Apple : The Mandalorian season 2 is coming in 2020, creator Jon Favreau confirms |
- The Mandalorian season 2 is coming in 2020, creator Jon Favreau confirms
- Microsoft in 2019: a year of Edge wins and Windows fails
- Wolves vs Man City live stream: how to watch today's Premier League football online from anywhere
- CES 2020: Here's what you can expect to see at the world’s biggest tech event
- Xbox has had a roller coaster of a decade, but the future looks bright with Series X
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| The Mandalorian season 2 is coming in 2020, creator Jon Favreau confirms Posted: 27 Dec 2019 12:30 PM PST The Mandalorian season 2 has been filming since the Disney Plus original first released in November. Now, we know when we'll be watching it. Creator Jon Favreau took to Twitter today to confirm when we'll see the second season of the first live-action Star Wars TV show: Fall 2020. That's when you'll get to see Baby Yoda again. Favreau dropped this news with a sculpture of a Gamorrean guard. The last episode of The Mandalorian's first season, Chapter 8, landed earlier today. Here's the tweet in question: The Mandalorian has been a huge success for Disney Plus. There are no viewing figures for the show from Disney, but the streaming service achieved 10 million sign-ups within the first 24 hours of its launch, and part of that is surely motivated by this big-budget original show. Baby Yoda, too, or The Child as it's known officially, has sparked a genuine fascination on social media, mostly because he's adorable in gif form. The early renewal for season 2 made a lot of sense. A show requiring extensive effects work like The Mandalorian benefits from a long lead time, although it was no doubt a show of faith in the material from Disney, too. Despite a couple of less ambitious self-contained episodes, the show excels when it forms smaller arcs, and season one's last string of episodes that brought The Mandalorian in contact with remnants of the Empire were among its strongest yet. In a year with a divisive new Star Wars movie in The Rise of Skywalker, The Mandalorian has been a real treat. Look out for season 2 next year, then. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Microsoft in 2019: a year of Edge wins and Windows fails Posted: 27 Dec 2019 12:00 PM PST Looking back at 2019, was it a good year for Microsoft? It certainly wasn’t all smooth running, that’s for sure, particularly not regarding Windows 10, which witnessed what can only be described as a staggering run of blunders and bugs, as fixes for various glitches created fresh problems in turn. There were highs, too, as Microsoft made impressive strides with the revamped Edge browser, and also a number of nifty moves on the gaming front, not the least of which was the reveal of a powerful next-gen Xbox. Speaking of Xbox Series X (formerly known as Project Scarlett), we’ll briefly touch on Microsoft’s progress in the console arena, but note that we are primarily focusing on the computing front here (meaning PCs and Windows).
Windows 10 bug blundersSadly, the first thing that comes to our mind when you mention Microsoft’s 2019 is the quite frankly head-scratching debacle whereby a string of cumulative updates were pushed out, which resolved bugs on one hand, but caused others at the same time. This episode began at the start of September, with a patch to fix some relatively minor bugs which had been kicking about for a while – but the cumulative update in question ended up causing a new problem whereby Cortana started spiking CPU usage. Then when Microsoft fixed that Cortana flaw, it inadvertently triggered more bugs with the Start menu and Taskbar, and it broke internet connectivity for some users. And this went on, and on… In the end, this carry-on prompted us to vent in an opinion piece about these issues (and others – like a ‘fix’ for Windows Defender effectively disabling the most commonly used virus scans) and how they could be causing Microsoft serious reputational damage which might have long-lasting repercussions. Things quietened down a little on the bug front towards the end of the year, but then Microsoft put its foot in it again, when in December the software giant embarrassingly deployed an update meant for businesses to Windows 10 Home users – for the second time, to make matters worse. Clearly, wonky quality assurance was a definite black smudge in Microsoft’s 2019 copybook. Edging forwardMicrosoft has been busy working on its revamped Chromium-based Edge browser all year, and it has shaped up nicely, introducing some nifty elements including moves to bolster online privacy, upping the ante on the security front, plus a load of other stuff (and of course a dark mode – everything needs a dark mode). Generally speaking, the new Edge has been well-received by testers, and there’s a pretty positive atmosphere about what Microsoft has done with the browser, and how it might tempt folks away from Chrome (not least because it isn’t such a memory hog). That said, Microsoft still has a hell of a mountain to climb with Edge, as the existing browser has a pitifully small market share, and in the most recent stats from Net Applications at the time of writing, it slipped slightly (again) to under 6%. When it’s officially launched in January 2020, the revamped Edge will doubtless come out fighting – but one of the trickiest opponents it may face is the spectre of its former reputation. There’s also the consideration that now Microsoft is driving forward with Chromium, the bells and whistles brought to Edge will also benefit Google’s dominant Chrome browser. Still, it’s clearly commendable to see Microsoft engaging like this, and indeed running with a broader push in the open source world on many fronts (including seriously bolstering support for Linux within Windows 10). Of course, Edge is coming to Linux, and a big part of Microsoft’s strategy with the new browser is to deploy it across multiple platforms. While it’s arguable how much impact Edge might have in some of these arenas – Linux fans aren’t typically jumping up and down to adopt Microsoft products – this move is still giving the revamped browser the best chance possible (unlike the original Edge, which was confined exclusively to Windows 10). Overall, then, the rebooted Edge hit a positive note for Microsoft this year, but the real test will come in 2020, when those best laid plans are tested in post-launch reality. SurfacingOn the hardware front, Microsoft impressed with its Surface products in some respects, and remained distinctly static in other ways. Most of the excitement was around the Surface Neo and Duo, which were revealed, but won’t launch until 2020. The Neo is a dual-screen device which is essentially two tablets hinged together like a book (with a small physical keyboard that magnetically attaches to the lower screen when needed, taking up about half the display). Coupled with Windows 10X, a fresh spin on the desktop OS purpose-built for dual-screen products, Neo promises a tight integration of software and hardware which will hopefully deliver levels of versatility that we’ve never seen before in a Surface hybrid. Surface Duo is essentially a smaller version of Neo, and to all intents and purposes, it’s Microsoft’s long-rumored foldable phone (it runs Android, not Windows). Although Microsoft is pitching it as more of a pocket-sized computer, and trying to get away from the concept that this is a dual-screen smartphone (it is capable of making phone calls, incidentally – but it’s not a phone, got it?). These pieces of hardware represent the exciting future of Surface, but sadly the products actually released in 2019 fell short. The Surface Pro X at least represented a shot at something different, but in our review, we found that while it was a very slickly designed and highly portable 2-in-1, the device is just too pricey for the basic performance levels delivered by the ARM processor, and battery life was disappointing too. Worse still, Microsoft’s latest update for the veteran Surface Pro range felt hugely underwhelming, and pretty much forgotten in the shadow of all the aforementioned products. While the Surface Pro 7 did benefit from the introduction of a USB-C port, that move was long overdue (and the Type-C connector doesn’t support Thunderbolt 3, either). And yes, we also got a new processor which was a good upgrade on the performance front – particularly with much better Intel Iris Plus integrated graphics – but while Microsoft gave with one hand, the new CPU had a negative effect on battery life. And otherwise, the Surface Pro 7 remained pretty much identical to its predecessor, which was disappointing. Likewise, the Surface Laptop 3 wasn’t all we’d hoped for, either. So, in short, we were shown devices with a lot of promise for 2020, but what we actually got in the here and now was pretty pedestrian at best. On a more positive note, it is admittedly good to see Microsoft taking its time with the dual-screen devices – something it made noises about previously – to ensure the company gets them right. Surface Neo and Duo are massive moves for Microsoft – the company’s chief product officer Panos Panay has admitted himself they’re something of a gamble – but the time it’s taking, and the focus it’s giving this new breed of dual-screen hardware is encouraging, so we have to give Microsoft a tick in that respect. Mixing it upIn the world of live streaming, Microsoft did its best to push Mixer against dominant services like Twitch. Back in July, Microsoft set its stall out by declaring it was instigating measures to help combat some of the toxic behavior which can blight the gaming community (or any online community, for that matter). Then came the really interesting move – Microsoft poached two big-name Twitch streamers. And when we say big-name, we mean really-huge-name: Ninja and Shroud. This has raised the profile of Microsoft’s streaming service considerably, and if more money is going to be thrown around in this respect, we could see things really start to happen for Mixer. Then again, these moves haven’t had much impact in the near-term, and Mixer still has a hell of a long way to go to become anything like competitive with Twitch, which holds something like three-quarters of the streaming market. Still, what we’ve seen happening in 2019 might just foretell one of the biggest shifts – and indeed shocks – in this sideline of the gaming industry. And more broadly, it shows how much emphasis Microsoft is placing on pushing the gaming side of its business these days. Xbox-ing cleverSpeaking of that grand push on the gaming front, Microsoft had a lot to say at E3 back in June. Top of the bill, naturally, was the revelation of the next-gen Xbox, with the console being heralded as (up to) four times as powerful as the Xbox One X, no less; and that it would be launching with Halo Infinite. Xbox Series X will go on sale in Holiday 2020 (and was further teased at the end of the year at The Game Awards 2019, when we got our first glimpse of what looks more like a tower gaming PC – albeit a compact one – than a typical console). On the PC front, though, the big news was the arrival of Microsoft’s subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, for PC gamers. The service is a little confusing, and still in beta, but we cover everything you need to know about it here. The short version is you access it via the new Xbox app in Windows 10, and it offers a library of over 100 games currently for a subscription of $5 / £4 / AU$4.95 monthly (at least while it remains in beta). There are still a lot of issues to iron out – again, not exactly unexpected for beta software – but equally there are some pretty smart games on offer, and this represented a very useful addition for PC. Indeed, throughout the year, Microsoft was making all sorts of noises about how it has rather let down PC gamers in the past, and that all this is going to change. Xbox Game Pass is part of that, as is bringing a load of Xbox Game Studio titles to Steam – including Gears 5 – and this has all been a refreshing change for 2019. Cloudy futureA final big cog in Microsoft’s gaming machine of 2019 was Project xCloud, the firm’s game streaming service which launched a public preview in October. The idea is to let you stream games to any device, and although it only supports mobile phones currently, Windows 10 PCs will be covered in 2020. Microsoft’s big advantage here is that it has the necessary infrastructure in place, already commanding a large network of (Azure) data centers. The plan is to have a massive library of games eventually – although options are pretty limited now – and also let gamers stream Xbox games they already own. Again, Microsoft is apparently flexing its muscles and potentially leveraging those deep coffers, with reports that the company is looking at securing exclusive games for Project xCloud – although this is just a rumor, and any such deals would likely be years down the line. But we can well believe this is the case. As to the reality of Project xCloud right now, our impressions are that Microsoft is nailing things in the crucial department of latency, and overall performance is good, despite some issues (but again, with a beta, gremlins are expected). So this is another bright spot, but Google Stadia does have the jump on Microsoft in this sector, having already launched with impressive results – at least for those with good net connections. From what we’ve seen early on, Microsoft could have the edge in terms of performance with more average broadband speeds (and that could be a key aspect, of course). Concluding thoughtsMicrosoft’s 2019 was really all about Microsoft’s 2020. What we mean by that is the full products which actually came out in 2019 weren’t anything to particularly shout about, but Microsoft was laying a hefty weight of foundations for a successful next year. So we had a pretty underwhelming set of Surface devices, and a particularly uninspiring launch in the Surface Pro 7. And the reputation of Windows 10 copped a load of flak thanks to all those incidents of bugs causing yet more bugs, although at least Microsoft avoided any major disasters with its biannual updates. That said, there wasn’t much doing with the big updates, with the second outing of 2019 effectively being a mere service pack with no major new features. So when Windows 10 wasn’t plagued with gremlins, the rest of the year was all rather yawn-inducing. But then comes the promise, and all the groundwork laid for 2020. That included pushing forward with some impressive work on Edge, which has generally been well-received anecdotally, and could make a big impact next year. Then we have the Surface Neo and Duo poised to take computing versatility to another level – if the hardware and indeed Windows 10X pans out right. Along with a lot of promising stuff on the beta front in the gaming world, namely Project xCloud and Xbox Game Pass for PC. Microsoft is even trying to gain some momentum with Mixer against the might of Twitch, which may seem a little on the futile side, arguably, but certainly shows a commitment to driving forward across all facets of gaming. And naturally Xbox Series X is a major force poised in the wings… In the end, 2019 was really a reshaping and rebuilding year, trying to get all this stuff aligned – and we can’t underestimate how important that might be for Microsoft if all of the above does come to fruition in terms of being successful in 2020. But still, it’s hard to get excited about what actually happened in 2019, as opposed to what was revealed, teased or beta-tested.
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| Wolves vs Man City live stream: how to watch today's Premier League football online from anywhere Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:45 AM PST For the final time this season, Amazon Prime Video is offering up Premier League football showing exclusively live in the UK on the internet giant's streaming service. To make sure that you get a Wolves vs Man City live stream from absolutely anywhere you happen to be, then you've come to the right advice guide. Man City appear back at their imperious best after seeing off fellow title contenders Leicester 3-1 at home of Saturday. They now face a tricky challenge away against a Wolves side that are back to winning ways following their 2-1 win at the weekend away to Norwich. While there's still a huge gap between them and high-flying Liverpool at the top of the table, the nature of Man City's comeback win over fellow title-challengers Leicester will have signalled to the Reds that Pep Guardiola's side are ready to capitalise should they start to slip up. Wolverhampton Wanderers also needed to comeback from a goal down to earn their win at Carrow Road on Saturday. While Wanderers boss Nuno Espírito Santo will have been pleased with the fortitude shown by his side in the second half to secure the victory, he'll know that a display similar to their abject showing in the first half will be likely be punished mercilessly by Kevin De Bruyne and co. You watch all the action as it happens with our Wolves vs Man City live stream guide below. To find out how to watch the rest of the season's games, check out our guide on how to live stream the 19/20 Premier League football season. Use a VPN to watch Premier League football from outside your countryIf you're abroad this weekend but still want to watch your home coverage, you'll need a VPN to do so. That's because your normal coverage will be geo-blocked. It's really easy to do and stops you having to tune in to some dodgy stream you've heard about on Reddit. How to stream Wolves vs Man City live in the UK for free with AmazonHow to watch Wolves vs Man City: US live streamHow to watch a Premier League live stream in CanadaHow to live stream Wolves vs Man City in AustraliaHow to watch Wolves vs Man City: New Zealand live streamHow to live stream Wolves vs Man City in IndiaThis posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| CES 2020: Here's what you can expect to see at the world’s biggest tech event Posted: 27 Dec 2019 11:22 AM PST The start-of-the-year tech showcase CES 2020 is nearly here, and judging by what we've heard will be unveiled at the show, the tech world will never be the same. While it no longer goes by its Consumer Electronics Show moniker, CES is still the best place to see the latest and greatest new tech products and concepts coming in the new year. We're expecting everything from 5G phones to transparent Ultra-HD TVs to personal drones that can fly you around, but there's always something completely unexpected we discover - like, say, a robot dog. What's in store for CES 2020? The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the folks who run the entire event, tell us that this year's show will have a greater focus on travel, tourism, data analytics, and improving customer experiences. Of course, there will still be the usual assortment of cutting-edge TVs, speakers, headphones, laptops and phones - many of which will be optimized for the 5G/8K revolution. After facing blowback last year for its exclusion and revocation of an award from a sex toy company, CES 2020 will broaden the scope of its Health and Wellness sector to include sex toys 'on a one-year trial basis' and will be partnering with the Female Quotient to ensure that more diverse voices are heard at the show. Beyond the cavalcade of products, we're expecting to see a lot of conversations at the show about digital health and the commodification of personal data, two big problem areas for the industry. Whatever kind of tech you're into, however, CES will offer something new and interesting for everyone, whether you’re deep into enterprise, obsessed with future trends or just keen to see what comes next. Here's what you can expect. CES 2020 leaks and rumorsCES hasn't officially started, but we've already heard about a few products that will make their glorious debuts at the show. LG has leaped ahead of Samsung with what looks to be the first TV with '8K Ultra HD' resolution that's been industry-certified. That means the company can use the '8K Ultra HD' logo on its products, starting with LG's line of 'Real 8K TVs' that are set to be unveiled at CES 2020. LG isn't stopping there: the company unveiled a new set of gamer-oriented monitors it will show off at CES 2020, including a 38-inch curved 4K display with an IPS panel that yet manages a 1ms response time. With 144hz refresh rate and Nvidia G-Sync compatibility, we're eager to see how other displays at the show compete with this offering. On the phones side, Chinese company OnePlus stated that it will unveil a new mystery device at its own event during CES, which the company is dubbing 'OnePlus Concept One.' Given the phone-shaped silhouette in a photo promoting the reveal, we're expecting a handset - but all the fuss has us wondering if OnePlus is going to enter the foldable phone rodeo. Of course, as a concept, it may never hit retail shelves. But given the other rumor about OnePlus potentially releasing true wireless headphones to rival the AirPods, we might see a lot more OnePlus at the show than ever before. Another rumor suggests new Sony WH-1000XM4 over-ear headphones are on the way, a follow-up to the wildly successful WH-1000XM3 noise-canceling cans released in October 2018. While the rumor doesn't link the launch to CES, the timing could be ripe for a January 2020 launch - which makes CES the logical stage to unleash them. When is CES 2020?If you’re going by the official dates, CES 2020 runs from Tuesday, January 7 through Friday, January 10, 2020. That said, however, journalists will pour into the city a few days before that to cover the news conferences that kick off on Sunday, January 5 at 12 pm PST and continue through Monday and Tuesday. It’s during that time we’ll hear from Sony, Samsung, LG and several other electronics makers as they introduce us to new products at their on-stage keynotes. Traditionally, the biggest of these keynotes happen on Monday as that’s when LG, Samsung and Sony all hold their events, but some CES-related announcements will arrive starting on Sunday night as news begins to trickle out of the conference. How do you get tickets for CES 2020?Registration for CES 2020 is available now on the CES 2020 website, and are free for qualifying members of the media. For non-media folk, Early Bird tickets are available for just $100 if you just want access to the show floor from January 7 - 10 and the keynotes, though that price will shoot up to $300 starting on December 18, 2019. If you want a bit more than the basic pass, you can buy the CES 2020 Starter Conference Pass that includes a curated list of events around the show’s biggest trends for $700 or the Deluxe Conference Pass that includes 14+ partner sessions for $1,400. CES 2020 KeynotesToward the end of November, the CTA released the full schedule of announced CES keynotes and conferences, listed below for your convenience: Sunday, January 5 2020
Monday, January 6 2020
How big is CES and where does it take place?CES is massive and takes over the vast majority of the Las Vegas Strip and the surrounding streets. In fact, in terms of square footage, there’s 2.75 million net square feet of exhibit space between the Las Vegas Convention Center, The Sands, Mandalay Bay and The Venetian, nearly all of which plays host to the convention and its exhibitors. Fun fact: There are around 160,000 hotel rooms in Vegas and around 180,000 attendees each year. As you’d expect given those numbers, hotels fill up fast and the roads leading to the convention center get pretty crowded that week. Thankfully, the CTA (the company that puts on the show) offers free shuttles to almost all of the major hotels on the strip from the Convention Center, and has buses running to and from the Sands between 9 and 6 pm. All that said, be prepared to walk. The convention center itself is massive and so is The Sands. Walking either can easily take between one and two hours, and you’ll easily rack up three to four miles on your pedometer along the way. Which companies are attending CES 2020?Pretty much every major tech company will be there, minus Apple. (You can find a complete list on the CES 2020 website.) Confirmed exhibitors include Amazon, Canon, Facebook, Intel, LG, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI, Nikon, Samsung, Sony and many, many more. Now, admittedly, not everyone is there to show off new products. A fair majority of companies are there for business, while others are there to collect feedback and have a presence, rather than debut something new. That said, there will still be hundreds of new products making their debut this year in nearly every category. CES 2020 Trends and PredictionsIn a meeting with TechRadar, the CTA outlined a number of trends that would take center stage at this year’s show. The list included transportation and tourism (Delta Airlines have a keynote this year for the first time in the show’s history), data analytics and privacy, digital health, the global race for 5G, the consumerization of AI and, of course, 8K displays. These are rather dense, multifaceted topics and will surely be the topic of many presentations during the show. If you want hard product news, that will come from many of the same suspects as last year, all of whom are listed below. AMD at CES 2020Keynote time: Monday, January 6, at 2:00 pm PST We're fully expecting AMD to come out with a line of high-end GPUs next year - maybe even as early as CES 2020. In past years, AMD has taken to the stage on Monday to deliver a keynote, and could potentially do the same this year. Last year AMD showed off its first ever 7-nanometer GPU, the Radeon VII, at CES 2019, so expect big things this year. LG at CES 2020Keynote time: Monday, January 6, at 8:00 am PST Like Samsung, LG’s plans are easy to predict - it’s probably going to show off a new series of OLED TVs, plus give an updated release date for last year’s rollable OLED. Speaking of far-flung TVs we can't afford, CES 2020 will probably be the place LG officially debuts its transparent OLED prototype that it was showing behind closed doors at last year's show... though it will likely only be for businesses at first. LG also uses CES to debut its new line of appliances including smart washers and dryers and nifty household gadgets like air purifiers and robot vacuums. Last year we saw a home brewing system and a smart cupboard that steams your clothes. Featuring a mirrored door with integrated display, automatically moving hangers, and a smart steaming system, it was a wildly different product than we were expecting to see at a tech trade show. CES is also the time LG debuts its mid-range mobile phones. Last year we saw the LG V40 ThinQ, while back in 2017 LG brought the Stylus 3. Don't expect any flagship phones at this year's event,but it's Android phone fans should expect something. Intel at CES 2020Keynote time: Monday, January 6, at 4:00 pm PST Last year was a big show for the chip maker. The company came out guns blazing at its CES 2019 keynote, announcing the first 10nm Ice Lake processors based on its Sunny Cove architecture – and even showing the chip powering a running laptop. The new chips aim to bolster modern PC performance, while Intel's new Project Athena initiative hopes to push mobile computing to the next era with thinner and lighter hardware across industry partners like Huawei, Asus, and Lenovo. Intel also announced six more 9th-gen processors, ranging from Core i3 to Core i9, making it one of the biggest launches yet for the company. This year could be the year that company debuts its long-rumored discrete GPU which we saw a mockup of at GDC 2019 earlier this year, or Intel could use the congregation of journalists to announce new 10nm desktop CPUs now that 10nm mobile chips are out on the market. Nvidia at CES 2020Now that it's been unveiled to the public, the new Nvidia Shield is all but guaranteed to make an appearance at CES this year. Last year Nvidia revealed its GeForce RTX Mobility graphics cards at CES 2019, alongside the RTX 2080 and other cards for gaming laptops. Will CES 2020 bring more of the same? We’ll just have to wait to find out. Samsung at CES 2020CES is always a big show for Samsung. It’s the place the company picks to roll out its latest QLED TVs, concept screens and monstrous custom-installs. Last year, the company debuted a new 219-inch TV called The Wall and gave us an updated look at its Tizen operating system that included Apple TV. This year, our money is on new QLED TVs with zero bezel - a rumor that has recently been corroborated by a patent filed with the European Union Intellectual Property Office. On the computing side of things, Samsung debuted the Notebook Flash and Notebook 9 Pro, and could offer updates on those this year. Samsung has also been doing a lot more with its monitors and solid-state drive categories, so be sure to keep an eye out for those at the show, too. Sony at CES 2020Keynote time: Monday, January 6, at 5:00 pm PST Sony didn’t have a ton of new products to show off last year, but did bring its new Master Series Z9G TV to the show and debuted its new 360 Reality Audio format. We’ll likely see more of the latter this year as well as a few new TVs in the 950, 850, Z- and A-Series lineups plus some new 2.1 soundbars with Dolby Atmos. Outside of the AV space, Sony will probably tease some PS5 news ahead of its official debut and talk up its gaming peripherals like the PlayStation VR. A full debut of the new console seems unlikely, especially considering the rough history Sony consoles have with CES, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it at least gets a mention during Sony’s Monday evening keynote.
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| Xbox has had a roller coaster of a decade, but the future looks bright with Series X Posted: 27 Dec 2019 10:00 AM PST A decade is a long time in the games industry. The highs and lows that Sony, Nintendo, and others have experienced show the industry’s constantly evolving and, at times, volatile nature. Xbox has faced bigger contrasting fortunes than its peers though. Microsoft’s gaming brand was doing extremely well as 2010 heralded the start of a new decade, but the last 10 years haven’t been straightforward. So join us while we take a look back at the last decade of Xbox, including all its highs and lows, and look to the future of the brand as the next-generation Xbox Series X looms on the horizon. A loss of KinectionBizarre decisions over the last decade have left Microsoft playing catch up with its competitors, and it’s only recently that the company has managed to recover the goodwill it amassed during the Xbox 360 days. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. With Xbox 360 sales closing in on the 40m mark in January 2010, and 80m units sold by the Xbox One’s release, Microsoft was more than holding its own. First-party titles like Halo 3, Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, and Kinect Adventures provided Xbox fans with gaming genre variety, while third-party games like GTA V boosted console sales. The console-breaking ‘Red Ring of Death’ error had largely been eliminated, and all signs pointed to Microsoft building on the Xbox 360’s success. Things changed with the Xbox One’s arrival. Former executive Adam Orth’s comments about the Xbox One’s “always online” functionality, ahead of its official unveiling, put Microsoft on the back foot. That ill will continued with the console’s reveal as an all-in-one home entertainment system - a critical decision that alienated Xbox’s core gaming audience. Other choices, including the console’s DRM restrictions and insistence on keeping the Kinect device plugged in at all times, also backfired and led to Microsoft performing a U-turn after fierce criticism. The damage, though, had been done with gamers feeling betrayed over privacy concerns, game-lending, and primarily pushing the device as a TV platform. The console’s lack of first-party titles also contributed to its slow start. 11 of its 23 launch titles were exclusives, but just two - Dead Rising 3 and Forza Motorsport 5 - broke the 2m sales barrier. With both games being part of various Xbox One Holiday bundles, however, it’s easy to see why they ‘sold’ well. It has remained a trend that the Xbox One has been unable to shift, with Minecraft: Xbox One Edition and Halo 5: Guardians being the only two first-party games to crack the console’s top 10 best-selling list. It’s a problem that the next-generation Xbox Series X needs to address if Microsoft wants to reel in its competitors. Under its overarching Xbox Game Studios publishing brand, the acquisition of developers including Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Obsidian, and Undead Labs should help to produce more and better exclusives, but time will tell if they have enough to win back fans that the Xbox brand has lost. Road to redemptionWith the Xbox brand struggling, Phil Spencer’s promotion to Head of Xbox helped to refocus the brand’s main aim and put gaming at its core once more. The evolution of the Xbox One’s home page has served as proof of that, with gaming apps put front and centre ahead of other entertainment tiles. The gradual phasing out of the Kinect accessory, and its eventual discontinuation, underlined this fact further and showed that Microsoft was finally listening to what its fanbase wanted. Microsoft’s biggest Xbox One success came through its backwards compatibility feature. Announced at E3 2015, the Xbox community praised Microsoft’s desire to right the wrongs of the console’s early years and give back to its fanbase. Gamers no longer needed to purchase already-owned titles on the digital store if they wanted to play Xbox or Xbox 360 games. Simply owning a physical copy allowed players to take trips down memory lane on Xbox One whenever they liked, and it’s a feature that has become a core Xbox staple. The Xbox One’s redemption hasn’t stopped there. Microsoft’s Games with Gold initiative, whereby gamers can download up to four games a month with an Xbox Live subscription, is still going strong. The introduction of cross-platform play, which enables Xbox One owners to play with gamers on other consoles, computers, or smartphones, is helping to nullify the long-running ‘Xbox vs PlayStation’ argument. The Xbox App, which replaced SmartGlass, supports local game streaming from Xbox One console to PCs or tablets as long as an Xbox One controller is used. Other Xbox One consoles - the Xbox One S, Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, and Xbox One X - have allowed Microsoft to properly target other consumers too. The cheaper S models have enabled parents on a budget to buy a console for their kids, while the X lets gamers play in 4K thanks to its powerful specs. The Xbox Elite Wireless and Xbox Adaptive controllers - targeting professional and disabled gamers - give people of all skill levels the chance to play games, and tie into the brand’s new “When everyone plays, we all win” ethos. The next seriesThe future looks bright for Microsoft. Its Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which grants users access to an ever-expanding gaming catalogue for a single monthly fee, will only get better. Project xCloud - currently in its preview phase - will let players stream games to their smartphones or tablets directly from the cloud over an internet connection. Xbox Series X, the next Xbox iteration that’s set for a late 2020 release, could cement Microsoft’s improving relationship with gamers. As long as Microsoft’s claims about its power, speed, and performance are true, it’ll have an interior to match its stylish exterior. The controller’s ‘share’ button - an oft-requested feature and one that Sony have successfully implemented on PS4 - will boost Xbox’s social media presence, especially if the games are beautiful and fun to play. Halo: Infinite and Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 are the only two confirmed Series X titles so far, but Microsoft will need a stellar launch day lineup to prevent another slow start. Various console models, much like the Xbox One’s lineup, will be key to enticing players with different salaries and gaming preferences to buy it too. Expect Microsoft, then, to unveil its budget, mid-range, and top-line Series X consoles in the coming months. The Xbox brand has been revitalized and, with Spencer at its helm, it could seriously compete with Sony and Nintendo in the next-generation console wars. Providing Xbox Series X’s consoles aren’t expensive, its exclusive titles are gorgeous and enjoyable, and features like Game Pass and xCloud continue to improve, the next decade can be more successful than the last for Xbox.
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| Posted: 27 Dec 2019 09:55 AM PST No one likes to wait. That’s particularly true when it comes to batch processing jobs for Big Data projects like genomic research, building an airplane and materials for safety, and the massive requirements for data processing related to health and financial records. For computer scientists, developers, engineers, or anyone who needs to run a batch processing job, the needs are even greater. Because of the massive data needs -- often at petabyte scale -- the jobs often need to be queued for processing and determined by the compute resources for that local, on-premise data center. An example of this might be a simulation to determine the safety of a new material to be used in a future car. There are many variables -- the impact on the material, the temperature, and the speed of the driver not to mention the chemical properties of the material itself. It’s an extraordinary Big Data effort, but there are also time-to-market considerations and project timelines. Fortunately, with the advent of cloud computing services, there isn’t the same restriction in terms of waiting for the compute resources to become free enough to run batch processing jobs. AWS Batch allows companies, research institutions, universities, or any entity with massive data processing needs to run batch processing jobs without the typical on-premise restrictions. Batch processing refers to a computing operation that runs multiple compute requests without the need for the user to initiate another process. The name comes from the early days of computing when end-users had to initiate every computing process one by one. With batch processing, you can queue the requests for processing and then allow the service to do the heavy lifting in terms of scheduling the requests, adjusting compute performance, and allocating the memory and storage need to run the batch jobs. And, you can schedule multiple batch processing jobs to run concurrently, tapping into the true power of cloud computing. Since this scheduling occurs automatically between AWS Batch and the related Amazon services you need -- such as Amazon EC2 (Elastic Cloud Compute) -- there is no need to configure any software for IT management or processing. AWS Batch coordinates the IT services you need for the project at hand without further intervention from the user. For those with heavy demands for data processing, this allows the staff to focus more on the actual project management and business requirements, the results of the computations, queuing up more batch processing jobs, and analyzing the results and making decisions about what to do next. AWS Batch provides all of the necessary frameworks to do the batch processing. Benefits of AWS BatchA side benefit to using AWS for batch processing with AWS Batch is you can take advantage of Spot Instances, a service included with Amazon EC2. Spot Instances are unused compute resources that are lower in cost and available for batch processing instead of on-demand services. This cost savings comes into play as Spot Instances become available. In the end, it means great savings for all batch processing -- and configured automatically for you. Because of how the cloud storage, performance, memory, and infrastructure and servers are all automated according to the batch processing requirements, and because the end-user doesn’t need to configure any of those compute resources, AWS Batch helps simplify the entire Big Data endeavor, especially in terms of coordination across AWS. That is often the hardest and most time-consuming part of a Big Data project because the scientists and engineers who run the batch processing project are not necessarily experts in infrastructure or IT service management. They don’t need to know about memory allocations, storage arrays, server configuration, or how these components inside a data center all work in tandem to produce the desired results. Another benefit has to do with costs. When companies don’t have to manage and configure the compute environment for batch processing, they don’t have to take the time and expense needed to make sure it is all up and running 24x7 and they don’t have to purchase any of the equipment. Instead, AWS Batch automatically allocates the exact compute resources you need for that project, and you pay only for the compute resources you actually use. This is true for every batch processing job including the concurrent jobs you might run. Not only does a company avoid the management chores and costs of running an on-premise data center, but they don’t have to coordinate the various services needed for batch processing. An example of this might be a massive genomic research project for drug discovery. A pharmaceutical might start out with basic needs for batch processing using a minimal amount of storage, but normally as the project intensifies and the processing needs increase, the project might stall out as the company coordinates the various services, such as storage, networking, endpoint security, or memory allocations. There’s a cost savings in not having to manage those services, add them and maintain them, or making sure they are secure for all batch processing jobs.
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| Best VPS hosting providers of 2020 Posted: 27 Dec 2019 09:35 AM PST Standard shared web hosting packages are cheap and user-friendly, but they're also slow, inflexible, and don't have the power or functionality that professional and business users often need. If you need more than a basic host but can't afford a dedicated server or don't want to deal with the complexity of these beasts, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting could be a smart choice. Buying a VPS plan means that you get your very own virtual server environment. You have full control over the operating system, the extensions and apps you install, and all their settings. Each physical server will still host multiple VPS customers, but not as many as with shared hosting, and typically each VPS will be allocated a share of key resources – RAM, storage space, CPU cores – for their use alone. This can be easier to manage than you might think. Many VPS plans include standard tools like cPanel to help monitor and configure your site. Some hosts will manage the service for you, monitoring for problems like a crashed service, and fixing them as soon as they're detected. VPS prices and specs vary from a few dollars a month to hundreds, depending on your requirements. There's a lot of choice out there, but don't panic – our list of five best VPS providers will point you in the right direction.
Founded in 2004, Hostinger has been providing a quality hosting service for some time now and their VPS hosting is no different. You have plenty of choices here from the low-tier plan that has 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB of storage and 1000 GB bandwidth to high-tier plan where you get 8 CPU, 8 GB RAM, 160 GB of storage and 8000 GB bandwidth. Pricing is affordable too, especially if you commit to longer terms. The 1 CPU plan starts at $3.95 per month (if you choose the 4-year billing) and renews at $8.16 per month, while the 8 CPU plan starts at $29.95 per month (if you choose the 4-year billing) and renews at $65.56 per month. All plans have IPv6 support, a dedicated IP, 100 Mb/s Network and a few more additions. Linux users also have plenty of choices. Apart from the usual CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian, you can also choose Suse. Windows VPS hosting is available as well, with the plans being more pricier but also more powerful. If you encounter any problems, there’s a 24/7 live chat service to help you. Hostinger delivers a capable VPS hosting with a very tempting first term price, and with all plans being fully refundable, everyone can try out the service. Bluehost has been around for quite some time and always offered powerful plans for a variety of users, and their VPS range is no different. You have three plans to choose from, with the cheapest plan starting at $19.99 per month for the first term and $29.99 per month on renewal. That gets you 2 CPU cores (2x Xeon Gold 5220), 30GB SSD storage, 2 GB RAM, 1 TB bandwidth and one IP address. The top-tier plan called Ultimate, gives you 4 CPU cores (2x Xeon Gold 5222), 120GB SSD storage, 8 GB RAM, 3 TB bandwidth and two IP addresses, and it’s priced at $59.99 per month for the first term and $119.99 per month on renewal. All plans come with a free SSL certificate and a 1-year domain. You also get unlimited subdomains and email accounts, and cPanel is included too. Domain privacy and protection, and SiteLock are categorized as optional add-ons, so you’ll have to pay extra if you need them. Support is available 24/7 so if you encounter any difficulties you’ll be able to call them at any time of the day. All in all, Bluehost is a capable provider for both newbies and experienced users so they are definitely worth a try. InMotion is one of the more popular web hosting providers out there and it is no surprise that they're secured a spot here Check out a few VPS hosting providers and it's easy to be tempted with low headline rates, but don't be fooled – companies use a range of tricks to keep their charges down. The hardware specs of a starter product are often kept unrealistically low, for instance, to keep the price right down. Important items – backups, cPanel – may be expensive extras. And even then, the headline rate may only apply if you pay for two or three years upfront, increasing dramatically on renewal. InMotion Hosting is refreshingly different. Its baseline VPS-1000HA-S plan doesn't have the most eye-catching price at $39.99 per month over two years (at the moment of writing, the price dropped to $19.99 due to a sale), but it's easy to see why the company asks this much. The product has a better specification – 4GB RAM, 75GB storage, 4TB bandwidth, 3 dedicated IPs – than some high-end plans from other providers, backups and a cPanel licence are included for free, and there's a 90-day money-back guarantee. There's an unusual feature in what InMotion calls "unlocked CPU cores". Rather than having access to one or two cores only, you're able to spread your processing load across all cores on the server, a major performance boost for tasks involving a lot of simultaneous processing. Welcome bonus touches include a feature called Launch Assist, which essentially means you get two hours of free time with one of InMotion's server administrators. Whether you need to change domain settings, configure cPanel, migrate WordPress or database files, they can help you get the job done. Put it all together and you're getting a very capable set of VPS hosting plans. If you'd prefer a package that comes with unexpected surprises, rather than hidden catches, we'd give InMotion a try. Some VPS hosts focus on first-time users, others go for big business, but Hostwinds does its best to appeal to everyone with no less than 10 different VPS hosting plans. The low-end Tier One plan looks a little underpowered to us, with just 1GB RAM, one CPU core, 30GB of disk space and 1TB traffic. But it's cheap at $4.49 per month, and you can extend it significantly without spending a huge amount (adding basic server monitoring and cloud backups costs an extra $6 a month for both). The more realistic Tier Four includes 6GB RAM, 100GB drive space, two CPU cores and 2TB of traffic. It's also significantly more expensive at $26.09 a month, but still competitive with other providers. Meanwhile the top-of-the-range Tier Ten product gets you 96GB RAM, 16 CPU cores, 750GB storage and 9TB of traffic for an initial $296.09 a month. You probably don't need anything like that, but this does show there's plenty of scope for upgrading your site over time. Every plan has some appealing configuration options. In particular, along with support for the usual Linux variants – CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian – you can choose Windows Server 2008, 2012 or 2016 for only a $5 a month premium. That's very good value, and if you're more familiar with Windows than Linux, it could save you from lots of management hassles later on.
Liquid Web is a premium web hosting provider which has been offering top quality managed solutions for more than 20 years, and now handles 500,000 sites for more than 32,000 customers worldwide. The company doesn't try to beat the competition on price, instead focusing on delivering comprehensive products which will deliver quality results. The cheapest Liquid Web plan may cost $59 a month (you can reduce that to $29 a month by going annual), for instance, but that gets you 2GB RAM, 40GB storage and a very generous 10TB of bandwidth. There are lots of configuration options. Instead of just telling you that you're getting CentOS 7, Liquid Web allows you to select CentOS 6, Debian 8, Ubuntu 14.04 or 16.04, and often with multiple options of their own: cPanel, Plesk, CloudLinux and more. This is a managed product, too. Liquid Web fully supports the base operating system, and the support team will proactively restore failed services as soon as they're detected. Getting a managed VPS with other providers could cost you an extra $30 a month, or more. If your VPS still has issues, there's speedy 24x7x365 support from knowledgeable professionals who will do their best to solve your problems at speed. Liquid Web may not have the most appealing headline prices, but it's still cheaper than many others considering the features you get, and the excellent support will help keep your site running smoothly down the line. You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides:
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| Best email hosting providers of 2020 Posted: 27 Dec 2019 08:52 AM PST Much like web hosting services, getting hold of an email account is easy – sign up with an ISP, register with Google, buy a web hosting account – but free and standard packages won't always deliver the quality that professional users need. Email hosting plans are an easy way to get a more efficient and reliable service. Exactly what's included depends on the provider, but you might get support for larger attachments (up to 50MB), 50GB or more storage space for your inbox, online storage for easy file sharing, bundled apps like Microsoft Office online, Exchange and Active Directory support for business users – not to mention 24/7 support if anything goes wrong. Your email will work with a custom domain (address@yoursite.com), and it's typically straightforward to set up. You can use an email hosting plan to effectively replace your web host's service, or you can try one without having any hosting at all. With quality services priced under $1 per month per user, and free trials available, it's easy for anyone to check out the email hosting market. Whether you're after an individual account or would like to cover your entire business, read on for five great providers that you might want to check out first.
The best email hosting services of 2020 are :Bluehost has an exclusive email hosting offer for TechRadar readers If you are a small business with a small headcount and don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on email accounts, then consider this. From EIG-owned Bluehost comes an exclusive business email package for TechRadar readers where you get unlimited email accounts and email storage for as little as $2.75 when paying for three years; that’s a mere $99 for the duration of the term. Is it truly unlimited though? Bluehost says that they do not enforce any official limitations. Furthermore, they add “while email account creation is unlimited, these rely on the file storage available on the account. Therefore customers need to be operating within the Terms of Service to ensure resources are available to fully enable email functionality. Customers operating within the Terms of Service have yet to come up against technical boundaries for email, domains, or websites”. What’s the catch then? For a start, while you get POP3 and IMAP4 plus 24/7 support, this is more of a barebone solution. You get to choose between three webmail applications (the equivalent of Outlook.com or Gmail.com); Horde, Roundcube or Squirrelmail. You can of course configure an email client like Mail for Windows 10 or Mozilla Thunderbird to read your emails offline. Creating a new email address is a doddle thanks to an easy user interface. Rackspace remains one of the top email hosting providers in the market Texas-based cloud computing giant Rackspace has a wealth of hosted business-oriented email products for all levels of users. Even the bottom-of-the-range Basic plan is well-specified, with 25GB mailboxes, spam and virus filters, and it’s accessible via Outlook, webmail, or by mobile users. Mailboxes are priced at $2.99 each per month with a minimum of four required per order, but there are no long-term contracts, just monthly bills which you can cancel whenever you like. The next-step-up Plus account brings 30GB of cloud storage, ActiveSync support, Office-compatible apps and instant messaging for $3.99 a month, which is also better value than most. An extended Plus account adds unlimited storage space via archiving. That might be handy if you think a 25GB inbox is too small, but we're unsure if it's really worth the $6.99 price tag. More demanding users can check out Rackspace's Hosted Exchange 2016 plans. Specs include 100GB inboxes and support for 50MB attachments, and the starting price is $10.99 per mailbox per month. There are cheaper services around, but quality matters, too, and Rackspace does better than most. All plans include a 100% uptime guarantee, and top-quality 24x7x365 support via chat, ticket or phone to quickly solve any issues that might crop up. Fasthosts is part of the formidable United Internet family which also includes 1&1 Email hosting can seem expensive, and that's largely because the big companies are forever competing to offer the largest amounts of inbox and file storage space. That's great if you need it, but not so much for light email users looking for a bargain. Fasthosts Standard Email plan is a stripped-back email hosting plan which offers the bare essentials for a very low price. Signing up gets you five Mail Lite accounts with a tiny 100MB inbox and a maximum of 10MB attachments, and two Mail Extra accounts with 4GB inboxes and support for attachments of up to 15MB. Both products give you webmail access only. That's limited, but look at the price: just $2.60 (£1.99) a month on the annual plan (at the time of writing, you can get 50% off). If your users genuinely don't need the gigabytes available elsewhere, Fasthosts more basic package could make a lot of sense. Fasthosts also offers a more capable Exchange Email product with a 50GB inbox, access via Outlook's web app, and even a free domain for the first year. It's priced at $5.8 (£4.49) per month for 5 or more users with the annual contract. You can also choose a 100GB inbox for $13 (£9.99). As before, Fasthosts is focusing on price more than power, but if you only need a basic Exchange account, there's plenty of value here. Office 365 BE is a surprising third in our email hosting provider shortlist Microsoft Office 365 isn't just a powerful suite of productivity apps. It also throws in a very capable email package, and for less money than some providers charge for email alone, which could make the service worth a place on your shortlist. Microsoft Office 365 Business Essentials offers support for 150MB attachments, for instance, three times the size allowed with even some premium competitors. 50GB of storage per user (and a custom email domain address) means you'll be able to keep your messages for a very long time, and there's 1TB of online storage available in your OneDrive account. Access to Office Online enables working with Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint documents from within your browser, and there's a whole range of business-friendly extras: calendars, online conferencing, intelligent search, workflow automation and more. If you don't have Office 365 already, the Business Essentials price of $5 a month (for annual billing) looks like good value to us. If you're solely interested in business class email, though, Microsoft's Exchange Online Plan 1 provides Exchange accounts for $4 per user per month on the annual plan. India-based Zoho might not be a household-name but its offerings pack a lot of punch. Zoho Mail – now known as Zoho Workplace – is a hosted email service with a bundled online office suite, and a stack of other extras. In late November 2019, Zoho introduced the Offline Mode which allows you uninterrupted emailing. A free plan gives you 25 mailboxes with up to 5GB per user, a 20MB attachment limit and webmail access. A referral scheme could get you support for a further 25 mailboxes (at the time of writing the referral program wasn't available due to remodeling). If that's too basic, the Standard plan gets you IMAP and POP support, 30MB attachments and 30GB of storage, 5GB file storage space, and support for working with multiple domains. That's more capable than some of the premium competition, and includes the same productivity tools as the free suite, yet still only costs $3 per user per month, billed annually. Zoho's Professional plan gets you 100GB of storage (per user), 40MB attachments, support for Active Directory groups, and more. It's yours for $6 per user per month (billed annually), not bad at all for the storage space and features you're getting. Also, Lite plan is available with less features, but it's only $1 per user per month, billed annually. Liquidweb is based in the US and provides with an attractive low price for its offering. Liquid Web is probably best known for its comprehensive managed and dedicated server packages, but the company also provides an interesting email hosting service for what could be a very low price. Note that you will need to buy LW's Premium Web Hosting in order to get their email service. They do not sell it as a stand alone service. The baseline Standard plan offers POP, SMTP and IMAP access, supports 50MB attachments and gives you a decent 25GB of storage space. The ability to import contacts from Gmail, Outlook and more gets you set up quickly, spam protection is handled via top quality Cloudmark technology, and you're able to set up custom email filters and rules as required. Liquid Web charges a flat $10 a month fee for your account, but after that, each Standard plan mailbox costs only $1 more. If you need five or more mailboxes, that's going to be very good value, especially for the high level of support on offer. The Plus plan enhances the service with 30GB of cloud storage, mobile sync for contacts and calendars, and online editing of spreadsheets and documents. This also includes a one-off $10 service fee and is $3 per mailbox, potentially a very good deal if you're catering for a lot of people. A final Microsoft Exchange plan gets you 100GB mailboxes, ActiveSync compatibility and Active Directory support, and even throws in a free copy of Outlook. Its price of $10 a month isn't quite as impressive value as its low-end cousins, but Liquid Web does allow you to include Exchange and Starter or Plus accounts in the same order. You could have 10 Starter mailboxes and two Exchange for only $40 a month, for instance, and that competes well with even big-name budget providers. 10 things to look for in your next email hostingIf you want to host email accounts together with your website, then you should look at these email features before signup. Most hosting companies will offer the ability to host your own email (something like email@yourdomain. com). Your package will include a number of email accounts – usually between 1-10 for basic hosting. You’ll be given access to your own email control panel to set up your accounts. Using email requires two things: an email server and an email application, this could be an email client such as Outlook, or alternatively access to Webmail like Gmail or Yahoo. The email server is a piece of software that runs on the server and is constantly connected to the internet. It receives and processes any mail sent to it and sends out any mail you send. The email client is an app that runs on your PC, phone or tablet and enables you to send, receive and organise your emails, e.g. Microsoft Outlook. The client checks the mail server for messages and downloads them for viewing. It is a control panel for reading and writing messages. The good news is that most email clients can connect with most email servers, you can even connect multiple email servers to work with multiple email accounts. So your work and personal emails can be accessed from the same email client. The more popular email clients such as Outlook give you more features (calendars, tasks etc.) than using webmail. Webmail is a web-based email interface that can be accessed in a web browser is often faster and more convenient because it accesses the stored data more directly without the user having to download software locally. Emails can be checked from any device with access to the internet. Email protocols are a set of rules that help the client to send the information to or from the mail server. Two of the most common email protocols are POP and IMAP: 1. POP (Post office protocol) Applications like Outlook will use POP to download emails from the server to your computer and then delete them on the server. 2. IMAP (Internet message access protocol) IMAP is more advanced than POP, with IMAP, emails are stored in the mail server and can be accessed from any clients anywhere if they all use IMAP. Mail data is kept on the server as well as your computer, until you delete the mail. When comparing hosting packages, be sure to choose one with full IMAP support. Exchange Exchange is the gold standard email protocol – the most expensive option of the three, but for good reason. It’s a Microsoft protocol that gives you the power to sync tasks like IMAP does, but with the added ability to share contacts and calendars among employees. If you can afford to pay the extra cost (around $9.99 per month per mailbox), you will reap the benefits of its advanced functionality and tools which can be used even when you are on the move. You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides:
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| Samsung The Wall MicroLED: First look Posted: 27 Dec 2019 08:09 AM PST In the first week of December, Samsung released its most recent pinnacle in display technology in India - The Wall microLED display. Samsung invited us to experience what The Wall and their latest microLED technology are all about. We went to Samsung's experience center and the setup looked like a dream cinema room, but the first thing that we bet anyone would notice will be The Wall. The screen commands attention. Unsurprisingly, because of its gigantic size that spans up to 292-inches with 8K resolution. However, we got to see the smallest 146-inch 4K setup, which is still double the size of today's largest consumer TVs that usually max out at 75-inches. We want to take a moment to appreciate the company for giving it the most fitting name, but for reasons different than what you know Rahul Dravid for, The Wall not just covers your wall but also tries to imitate it with some exciting digital art. But it's not just another showpiece, as it can also do everything you do on your smart TV. The interesting fact is, Samsung says it's not a TV although it can function like one. They're right, it's more than a TV, and it's not primarily meant for households unless you can fit in a minimum of 146-inches at your home and pay more than Rs 3.5 crore. While its use cases also suit a home space, The Wall is a commercial-focused product. But there's a high possibility that Samsung might come up with a consumer-focused microLED TVs in relatively smaller sizes. Note that Samsung had introduced a 75-inch variant of The Wall at the global announcement, but that did not make it to India. Why is The Wall so expensive?The main highlight of The Wall display is its microLED technology, and precisely the reason why these screens seem to be priced exorbitantly high. Note that it is the only new display technology that has been commercialized in more than a decade after OLED was commercialized in 2008. We're about to enter 2020, and OLEDs have now started to become mainstream in the Indian market and is not limited to TVs, but phones, laptops, and even wearables. Similarly, microLED is going to take its time before it reaches anywhere close to getting affordable for middle-class homes. Till then, you might see it in hotel lobbies, corporate offices, VIP lounges, art galleries, and the likes. What is MicroLED?MicroLED is the proprietory panel technology developed by Samsung that uses shrunken, self-illuminating LED building blocks to form a bigger panel. It doesn’t require a discrete backlight, and there’s no need for LCD shutters. In turn, this creates a brighter, more contrast-rich television that can turn pixels off individually. Samsung believes it retains all the good features of the OLED and improves on the shortcomings. According to them, The Wall uses a non-organic substrate, so it should never have the burn-in issue that's a common issue with OLEDs. But its biggest advantage is its modularity. If 146-inches isn't enough, you can add up more LEDs to expand the screen area. Each 'block' measures 806.4 x 453.6 mm (around 36 inches diagonally), with a display resolution of 960 x 540 pixels (HD). This makes it possible to scale up to 292-inches. DesignYou must have imagined how massive The Wall is, but when you see it in person, it gets even tougher to imagine fitting it in a typical home. The screen goes from edge to edge, meaning there's literally no bezel involved, and it's 30mm thick. The 146-inch configuration that we saw was made of 16 cabinets in a 4x4 setting. The design choice behind this, we were told, is that when The Wall is set up next to other units, it will look like one seamless image, rather than two TVs working in tandem with bezels interfering with the content on screen. ExperienceSamsung highlighted that The Wall is aided by a few smart features like black seal technology, chroma max, quantum HDR technology to enhance the visual experience. The black seal technology enhances black levels, and it protects the panel from getting tampered by external factors like dust and moisture. Similarly, the quantum dot technology improves SDR content to match HDR quality, prevents color distortion, and optimizes gradation and brightness levels that go up to 2000 nits. The heart of The Wall is its Quantum Processor Flex that does the upscaling duty to match the huge size of the screen. Samsung claims it uses AI algorithms to analyse the source image and compare images on each pixel to a set of learned patterns and process enhanced information. From what we could understand, the engine does real-time noise reduction, edge restoration, and similar processing to send out data up to 4K resolution at 120fps at its best. Our demo lasted for merely thirty minutes, but it was enough to get an idea of the picture quality and performance. We spent the majority of the time on the smart TV menu, where The Wall showed its real magic. In our limited experience, we found the picture quality quite similar to a high-end OLED panel. What's good is that you cannot tell apart the pixels unless you get very close to the panel. To get the best of the picture quality, you should sit at least 8-10 feet away from the panel. I played SDR and HDR content on the screen, and The Wall did show well defined and sharp pictures. The color performance, contrast, and blacks looked nice too. That said, we did not get to test the screen in detail, but it definitely showed promising results in the demo. The display is so big; you cannot clutter the user interface even if you put 20 useless tiles into it. Samsung has done a commendable job there, as the interface is pretty slick and tidy. Navigating through the interface felt seamless, and there are two display modes- entertainment mode and ambient mode. Entertainment mode lets you browse content and do everything that you do on your TV, and ambient mode sets it to wallpaper mode. The ambient mode gives you plenty of custom options to use it as a painting, media art, background theme, etc. We have seen some other display walls as well, but The Wall takes away most of the limitations that are common with large displays based on conventional technology. It focuses on improving picture quality, lets you extend it, and looks good too. As mentioned before, The Wall is one of the early adopters of the microLED display tech that will take quite some time to become accessible for the majority. It starts at Rs 3.5 crore without taxes, and that clearly means it's one of the rare pieces of luxury that is not going to be seen everywhere. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| New leaked renders show off the iPad Pro 2020 rear camera Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:37 AM PST We're expecting Apple to get around to refreshing the iPad Pro at some point next year, and newly leaked renders give us some idea of what to expect when the upgraded slates finally break cover. The pictures provided by the usually reliable @OnLeaks and iGeeksBlog don't show the actual device itself, but rather how the 2020 iPad Pro might look based on the rumors and speculation we've heard so far. What you'll notice immediately is that triple-lens rear camera array up in the corner on the back of the Apple tablet – that spec and design matches the configuration of the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max.
It wouldn't be the first time and it's unlikely to be the last time that Apple borrows from its iPhones to enhance its iPad range, so we can well believe that next year's premium iPads will come with a camera upgrade. Rumors of improved camera optics for the next iPad refresh have been swirling for a while now, and it seems this is one of the few areas where Apple's slates can actually be given a substantial upgrade. The usual internal component improvements and perhaps tweaks to the display have also been predicted, though the overall look of the iPad Pro is expected to be largely the same as the 2018 models. Last year Apple refreshed its entry-level iPad, the iPad Mini, and the iPad Air, which means the iPad Pro model is the odd one out – something that Apple will be looking to rectify during the course of 2020. The dimensions of the two 2020 iPad Pro slates are expected to match the ones from 2018, so the screen sizes will once again be 11 inches and 12.9 inches, as before. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| 7 wearables to get excited for in 2020: Apple Watch 6 to new smart glasses Posted: 27 Dec 2019 07:00 AM PST The break of a new decade is almost upon us, and with it will come new wearables. Gartner forecasts that spending on wearables will hit $51.5 billion next year, with smartwatches leading the pack. Wearable tech is only going to keep growing, and in 2020 we expect to see several major new devices from key players in this space. In fact, there are a few we can already be sure of. Below, we’ve rounded up a few devices we expect to get our hands on next year – and a couple we’re just praying we might. A Wear OS watch that doesn’t suckWear OS watches on the whole don't make the most of the platform, and so Google should be leading by example – an example that could perhaps come in the form of a Pixel Watch. A Google Watch has never materialized, as the company has instead leaned on its OEM partners to build on the Wear OS platform. But unless something changes soon, Google’s going to cede the remaining part of its smartwatch share to Apple and its other rivals. The Pixel Watch may not come in 2020 – or ever – but this is the year for Google to change gears in wearables. It did just announce it will acquire Fitbit for a cool $2.1 billion, and earlier this year struck up a deal with Fossil to acquire hybrid smartwatch tech and engineering talent. What we’re saying is, Google is decidedly interested in this space. We’d love to see it finally build a smartwatch of its own, if only to give the entire Wear OS industry some sort of leader device to work from, but if we don’t get the Pixel Watch in 2020, is it possible we’ll see the first Fitbit running Wear OS? Samsung Galaxy Watch 2The original Samsung Galaxy Watch Samsung’s smartwatch release cadence is all over the place right now: it launched the Galaxy Watch in August 2018, then the Watch Active in February this year, then followed it with the Watch Active 2 in September. Taking that into consideration, it’s anyone’s guess when Samsung may launch another smartwatch, but there’s a chance we could even get something alongside the Galaxy S11 in February 2020 (although we think August is a safer bet). Watch Active 2 wearers are still waiting on the ECG, a headline feature that won’t be switched on until Samsung obtains FDA clearance. But there’s plenty more Samsung can be doing to keep up in this race, and the company sees a lot of potential in deeper health features such as body composition tracking. Here’s what we think we know: the Watch 2 is codenamed “Renaissance,” which ostensibly hints as some sort of rebirthing of the Galaxy smartwatch entirely. Of course, there’s a good chance we’re reading too much into that.
Apple Watch 6Sure as clockwork, the Apple Watch 6 will arrive next year, but as of writing very little about the next smartwatch has leaked out. Okay, one leak has popped up: analyst/industry soothsayer Ming-Chi Kuo predicts the next watch will have faster speeds, better water resistance, and improved wireless connectivity. All of which would be great, but none of which would be strong enough to hang the Series 6 off; it needs an ace in the hole. The Apple Watch 4 had an AKG (and new design). The Apple Watch 5 had an always-on display. What will be the Series 6’s big feature? A two-day battery would be good, but the big rumor right now is sleep tracking. There have been hints that Apple is working on the feature, one that Fitbit and others have long offered. Hope for a round Apple Watch refuse to die, but beyond patents there’s been no sense that Apple is taking the idea more seriously.
The next big accessible VR headsetThe original PSVR Facebook has done a lot of work in making VR accessible this year, and we expect it to keep chugging along in 2020. Expect at least one more Oculus headset next year, and if we had to ask for one specifically, it would be an upgrade for the Oculus Go, which is looking a little long in the tooth next to the Quest and Rift S. However, Sony could also be the one to deliver the next great VR headset that keeps a low barrier of entry. With the PlayStation 5 set to arrive next year, speculation around a PlayStation VR 2 headset is rife, and although Sony has shot down ideas of a new VR system launching alongside the new console, we wouldn’t be surprised if one follows shortly after. We could, at the very least, get a teaser for something next year, particularly as Sony may be keen to capitalize on Microsoft’s decision to snub VR with the Xbox Series X. Snap Spectacles 4There's an increasing interest in how Snap is using its video-recording glasses as a way to communicate. What started out as a buzzy influencer-tempting toy has evolved into a mock-up for the future of face-worn AR. The latest version, launched this year, added a second camera for depth perception, opening up all sorts of interesting 3D effects that could be mapped onto the world around the user. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is both bullish and realistic about AR: he recognizes that AR glasses are a way off, but the company seems intent on pushing ahead regardless, and I’m excited to see what the next step looks like. North Focals 2.0The original North Focals glasses The first Focals AR glasses from North gave us the odd glimmer of what real AR glasses might look like, but they were too compromised by fiddly controls and unreliable apps. The company has now ended production of its first glasses and announced the Focals 2.0 for 2020. They’ll bring a higher-resolution display and thinner temples, according to the company, which hasn’t revealed anything else besides a teaser photo. Hopefully these will prove more of a success than the first. The company hasn’t revealed how many of the first-gen units it sold, but it reduced the price down from $1000 to $600 and laid off 150 employees earlier this year. Without wanting to end this on a bad note, we really are excited to see what North brings in its next pair of glasses. It does, after all, understand one fundamental truth about smartglasses: they shouldn’t make you look like a dork. Wildcard option: Apple AR GlassesThere’d be a nice synchronism in Apple launching its first smartglasses in 2020, as reports have claimed, but having tried out just about every and any AR headset we could get ours hands on for the past five years, we've been skeptical. Sure enough, The Information now plots 2022 as the launch date for Apple’s first headset, with smaller glasses to follow a year later. This seems more reasonable, but nonetheless we’re including Apple’s glasses as our wildcard option on the off chance the company even teases them next year. Considering how much time Apple may need to get developers building great things for AR glasses, such an early reveal isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
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| Forget a Netbook - this is the smallest laptop with a touchpad you can buy Posted: 27 Dec 2019 06:44 AM PST Netbooks used to rule the lightweight laptop market, but recently many devices have been replaced by new offerings from Android manufacturers. However following recent revivals from retro games consoles and vinyl players, Chinese company Magic Ben is now hoping to revive the Netbook trend with a new device called the Mag1 Despite measuring just 20.7 x 14.6 x 1.8cm - a footprint almost as small as an A5 sheet - with a weight of less than 700g - the Mag1 actually has more ports than an Apple Macbook, sporting a full size USB 3.0 port, Type-C connector, microSD card reader, an audio socket and a micro HDMI port.
PortableThe Mag1 manages to pack some high-end components like an Intel Core M3-8100Y CPU, 16GB memory and a 512GB SSD. However its touchscreen display, with a 16:10 aspect ratio and a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels - remains its biggest selling point. Add support for a stylus pen, a backlit keyboard, a fingerprint reader and a spare M.2 port and you get a rather enticing laptop with an incredibly small footprint for a mere $789.99 at Gearbest. Despite its tiny volume, it comes with a 30AHr battery which the manufacturer claims will power it for up to seven hours. As an added bonus you can use a power bank to charge it via the Type-C connector as the latter supports power delivery.
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| Huawei denies Chinese government subsidies Posted: 27 Dec 2019 06:38 AM PST Huawei has denied claims made that over the years it has received as much as $75 billion in state support from the Chinese government. The claims, published on Christmas Day by the Wall Street Journal, continue to underline the acrimonious relationship between Huawei and the US. The company recently complaining that it was being subjected to cyberattacks and staff harassment by US authorities, despite repeatedly claiming its innocence.
Tax breaksThe WSJ claims that as well as claiming $46 billion in loans and credit as well as other direct state aid, Huawei's work was also supplemented by tax breaks amounting to $25 billion. On top of these, land discounts of $2 billion were reported, along with $1.6 billion in other grants. According to a response published by ZDnet, Huawei claims that any tax breaks and grants relate to $73 billion of research and development by the company. Additionally, it stated that it has not received preferential treatment by the Chinese government, and that Western companies establishing themselves in China have also received similar grants and tax breaks. However, the US government is likely to take a dim view of the situation, especially due to its opposition to state aid coupled with its currently acrimonious dealings with Chinese manufacturers, with crippling tariffs on iPhones and other Chinese-made electronics averted at the last minute before Christmas. Additionally, while Huawei has previously been declared a security risk by US intelligence due to perceived close connections between it and the Chinese government, similar accusations have previously been made against tech giants such as Google, which was known to have employed workers from US national security agencies. Via ZDnet
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| Here’s the cheapest Windows PC right now - and it even has a spare M.2 slot Posted: 27 Dec 2019 06:00 AM PST BMax may not be a household name but with a product like the B1 mini PC that could double as a thin client ($99.99 at Gearbest after a $20 discount via a coupon code GBCNBMAXB1), it may well soon be. Unlike some of the other sub-$100 computers we listed here, the B1 is based on the Intel Celeron N3060 CPU which is a slightly more powerful processor compared to the Atom X5-8350 usually found in these devices. This could make it a perfect match for anyone looking for an affordable, yet competitive business PC.
Disclaimers? Don’t expect it to be in any way powerful enough to play any recently-released games, however it will be great for office work and for light tasks in general. The B1 also packs 4GB of memory and 64GB eMMC storage; unique amongst sub-$100 PC is the fact that you can add a second SSD drive in the shape of a M.2 slot and given how cheap SSD are at the moment (even 2TB ones), it might be an easy way to get a souped up storage server. The rest of the configuration is pretty much standard for an entry level PC; 802.11ac Wi-Fi, four USB ports, a VGA port (a rarity at this price), a HDMI one, Gigabit Ethernet (even rarer) and a 3.5mm headset jack. Since it has a VESA bracket, you will be able to drop it at the back of a monitor without much trouble.
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| Enco Free truly-wireless earphone is Oppo's affordable Apple Airpods look-alike Posted: 27 Dec 2019 05:14 AM PST Oppo Enco Free is the company's first truly wireless earphones, which strikingly resembles Apple's AirPods with a slight twist. The Enco Free comes with two silicone ear-tips options-- in-ear for a comfortable fit and semi-in-ear for more breathability. Oppo's true-wireless earphones feature 13.4mm dynamic drivers with a frequency response ranging between 16Hz-20KHz. The Enco Free supports Bluetooth 5.0 that enables simultaneous binaural transmission to the left and right units. Oppo claims that the Enco Free has a very minimal latency, not exceeding 120ms. Each Enco Free earphone weighs 4.6 grams, and the entire weight of the device with the charging case comes out to be 48.2 grams. The case sports an LED indicator and a pairing button on the right side. The earphones are also IPX4 certified, making it resistant to sweat and dust. So, users can use these pair of wireless earphones during workout sessions just as easily and carefree. Oppo says that the Enco Free can deliver studio-like audio quality as it uses an FPC positioning system with a dual magnetic circuit, magnalium clad diaphragm, and a titanium dome-shaped diaphragm. The Enco Free can enhance details, bass, and dynamic range of the audio output for a better listening experience. These wireless earphones also make use of intuitive controls like double-tap to answer calls, play/pause music, and sliding up and down on the left headset for volume control. Swiping up and down on the right earphone lets users change playback tracks. For calls, the Enco Free is equipped with dual-beam-forming microphones and AI uplink noise cancellation for clear disturbance-free calling experience. The Enco Free earphones have a 31mAh battery while the charging case has a 410mAh battery. Oppo claims that the wireless earphones can play music for 5 hours on a single charge and 25 hours with the accompanying charging case. It takes around 70 minutes for the earphones to get from 0-100% and approximately 110 minutes for the charging case to be fully charged. Oppo Enco Free true wireless earphones come in white, black, and pink color options to choose from. It is priced at CNY699 in China, which is around Rs 7,000. However, we currently have no information about the possible release date of the Enco Free earphones in India. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Watch every Sky Wars Skywalker Saga movie in 4K UHD for £180 Posted: 27 Dec 2019 05:12 AM PST The Skywalker Saga is done, and the Star Wars movies are moving on to new characters and new ideas – but that doesn't mean you have to leave behind the adventures of Episodes I through IX completely. Amazon will sell you all nine movies in 4K UHD Blu-ray format for the handsome price of £180, so you can settle down and revisit all the instalments in the saga as often as you like, in the comfort of your living room. The only question is when exactly you'll be able to get your hands on the discs – for the time being, you can only pre-order the package, so it's not clear exactly when it'll go on sale (The Rise Of Skywalker is still in cinemas of course). With some really nice extras and a well-designed package though, this is a Boxing Day and New Year sale deal not to be missed. Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga dealThis posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| This Huawei P30 deal packs in massive data at a price far better than the Pro Posted: 27 Dec 2019 05:05 AM PST Splashing out on a phone with a big data plan can quickly rack up some hefty monthly bills. But we've tracked down a Huawei P30 deal that not only comes with a boat-load of data but does it without costing you an arm and a leg each month. And for another dose of good news, this deal comes on one of our picks for the best smartphones around. Costing just £27 a month for a whopping 100GB of data, you'll be hard pressed to beat this kind of value. Over the Black Friday period, we saw the price of this offer go flying up and it only recently came back down so it is best to get it now before it faces any other major price rises. How good is the Huawei P30?As we said above, the Huawei P30 is an impressive handset but the thing that really stands out here is the camera. At this price tag, we're happy in saying that this might just be the best camera phone around. With its triple lens set-up featuring a 30x zoom, wide angle, portrait mode and smart AI features, this camera will shine no matter the situation. Inside the phone, there's a large 3650mAh battery, the processor is incredibly powerful and there's even a headphone jack on board! Yes, the device lacks wireless charging and doesn't have the highest IP rating but those are factors we're more than willing to forgive. Read our review of the Huawei P30 Read more:
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| Jedi voices in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker revealed: who does Rey hear? Posted: 27 Dec 2019 05:00 AM PST When Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ends and Rey defeats Emperor Palpatine, her, er… grandfather, she hears Jedi voices from Star Wars' past. You likely recognized a few of them, like Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi or Frank Oz's Yoda – but there are so many Jedi talking at once that you're unlikely to appreciate all these cameos on the first viewing. In a movie that's overstuffed with fan service, this is one of the best touches by director JJ Abrams. Luckily, since the film was released, eagle-eye viewers have snapped the credits, and we now know who they all are. Below, we'll explain who all the Jedi voices are in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and they include some pretty deep cuts from Star Wars lore. It's a treat if you're a fan of the animated Star Wars TV series in particular. Here's a quick run-down:
Note that some of these characters were portrayed by other actors in live-action. Adi Gallia was played by Gin Clarke, for example, and Aayla Secura was played by Amy Allen. This sequence is one of the most detailed bits of fan service in the movies to date. While, for example, the animated series Rebels was alluded to heavily in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – you can see the crew's ship Ghost at the Battle of Scarif – here we're treated to more direct references. Ahsoka Tano is dead, according to The Rise of SkywalkerIt's caused some debate among Star Wars fans. Ahsoka Tano, a fan favorite character from both The Clone Wars and Rebels animated series, is confirmed dead by The Rise of Skywalker, assuming that all these voices are Force ghosts (the rest are, so there's no reason to assume Ahsoka wouldn't be as well). Perhaps the end of her story is being saved for a future Star Wars project. Still, it's nice that she got a little moment in the live-action movies. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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