Yahuui Blog: March 2015

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

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Microsoft allows government-approved ODF in Office 365

Microsoft has finally relented in the face of the open document format (ODF) to allow documents created in Office 365 to be exported in the format thus adhering to UK government guidelines on document creation and sharing.

The decision, which comes after a great deal of discussion with the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), allows users of Office 365 to create documents that stick to GDS's strict new guidelines on using the ODF for documentation, according to Computer Weekly.

Microsoft's announcement went on to explain that documents can be created or imported in any format before being edited and then exported in ODF 1.2, and the new functionality will be rolled out in May.

It brings Microsoft in line with new government advice issued last year that standardised the document format used across the public sector to ODF. That decision was made even after Microsoft lobbied hard for its own Open Office XML format, which it claimed was far more popular than ODF. Once the decision had been made it even claimed that it was "unclear" how the new guidelines benefitted UK citizens.

Google's helping too

Microsoft isn't the only one working with the government to embrace ODF. Linda Humphries, senior technical adviser for the office of the CTO at GDS, revealed that, since December, Google has added ODF support for presentations and LibreOffice's upcoming cloud offering will have support for ODF.

A range of government departments have already begun to publish documents in ODF via the gov.uk website including communities, transport and local government, and the department of health, work and pensions is one of a handful of others working on implementing it shortly.

Check out our Office 2016 hub for the latest news on Microsoft's upcoming release

Updated: The Best Free Windows 8.1 Apps

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Introduction

Windows 10 may well be on the horizon but there are still a sizeable number of users that either won't bother or remember to upgrade from the current incarnation that owns a sizeable chunk of the active users.

The return of the start menu isn't the sole reason to get hold of a copy of Windows 8.1 and the lineup of apps available makes it a more than viable proposition for anyone looking to move up from Windows 7 before the arrival of Window 10. That in mind we've devised of list of eight must-have apps that should be at the top of the download list of anyone with a new Windows 8.1 PC or even an existing system.

1. Facebook

Social networking is made easier by the Windows 8.1 interface and even though there are plenty of beneficiaries of this move, Facebook is top of the pile. The whole experience mimics what you'd expect to find on a mobile device except on a larger screen. Everything from the toolbar on the left that brings up all options including groups, events, pages, photos and friends to the chat bar down the right and icons along the top are all present and correct. It all means you can Facebook-stalk your friends (or foes) to your heart's content!

2. Microsoft Solitaire Collection

Solitaire has been part of the fabric of the Windows OS ever since the early days and the next level of that popular game is this extensive reproduction. There are in fact five different card games that make up the Microsoft Solitaire Collection including Klondike (the traditional Solitaire you're used to), Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid and TriPeaks with every one taxing in its own right. Achievements can be automatically added to your Microsoft gamertag meaning that by playing Solitaire whilst at your work-desk you can then show off to your friends on the Xbox 360 or Xbox One when you log on to your console.

3. TVCatchup

Whilst it may suggest otherwise, TVCatchup is much more than a place to catch-up on TV shows and offers completely live TV free of charge to UK citizens. You can watch any of the five terrestrial channels as well as a handful digital-only offerings such as Al-Jazeera, BBC Alba and Viva with the exact same service you'd expect from a Freeview TV or set-top box, except that you don't need to leave Windows 8.1. It'll mean the next time you're finishing off that piece of work and don't want to miss the next episode of EastEnders then you can just take a quick break without leaving your PC.

4. Skype

It remains one of the best free voice and video chat utilities out there and now that it's under the Microsoft umbrella there's no need to even go to the effort to download Skype as it'll be there for you from the off. Skype in Windows 8.1 differs to what you would see on a Mac or even a mobile device with a clean and very easy to use interface that gives you a list of recent contacts expressed in nice big icons. This is in addition to the even bigger icons for any recent chats you have been involved in. Initiating a chat or call with a contact can be done by picking out a name from your friends and then typing in words or clicking the phone icon. All things told, the Skype app for Windows 8.1 makes it easier than ever to call and chat to friends at any time of the day.

5. Netflix

Watched the third series of House of Cards yet? Good news because one of the richest app experiences on Windows 8.1 is the only place you can watch Francis Underwood strut his stuff: Netflix. The app presents each title in the form of a DVD-box sized icon with the titles going from left to right instead of down the screen like they do in the browser, on other mobile devices and games consoles. Basically nyone that has used Netflix in the past knows the drill and the experience inside the app is so similar that you'll never be visiting the site from within a browser ever again.

6. Danger Road

Solitaire has the ability to get rather boring after a while and thankfully the Xbox link means there are plenty of games to get your teeth stuck in to. One such title is Danger Road's attempts to bring the retro action from Frogger onto Windows 8.1 and the developers do so in some style. At its bare bones the object of the game is to guide a small animal from the bottom of the screen to the top and dodge cars, trains, water and anything else that gets in your way. Even the first level is fiendishly hard and will have you posing the questions: why did I download this in the first place and why does it keep drawing me in for more?

7. uTube

Having to enter a browser every time you want to use YouTube is a thing of the past in Windows 8.1 thanks to the unimaginatively titled uTube. You can use uTube to watch any videos from the Google-owned video service and even sign into your account to see the same level of personalisation present when you usually sign in to YouTube via a web browser. There are also some added extras such as the ability to download and save any videos you like the look of, a real plus for anyone sick of the browser plug-ins that seem to be perennially slow at downloading the content. You can even choose the quality that it should be downloaded in and once uTube is on your PC, there's no way you'll ever bother with the web version again.

8. Kindle

Much as Windows is a byword for PC operating systems, Kindle is the go-to brand for eBooks and its app for Windows 8.1 means you now don't need a separate device to enjoy a good read. It's exactly the same as any of the mobile apps that have come to define the eBook genre and can be setup to sync with other devices so that you're always starting off from the point you finished at. The app plugs in to the Kindle Store so that you can make new purchases straight from Windows and avid readers will be warmed by its presence in the Windows Store.

Gmail update brings unified inbox to Android owners

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Google's latest update to its Gmail app for Android devices brings a unified inbox so you can view emails from multiple accounts at the same time.

"Starting today you'll be able to view all your mail at once, regardless of which account it's from, using the new "All Inboxes" option," Google announced. "This way you can read and respond to all your messages without having to hop between accounts."

The unified inbox is a convenient feature to triage email if you have multiple accounts to check. Business customers and consumers will no longer need to switch between different accounts to see their emails within the Gmail app. The Gmail app supports emails from Yahoo, Outlook, and other services.

These features help to bring Gmail up to par with the pre-installed email clients on Android devices, third-party email clients from the Google Play Store and Microsoft's new Outlook app.

Threaded conversations, better Drive integration

Additionally, to make it even more convenient for non-Gmail users to use the app, Google now brings threaded conversation view to Yahoo and Outlook mail.

With the threaded messages view, related emails with the same subject line are grouped together in a single conversation, making it easy for users to follow all the replies.

Google is also improving its auto-complete feature to make it easier to find what you're looking for. "The new Gmail app for Android has better auto-complete, so you can find what you need even faster," Google said.

Other new features include responsive animations, larger attachment previews and the ability to save files to Google Drive with a single tap.

The update is available today from the Google Play Store, but it may take a while to get pushed to your Android devices.

Read our review of Google Apps for businesses

Monday, March 30, 2015

Software : Updated: Best Browsers 2015: the top five candidates for your PC

Updated: Best Browsers 2015: the top five candidates for your PC

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Introduction

Best Browsers

There was once a time when the world of web browsing was ruled by Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Those days are fast becoming ancient history thanks to the veritable smorgasboard of browsers out there catering to everyone's habits

On the whole browsers are completely free and offer a similar experience in that they find web pages and deliver them as quickly as possible. In addition to the regular suspects of Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Opera there are plenty of new browsers ready to bring new perspective including Torch, Tor, Web Freer and various others.

To find you the best browsing experience we've gone through the list with a fine tooth comb and picked out what we think are the five best free browsers for Windows PC users in the world right now.

Mozilla Firefox

Constant updates, add-ons and high performance across all platforms, especially Windows PCs, makes Mozilla Firefox one of the most popular web browsers on the planet. Its intuitive interface lends itself to beginners whereas the high level of customisation makes sure that advanced users are kept on their toes.

Tabbed browsing is at its heart and the add-ons is where Firefox really comes into its own by offering all kinds of ways to tinker with the browsing experience. Security is kept at an exceedingly high level thanks to the slew of updates that are always being worked on and a speed test last year showed that it is only second to Internet Explorer for speed.

Windows versions going all the way back to 95 can still use versions of Firefox yet the latest stable version (35.0.1 at the time of writing) are only available for XP Service Pack 2, Server 2003 SP1 or later versions. As for the future, stable builds are on the way all the time and for HTML5 it is just bested by Google Chrome and Opera, thus making its features exceedingly hard for any other browser to beat.

Google Chrome

Battling it out at the top of the browsing ranks is Google Chrome and for users plugged into the Google ecosystem it's quite simply a joy to behold.

It offers a cross-platform browsing experience that is second-to-none in terms of syncing information but to the run-of-the-mill Windows PC user it won't matter that this option is available. Like Firefox, Chrome comes with a wide array of apps and add-ons from the Chrome Store that add a considerable amount to the browsing experience and one area that it does even better than Firefox is the HTML5 loading speed that is at a higher level than any other Windows browser.

Chrome only runs on Windows XP SP2 or later and with support for XP disappearing in April 2015 it will be one of those browsers of of reach of those running older versions of the world's most popular OS.

In all honesty it's very hard to choose between Firefox and Chrome as they're both similar in what they offer to the end user so pick whichever you like the look of.

Internet Explorer

Blink and you might miss Microsoft's age-old browser as it'll soon be superseded by Spartan in Windows 10 but for now Internet Explorer is the place to go for those wanting Microsoft's own browsing experience.

Microsoft's web browser has changed with the times and embraced a tabbed browsing look that is similar to all the other browsers around and the newest version, in looks especially, takes it cues from the live tiles that are a major feature of Windows. There are less add-ons available for IE when compared to those on offer for Firefox and Chrome with most for IE limited to widgets that make it easier to reach certain sites or services. It's also far behind Firefox, Chrome and Opera where HTML5 loading speed is concerned.

Where it does have a significant leg up is the sheer number of versions that exist and thus gives a chance for all users of Windows to still have access to what is one of the top browsers around.

Opera

Opera Browser

One of the newest browsers on the top table is Opera with a speedy experience and various little extras that make it a credible rival to the big three Windows PC browsers. Yet again you'll notice the tabbed browsing experience that feel rather squared compared with Firefox and Chrome, and closer to IE in terms of looks. Although the similarities to IE end there.

Its extra features make it stand out and none more so than the Turbo mode. Opera's shot of NOS speeds up page loading times by compressing pages by up to 80 per cent and it is a god send for anyone with a sluggish connection. Although we're not sure whether Opera's claim that it will make a dial-up connection resemble a broadband line, it certainly does make it a lot quicker to get on to certain pages.

Speed dial is another added extra that enables you to add your favourite sites as large icons to the start screen, however, most other browsers now have a similar version of this available and the same can be said for the add-ons that are also elsewhere.

Torch

Torch Browser

Sick of having to download apps or an add-on everything you do anything online? Torch is a Chrome-based browser that comes with a range of nifty tools already built-in to prevent you having to continually find add-ons.

Torch looks exactly the same as Chrome interface-wise, although that's where the comparison ends as there's so much more you can do from the get-go including the ability to download torrents and grab media straight from pages. There's also dedicated tabs for music, which clicks in to YouTube to deliver a polished Spotify-esque experience, and games are laid out as app tiles and can be played from right inside the browser.

In addition there are custom home and search page backdrops that come with the time in the top left corner and options for all manner of different wallpapers that can be accessed by selecting the menu in the top right corner.

It displays the same lightning quick HTML5 speeds as Google Chrome and Torch is an excellent alternative for anyone looking to a browser that breaks away from the norm.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Software : Facebook means business with Messenger Platform, VR and drones

Facebook means business with Messenger Platform, VR and drones

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Introduction and global connections

Facebook's annual F8 developer conference, attended by more than 3,000 app developers, isn't really annual at all, having failed to make an appearance in 2013, 2012 and 2009. However, this certainly hasn't lessened the excitement surrounding the event and this year anticipation, particularly surrounding plans for Oculus Rift, was palpable – even as the European Commission warned the EU that they should close their Facebook accounts to avoid being spied on by US security services, and the UK's BladeRoom Group filed a lawsuit with the social networking giant for theft of intellectual property.

CTO Mike Schroepfer certainly wasn't distracted by events outside of F8, announcing on day two of the conference that Facebook was "here to talk about the future", setting the tone for the most notable announcements, including where Rift fits into the social network. Facebook's core priorities appear to revolve around Oculus Rift, drones and AI, all intended to make Facebook more 'lifelike' and 'useful'.

The $2 billion (around £1.3 billion, AU$2.6 billion) purchase of Oculus Rift a year ago prompted a lot of head scratching at the time, although the world's collective scalps were soothed by Mark Zuckerberg's explanation at the time that he saw Rift as a "new communication platform" and a "platform for many other experiences," and not merely a fillip to gaming companies.

Oculus Rift

"By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life," he went on. "Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face."

Global connections

A year on and, even without an F8 two-dayer, we're all pretty clued up to roughly where Zuckerberg sees Rift fitting in o the new Facebook 'family' – a new means of communication through the social media platform; a future where the internet will rely heavily on virtual and augmented reality tech and applications. F8 provided the Facebook team an opportunity to paint a more vivid picture of where they see things going with Oculus Rift: opportunities to connect the world over as if all are in the same room together.

But there's a way to go yet. As Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer explained: "After thousands of demos we know we are just on the cusp, just getting there to get that sense of presence where for a moment your conscious brain is overruled by the subconscious that says, 'You are not where you think you are'." And Facebook couldn't (or wouldn't) give a timeframe on when Oculus Rift headsets will be available, so it's very much a case of watch this (head) space.

However, the newly announced spherical video gives everyone a taste – a "first step" – of what Oculus Rift will be able to do, once it's launched properly as part of the Facebook family. Spherical video is set to allow Facebook users to interact with immersive, 360-degree videos in their Facebook News Feeds, following YouTube's lead. The videos are shot with 24 cameras, all working in concert, allowing viewers to "move around inside" the video and view from a variety of angles. Soon, said Zuckerberg, "you're going to be able to put on your Oculus headset and view spherical videos there too."

And Rift is only one member of this new Facebook family. As Zuckerberg explained: "Facebook used to be this single blue app and it did a lot of different things, now Facebook is a family of apps. Moving from being a single service to a family of apps is the biggest shift we've made in our strategy in helping connect people."

Drones and Messenger Platform

Planet-wide prototype

The Aquila solar-powered drone prototype might not be considered an 'app', but it's certainly a new family member. Boasting the wingspan of a 737 and the mass of a small car, it is intended to fly up to 90,000 feet to provide internet access to net-poor areas in order to "get everyone on the internet," according to Schroepfer. Altruistic, sure, but Facebook is sure to be one of the main beneficiaries of both this and Google Inc's internet-beaming satellites. It currently has 1.3 billion monthly users and is hungry for more.

And this desire to get the whole planet online is set to compound one of the issues informing the need for artificial intelligence development: the glut of digital picture and video content, with more and more added daily. AI will help to index and archive this huge amount of data in a more rational and human way, to "build a deeper understanding of what's in the content."

Facebook is working to build new AI systems that can learn, be trained and solve basic logical problems, helping to make sense of the brimming sea of data, which is set to become a Great Flood as Facebook widens its global reach.

"If we achieve our first goal, get everyone on the internet, build services at scale for the entire planet, we create this new problem: so much information you can't consume the stuff that's important to you," Schroepfer said.

Messenger Platform

Platform expansion

Adding to this info flood, the announcement that Facebook is opening up its four-year-old Messenger service to third-party developers – the 'Messenger Platform' – so that they can add their own functionality ("more tools for expression") looks to be an attempt by Zuckerberg to broaden Messenger into a wider platform, with over 40 new apps already developed. With more than 600 million people said to use Messenger at least once a month, there's clearly scope to make it more than just a chat hub. "One of the fastest growing and most important members of our family is Messenger," explained Zuckerberg.

Facebook had previously announced VoIP calls and that it was allowing US Messenger users to send money to and from one another, and at F8 Zuckerberg also announced Businesses on Messenger to "reinvent" how people and businesses communicate.

This will allow members of the public to communicate directly with representatives from businesses that they interact with or buy goods from, instead of using the more traditional email approach – something Skype once tried unsuccessfully to front up. One specific use of Businesses on Messenger will be to allow users to receive real-time shopping updates, tracking and confirming orders via instant message conversations.

With more and more companies worldwide overcoming their initial scepticism of Facebook as a business-facing platform, this is an interesting development, expanding business' reach into Facebook's more traditionally personal orbit.

Everything that mattered at Facebook's developer conference

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Apple : PC Gaming Week: Can a Mac be a gaming PC? How the world is changing for Mac gamers

PC Gaming Week: Can a Mac be a gaming PC? How the world is changing for Mac gamers

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For years, Mac gaming has been almost an oxymoron - not really worth considering if your love of games extends beyond Football Manager. But things are changing. Big games are coming to Mac quicker and quicker, instead of arriving three years later or not at all.

Perhaps more excitingly, new indie games tend to hit Mac at the same time as everything else thanks to improved engine support, with Humble Bundles seeing major uptakes from Apple users, and most Steam Early Access games eager for them, too.

More than that, the hardware is looking better and better for gaming. There are iMacs that take up little desk space, but pack in quad-core processors and good Nvidia GPUs. The MacBook Pro range offers Intel Iris graphics at the low end, and strong dedicated graphics as you get to the top - and most models have brilliant super high-res screens to show it off, too.

There's the Mac Pro, boasting a Xeon processor and two GPUs in a near-silent, eight-inch-tall enclosure (okay, it really isn't for gaming, but it's gorgeous). Even the MacBook Air is making the most of Haswell, with brand new processors and Intel's decent HD 5000 graphics in a tiny machine that gets 12 hours of battery life.

The hardware is still pretty pricey, of course (especially the new Mac Pro), but some things never really change. The thing is, it's higher quality than just about everything out there, and it's difficult to find anything that actually rivals Apple's laptops for size, weight and specs for the same price.

That's great, because with SteamPlay, you only need to buy a game once on Steam to get it on both platforms. Cloud saves usually work on both versions, so you could grab a MacBook for playing the go, and have a big gaming rig at home. And even if you want games that aren't available on Mac, you can use Apple's Boot Camp utility to dual-boot Windows on Apple hardware.

The redheaded stepchild of PC gaming has become an aluminium fox, and that's great for the growth of the industry. It's time to stop looking down on Mac gaming, and welcome it like a long-lost brother - albeit, one who got really into his music and art while he was away.

It's hard for a lot of gamers to remember now, but there was a time when the Mac was fertile ground for great games.

Maxis brought the dozens of Sim-something games it did every month to Mac; Bungie grew big as a Mac-exclusive developer, getting to the point where it announced Halo for Mac and Windows (before being promptly snapped up by Microsoft); and Myst, one of the biggest games of all time, was built in the Mac's 'make your own app!' programming tool HyperCard before being ported to every electronic platform with a screen.

This time passed, though. Windows pulled further and further ahead in sheer number of games, in providing affordable and decent graphics, and ultimately in performance.

Of course, there were companies that kept the end up, porting what games they could, but Mac gamers mostly had to be content with the likes of The Sims, and occasional scraps like Stubbs the Zombie and Age of Empires tossed their way. If you played a variety of games, you didn't do it on your Mac, or even probably in the same room as it, just to avoid being insensitive and stuff.

Turning point

Apple G5

But in the space of a year, Apple did two things that started the road to a gaming renaissance. In 2006, it switched to using Intel CPUs, bringing its hardware more into line with Windows machines, and in 2007, it introduced the iPhone. The first of these two points certainly made life easier for porting, since Apple's PowerPC processors were a completely different architecture to x86. It wasn't the kind of thing that made an overnight difference, of course, because of games' continued reliance on DirectX, but it was a big step for Apple.

The iPhone was perhaps the more important element, though. Once the SDK was released, gaming absolutely blew up on the iOS App Store. Suddenly, Apple and gaming weren't just being mentioned in the same sentence, but extra phrases like 'future of handheld consoles' were also being thrown in. Big developers started jumping on board and, crucially, made a bunch of money, too.

During this time, Mac sales were ticking up as most of the PC industry slowed and started contracting. At the same time, the Apple audience had showed that it did, in fact, like games, and was willing to pay for them. It was only a matter of time until Steam showed up, and where Steam goes, so go the games. In 2010, sure enough, Valve launched its store and many of its Source games for Mac as well.

The goods

Metro: Last Light

Although the Mac is still a second-class citizen compared to Windows, receiving big titles after a delay of several months, it is getting them. The likes of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, SimCity, BioShock Infinite and Metro: Last Light all arrived on Mac within a few months of their original release - SimCity even had launch issues, as if to prove that we're all equals.

For Feral Interactive, responsible for porting Tomb Raider, the Total War series and XCOM, among others, strategy games tend to be the best sellers. It's no surprise, then, that XCOM: Enemy Within is due to release on Mac on the same day as Windows.

It's easy to look down on having to wait a few months for games, but in this, Windows and Mac users aren't so different. Too often, the PC finds itself getting the short end of the joystick, getting console ports that are often delayed or badly done. Now spare a thought for your Mac-playing brothers. Windows is the console to them.

Console yourself

As with console games coming to PC, the problem for Mac games is the effort involved in getting the ports working well. The Direct3D elements used to power the graphics in Windows games must become OpenGL elements for Macs, and the whole thing needs to run on the different software platform.

"In the past we have found that some new graphics effects available in the latest version of DirectX are not easily reproduced on the Mac using OpenGL," says David Stephen, managing director of Feral Interactive. "In such cases, we look for the best way to create those effects with the minimum hit on performance, but there is usually a trade-off involved. However, Apple's support for OpenGL 4.0 and 4.1 in Mavericks means that more processing can now be done natively on the graphics card, and that will definitely help with the performance side of things."

The technical effort of porting is just one element, though. "Delays are principally due to the Mac developer/publisher (in this case Feral) not receiving the assets they need to start the porting process until after the Windows version of the game has been released," explains David Stephen. Even this step of starting ports can only come after business negotiations between all the companies involved, which can be complicated.

"We have been working with our partners so that we can commence on the port while the original game is still in development," adds Stephen, but this carries its own potential issues. If the game is being ported while still in active development, changes made by the main development team can have a knock-on effect on the port. The Mac version also needs its own separate QA testing, and then even once it's finished, it can be delayed further while awaiting final approval from the publisher.

There have also been delays on Mac games released on specific stores - they might hit the Mac App Store before Steam for example. Steam and SteamPlay can cause business headaches in the case of ports, and that also takes time to sort out. On top of that, if it's on the App Store, it'll need Apple's Game Center adding, and other multiplayer/achievement code removing or suppressing.

Maybe it's no surprise, then, that Aspyr Media, one of the biggest Mac games companies - responsible for the BioShock Infinite port, among others - employs more staff in QA, sales and marketing than it does in engineering duties.

Going native

Mac Pro

Life gets a lot easier for developers if there's no porting required in the first place, of course. Engine changes to allow easy cross-platform development are already happening, with smaller, nimbler games seeing the benefits currently. Unity supports everything going, meaning that games such as Gone Home and the alpha for Sir, You Are Being Hunted arrived on Mac at the same time as everything else - including Linux.

The iPhone helped Apple overall in cross-platform support, getting engine developers interested in making it easy for game devs to put their products on Apple-powered devices (for example, the iPhone's iOS is based on OS X).

SteamOS could be the next platform that helps Mac owners. Linux and OS X are far from identical as operating systems, but are close enough that some games run on both in a single binary. Basically, if developers put in the effort to make their games work on Linux, it's not a big step to Mac, and Valve's attempt to get as many games as possible to go cross-platform could be the final step that puts the Mac on pretty much level pegging with Windows for games support in the future.

You might ask, very fairly, why it would take Valve throwing its weight around to make this happen when Apple is pretty hefty itself. The thing is, Apple just never cared about gaming before it became a key selling point in the iPhone, and even now is much better at saying it's doing great things for gamers than actually doing them.

While games companies have been making the moves to get their products on Macs, Apple itself has been slow to help. The problem is partly technical, but partly it's just a failure to engage with what's expected of PC games.

Steam's presence on Mac brings all the usual goodies, like cloud saves, social features and achievements. Not long after Steam arrived, Apple launched its own Mac App Store, and the hope was that it would be another good platform to discover and buy games, especially for people who wouldn't have heard of Steam. To a degree it succeeded, but only for people who aren't used to the kind of features offered by Steam. There's nothing like the ubiquity of Steam Cloud for online saves, and the social features are tied into Apple's Game Center service, which is barely used.

Most irritating of all is the requirement that all Mac App Store games be sandboxed, meaning that developers can't include any ways to tie games into your Steam account so you can see your friends for multiplayer there. The Mac App Store is convenient, but as a gaming platform, it just doesn't compare.

Dem graphics

Then there's the state of graphics support in OS X. It hasn't been the best. Because all of its hardware is so slimline, Apple is loathe to use very large, hot GPUs, so it tends to go for mobile cards, even in desktops. That's still okay - there's great gaming to be had in a Nvidia 750M or Iris Pro - but the drivers often seem to be inferior to their Windows counterparts, and can vary from card to card.

Apple can also be well behind the latest OpenGL versions at times, though its most recent update brought things in line. The problem used to be that Apple only updated OpenGL when it updated the whole OS, and until now that was a paid upgrade, so not every user would get the better features that developers needed to progress. This went for any drivers, too. Funnily, this is very similar to Microsoft's attitude with DirectX, but it's even worse for developers.

Overall, many games perform considerably worse on Macs than Windows PCs - SimCity, for example, can run perfectly smoothly on Intel HD 4000 graphics at 1080p on low settings on Windows, but on a Mac with an AMD 6750M GPU, those settings are barely playable. As David Stephen suggested earlier, though, that could change with the more advanced APIs available in the latest operating system.

The performance problems aren't the case with all games, though. "I've had some instances of performance hits, but often my ports will have performance increases, depending on the hardware. There have definitely been some OpenGL bugs/ bottlenecks, but that's something that can often be addressed in my code," says Ethan Lee, a developer on the MonoGame framework for porting XNA games to Mac/Linux, and who ported Fez to these very platforms as well.

Put the boot in

Steam big picture

When games don't run as well on OS X, there's always one solution: run Windows instead. Apple's Boot Camp software enables you to easily partition your disk drive, and provides all the drivers necessary to get Windows working natively on your Mac.

We recommend replacing the graphics drivers provided by Apple, unsurprisingly, but the odd thing is that Macs tend to be consistently some of the best-performing Windows machines you can buy. Everything works brilliantly, any SteamPlay games you've bought will play on Windows (with your saves brought in over the cloud where supported), and you can play Windows-exclusive games.

You get storage issues if you dual-boot one of the lower-end laptops with small amounts of solid state storage, but with Intel HD 5000 graphics, even something like the MacBook Air is a viable portable gaming machine for smaller indie titles.

Macs don't represent a great deal for someone who wants high-end gaming, but they shouldn't be dismissed because of that. The range of games is already strong, and is only going to grow further - and you can run Windows for the rest.

In a balance of gaming power and size/weight, there's not a lot that can touch the MacBook line. Dear readers, it's time to embrace the Mac and its users to the PC gaming fold. They are our brothers in arms (which was a game released on Mac as well, incidentally).

Now why not read our Hands on: Mac Pro review

Software : IN DEPTH: Creative much? How Surface Pro 3, not iPad, is Adobe's best canvas

IN DEPTH: Creative much? How Surface Pro 3, not iPad, is Adobe's best canvas

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Microsoft Surface Pro 3's Adobe Touch Workspace

Already five years old, Apple's innovative iPad is often dismissed as a device more focused on consumption than creation, despite the wide variety of apps available for photographers, designers, musicians, writers and other creative types.

For all the things iPad may be capable of, the tablet isn't running a robust, desktop-class operating system like Mac OS X or Windows, meaning developers are often forced to reinvent the wheel when existing software launches on the device.

That gives Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 a major advantage for those who prefer fewer compromises, since it's already running a full version of Windows 8.1 powered by the same fourth-generation Intel Core processors found inside desktop and notebook computers – but with the convenience and all-day battery life of a tablet.

However, what works great with a keyboard and mouse doesn't always necessarily translate to the best experience on a tablet, which is why Adobe recently introduced touch-friendly updates for two of its classic design applications, offering designers the best of both worlds in a single hardware package.

Adobe Touch Workspace gestures

Touch me, babe

Adobe calls this initiative Touch Workspace, available now free of charge to existing Creative Cloud subscribers and Surface Pro 3 owners with the latest versions of Adobe Illustrator CC 2014 and Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 installed. (Adobe also offers a free 30-day trial prior to committing to a monthly or annual subscription.)

Designed for multi-touch gestures and pressure-sensitive stylus pen input alike, Touch Workspace streamlines the design user interface, making it more responsive to fingertips, while optimizing a number of new or existing software tools with touch interaction in mind.

Adobe has also implemented support for touch gestures already familiar on other tablet devices. Using two fingers, artists can pinch and zoom or pan around the digital canvas, rotating or scaling objects without a mouse or touchpad; one or more elements can be selected simply by dragging a finger around them.

For now, Adobe offers a more fully immersive Touch Workspace experience on Illustrator CC 2014, merely dipping their toes into the touch waters with Photoshop CC 2014, as well as recent updates to motion graphics and video editing solutions After Effects CC 2014 and Premiere Pro CC 2014.

Adobe Illustrator CC 2014 Touch workflow

Born to draw

To activate Touch Workspace on Illustrator CC 2014, tap the icon at the top of the screen, or select Window > Workspace > Touch. The user is presented with a streamlined UI that doesn't stray too far from the application's familiar look and feel, but pushes lesser-used tools out of sight to keep the focus on drawing and editing.

An exit button in the upper right corner switches back to the classic UI, while the adjacent Touch pull-down menu can be used to jump directly into any of Illustrator's other full-featured workspaces.

Adobe Touch Workspace pan-zoom

Longtime iPad users will want to remember to use two fingers (instead of just one) while panning around the artboard – in Adobe's new workspace, a single finger gesture is used for drawing and selection tools, which takes a little getting used to at first.

Despite Adobe's best intentions, some traditional tools lend themselves to pen input rather than touch, which lacks the precision of a stylus. But in general, Touch Workspace does a good job of making Illustrator more finger-friendly.

Surface Pro 3 with Adobe: tools and retooling

Adobe Touch Workspace Curvature tool

The right tools

Among the new drawing tools Adobe introduced for Illustrator CC 2014 is Curvature, which allows artists to create smooth curves by tapping once, or corner points and straight lines with two taps instead. (The same trick can also be used on Windows or Mac desktop systems.)

Likewise, the new Join tool makes it insanely easy to connect paths that failed to intersect or overlap while drawing. In addition to adding the necessary connections, Join is also capable of removing overlapping segments as well – tasks that previously required more advanced skills on the desktop.

Adobe Touch Workspace Join tool

Adobe also incorporated a couple of new features that first debuted on the company's iPad apps, and they're quite cool. Using the Shapes Ruler and Stencil tool, artists can make short work of straight and parallel lines, angles or even complex French curves by controlling a virtual ruler on-screen with two fingers.

Going one step further, the Shape Builder tool allows artists to combine or remove shapes from an object with ease, turning a cluster of seemingly random lines into a much cooler lightning bolt, for example.

Adobe MAX 2014

Baby steps

By comparison to Adobe Illustrator CC 2014, legendary image editor Photoshop CC 2014 takes a somewhat smaller step into the future. Rather than introducing a dedicated Touch Workspace for the legacy application, Adobe has instead introduced little enhancements all over the existing UI, making it easier to use on touch or pen-equipped devices like Surface Pro 3.

One of the bigger improvements involved increasing the size of icons and touch targets by 200 percent over the previous version, which makes tools and buttons far easier to tap on. Drawing lines or strokes with a pen is also more accurate and natural, thanks to a combination of higher frequency sampling on hardware and software alike.

Of course, the biggest advantage of the Touch Workspace and Surface Pro 3 combo is the ability to place a crisp, colorful 12-inch display right into your hands or lap. Designers are no longer chained to the desktop or encumbered by a notebook keyboard and trackpad separating them from the work.

Adobe Touch Workspace guide

A few caveats

Unfortunately, the Touch Workspace experience hasn't been totally streamlined with this initial release. For starters, opening an existing Illustrator document throws the user straight back into the Desktop's trusty old open and save dialog box, rather than the more Modern (formerly "Metro") environment found on Windows 8.

Other niceties like Save As are also missing from Illustrator CC's Touch Workspace mode, so artists will need to temporarily switch back to the classic user interface whenever they want to save alternate versions of the currently open document.

Despite these few UI nitpicks, Touch Workspace makes for a compelling addition to Adobe Creative Cloud, and makes Surface Pro 3 a must-have for anyone who spends time drawing or painting with Illustrator CC. (For the moment, Photoshop CC users have less reason to cheer, but the additional features do make the application easier to use while disengaged from a keyboard and mouse.)

Better PowerPoint collaboration expected with LiveLoop acquisition

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Microsoft has signalled its intention to further diversify the Office productivity suite after acquiring LiveLoop for an undisclosed fee.

A spokesperson for Microsoft confirmed the acquisition to ZDNet, and the LiveLoop for PowerPoint program is expected to be the first to play a part in the Office of the future.

"Microsoft is excited to welcome the talented team from LiveLoop to help build great collaboration across Office applications, as part of our strategy and vision to reinvent productivity," confirmed a spokesperson from Microsoft.

LiveLoop for PowerPoint, its primary offering, is a program that allows teams to work on presentations inside PowerPoint at the same time as fellow employees in a similar way to Google's Slides program. It eliminates the need to use a separate meeting program, such as GoToMeeting, as you can simply share the URL and kick a meeting off from there.

A message on the LiveLoop website confirmed that it will be shutting down permanently as of April 24, 2015 and all data, including presentations, must be removed by then or face being permanently deleted.

Another acquisition

LiveLoop is just the latest in a number of smaller companies that have been bought up by Microsoft including email company Accompli and calendar specialist Sunrise, Accompli basically becoming Outlook for iOS and Android.

Check out a hands-on review of Windows 10

Friday, March 27, 2015

Software : Periscope vs Meerkat: which is the better live streaming app?

Periscope vs Meerkat: which is the better live streaming app?

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Live streaming or let die

Periscope vs Meerkat

Live from your mobile phone, it's either Periscope for Meerkat. The two video streaming apps are the latest social media sensations to broadcast real-time video.

Turning everyone into an on-the-scene reporter, Meerkat made its officially debut at SXSW Interactive Festival this month. It links to your Twitter account for easy sharing to existing followers.

Periscope launched today with the same basic purpose, only it has official Twitter backing. It was purchased by social media company for a reported $100 million (about £67m, AU$128m).

It's difficult enough to broadcast with one of these new apps without distraction, so using both at the same time is out. It's time for our Periscope vs Meerkat comparison.

What are Periscope and Meerkat?

Periscope vs Meerkat

Both video streaming apps let you see through someone else's eyes. This makes them ideal for large, but distant events, like protests, or as we saw today, New York City building fires.

Of course, for every critical-viewing event, there are a dozen meaningless salad making or one-second "Test" live streaming videos for the new services. That's to be expected.

It reminds me of the advent of cable news. CNN founder Ted Turner was once asked "Aren't you, with live all the time...gonna wind up covering a lot of one-alarm fires?"

He responded, "Until it's over, you never know whether it was a one-alarm fire or the fire that burned down Chicago." Meerkat and Periscope could be the next-generation version of this.

Periscope vs Meerkat: Compatibility

Periscope vs Meerkat

Both Periscope and Meerkat have launched iOS apps, and the developers behind these two live video streaming services are promising Android support "soon."

Periscope has the backing of Twitter and Meerkat has solid funding behind it, so there's an urgency to follow through on this promise. After all Google-powered now dominate phones.

Whichever app gets there first may win this live streaming video space race.

Meerkat: Interface

Meerkat vs Periscope

Meerkat is a lot busier looking than Periscope. A lot busier. The interface displays the broadcaster's name, their Twitter handle and viewer count in the top left corner. The city they're streaming from and the title of their broadcast are in the top right corner.

That's not all. There's also an always-present sliding menu of every watcher's profile pic. It conveniently brings the broadcaster and viewers together, streaming-face to still-face.

Comments look congested on Meerkat, but can be more engaging. That's because you can scroll back through the black-outlined text. On Periscope, comments quickly disappear.

One thing that people dislike is Meerkat's deeper Twitter integration, which can SPAM your Twitter page with a bunch of @ replies, as every comment is tweeted. That's not fun.

Periscope: Interface

Periscope vs Meerkat

Periscope has launched with a cleaner interface, which looks great for capturing live video. But it may be a little too clean for my liking.

As a viewer, there's only an easy-to-miss X in the top corner to close a stream. The viewer list and broadcaster information are hidden within a menu access via a left swipe.

Comments and viewer count are tucked away at the bottom, and comments disappear after a few short seconds. It's harder to disappearing text as a broadcaster.

Hearts can be "given" to a Periscope broadcaster when a viewer taps the screen. It seems meaningless, but it's a really helpful way to instantly tell the host that you like what you see.

Periscope vs Meerkat: Features

Periscope vs Meerkat

The biggest advantage to Periscope is that you can archive clips for viewing them on the web. This isn't completely automatic, however, as I sadly found out in my first, now-lost broadcast.

Meerkat did give me the option to save my broadcast to my iPhone 6 camera roll, but it doesn't support sharing these clips within the app beyond the live stream.

I expect this to change. For now, though, Meerkat is a bit like Snapchat. Video of your broadcast is unlikely to get out there, but it's still possible for other people to capture it nefariously.

Meerkat does let you schedule broadcasts, which is very helpful for fans finding broadcasters and broadcasters reaching new fans. It's easier to build an audience. It also lets you use the iPhone's flash to light dark videos.

Periscope vs Meerkat: Video quality and connection

Periscope and Meerkat lag

Video quality on Meerkat and Periscope greatly depend on your connection. With so many videos taken on the road, it's obvious that LTE isn't ready to live streaming the masses.

This is further complicated by dropped frames (and audio) when switching between front and back cameras on both apps, as all talking heads like to do. Both apps are guilty of this.

Periscope also had the distinct problem of hiding battery life and WiFi connection icons at the top of my iPhone. I found it hard to tell when I switched from WiFi to LTE unless viewers asked me if that just happened. Smart TechRadar viewers.

Periscope vs Meerkat: Broadcasters

Periscope and Meerkat lag

Periscope looks a little more refined, and so far its early adopters are less annoying. That can of course change beyond day one of the app's existence.

Meerkat is chock full of whinny people with first world problems, but that may be because it has been available since the top of the month.

Periscope has time to catch up. Pretty soon it too will be full of people complaining about their day on the way home from work, broadcasting and driving at the same time. Why?!

You'll find more legitimate news organizations on Meerkat right now because of the newness of Periscope. A lot of cutting-edge publications are using both apps side-by-side.

Periscope vs Meerkat wrap-up

Meerkat vs Periscope

Today's Periscope vs Meerkat comparison reminds me of 2013's Vine vs Instagram launch. Both services ushered in short-form video capturing apps with back-to-back launches.

These are two very experimental apps that will likely be tweaked based on user feedback. Periscope, for example, has already toned down the mass notifications it sends.

It'd be nice for Meerkat is get a cleaner interface and Periscope to figure out a way to keep comments longer without cluttering the screen space.

In a perfect world, in the words of TechRadar's Michelle Fitzsimmons, we'd have Meerscope. Or Perikat.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Software : LibreOffice takes to the cloud to challenge Google Docs

LibreOffice takes to the cloud to challenge Google Docs
Microsoft gives universal apps new Windows branding
In Depth: 5 apps to download for Facebook Messenger

LibreOffice takes to the cloud to challenge Google Docs

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LibreOffice has announced plans to unveil an online version of its popular and free productivity suite, likely in a nod to Google Docs and Office Online.

First reported by InfoWorld, Collabora (one of the contributors to the LibreOffice project) has signed a partnership with IceWarp to construct a web based version dubbed LibreOffice Online that will be released by the end of 2015.

It will bring major improvement including the complete cross-compatibility with the offline version of LibreOffice and the ability for users to simultaneously edit documents alongside others in the same way that Google Docs, Office Online and a range of other cloud applications.

It also claims that documents will not lose any features or data no matter how many times they're exported between the offline and online versions of LibreOffice. Collabora thinks it can achieve this "by using the same rendering engine as LibreOffice desktop (via LibreOfficeKit)". In basic terms it means reusing the original LibreOffice C++ source code.

LibreOffice Online won't come fully featured set right off-the-bat. Instead, it will be closer to LibreOffice Editor for Android, which offers a smaller a subset of the features available in desktop versions. There's no time frame on when new features will be added, however, simultaneous editing is expected to be built-in from the start.

What will it cost?

When it comes to price of the new solution, IceWarp's senior marketing associate Michael Filip stated that "IceWarp will be able to offer a highly cost-effective alternative to Office 365 or Google Apps."

Google Docs is of course free, whereas Office 365 Personal runs at £5.99 ($6.99, or AU$9.00) per month for a single user account that includes 1TB of cloud storage. LibreOffice Online is expected to fall in between these two offerings

Check out all the details on Microsoft Office 2016 at our dedicated hub

Microsoft gives universal apps new Windows branding

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To reduce compatibility questions, Microsoft has a new name for universal apps that will work across multiple screen sizes: Windows apps. Windows apps will work on Windows 10 laptops, tablets, desktops, phones, IoT and Xbox.

"In Windows 10, we have this notion of a universal app platform," Microsoft engineer Don Box said in a session at WinHEC 2015. "And the apps that target it are called Windows apps. Sometimes we say universal apps, but we call them Windows apps."

Box goes on to detail that Windows app can run "on every device family: phone, PCs, Xbox, IoT, and other devices like HoloLens."

With Windows apps, Microsoft is changing the branding of its universal apps away from Modern apps and Metro apps that are found on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1. By calling universal apps Windows apps, Microsoft appears to be moving to a centralized Windows 10 branding.

Legacy apps

Additionally, Windows 10 PCs will continue to support legacy Win32 apps. Those apps will not be called Windows apps as they won't work on Windows 10 for phones, for example. These legacy Win32 apps will be called Windows desktop apps.

"On PCs, we continue to support the two decades-plus worth of Windows desktop applications…for running them on PCs," Box said. "So sometimes we will talk about a Windows app [what we have been calling universal apps to date] and Windows desktop apps. Windows apps run on all devices. Windows desktop apps [are] PC only."

Aside from branding, Microsoft's strategy with desktop apps and Windows apps has not changed.

"Microsoft expects developers to create new Windows apps, not new Windows desktop applications," Paul Thurrott wrote on his site. "And it has improved the Windows universal app platform - which is really just a refinement of Metro...to make it more powerful and capable."

Read our Windows 10 coverage for additional information

In Depth: 5 apps to download for Facebook Messenger

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Love it or hate it, Facebook just released new features for its Messenger app and is now dubbing it the Messenger Platform.

With the new platform, developers can make apps that utilize GIFs, photos, videos, audio clips and whatever else they think makes communicating more expressive and creative for Android and iOS devices.

There are 40 apps and counting you can download right now to use with Messenger that have "optimized flow" - which just means they'll show up directly inside the Facebook app and can be found via the More tab (the three dots found on the bottom right of the app).

If you don't already have the app installed, you'll have to head over to the app store and download it. Facebook has made the process easier by allowing direct downloads through Messenger - if your friend is using Giphy and you want it too, there will be a "Reply" link in your message giving you the option to install it or simply quickly respond with the app. Not all the apps will have this feature though. Facebook will be screening every submitted app to approve it for the Reply links and the More button.

Reply button

You won't be able to use all the apps with Messenger immediately but the update should start rolling out today. There are also apps that are only available on iPhone 5, iPhone 6 or the iPhone 6 Plus. Most Android devices with 4.0 and up should work. In the meantime, here are five apps we've enjoyed so far that are completely ready for Facebook Messenger Platform.

Ultratext

Ultratext is a pretty fun way to send text messages in GIF form but all the really cool stuff requires spending a few bucks here and there.

Giphy

Demoed during the F8 (Facebook Developer's Conference), Giphy is bringing everyone's favorite GIFs to Messenger. Pick your favorite GIF then hit the share button to send it off to your friends. So far, it doesn't seem like this app is widely available yet.

Stickered

Want to replace your face with a sticker? Then use Stickered in Messenger for another way to send photos. It already has some familiar stickers found on Facebook and it's completely free. The only downside? Pusheen cat is nowhere to be found.

Emu

It seems Facebook loves stickers. Emu is another sticker app that's ready for Messenger right now. Take a selfie of yourself and go nuts decorating with the various packs the app offers before sending it to all your friends.

PingTank

Placing your images with animated overlays - basically another GIF app - is what PingTank promises to do. Other apps on the list seem to do a slightly better job, but the Messenger integration hasn't shown up when we tried to use them.