ST Technology

CABLE GUYS ST Technology A/W 2011

T H E PH O N E T H AT D O E S I T A L L

JACK OF ALL TRADES, MASTER OF ALL.

TAKE NOTE

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contents 05

On the cover: Photography: Beau Grealy. Fashion editor: Allan Kennedy. See page 36 Right: Dianna wears Plattan headphones in mustard, Urbanears; suede mac, Paul Smith. Andrew wears Plattan headphones in indigo, Urbanears; jacket, Joseph Abboud

EDITORIAL Editor Henry Farrar-Hockley Senior art director Ciara Walshe Chief copy editor Chris Madigan Assistant editor Sarah Deeks Picture editor Juliette Hedoin Senior copy editor Gill Wing Copy editors Cate Langmuir, Ming Liu, Rupert Mellor Contributing editor Matt Warman Creative director Ian Pendleton Executive editor Peter Howarth Editor-in-chief Joanne Glasbey COMMERCIAL (UK) Executive director Dave King Publishing director Toby Moore 020 7931 3350 Director of fashion and luxury Carley Ayres 020 7931 3328 COMMERCIAL (ITALY) K.Media Srl Via Cavalieri Bonaventura, 1/3 20121 Milan, Italy +39 02 29 06 10 94; kmedianet.com SHOW MEDIA 020 3222 0101 Ground Floor, 1-2 Ravey Street, London EC2A 4QP info@showmedia.net www.showmedia.net Printing: Polestar Chantry (polestar-group.com) Colour reproduction: fmg (wearefmg.com) ST Technology is designed and produced by SHOW MEDIA LTD for the Telegraph Media Group. All material © Show Media Ltd and Telegraph Media Group. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is strictly prohibited. While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, no responsibility can be accepted for any errors or omissions.

The information contained in this publication is correct at the time of going to press.

36 06 upgrade Mat Warman heralds a new dawn for user-defined technology, and argues that Britain is in an ideal position to make the most of it

21 picture this Five top-of-the-range

09 coveted Sony’s futuristic one-man multiplex

27 the guide Lifing the lid on the myriad categories of portable computers to ensure you know your desknotes from your Ultrabooks

is mind-blowing. (Not literally, mind)

11 artefact Charge your glasses for the

anniversary of Sky TV’s greatest achievement – and, no, it’s not Ross Kemp On Gangs

13 old for new Why our thirst for artificially aged technology could spell the end of civilisation, or at the very least confuse future generations 15 arm forces The 24/7 lifestyle-monitoring Bluetooth wristband that promises to make you fiter, healthier and possibly more productive

16 pump and grind Chris Haslam on

the crema de la crema of Italian espresso makers, and the ultimate accompanying coffee blend

19 every second counts The Earth is still spinning, but time it is a-changing. Robin Swithinbank states his case for going atomic

televisions that tick all the boxes, whether your priority is looks, performance or eco credentials

30 small wonder Jonathan Margolis clicks

with the latest evolution in digital SLR photography – so new it doesn’t even have a name yet

32 fair play Jeremy White on why the next generation of video games is proving an unlikely source of matinee-idol poster-boys we can aspire to 34 sound investment The real coup behind Range Rover’s Evoque is not Mrs Beckham’s ‘design consultancy’ but its world-class entertainment system 36 all ears Headphones that will complement your threads, whatever the season

42 in detail Indestructible, innovative, bespoke – why Vertu’s stellar Constellation phone is worth every penny of its £5,700 price tag

the personal touch User-driven innovation and greater customisation are set to change technology for the beter – and Britain is well placed to reap the rewards, says Mat Warman

Illustration BARRY FALLS

upgrade 07

Great technology means different things to different people – for some, it’s the satisfying movement that follows when they tap an icon on their iPhone’s home screen; for others, the combination of weight and power in the latest slim-line Asus laptop is the thing; and, for many, it’s the knowledge they won’t miss the latest episode of their favourite drama, because their Sky+ box will have taken care of it.

Yet the products all of us use, day in day out, are made for global markets. Technology in British homes may be launched in Hong Kong, London, Milan, Berlin or San Francisco. It’s made in China or Korea and shipped to Britain almost as an afterthought. We may be one of the world’s most important markets, but there is not a lot that is bespoke. Disembarking from a plane a few weeks ago, I could see my fellow travellers in the queue for immigration were changing the settings on their phones and I knew which ones, because they were all using the same software. Icons on touchscreens don’t pay much attention to a language barrier. That’s not to say global business is turning travellers into anonymised drones – everyone was adjusting their phones to their personal preferences. But it serves to underline that the days of technology that has any built-in sense of who we are has yet to come very near to the mainstream.

We are, however, all on the cusp. What was once off-puttingly called ‘artificial intelligence’ has been relabelled by Apple as ‘your humble personal assistant’ and christened Siri. Google, meanwhile, can look at your picture of a foreign menu and translate it into your native language – or have a vague stab at it at least. The search giant’s latest handset, the Galaxy Nexus, does away with fiddly passcodes to unlock your phone; instead, it asks simply that you look at the camera and, with facial-recognition technology, it sees you are the owner and lets you in. Motorola, the company that invented the mobile phone and is amid something of a renaissance, has added a new feature that adjusts a phone’s settings based on its location – so silent mode switches on when you get to the office, but the volume goes to maximum when it knows you might need to hear it ringing above the sound of howling children. It would be easy to get paranoid at this point: Google knows your every web search and it knows what you look like, worry the concerned denizens of Twitter, but international regulation is likely to keep us all fairly safe from tyrannical corporations.

Of more interest, perhaps, is where this new post-industrial revolution is likely to take us all in the coming decades: will Siri do for the PA what the spinning jenny did for much of the north of England in the 18th century? Possibly. Need we fret? Probably not.

That’s in part because the cycle of rendering outdated technologies obsolete is crucial to progress. In due course, we’ll end up looking better and working and playing more efficiently. And the evolution of the workforce may well be driven as much by really good design as it is by what we need most.

It has taken a £188m investment from Intel, for instance, to coax improved laptop design from manufacturers who are used to designing big, ugly

Siri might just do for the PA what the spinning jenny did for the north of England in the 18th century

boxes that suit their tastes rather than consumers’.

These devices will not do any more than their bulkier predecessors – in fact, research indicates that people are often willing to compromise performance for weight or size. That’s not because we can’t easily carry a decent-sized laptop; it’s because we want technology to make us feel cooler. It’s the gadget as fashion accessory.

We’re seeing that first in smaller products such as mobile phones and digital cameras – a whole range of lower-cost products has become either free or at least very cheap. While some, such as the Amazon Kindle, are classless and classic, mobile phones, in particular, are the devices that owners see as defining who they are – and you don’t have to ask just Apple.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that, when Nokia launched its most recent products, it made a big deal of the fact that users can change the back covers to a colour of their choice – this may not sound terribly sophisticated, but as the technology inside gets smarter, the appearance of the devices themselves is likely to become even more important. But what could be more personalisable than a phone whose entire external surface was a screen? As is so often the case, we may see frivolous ambitions inspiring innovation. In time, the idea of sticking stickers onto the outside of a case will seem as bizarrely old-fashioned as a mobile phone that needed a case to protect it from wear and tear.

That change, towards innovation being led by consumer products, has been a key trend of the past few years. When Apple’s iPhone introduced a new way of using mobile phones, it arrived not as a by-product of military or space technology: this was a device that grew out of a sense of new possibility made affordable by innovation and mass manufacture. We could suddenly afford a new category of gadget because real design genius sells, en masse.

Admittedly, if you want a real sense of where Britain stands in the international scheme of things, remember that Apple hasn’t made much of its Siri iPhone ‘personal assistant’ functionality accessible in the UK, Amazon’s iPad-rivalling Kindle Fire will be lucky to make it here for months and Microsoft has shops in America but nothing even in Europe, let alone these shores. But that’s the point at which it becomes clear that those internationally launched, designed and manufactured products may, in fact, work to our advantage: in the English-speaking world Britain is still a big enough player to justify some investment.

Over the next few years, we can look forward to still being close to the top rank of China, America, Japan and all the more established high-tech markets.

We are, at least, likely to see what the future looks like sooner than many of our European counterparts.

The culture of British technology, whether expressed in the colour of our mobiles or the icons we have on our home screens, is set to be shaped by innovators around the world. But because we are still in the top tier, there is real hope that we can be among the first to use the latest gadgets to look and listen, work and play, just as the writers of science fiction have long imagined we all would in the future.

Mat Warman is consumer technology editor at The Telegraph

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coveted 09

Words Kate Solomon Photography Luke Kirwan

head candy

Two parts Daft Punk, a dash of Speed Racer and a sprinkle of Tron were seemingly Sony’s design inspirations for its new

Personal 3D Viewer (also known as the HMZ-T1). Looking every bit the futuristic fashion accessory, the headset is more than just cyberpunk headgear; it houses two tiny flatscreens – one for each eye – which beam high-definition 3D straight to your retinas. The angled displays work together to give the impression of a 17.8m cinema screen that only you can see, while built-in headphones simulate surround sound to boot. Just as the Kindle made it possible to read trashy romantic fiction in public, the possibilities for indulging in guilty filmic pleasures using the Personal 3D Viewer are manifold. But it doesn’t stop there. Sony’s new gadget should also pique the interest of anyone into three-dimensional gaming – although gamers planning to rack up some serious hours on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 might want to bulk up those neck muscles first, as the Viewer weighs in at a hefty 420g. An incredible 3D cinema and virtual reality-style gaming behemoth in one neatly designed headset? Ladies and gentlemen, the future has arrived. £799; sony.co.uk

Kate Solomon writes for TechRadar.com

artefact

the plus side In a year that has seen Sky trumpeting two decades of its fêted Sports channels, the anniversary of one of its less celebrated (but arguably more significant) broadcast services has gone largely unnoticed.

Ten years ago, the satellite-TV provider added a ‘+’ to its set-top box logo to herald a new feature that allowed viewers to pause, rewind and – most importantly – record programmes on to a built-in hard drive. Even before you take into consideration the lacklustre state of the competition way back in 2001 (primarily NTL and ITV Digital), this new departure was what cliché-reliant critics lovingly refer to as a ‘game changer’. Suddenly there was an end to organising your social calendar around the week’s TV highlights, frantically searching for a blank VHS tape as you headed out the front door, arguing over who watches what when, or silently cursing your mother when she phones halfway through The West Wing. Like all good technology, it has made such an impression on its converts that it’s hard to fathom how we got by before its existence. Today, its core features remain unchanged (another hallmark of technological élan), though the new premium box now offers HD and 3D content as well as storing up to 740 hours of video. Sky may have unveiled other handy TV services over the past decade (Remote Record and Go, to name two), but that innocuous suffix remains its greatest achievement. From £20 per month; sky.com/shop/boxes

Words Henry Farrar-Hockley Photography Luke Kirwan

11

retro tech

old for new

Our thirst for retro technology may not be as good, or as harmless, as we think

Remember the Hipstamatic 100 camera? In 1982, the story goes, two brothers from Wisconsin, inspired by an old Russian plastic camera and the Kodak Instamatic, handmade their own range of 35mm, square-frame plastic devices.

Their crucial innovation was the ability to swap lenses so photos would have different filters. Only 157 cameras were ever made.

Fast-forward 30 years and Hipstamatic is one of the most popular photography applications for the iPhone. In 2010, the app, which allows users to apply virtual filters to their iPhone camera to give their photos an arch retro tinge, was downloaded 1.7 million times. On 22 November last year, the front page of the illustrious New York Times was splashed with four Hipstamatic photos, showing the conflict in Afghanistan.

If you don’t remember the original Hipstamatic, don’t beat yourself up: the camera never really existed. The app is an entirely modern technology, but one that is so dedicated to its mission of making the contemporary look classily dated

that it performed the same trick when it came to its own backstory.

Such fauxstalgia is curiously rife among new technologies: the beter modern devices get, the more we seem to yearn for the flawed formats of yesterday. Instagram, which doctors smartphone photos in a similar way to Hipstamatic but adds the ability to quickly share them like an image-based Twiter, now has 150 million photos – 15 are added every second by its five million users, who include Justin Bieber and Jamie Oliver. A recently launched app called Retro Recall randomly displays TV shows, music and fashion from the years between 1980 and today (among nostalgia trips in store for UK users: Reebok Pumps, Charlie Dimmock, B*witched, and Wolf from Gladiators).

In product design, Fujifilm’s X series dresses its digital cameras in retro garb – ‘vintage design aplenty’, as the company puts it – while iZotype Vinyl, a sound-processing program, will ‘create authentic vinyl simulation’, adding snap and crackle to modern audio. Even the most contemporary of gadgets, the iPhone, takes its design cues from the products Dieter Rams developed for Braun in the Fifies and Sixties.

The peculiar form of authenticity these retrofied objects offer is typical of a wider cultural trend. Simon Reynolds, whose book Retromania explores pop culture’s addiction to its own history, says: ‘The past has replaced the future in the imagination, particularly among young people.’ It is telling that Retro Recall advertises the ‘forgoten memories’ from the Eighties onwards – it’s not for those over 30.

The sense that things used to be beter is nothing new: ‘O tempora, o mores!’ indeed. But why is it that innovation itself comes in such a vintage flavour today? One reason may be that we are actually stagnating.

Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal, offered a bleak analysis in a recent essay. ‘When tracked against the admitedly lofy hopes of the Fifies and Sixties, technological progress

Above left: The Fujifilm X10 (£530, fujifilm-x.com) comes styled in retro garb

13

Words Tom Cheshire Photography Luke Kirwan has fallen short in many domains,’ he wrote. ‘The technology slowdown threatens not just our financial markets, but the entire modern political order.’ The space shutle now sits in a museum and with it, our technological imagination.

But our obsession with the past is actually enabled by recent hi-tech progress. The huge, common digital archive that is the web allows anyone to access any arcanum. This has led to the birth of a society-wide remix culture. The most dominant music trend of the past 10 years has been the emergence of mash-ups, where quite different songs are spliced together into a single track (Rick Astley and Beyoncé, anyone?).

Sharing and commenting, or even a Facebook ‘like’, is a crucial element of this: witness the posts underneath any YouTube video. Instagram offers retro filters, sure, but it also offers an engaging new way to share photos, which is why it has overtaken Hipstamatic, where you keep those nostalgicised photos to yourself; ‘Instagramification’ has emerged as the term used to describe the gratification when a phone notifies its user that ‘somebody liked your post’. This sharing functions as an internet-enabled demonstration of cultural capital.

Sharing remixes is not in itself unhealthy, though we should be worried about the Hipstamatic trend: it fetishises the past quite harmfully.

Such applications take perfectly good visual data and alter them with filters. The result is that we are weakening that common digital archive by polluting it with deliberately corrupted data. Take a look at pictures you took five years ago on your 5MP digital camera – they already look vintage. When people look back on the early 21st century, though, it will look like a mash-up of every decade before it. This will lead to a meta-retro era, which, in all likelihood, will hail the end of civilisation. You have been warned.

Tom Cheshire is associate editor of Wired

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fitness

arm forces A new wristband not only helps you get fitter and healthier, but promises results that could benefit the world

Make no mistake: the world is overweight. Recent research by scientists from Imperial College London, Harvard University and the World Health Organisation reveals that more than half a billion men and women (nearly one in nine adults) are now clinically obese.

And those same researchers are not pulling any punches, labelling the problem a ‘tsunami of obesity’ that is ‘a population emergency’.

It is bad news for our health, bad news for our healthcare (obesity bleeds the NHS of £4.2bn every year) and could even be bad news for our personal finances: in October, Denmark controversially introduced a ‘fat tax’ on any food containing more than 2.3 per cent saturated fat. But do not panic: our knights in shining Lycra – the fitness industry, worth £3.81bn in the UK alone – have leapt energetically into action, embracing new technology to get us fit. Newest to this booming fat-fighting market are wearable devices and customised smartphone apps, both of which quietly track how in shape you are while encouraging healthier living.

At the premium end, ‘lifestyle-management system’ Ki Fit (kiperformance.co.uk) is an armband that monitors calories burned, physical activity, sleep efficiency and other potentially life-lengthening data with a ‘clinically proven’ claim of shedding three times as much weight as any other fitness fad. Testimonials are glowing, although the armband is not pretty and

15

the price could induce a coronary all on its own: a Ki Fit plus a one-year subscription to an online activity manager will set you back £268.99.

Slim your needs and you could be better off as well as more alert. SleepCycle (69p, iTunes) is a best-selling app that monitors your sleep patterns and wakes you naturally during your lightest sleep phase.

This might seem trivial, but new research from the US and Australia points the finger at poor sleep as a culprit in weight gain, high blood pressure, depression and even early death. On the downside, this wake-up call is currently only available to iPhone and iPod Touch users.

Somewhere in the middle of these two options, there is a new contender: Jawbone UP (up.jawbone.com).

Best known for its Bluetooth mobile technology, Jawbone has, until now, delivered hands-free earpieces and wireless speakers to the world. Its new curveball is a passably stylish fitness wristband and app that monitors your lifestyle 24/7. Just slip on the rubber wristband and the built-in accelerometer logs your sleep quality, activity and even inactivity (read: bone-idle laziness, which it can helpfully minimise by vibrating a user-determined reminder to get up and get active).

There are three modes: ‘eat’ (normal everyday activity), ‘move’ (the sweaty stuff) and ‘sleep’ (shut-eye).

Each mode is enabled by pressing the small button on the end of the wristband and, via the free UP app, delivers detailed visual assessments of your activity, with points awarded for healthier living. And it’s here where, potentially, UP has the edge.

Log in to the app and, using the phone’s camera, ‘eat’ tracks the food and drink you are consuming (you have to input everything manually) and how you feel after each meal, and can then custom-build a diet based on your needs. With ‘move’, UP’s accelerometer uploads crucial data – pace and intensity included – to the app to evaluate just how hard you are pushing yourself, while the snoozing stats processed by ‘sleep’ show how restful or restless your time in bed is (a future update promises to include brain and body regeneration percentages).

Cleverer still is the app’s social element: UP-wearing partners, friends and relatives in your network can share their progress, view yours and set up challenges, as can gyms, personal trainers and charities.

In theory, there is nothing to stop UP users across the globe fundraising by collaboratively walking their share of the Earth’s 40,075.16 km circumference.

Disappointingly, given Jawbone’s heritage, UP is not wireless. For the 10- to 30-second data sync, you will need to plug it into a phone (iPhone only for now).

And it is splash-resistant but not waterproof, so swimming is out. Better news is that the battery life is 10 days, the price is not horrific (£79.99) and those clever social challenges could persuade more of us to participate in a healthier lifestyle. Wheeze a sigh of relief? Maybe.

Gavin Brett is a lifestyle and technology writer

Words Gavin Brett Illustration Jack Hughes

16 home

pump and grind

The rise of commercial-style espresso makers means coffee connoisseurs can now be baristas at home Words Chris Haslam Photography Paul Zak

When 007 nonchalantly prepared a coffee from his La Pavoni in the 1973 classic Live and Let Die, domestic espresso machines were a luxury beyond all but the most sophisticated of households. Fastforward 30-odd years and you will find close to 90 coffee makers in John Lewis alone, with prices starting at just under £60.

But not all espresso makers are created equal and, as our taste for quality coffee rises, so does the appeal of the classic Italian machine. Not only do the polished finish and utilitarian valves and levers blend with a current renaissance in all things mid-century modern, but in a world of touch controls, colour screens and piano-black plastic there is something rewarding about a beautiful object that takes time, patience and skill to master.

With the latest digital bean-t0-cup machines, anyone can be a push-buton barista, but to produce a quality coffee from a manual machine requires an intimate knowledge of grinding, tamping, extraction,

water temperature and milk frothing. It is an art all but lost to the high-street coffee chains, but one that still overflows with good old-fashioned Italian cool.

Designed to produce the very finest espresso, the Rocket Espresso Gioto Evoluzione is made entirely from commercial-grade components. Built from heavy-gauge solid stainless steel – it weighs a worktop-testing 23kg – it has a large nickelplated solid-copper boiler and heat exchanger that continuously generates steam, so you can draw an espresso and prepare milk without delay. And thanks to an insulated steam arm, just the tip gets hot, meaning easier cleaning and no burnt-on milk residue. With a more-than-generous 2.9-litre water tank, it won’t need regular filling, but you do have the option of plumbing it in to provide a constant water supply. The drip tray also has a water pipe connection, signalling an end to overflowing.

But it is the combination of the adjustable vibration-free rotary pump, commercially rated pressure switch for maintaining temperature and weighty 4.05kg brewing head that extracts the maximum aroma from your coffee to create the perfect espresso with an unbeatably smooth crema.

Mastering the Evoluzione takes patience, as will cleaning and maintenance, but behind the old-school construction and traditional operation beats a thoroughly modern heart. Microprocessors control the boiler and water-reservoir levels, while the 1200W long-life element – it will last five times longer than most domestic machines – heats up in seconds.

The quest to create the first commercialquality home espresso machine began in the Seventies, when Friedrich Berenbruch and Ennio Berti formed ECM (Espresso Company Milano). Their original Gioto machine has since taken on legendary status, but when ECM decided in 2007 to concentrate on commercial equipment, New Zealanders Jeff Kennedy and Andrew Meo, and Italian Daniele Berenbruch – son of Friedrich – saw their chance to bring back a classic, and Rocket Espresso was born.

In the years since, the brand has grown to represent the best in timeless style and unbeatable performance. A recent collaboration with bike aficionados Rapha has further cemented Rocket at the cuting edge. While quality does not come cheap, if you are serious about design and don’t want to have to setle for ‘just’ coffee, you’ll not find beter.

Rocket Espresso Gioto Evoluzione, £1,434; nudeespresso.com Chris Haslam is a freelance writer specialising in home and interiors

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The result is a smooth, buttery espresso with a distinctively rich aroma, perfectly suited to dribbling through a stove-top coffee pot or steaming through a high-pressure espresso machine such as the Giotto.

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timekeeping

every second counts In an age of unprecedented accuracy in the measurement of time, GMT’s moment in the sun may have passed

19

average, once every 18 months. Since the first leap second was added in 1972, there have been 24 leap seconds, adding nearly half a minute to the life of a 39-year-old.

This adjusted time is known as Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC. It may seem hard to fathom why any of this matters, but, in fact, it matters a great deal. Modern life is hugely dependent on atomic clocks and the fastidiousness of the men in white coats that tend them.

The National Grid, mobile phone networks and satellite TV signals all rely on atomic time, as does your satnav. Satellites used in GPS calculate distance based on time – accuracy becomes imperative because every microsecond is equivalent to roughly 300 metres. So far, the optical lattice clock in Tokyo has only run over short periods of time, but such is its pinpoint accuracy that it may yet be used to predict earthquakes.

A recent proposal by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recommended that UTC replace Greenwich Mean Time – the global standard since the International Meridian Conference in 1884, when 25 nations chose a Prime Meridian. Greenwich’s Royal Observatory was adopted as zero degrees longitude and the world’s time zones have been set by it ever since.

But, should the ITU’s proposal be accepted,

If you are the type to complain trains are

It was called the Caesium I and was

the guardianship of the world’s time

always late, the TV repairman is never

accurate to one second every 300 years.

would transfer to the International Bureau

on time and punctuality has gone out the

This new precision meant that, at

in January will decide the outcome.

the 13th General Conference of Weights

less than pleased to learn the earth is

and Measures in 1967 (imagine the after-

running a little behind, too.

parties), the definition of one second was

mechanical watch industry, for which

This debate is at odds with the

set as ‘9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation

atomic accuracy is fantasy. A watch passed

24 hours in a day. One hour is 60 minutes

corresponding to the transition between

by the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing

long and a minute contains 60 seconds.

the two hyperfine levels of the ground

Institute need only be accurate to between

That adds up to 86,400 seconds a day,

state of the caesium-133 atom’.

minus four and plus six seconds a day.

By common consent, there are

and, for most of us, that is a sufficiently accurate measure. However, because of friction caused by tides, the earth is spinning more slowly on its axis, making the 24-hour solar day ever so slightly inaccurate.

When this was first discovered in the early part of last century, it threw the work of generations of astronomers and horologists into question – if you can’t tell

Above, from top: the Casio G-Shock MTG-1500B, £500 (g-shock.co.uk); the caesium trap region and detection chamber of the world’s most accurate clock, at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Surrey

time accurately by observing planetary movement, what do you do?

Today, the NPL is still home to the

Patek Philippe, often considered the most

world’s most accurate clock, the NPL-CsF2

stringent of watchmakers, applies the

– accurate to one second every 138 million

Patek Philippe Seal to its watches, which

years – but it faces some competition.

guarantees accuracy to between minus

In August, researchers at the University

three and plus two seconds a day.

of Tokyo unveiled an optical lattice clock

On the other side of the world,

that observes a million atoms at once,

Japanese electronics giant Casio uses

instead of one, giving it 100 quadrillionth

atomic technology in its wristwatches.

of a second accuracy. That means accurate

Its G-Shock MTG-1500B has Multi-Band

to the 17th decimal place.

6 Solar Atomic Timekeeping and

The difference between the lengths

communicates with six global transmission

of a solar day and an atomic day is about

stations to automatically adjust the

defining unit of the 20th century – the

0.0025 of a second, equating to a second

position of its analogue hands every hour.

atom. Scientists established that the

every 400 days. Not that any of us will

Perfect if you run your life to atomic levels

movement between an atom and its

be around, but, assuming solar time were

of punctuality – but perhaps overkill if

left unaltered, eventually day would

you’re just waiting for the 07.52 to Waterloo.

The answer came from the

orbiting electrons is highly stable and harnessed it to create an atomic clock.

The first accurate model was built at the NPL

of Weights and Measures in Paris. A vote

window with punctuation, you may be

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, southwest London, in 1955.

Words Robin Swithinbank Photography Paul Zak

become night and vice versa.

To counter this, the world’s atomic

Robin Swithinbank writes for Shortlist

clocks (more than 230 clocks exist, in

and QP, and edits the luxury watch

65 laboratories) add a leap second, on

magazine Calibre

It’s stunning, I’m thinking of designing the whole room around it.

Samsung’s award winning Series 8 LED Smart TV is the pinnacle of design and technology. Discover the new way to experience the future of TV today. www.samsung.com/uk/D8000

GIFTS Get up to £200 CASHBACK and £50 worth of the latest streamed movie releases, when you buy selected Samsung Smart TVs*. Promotion valid from 1 November - 24 December 2011, participating retailers only, whilst stocks last. Pick up a leaflet in store or go to www.samsung.com/uk/smarttvgifts © 2011 Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Screen image simulated. Internet connection required. Subscription charge applies to some movies on demand services. Samsung Smart TV features vary by model. Web browser not available on D5520, D6000 and D6900 TVs. *Terms and Conditions apply. Available on purchases made between 1 November - 24 December 2011 on qualifying models only, visit: www.samsung.com/uk/smarttvgifts for full terms and conditions.

IO VISUAL BR AUD AN ST D BE

AWA RDS 2011

PICTURE THIS S p o r t S l o v e r o r f i l m f a n , e c o - wa r r i o r o r e a r ly a d o p t e r , t h e S e S u p e r i o r t v S h av e t h e S p e c i f i c at i o n S t o m at c h . a f t e r a l l , i t ’ S n ot j u S t w h at yo u watc h , b u t h o w yo u watc h i t

PhotograPhy CHRIS BROOKS

The adrenaline junkie (previous page) Sony Bravia KDL-46NX723 Enjoy live sport without the usual picture blurring, thanks to Sony’s Motionflow 200Hz frame technology. £1,500; sony.co.uk

The technophile (above) Samsung UE46D8000 Smart 3D LED A super-slim smart panel that boasts internet, apps, active 3D and wireless connectivity. £1,849; samsung.co.uk

The environmentalist Panasonic Viera TX-L37DT30 This model’s eco credentials come courtesy of automatic brightness control and a lowenergy LCD screen. £1,199; panasonic.co.uk

00

The movie buff Philips Cinema 21:9 Gold Series Smart LED This 50in Tv is unique in that it emulates the screen ratio found in cinemas, thus avoiding the ‘letterbox’ effect. £1,939; philips.co.uk

Digital operator PaTrick SchuTTler assistant Davey clarke post-proDuction hemPSTeaD may

The aesthete Loewe Individual 46 Compose 3D The acme of design, you can even customise this set’s finish, speakers and stand to your specification. From £4,100; loewe-uk.com

the guide 27

on the move

When it comes to portable computers, the choice is as extensive as the specifications

lapTop The concept A PC you can take with you.

Words Henry Farrar-Hockley

The background Also referred to as

Illustration Brett Ryder

a ‘notebook’, this category’s origins had the business community in mind, but has since evolved to become a flexible computing solution for all. The Osborne 1 (1981) is credited as the first massproduced example of a laptop, but, at just shy of 11kg and with only an optional, external one-hour battery to power it on the go, the device’s practical use was questionable. In the interim, manufacturers have successfully utilised ever-improving components in pursuit

SmarT mobile device

of the optimum balance of portable

The concept A giant mobile phone, or

performance, screen size and weight,

tiny tablet, depending on your outlook

usurping the traditional desktop

– though we prefer the term ‘megaphone’.

computer in the process.

The background Last year, computing

Ideal for hot-deskers, students and

giant Dell brought us the Android-based

those bereft of substantial office space.

‘Mini’ to exploit an as-yet unexplored

Not ideal for carrying with you 24/7;

niche in the portables sector, though

although usually compact enough to

the British public was seemingly not

keep in your handbag – or manbag

yet ready for a five-inch-screen gadget

– sleeker, more convenient alternatives

that was neither a conventional mobile

are now available for frequent travellers.

nor a fully fledged tablet. (In short, it

The reality Dell Inspiron 14z, from

was a case of right concept, wrong time.)

£499; dell.com/uk

This month, however, Samsung has

Typical screen size 13 to 16 inches.

reinvigorated the category with its polyglot Galaxy Note, under the moniker ‘smart mobile device’. Besides the

TableT

aforementioned phone/tablet

The concept A pared-down laptop

characteristics, it employs a revamped

without a keyboard, mouse, or the

stylus to afford it some innovative

accompanying bulk, which utilises the

creative applications, such as

power of touch.

a virtual scrapbook.

The background GRiD Systems’

Ideal for tablet functionality you can

GRiDPad was the first working example

(just about) slip into a coat pocket.

of a tablet computer, way back in 1988

Not ideal for holding it against your

(followed shortly by the magnificently

face to make and receive calls, unless

named Wang Laboratories Freestyle).

you are happy to look like an investment

The GRiDPad was devised for employees

banker circa 1983.

in the healthcare and law enforcement

The reality Samsung Galaxy Note, price

industries who needed computers they

varies with contract; samsung.co.uk

could operate easily while standing.

Typical screen size 5 to 6 inches.

Fast-forward 22 years, and Apple retooled the tablet concept to make it a multimedia-focused device for social use. The rest you know.

Ideal for anyone with a short attention span. Tablet computers combine printed word, video, music, internet and gaming with a generous battery life to keep users indefinitely entertained, whether they are in their living room, on a plane or sitting on a beach.

Not ideal for watching a movie while striding blindly through railway termini – this is not an acceptable application of multitasking.

The reality Apple iPad 2, from £399; apple.com/uk Typical screen size 7 to 10 inches.

Watching a movie while striding blindly through railway termini is not an acceptable application of multitasking

28 the guide

SmartphoNe

For 21st-century consumers, the smartphone has become an organiser-cumencyclopediacum-Walkman

Netbook

deSkNote

The concept A simpler, smaller and

The concept A PC that offers the full

cheaper laptop.

capabilities of a desktop computer while

The background Although its genesis

vaguely remaining portable. The desknote

can be traced back to Psion’s clamshell

is also known as a desktop replacement

dot matrix Personal Digital Assistants

computer (DTR).

(PDAs) in the Nineties, the netbook

The background While the pioneers

as we know it was an unexpected

of laptop design such as the Osborne 1

offshoot of the One Laptop Per Child

were as much desknotes as laptops,

project for developing nations that

this bulky category’s introduction really

was founded in Miami in 2005. Laptop

occurred in July 2004 when Toshiba

later that Ericsson coined the term

makers quickly realised the market

unveiled its Qosmio range of high-

‘smartphone’ to describe their new

potential of stripped-down laptops

performance laptops. Typical features of

executive device. Loaded with fax

aimed at consumers happy to sacrifice

the early models included built-in TV

functionality and a full QWERTY

processing power for a lower price tag;

tuners and HD-DVD players. Today’s

keyboard, they christened their futuristic

the popular Asus Eee PC (the three

models boast glasses-free

communicator ‘Penelope’. Today,

Es stand for ‘Easy to learn, Easy to

3D widescreen displays and recordable

smartphones have become both

work, Easy to play’) is a prime example.

Blu-ray drives.

ubiquitous and affordable, a personal

Netbooks are decreasingly commonplace,

Ideal for gamers, hackers and graphic

organiser-cum-encyclopedia-cum-

however, due to the advent of the more

designers, not to mention accountants

Walkman for 21st-century consumers.

convenient and covetous tablet format.

who need to ‘relocate’ at short notice.

(They have better-sounding names, too,

Ideal for web browsing and basic

Not ideal for transporting without

such as Titan and Storm.)

academic tasks.

the use of appropriately sized wheeled

Ideal for scrutinising PDFs and Word

Not ideal for big hands – you’ll feel like

luggage or, better still, a car. (All that

documents on your commute, though –

the Hulk trying to operate a digital

desktop performance adds a significant

note to Whitehall employees – your

calculator watch.

amount of weight.)

fellow passengers can read that FYEO

The reality Toshiba NB500 series, from

The reality Toshiba Qosmio X770, from

memo over your shoulder.

£230; toshiba.co.uk

£1,699; toshiba.co.uk

Not ideal for penning your next novel,

Typical screen size 7 to 10 inches.

Typical screen size 17 to 18 inches.

The concept A mobile that also provides email, internet, apps and Office functionality – all courtesy of a fasterthan-your-average processing chip and microscopic keyboard.

The background In 1992, IBM introduced ‘Simon’, an enhanced handset aimed at business users, which boasted a calendar, electronic mail and even a full touchscreen, but it wasn’t until five years

unless you favour typing on a miniature touchscreen using only your thumbs.

The reality BlackBerry Bold 9900, price varies with contract; uk.blackberry.com Typical screen size 3.5 to 4 inches.

Ultrabook The concept A Windows rival to the svelte, powerful and popular Apple MacBook Air. The background Not just a category but a trademark, the Ultrabook concept is the brainchild of chip manufacturer Intel who – piqued at Apple cornering the slimline, sexy laptop market – enticed PC manufacturers to create high-spec, wafer-thin portables by injecting £188m into an Ultrabook development fund earlier this year. The first Ultrabook portables are already on sale, and – in terms of their design and specification, at least – the early signs are promising. power processing in a lightweight design, and is willing to pay extra to get both in spades.

Not ideal for MacBook worshippers; you’d only complain it’s a knock-off of Apple’s acclaimed aluminium portable – and in a sense, you would be right.

The reality ASUS Zenbook UX21, £849; zenbook.asus.com Typical screen size 11 to 13 inches.

GUTTER CREDIT IN HERE ALL CAPS

Ideal for anyone who yearns for high-

30 cameras

small wonder The latest addition to the digital SLR family is so new it doesn’t even have a name yet.

But make no mistake – you’ll soon be cooing over this compact system camera Words jonAthAn mArgolis PhotograPhy luke kirWAn

One of the oddities of modern photography is that the digital SLR (DSLR), which you might expect to be smaller than its mechanical predecessors – great 35mm SLRs such as the Nikon F, the Nikkormat, the Minolta SRT-101 and various Canons - has grown much bigger.

Even lower-end DSLRs are positively elephantine, and the more serious and professional the camera, the more it takes on the proportions of a food processor. And the interchangeable lenses of high-end DSLRs are enormous.

As DSLRs, especially entry-level models, have become cheaper, with Nikons and Canons selling for as litle as £300, they have become more popular – but they still look both cumbersome and ridiculous.

There are reasons why DSLRs are so big. They don’t have the film-winding mechanism SLRs had, but they do have to accommodate big bateries, viewing screens and dozens of butons, albeit ones that few users need.

There is also, though, one suspects, an element of psychology involved; somehow, a big fat camera has come to suggest you fancy yourself more as a photographer than your average tourist holding a tiny compact at arm’s length. But, whether you’re a happy snapper who wants to take beter holiday pictures or, like me, a keen amateur with professional pretensions, help is at hand from a terrific new breed of camera that is fast proliferating.

The new genre doesn’t even have a name yet. It’s unofficially known as a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera, a compact system camera or simply a micro, and is, in effect, a miniature DSLR without the space-hogging mirror and prism arrangement of the normal DSLR – but, crucially, with an electronic or optical viewfinder and interchangeable lenses in tiny guises. Size, or lack of it, is all with a MILC (my acronym). Most models offer an optional ‘pancake’ (as in flat) lens, which makes the camera prety much pocketable.

You will know the MILC primarily as the £450-upwards Olympus PEN series, which started the trend, but there are other superb MILCs – by Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Nikon, Pentax and soon, according to

A micro guide to the mirrorless interchAngeAble lens cAmerA (milc) From top: sony neX-5n, around £560. Sony’s NEX range starts cheaper than this and goes up to more than £1,100 for the NEX 7, but this stylish mid range has many pro features; sony.co.uk olympus pen e-pl3, from £550. The latest from the genre’s originator – a great mix of quality, feel and convenience; olympus.co.uk nikon 1 V1, from £830. The newest – a latecomer from the premier pro brand. Looks to be a top contender; nikon.co.uk sAmsung nX200, from £700. Samsung, a previously middling brand, is now on a roll with all products and this ambitious camera is a serious competitor; samsung.co.uk pentAX Q, from £600. The smallest MILC by some way, and a remarkable specification – but with a necessarily small sensor; pentax.co.uk pAnAsonic lumiX dmc-g3, around £470.

Superlative image quality and feel in the hand, and one of the few MILCs to resemble a more traditional DSLR; panasonic.co.uk

rumour, Canon, the resurgent Fuji and even the mighty Leica – all jockeying for position as smallest-of-breed.

The holy grail for the new form of camera is compactness, but all the manufacturers are striving feverishly to out-do one another with toothsome technical innovations. The latest wheeze is on-screen touch controls, which Panasonic pioneered in its Lumix range; these are at the clever-clever end of the scale, and although the cameras produce superb photos, it’s less impressive when your nose adjusts the exposure by touching the screen when your eye is up to the viewfinder.

The quality of the photos you achieve with a MILC is far beter than with a compact, although fractionally less than with a DSLR. One price to pay for its compact form is that the interchangeable lenses aren’t as fast because of not having as wide an aperture; another is that a MILC can’t shoot continuous frames as rapidly.

The all-important sensor of a MILC camera, which is as much as eight times bigger than on a typical compact, is, at the same time, smaller than that in a kitchen-appliance-sized DSLR. You are, nonetheless, unlikely to be able to tell the difference between the photos from the new breed and those from a traditional DSLR. Plus, because it’s so compact, you are more likely to have a MILC with you when a great opportunity presents itself.

‘Form factor’, to use the industry expression – how a camera feels and handles - is all when choosing a MILC. I treasure compactness above all, so find the top-of-themarket Sony NEX range a litle unbalanced and odd for my taste, the lenses too heavy and protruding for the slim body, like a sort of photographic Jordan. Olympus tends to be ahead of the game – afer all, it started it – and its new E-PL3 feels superb. The Pentax Q is the smallest around, but the sensor is too small for an enthusiastic photographer.

The latest entrant, the Nikon 1 V1 and its sister, the J1, look as if they may set new standards. Watch this space.

Jonathan Margolis is a leading consumer technology writer and the author of A Brief History of Tomorrow

slug here 00

fairPLAY

Video games are starting to take on Hollywood as a wellspring of old-fashioned, matinee-idol role models everyone can aspire to

Words JEREMY WHITE

Heard the one about how video games corrupt the young and ruin lives? Or how prolonged playing can turn into addiction? Or how the impressionable can fall under the spell of a fantastical virtual reality so alluring that they lose the will to engage in this humdrum existence? I’m sure you have. As with most pastimes, if you look hard enough, there will always be more than a few examples to make a seemingly compelling case that it’s a corruptive influence or, at best, holds no moral value whatsoever.

Gaming is a sof target, for obvious reasons: it’s ordinarily a solitary pursuit that doesn’t exactly polish social skills – the games ofen require you to destroy things or shoot as many foes as you can, preferably in the head, and so on. But something is happening in the medium that might stop the usual line of atack or at least give detractors pause for thought before they launch another salvo of doom-mongering. Games developers are producing more and more positive male role models as the lead characters in their titles, heroes with qualities worthy of aspiration – ones parents might actually be happy for their offspring to assimilate.

A decade ago, the best-selling video-games chart was noticeably devoid of such protagonists; the top console title was Rockstar Games’ Grand Thef Auto III. An open-world adventure chronicling the exploits of escaped bank robber Claude, it quickly became a target of MPs and campaigners for allegedly corrupting the young through its violent – and occasionally sexual – content.

Today, it is a different story. Over the past three years,

more overtly moralistic character-led games have accounted for millions of sales and made a lasting connection with the gaming generation, from Heavy Rain’s Ethan Mars (a divorced architect blackmailed into completing awful tasks to free his kidnapped son) to Ezio Auditore, a cocky aristocrat turned defender of Renaissance Italy against a corrupt Templar order in the Assassin’s Creed series.

One of the most telling examples is 2010’s Red Dead Redemption – ironically, also a Rockstar Games title, and a paean to the Western genre. It not only starred one of 21st-century pop culture’s most remarkable role models in John Marston, a reformed outlaw looking to right wrongs and save his soul, but also featured a morality meter, which cumulatively rewards players for just deeds.

(Conversely, unlawful acts provide a few outlaw benefits, but largely make life on the virtual prairie a misery.)

It’s true that run-and-gun, muscle-bound misogynists still crop up from time to time – the return of the trash-talking Arnie-alike Duke Nukem springs to mind. This character’s paper-thin moral fibre is evidenced by his numerous classy catchphrases, such as ‘I go where I please, and I please where I go!’. But it should be noted that, owing to various corporate and programming disasters, his latest outing, Duke Nukem Forever, took an unprecedented 12 years to finish and when it was eventually released back in June, felt anachronistic and out of touch with the current gaming landscape.

The current pixilated poster boy for responsible roguery is without question treasure hunter Nathan

video gaming

Drake, from Naughty Dog’s hugely successful Uncharted series. He’s good-looking, honest (as plunderers of antiquities go) and charming. Doesn’t sound such a riveting character, does he? But series writer Amy Hennig has somehow threaded the needle, and Nolan North, the actor who voices Drake (as well as improvising many of the quips and put-downs), is deeply proud of the character’s popularity. ‘Nathan is a great role model,’ he explains. ‘He’s a good person, but flawed like most of us.

That’s one of the things that make him so acceptable to so many. In his relationships with the other characters in the game, there’s an empathy and vulnerability. And you’ll never see Drake taking pleasure in hurting someone.’

Richard Lemarchand, the Uncharted series’ lead designer, goes further. ‘We feel a responsibility at Naughty Dog to the treatment we give to violence in video games.

Hiting the right tone is something important to every storyteller, and it’s something we think about a great deal,’ he argues. ‘I think that, when it comes to male role models, there’s been an evolution across the media landscape, not just in games, towards characters who are more vulnerable and less traditionally masculine.’

He could be right. You’re more likely to see an emotionally complicated Jason Bourne figure puting a corrupt government agency to rights at the movies this weekend than witness a Major Alan ‘Dutch’ Schaefer ordering everyone to ‘get to da choppa!’ while he beats the hell out of one ugly dreadlocked Predator. And, in 2013, you may well be seeing Drake himself at the cinema, if

There has been an evolution towards more vulnerable, less traditionally masculine characters Above, left to right: Nathan Drake shows evil his heels in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception; Ezio Auditore in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations; John Marston in Red Dead Redemption; Drake lays on the square-jawed integrity

33

Columbia Pictures’ proposed adaptation of the Uncharted games comes to fruition.

Another crucial factor in the increase in virtuous characters in games is the players themselves. The rise of RPG (role-playing game) elements in the dominant first-person-shooter genre means that you, not some anonymous programmer in a studio thousands of miles away, decide whether to fly to the rescue or not, execute a traitor or be merciful, destroy a city or rebuild. You become directly responsible for the moral arc of your character and, in turn, the outcome of the story. Faced with such choices, it may surprise you to discover that the vast majority choose the way of the force, rather than venturing down the path that leads to the dark side.

What’s more, the sheer hours involved in playing titles with RPG influences such as these (I spent more than 50 hours saving the universe on BioWare’s Mass Effect 2 and, yes, I was largely a paragon of virtue) means they connect with gamers in a way TV or cinema can never hope to equal. You just can’t get as emotionally invested in a series of Lewis. And, if you have, shame on you.

So, the next time your offspring picks on someone smaller or weaker, or – if things have really gone awry – decides to ‘acquire’ some free trainers at 3am from the local JD Sports, you know what to do: sit them down in front of their PlayStation. You’ll wish you’d done it sooner.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Sony) is out now on PS3 Jeremy White is technology and gaming editor of Esquire.

34 cars

sound investment Range Rover’s new compact SUV, Evoque, is promoted, appropriately enough, by pint-sized Victoria Beckham. Yet it is its partnership with a world-renowned in-car audio expert that is really set to make waves

Words Gavin Green

When Range Rover enlisted the size-zero Victoria Beckham to promote its new size-zero model, it was a major publicity departure.

Land Rover, keeper of the Range Rover name, traditionally uses meaty outdoorsmen or rugby stars as the faces of its brand. Yet the Evoque is clearly a different cut of Range Rover – it is smaller and aimed at urban folk whose off-road exploits are likely to be restricted to puting a couple of alloys up on the kerb when parking.

Its target market is, in good part, female. So Mrs Beckham made PR sense. Especially in growing markets such as China, the US and Russia, where brand Beckham is not quite so ubiquitous as Beckhamed-out Britain.

Yet while Mrs Beckham is indeed now a ‘design consultant’, advising on colour and trim (a limited-edition Victoria Beckham model is also possible), the Evoque should instead be celebrated for enlisting the design help of another world-renowned – though far less publicly acknowledged – expert. It is one of the first cars in which a leading hi-fi company had a significant hand in development. The goal, of course, was to deliver an unmatched musical experience, which can’t be done if you simply ‘bolt on’ someone else’s proprietary audio system. As hi-fi partner – rather than mere supplier – Land Rover turned to Cambridgeshirebased Meridian, one of the world’s most revered manufacturers of high-end audio and video equipment.

It’s a long-term commitment: upcoming Land Rover, Range Rover and Jaguar models will all have interiors with design and engineering input from Meridian.

The Range Rover/Meridian partnership is unusual. Typically, car company designers serve up fixed points for the location of speakers and amplifiers (and, typically, they are not high-priority fitings). Audio specialists then tender for the job of supplying hardware, winning mostly because they can provide kit at the cheapest price. They incorporate their system into the car company’s rigid template. Litle wonder the cabins of most cars are musical horrors.

There have been successful atempts in the past to involve leading audio companies during car development. The first Lexus, the LS400 saloon of 1989, had an excellent

Nakamichi sound system that made those in contemporary Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar sound like ratly old cassete players. It may well have been the biggest single jump in car music quality in audio history.

Bang & Olufsen has also done excellent work for Audi. Its current 19-speaker, 1,348-wat system in the top-range A8 is one of the best car hi-fis around. As part of the theatre, I love the way the litle acoustic lenses elegantly rise from the top of the dashboard when the system is turned on. Future Jaguar and Land Rover models – in which Meridian will be involved from the very outset in design – will take car audio integration another step further.

‘The car environment is a challenge,’ says Graham Landick, senior loudspeaker design engineer, and responsible for Meridian’s car consultancy projects. ‘The good thing is, you know exactly what the environment is and where people are siting – with home hi-fi systems, you could be making equipment for a small farmhouse or for a large Manhatan apartment, and it’s tough to ensure it works well for all acoustic environments. The flipside is that, acoustically, it’s a nightmare.’ Glass is a particular problem. Because it is reflective and hard, mid-range and high-frequency sounds bounce off it in a very uncontrolled manner.

Leather upholstery and bodies, on the other hand mop up sound, just like in a full concert hall.

The Tri-field surround-staging technology, used on the top-of-therange 825-wat, 17-speaker Meridianequipped Evoques, helps to overcome the problems inherent in a car cabin by looking at the music intelligently and directing it optimally. Many other upmarket vehicle sound systems use the rear speakers as surround sound for the front, prioritising the driver, then the front passenger and finally the rear passengers – ofen children.

If you sit in the back, it can be an overpowering experience. With the top-specification Meridian-equipped Evoque, you get exactly the same sound, no mater where you sit. ‘We’re really proud of that,’ says Landick.

The 825-wat system is a £995 option. A (still very good) Meridian 380-wat, 11-speaker system is fited as standard. As well as audio, there is also top-spec visual entertainment

on offer. Digital and satellite TV is available, there is DVD playback, and rear passengers can have 8in video screens in the front headrests, touch-screen remote control and digital infrared wireless headphones.

As well as the Evoque, Meridian also worked on the new McLaren MP4-12C sports car. ‘McLaren gave us carte blanche as to where we could position the speakers,’ says Landick.

‘We also provided the speakers and amplifiers.’ (On the Evoque, they are made by suppliers to a Jaguar Land Rover template, to Meridian’s design.)

‘Before McLaren designed anything, they came to see us. It was more of a challenge than the Evoque. Mostly, this is because it’s a high-speed sports car and it gets noisy. The dynamic profiling of the sound system is very intelligent. When you put your foot down, it senses the speed and acceleration, including measuring the throtle position, and the volume and frequency change automatically.’ On the Evoque, microphones measure real-time cabin volume and the system adjusts itself.

‘What the Evoque has is very, very close to an ideal home audio system’

Opposite: the Evoque Coupé Dynamic.

Above, clockwise from top: the Evoque’s interior cabin; a Meridian speaker; the touchscreen interface

Meridian’s involvement in the Evoque’s development began afer the basic interior styling was signed off. With future Jaguar Land Rover cars, it will be involved from the outset, as with the McLaren. ‘We’re starting at the ground floor, rather than simply geting involved when the important work is done. So, in future, we’ll have more weight when it comes to internal engineering decisions.’

How good is it? ‘What this car has is very, very close to an ideal home audio system,’ says Landick.

He offers a tip on how to make the cabin sound even beter. The Evoque, like many modern cars, can be ordered with a vast glass panoramic roof, to brighten the cabin. Most buyers will choose it. ‘Sound quality is reduced when the roof is open. Open roofs are acoustic disasters.’ And if you want to boost quality a tad?

‘Close the curtain to the glass roof.’

As well as the aforementioned Tri-field surround-staging technology, the Evoque’s top-range sound system features room correction (which reduces low-frequency standing waves in the cabin, preventing boomy one-note bass), the Audyssey MultEQ XT audio tuning system, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, the DTS neo-6 decoder and Meridian’s ‘dithering’ technology, as well as many other terms and acronyms to confuse the layman but impress the audiophile.

Afer hearing Landick play Meridian’s multi-genre test disc on the Evoque’s sound system, I can report that Paul McCartney’s acoustic guitar was crystal clear in ‘Yesterday’ (you could sense those fingers strumming the steel strings and tapping the body of his Epiphone Texan guitar) and Pavaroti’s vibrato was haunting in ‘Nessun Dorma’.

Adele also sounded big and powerful.

‘It’s good to be able to visualise the musician,’ says Landick.

Landick signs off all Meridian automotive work. ‘Naturally, we measure everything very carefully and very scientifically. But the final sign-off has to be by ear. It’s not so much that I have golden ears, but we need consistency. It’s always beter if one person does that.’

Range Rover Evoque, from £27,955; landrover.com Gavin Green is a motoring writer and consultant

Man about town Simon wears foldaway Urbanears Plattan headphones in dark grey, from ÂŁ50; urbanears.com.

Jacket, Billy Reid. Shirt, Ben Sherman. Hat, Borsalino

Fitness fanatic Charlotte wears adjustable, waterresistant Philips ActionFit Sports earphones, £20; philips.co.uk.

Men’s cardigan, Z Zegna. Dress, Richard Chai Love

all ears whatever your proclivity, there’s a pair of headphones tailored for your particular listening pleasure photography BEAU GREALY fashion editor ALLAN KENNEDY

iPhone aficionado Dianna wears tanglefree Jays a-Jays Four earphones with remote control and microphone, £50; jays.se.

Men’s jacket and trousers, both Acne.

Top, Phillip Lim

Audiophile Andrew wears high-ďŹ delity Grado PS500 monitoring headphones, ÂŁ700; gradolabs.com.

Jacket, Paul Smith.

Shirt, Marc Jacobs

Globetrotter Sydney Rose wears Alfred Dunhill x Denon noise-isolating headphones with flight case (not shown), £650; dunhill.com.

Men’s jacket, Phillip Lim

Minimalist Shaun wears secureloop-design Bowers & Wilkins C5 earphones, ÂŁ149; bowers-wilkins.co.uk.

Jacket, Joseph Abboud.

Shirt, Paul Smith Art direction Ciara Walshe Models Andrew Wren Charlotte Kidd Dianna Lunt Shaun Hartas Sydney Rose Thomas, Simon Howell

42 in detail

star quality At £5,700, Vertu’s latest phone is a significant investment. So, what do you get for your money?

Photography Paul Zak

1 The screen The Constellation’s display is made of a single, hardened crystal created from a vat of molten pure sapphire at over 2000°C, then grown for 15 days to ensure no structural or aesthetic defects. It is then cut, ground and polished with a diamond machine – diamond being one of the few materials that is tough enough to scratch

5

sapphire. The polishing process alone uses state-of-the-art analysis techniques such as atom-force microscopy and interferometry to assess the screen’s quality. The result is a virtually damage-proof display that will endure years of use.

2 InnovaTIon Each traditional handset function has been evaluated then refined, be it the built-in 8MP

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camera – which calls upon enhanced depth-offield (EDOF) technology, a heptagon lens and twin LED flash to ensure sharper, faster, better-lit photography – or its ringtones which, rather than relying on the usual medley of insect sounds, comprise music scored exclusively for Vertu by Oscar-winning composer Dario Marianelli.

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3 The buIld process It takes two days to hand-assemble the phones, each of which contain 143 mechanical components.

Around 150 people are involved in the manufacturing process at the company’s HQ, from assembly and quality-testing to polishing and packaging.

4 servIces The phone offers no fewer than six bespoke

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services, from the feted 24/7 international Vertu Concierge (whose app now includes real-time status for each request) to a growing roster of private members’ clubs granting access to Vertu owners. There’s also a virtual sommelier, courtesy of Berry Bros & Rudd, a comprehensive range of personal security services from Protector Services Group – including the facility to add a panic button to your handset, and Vertu City Brief, a compendium of listings, hotels and restaurants that automatically calibrates itself to your current location. Last but not least is Vertu Select – a digital lifestyle magazine distributed electronically to each handset featuring exclusive articles and

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interviews tailored to your interests.

5 durabIlITy The prototypes have been tested to destruction in a machine designed to simulate real-life conditions, the crystal screen alone proving tough enough to withstand multiple impacts from a 25mm-diameter stainless-steel ball bearing dropped from desk height. All the materials employed in the phone have also undergone extreme temperature testing to evaluate their performance in adverse conditions, from the searing heat of the Sahara Desert to the sub-zero climate of the Arctic Circle.

Vertu Constellation in black alligator skin, £5,700; vertu.com

Uneven room heating.

Many conventional heaters struggle to heat a whole room evenly. They use fan blades powered by inefficient motors to distribute warm air – it heads up towards your ceiling.

Fastest to heat the room evenly.

Air Multiplier™ technology amplifies surrounding air to powerfully project heat. By efficiently circulating warm air, the new Dyson Hot™ fan heater is the fastest to heat the room evenly.

Learn more at dyson.co.uk/heaters or experience in store.

Smaller, lighter & better than ever.

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