chevy” arguments. Wrong in all cases. Somewhere along the line—and I can’t tell when, but I suspect it was quite early—Jobs actually
created a religion. And to this day, brand religion is epitomized by Apple, and that’s why Microsoft will never compete with Apple in terms of loyalty— or any other metric that religions use to maintain the flock. By nature, mankind seeks spiritual guidance. That necessarily leads to religion, and in today’s world of weak religion, when people search for one truth it becomes a product line and a company that goes out of its way to implement religious concepts in marketing its products. When you think about it, Apple has all the trappings of a religion. It has the symbolic icon, the Apple logo, which is the equivalent of the Christian cross or a Buddha. It has vestments: the black outfit worn by the CEO at the top and the various colored T-shirts in the stores. The Apple Stores, of course, are the equivalents of individual church buildings. The members of the Church of Apple selfidentify and can spot each other by not only by showing their dedication (defined as having the newest device—the classic “holier than thou” motif) but also by being completely submissive to the church by owning everything that Apple makes. The believers talk in code amongst themselves and, when pressed, will admit that they unconditionally love Apple and everything Apple does. Even the giant product announcement, with an audience filled with rows of acolytes cheering on cue, resembles a megachurch gathering in every way. And just like at a megachurch, guest preachers (product managers) come out and eventually a band plays! Why does the company act like this when rolling out what is simply a mobile phone upgrade to thousands of people? This is just too obvious when properly
We’re watching a church do its thing. But unfortunately, there is no real spiritual payout.
deconstructed. When Kimberly Guilfoyle on The Five said, “I’m a big convert to Apple,” we should take it seriously—as meaning a religious convert. Steve Jobs was something of a spiritualist himself, and it’s hard to say whether it was his ego or his understanding of the religious mechanism that enabled him to create megachurch-like product rollouts when he did. Whatever the case, they work and Tim Cook has not messed them up. The megachurch-like atmosphere remains intact. The preaching is solid. The iconography is consistent. And the followers remain devout. We’re watching a church do its thing. But unfortunately, there is no real spiritual payout, just massive profits for Apple stemming from a kind of modern idolatry. Fantastic.
john_dvorak@pcmag.com
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