YOU - Pabs` Website

Transcription

YOU - Pabs` Website

SPECIAL
ISSUE
THE FUTURE OF
TECH
TEN TECHNOLOGIES
THAT WILL CHANGE
YOUR LIFE
+
51 FAR-OUT
PREDICTIONS
+
OUR SCI-FI
FUTURE
> SMART PANTS
> RUBBER CHIPS
> PERSONAL ROBOTS
> SEE-THRU DISPLAYS
> DIGITAL BRAIN IMPLANTS
> TWENTY-YEAR BATTERIES
> NANOCRYSTALS AND MORE
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Intel logo, Intel Core, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Viiv, Pentium, Pentium Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are registered
trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Screen images are simulated. While Toshiba has made every effort at the time of publication to
ensure the accuracy of the information provided herein, product specifications, configurations, prices, system/component/options availability are all subject to change without notice. For the most up-to-date product information about your
computer, or to stay current with the various computer software or hardware options, visit Toshiba’s website at pcsupport.toshiba.com. Reseller/Retailer pricing may vary. © 2006 Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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PCONTENTS
AUGUST 8, 2006 VOL. 25 NO. 13
COVE R STO RY
65
THE 10 COOLEST
TECHNOLOGIES
YOU’VE NEVER
HEARD OF
The technologies we unearthed
impressed even us: stretchable
silicon, nanocrystal displays,
transparent transistors, bacterial
photography, viral fashion, and
more. Also, three of the smartest
guys in the computer industry offer their predictions: among them,
mesh networks with millions of
nodes blanketing the earth and
our bodies, a robot revolution,
and a nation of super-learners.
29
FIRST LOOKS
30 Hardware
Dell XPS M2010
Apple MacBook
13-inch
38 Consumer
Electronics
Motorola Q
Helio Hero
Toshiba Qosmio
G35-AV650
WinBook 32M0
Sony VAIO
VGC-RC310G
Geneva Sound
System Model L
Fuji FinePix V10
eMachines T6532
Soundcast iCast
Lenovo ThinkPad
X60s
Nokia N80
Gateway E-100M
Sony VAIO
VGN-SZ Series
Motorola E815
Samsung
MM-A800
Dell XPS M1210
Photograph: Oregon State University/oaklyphotography.com
46 Networking
50 Small Business
Buffalo AirStation
Nfiniti Wireless
Router WZR-G300N
Toshiba TDP-T95U
Netgear RangeMax
Next Wireless
Router WNR854T
Ricoh Aficio
CL3500N
Linksys Wireless-N
Broadband Router
WRT300N
48 Software
M-Audio Session
Multiply
Kyocera KR1
Mobile Router
59 The Best Stuff
The best products
all in one place
34 Buying Guide:
Ultraportable
Notebooks
Infrant ReadyNAS
NV
42 Buying Guide:
Buffalo TeraStation
54 Buying Guide:
Iomega StorCenter
Wireless Network
Storage 1TB
Camera Phones
Network-Attached
Storage
Anthology
Solutions Yellow
Machine P400T
AUGUST 8, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 7
PCONTENTS
OPINIONS
11 First Word
Jim Louderback
61 Michael J. Miller
62 Bill Machrone
63 Inside Track
130 John C. Dvorak
FUTURE TECH
THE SCIENCE FICTION FILES
77
Among the technological marvels and perils that
fi rst appeared in the pages of science fiction are
cell phones, the Internet, computer viruses, communications satellites, and nanotechnology. David Gerrold, writer
of the immensely popular Star Trek episode “The Trouble
with Tribbles,” looks at sci-fi’s prediction record, points out
successes and flops, and reveals his vision of the future.
REAL-WORLD TESTING
“ATTENTION, TECHNOLOGY
SHOPPERS!”
99
People are one-stop shopping at big box stores
like Target, Wal-Mart, and Kmart for both household items and tech gear. But do these jazzed-up department
stores really give electronics outlets such as Best Buy and
Circuit City a run for their money? Or are they stocked with
nothing but funky junk?
SOLUTIONS
108 Ask Neil
Formatting plotted
points in Excel;
Firefox faves to go.
109 Ask Loyd
Streaming Internet radio to hi-fi ;
hard drive upgrade
headache.
PIPELINE
112 SMB Boot Camp
Keep your e-mail
20 Web Surfing in 3D:
in-house or outNew browsers let
source it?
you tour virtual
worlds. Also, a
114 Vista Revealed
Google Earth
Vista’s Photo Galupgrade; Blu-ray
lery manages your
players delayed.
images well.
22 Future Watch
115 Software Solutions
Feeling old? ConSome of PC
sider radical life
Magazine editors’
extension.
favorite Firefox
extensions.
CONNECTED
TRAVELER
25 Chicago
TECHNORIDE
26 Subaru Legacy
2.5 GT
Mona, new cellphone nav; can gasoline be replaced?
27 Bill Howard
ALSO INSIDE
16 Feedback
19 Abort, Retry, Fail
116 Security Watch
Protect yourself against Web
attacks.
GAMING &
CULTURE
126 Will your games
work on Windows
Vista?
We ran some popular ones to see.
GEARLOG
129 The Motorola
SD4500 system
This phone doubles
as a baby monitor.
BUILD IT
YOUR VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
103
Meet your new receptionist: Its name is Asterisk. This Web-based VoIP program can
form the core of a business telephony system and is amazingly versatile—though we still haven’t figured out a way to
get it to order your office supplies.
PC Magazine, ISSN 0888-8507, is published semi-monthly except monthly in January and July at $44.97 for one
year. Ziff Davis Media Inc, 28 E. 28th St., New York, NY 10016-7940. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY 100167940 and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Address changes to PC Magazine, P.O. Box 54070, Boulder,
CO 80328-4070. The Canadian GST registration number is 865286033. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40009221.
Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to P.O. Box 503, R.P.O. West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6,
Canada. Printed in the U.S.A.
8 PC MAGAZINE AUGUST 8, 2006
PCMAG ONLINE
Go to PCMag.com for up-to-the-minute tech
news, hands-on reviews, and supplements to this
issue’s feature stories. For instance, you can read
up on stretchable silicon in our Future Tech story
on the ten coolest technologies you’ve never
heard of, then see how it works in our demo
video at go.pcmag.com/futuretech.
Illustration by Owen Smith
Find tools and guidance to defend your network at microsoft.com/security/IT
Free Tools and Updates: Streamline patch management
with automated tools like Windows Server Update Services.
And verify that your systems are configured for maximized
security with Microsoft ® Baseline Security Analyzer.
TM
Microsoft Security Assessment Tool: Complete this
free, online self-assessment to evaluate your organization’s
security practices and identify areas for improvement.
Antivirus for Exchange: Download a free trial of Antigen® for
Exchange and arm your e-mail server with powerful multi-engine
protection from viruses, worms, and inappropriate content.
Learning Paths for Security: Take advantage of in-depth
online training tools and security expert webcasts organized
around your specific needs. Then test your security solutions
in virtual labs, all available on TechNet.
F I R ST WO R D
BY JIM LOUDERBACK, EDITOR
This issue, we explore a landscape of atomic batteries, new brain-silicon interfaces, and digital fashions that can sweep across populations in an eyeblink.
A
COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO I WAS
lucky enough to get a tour of
the new Calit2 Center at the
University of California, San
Diego. Its mission: to live in the
future. As I experimented with
gigabits of bandwidth, a 4,096line digital projector, and more
toys than FAO Schwarz, I was totally blissed out—
until it was time to leave (aw, gee, Ma!).
You’ll feel the same way after reading this issue. It’s our annual focus on future tech, and we’ve
re-created the wonder of the future, coming soon to
a home and office near you.
The first part explores ten technologies you
probably don’t know about but that will change
your world—and soon. Along with a smattering of
technologies from Calit2, we take a look at atomic
batteries that never die, new brain-silicon interfaces, and digital fashions that can sweep across
entire populations in the blink of an eye. Along the
way you’ll meet three of the smartest futurists making predictions today. And finally, we’ve enlisted the
help of sci-fi author David Gerrold, of “Tribbles”
fame, to explain what science fiction has gotten
right and which of its predictions have fallen flat.
Unless you bring a sleeping bag to the Calit2
Center, you’ll have to wait for the future to come to
you. But our stories offer the next best thing.
Here are some other fun facts from this issue:
• Wal-Mart is a great place for gear! I told Ex-
ecutive Editor Jeremy Kaplan to explore the
high-tech offerings at Target, Kmart, and WalMart and sent him off with a fistful of dollars.
His story—and some of the wackier products he
found—begins on page 99.
• VoIP is killing the PBX, too: Sure, you know
about Vonage, Skype, and SunRocket. But did
you know that you could replace an expensive
business PBX with an older PC and open-source
software—and save thousands each month? This
issue’s project explains how—page 103.
• Avoiding the botnet army: I always thought
hackers were focused on home users, but it
turns out that businesses are even more at risk
of becoming zombies. How to cope, in Security
Watch on page 116.
• My kind of town: Cops on Segways! We visit the
Windy City in Connected Traveler—page 25.
Illustration by Mondolitic Studios
Take better pictures. That was the subject of a
recent cover story here, in which we explored the
best cameras, and the best techniques, to help you
take better digital pictures. Want more? Then sign
up for our free online seminar for helping you get
more from your digital camera. Our webcast editor, Dylan Tweney, will be joined by camera analyst
Terry Sullivan, HDR whiz Tony Hoffman, and other
experts in this 45-minute online event. You’re guaranteed to learn something, and have some fun too!
Sign up for it today at www.pcmagcast.com.
New York in the fall. Our massive, and massively
entertaining, Digital Life show is coming back to
New York City this October 13 to 16. It’s an eyepopping smorgasbord of nifty new tech toys, digital homes, games, and more. Judging by our recent
show preview, this year will be the best yet. The
latest games and consoles will be on display, along
with cool new robots, ginormous HDTVs, the newest Blu-ray and HD DVD players, and much, much
more. Plus, New York is lovely in October. If you
want to live as close to the future as possible, Digital
Life is a great place to start! Q
TALK TO THE CHIEF
You can contact
Jim Louderback at
Jim_Louderback
@ziffdavis.com
For more of his
columns, go to
go.pcmag.com/
louderback
姞
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Shaving Cream. With
www.pcmag.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
antioxidant Vitamin E and
Pro-Vitamin B5 to actively
improve your skin while you
shave. Your skin will look
and feel better. Get a great
shave and healthy skin.
Jim Louderback
Lance Ulanoff
EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY Ben Z. Gottesman
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER (ONLINE) Robyn Peterson
EXECUTIVE EDITORS Stephanie Chang, Carol L. Gonsher, Vicki B. Jacobson (online),
Jeremy A. Kaplan
ART DIRECTOR Richard J. Demler
MANAGING EDITOR Paul B. Ross
EDITOR, REVIEWS
REVIEWS SENIOR EDITORS Sean Carroll (software, Internet, networking),
Dan Costa (consumer electronics), Jennifer DeFeo (hardware), Carol Mangis (TechnoRide),
Sebastian Rupley (West Coast, Pipeline)
LEAD ANALYSTS Cisco Cheng, Robert Heron, Davis D. Janowski, Oliver Kaven, Mike Kobrin,
Neil J. Rubenking, Joel Santo Domingo, Sascha Segan, M. David Stone, Terry Sullivan
REVIEWS EDITORS Brian Bennett (hardware), Gary Berline (software, Internet, networking),
Laarni Almendrala Ragaza (consumer electronics)
WEB PRODUCERS Rachel B. Florman, Molly K. McLaughlin, Jen Trolio
PRODUCT DATABASE MANAGER Gina Suk COMMERCE PRODUCER Arielle Rochette
PRODUCT REVIEW COORDINATOR PJ Jacobowitz
INVENTORY CONTROL COORDINATOR Nicole Graham
FEATURES FEATURES EDITORS
SENIOR WRITER
Cade Metz
Dan Evans, Sarah Pike, Erik Rhey
Tony Hoffman
STAFF EDITOR
Michael St. George ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Liana Zamora
Aaron Able GRAPHICS DIRECTOR David Foster
Scott Schedivy
ART SENIOR ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
PRODUCTION ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR
COPY CHIEF
Elizabeth A. Parry
Michal Dluginski PRODUCTION MANAGER Jennifer Murray
Margaret McVeigh, Ann Ovodow, Steven Wishnia
COPY EDITORS
Yun-San Tsai PRODUCER Mark Lamorgese
Whitney A. Reynolds PRODUCTION ARTIST Erin Simon
NEWS EDITOR Mark Hachman NEWS REPORTER Bary Alyssa Johnson
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Kyle Monson ASSISTANT EDITOR Jennifer L. DeLeo
UTILITY PROGRAM MANAGER Tim Smith COMMUNITY MANAGER Jim Lynch
ONLINE SENIOR PRODUCER
ASSISTANT PRODUCER
Helen Bradley, John Clyman, Richard V. Dragan, Craig Ellison,
John R. Delaney, John C. Dvorak, Galen Fott, Bill Howard, Don Labriola, Bill Machrone,
Ed Mendelson, Jan Ozer, Larry Seltzer, Don Willmott
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
INTERNS
Veronica DeLeon, Erroll A. Pierre-Louis
Loyd Case
Victor Loh
EXTREMETECH.COM EDITOR
TECHNOLOGY ANALYST
SENIOR TECHNOLOGY ANALYST
CORPORATE PRODUCTION ASSISTANT PRODUCTION DIRECTOR
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Michelle Chizmadia
CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER
Jason Cross
Ivis Fundichely
Amanda Allensworth
TRAFFIC MANAGER
Michael J. Miller
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Contact your local reseller
Prices shown are HP Direct prices; reseller and retail prices may vary. Prices shown are subject to change and do not include applicable state and local taxes or shipping to recipient’s address. Offers cannot be combined with any other offer
or discount, are good while supplies last and are available from HP Direct and participating HP resellers. All featured offers available in U.S. only. Savings based on HP published list price of configure-to-order equivalent ($1177 - $100 instant
rebate - $100 instant savings = SmartBuy price $977). Certain warranty restrictions and exclusions may apply. For complete warranty details, call 1-800-345-1518 (U.S.). 1. For hard drives, GB=Billion Bytes. Actual formatted capacity
is less. 2. Optional Remote Insight Lights-Out Edition II (RILOE II) sold separately. 3. Service levels and response times for HP Care Packs may vary depending on your geographic location. Restrictions and limitations apply. For details, visit
www.hp.com/go/carepack. Intel, the Intel Logo, Xeon and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. © 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
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FEEDBACK
SMART HOMES FOR THE REST OF US
I read your story about smart homes (June 6, page
72), and wanted to take this opportunity to thank
you for showing your readers how the insanely rich
watch Shrek 2. It’s enlightening to know that the
Adkins brothers’ home-theater systems in North
Carolina cost more to install than the average
American’s house, cars, boat, and PCs put together!
What about showing us lowly paupers in the world
how to set up a home theater for less than, say,
$10,000? That would be worth reading. If I want
pure indulgence, I’ll read Robb Report.—John F. Duval
We did present our favorite (realistically
priced) products alongside the profiles, as
an aid to help you do it yourself. But your
idea’s spot on. Look for an upcoming Build
It story that will answer your question directly.—Jim Louderback
COFFEE WITH RICE IS NICE
A s a Ho u s to n re s i d e n t , I re a d t h e
Connected Traveler column on Houston
(June 27, page 28) with interest. One bone
to pick: While I agree wholeheartedly
with the recommendation of Crossroads
Coffee, the article has it next to the wrong
university. The University of Houston can
hardly be said to be “near”—it is several
miles away. Crossroads Coffee is, however,
located just a few blocks from picturesque
Rice University (www.rice.edu).
Rice’s claims to fame are many. It has
a long connection with NASA. President
Kennedy stood in the Rice football stadium and gave one of the speeches chalHOW TO CONTACT US
We welcome your comments and suggestions.
When sending e-mail to Feedback, please state
in the subject line of your message which article or column prompted your response. E-mail
pcmag@ziffdavis.com. All letters become the
property of PC Magazine and are subject to editing. We regret that we cannot answer letters
individually.
lenging the nation to go the moon: “We
choose to go to the moon in this decade
and do the other things, not because
they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Most recently, two faculty members received a Nobel Prize for their invention
and work related to nanotechnology—
specifically the buckyball and related
carbon compounds.—Robert Rice
both sides will concentrate their efforts
and offer competitive packages, but I don’t
think it will help people who already have
few broadband options.—David Boyd
David, I’m among the lucky few who have
access to and have installed Verizon’s FiOS
service (see go.pcmag.com/lancefios). I
find it hard to imagine that phone companies are seeking to “widen the digital divide,”
but I have to admit that the rollout has been
remarkably spotty and there’s no rhyme or
reason to where FiOS is and isn’t available.
If I had to guess, I would say that they are
inadvertently doing what you accuse them
of. They’re targeting neighborhoods that
they think, based on past telephone service
experience, are most likely to adopt FiOS—
a revenue/business decision. Obviously, if
that’s the case, I’d prefer they were far more
agnostic. That said, instead of not supporting the rollout, I think all people and communities should be loudly demanding it in
their areas.—Lance Ulanoff
I really enjoyed Lance Ulanoff’s article on
fiber installation. Thanks for going into
such detail and for the great pictures—I was
curious how the installation was done. Now
I’m only curious as to when Verizon will get
moving and get fiber to Portland, Maine! :-)
—J. Cashman
PERILS OF A HIGH-FIBER DIET
In his “What’s in Your Wallet?” column
(June 6, page 68), Bill Machrone exhorts
us to “Support the phone companies’
fiber-to-the-premises initiatives (over
the cable companies’ loud objections).”
I don’t want to sound as if I’m wholly
on the side of the cable companies, but
the phone companies are not acting in
consumers’ best interests; they are trying
to arrange the regulatory environment
in their own favor so they can cherrypick the neighborhoods where they offer
such services and don’t have to build
out high-speed services in low-income
areas. They are just seeking to deepen the
digital divide, and in Texas such efforts
have allowed the cable companies the
same liberty to build where they please
by getting out of their city franchises. This
will be a fine thing for upscale areas where
Glad you enjoyed it. Now my Verizon installation guy is famous!—LU
SYMANTEC’S WOES
I read Cade Metz’s review of pcAnywhere
12.0 (June 6, page 43). It may well be
a good product, but I am reluctant to
consider it until I’m comfortable that
Symantec has gotten its act together.
I’m finding its products to be buggy and
customer service to be lacking. Antivirus
products sometimes just will not install,
CORRECTIONS & AMPLIFICATIONS
On page 96 of “Do You Know Where Your Kids Are
Clicking?” (July 2006), PC Moderator should have
received 4.5 stars, and ContentProtect should have
received 3.5 stars.
On page 97 of “Wire it Yourself” (June 27), the Maxtor
OneTouch III is incorrectly described as a network storage system. The product that should have been mentioned there is the Maxtor Shared Storage Plus.
and instructions on the FAQ pages are
too technical. While Chat Services work
pretty well, e-mail responses are slow
to nonexistent. This is not an isolated
problem but one that seems to be a
recurring theme. Not only have I been a
big consumer, I’ve been interested in the
company as an investment. I’ve been let
down on both fronts. Until I’m certain that
improvements are in place, I’ll look for
alternatives.—Sims Propst
Symantec is readying a complete overhaul of
its security products. Will it improve on the
widely reported problems you cite? We’re as
curious about that as you are.—JL
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Michael J. Miller wonders, “Will Digital
Access Make the World a Better Place?”
(June 27, page 61). Maybe. But before then,
some sure things toward that end would be
a daily gallon of clean water to drink and
about a thousand calories worth of food
containing various essential nutrients.
After that we can talk about cell towers and
DVDs. First things first, eh?—WAJ
Amen.—Michael J. Miller
retire from Ziff Davis and go work for
The National Enquirer as a second career.
—Andy G
HYBRID CLAIMS AND OPINIONS
Regarding Bill Howard’s “Hybrid Myths
Debunked” (June 27, page 31), “debunking”
a “myth” requires that the debunking have
some sort of basis in fact—otherwise it
is just an opinion. Bill’s arguments on
hybrids are not based in fact.
The “myth”: “Hybrid batteries will fail
and stick you with a $2,000 repair bill.”
Nothing Bill said truly debunks this. The
question that Bill should have asked the
Toyota rep is: If and when the batteries
fail, will it cost $2,000 to replace them?
Chances are that the answer would have
been yes. None of the other comments
answered this question or did anything to
debunk the stated myth.
As for the Toyota engineer stating
that the batteries are “good for the life”
of the vehicle, if that is the case, why
doesn’t Toyota (and why don’t other man-
ufacturers) cover them under warranty as
such? I guess Toyota doesn’t have as much
confidence in the batteries as the engineer!
But I doubt the engineer will warranty
those batteries for the consumer.
One other “myth”: “It takes a long time
to recoup the hybrid price premium.” Bill’s
statement that it would take a year or two is
incorrect. Per recent articles in Edmunds.
com and Consumer Reports, taking into
account any fuel savings from a hybrid, the
added maintenance, tax benefits, etc., the
time is much closer to five years. Further,
these calculations assume the full federal
tax credits will be around indefinitely,
but due to recent tax-law changes, these
credits will begin to be reduced as early
as this September—once a manufacturer
sells more than 60,000 hybrids in that year.
Since the average car owner rarely keeps a
vehicle for five years or more, most expert
analysis has concluded that current hybrid
vehicles are nothing more than a “feelgood” purchase for the consumer, with
little true benefit.—Tony Hake
ABORT, RETRY, FAIL
BY DON WILLMOTT
A SECOND CAREER FOR JOHN?
I h ave b e e n r e a d i n g Jo h n D vo r a k
throughout his long history with PC
Magazine. His column is my favorite and
I always read it first. Loyal PC Magazine
readers all know John is a curmudgeon,
but his article about “competing with
free” (June 27, page 124) oddly raises the
issue of Paul Allen’s incredible wealth.
Besides being immaterial, linking Allen to
anything Microsoft has done in the past
ten years is just wrong. He’s rich because
he was a founder—almost 30 years ago.
What do Paul Allen’s expensive toys have
to do with Microsoft today? Nothing.
I’m fine with sarcasm and being critical
when it’s due, but demonizing a company
because one of its long-gone founders has
three yachts, helicopters, and a submarine
is ridiculous. In my mind this is unethical.
Insiders like John know full well that Paul
Allen resigned his position with Microsoft
years ago. If you want to beat up Microsoft,
fine. Please keep it factual and leave the
topic of the extravagant possessions
of the rich and famous to others. If he
aspires to be the kind of journalist who
loves celebrity, tells half truths, or makes
things up just to stir the pot, John should
Why is this man smiling?
The “official Web site”
is a parking lot.
Our favorite kind
of candy.
Um . . . oops.
ARF NEEDS YOU! If your entry is used, we’ll send you a PC Magazine T-shirt. Submit your entries via
e-mail to arf@ziffdavis.com. Ziff Davis Media Inc. shall own all property rights in the entries. Winners
this issue: Sam Jost, Andy Anderson, Sean Rumrill, and David Pierri.
PIPELINE
WHAT’S NEW FROM THE WORLD OF TECH
ON HOLD
Surfing in 3D
D
If you spend all your time on the 2D Web, try breaking the ties that bind.
the go-go nineties there was much
hype about VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language), which was
touted to transform the Web into a
series of virtual worlds. That didn’t
quite happen, but now there are renewed efforts
to deliver compelling 3D Web experiences. You
can try any of three recently overhauled browsers
for a sample of how it works: 3B (shown above),
Browse3D, or SphereXPlorer. Also keep an eye out
for 3D chat rooms, such as 3D Planets.
Meanwhile, an XML format called X3D is
advancing. And let’s not forget about Microsoft
Windows Vista. Vista’s DirectX 10 technology, the
Windows Presentation Foundation, and XAML
(Extensible Application Markup Language) will
make 3D application programming easy.
Touring the Web in a 3D browser is very different from standard Web surfing. For example, the 3B
browser lets you stroll down virtual hallways—similar to the halls seen in first-person shooter games.
You can visit 3D stores, shop for clothes or other
items, or click on a World Cup page to enter a virtual stadium filled with pages belonging to professional soccer players. You can also create your own
3D “village” using templated tools.
The Browse3D browser “was born out of frustration with browsing the Web in a single window,” says
Robert Randa, company CEO. It lets you view several Web pages at once. See our 3D browser reviews
at go.pcmag.com/3dbrowsers.—Sebastian Rupley
THE EARTH, UPDATED
THE TEEN NET
Google has marked the
one-year anniversary of its
Google Earth satellite mapping software by delivering
a new beta version 4.0.
New imagery in the Google
Earth index increases the resolution of the photos
by four times, according to the company. There
are new versions for the Mac and Linux, and there
are new tools for displaying third-party data on
top of the satellite images.
In a survey of U.S.
teens, 28.9 percent
of them said not
having Internet
access outside
school would “ruin
their day.” Nearly 20
percent of male
teens reported that
they spend five or
more hours online
each day.
Teens’ Time Spent Online Daily,
Outside School (by Gender)*
M
Source: Burst Media, May 2006
F
19.9%
14.5%
Over
5 hours
Less than
1 hour
21.1%
OES THE WEB HAVE A 3D FUTURE? IN
18.1%
In yet another setback
for Sony’s ballyhooed
Blu-ray hi-def video
technology, Sony and
Pioneer have pushed
back their delivery
dates for the first dedicated players. Sony’s
BDP-S1 and Pioneer’s
BDP-HD1 had been due
to arrive in June, but
now Sony has delayed
its launch until midAugust and Pioneer is
aiming for September.
Meanwhile, HD DVD
players are already
on the market, with
a growing number of
film titles available for
them. “We decided to
hold off for a bit just to
make sure everything
works well relative to
all the various studios
that are planning to
ship titles,” says Andy
Parsons, VP of the industrial solutions business group at Pioneer.
At press time Samsung
finally announced the
release of its $1,000
BD-P1000 to retailers—the first Blu-ray
player out there.
M
F
*1,863 teens surveyed
A LONG GOOD-BYE Tears streamed down Bill Gates’s cheeks recently as he announced his
intent to step down from day-to-day duties at Microsoft in 2008 in order to concentrate on
philanthropy. See our thoughts on Bill’s departure at go.pcmag.com/exitgates.
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Insight and the Insight logo are registered trademarks of Insight Direct USA, Inc. IT For The Way You Work is a trademark of Insight Direct USA, Inc. All other
trademarks, registered trademarks, photos, logos and illustrations are property of their respective owners. ©2006 Insight Direct USA, Inc. All rights reserved.
800.249.9927
FUTUREWATCH
FOREVER YOUNG
Impending advances in technology
and medicine will usher in an era
of radical life extension, where our
average life spans will reach to 100
and beyond. At least, that’s what’s
about to happen according to Derya
Unutmaz, an M.D. and associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University’s School
of Medicine in Nashville. Unutmaz
has begun a blog called Biosingularity (biosingularity.wordpress.com)
to chronicle the technical and medical breakthroughs that could push
human lives into hyperdrive.
The name and some of the
content on Unutmaz’s blog were
inspired by tech futurist Ray Kurzweil
(see “Ray Kurzweil on Promise and
Peril,” page 71), whose book The
Singularity Is Near also delves into
radical life extension. “The convergence of biology with nanotechnology and information technologies
will soon create an unprecedented
ability to understand and manipulate
biological systems,” says Unutmaz.
The blog predicts that most diseases
and cancer will be beaten by 2030 to
2040, and that slowing or stopping
the aging process is achievable. Who
says you’re middle-aged?
A TINY TOUCH
C
AN A SENSOR MIMIC HUMAN TOUCH?
Two University of Nebraska–Lincoln
researchers, Ravi Saraf and Vivek
Maheshwari, are on the case. The sensor they’ve created and tested lets
surgeons detect through an endoscope
exactly where a tumor begins and ends. It might in
time also help robots gauge the contours of objects
and perform tasks with absolute precision.
The researchers created the device by layering gold and cadmium sulfide nanoparticles on a
tiny film. When voltage is applied to the film, the
nanoparticles emit light that is strong enough to
be seen by a camera. Among other applications,
the touch sensor might enable cancer surgeons to
avoid cutting away too much tissue when they are
excising tumors.
The sensor can “attain resolution close to
human touch, about 50 times better than what is
out there today,” says Saraf. That’s no small leap.
—Sebastian Rupley
Photograph: Derek Berwin/Getty Images
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TopSeller Model
TopSeller Model
TopSeller Model
TopSeller Model
$
$
$
$
1,349
PN 1953D6U
1,599
PN 2623DAU
479
PN 8288A2U
Option
Option
Kensington MicroSaver Security Cable Lock
from Lenovo
ThinkPad Advanced Mini Dock
L171 ThinkVision® Flat Panel Monitor
$
$
$
40 PN 73P2582
To buy direct or
locate a reseller
219 PN 250410U
229 with
system purchase
649
PN 828841U
Option
Option
$
249 PN 9417AC1
Regular Price
Canon PIXMA iP4200 –
Desktop Color Inkjet Printer
$
135 PN 41A4557
Call 1 866 426-5995
Go to lenovo.com/newthinkpad/m554
Availability: All offers subject to availability. Lenovo reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice. Lenovo is not responsible for photographic or typographic errors. *Pricing: prices do not
include tax, shipping and handling, or any recycling fees and are subject to change without notice. [Price includes applicable discounts.] Reseller prices may vary. Warranty Information: For a copy of applicable product warranties,
write to: Warranty Information, P.O. Box 12195, RTP, NC 27709, Attn: Dept. ZPYA/B676. Lenovo makes no representation or warranty regarding third-party products or services. Footnotes: (1) Activating Verizon Wireless Service:
Lenovo customers will be contacted after purchase to activate service; requires separate agreement with Verizon Wireless and is subject to the Customer Agreement, Calling Plan and credit approval. Service and airtime charges will
apply; $175 early termination fee. Verizon Wireless, not Lenovo, is solely responsible for service. Service not available in all areas; purchaser is responsible for verifying that service is available for the intended location before purchasing
a computer equipped with WAN card. Network details, coverage limitations and maps at http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobileoptions/broadband/serviceavailability.jsp?opener=b2b. (2) Client Security Solution: preloaded on
select models; requires software download. (3) Mobile Processors: Power management reduces processor speed when in battery mode. (4) Wireless 11a, 11b and 11g: is based on IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g, respectively.
An adapter with 11a/b, 11 b/g or 11a/b/g can communicate on either/any of these listed formats respectively; the actual connection will be based on the access point to which it connects. (5) Included Software: may differ from its
retail version (if available), and may not include user manuals or all program functionality. License agreements may apply. (6) Travel Weight: includes battery and optional travel bezel instead of standard optical drive in Ultrabay bay, if
applicable; weight may vary due to vendor components, manufacturing process and options. (7) Memory: For PCs without a separate video card, memory supports both system and video. Accessible system memory is up to 64 MB
less than the amount stated, depending on video mode. (8) Hard drive: GB=billion bytes [TB=trillion bytes]. Accessible capacity is less; up to 4 GB is service partition. (9) Certain IBM and ThinkPad logo products: are not
manufactured, warranted or supported by IBM or Lenovo; IBM and Lenovo logos and trademarks used under license. Contact Lenovo for details. (10) Limited warranty: support unrelated to a warranty issue may be subject to
additional charges. (11) Thinness: may vary at certain points on the system. Trademarks: the following are trademarks of Lenovo: Lenovo and the Lenovo Logo, ThinkPad and ThinkCentre. IBM and the IBM logo are registered
trademarks of IBM and are used under license. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Celeron, Celeron Inside, Centrino, Core Inside, Intel, Intel Core, Intel Inside, Intel SpeedStep, Intel Viiv, Intel
Xeon, Itanium, Itanium Inside, Pentium, Pentium Inside, the Centrino logo, the Intel logo and the Intel Inside logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of other companies. ©2006 Lenovo. All rights reserved.
Visit www.lenovo.com/safecomputing periodically for the latest information on safe and effective computing.
CONNECTEDTRAVELER
CHICAGO
BEST WIRED
HOTELS
Hotel Indigo Chicago
Gold Coast
1244 North Dearborn
Parkway
www.hotelindigo.com
This modest but dignified hotel on the Near
North side is just a short
walk from the Magnificent Mile and Oak Street
Beach. You get free and
reliable Wi-Fi access
right in your room—yes,
it’s really free. The hotel
also has a spa and “phitness” rooms on the
second floor (for the
hip exerciser). There are
several wired Ethernet
ports with free access in
the hotel’s lounge and in
the conference rooms.
An excellent sushi eatery called Tsunami is
located nearby.
Omni Chicago
TOP TECH
ATTRACTIONS
ESPN Zone
43 East Ohio St.
Chicago’s ESPN Zone
is the country’s biggest
HDTV hot spot. Skip
the 52 plasmas (44 are
42-inch, 8 are 50-inch)
and 15 LCD TVs offered
in this sports-nut haven;
head straight for the
restaurant area, which
has a 16-foot projectionscreen HDTV.
Hancock
Observatory
875 North Michigan Ave.
The Hancock Observatory, high atop the John
Hancock Center, offers
an amazing panorama
of Chicago and beyond
from the 94th floor.
From the observatory
you can also go up to
Skywalk, the city’s only
open-air viewing deck.
WHILE YOU’RE IN TOWN Downtown Chicago is a mix of
modern and old architecture, making for a stunning visual
experience. One of the best spots to see it from (besides the
Hancock Observatory) is Oak Street Beach, on the edge of
Lake Michigan. It’s also just a few minutes’ walk from the Navy
Pier, which has an amusement park and is a great place for
kids. Sports fans will want to head to Wrigley Field, though it
isn’t exactly the most high-tech stadium—they finally installed
lights in 1989 so the Cubbies could play night games!
FREE WI-FI HOT SPOTS
The Apple Store 679 North Michigan Ave.
You can either use one of their machines or bring
your own. The signal extends well beyond the
store, so you can connect outdoors (if you don’t
want to show off your ThinkPad in Apple-land).
Dunkin’ Donuts 2247 North Milwaukee Ave.
What goes better with your coffee and donuts?
Why, free Wi-Fi, of course! At this Dunkin’ Donuts
you can surf and slurp at the same time.
Bon Appetit Cafe 817 North Milwaukee Ave.
This café and coffeehouse in the trendy RiverWest district is brimming with all kinds of gourmet
goodies and is equipped with cozy lounge chairs.
FAST FACTS Chicago
police currently have
50 Segway scooters,
which top out at 12.5
mph, in use in the city
and at O’Hare and Midway airports. Another
50 are expected to
be added within the
coming year.
Listen Up! Chicago is
often called the home
of the blues. Be sure
to stop by the House
of Blues, Andy’s, Joe
Segal’s Jazz Showcase,
and—my personal
fave—the Green Mill.
676 North Michigan Ave.
www.omnihotels.com
The Omni is a business
traveler’s dream, with its
gorgeous and spacious
rooms. It has just about
every amenity you can
think of, including free
in-room Wi-Fi, a pair of
rooftop sundecks, and
a fitness club, Jacuzzi,
and pool. The in-house
676 Restaurant & Bar is
fantastic, and the location can’t be beat—right
on one of the best shopping streets in town.
The James Chicago
55 East Ontario
www.lenoxsuites.com
The James is a small
but very modern luxury
hotel in Chicago’s theater district. It has plenty
of high-tech in-room
perks, including plasma
TVs, stereos with iPod
docks (that’s incentive
enough for most!), and
free Wi-Fi access. Be
sure to hit the Primehouse, the hotel’s contemporary steakhouse
co-run by celebrated
chef David Burke.
AIRPORT FACTS Chicago O’Hare is one of the busiest international hubs in the world. Its smaller sibling, Midway International Airport,
commemorates World War II’s Battle of Midway with a real SBD Dauntless dive-bomber hanging from Concourse A’s ceiling, whereas
O’Hare has more modern amenities such as public Wi-Fi ($6.95 for a 24-hour block, good at most major airports). In O’Hare’s Terminal 3,
a new 7- by 10-foot interactive touch screen from Accenture provides access to weather information, news, and sports.—Mike Kobrin
Photograph: Jose Fuste Raga/Corbis
TECHNORIDE
A DIFFERENT COCKPIT CONTROLLER
T
Kenwood touchscreen nav system
is a $2000 option
HE SUBARU 2007 LEGACY PERFORMANCE MODELS—THE 2.5 GT
Limited and 2.5 GT spec.B—come with a controller called SIDrive, for Subaru Intelligent Drive (it’s also on the Outback ST
wagon). But it serves a different purpose than do BMW’s iDrive
and Audi’s MMI: You choose economy or performance driving,
and the SI-Drive remaps the engine management computer.
The Legacy’s four-cylinder boxer engine uses variable valve timing, Active
Valve, and a turbocharger with up to 13.5 psi (pounds per square inch) of boost.
In Subaru cars, the power goes to all four wheels and in the proper proportions,
using microprocessors as well as vehicle dynamics control, a traction control
system, variable torque distribution, and symmetrical all-wheel drive.
Subaru keeps pace with technology in the cockpit, though it breaks no new
ground beyond the SI-Drive. The center stack (the console area between the
driver and front-seat passenger) holds a Kenwood navigation system ($2,000),
climate controls, and a six-disc CD changer. The 2007 models have SRS WOW
surround-sound capabilities with MP3 and WMA playback, plus prewiring for
XM Satellite Radio. There’s a line-in jack for music players but no option for
direct control of iPods. And there is no Bluetooth option for U.S. models.
MORE ON THE LEGACY
This isn’t even close to
all Bill Howard has to say
about the 2.5 GT!
At go.technoride.com/
subarulegacy, you’ll find
the full review.
SUBARU LEGACY 2.5 GT
$30,000 to $35,000 (estimated)
lllhm
PROS A cockpit control knob that adjusts for economy
versus performance. Powerful, turbocharged engine
with variable valve timing. SRS surround-sound audio.
Standard all-wheel drive.
CONS None that are major. The price pushes into lowend BMW territory. Styling is pleasant but unmemorable.
There’s no Bluetooth.
BOTTOM LINE SI-Drive, the cockpit controller that
comes in the 2007 Subaru Legacy 2.5 GT Limited and
spec.B, lets you add economy, performance, and even
more performance. The Legacy models should appeal
to drivers who are fascinated by the ultraquick Impreza
WRX STI but are looking for more technology, more
room, and a better ride.
SI-Drive remaps the engine y
for performance or econom
B I L L H O WA R D
WHY TECH CARS FLUNKED
J.D. POWER QUALITY STUDY
CAN GASOLINE BE REPLACED?
Alternative fuels may not be the perfect way to
reduce our dependence on gasoline. They produce less energy than gasoline and cost more;
it’s improbable that their production will be
ramped up for more than a fraction of America’s
vehicles; they have corrosive effects on normal
fuel systems; and it’s not certain we’ll come up
with the automotive technology these fuels
demand anytime soon.
The upshot is that what’s practical for an
energy-conscious fraction of the population
may not work for all 200 million vehicles in the
U.S. The best alternative fuel policy may be buying cars that don’t burn as much fuel, no matter
what the type.
MONA: NEW CELL-PHONE NAV
Rand McNally’s new turn-by-turn navigation
service for cell phones, Mona, adds an interesting ease-of-use capability. As with existing cellphone navigation systems, such as the TeleNav
GPS Navigator, Verizon’s VZ, and Motorola’s
ViaMoto, you can enter destinations manually.
But unlike the others, Mona also allows you
to prepare a Web-based list of destinations
in advance, which you can download to your
phone for ready access. At $9.99 per month,
Mona offers the ease of use of the latest OnStar
Turn-By-Turn Navigation service minus the price
tag of a 2007 GM vehicle.
I
N THE 2005 J.D. POWER & ASSOCIATES
Initial Quality Study, the Toyota Prius
was the top-ranked compact car. This
year, though, the 50-mpg gas/electric
hybrid disappeared from the top three,
despite the fact that a sibling car, the
Toyota Corolla, is now the number one
compact.
Why the drop? Complex hybrid controls, a nonstandard transmission lever, and overbearing displays hurt the Prius’s standings.
In general, high-tech cars fared poorly in this
year’s study, which measures initial defects in
new cars and this year also addressed perceived
problems with ergonomic design features. Manufacturers opened the technology floodgates but
forgot to make the cars easy to use. It’s the “flashing 12:00” syndrome all over again: VCRs can’t be
programmed, the buttons on digital cameras are too
small to manipulate, and the reset button doesn’t
cancel renegade print jobs. And car-tech features
are too hard to comprehend.
Three of the five brands that use cockpit controllers dropped at least ten levels in the 2006
study. BMW, with iDrive, fell from number 3 to
number 27, despite being third-best in the initialdefects part of the survey. Audi, with MMI—the
best cockpit controller, in my opinion—fell from
number 8 to number 18. Mercedes-Benz, with its
perplexing Command system, dropped from 5th
place to 25th.
Germany claims its leading-edge technology
gives it a leg up on the performance-pretenders
from Japan. Now Porsche is helping to back up that
claim: It was second only to Lexus with fewest newcar defects and first in design technology.
Joe Ivers, executive director of quality and customer satisfaction research for J.D. Power, offered
me this explanation. “[Audi, BMW, and Mercedes]
share a common degree of complexity in the user
interface designed into their vehicles. This might
suggest to some that such a result is inevitable, given the high-tech features and inherent complexity
of these cars. [But] Porsche, which ranks first in initial quality overall and also in design quality, has all
of the complexity but almost none of the problems.
Porsche has also taken a much simpler approach to
integrating all this technology.”
This year’s quality study could do the automakers a world of good, if only they would listen.
Bill Howard is the editor of TechnoRide.com and a
contributing editor of PC Magazine.
Cover up your differences with Home Décor.™
™
© 2006 Audiovox Corporation.
Now there’s a 5.1 surround sound system that delivers both performance and style:
Home Décor from Acoustic Research. He gets high-performance speakers in sleek
aluminum cabinets. She gets the option of adding elegant speaker covers, in a range
of styles from traditional to contemporary. Just choose the covers that fit your décor,
and slip them over the speakers. And everybody’s happy. See the whole Home Décor
line at http://www.arhomedecor.com. Or call 1-800-645-4994.
Acoustic Research is an Audiovox brand.
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FIRST LOOKS
WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN:
lllll
EXCELLENT |
llllm
VERY GOOD |
lllmm
GOOD |
llmmm
FAIR |
lmmmm
POOR
C
an the “Q” squish the BlackBerry? Motorola’s best—and
thinnest— entrant into the
smartphone market offers
great calls, clear music, and
smooth movies, and it’s pushmail ready. Is it worth your hard-earned
cash? Full review on page 38. This issue
also features our first battle of the hi-def
titans: It’s Toshiba’s HD DVD–equipped
laptop versus the fi rst-ever Sony Blu-ray
desktop. Right now, it’s anyone’s bet which
format will win. And don’t miss our surprising draft-n router roundup or our comprehensive Small Business NAS buying guide.
With coverage of nearly 40 products, this
First Looks has it all—seriously.
30 HARDWARE
34 Buying Guide:
Ultraportable Laptops
38 CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
42 Buying Guide:
Camera Phones
46 NETWORKING
48 SOFTWARE
50 SMALL BUSINESS
53 Buying Guide:
Network-Attached
Storage
59 THE BEST STUFF
F I R ST LO O KS
1.3-megapixel
webcam
HARDWARE
RF remote has
an LCD display
to navigate your
music library
sans PC
The hinge doubles
as a sturdy handle
Bluetooth
keyboard
detaches
DELL THINKS OUTSIDE THE BOX
Dell XPS M2010
More so than any other
laptop, the 18.1-pound
M2010 is extremely
innovative. Its price,
however, places it
beyond the reach of
most consumers.
$4,675 direct
go.pcmag.com/
dellxpsm2010
lllmm
A
N EXERCISE IN VISIONARY CONCEPT
and bold design, the Dell XPS
M2010 is grand in every sense of the
word. It resembles a full-fledged
desktop, yet closes gracefully and
can be carried like a notebook. This
system is best suited to—and pricey enough for—
someone who wants an impressive system in the
home office yet one that’s easily transportable to a
vacation home.
The M2010’s most astonishing feature is a gorgeous 20.1-inch widescreen LCD panel. An adjustable hinge lets you move the display up and down
for a better position. The keyboard is removable,
operating via a Bluetooth wireless connection.
For easy transport, the keyboard slides smoothly
into the base, and the display folds down. With the
ze XPS
The desktop-esi a laptiop
folds flat lik
screen folded and keyboard locked in place, the
hinge becomes a sturdy handle.
The M2010 uses mobile components: the fastest Intel Core Duo processor, the T2600, along
with 2 gigabytes of RAM and RAID-enabled hard
drives (200GB, 7,200 rpm). Its Office Productivity
test scores were a little low compared with those
of other high-end laptops but still suitable for completing day-to-day Office tasks. And although the
ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 isn’t the best graphics
card available, it runs current hard-core 3D games
without much trouble.
Despite many innovative features and a very
cool design, the Dell XPS M2010 is impractical,
at least for people like me. It’s too expensive for a
desktop and far too heavy to be considered a truly
portable notebook.—Cisco Cheng
than
Keys slightly smaller
ps
pto
la
c
on other Ma
LOW-COST APPLE LAPTOP IS
VERY ENTICING
I
F YOU HELD OFF BUYING A NEW APPLE
laptop, give yourself a pat on the back. The
new MacBook replaces the 12-inch iBook
and is the “little brother” of the 15- and 17inch Intel MacBook Pros. But even though
this little MacBook is considerably less
expensive than its brethren, it still has many of the
same cool features.
The MacBook boasts a wide 13.3-inch glossy
screen, which livens up photos and movies. You’ll
also find fun treats such as the easy-release MagSafe
adapter, the iSight webcam, and the all-inclusive
iLife ’06 suite controlled with the bundled remote.
And let’s not forget portability: At 5.1 pounds with
a 1-inch-thick chassis, this a terrific laptop to tote
around to classes, coffee shops, or wherever.
I tested the high-end version of this MacBook.
Inside its very un-Apple-like black finish, my test
model had 1GB of RAM, an Intel Core Duo T2500
(2.0-GHz) processor, and a 100GB hard drive. (The
base configuration is $1,099 and comes only in
white.) The integrated graphics predictably caused
3D gaming to be dreadfully slow. But on the whole,
performance was very good and is fine for day-today computing.
As Apple’s most affordable notebook, the MacBook is very enticing. If you want one of the new
Intel/Mac laptops but can’t afford the pricier Pro
versions, this is an excellent alternative.—CC
Apple MacBook 13-inch
The 13-inch MacBook
may not have “Pro” at
the end of its name, but
it still has lots of the
same features—minus
the hefty price tag.
$1,699 direct
go.pcmag.com/
macbook13
llllm
AN A+ LAPTOP WITH A C+ DRIVE
T
HOUGH THE QOSMIO SERIES HAS BEEN
a repeat Editors’ Choice winner,
this latest model, the Qosmio G35AV650, is held back by its advanced
HD DVD drive. Adding $600 to the
overall price, the eagerly anticipated
drive, sadly, needs some fine-tuning.
If we ignore the optical drive, the AV650 is a
beauty. Sleek and powerful, this version has, among
other upgraded features, a speedier processor (the
Intel Core Duo T2500) and a stronger graphics card
(the nVidia Go GeForce 7600).
In testing the drive, I simultaneously played two
copies of the movie Van Helsing: standard definition
on the previous-generation AV600, and HD DVD on
the AV650. The HD format is easily identifiable, with
sharper details particularly noticeable during action
sequences. Even so, the 17-inch screen doesn’t do HD
justice; you really need a much larger TV to view its
full glory. Also, the HD software bundled with the
AV650 isn’t great. I couldn’t select the Scenes menu
on Van Helsing, and my Doom 3 HD DVD didn’t play
at all. Also, the AV650 can’t burn HD DVDs, though
you can write to standard and dual-layer DVDs.
(Blu-ray systems will let you write HD discs.)
Overall, the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 is an
outstanding Media Center laptop, but not an outstanding HD DVD player.—CC
Toshiba Qosmio
G35-AV650
If you want a great laptop, save yourself $600
and purchase the earlier
AV600. HD is better
watched on a big-screen
TV, anyway.
$2,999.99 direct
go.pcmag.com/
toshibag35av650
lllmm
1,900-by-1,200 resolution to
accommodate HD DVDs
F I R ST LO O KS
HARDWARE
Beautiful
20-inch LCD
costs an
extra $900
ing
"House of Ffilyrst
,"
rs
e
Dagg
Blu-ray title
Sony VAIO
VCG-RC310G
There’s no arguing that
the VCG-RC310G is one
powerful, cutting-edge
Media Center. Unfortunately, its state-of-theart Blu-ray drive and
software can be finicky.
$2,249 direct, without
monitor
go.pcmag.com/
sonyrc310g
lllmm
Keyboard and s
mouse are wireles
THE FIRST PC WITH BLU-RAY
T
HE FIRST BLU-RAY–EQUIPPED PC, THE
Sony VAIO VCG-RC310G is fast and
attractive. Unfortunately, its new
drive is saddled with a few quirks.
The Blu-ray drive, which is the
main draw of this desktop, is capable of writing to high-capacity Blu-ray discs (BDs)
in 25GB and 50GB sizes. (HD DVD, for now, is able
only to read discs.) It was disappointing, however,
that creating a Blu-ray disc packed with 22GB of
eMachines T6532
A well-performing
basic system available
at a reasonable price.
Forward-looking buyers
will be happy to discover
that it also provides
plenty of room for future
upgrades.
$600 direct
go.pcmag.com/
emachinest6532
lllhm
test files took a long 44 minutes in
my tests, and the post-burn data verification process required the same
amount of time. Another annoyance
is that if you don’t shut down all extraneous programs during the burn, you run the risk of
minting your very own BD coaster.
The RC310G brims over with advanced components, including a 3.2-GHz dual-core Pentium
D 940 processor, a 256MB nVidia GeForce 7600GT
graphics card, and a big 300GB hard drive. Thanks
to these swift parts, the RC310G recorded a smooth
108 frames per second on the Doom 3 test at 1,024by-768. Proving its worth in content creation, it also
did very well on our Photoshop CS2 and Windows
Media Encoder benchmark tests.
Though the Sony VAIO VCG-RC310G is well
equipped and Blu-ray is a great backup medium,
the temperamental drive keeps us from recommending this system wholeheartedly.
—Joel Santo Domingo
Built-in 9-in-1
media card
reader for os
uploading phot
and video
AN AFFORDABLE MEDIA CENTER WITH PEP
G
EARED TOWARD THE ENTRY-LEVEL POWER USER, THE EMACHINES
T6532 is a solid, budget Media Center PC that offers decent
power at a reasonable price.
The T6532 runs on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU, a respectable mainstream single-core processor that is 64-bit capable. Though 64-bit isn’t necessary now, it means that the
T6532 will be able to handle any curve balls that Microsoft Windows Vista
might throw. On my benchmark tests, the T6532 finished the Adobe Photoshop action set in just over 2 minutes and the Windows Media Encoder
test in a little over 13 minutes. That’s not bad, considering that the average
results for these tests are around 2 and 11 minutes, respectively.
The T6532 has a 200GB hard drive—ample for storing digital media. The
system also provides plenty of room for future expansion, with free slots for
adding hard drives, graphics card upgrades, and system memory.
All in all, the eMachines T6532 is a good home PC for anyone who
doesn’t need a lot of bells and whistles. It’s also good as a second computer
or a basic system for high-school or college students.—JSD
©2006 S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. All rights reserved.
KEEP HER HANDS TO YOURSELF.
Great Shave. Healthy Skin.™
www.edgeactivecare.com
F I R ST LO O KS
HARDWARE
BUYING GUIDE
Ultraportable
Notebooks
EV-DO antenna to connect to
Verizon’s fast data network
LENOVO THINKPAD X60S
For those who live out of a suitcase,
the Lenovo ThinkPad X60s is an outstanding ultraportable. It weighs just
3.5 pounds, it’s a treat to carry, and its
battery lasts a marathon-like 7 hours.
Despite being able to run for long
periods without recharging, the laptop’s Intel
Core Duo CPU has plenty of power to tackle
your business workload. Even more attractive
is the system’s high-speed EV-DO wireless
modem, which lets you stay connected to the
Internet or even hooked into your corporate
network from almost anywhere. To seal the
deal, the X60s boasts one of the finest, most
comfortable keyboards I’ve used on a notebook. You can’t go wrong with it.
$2,299 direct
go.pcmag.com/lenovox60s
llllh
Excellent
tactile
keyboard
STAY AWAY!
Samsung Q1
This palm-size UMPC
lacks several things an
ultraportable should
have. There’s no keyboard, battery life is
subpar, and processing
power is disappointing.
$1,009 direct
go.pcmag.com/
samsungq1
llhmm
Fingerprint reader
for easy log-ons
W
HETHER YOU’RE FLYING FIRST-
class around the country or
backpacking through rush
hour, you want a laptop that’s
petite and portable, yet powerful and feature-rich. That
means an ultraportable. The best ultraportables are
those that successfully balance itty-bitty size, long
battery life, and decent performance.
An ultraportable’s ideal weight hovers around
3 to 4 pounds with a 12- to 13-inch display. Vendors
often ship systems with extended batteries—you’ll
notice these by the way they stick out from the back
of the unit. Although they improve battery life, they
also bump up the system weight.
PINT-SIZE
POWERHOUSES
Weight
(pounds)
MobileMark 2005
(battery life, hr:min)
Dell XPS M1210
5.0
4:15
Gateway
E-100M
3.2
3:08
Lenovo
ThinkPad X60s
3.5
7:23
Sony VAIO
VGN-SZ Series
3.8
3:33
RED denotes Editors’ Choice.
EXPERT VIEW
BY CISCO CHENG
When it comes to battery life, you most likely
want it to be exceptional—something that’ll last you
through a workday, or at the very least a coast-tocoast flight. My favorite ultraportable, the Lenovo
ThinkPad X60s, runs for more than 7 hours with its
extended battery.
Impressive battery life comes largely from using
low-powered components, such as low-voltage processors and integrated graphics. This translates into
mediocre performance, however—good enough for
everyday Microsoft Office tasks but just okay for
more complex tasks such as video editing.
More powerful ultraportables drain the battery faster but let you do more. Some of the latest
tiny laptops carry dual-core processors capable of
achieving desktop-like speeds. And if your daily
routine requires a little 3D action, some lightweights have discrete graphics, too. The Sony SZ
series even has a hardware switch that lets you
toggle between integrated graphics, for when, say,
you’re checking your e-mail, and discrete graphics,
when you need to do something more graphicsintensive. Of course, this luxury will cost you, and
the battery life still isn’t outrageously good, averaging about 4 hours.
A few years ago, ultraportables with built-in optical drives were a true design innovation. These days
they aren’t too hard to find. Sure, it will add more
weight to a system, but it’s a boon for those who’d
rather not carry an external drive. Ultraportables
from Dell, HP, Lenovo, MPC, and Sony all integrate
optical drives into their systems. Last but not least,
a good typing experience is a must, so you want to
look for an ultraportable with a full-size keyboard.
All in all, the best thing about an ultraportable is
that no matter what your computing needs, you can
get a small system that satisfies them. Check out our
table below to see for yourself.—CC
OTHER
OPTIONS
VALUE
Gateway E-100M
The E-100M will draw
you in with its attractive looks, light weight,
and low price tag. Its
shockingly thin 0.9-inch
magnesium-alloy chassis
is a beauty to behold.
$1,574 direct
go.pcmag.com/
gatewaye100m
llllm
LUXURY MACHINE
Sony VAIO VGN-SZ
Series
Remarkably powerful
and stylishly crafted, it’s
the only ultraportable
that gives you dual-core
processing power, discrete 3D graphics, and a
built-in optical drive, yet
weighs under 4 pounds.
$2,799 direct
go.pcmag.com/
sonysz170p
llllm
POWER TO PLAY
Dell XPS M1210
The XPS is all about performance. It’s equipped
with discrete 3D graphics, a vivid display, and
even a built-in optical
drive and integrated
EV-DO.
$2,641 direct
go.pcmag.com/dellm1210
llllm
MORE LAPTOP REVIEWS ONLINE
go.pcmag.com/laptops
Processor
SYSmark
2004 SE
Graphics chipset
Doom 3 (fps)
1,024 x 768
Intel Core Duo T2600
(2.16 GHz)
229*
nVidia GeForce
Go 7400
36.3
Intel Core Solo U1400
(1.2 GHz)
109
Intel Graphics Media
Accelerator 950/945
N/A
Intel Core Duo L2400
(1.66 GHz)
167
Intel Graphics Media
Accelerator 950/945
N/A
Intel Core Duo T2400
(1.83 GHz)
203*
nVidia GeForce
Go 7300
17.4
*A score of over 180 indicates fast performance. N/A—Not applicable: The product could not complete the test.
T
BLINDED BY PORTABLE SCIENCE
HERE’S NOTHING QUITE LIKE
the feel of carrying an ultraportable through the airport or
across town. These tiny computers have come a long way
in the past few years. In fact,
I’m still amazed by the pure
genius of the design and technology that goes into creating an ultraportable.
Different vendors use different materials to
build the exterior casing. The preferred metal
is magnesium alloy, which can be molded into a
thin chassis that’s sturdy and tough enough to survive daily bumps and bruises. Other vendors are
experimenting with different materials. The Sony
VAIO SZ series offers the option of a carbon-fiber
lid, which is trendy these days, and Lenovo is toying with titanium composites in its ThinkPads. All
these materials look good and help keep things cool
on the inside, too.
One of the major obstacles facing ultraportable
designers, especially when shoehorning robust
components into a cramped space, is how to handle
excess heat. High-end parts such as powerful graphics subsystems and dual-core CPUs tend to run hot
even after only an hour of work. I hate feeling the
heat of a system on the palm rests while I’m typing
and am always impressed with a system that manages to keep that area cool. Because of this, many
designs start off with cooling in mind. The most
common solutions involve vents and manipulating
airflow, but there’s also some interesting technology being used to combat this problem
It’s no secret that Intel Core Duo chips require a
lot of juice to run—31 watts, to be exact. To prevent
a meltdown, Intel has built in a pretty advanced
thermal management system, called Intel Advanced
Thermal Manager. Digital temperature sensors on
each core monitor the heat of the processor and
will lower the voltage and frequency of both cores if
either sensor detects that the system is running too
hot. Impressive stuff. I only wish that 3D giants ATI
and nVidia would follow suit and produce graphics
solutions better at handling heat.
Intel’s forthcoming 64-bit “Merom” processor
for mobile computers is based on Intel’s Core microarchitecture. The new chip is designed to be even
more power-efficient than the current Intel Core
Duos. This means we’ll see even more power, longer
battery life, and less heat in laptops later this year.
Cisco Cheng is PC Magazine’s lead analyst for
notebooks.
Here today.
From tomorrow.
Ready for the future today?
Visit dell.com/M2010
Showstopping entertainer. Utterly original thinker. Daredevil rule breaker.
The new XPS™ M2010, powered by Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology, defies
description. And once you pick it up, we defy you to put it down. The 20.1" widescreen,
home theater-quality sound and rotating webcam are just a few of the breakthrough
extras. And the slick, portable briefcase design would make a secret agent envious.
The future is here. Prepare to be blown away.
PRICING/AVAILABILITY: Prices, specifications, availability and terms of offers may change without notice. Taxes, fees, shipping, handling and any applicable restocking charges are extra and vary. Offers
may be combined with other select offers or discounts. Valid for U.S. Dell Home Systems Co. new purchases only. Dell cannot be responsible for pricing or other errors, and reserves the right to cancel
orders arising from such errors. TRADEMARKS/COPYRIGHT NOTICES: Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Celeron, Celeron Inside, Centrino, the Centrino logo, Intel Core, Core Inside, Pentium, and
Pentium Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. All other registered trademarks or trademarks are property of their
respective owners. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. ©2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Dell recommends Windows®
XP Media Center Edition
To order, call 1-800-424-1372
or visit dell.com/M2010
For hearing/speech impaired: 1-877-DELL-TTY (toll-free)
0042
F I R ST LO O KS
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
Uses Windows Mobile
Smartphone OS
Motorola Q
Excellent phone, e-mail,
and Web-surfing capabilities will make the
Q a favorite choice for
Verizon customers.
$419.99 direct
go.pcmag.com/Q
llllh
Five-way d
cursor pa
Raised & angled
keyboard
Less than
1/2-inch thick
FIVE KILLER Q APPS
Orneta Notepad Mobile
The Q lacks any sort of
text editor other than
its e-mail application.
Notepad Mobile fills the
gap neatly with an easyto-use text file editor
with multiple fonts, cutand-paste functionality,
and a “find text” feature.
Orneta also plugs
Notepad as a way to
edit HTML and XML files,
but I find it most useful
for recording sudden
brainstorms.
$14.95 direct
www.orneta.com
Our picks for getting the most from your Q.
Agile Messenger
The definitive instantmessage application for
smartphones is under
development for the Q.
It lets you log on to AOL,
MSN, Yahoo!, and ICQ IM
systems—all at the same
time and with a very
cuddly interface. You get
individual tabs for conversations; there's even
picture messaging. This
alpha version is buggy,
but future versions will
smooth out the kinks.
Free alpha version
www.agilemobile.com
SlingPlayer Mobile
Watch your own home
TV on the Q from anywhere over Verizon’s EVDO network using the
popular Slingbox hardware and SlingPlayer
software. I got 14 to 27
frames per second on
two different Slingboxes;
for me, an easily watchable rate. The interface
is extremely bare-bones,
but it lets you do the
basic job of watching TV
and flipping channels.
Free beta version
www.slingmedia.com
Avvenu
Access your home PC’s
documents, view your
photo library, and stream
digital music from your
home PC to your Q’s
Windows Media Player.
Microsoft Office documents will pop up in the
Q’s document viewer.
You can share files with
anyone; the switchable
thumbnail views make
browsing photos easy.
For our full review visit
go.pcmag.com/avvenu.
Free
www.avvenu.com
GoodLink
Good Technology’s
software enables full
synchronization of
your Outlook calendar,
contact, and e-mail data
over the air, with BlackBerry-like push power.
Small businesses and individuals can get hosted
GoodLink/Exchange
solutions for around
$30 per month per seat;
larger businesses use a
server that connects to
their Exchange system.
Prices vary
www.good.com
THE COOLEST SMARTPHONE IN AMERICA
T
Dedicatetd
on
music bu t
HE RAZR-THIN MOTOROLA Q
is a terrific voice phone, a dandy
music player, and a swell e-mail
machine. Just be warned: Expensive service plans mean it’s not
as cheap as it looks.
A wide, flat (0.5-inch), 4-ounce slab, the Q
slips easily into a pocket. The 320-by-240 screen
is bright, and the QWERTY keyboard usable.
There’s a scroll wheel, a button on the side, and
a five-way cursor pad above the keyboard.
For voice quality, the Q is the best Verizon
smartphone that I have tested. Sound through
the earpiece, speakerphone, and the Bluetooth
headset is unusually loud and clear. Transmission is nearly flawless, and voice dialing works
perfectly. Battery life, at 5 hours 25 minutes of
talk time, is also quite good.
The basic POP3/IMAP e-mail client on the
Q is bare-bones, lacking even cut-and-paste
functions. But e-mail and Web pages download
swiftly over the Verizon Wireless Broadband
Access EV-DO network. I got speeds averaging
500 Kbps on bandwidth test sites.
For reading attachments, the Picsel Viewer
application comes with the Q: It excels at displaying Microsoft Office documents and PDFs,
though you can’t edit the documents. There’s
plenty of room (49MB) for additional programs
or photos taken with the decent 1.3-megapixel
camera; you can also add a miniSD card.
The Q is a fine music player, thanks to its
support for Bluetooth stereo. It plays MP3,
WMA, and protected WMA files downloaded
from Microsoft-compatible music stores such
as Rhapsody and Yahoo! Music. But I found
that downloading e-mail in the background
while playing music was too much for the Q:
It caused the music to skip. To me, the Q felt
significantly slower than the Palm Treo 700p
(and actions took more clicks), but it was more
responsive than the T-Mobile SDA or the Cingular 2125 smartphones.
Video in Windows Media Player and SlingPlayer Mobile played well on one of the two Qs
I received. The other had a bug that caused stuttering video—one of several odd bugs I found
on the two devices.
The Q is slick and sweet, but I think that
Verizon’s plans cost way too much. You get 450
minutes for $79 per month, 1,350 minutes for
$109, and 4,000 minutes for $169. Cheaper plans
would get this excellent smartphone into more
hands.—Sascha Segan
Helio Hero
This is the perfect
phone for MySpace
devotees, but power
users may be disappointed by its lack of
high-end features.
$275 list
go.pcmag.com/
heliohero
lllhm
Keypad slides
in and out
A PHONE FOR MYSPACE FANS
I
F YOU SPEND YOUR LIFE ON MYSPACE,
the popular social-networking site, the
Helio Hero will send you running for your
credit card. But if MySpace isn’t your space,
the Hero may not save your day.
This big (but not ugly) phone starts out
as a large black lozenge, and the screen slides up with
a satisfying snap to reveal large, closely set hexagonal keys. The 320-by-240 color screen is extremely
sharp and truly beautiful, and the action buttons and
navigation rocker are decently sized and placed.
The Hero’s best features are Helio’s easy-touse interface, with its bold icons, and the clean,
fast MySpace client. The Hero lets you view profiles and pictures, read blogs, leave comments,
and respond to friend requests. You can also read
and reply to e-mail. Phone reception is very good,
battery life is solid, and sound quality is excellent.
But although the Hero also has a basic MP3 player
and a 2-megapixel camera, it lacks Bluetooth, voice
dialing, and other power-user features. It’s the
MySpace access that will bring you to this phone
and keep you clicking.—SS
F I R ST LO O KS
GREAT FOR GAMING,
NOT FOR DVDS
A
WinBook 32M0
An inexpensive 32-inch LCD,
the 32M0 offers nice HD
image quality and has ly
two digital video inputs. But
it makes DVD movies look
worse than they should.
$799.99 direct
go.pcmag.com/32m0
Bottom-mounted
speaker box
NYONE WHO LOVES A BARGAIN (AND
who doesn’t?) is going to appreciate the WinBook 32M0, the least
expensive 32-inch LCD TV I’ve
tested to date. Plus, the 32M0 offers
high-definition resolution, good
color quality, and a decent selection of A/V inputs.
So what’s the catch? Its bright picture isn’t easily tamed for viewing in light-controlled environments, and DVD movies that have lots of film grain
appear too noisy.
The 32M0 offers a native resolution of 1,366
by 768 pixels and has both DVI and HDMI inputs,
which is unusual in a low-cost TV. It looked its
best when fed a high-quality signal: With game
consoles, PCs, and other high-definition sources,
the 32M0’s resulting image quality was crisp and
detailed.
On DVDs, however, the 32M0 struggles a bit.
When playing the HQV benchmark-test DVD, its
video-noise reduction was ineffective, and the fine
details of the test’s bridge scene were too soft.
The 32M0 is a solid choice for gamers, HD enthusiasts, or anyone who doesn’t spend a lot of time
watching “old” movies on DVD.—Robert Heron
lllmm
3.4x
optical zoom
A DIGITAL CAMERA WITH
DELIGHTFUL DIVERSIONS
Fuji FinePix V10
This ultracompact takes
very good photos,
offers useful shooting
features, and includes
four games for curing
those traveling blues.
$349 list
go.pcmag.com/v10
lllhm
I
T’S NOT EVERY DAY THAT YOU COME ACROSS
an ultracompact digital camera with a very
large screen that also lets you play games.
The Fuji FinePix V10 is a 5.1-megapixel
camera with a 3-inch screen that’s perfect
for viewing 30 thumbnails at once and playing the camera’s four included games. Because the
screen covers almost the entire back of the camera,
however, it does pick up smudges. It has 3.4X optical zoom with a 6.3mm-to-21.6mm range (the 35mm
lens equivalent of 38mm-to-130mm).
At 6.1 ounces, the V10 is not the lightest ultracompact camera we’ve seen. You’ll need small
fingers to press all of the controls, especially the
directional buttons. Although there are few screen
Records video
a smooth 30 fpsat
modes, I found the V10’s Natural Light & With Flash
setting extremely handy for snapping flash and nonflash shots in succession.
Overall, the V10 takes very good pictures, despite
a little underexposure and bit of purple fringing.
The V10’s boot-up time is a superb 2.6 seconds, and
its recycle time is a decent 2.4 seconds. And shutter
lag? You won’t find it here.—Jennifer L. DeLeo
F I R ST LO O KS
Insert your
audio and
MP3 CDs here!
PLAY MUSIC FUNKY
C
Geneva Sound System
Model L
This all-in-one mini
music system’s solid
sound quality and ease
of use will make it an
attractive addition to
any living room.
$599 direct
go.pcmag.com/modelL
Floor stand
is optional
llllm
ALL IT POWER IN A COMPACT PACKAGE.
The Geneva Sound System Model L
houses a CD player, an FM radio, an
iPod dock, and a 100W speaker in a single ultramodern, lacquered wood cabinet. The unit is available in high-gloss
black, white, or red. Though the focus is as much
on the design as on the sound quality, the Model
L manages to deliver quite a bit of power. I found
the sound quality impressive, and the sweet spot is
fairly wide for a one-piece system.
Setup is about as simple as it gets: Plug the
Model L into a wall socket and turn it on. A red LED
appears from behind the upper-right corner of the
speaker grille; it provides only minimal information, though, such as what source is playing or the
volume level. I found the remote control responsive,
though the button labeling could be a bit better. At
$599, you’re paying as much for the elegant design
as you are for the features, but this powerful all-inone box sounds as good as it looks.—Mike Kobrin
Receiver connects
to your stereo's
auxiliary input
A WIRELESS IPOD DOCK
T
HE SOUNDCAST ICAST IS THE FIRST
iPod dock I’ve seen that transmits
audio wirelessly to a receiver that
you connect to your home stereo.
The transmitter charges your iPod
and provides an auxiliary line-in
port and headphone jack, while the receiver gives
you basic playback controls and analog RCA outputs. What’s most remarkable about the iCast is that
it’s not affected by interference, thanks to a very robust automatic frequency-hopping feature.
Setup is simple: Plug the transmitter and
receiver into wall outlets, plop your iPod into the
universal dock on the transmitter, hook the receiver up to your stereo system’s line input, and press
Play on your iPod. Each transmitter can broadcast
a single audio stream to up to two receivers. I got
over 100 feet of range before I ran out of room in
my apartment, but the system is rated for 150 feet
indoors. The sound remained crystal clear even
when I parked it right in front of a running microwave oven; this feature alone makes it worth the
somewhat steep $299.—MK
Sends music to
receiver wirelessly
Soundcast iCast
This iPod dock, the
first I’ve seen that
transmits audio
wirelessly, is a good
choice for multiroom
audio on a budget.
$299 list
go.pcmag.com/icast
llllh
F I R ST LO O KS
BUYING GUIDE
Camera Phones
3MP camera
NOKIA N80
This camera phone has a little bit of everything: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Microsoft Office
document readers, an MP3 player, and a
decent Web browser. Its flashiest feature
is its high-resolution 3MP camera, the first
of its kind in the U.S.
Call quality is very good, and the N80’s Symbian smartphone OS offers an impressive number
of sophisticated features. Photos and videos look
beautiful on the 352-by-416 screen. Turn the phone
90 degrees to use the camera and video recorder.
The camera is pretty basic, with no autofocus
or optical zoom, but the high number of pixels
gives you more realistic lines and color gradations
than most camera phones. Taken as a whole, the
N80 is a huge step forward for camera phones.
Shockingly
high-res
screen
$599.99 direct
go.pcmag.com/n80
llllm
STAY AWAY!
Samsung SCH-A970
(Verizon)
Not a bad phone, but
bugs in the autofocus
and extremely slow
shutter speeds turned
pictures taken with this
pioneering optical-zoom,
2-megapixel camera
phone into frustrating,
blurry messes.
$199.99 list
go.pcmag.com/a970
lllmm
Y
3.7 by 2 by 0.9
inches
OU SEE IT AT EVERY GRADUATION, AT
every parade, at every concert: People
waving camera phones in the air to
grab pictures of treasured (or unexpected) moments. As camera phones
improve and more people begin to
carry them, they’re becoming the camera of choice
for casual occasions. Picking the right camera
phone can help ensure that your pictures become
treasured memories, not forgotten novelties.
Picture Perfect
When buying a camera phone, there are two big
things to consider: photo quality and flexibility in
getting your images off the phone. New, higher-end
camera phones take pictures that are good enough
to print. They can’t compete with dedicated cam-
eras in terms of quality, but they’ll work fine for
snapshots. The best of them also make transferring
those photos to your PC a snap.
If you want to use your camera phone for more
than spur-of-the-moment shots, get at least a
1-megapixel model; these are quite common now.
Two-megapixel camera phones take photos you’ll
feel comfortable printing and saving for posterity,
but they’re a good deal more expensive, and they’re
harder to find.
You should also check to see if your camera
phone has settings to improve image quality further. Most have a “fine” or “superfine” setting, but
it’s rarely turned on by default.
A few camera phones offer autofocus, but most
are fixed-focus, so keep your subjects more than a
few feet away for the best pictures. Sadly, camera
phone flashes are so weak that they reach only a few
feet. In low-light situations, 3 to 6 feet is the sweet
spot for camera phone shots.
If you want to capture video with your camera
phone, look for a phone that supports 352-by-288, 15frame-per-second (fps) video. Although 15 fps isn’t
as good as you’d get with a dedicated digital camera
and nowhere near the quality of a real camcorder, it
will suffice for casual movies. Many camera phones
record video at 176-by-144 or even 128-by-96, which
is hardly archival quality.
EXPERT VIEW
BY SASCHA SEGAN
Shoot and Print
Having a camera on your phone is pretty useless
if you can’t get the pictures off it. For many lowend camera phones, your only option is picturemessaging shots to yourself, a friend, or a picuresharing or printing service. Unfortunately, that’s
often expensive, difficult, and clumsy. Even if you
do manage to send your most precious shots, you’ll
quickly end up with dozens of pictures trapped on
your phone.
If you intend to use your phone’s camera frequently, make sure it has removable memory. That
way, you can pop a miniSD or microSD card into
your phone, take some pictures, pull it out and drop
it into a PC card reader—just as you would with
a “real” digital camera. Some camera phones also
have a “mass-storage mode.” That means you can
plug them directly into your PC with a USB cable,
and the phone appears as a removable drive in your
My Computer screen, which is convenient. Bluetooth file transfer, though, is overrated; it’s more
complicated to use than either of the other two
options.
You can also print pictures directly from your
camera phone to a growing range of printers,
including some Epson and HP models. Look for
a phone that supports PictBridge printing over a
USB cable. Some phones can also send photos to
printers over Bluetooth, but that’s more difficult to
set up than a USB connection.
Yes, you should bring a dedicated digital camera to weddings, graduations, and anywhere you
need an optical zoom or decent flash. But you’ll
be surprised—when you forget your “real” camera—how well a good camera phone will often do
in a pinch.—SS
OTHER
OPTIONS
F
HIDDEN COSTS OF CAMERA PHONES
OR A CAMERA PHONE OWNER, IT’S
Palm Treo
700p
$280
street
llllh
The most well-rounded PDA/phone
available today.
Sanyo
SCP-3100
$199.99
list
llmmm
This one’s got the sound quality but
not the looks.
LG LX350
$229.99
direct
lllhm
A pretty phone with a nice balance
of price, performance, and design.
Samsung
SGH-T509
$229.99
direct
lllhm
Superthin style, Bluetooth, and EDGE
at a rock-bottom price.
Kyocera
Switchback
KX21
$149.99
list
lllmm
Tweens and AOL users on low
budgets will like this discount e-mail
phone.
Sony Ericsson
W810i Walkman
$450
street
llllm
A cute, powerful phone that does
many things well.
easy to collect dozens of pictures
in a few days—after all, now
you’re carrying a camera everywhere. But if you intend to send
those pictures to others, be prepared to pay a hefty price.
For cell-phone carriers, camera phones are a way to make money through picture-messaging charges. Generally, that costs 25
cents a message and up, and it can be much more.
Verizon customers who have smartphones such as
the Motorola Q but haven’t yet signed up for unlimited data plans have been stunned to find picture
messages costing up to $5 each. That’s because
they’re charged by the kilobyte transferred.
A picture-messaging plan offering a fixed number of messages for $5 or $10 per month can help
owners of basic cell phones. Verizon smartphone
owners, however, need to get an unlimited data
plan, starting at around $40 per month, to save them
from the huge per-message fees.
Picture messaging is still clumsy and complicated. On many phones, it takes up to ten clicks
to send a picture message. Multiply that effort by
all the photos you take each day and you begin to
realize why millions of pictures are essentially
“trapped” on camera phones.
If you have Sprint, the fun isn’t over once you’ve
sent the message: Recipients don’t get simple e-mail
attachments they can easily save and print. Instead,
they must click through to a Web site. No wonder
that only 21 percent of phone owners send picture
messages, according to our latest reader survey.
Carriers’ reliance on picture-messaging revenue damages consumers’ options, too. Ever wonder
why we don’t have the 5-, 6-, and 7-megapixel camera phones they get in Asia? Or why the only 3MP
phone available in the U.S., the Nokia N80, has no
official carrier? High-megapixel picture messages
put a strain on carriers’ networks and don’t make
them any more money than low-megapixel messages. And if a feature doesn’t increase carriers’
monthly revenues, they’re not interested in offering
it in the U.S.
There’s a way around picture-messaging fees
and complexity, of course: Don’t send picture
messages. Buy a camera phone with a removable
memory, wait until you get home, and save your
photos onto your PC. That’s what I do.
MORE CAMERA PHONE REVIEWS ONLINE
Check out all our camera phone reviews at go.pcmag.com/cameraphones
Sascha Segan is PC Magazine’s lead analyst for
mobile phones and PDAs.
BEST VALUE
Motorola E815
(Verizon)
Currently selling for $49.99
online, this is
a steal for a
megapixel
camera phone
with video
recording
and removable
memory.
$49.99 direct
go.pcmag.com/e815
llllm
BEST IMAGE
QUALITY
Samsung
MM-A800
(Sprint)
Time and
again on our
image tests,
this camera
phone came
out with the
clearest, most attractive
photos, thanks to its
2MP CCD camera. That’s
what garnered it an
Editors’ Choice in last
year’s camera phone
feature, and it still leads
the pack for imaging.
$199.99 list
go.pcmag.com/mma800
llllm
RECENT REVIEWS
Copyright (2006). ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved. ATI and ATI product and product feature names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ATI Technologies Inc. All other company and
product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Features, pricing, availability and specifications are subject to change without notice. April 05 P/N 129-21161-ATI
Prey © 2006 3D Realms Entertainment
ARE YOU A HERO OR ARE YOU AN ALIEN CHEW TOY?
YOU’VE GOT .25 SECONDS TO DECIDE.
When it’s up to you to save your girlfriend, your people and the
TM
Earth, you want all the help you can get. ATI Radeon X1900
®
series graphics cards deliver the best performance, most realistic 3D
architecture and the edge you need to make sure these
alien freaks know they messed with the wrong planet.
To get the ATI advantage, visit ati.com today.
F I R ST LO O KS
NETWORKING
D R A F T- N W I R E L E SS
Newer Isn't
Always Better
T
HERE’S A NEW KID ON THE WI-FI
block: 802.11n, the wireless standard
that, when finally approved, is supposed to provide better throughput
over longer distances than 802.11g.
And indeed, the “pre-n” products—so called because they were released before
ratification of the “n” standard—looked promising.
But the latest pre-standard products, from Buffalo,
Linksys, and Netgear, fail to deliver.
Releasing immature products and treating
purchasers as your quality-assurance
department is unacceptable.
A draft of the “n” standard is undergoing ratification, so this equipment, which is based on it,
has been given the moniker “draft-n.” Prior to this
roundup, the highest-performing routers I had encountered were the pre-n products built around the
third-generation chipset made by Airgo Networks.
These were the first in my testing to achieve 100
Mbps (albeit at very close range), and they consistently delivered 85 to 95 Mbps at short distances (10
to 60 feet) and up to 30 Mbps at 160 feet. Naturally,
I expected the much-hyped draft-n equipment to
outperform the pre-n offerings. It didn’t.
In fact, getting any performance at all often
turned out to be a challenge. There were problems
with oversensitivity to changes in antenna positioning, and I had to do numerous firmware and
driver upgrades. In some cases I went through multiple routers before finally getting a functional unit.
Only Buffalo’s worked right out of the box.
However bad the initial problems were, though,
the test results were worse. Yes, the Netgear RangeMax Next gave the best performance I've seen at 10
feet and scored reasonably well at 60. But beyond
that distance, its throughput was below that of the
pre-n routers—including Netgear’s own RangeMax
240! The Buffalo and Linksys draft-n routers (based
on Broadcom chipsets) were outperformed by the
older Airgo-based pre-n models at every distance,
and neither reached the 160-foot marker in our
lab—truly unimpressive results. I can't recommend
any of the draft-n routers I've reviewed so far.
Software upgrades may help performance, but
expecting customers to perform multiple firmware
or driver updates to reach minimal functionality
is completely unacceptable. So is releasing immature products just to be early to market and treating purchasers as your quality-assurance department. In the end, that hurts both consumers and
vendors.—Oliver Kaven
DRAFT-N AND PRE-N ROUTERS COMPARED
Throughput in Mbps at . . .
Technology
Chipset
10 feet
60 feet
120 feet
160 feet
Buffalo WZR-G300N
draft-n
Broadcom
91.4
76.8
28.6
——
Linksys WRT300N
draft-n
Broadcom
89.4
75.0
25.0
——
Netgear WNR854T
draft-n
Marvell
123.5
104.8
27.7
2.8
Linksys SRX400*
pre-802.11n
Airgo True Mimo Gen 3
103.6
85.0
39.2
28.2
95.3
44.5
22.4
Netgear RangeMax 240*
pre-802.11n
Airgo True Mimo Gen 3
103.9
* Reported for comparison. A dash indicates a loss of wireless signal at that distance. High scores are best. Bold type denotes first place.
BUFFALO'S DRAFT–N WOES
B
Buffalo AirStation Nfiniti
Wireless Router WZR-G300N
As with all the draft-n entrants,
performance disappoints.
Router, $150 street;
CardBus adapter, $120
go.pcmag.com/airstationnfiniti
UFFALO'S WZR-G300N USES THE SAME
Antennas
hidden
inside
Broadcom Intensi-fi chipset as the
Linksys WRT300N—and performance is just as disappointing.
The router does have good points. It's one
of the few that can also act as a bridge (access
point) or even a repeater. It strikes a good balance between ease of use and configurability
and includes Buffalo’s AOSS (AirStation OneTouch Secure System), an easy method of setting up wireless security.
On my tests, the unit beat the Linksys
WRT300N at shorter distances but lost to the
Netgear RangeMax WNR854T. Sadly, at every
range, older pre-n products beat this router,
and it, along with the Linksys WRT300N, failed
to reach the 160-foot marker in my testing—an
especially disappointing result.
The WZR-G300N did work out of the box,
at least, requiring none of the updates that bedeviled my Linksys testing. I can’t recommend
this—or any—draft-n product, though. There’s
much better pre-n hardware out there.—OK
Netgear RangeMax Next
Wireless Router Gigabit
Edition WNR854T
It's the fastest draft-n and
has great extras—but still
can't cut it at long range.
go.pcmag.com/
rangemaxgigabit
llhmm
lllmm
IT'S THE BEST!
(DON'T BUY IT)
LINKSYS KICKS IT INTO LOW
Y
OU'LL GET A BARREL OF FEATURES WITH
the Linksys WRT300N, including configurable routing and a stateful firewall. The
box also supports WMM (Wi-Fi Multi
Media), which prioritizes data packets—letting
you, for example, prevent BitTorrent downloads
from interrupting your VoIP calls.
Given such great features, I was all the more
disappointed with the router’s performance. The
company’s own pre-n SRX400 outperformed it at
all testing ranges, and the signal didn’t reach our
160-foot marker. To get even these results, I needed
firmware and driver updates as well as plenty of
patience for tweaking antenna placement: Performance was even worse when antenna positioning
wasn’t optimal. Until Linksys gets the kinks worked
out, I can’t recommend the WRT300N.—OK
Linksys Wireless-N
Broadband Router
WRT300N
We’re used to seeing
Linksys in the winner’s
circle, but no amount of
features and ease of use
can save this router’s
score from its poor
performance.
go.pcmag.com/
linksyswrt300n
llhmm
T
HIS NETGEAR ROUTER’S CONCEALED-
antenna design helps make it sleeker
than its competitors, and you’ll find
all the features you’d expect—dynamic DNS, VPN pass-through, and more. Security
(except for parental control) is on a par with
that of similar products, and setup is simple. I
especially like that the box can remind you to
check for updates whenever you log on to it.
Beyond that, as of this writing, no other consumer wireless broadband router has gigabit
switching for wired connections. But although
the RangeMax WNR854T beat its draft-n challengers, it’s just the best of a disappointing lot.
After I did both firmware and driver updates, the WNR854T hit 123.5 Mbps at 10 feet.
Amazing—but 27.7 Mbps at 120 feet and 2.8 at
160 are less than impressive. In fact, this product's predecessor, the RangeMax 240, beat it at
all but the shortest test distances. Unless you’ll
always be within a few feet of the router, you’re
better off with the 240.—OK
F I R ST LO O KS
SOF TWARE
A ONE-MAN PC BAND
M-Audio Session
Easy to use and almost
foolproof, this recording and accompaniment
software has terrific
audio quality and, for
an entry-level product,
offers surprisingly rich
features.
Included with Fast Track
USB ($129.95 direct) at
no additional cost
go.pcmag.com/
m-audiosession
M
-AUDIO SESSION, LIKE APPLE’S
GarageBand, is for beginning
to intermediate music creators
who want good results from
easy-to-use recording software.
I tested a package that pairs the
Session app—which works only with M-Audio hardware—and the M-Audio Fast Track USB recording
interface. The interface has 24-bit/48-KHz guitar,
line-level, and balanced mic recording inputs; controls for input, mixing, and output levels; and stereo
and headphone outputs. The combination of Session
and the interface gives home guitarists, keyboard
players, and vocalists a total solution.
llllm
Creating music is easy. I opened an empty track,
picked an instrument and style, and dragged loops
from a menu. I could stretch each loop out, then
add accompaniment tracks. Session matched up all
the instrumental parts from loops. Songwriters can
start by trying melodies and lyrics with the loops
they’ve just laid down, changing the key, adding
effects, and modifying existing tones.
You can record multiple tracks of rhythm and
lead guitar, keyboard—anything you can plug into
Fast Track. Once you have the rhythm and melody,
you can add voice. Better, you can turn tracks into
loops you can manipulate—changing their tempos (without changing pitch) or stretching them,
for example—and reuse. There’s no
envelope editing, which would let
you control volume anywhere in the
track, but you can auto-fade songs.
The software is excellent for practice,
trying out new songs, and getting
musical ideas down on disc.
—Bill Machrone
Build backing gging
tracks by dra u
styles from men
Make access to content
public—or restrict it
CHOOSIER SOCIAL
NETWORKING
Multiply
Create a personal Web
presence that lets you
make content publicly
available—but also lets
you restrict viewing,
item by item, to people
you know. Upload
almost any type of
content (blogs, videos,
music, and more) with
no storage limits or fees.
Free
go.pcmag.com/multiply
llllm
L
IKE MYSPACE (WHICH IT PREDATES),
social-networking site Multiply lets
you build a personal Web presence.
You can quickly post nearly anything
to your Web site, which is off the company’s domain (mine, for example,
is cademetz.multiply.com). But Multiply gives you
total control over who can see what.
Since my first review, in January 2005 (go.pcmag
.com/multiply0105), the site has become even more
impressive. The interface is more refined—you can
share videos and music as well as photos, blogs,
and calendars—and storage limits and subscription fees are gone.
I’m particularly impressed with the site’s photo
sharing. A new Java app lets you use drag-and-drop
to upload images. When uploading other data, you
can’t drag and drop, but the tools are well designed
and reasonably fast.
The beauty of Multiply is that you can limit
access to each item according to e-mail addresses.
It’s easy, because you can keep a master list of contacts and expose files to it with a click. You can also
create smaller groups. People wanting to view content must join Multiply, but it’s simple and free.
As you post new items, you can send notifications, and members can leave comments when
trading content. It’s a lot like MySpace, but more
refined. The open, free-form MySpace certainly
has its charms, but so does the more contained
world of Multiply.—Cade Metz
NOTHING BEATS THE PERFECT DRIVE.
EXCEPT ONE THAT ALSO NAILS
THE RANGE CART.
Always moist.
Always premium.
Always fresh.
®
SKOAL SMOKELESS TOBACCO ALSO AVAILABLE IN POUCHES
®Trademark of U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. or an affiliate. ©2006 U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co.
F I R ST LO O KS
SMALL BUSINESS
Lots of connectors on the back
including monitor pass-through
and two VGA ports
Bundled remote
can double as
your PC’s mouse
TOSHIBA’S PORTABLE
AND POWERFUL PROJECTOR
Toshiba
TDP-T95U
It isn’t the
smallest projector on the
market, but it
is one of the brightest.
Add to this a compelling feature set along
with pristine image
quality (for a DLP-based
machine) and you’ve
got your business a
winner.
$1,299 direct
go.pcmag.com/
toshibatdpt95u
llllm
T
HE TOSHIBA TDP-T95U PROJECTOR DELIVERS BRIGHT IMAGES, AN
excellent contrast ratio, and plenty of connection options in a
reasonably portable, 6.4-pound package. It’s versatile, and the
perfect addition to any small business.
Of course, at 3.9 by 11.8 by 8.6 inches (HWD), the DLP-based
T95U isn’t tiny. It’s still small enough, though, to impress me
with its abundance of connection options. These include input connectors for
two computers that let you plug both computers to the projector and toggle
between them. Each of those input connectors can also serve as a connector for
a component video source. In addition to that, there is a pass-through monitor
connector that lets you plug in a VGA cable from a monitor to the projector.
Another noteworthy feature is the Instant Shut Down function. This lets you
simply turn the machine off, pull the plug, and pack everything up, with no harm
done to the projector’s lamp. (With most projectors, pulling the plug before the
fan stops will shorten the lamp’s life.)
On brightness tests, the T95U registered 1,614 lumens, making it the brightest projector I’ve seen for the price. The unit’s 339:1 contrast ratio is also high
and creates colors that pop.
Serving up superb image quality and vivid color for a DLP machine, the
Toshiba TDP-T95U is an excellent projector for big-room presentations in the
office and on the road.—M. David Stone
TURN
THE PAGE
. . . and open the
gatefold for more
small business,
hardware, and
software reviews.
They’re your servers. And your network.
(It’s time you took back control of them.)
©2006 CDW Corporation
Optimize your servers. Upgrade your network.
(And save yourself.)
Is managing your growing number of servers and your growing storage needs getting to be too much? Then server optimization may
be just the answer. From server consolidation to storage management, networking to virtualization, CDW can answer your questions
and get you the solutions you need. So call CDW today. It’s time you ran your network, not the other way around.
HP ProLiant ML110 G3 Series Server
• Intel® Celeron® Processor (2.53GHz)
• Memory: 512MB std., 8GB max.
• 80GB non hot-pluggable SATA hard drive
• 48X CD-ROM drive
• Provides all the relevant server features in an
easy-to-use package
559
$
CDW 851656
SMART BUY - $40
INSTANT SAVINGS1
HP ProLiant ML310 G3 Server
649
$
CDW 876521
•
•
•
•
•
Intel® Celeron® D Processor 331 (2.66GHz)
Memory: 512MB std., 8GB max.
NC320i PCI Express 10/100/1000 Gigabit NIC
DDR II ECC memory
PCI-Express slots
SMART BUY - $75
INSTANT SAVINGS1
1
HP Smart Buy instant savings reflected in advertised price; HP Smart Buy instant savings is based on a comparison of the HP Smart Buy price versus the standard list price of an identical product; savings may
vary based on channel and/or direct standard pricing. Intel, Intel Logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside Logo, Xeon and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries
F I R ST LO O KS
SMALL BUSINESS
CELLULAR INTERNET:
SPREAD IT AROUND
Kyocera KR1
Mobile Router
If you’re a customer
of Alltel, Sprint, or
Verizon and need to
share cellular Internet service, the KR1
should be your top
pick for a mobile
cellular data router.
$299.99 direct
go.pcmag.com/
kyocerakr1
llllm
A
LL YOU NEED TO SHARE A CELLULAR
data connection is the right router.
For Alltel, Sprint, and Verizon, the
best I’ve seen is the Kyocera KR1
Mobile Router, which is based on
D-Link hardware. It supports
802.11g, includes a four-port switch, and has a slot
for your cell carrier’s EV-DO PC card. If you prefer,
you can use a data-capable cell phone as a modem
by connecting it to the device’s USB port (this feature is unique but works with few phones). Setup of
this full-featured router is simple. A wizard helps
with configuration and EV-DO card authentication,
but security is off by default. You should immediately invoke at least 128-bit WEP security.
On my tests, the KR1 came out well ahead of
the TopGlobal 3G Phoebus MB6000 (go.pcmag
.com/phoebusmb6000): It managed over 20 Mbps
at 60 feet versus just 9.5 Mbps for the MB6000 and
maintained a signal 10 feet further. The real limitation will be EV-DO speed, which varies greatly
with signal strength—and not all areas have coverage. But whatever the speed of your cellular data,
this is a great router for sharing it.—Oliver Kaven
READY FOR DUTY
I
Ricoh Aficio CL3500N
This color laser has the
speed and paper capacity
to be a heavy-duty workhorse printer for a busy
small office or workgroup.
$700 street
go.pcmag.com/
ricohcl3500n
lllhm
F YOU WORK IN A SMALL OFFICE THAT NEEDS
to print a lot of documents—fast—the
Ricoh Aficio CL3500N ($700 street) color
laser printer should be on your short list.
Using an engine that’s rated at 22 pages
per minute (ppm) for monochrome and
color, the CL3500N is nevertheless fast: It ran our
business suite tests in just 9 minutes 16 seconds.
To find a significantly faster machine you’d have
to spend several hundred dollars more. The Xerox
Phaser 6300DN ($1,200), an Editors’ Choice winner, had a time of 7:07.
Popular business fonts, such as Arial and Times
New Roman, are easily readable at 4 points. The
printer, however, has more trouble with highly
stylized fonts that use thick strokes. Graphics and
photo quality are also good enough for internal
business use, though I wouldn’t consider using
the CL3500N for printing important brochures for
potential clients.—M. David Stone
It’s all about having the
BUYING GUIDE
NetworkAttached Storage
INFRANT READYNAS NV
This small, extremely capable NAS appliance
fully supports RAID levels 0, 1, and 5. It has USB
connectivity, can double as a print server, and
has a host of features normally reserved for
higher-end devices. It also keeps its firmware on
a CF storage card rather than on one of its hard
drives, so you’ll never lose your OS or configuration data
when a drive fails.
Businesses will prize the ReadyNAS NV’s ability to tie
the NAS into Active Directory for log-on authentication;
the unit’s integrated, automatic backup; and the built-in
DHCP server, which has enough intelligence to disable itself if it detects a DHCP server on your network.
I especially liked the depth of the setup wizard, though
its level of detail might be a little daunting to newbies.
I also liked the unit’s ability to schedule backups to an
attached USB drive and e-mail me when it was finished.
Those features, plus extensive user and volume management capabilities, make the ReadyNAS NV my choice for
small businesses and power users alike.
$1,299 direct
go.pcmag.com/readynasnv
S
llllh
MALL BUSINESS THAT HAVE MIS-
sion-critical data or home users who
download a lot of MP3 files, shoot
and save digital photos, or edit videos
need to understand what a networkattached storage (NAS) device is.
Eventually, anyone who keeps a large amount of
important data starts thinking about repositories less vulnerable than PC hard drives, and that
means something external. Often the best, most
cost-effective solution is a NAS. So what is it, why
do you need one, and how do you buy and use it?
A NAS isn’t simply an external hard drive. It’s
a computer, with an OS and one or more hard
drives, that’s dedicated to storage tasks and can
connect to a network. Most communicate over
wired Ethernet, but some, such as the Iomega
StorCenter, can do so wirelessly. The OS, generally just a Linux or Windows kernel, handles volume and drive management, networking, security, and user access. It often has extended features,
such as backup capability. The functions are
usually managed through a Web-based graphical
user interface.
For a small business, centralizing data on a
NAS is a good management practice. If information isn’t dispersed on separate PCs, accessing
it is simpler, as is managing security. And when
storage needs increase for one or more employees, maintaining a single device is far easier than
e right technology products.
adding and managing locally attached external
drives, putting a new server online, or installing
drives in existing servers. In addition, prices have
dropped: A 1TB NAS costs well below $1,000.
Selecting a NAS for your home or small business isn’t rocket science, but there are a few important basics to keep in mind. Stay away from
single-drive solutions—especially for business
applications. If your one-drive device’s drive dies,
not only do you lose all your data, but employees
who depend on it are sidelined. You want something that supports at least two drives in a configuration called RAID 1, which mirrors data—keeps
the same information on different drives to preserve it if one crashes. Also, check that you can
easily remove the drives from the front or back—
the best cases have slide-out trays and allow for a
tool-less exchange of drives.
If multiple users share data, make sure the
NAS has share-level and user-level security and
lets you assign users read-only access, not just
full privileges and none. For organizations with
more than ten users, look for a system that lets
you change permissions for groups, so you can
easily make changes for multiple users. A NAS
with good access-rights management can be a
good alternative to a file server in the home and in
a small business. It can also be useful for a home
office that shares space with home users. If you
have remote offices or several small workgroups,
you want an appliance that can double as print
and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) servers. Many
devices in this guide can.
After these considerations, for entry-level
devices, choose based on price, capacity, and physical size, not performance (it’s not significantly different among products at this level). The Linksys
EtherFast Network Attached Storage EFG250, for
example, offers a good combination of the three.
Buffalo and Infrant Technologies make units with
greater capacity and even more features.
Businesses that have 25 to 100 employees or
bigger storage needs will find several boxes in
the $2,500 to $5,000 range that offer robust data protection, flexible RAID options, and more
advanced backup and restore capabilities. Some
good examples are the Adaptec Snap Server 4200
and the Aberdeen AberNAS 211, which hold up
to eight drives and let you replace failed drives
in RAID configurations on the fly. The units are
rack-mountable and rugged, and they include
server-class processors and more memory. They
also provide detailed logging and reporting tools,
as well as antivirus and versioning software and
flexible backup. Many of these products handle
online archiving and backup of content stored on
file servers.
Whatever the size of your operation, though, if
you have a lot of important data, you need to consider a NAS. Falling prices, improved ease of use,
and the importance of protecting your data make
this a great time to start looking.—OK
NAS FEATURES COMPARED
Dollars
per GB
RAID
levels
USB
connectivity
Print
server
Supported
client OSs
Anthology Solutions
Yellow Machine P400T
1.8
0, 1, 1+0, 5
No
No
Linux, Mac, PC
Buffalo TeraStation
0.8
1, 5
Yes
Yes
Linux, Mac, PC
Infrant ReadyNAS NV
1.3
0, 1, 5
Yes
Yes
Linux, Mac, PC
Iomega StorCenter
Wireless Network Storage 1TB
0.9
0, 0+1, 5
Yes
Yes
Linux, Mac, PC
OTHER
OPTIONS
BUDGET FRIENDLY
Buffalo TeraStation
Cheaper isn’t necessarily
worse. This NAS delivers an
unbelievable amount of storage and features for under
$1,000. A great Web-based
interface, configurable RAID
1 or 5, a built-in print server,
and USB expandability are
included.
$799.99 direct
go.pcmag.com/
buffaloterastation
llllm
WIRELESS
Iomega StorCenter
Wireless Network
Storage 1TB
You can buy a 1TB RAID 0, 1,
and 5 NAS, an 802.11g
access point, a print server,
a USB hub, and great
backup software—or just get
this NAS. For these features,
it’s a bargain.
$900 street
go.pcmag.com/storcenter1tb
llllh
SWISS ARMY NAS
Anthology Solutions
Yellow Machine P400T
The Yellow Machine P400T
is a router, firewall, switch,
and Web server all wrapped
up in a canary yellow box
slightly larger than a toaster.
It supports RAID 0, 0+1, and
5, has eight Ethernet ports,
and comes preloaded with
excellent backup software:
Retrospect Professional.
$1,800 street
go.pcmag.com/
yellowmachinep400t
llllm
RED denotes Editors’ Choice.
(So we carry just about all of them.)
EXPERT VIEW
B Y O L I V E R K AV E N
N
SELECTING THE RIGHT RAID LEVEL FOR YOUR NAS
AS DEVICES PLAY A KEY
take an hour or more). It’s safe and easy to set
role in many businesses
up, especially for those new to disk arrays.
and homes today, and a
Performance is a downside (versus RAID 0),
failure can be catastrophas is cost: With two 250GB drives, for example,
ic. Setting up your NAS
total disk space is still just 250GB. And if you’re
in a RAID (Redundant
using drives of different sizes, the array’s capacArray of Independent
ity will never exceed that of the smallest drive.
Disks) configuration is
I suggest RAID 1 if you’re on a budget and really
one of the best ways to ensure your data either
can’t afford units with more than two drives.
stays online or is quickly recoverable. The many
RAID 5 is one of the most popular levels in
RAID levels balance performance and fault tolhigher-end NAS devices. It takes three or more
erance differently, so picking the right level can
drives, but it not only increases performance
be confusing. I’ll explain the most important
by striping data across them, it also provides
ones to help you make an educated decision.
redundancy by striping parity information deToday, many PCs ship with multiple hard
rived from the data being stored. If a drive fails,
drives set up in RAID configurations. Computits content can be reconstructed using the parers used for video editing or other tasks that are
ity information on the others.
disk intensive and rely on fast
Performance is a bit slower
data transfer come configured If you can afford
than that of RAID 0 (the array
for RAID 0. Technically, this isn’t
must write the additional parity
a unit with more
RAID, because it provides no redata) but much faster than with
dundancy. Data that would nor- than three drives,
a RAID 1 configuration. Overmally be on one drive is striped—
head is also lower than that of
get one that
broken into chunks and spread
RAID 1. Three 250GB drives
over several drives. One can be supports RAID 5.
provide 500GB of storage. If
reading or writing a block while
you can afford a unit with more
another is seeking the next. Performance goes
than three drives, get one that supports RAID
up, but if a single drive fails, your data becomes
5. I like the performance it offers, especially for
inaccessible—not a configuration for storing
streaming video and moving large files.
mission-critical information. RAID 0 as well as
Whatever RAID level you choose, back
JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) are also attractive
up your NAS device. People gain a false sense
because of the large amount of disk space you
of security from having a NAS appliance.
get, but I strongly recommend avoiding them
Yes, in a RAID configuration, it’s more sebecause of the data-loss risk.
cure than PC hard drives, but it’s not immune
RAID 1 is common on lower-end NAS deto failure. Explore backup options such as
vices with only two drives. It’s often called disk
tape drives, or high-capacity optical drives
mirroring, since it writes the same data to each
such as DVDs. The adventurous may even
drive, keeping them identical. If one fails, the
try Blu-ray or HD DVD solutions. Even a secother takes over. You can replace the defective
ond NAS can be an effective backup solution.
drive and suffer no downtime or data loss while
Oliver Kaven is PC Magazine’s lead analyst for
the new drive remirrors the old one (which can
networking.
HP ProLiant ML350 G4p Series Server
Hard drives
sold separately
• Intel® Xeon® Processor (3.20GHz)
• Memory: 1GB std., 12GB max.
• 2 PCI-Express and 4 PCI-X slots
• Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) Management
• Designed with an expandable platform that
delivers affordable, two-way performance
1559
$
CDW 851506
SMART BUY - $635
INSTANT SAVINGS1
HP ProLiant DL360 G4p Rack-mount Server
1899
$
CDW 876530
• Intel® Xeon® Processor (3GHz)
• 533MHz Front Side Bus
• 2 SCSI or SATA hard drive bays
• Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) Management
SMART BUY - $795 INSTANT SAVINGS1
Hard drives sold separately
HP ProLiant DL380 G4 Rack-mount Server
SMART BUY - $980 INSTANT SAVINGS1
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• 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet, rack-mountable, 2U server
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HP ProLiant BL20p G3 Blade Server
1995
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• Quickly respond to changing application needs
The Server Solutions You Need When You Need Them.
in the United States and other countries. Offer subject to CDW’s standard terms and conditions of sale, available at CDW.com.
© 2006 CDW Corporation
Additional server blades and
enclosure sold separately
2059
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F I R ST LO O KS
SMALL BUSINESS
YOUNG PAYROLL APP HAS GROWING PAINS
A
Auto Payroll
This new payroll app
includes many of the
tools, records, and
documents you need to
spit out paychecks and
stay compliant, but it
needs improvement.
$69.99 direct; tax
tables and software
update, $69.99 yearly
go.pcmag.com/
autopayroll
llhmm
UTO PAYROLL IS ONE OF THE NEW-
est apps in the field, and it needs
fine-tuning. Its time-clock/timesheet integration is a plus (for example, employees can enter hours
directly on a time sheet or punch
in and out), yet it lacks key features like a central
bank register. Also, payroll operations, which are
split between an Options menu and an icon bar,
need better integration.
Because there’s no wizard, you must perform
setup tasks in the Admin module. A setup menu
presents a handful of options, but you have to
click your way through icons in a vertical pane
on the left. While the pane is an effective way
to present features, it’s no substitute for a wizard. On the plus side, you can assign lower-level
passwords to your employees and allow them
to enter and edit time-sheet information in
another module.
Fortunately, there’s a thorough framework
for the arduous task of setting up your com-
pany and employees, and the software builds
in handy safeguards, such as warnings about
inaccurate withholding—but there’s no central account register to track what you enter.
The app completed tax forms automatically,
which I appreciate, and the payroll reports
are sufficient, though you can’t drill down for
details. Tech support is free, and the online
help and user guide provide just enough guidance—but no more. For now, I can’t recommend
AutoPayroll.—Kathy Yakal
Clearly-laid-out features
can’t make up for a missing
setup wizard
Time sheets
track regular
hours only—
no vacation,
no sick time
Bookkeeper 2006
QuickBooks it’s not,
but if price is your
main concern you
might be able to make
do with this much
cheaper bookkeeping
software.
$29.95 direct; tax
tables, $24.95 yearly
go.pcmag.com/
bookkeeper2006
llhmm
BUDGET BOOKKEEPING
TURN
THE PAGE
. . . and open the
gatefold for a
NAS buying guide
and more reviews.
S
MALL BUSINESSES THAT CAN AFFORD
to buy QuickBooks should do so.
Those that can’t might try Bookkeeper 2006, which offers a passable set of
bookkeeping features, if not QuickBooks’ elegant and well-integrated
way of doing things. This budget app processes
accounts receivable and payable, tracks inventory
and payroll, prints checks, and issues reports. It has
a dated interface, though, and lacks important capa-
bilities like online banking, a standard audit trail,
a choice of charts of accounts, and payroll automation. Still, the foundation is sound.
There’s only a very cursory setup wizard, but
you can import databases of customer, vendor,
and inventory-item text fi les. Data-record templates and forms (invoices, estimates, and purchase orders) are adequate if not exceptional.
Workflow is standard, but I found some quirks.
For example, you can’t designate extra pay types
(vacation, say) on the time sheet; you must call
them out on the pay stub. And payments and aging history for invoices show on printed copies
but not on screen. I found the number of reports
adequate, with good customizability, but the
way they display can be atypical.
Overall, Bookkeeper 2006 can’t match, let
alone beat, the features and customization capabilities in even the junior versions of competing
accounting software like QuickBooks.—KY
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DESKTOP PC
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Sony VAIO XL2 Digital
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CELL PHONE
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LAPTOP
Dell Inspiron E1505
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42" HDTV (PLASMA)
NEC 42XR4
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PORTABLE STORAGE
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ABSplus USB 2.0
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PORTABLE SATELLITE
RADIO PLAYER
Pioneer Inno
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screen.
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CAMCORDER
(MINIDVD)
Sony DCR-DVD505
Great video
quality. Very good
sound. Excellent 3.5inch-wide touch panel.
Articulating LCD.
Pivoting viewfinder.
$1,099.99 list
Sony Electronics Inc.
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PROJECTOR
Toshiba TDP-T95U
6.4-pound portability.
Bright image. Excellent
contrast ratio. Plenty of
connection options.
$1,299 direct
Toshiba America Inc.
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toshibatdpt95u
EV-DO ROUTER
Kyocera KR1
Mobile Router
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set. USB support.
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Kyocera Corp.
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kyocerakr1
SECURITY SUITE
ZoneAlarm Security
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Our favorite firewall.
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Zone Labs LLC
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LCD MONITOR
Dell UltraSharp
Widescreen 2007WFP
Very good image
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Dell Inc.
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dell2007wfp
MORE ON THE WEB
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IT’S A NOTEBOOK. IT’S A TABLET.
®
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• Wide-viewing angle indoor or indoor/outdoor
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©2006 Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation. All rights reserved. Fujitsu, the Fujitsu logo and LifeBook are registered trademarks of Fujitsu Limited. BayLock is a trademark of Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation. Centrino, Intel, the Centrino
logo and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
MICHAEL J. MILLER
The New Web Applications
P
E O P L E I N T H E S O F T WA R E
industry are itching to see a
good competition between
Google and Microsoft. They are
looking at the new generation
of Web applications as direct
competition with Microsoft
Office. I love the new apps, but
this is not an arena in which a battle between the
two titans will take place.
Consider Google Spreadsheet, which was
recently released as a limited beta. It’s more spreadsheet than you might expect from a free Web-based
product. Though restricted to 25 columns and
100 rows, it has a good list of formulas and basic
font and color formatting, and it’s fast enough for
a small spreadsheet. Still, it’s not in the league of
The new Web apps really shine in letting
people work together to share information
and in creating new applications.
MORE ON THE WEB
Read Michael J.
Miller’s insights daily
on his blog, at blog
.pcmag.com/miller
desktop spreadsheets—it’s not OpenOffice or the
WordPerfect spreadsheet, and it’s certainly not
Excel. It’s not even Lotus 1-2-3, in that it doesn’t yet
have any charting features and lacks a scripting language. With its limitations, it’s like Writely, which
Google recently acquired: not a bad text editor, but
no Microsoft Word.
What Google Spreadsheet does nicely is let you
store and share spreadsheets. Just one click sends a
link with the spreadsheet to your contacts, who can
then edit it within the browser. This easy collaboration is the real point of Google Spreadsheet.
Google isn’t foolish enough to take on Excel
directly. I expect most Google Spreadsheet users
to use it for sharing and collaborating but stay with
Excel for creating and formatting. Big companies
won’t use Google Spreadsheet for security reasons,
but individuals and small businesses might.
When I use the new Yahoo! Photos beta, I’m
amazed at how similar it is to a desktop application.
You can drag and drop your photos into folders or
to a dock at the top of the screen just as you would
in a desktop app. But the real point of Yahoo! Photos is to add descriptions and tags to your photos,
search through them, and share them.
The betas of Yahoo! Mail and Microsoft’s Live
Mail also look much like desktop apps. You can drag
and drop mail items into folders, scroll through lists
of messages, and automatically preview messages.
These two are a big step forward. Although they
don’t match the features of desktop applications,
they provide better searching and collaboration.
We’ve seen business-class apps like Salesforce
.com and NetSuite for years, and early versions of
the online mail clients are hugely popular. But the
growing popularity of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) has advanced the concept of rich
Internet applications, which products like Flash
have been trying to implement for a long time. We’re
seeing these technologies working together in applications such as Yahoo! Maps and Google Finance.
This isn’t a thin-client approach—many of these
applications require powerful PCs. Over time, some
of these apps may well gain off-line and caching features, but for now, most don’t even pretend to match
their desktop counterparts.
Rather than competing with desktop applications, Web apps are coming to complement them,
emphasizing sharing and collaboration. A product
like Google Spreadsheet is more of a stealth competitor in the collaboration space than a real Excel
competitor. Remember, Microsoft is pushing SharePoint for enterprises and touting hosted SharePoint
or Office Live to smaller businesses for sharing
documents and spreadsheets. And there are many
other Web-based alternatives, such as HyperOffice.
Potential customers might prefer a free hosted service such as Google Spreadsheet.
The Web also enables synergies among applications. On the desktop, you can copy and paste
information from one application to another and
use superficial integration, but most desktop apps
have boundaries. On the Web, these boundaries
don’t exist, so we’re seeing more mash-ups that
can, for example, combine Google Maps with travel
routes to create a new app.
The new Web apps really shine in letting people
work together to share information and in creating new applications based on work other people
have done. Software companies have long watched
Microsoft embrace and extend technologies as it
extended Windows and Office. Now these new
Web tools are doing the same to desktop apps—not
replacing them, but extending them. Q
B I L L M AC H R O N E
My Music Video Debut
A
LITTLE EQUIPMENT IS A DAN-
gerous thing. A camcorder,
a computer, and suddenly
you’re the A/V guy. But I volunteered for this particular
gig, making a tribute video
for the retiring pastor of my
church. I decided early on that
it would be a tame version of a music video, where
the soundtrack would be as important as the video
images in conveying the message. And so I selected
Bonnie Bramlett’s interpretation of the Dylan song
“Forever Young,” for its upbeat, optimistic message flavored with a dash of spirituality. I shot a lot
of footage of the pastor during services, at coffee
hours, visiting the Sunday school, and chatting with
congregants. I also shot farewell messages and good
wishes from church members, young and old, and
asked as many people as I could to say “May you
stay forever young,” the song’s refrain, along with
just the words, “forever young.”
I decided to shoot the entire video handheld, and
used my Sony DV camcorder on a homemade stabilizer, which consisted of the center section of my
ancient Safe-Lock Flip Lok tripod, with a 3-pound
barbell weight on the bottom of the tube section.
These tripods are no longer made, but the removable center column made it ideal for my purposes.
You can easily create your own “Steadicam”; search
online for “DIY steadicam” for inspiration.
I borrowed a Toshiba Qosmio for editing and
DVD creation; I figured the best multimedia notebook would be a good choice, and it was. The 17inch screen gave me plenty of room for editing and
gorgeous video quality, built-in FireWire made
transfers from the camera easy, and the RAID disk
drives were fast and roomy. I backed up everything
on a 500GB Western Digital MyBook USB drive.
I loaded the Qosmio with Pinnacle Studio Plus
10.5 Titanium Edition for editing. I’d used earlier versions of Pinnacle, and this new one looked promising. When I got to editing, however, everything took
too long—and, of course, I was doing the edit the day
before the goodbye dinner. When I loaded Sony Vegas Studio Platinum, everything went faster. I’d say
that Pinnacle is easier for the easy stuff and Vegas is
easier for the hard stuff, but both are highly capable.
Vegas, however, exposes more handles for envelope
editing and has more special cursors for simple edits
and effects. It’s much easier to pluck out a piece of a
clip and insert it into the timeline. It’s also more convenient to “drive,” as you can control it with a combination of keyboard shortcuts and the mouse. I was
also disappointed that Pinnacle wouldn’t use the full
screen of the Qosmio’s magnificent 16:9 display.
Here are some discoveries and observations that
I’d like to share:
I’m a lousy videographer. Even with the DIY stabilizer and in-camera image stabilization, my shooting wasn’t smooth enough. Practice!
It’s never enough. No matter how much video
you think you’ll need, shoot more. Two and a half
hours of raw footage didn’t give me all the choices I
wanted for a 3:49 video. Remember the producer’s
mantra: “That was perfect. Let’s do it again.”
Use a shotgun microphone. Your camcorder’s
microphone is not directional enough. A cameramounted shotgun mic will suppress much back-
Always shoot more video than you think you’ll
need. Remember the producer’s mantra:
“That was perfect. Let’s do it again.”
ground noise and will give you better audio quality.
Make sure it’s on. I lost a couple of really good
takes because the mic was off. Use headphones to
monitor audio quality, even if you look like a nerd.
Don’t step on lines. If you’re talking to your subjects from behind the camera, wait for them to finish
before you speak. This isn’t a Robert Altman movie.
Slow motion gives weight. You can create gravitas and rescue those jerky scenes by slowing them
down just enough to be unnatural. Swell the background music instead of using the scene’s audio.
Watch your lighting. Turn on backlight compensation when shooting subjects with dark complexions. Avoid blowout from bright windows. Consider
using a camera-mounted fill light.
Lay down the audio first. Let the music set the
pace. Change scenes on the beat. Match the scenes
and sentiments to the words.
Easy on the effects. Forget the fancy wipes and
dissolves. I used fades, cross-fades, and speed alterations, period.
I meant to do that. Did you cut off a head, but get
a great sound bite? Pull off the audio and use it as a
voiceover for something else. Or cut off a few more
heads and make it a stylistic statement. Q
MORE ON THE WEB
You can contact
Bill Machrone at
Bill_Machrone@
ziffdavis.com
For more of his
columns, go to go.pcmag
.com/machrone
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I N S I D E T R AC K
BY JOHN C. DVORAK
I
NTEL IS DOING EVERYTHING IT CAN TO
catch up to performance leader AMD
with a lot of promises about quad core
and other hot chips mapped out for
the next few years. AMD is not letting
up. Meanwhile, if users can get hold
of Intel’s D 805 chip, they will quickly
discover that it can be overclocked to
an extreme at 4.1 GHz and will outperform almost
anything else on the market. The D 805 sells for less
than $150.
Intel has in the past thrown into the channel
chips like the D 805 that turn out to be high-end
chips just downgraded and repackaged. One has
to assume that running the chip at more than 4 GHz
is done at your own risk. This gets Intel off the hook
if the machine blows up. I’m convinced it’s doing
this as some sort of viral marketing scheme. Well,
it works!
The Dell-AMD connection. After decades of using Intel chips exclusively, Dell has relented and
chosen an AMD processor for some new servers.
Dell was becoming such a big customer for Intel
that people in the industry always assumed that
they would eventually have a falling out—chip
companies don’t like being leveraged by their customers. In other words, Dell could put the squeeze
on Intel by cutting down its purchases and demanding better pricing. I cornered a Dell senior
vice president recently and asked him specifically
if this relationship with AMD was just a short-term
one, or if Dell would dump AMD as soon as it could
to get back to the cozy situation with a humbled
Intel. He would say only, “We’ll always ride the best
technology.” Whatever that means. I took that to
be a yes.
Dumbing Down the Public Dept.: The ubiquitous press release now seems to be the number one
source of information, according to a disturbing report by a group of researchers studying Web search
behavior. Not mentioned in the report is the unusual way in which press releases have bypassed
their initial function: to provide basic information
to a reporter. Now these things go directly to the
consumer, who probably thinks that they represent
true news rather than being puffed-up announcements coming directly from the companies. Curiously, one analyst thought that people were reading these things because they were “shorter and
pithier,” which is a laughable assertion. Press releases tend to be long-winded, full of ludicrous
quotes from the CEO bragging about himself and
the company, along with all sorts of pie-in-the-sky
proclamations.
Probably the closest thing that we can find in the
real world to match a press release is the kind of
daily newspaper story produced in dictatorships,
where the local top dog is always referred to as
something like “our great and wonderful blessed
leader.” It’s a laugh. This sort of shift was bound to
happen as corporations crank out numerous simple
press releases that are easily accessible through
search engines. Meanwhile, the big news organizations have shot themselves in the foot by using
content management systems that do not allow for
the easy searching of their archives. Nobody has
paid any attention to this issue. Adding to the problem (and further blocking search engines), many
news sites stupidly require registration. Thus the
easy-to-access press release that is filled with fluff
One has to assume that running an overclocked D 805 chip at more than 4 GHz is done
at one’s own risk. This gets Intel off the hook if
the machine blows up.
rises to the top when people conduct a Web search.
And thus the public is further buffaloed by malarkey, thanks to media ineptitude. This is not rocket
science, folks.
The Society for Information Display (SID) Conference took place recently in San Francisco (see
my slide show of new technology from the SID
show online at go.pcmag.com/sid), and the biggest buzz was speculation about when the LCD flat
panel would finally take over market-share leadership from the CRT. Estimates vary from later this
year to 2009. But that includes TVs. As for the flatpanel desktop monitor, it already dominates the
market and is expected to command a 91 percent
share by 2009. With continued improvements in
flat-panel display technology, I can’t see anything
new unseating it.
The Blinker Brigade Dept.: If you’re following the LCD business, you already know that the
use of LEDs as a backlighting source is on its way
to commercialization. But some of the companies
are playing around with using RGGB arrays of
LEDs and strobing both the LED and the LCD
elements at high speeds to get the desired color output without filtering or polarizers. I had a chance
to see the first of these displays at the SID show—it
is astonishing. But apparently this sort of display
needs to be refreshed at 900 Hz to eliminate a color
wheel–like effect. Stay tuned. Q
WANT MORE DVORAK?
John writes a weekly column for our Web site, too.
go.pcmag.com/dvorak
You can e-mail him at
pcmag@dvorak.org
Test Your Limits
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WZR-G300N
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WARRANTY
TECH
SUPPORT
FUTURE TECH
Ever heard of bacterial photography—it’s not as gross as it sounds—or
chaos computing? Neither had we. For this story, we set out to find
the coolest technologies that are flying under the radar, and what
we found impressed even us. We’ll tell you about a new technique
for making silicon that can bend and stretch—and the promise
it holds for a new generation of gadgets. We’ll update you
on a groundbreaking research project for modeling the
human brain and take a look inside a telepresence
lab in California that has broadband connections
5,000 times as fast as what you can get today.
We also caught up with three of the smartest
guys in the computer industry, who offer
their predictions for the future. Get ready
for mesh networks with millions of nodes
blanketing the Earth—and our bodies
—a robot revolution, a nation of
super-learners, as well as some
fantastically futuristic ideas.
Photograph: Getty Images
MAY 23, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 65
Stretchable Silicon
1
OVER THE YEARS WE’VE MANAGED TO DO A LOT
OF nifty things with silicon, yet we’ve never gotten
around one problem with the stuff: it’s rigid and
brittle. Silicon is great if you want to build electronics, but lousy if you want to wear them.
Dick Tracy aside, there are plenty of people who could
benefit from wearable electronics. Surgeons, for example,
could operate with enhanced sensitivity—and increased
reaction time—if they had warning sensors built right into
their latex gloves. All sorts of life-saving health monitors
could be developed.
Fortunately, the wait may finally be coming to an end
now that researchers at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign are working on a technique that stretches silicon. The trick, says John Rogers, a professor in the school’s
department of materials science and engineering, is to use
very, very thin silicon—100 nanometers, to be exact, or
1
/1000 the thickness of a human hair.
To get silicon so thin, Rogers and his team first make a
transistor the conventional way: on a silicon wafer, using
One. Silicon transistors
bond with a substrate
of prestretched rubber.
standard processing
methods. The breakthrough comes in the
next step: A special
etching technique
slices off a layer of silicon that’s ultrathin yet contains
the entire transistor. This is placed on a flat piece of
rubber that has been prestretched a little. “You’re basically replacing the silicon wafer substrate with rubber,”
says Rogers. Once they are placed in contact with each
other, the silicon bonds with the rubber. At that point, the
stress in the rubber is released by letting it snap back. The
rubber and the silicon, now attached, buckle into waves
that resemble an accordion-like form. “Once the silicon
device is in that geometry you can stretch it back and
forth,” he says.
Chaos Computing
2
THE WORD CHAOS, AS ANY GET SMART FAN WILL
tell you, tends to evoke negative connotations—
it’s a disordered situation we want to avoid. But
if William Ditto is right—and both the U.S. Navy
and private investors are betting he is—the word
may soon be seen in a whole new light.
Ditto, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, is exploiting
the principles of chaos to build a revolutionary computer
chip that just may prove faster, cheaper, and far more flexible than traditional designs.
Ditto’s chip is like the microelectronic version of a
stem cell: It’s a device that can assume all sorts of different functions. But a chaotic chip goes one step further:
It can morph over and over again. For computer design,
this has huge implications. In a traditional chip, the basic
elements, called logic gates, are hardwired to perform a
single, specific task. In a chaotic chip, each logic gate can
be converted on the fly to perform any function.
What this means is that computers will no longer need
separate, costly chips for the CPU, memory, video RAM,
graphics accelerators, arithmetic processing units, and so
on. Instead, one chip will convert itself to whatever functions the software needs at a given moment.
“One of the holy grails of computing is enabling software to actually change the hardware on the fly,” says
Ditto. “If you’re in Photoshop and need a lot of memory
Photograph (top): Janet Sinn-Hanlon, Beckman ITG; (bottom) David Blankenship
Three. The silicon then
can be stretched back
and forth.
Visit go.pcmag.com/
stretch to view the video.
Two. The stress in the rubber
is released by letting it snap
back and buckle into waves.
The prototype devices Rogers has developed—transistors and diodes—work just as well as their rigid-silicon
counterparts, he says. Down the road, he envisions flexible
sensors that can curve along the edge of an aircraft’s wing,
as well as low-cost identification tags. And the payoff won’t
be just in wearable electronics but also in flexible, roll-up
displays—with the look and feel of a piece of paper.
Down the road indeed. The technology is still in an
early stage, and Rogers and his team have been working
for two seconds, you can reconfigure the chip to give you
a lot of memory. If you need to make a lot of calculations
and don’t need as much memory, you convert the chip
back into a CPU. If you’re playing a game, the chip reconfigures into a graphics engine chip.”
What makes this mighty morphing possible is Ditto’s
ability to harness chaos, which, it turns out, also exists
in computer circuits. Chaotic systems are actually very
organized; they’re just irregular. On its own, a chaotic
logic gate will generate a huge number of different logic
functions incredibly quickly. Since chaotic systems are
extremely sensitive to even small variations in the conditions around them (the so-called butterfly effect), Ditto
can create the pattern he needs by applying a specific voltage to the gate.
If all goes well, we’ll see the fruits of this chaos long
before another decade rolls around. Ditto recently formed
a company, ChaoLogix, to develop the technology, and
he expects to have a demonstration chip ready in January.—AC
with their stretchable silicon for only a year and a half.
Yet the results have been so promising that a spin-off
company, Printable Silicon Technologies, was created last
year to develop the research further, investigating possible commercial applications and ways to implement the
technique in manufacturing. End products, Rogers says,
“are still a few years out.”—Alan Cohen
Z5 imagine more choices
www.samsungfreedom.com
William Ditto’s chaos chip
is like the microelectronic
equivalent of a stem cell:
It can assume a variety
of functions.
©2006 Samsung Electronics America, Inc. All rights reserved. Samsung is a registered trademark of Samsung Electronics Co.,
Ltd. Yahoo!, Y! Music and the Yahoo! and Y! Music logos are the trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. ©2006
Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Napster and the Napster logo are trademarks of Napster, LLC. Rhapsody and the Rhapsody logo
are trademarks and registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc. Urge is a trademark of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom
International Inc., all rights reserved.
Unreal Telepresence
3
EVER WISH THAT YOU COULD BE IN TWO PLACES
at once? Well, ten years from now, maybe you’ll
be able to. Researchers at the University of
California’s Institute for Telecommunications
and Information Technology (Calit2) in San
Diego are using super-high-definition projectors, wall-size
screens, and extreme Internet connections to relay images
and sounds that are barely distinguishable from reality. In
the future, this may enable full “telepresence,” the illusion
that another person is physically present when he or she is
actually in another location.
The key technology behind telepresence is super-highbandwidth Internet connections. The Calit2 labs are outfitted with links of 1 to 10 gigabits per second—that’s 500
to 5,000 times as fast as the Internet you have at home now.
At such high speeds, truly hi-def content can be transmitted at the size it is filmed.
“It’s at that point where telepresence becomes possible,” says Calit2’s director, Larry Smarr. “If it’s life-size,
you can’t tell the difference if it’s real people on the other
side or an image.”
But no matter how lifelike a projected image looks and
sounds, humans can still tell it’s not real. So Calit2 is working on the psychological aspects of perception with a team
of psychologists, ethnographers, and multimedia experts.
The lab is also using the technology for collaborative academic research by far-flung universities, and it has experimented with medical applications such as projecting brain
images to specialists across the country.
Telepresence technology is still in its infancy, but newer
consumer computers already can support 1-Gbps Internet
speeds. Smarr predicts that Internet providers will bring
1-Gbps links to homes and businesses in as few as ten years.
Just imagine how much better work teleconferences would
be if, instead of just hearing coworkers from across the
country, you could see them as if they were actually there.
The ultimate application? “Imagine going down to
Home Depot and getting gigapixel wallpaper by the roll,”
Smarr says. “When you’re having birthday parties in your
living room, just connect with Aunt Mabel and the grandparents and they’ll be able to join in via the wallpaper display.”—Courtney McCarty
Nanocrystal Displays
Smear these colorful
nanocrystals onto a
display surface and
you’ve got an inexpensive
manufacturing process.
4
NANOCRYSTALS, TINY MATE-
rials that emit colored light,
are on track to drive sweeping
changes in the manufacturing
and efficiency of everything
from large-screen televisions to portable
electronics. Based on inorganic materials
designed to emit light in different colors,
including red, green, and blue, the tiny
crystals can be grouped into pixels and
then optically pumped to produce fullcolor images.
Like OLED (organic light-emitting
diode) displays, nanocrystal displays
offer greater color accuracy and wider
viewing angles than LCD technology,
but one of their biggest advantages is in
manufacturing cost. When using nanotech, “it is no more expensive to make a nanostructure
that’s 1 nanometer in diameter versus 100 nanometers,
as you’re using a process to build up structures atom by
atom,” says Larry Bock, executive chairman of Nanosys,
a Silicon Valley nanotechnology outfit pioneering nanocrystal displays.
The process of distributing nanoparticles on the surface of the display could work like inkjet printing, avoiding many of the costly steps required to produce current
MORE ON THE WEB
Read all of our future
tech coverage and view
videos of some amazing
tech at go.pcmag.com/
futuretech
Calit2’s telepresence lab
runs live super-high-bandwidth conferences. The
president of India joined
a recent tech summit.
displays. By contrast, in traditional display manufacturing, shrinking the size of components typically costs extra
money.
Nanosys is working on coaxing nanocrystals to organize
themselves logically and on ways for them to deflect fluid.
That last concept might not seem like much at first glance,
but, among other things, it could do away with windshield
wipers. At the recent Future in Review conference, an exclusive gathering of tech leaders, Bock demonstrated fluid
efficiently bouncing off the surface of a piece of plastic,
thanks to nanostructures on the surface of the plastic.
There may also be a future for Nanosys’s technology
in medical applications, solar cells, and flexible displays.
“Nanocrystals can allow us to produce very-low-cost solar
cells that generate energy under a dollar per watt, competitive with fossil fuels,” says Bock.
As for medical applications, nanostructures can be
arranged along the surface of prosthetics “so that, for example, only bone cells could grow into an orthopedic implant, but not other kinds of cells.” Other kinds of cells
would find the topology of the nanostructures along the
surface to be unfriendly, while bone cells would not.
Nanotechnology is expected to revolutionize many
industries over time, but displays are among the first frontiers. Nanosys has been busy patenting its technology and
has signed a long-term agreement with Sharp to develop
future displays.—Sebastian Rupley
Z5 imagine a friendlier interface
©2006 Samsung Electronics America, Inc. All rights reserved.
Samsung is a registered trademark of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Multitouch Displays
By creating a map of
all the places the glass
has been touched, a
multi-touch interface
could turbocharge
how we use PCs.
5
IN ONE WAY, USING COMPUTERS IS LIKE
trying to communicate with teenagers:
We have limited ways of interacting
with them. There’s the keyboard, the
mouse, the touch screen. If the touch
screen has been on a roll of late—seen on everything from ATM machines to PDAs to the Nintendo DS—it also has the frustrating limitation of
being able to process only a single touch, in one
place, at any given time.
Since the 1980s, engineers have been trying to
develop a system that can respond to simultaneous
inputs. But until recently the only
surefire solution—cramming a surface with numerous touch sensors
that are able to react independent
of the others—was less than ideal.
“You had to put sensors everywhere,
which got expensive and required
complicated wiring,” says Jeff Han, a
consulting research scientist at New
York University.
Han now has a better way. Working with Philip Davidson, an NYU
grad student, he has developed an
optical technique that makes multitouch interfaces easier to build. Han starts with a flat piece of
glass into which he shines light. Most of the light is
trapped, but when the glass is touched, some light
leaks out. A camera chip under the glass detects
where the light is leaking and creates a map of all
the places where the glass has been touched.
This, says Han, will turbocharge our interaction with PCs. “You’ll be able to use one finger
to move an image around the screen, another to
magnify the image, another to rotate it—all at the
same time.”—AC
Transparent Transistors
6
WILL THE INVENTION OF THE TRANSPARENT INTEGRATED CIRCUIT
ever amount to much? In the opinion of several researchers, it
could change the world. Oregon State University electronics engineer John Wager has already produced the first one, and HewlettPackard has licensed the technology.
The development of transparent integrated circuits could drive the
emergence of displays virtually everywhere, an idea realized so far only
in Hollywood movies. In Minority Report (2002), information targeted to a
specific person in a room would appear almost magically on the walls.
This fictional visualization is just one potential application that transparent circuits and electronics could power, however, especially if sensors
that are able to identify us and our individual preferences arrive in our
electronic gadgets and even our clothing.
Another application is the pop-up display in a car windshield that could,
for example, display a message announcing an accident ahead. That application alone could reduce highway fatalities significantly.
Wager points out that automotive enhancements “are very demanding”
and won’t be the first commercial applications. Still, he sees enormous potential in transparent circuits. “The more you think about it, the more possibilities there are,” he says.
Advertising, medical devices, cell phones, and toys are first in line to
adopt the technology. Some annoying applications, such as a flood of pop-up
ads, may be the downside of the technology. When it comes to future shock,
we have to take the good with the bad.—SR
Oregon State University’s
John Wager peering
through his transparent
invention, which could
drive the emergence of
ubiquitous displays.
Photograph (bottom): Oregon State University/oaklyphotography.com
PREDICTIONS
RAY KURZWEIL ON
PROMISE & PERIL
BEST-SELLING AUTHOR, ENTREPREneur, and futurist Ray Kurzweil is no
stranger to controversy. His books
The Age of Spiritual Machines and The
Singularity Is Near have provoked much
talk in the technology and scientific communities on everything from the future of the
Internet to human immortality.
You’ve written extensively about machine intelligence
moving well beyond human intelligence. Are we on track?
The road map from the semiconductor industry foresees
4-nanometer features and chips, which would enable us
to simulate all the regions of the human brain for about
$1,000. This exponential growth will ultimately be quite
transformative. There’s been so much progress in getting
self-organizing, three-dimensional molecular circuits to
work. We also have nanotube-based memory from Nantero
due to hit the market next year. On the software side, a
number of new scanning technologies now enable us to
see individual neural connections for the first time. Brain
scanning really didn’t make significant progress in allowing
us to reverse-engineer the human brain until just recently.
We’re gaining the means of tracking individual signals in
neurons so we can simulate brain regions in increasingly
precise ways.
they’re going to be nodes on the
network. They’ll be very tiny, and there
will be thousands or millions of nodes
inside our bodies, inside our clothes,
inside the environment. It will be a cloud
of both computation and communication
resources, so if you need a million computers
for 500 milliseconds, that will be instantly organized for you. They’ll keep us healthy from inside and
interact directly with our biological neurons to enhance our
intelligence.
How will we defend against tiny biological
or robotic devices wreaking havoc?
Probably in six or seven years from now we’ll have a rapid
response system. If we were to create a Manhattan Project
and put a hundred billion dollars into it, we could have it
ready in two years. I think that spending the money would
be a worthwhile investment.
What would be the benefit of these simulations?
I’ve projected 2029 as the year for having both the hardware and the software to have computers that operate at
human levels. At that time, the hardware will be powerful
enough for surpassing human intelligence. Look at your
humble $1,000 PC today. It’s already greatly superior to
human intelligence in some ways. It can remember billions
of things, while we’re hard pressed to remember half our
phone numbers. Most importantly, machines can share
their knowledge at great speeds. So achieving basic human
intelligence with our machines and combining that with the
superior benefits of machine intelligence will let us perform
feats that go far beyond what we can physically do.
You’ve often said that we will get
closer to our machines. How close?
They’ll go inside our clothing and inside our bodies and
brains. We’ll be putting blood-cell–size devices, nanobots,
inside our bloodstream to keep us healthy from inside. If
that sounds fantastically futuristic, let me point out that
we’re already doing this with animal experiments. One
scientist actually cured type 1 diabetes in rats [using bloodcell–size devices]. The University of Rochester and MIT have
succeeded in selectively identifying and destroying cancer
cells using blood-cell–size devices. I believe in 10 or 15 years
we’ll overcome all the major diseases like heart disease and
cancer that kill 95 percent of us.
How will the Web change over the next 10 to 20 years?
We’re going to move toward a worldwide mesh concept,
where rather than our devices being spokes into a network,
Photograph (top): Michael Lutch. Courtesy of Kurzweil Technologies
Z5 imagine up to 35 hours of battery life
Silicon Brains
7
HORROR-MOVIE FANS TAKE NOTE: RE-
search is under way to model the workings of the human brain—and nobody
named Igor is involved. IBM, in conjunction with scientists at the École
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in
Switzerland, is working on the first complete
computer-based model of a human brain.
Using the IBM supercomputer Blue Gene, the
fastest computer in the world, researchers have
been noodling with a software-driven version of
the neocortex, a part of the brain that is unique to
mammals and that handles most of our cognitive
functions.
Project head Henry Markram, a professor at
EPFL, calls the effort, dubbed the Blue Brain Project, “one of the most ambitious research initiatives
ever undertaken in neuroscience.” When the
working model of a complete brain is completed,
scientists hope that it will teach us about how
thought, memory, and perception work.
The model brain could also serve as an example for infusing future robots and artificial intelligence systems with humanlike responses and
capabilities. (For a snapshot of where brain mod-
This image shows a minute fraction of
the cells and connections within the
microcircuitry of the neocortex.
eling may lead in the future, see our interview
with futurist Ray Kurzweil on page 71.)
Meanwhile, European researchers have created
neuro-chips that fuse together brain cells and
microprocessors. Scientists put 16,000 transistors
and hundreds of capacitors onto a tiny chip and
glued neurons on in such a way that they can pass
electrical signals to the chip. The hope is that the
technology could lead to prosthetic devices for
people with neurological handicaps and to organic
computers that perform humanlike tasks.—SR
Bacterial Photography
8
IT’S BEEN A ROUGH FEW YEARS FOR FILM. FIRST DIGITAL PHOTOG-
raphy took all of its glory—and now even lowly bacteria can capture a Kodak moment. Using a genetically modified form of E coli—
the bacteria that can wreak havoc at cookouts—researchers at the
University of California San Francisco have developed a biological
light sensor. The images it creates take hours to form and are monochrome
only, but bacteria’s minute size allows for super-high resolution, about 100
megapixels per square inch—ten times what you can get today.
The pictures may not be pretty, but the technology—and its implications—are quite attractive. That’s because the light sensor is just the beginning. Christopher Voigt, the assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry
who leads the research team, envisions a whole toolbox of genetically engineered sensors one can mix and match to build things: a bacterial camera;
a microorganism that can produce energy; or a bacterium that can find a
tumor, bond to it, and release a drug.
“We’re coming out of this era where we have genomes sequenced, where
the dynamics of life—how cells move, eat, communicate—are all encoded
like a computer program,” says Voigt. Eventually, cells will be programmed
like robots. Voigt created his light sensor by incorporating an alga gene that
codes for a light-sensing protein into the E coli, whose DNA is easily manipulated. When light activates the protein, a pigment darkens. Put enough
bacteria together and you get a photo-like image. Eventually other genes for
other proteins could be turned on and off, resulting in nanofactories that
weave together complex materials.—AC
A mask (left) projected an image
of light onto a plate of growing
bacteria (right). Bacteria in the
dark turned black; bacteria in
the light didn’t develop a color.
Photograph (top): IBM Research
PREDICTIONS
PAUL SAFFO ON THE
ROBOT REVOLUTION
FUTURIST PAUL SAFFO HAS MORE
than two decades’ experience observing technological change. He is director
of the Institute for the Future and chairman of the Samsung Science Board.
What do you foresee happening to
the Internet in the next ten years?
I absolutely think some of the Web 2.0 concepts have legs.
The Web has just begun, and there’s a lot more to come. The
Web is increasingly going from 2D to 2.5D, and there will be
lots of forays into 3D over the next ten years. Online environments like Second Life [a graphical city where users adopt avatars and socialize online] will become increasingly important.
I would pay very close attention to the rapid growth Second
Life is seeing and the growth of personal spaces on the Web.
How will computers and networks
spread out into the environment?
There are vast arrays of network sensors out there doing
science and monitoring things. We think of the Web as the
window on cyberspace, but in ten years we will think of the
Web as a window on the physical world, too. Through applications like Google Earth the public is getting access to satellite
sensors. I think you’re going to see applications that will let
kids in high school get access to network sensors at the North
Pole. There will be people making technologies available to
the public that used to be available only to experts. Flight
Aware tracks in real time all of the airplanes flying in the United
States. They’re basically just sucking down all the data in the
air traffic control system, and you can put in the flight number
of a jet and pull up a graphical map showing exactly where the
jet is. This is where you see the big wins, when people exploit
for public access data that is already being collected.
microprocessors, and the poster child
was the personal computer. The geeks
whose faces appeared on the magazine
covers were Jobs, Wozniak, and Gates.
Along came the 1990s and its hot technology,
cheap lasers, which gave us communications
bandwidth, and the poster child was the World
Wide Web. This time the geeks on the covers of the
magazines were the Google twins and their ilk.
Cheap sensors are shaping this decade, and the
poster child is going to be robots. The next big consumer
revolution that everyone will ooh and aah over will be
consumer robots. The huge popularity of Roomba is one
indicator. We are poised right on the edge of a robotics
revolution. We don’t know who the leaders will be yet. But
I guarantee that in the next ten years you’ll see the latest
set of pimply faced geeks smiling out from the magazines,
and they’ll be making robots while everyone says it’s a
revolution and nobody guessed it.
We haven’t seen truly compelling new features
in software for years. Will that change?
I don’t think desktop applications are all going to migrate to
the Web. There is no compelling reason why we’re going
to give up our desktop word processors. There will be new
applications that were never possible on the desktop. Google
Earth is a good case in point. You could buy it and use it on
the desktop, but why bother?
What do you see in the future for speech recognition?
The big application for speech recognition isn’t going to be
for producing documents. Speech recognition will give us
more ways to talk with machines. So we’ll see robust speech
recognition for making phone calls or getting travel information
or accessing the Web when you can’t look at a screen. But
just having a voice-recognizing word processor is like paving
the cow path. Sending instant messages you create with your
voice sounds like a modest thing, but it will be a big change.
Z5 imagine a bigger screen
What else might the future hold for technology?
The biggest trend in the next ten years is going to be not
the Web but robots. Every decade is shaped by a different
technology: The 1980s were shaped by the advent of cheap
Photograph (top): Mikkel Aaland
Tritium Batteries
9
AFTER YEARS OF ADVANCES IN BATTERY
technology, many of our mobile gadgets still peter out before sunset on any
given day. Several high-profile efforts
are under way to fix this pesky problem, but one of the least pursued and yet most
profound developments in energy technology is
the battery that virtually never needs a recharge.
Known as the BetaBattery, this little powerhouse
could provide continuous power for years.
For now, the technology is just for offbeat applications such as sensor networks for monitoring
traffic and for communication satellites, not for
consumer electronics. “The initial applications
will be for remote or inaccessible sensors and
devices where the availability of long-life power
is critical,” says Larry Gadeken, a researcher at
Houston-based BetaBatt, a company that’s pioneering the technology with funding from the
National Science Foundation and assistance from
several universities.
The BetaBattery is not based on chemical reaction. Instead, it relies on the decay of the hydrogen isotope tritium. This continuous emission of
electrons is the key to the ever-present charge in
BetaBatteries last for decades
by producing energy from the
decay of a radioactive isotope,
not from a chemical reaction.
BetaBatteries. Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years,
so after 12.3 years, its output is half its original
charge. At 40 years, it has one-tenth its original
charge. That kind of longevity is much longer
than conventional batteries can muster.
BetaBatt is also designing battery casings that
are extremely resistant to heat and cold, so that
the batteries can power sensors and electrical
equipment in the most hostile environments—
even in space. Now all we need are batteries
that can power our laptops and cell phones for
years.—SR
Viral Fashion
10
RESEARCHERS AT MIT’S MEDIA LAB ARE DEVELOPING FASHION
accessories on which patterns and designs can change according to the wearer’s whim, and fashion prints can be
shared wirelessly. Taking cues from the online world and
applying them to the fashion world is the goal of the Media
Lab research project dubbed “urbanhermes.”
The idea is for OLED-integrated clothing to display digital images and
designs, updating whenever the wearer desires. A T-shirt could be solid
blue one day and striped the next, says project director Judith Donath.
These digital images could then be transmitted wirelessly to clothing
worn by other people, thereby creating a sort of “viral fashion.”
Each piece of clothing would also have user-set permissions
that could allow or disallow this propagation. Changing the pattern displayed on your shirt or pants would be as simple as
absorbing fashion from the person next to you or subscribing
to a designer’s feed.
While the idea of OLED-integrated clothing is not new,
MIT’s approach to viral propagation is innovative. The proof
of concept consists of a Sharp Zaurus PDA woven into a messenger bag, with the screen visible through a clear plastic
window. The device uses Bluetooth and infrared technology
for proximity detection and data transmission. Not exactly
haute couture, but definitely haute tech.—Robyn Peterson
Joe passes Kate,
whose bag has
an image from his
favorite designer.
ACCEPT
His bag asks
him if he wants
to display Kate’s
image.
Joe accepts it,
and he strikes up
a conversation
with her.
PREDICTIONS
MARK ANDERSON ON
THE INFORMED FUTURE
AND SUPER-LEARNERS
MARK ANDERSON WEARS SEVERAL
hats at Strategic News Service: He’s
CEO, chairman of the Future in Review
conferences, and chairman of the board
of Project Inkwell, which pursues
revolutionary solutions for education.
Your work with Project Inkwell focuses on massive
collaboration efforts among students around
the globe. How will that work?
They will naturally collaborate once we make sure that each
child gets an appropriately designed device, in an environment that can guarantee the success of these devices in
creating a new generation of what we call “super-learners.”
What kind of device will that be?
We have a list of about 167 line items—produced with help
from vendors and governors from certain states—that
states minima and maxima for the perfect device. These
will be portable devices that will go home with kids and
to school. You’ll see some of these rolled out in 12 months.
We’re talking right now with manufacturers, and there are
already requests for proposals from a number of states in
the U.S. for these machines.
What difference can these devices
make in schools in the future?
The idea is to get children moving to one-to-one
computing, where each child has his or her own computer.
It’s a revolutionary idea, though it sounds simple. There’s
a huge difference between learning on a computer in a
lab and having your own computer. It revolutionizes how
the teacher and the class behave.
Here’s an example: We went to look at a classroom in
Lemon Grove, California. We went to a science class where
the kids were using their own devices to participate in
scientific experiments. They were sitting in groups of
four or five, sharing their data. The teacher is no longer
a dictator; the teacher facilitates the groups.
It takes pressure off the teacher. We asked the teacher
what’s the difference before and after the one-to-one
computing, and she said that she had much more free
time to spend with individual students and groups of
them—about five times more.
We also looked at the math records for each student,
and they had all completed their work for the whole year
in math early. That’s how we will see super-learners emerge
as we go forward—among the 5 or 10 percent of students
who will go really fast.
How will the Web change in the next five to ten years?
I have a vision that I call Internet Assistant. What needs to
happen is AORTA—Always-On Real-Time Access. What if
there were a cloud of servers out there that knew you since
you were eight years old? It knows how you learn and what
your needs and interests are. It knows you well and is your
assistant throughout your entire life.
Photograph by Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images
You won’t have to have a computer in front of you, just some kind of
microphone that’s linked to a new age
telephone service, really a server farm
linked to other server farms that provide
additional services. You’ll be able to find out
anything, anytime, anywhere. You’ll have a truly
interactive, ever-present, better-informed set of services.
You wouldn’t even think to call it the Web anymore.
Which technologies in the next five
to ten years will really surprise us?
I expect to see serious computing gains made through
biology, through DNA. The ability of biological molecules to
self-organize, reproduce, and transmit information already
makes all of life an amazing computer. We have to learn
more about how that machine works. Pursuit of this will
bring a massive jump in computing power. Q
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Time travel, antigravity, teleportation, sentient silicon beings. Our yearning to visualize the future has
always been far ahead of our technological prowess. To predict the future of technology in the 21st century
and take a look back at preposterous postulations of the past, what better source to turn to than a bona
fide science-fiction writer? After all, when sci-fi writers ask “What if?” their extrapolations are sometimes
astonishingly accurate. We asked David Gerrold, sci-fi author and writer of the most-popular-ever Star Trek
episode—“The Trouble with Tribbles,” from the original TV series. Here’s his survey of the high-tech imaginings
of sci-fi writers Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, H.G. Wells, and more.
Illustrations by Owen Smith
CELL PHONES: In Robert A. Heinlein’s 1954
book The Star Beast, hero John Thomas Stuart XI
is riding his horse when he pulls his ringing phone
out of his saddlebag. The first incarnation of a personal tricorder, Stuart’s phone is also a video and
voice recorder. Motorola’s flip phone was inspired
by the original Star Trek communicators.
FLAT-SCREEN TVS: Oversize TV screens were
visualized as early as the 1936 movie Things to
Come, and Isaac Asimov predicted wall-sized 3D
videophones in The Naked Sun (1956), in which TV
images have such lifelike clarity that people communicate only by video. But it wasn’t until 1997
that Pioneer started selling HDTV plasma displays, which were 50 inches diagonal. At the 2006
CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas,
Panasonic demonstrated a 103-inch display.
HOUSEHOLD ROBOTS: Czech author Karel Capek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots premiered
in Prague in 1921, and he’s credited with popularizing the word “robot.” Lester Del Rey predicted
household robots in “Helen O’Loy,” a short story
he wrote in 1938. And in one of Jack Williamson’s
most famous tales, “With Folded Hands” (1947),
robots take over all human jobs to keep people
from hurting themselves. Isaac Asimov is credited with developing the concept of self-contained,
autonomous, human-like machines. His robot
stories explored many of the philosophical questions of assimilating self-aware machines into
society. Today we have industrial robots that assemble cars and motherboards, and Disneyland
has the Asimo robot, which walks across a stage
and waves. But we’re still a long way away from
useful general-purpose robots. Roomba isn’t it.
DG Predicts: Robots are inevitable. I expect to see
general-purpose robots available by 2015.
THE INTERNET: The real honor of predicting the
Internet goes to Murray Leinster’s 1946 short story
“A Logic Named Joe,” in which people use devices
called “logics,” essentially television displays with
keyboards attached. On these they can watch TV,
get weather reports, ask research questions, send
e-mail, trade stocks, and play games. Leinster’s
story also predicted content censorship.
COMPUTER VIRUSES: I predicted hacking across telephone lines in my novel When
H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One (1972), in which a self-aware
computer uses a virus to invade other computers,
reprogram them, and send back copies of other
people’s private information. In John Brunner’s
The Shockwave Rider (1975), a renegade genius
creates a self-contained computer program to
seek out and reveal government secrets. Brunner
called it a worm, and the name was quickly adopted by computer scientists. Researchers at Xerox PARC demonstrated the first worm in 1978.
SPACE TOURISM: Alfred Bester predicted space
tourism long before Sputnik was launched, in The
Stars My Destination (1956). But so far, at $20 million per trip, it’s not for everyone. Spider Robinson, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and
others predicted orbiting hotels, retirement communities on the Moon, and resorts on Mars, but
don’t plan on making reservations anytime soon.
DG Predicts: Maybe by 2050. And it’ll be more like
a trip to Antarctica than one to Hawaii.
LASERS: In 1898 H.G. Wells’s Martians leveled
London with heat rays. In the 1930s Buck Rogers
wielded a ray gun, Boris Karloff had the invisible
ray, and Ming of Mongo targeted strange death
rays at Earth. The first commercial application of
a laser was the bar code scanner used in supermarkets in 1974.
DVDS: In a 1969 episode of Star Trek, Kirk and
Spock visit a library of big silver discs. (They
were actually vinyl records painted silver.) Two
engineers who watched that episode began spec-
ulating about how to store information on a silver
disc—possibly by reading pits with a laser. Five
years later, MCA demonstrated the first LaserDisc, called DiscoVision, which hit the consumer
market in 1978. Enthusiasts kept the format alive
until the DVD effectively killed it.
COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES: In a 1945
paper Arthur C. Clarke proposed the use of geostationary satellites for communications with
ground stations. Fifteen years later, he wrote “I
Remember Babylon,” a short story for Playboy in
which he postulated that the Chinese government
could use communications satellites to broadcast
pornography to subvert and corrupt Western civilization. It was not until 1962 that Telstar, the first
active communications satellite, was launched.
CARS THAT DRIVE THEMSELVES: In the 1950s
General Motors showed a two-seater concept car
with its own autopilot. Later concept vehicles
tracked a magnetic stripe embedded in the pavement. In Robert A. Heinlein’s The Number of the
Beast (1979), Gay Deceiver is a robot car with a
voice programmed to respond as if it’s sentient.
Today cruise control is standard, onboard processors monitor engine states, and several carmakers are building adaptive cruise controls with radar scanning to slow down or stop cars to avoid
obstacles. Not there yet, but the pieces are falling
into place. DG Predicts: All the necessary technology is ready. It’s mostly a software problem now. I
expect to see robotic vehicles demonstrated within
10 years and commercially available within 20.
TETHERED SATELLITES: In their 1982 book The
Descent of Anansi, Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
predicted that two satellites linked by a cable and
passing through Earth’s magnetic field could generate an electrical current. NASA launched an
experimental tethered satellite in 1992 and reflew
the mission in 1996. Today, the only tethered satellite in orbit is the Tether Physics and Survivability Experiment, launched in 2005.
3D TV: Sci-fi writers have predicted stereoscopic
video (without glasses) for more than half a century. But in the 40 years since holograms were first
demonstrated to the public, no company has shown
even a crude prototype for projecting via holography a moving stereoscopic image. Fifty-three years
after the premiere of Bwana Devil, most 3D movies
still use polarized glasses or LCD shutter-glasses.
DG Predicts: If and when holographic video is viable, expect to see it in theme parks first.
IMPACT SUITS: Larry Niven predicted flexible
body armor in a 1967 short story called “The
Soft Weapon.” And in 1972 he and I published
The Flying Sorcerers, in which the hero wears an
impact suit—a suit that’s flexible under normal
conditions but goes rigid on impact to protect the
wearer. At the 2006 Winter Olympics, the U.S.
Olympic ski team wore impact suits made by the
Colorado-based company Spyder Active Sports.
JET BACKPACKS: The personal jet backpack
debuted in the Buck Rogers comic strip circa 1930,
and the German military experimented with
them during World War II as a way for engineers
to fly over minefields. The RB2000 model is occasionally demonstrated at amusement parks and
air shows, but it’s painfully loud, and flights are
limited to 30 seconds. It’s unlikely that a rocket
belt will ever be practical for commuting. (See
“Flying Cars,” page 81.)
PERMANENT COLONIES ON THE MOON
AND MARS: These are such staples in science
fiction that it would be easier to list the writers who haven’t set stories in lunar and Martian
habitats. The most notable who have are Robert
A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and
John Varley. DG Predicts: These are inevitable. Just
add money. If we don’t do it, the Chinese will. 2025
at the latest.
MINIATURIZED ELECTRONICS: In the 1956
movie Forbidden Planet, Captain J. J. Adams uses
a handheld television camera the size of a penlight to broadcast video back to his starship. In
the Star Trek series, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy
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M E M O RY
uses a medical tricorder the size of a hardcover
book to perform instantaneous diagnoses of injured crewmates. Today, any portable device that
can’t fit into a pocket is considered too large.
MAGLEVS: In Starman Jones (1953), Robert A.
Heinlein’s hero lives near the track of a linearaccelerated flying train. The world’s first commercial magnetically levitated train, launched
in 2002, runs 18 miles to the Shanghai airport at
an average speed of 250 mph. The trip takes less
than 8 minutes, but the system cost $1.2 billion to
build. That’s nearly $67 million per mile! There is
a 5-mile maglev track in Nagoya, Japan; a 27-mile
demonstration track, also in Japan; and a 21-mile
demo track in Germany. The primary advantage
of maglev is speed, so it’s best suited for transport
between cities. An American maglev effort is estimated to cost $15 million to 20 million per mile.
VIDEOPHONES: Hugo Gernsback predicted
videophones in his 1929 novel Ralph 124C41+: A
Romance of the Year 2660, and the idea came to
a mass audience through the 1939 Buck Rogers
Saturday afternoon serial. Both Isaac Asimov and
Robert A. Heinlein used videophones in their
novels, and two-way video is routine in Star Trek
episodes. Technologies for video telephony have
been demonstrated since Disneyland’s House of
the Future (1957) and the New York World’s Fair
(1964–65). 3G videophones are available in Europe
and Asia, but picture quality is relatively poor.
DG Predicts: After the gosh-wow factor wears off
(in about five minutes), we’ll discover that video is
the least-important part of a phone call. Practical
video telephony will probably happen on the Internet first, but I don’t foresee video calls becoming
commonplace for a while.
HYDROPONICS AND INDOOR FARMING:
When humans move to Mars or the Moon, they’ll
feed themselves by growing food in tanks. Despite
the fact that hydroponic research has been around
for a century, hydroponics remained on the fringe
until the 1950s and 1960s, when scores of authors
started writing about it. John Brunner explored
the theme of using it in outer space in his 1972
novel The Sheep Look Up. Today hydroponics is
used primarily by hobbyists, organic farmers,
and marijuana growers. It also lets researchers
in Antarctica have fresh vegetables, even during
the six-month winter, when the bases are inaccessible. Hydroponics remains a very small factor in
terrestrial agriculture, but it will be the main food
supply in lunar and Martian colonies.
NANOTECHNOLOGY: In Theodore Sturgeon’s
story “Microcosmic God” (1941), a scientist creates microscopic beings who evolve superfast,
build their own Microverse, and eventually surpass even humanity. In the November 1955 issue
of Galaxy Science Fiction, Philip K. Dick published a story called “Autofac.” In it he predicted
robot factories, where micro-machines, smaller
than ants, construct duplicates of themselves.
Today the nanotech revolution is under way, and
we have devices similar to inkjet printers on steroids that generate 3D objects. Printing live tissue
for transplants or printing steaks for dinner is a
possibility. DG Predicts: Organic fabbers? Printers that can print heart valves have already been
demonstrated. Are fabbed tissues and organs that
far off? I think not. We’ll see industrial units in five
years and home units within ten.
FLYING CARS: The first movie to show personal
flying vehicles was Just Imagine, released in 1930.
(It was an embarrassing flop at the box office, but
its spaceship was reused in the Flash Gordon and
Buck Rogers matinee serials.) Since then, the flying
car has been a mainstay of sci-fi novels and movies. A.E. van Vogt’s hero used a flying car in The
World of Null-A (1948), as did Robert A. Heinlein’s
characters in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961). At
the movies, Blade Runner (1982) and The Fifth
Element (1997) both show flying cars navigating
through the concrete canyons of futuristic cities.
One of the earliest attempts to build an actual
flying car was in 1973, when engineers welded the
wings of a Cessna Skymaster to a Ford Pinto. The
prototype crashed, ending the project. The most
notorious of all personal flying vehicles was the
Discojet now known as the Moller Skycar, first
developed in 1974. More than $200 million has
been spent on it, but it’s very loud and difficult
to control in crosswinds. The M400 model currently under development is likely to cost a million dollars if it ever hits the market.
THREE MILE ISLAND, CHERNOBYL: In his
1942 novel Nerves, Lester Del Rey detailed a nuclear disaster at a power plant. The story isn’t a
prediction as much as an unheeded warning.
VOICE RECOGNITION: Mike, the computer in
Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
(1966), not only understands speech, he also learns
how to make jokes—even puns. HAL 9000, in 2001:
A Space Odyssey (1968), can understand speech
and read lips. Speech recognition software is available today, but it has not yet been perfected.
BUBBLE HOUSES: In Gladiator-at-Law (1954),
Fred Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth predicted nearinstant housing. In that novel, large corporations
manufacture and sell “bubble houses” like cars.
Other writers have predicted inflatable housing:
Blow up a large balloon, spray it with foam that
hardens, and you have an instant dome. Cut a door,
install lights and plumbing, you’re home. Several
large buildings have been erected in just an hour
by inflating a balloon under a thick layer of wet
concrete, but the process remains a novelty.
THE ORBITAL ELEVATOR: If you can make a
carbon nanotube ribbon 62,000 miles long, you
can hang a cable from space down to Earth’s
surface and run elevators up and down. Arthur
C. Clarke, Charles Sheffield, and I—others too—
have written novels about the mechanics as well
as the economics of orbital elevators. According
to NASA, such an elevator would reduce the perpound cost of launching a payload into space by
98 percent, from $20,000 to $400. The LiftPort
Group, a private U.S. company, plans to have a
cable in place by 2018. DG Predicts: I’m not as optimistic as the folks at LiftPort. Anyone who’s ever
hired a contractor knows that it always takes twice
as long and costs twice as much as expected. I say
2030, maybe longer. But I’m ready to go today!
SENTIENT MACHINES: Robert A. Heinlein
wrote about Mike, short for Mycroft, in 1966
(The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress). In 1968, Arthur
C. Clarke introduced HAL 9000 (2001: A Space
Odyssey), and some guy named Gerrold started
writing stories about H.A.R.L.I.E. in 1969. Another
sentient computer showed up in the 1969 movie
Colossus: The Forbin Project. Today, after 50 years
of intense development and research, the average desktop computer has finally achieved the
intelligence of a desert gecko. Considering nature took several million years, this is enormous
progress. DG Predicts: True intelligence is rooted
in pattern recognition, and intelligence engines are
most likely to evolve from self-teaching neural networks. We might see the experimental beginnings of
silicon self-awareness by 2020, but I doubt we’ll see
HAL 9000 or Asimov’s robots before 2040.
TRANS-HUMANS: Sci-fi writers have predicted that future humans will have technologically
augmented bodies and electronically implanted
brains. They’ll be bio-processed, gene-spliced, mutated, and enhanced. In the “Sixth Finger” episode
of the television series The Outer Limits (1963),
David McCallum was pushed up the evolutionary path to become a super-being. More recently,
in The Matrix, human beings are implanted with
computer connections so they can experience a
virtual world as reality. DG Predicts: We’re already
modifying ourselves with cosmetic surgery, hearing aids, artificial hips, pacemakers, steroids, and
organ transplants. These are the bits and pieces of
trans-human evolution. We just haven’t seen all the
synergistic combinations yet. A century from now,
we could be a self-designed species. Q
J U M P T O N E X T PA G E >>
R E AL-WO R LD TE STI N G
“Attention
Technology Shoppers!”
Can you buy good gear at Target, Kmart, or Wal-Mart?
We set off with a fistful of dollars to find out.
C
BY JEREMY A. KAPLAN
ONSIDER THE TOASTER. THE DEVICE WE KNOW TODAY WAS INVENTED
in 1919 by Charles Strite, and since then not much has changed in
function or design. But in 1999 architect Michael Graves partnered
with Target to upgrade the toaster, designing a line of home products that put the fun back in functional, with round corners and
bright colors to catch the eye. Target’s success with Graves led to a
lengthy collaboration with several famous designers, notably Isaac
Mizrahi and Todd Oldham, to help show people that even the most
ordinary products can look cool.
High-fashion design has jumped from clothing and appliances to technology at
the big-box stores, and now people are one-stop shopping at Target, Wal-Mart, and
Kmart for a touch of cool in both household items and tech gear. But do these jazzedup department stores really give Best Buy and Circuit City a run for their money? Or
are they stocked with what amounts to funky junk? I put on my shopping shoes and
warmed up my credit card to find out, hitting the big boxes with cart-driving fury.
Let’s Make a Deal
Shopping for bargains? Take the Cheap
Geek’s advice on PC
Magazine’s gadget blog.
go.gearlog.com/
cheapgeek
REAL-WORLD TESTING
ck
Displays twrahen
ly
info on
closed.
How big
A remotek?itchen?
is YO UR
TARGET
iHOME iH36 This popular
device is just what you’d
expect to find at a stylish
store like Target.
PHILIPS KEYCHAIN
DIGITAL CAMERA
Cute, right? But at less
than an inch tall, it’s
hardly functional.
digital-camera department, Target
has a decent selection, though the
camcorder options were somewhat
limited. Still, I could play to my
heart’s content. For geeks who are
into add-ons and basic tech, Target
is a fun store.
KMART
When Kmart opened its first New York City
store in 1997, it hosted a press conference for
U2, where the band kicked off the PopMart tour (itself a great example of style trumping substance).
So how did the store stack up? As Rain Man said,
“Kmart sucks.”
While the Web site has a giant assortment of
gear, both brick-and-mortar stores I visited carried
a paltry selection of electronics, all hidden
away behind glass cases. I briefly played the
store’s sole Nintendo DS before buying a
keychain digital camera from Philips—one
of the few items not permanently locked
down. I also bought an iFan, an iPod-shaped
wearable fan designed to cool off the neck
(bizarre but true). It was too odd not to buy.
The new Target store in Brooklyn sits at the bustling
intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. It’s a
popular attraction, and products fly off the shelves,
so I went early. It was immediately clear that Target
has positioned itself as an innovator in home product design—not technology. Among
the few exclusive products I found
was a line of Graves-designed homeoffice stuff, including a standard-issue paper shredder and an ugly,
ordinary keyboard/mouse combo
(using a wired trackball mouse!). At
least when Microsoft asked Philippe
Starck to craft a mouse, he made
something that looked interesting. I
WAL-MART
didn’t bother buying one.
At over 160,000 square feet, Wal-Mart is
To Target’s credit, however, the
easily three times as big as the other stores
store did have a good selection of
I visited. And, to my surprise, Wal-Mart is
neat tech accessories, displayed in a
a tech oasis that could truly challenge Best
friendly, inviting way. The wide aisles
Buy. I took in with awe the vast selection
and interactive displays made everyof memory cards and the more than three
thing accessible, though gear was
dozen digital cameras on display. Unlike
often glued down or lacked power. TUFF WRAP ACCENT
many (dare I say most?) of Target’s camI bought a sleek rubber iPod nano It’ll protect and dress
eras, all the digital cameras I tried at Walup your iPod nano, but
skin and an under-counter iPod dock you’ll lose access to the Mart were fully charged.
that looks great, praying they would dock connector.
A needle of envy pierced my digital
work with my new iPod. In the
heart when I entered the TV department,
as I mentally compared my 31-inch CRT TV with
the giant wall of 42- and 50-inch plasma sets. And
amid a group of USB flash drives, I found the Lexar
JumpDrive Mercury, which has an external capacity
meter (a great idea that’s long overdue). This one
went straight into the cart. I left the TVs, alas, on
the wall.
I also bought the Saitek A-200 speaker, a slick
black triangle about the size of a small bicycle seat.
This compact beauty also has an inflatable chamber
to boost bass notes. I couldn’t wait to get it home to
try it out. Wal-Mart also stocks the cheapest portable DVD player I found in all of my travels: a
$26.43 model from Durabrand, a Wal-Mart
house brand. It’s not pretty, but it sure
was cheap.
Primitivence
confere
calls?
The iH36 has a retractable door to
conceal the iPod
and a bright threel i n e d i s pl ay fo r
song titles (which
wo r k s o n ly w i t h
newer iPods, by the
way). The speakers are clear
and sharp and kick out a decent
DURABRAND DVD PLAYER
amount of noise. I would recomWhile functional enough, this
mend the iHome. It’s functional,
DVD player isn’t the prettiest.
convenient, and stylish—exactly
what I was looking for!
FORM VS. FUNCTION:
I’d also picked up the Tuffwrap Accent from
THE SHOWDOWN
XtremeMac, a rubber nano case for $19.99. After
So how good was the gear I got? Here’s how it all
cutting it free from the protective blister pack (and
stacks up.
nearly slicing a finger open on the deadly stuff),
First, I dove into the Target bag. I had longed
I freed the tiny case and slipped it over
for an under-counter LCD TV from Polamy iPod.
roid, but apparently I wasn’t the only one,
It’s cool-looking and protects the
since the item was sold out. So instead
nano nicely. Unfortunately, peeling
I bought the iHome iH36 ($199.99), an
the nano loose from the case is an
under-counter iPod player. After admirongoing pain in the keister, because
ing its sleek plastic exterior, I turned to
the case covers the docking port. In
the instructions, which were easy enough
other words, you have to remove
to follow: Just measure the unit’s hang
the case to use the nano in the
distance, select the appropriate spacers,
iHome. For that reason alone, it’s
and drill four holes.
going straight back to the store.
Alas, using the iH36 with my iPod
With the Philips P44417S
nano was less than perfect. According to
keychain digital camera I picked
an insert in the manual, I had to reset
up at Kmart (also for $19.99, and
the nano (and fifth-generation
also blister-packed), style and
video iPods too) prior to stickfunction collide like a train wreck.
ing it into the dock. After doing
iFAN True to its name, the
The camera is about 2 inches long,
this three or four times, I reread
the directions. Aha! A quick update to iFan merges the good looks yet Philips decided the tiny thing
of the iPod with the all the
should still look and act like a fullthe iPod’s firmware and the problem features of a fan. Why?
size camera. You raise a lever on the
disappears. Much better.
Good question.
So to recap: Target is
the place to go for fun,
colorful accessories and
some basic tech gear
and games. Wal-Mart
has by far the best product selection overall (the
tech-centric chains should
be worried, if they’re not
already). And poor Kmart. I
guess it declared bankruptcy
for a reason.
Fun at Target
Target leaves the tech
out for you to touch,
try . . . and hopefully take
home. This neat demo of
a sound-enhancement
technology from Bose is
just one example.
BIG BOX
RETAIL
TECH
AT A
GLANCE
TARGET
SUMMARY Nice design. Wide variety.
WHAT TO SHOP FOR
Off-the-shelf gadgets.
WAL-MART
SUMMARY Functional.
WHAT TO SHOP FOR
Inexpensive staples.
KMART
SUMMARY Useless.
WHAT TO SHOP FOR
Nothing.
REAL-WORLD TESTING
TOP FIVE
FACTS IN
THIS
STORY
1
2
3
4
5
Think twice about
Target. You know
Target has welldesigned appliances, cosmetics,
and clothes, but
it also stocks a
wealth of consumer electronics—and lets you
play with it all.
Use Wal-Mart’s
cameras. WalMart has a killer
camera display,
with everything
powered up and
ready to try. It
also has photo
kiosks where you
can get a feel for
print quality.
Cool doesn’t always work. Neatlooking products
aren’t always the
most usable ones.
Only the best
product designers
can make something functional
and stylish.
It’s Kmart, not
Tech Mart. While
there are great
deals to be had in
Kmart, they aren’t
of the high-tech
variety. Save
yourself the trip.
Wal-Mart has the
best buys. You
can find deals online, but Wal-Mart
is the country’s
biggest retailer
for a reason. You’ll
find fantastic
deals in physical
stores as well as
on the Web.
left and a little viewfinder pops
as deep as I’d like either, but I’m willing
up—no bigger than my pinto cut the A-200 some slack. After all,
kie fingernail. It’s effecit’s just 0.95 pounds of plastic and
tively useless, as is the
air. I’d call it a cleverly designed
menu button, which
speaker with reasonable
b r i e f ly d i s p l ays
sound quality at a good
esoteric codes like
price.
nP, CA, and F5 on a
I also bought
tiny, two-character
a wicked cheap
display. The manual
DV D p l aye r a t
does decode those selecWal-Mart, the Dutions, but who’s going to remem- SAITEK A-200 This speaker has
rabrand DVD-1002
stunning good looks, but it also
ber all those quirky codes?
(who doesn’t have
As for the shape, a hockey makes pretty darn good music.
$26.43 lying around?). Durabrand
puck might sit in the pocket better
is a Wal-Mart label, as far as I can
than a tiny rectangle, and an integrated viewfinder
tell, which says a lot about the in-house products
would really help, rather than that blurry Lillipuhere compared with those from Target. Wal-Mart
tian window. In spite of all the design flaws, the
has great selection, but its house brands need some
camera actually did take decent pictures—but with
work. While Michael Graves, Todd Oldham, and
a 352-by-288 maximum resolution, the images look
others have found great success designing inexgrainy even when printed at snapshot size.
pensive yet stylish gear, Wal-Mart is designing inThere is a definite coolness factor to this camera
expensive yet distinctly ugly gear. The Durabrand
that impresses most people, even the most jaded
DVD player is a behemoth chunk of plastic you’d be
early adopter, but its usefulness is questionable. My
embarrassed to show off. True, it does progressivecell phone takes bigger, better photos.
scan output and plays MP3 CDs, but who cares? It
So what about Kmart’s weird iPod-shaped
works fine and handles most discs with aplomb, but
neck fan? The iFan ($5.79) offers eswho cares? You’d be better off spending an extra $10
sential cooling to those with ONS
on a nicer-looking model. Price isn’t everything,
(Overheated Neck Syndrome)
after all.
and gives any outfit a retro hipAnother find at Wal-Mart was the brand-new
hop, Flavor Flav look. But like my
Lexar JumpDrive Mercury ($49.90), a standard
shopping experience at Kmart, it ulUSB flash drive with one extraordinary abiltimately irritated. The fan kept flopity: It displays available storage space using
ping over on its cord, sucking my shirt
an external E Ink display, the same technolinto its whirling blades. Besides, whose
ogy behind e-books. Because the ink mateneck is really that hot? You could spend
rial keeps its charge when turned off, the
six bucks on this thing, but I recommend
display continues to register even after
lunch at Wendy’s instead.
you’ve unplugged the flash drive. With a
Wal-Mart had some very cool-looking
glance, I can tell you that my unplugged
products that fell on both sides of the line.
drive is 70 percent free. It’s a great use
Looking through my bag (and wincing at the
of technology, and elegant to boot.
receipt), I pulled out the Saitek A-200 ($99.90),
a really unusual-looking portable speaker sys- LEXAR JUMPDRIVE I CLEANED UP IN AISLE 9
tem. As far as design goes, it’s great: The glossy An E Ink display
Like a lot of people, I mostly shop
black exterior is dramatic and eye-catching. It shows remaining
for my gadgets online these days,
storage capacity.
does attract fingerprints, but Saitek ships a polthough I do drop into Best Buy or
ishing cloth that takes them right off. There’s a
Circuit City on occasion. Shopping
carrying case too, made of a rubbery spandex-like
in the flesh for a change was an eye-opening experimaterial that should protect the speaker well.
ence. For one thing, I was struck by all of the prodPush the top of the device and a bellows expands
ucts I hadn’t heard about, such as the Polaroid TV
to create a chamber that enhances the bass. I had to
I couldn’t buy. I also encountered an entire line of
push it hard once or twice until I got the knack of the
Sony stereo equipment, under the Liv brand name,
internal mechanism. Once it’s expanded and playthat I’d never seen before. In addition, as I explored
ing tunes, the speaker does a decent job, though it’s
Sony’s stereos and MP3 players, I was reminded of
a bit tinny and hollow. Bass notes aren’t as rich or
the real reason for retail: Shopping can be fun. Q
BUILD IT
Your Virtual
Assistant
Small businesses can’t afford the same
equipment as big ones, or as many employees, for that matter. If money’s too
tight to mention, read on. We’ll show
you how an old PC can run your phone
system—and manage your office.
BY DAVE MATHEWS
Illustration by David Plunkert
BUILD IT
WHAT YOU
CAN DO
• Automated attendant
or “digital receptionist”
• Outbound voice or
fax marketing
• Reminders or wakeup calls via voice
• Free multiparty conferencing and bridges
• Low-cost calls starting at a penny a minute
• “Local” phone numbers in just about any
city in the world
• A unified inbox with
faxes and voice mail
delivered as e-mail
attachments
• The ability to answer
your calls on a laptop
or PDA in any hot spot
• Information such as
weather or stocks via
voice mail and even
voice command
• The ability to placeshift your own dial
tone to anywhere you
are in the world
• Music or messages
for callers on hold that
can be created with
MP3s or on the fly
• Inbound call-hunt
groups for sales, support, or groups you
deem worthy
Y
OU’VE
PROBABLY
HEARD
OF
Vonage and Skype, which offer
decent Internet-based calling
for individuals. But you should
get familiar with Asterisk. This
business-oriented VoIP server
uses a Web interface to put you
in control of your phone system’s features and capabilities. And as a bonus,
this system gives everyone in your office an easy
way to access powerful PBX features.
How do you set one up? You no longer have to
pay big bucks to telecommunications consultants
or the phone company. Just follow our instructions
here to build a powerful and feature-rich telephony
system, and then let it loose. Although an Asterisk system is somewhat complex and can be intimidating, the benefits outweigh the setup hassle.
Asterisk switches and transcodes calls both within
your corporation and to traditional landline and
cellular networks around the world. It integrates
with traditional “Bell” lines, free VoIP networks,
and commercial VoIP providers.
The same Internet connection that feeds your
office e-mail system can be used to create “local
phone numbers” in cities that you choose to purchase numbers for. This means that your office in
Dallas can have a Boston or even a Paris phone number, which can save your customers money by turning long-distance calls into local ones. Outbound
calls can be placed for pennies per minute, or even
at unlimited flat rates. Such savings quickly justify
the costs of setting up a VoIP system, don’t they?
Automate Nearly Everything
This issue’s project recycles old hardware, reliably handles your communications (as a personal
assistant would), and can save you hundreds or
thousands of dollars on monthly communications
expenses. Who knows, it may even prevent you
from making the mistake of buying a soon-to-beobsolete phone turnkey system. Running your own
PBX will give you features previously unheard of
in a small office.
One note of caution: An IP-PBX system is more
fickle than the sturdy land-line telephone system
and tends to need more coaxing and upkeep. If
you’re not ready to manage your company’s phone
system, then you’re better off paying to outsource
it. But if you’d rather save that money and unleash
your phone, let’s get started.
I selected Asterisk for the core of this DIY office
PBX system. However, full-on VoIP systems make
you 100 percent dependent on your ISP, VoIP provider, and DSL, cable, or T1 connection. So I recommend beginners go with a hybrid approach, in which
you mix and match traditional land-based “lifelines”
with VoIP baby steps for long distance and remote
office tie-lines. That lets you always make highquality calls, but it still delivers big savings.
Basic Setup
1
Find a worthy PC. A system with a CPU of at
least 400 MHz, 256MB of RAM or more, and
at least a 1GB hard drive should be fine. Clear
all the files that you want to save from the drive
first, as you’ll write a new operating system over
what’s currently there. You will need a CD-ROM
or DVD-ROM drive to install the OS, and you may
want to leave some of the expansion cards installed.
Asterisk uses USB ports to handle the required
clock timing, and sound cards drive the MP3-based
system that plays music for callers on hold. That’s
what I call recycling!
What You’ll Need
1
Gather your gear Beyond the old PC at
the system’s heart, you’ll need compatible
voice modems for your POTS line (they’re
simple PCI cards, and easy to install) and
a free or pay VoIP provider.
2
Download a distro Free Linux software
runs the show. Pick one of the several
Linux distributions available online and
download it. We recommend the solid
and feature-rich Trixbox version.
3
Install the CD Copy the Linux distribution to disk; then install it onto a hard
drive that you don’t care about reformatting. Remember, you’ll lose all data on the
drive when you do this.
The Installation Process
1
Configure Linux Don’t let the esoteric
information on-screen scare you; Linux
is plug-and-play, just like Windows. As it
installs, follow the on-screen prompts to
set up your hardware and networking.
2
Tweak your firewall Open a hole or
three in your firewall while you’re waiting for the OS to install. This is necessary
to allow the PBX to communicate properly over the Internet.
2
Decide whether you want to tie into POTS
lines for better voice quality or go with an IP
connection from a provider such as VoicePulse or BroadVoice. One provider I would avoid is
Vonage: It lets you tie Asterisk only into its SoftPhone
service, which limits you to 500 minutes per month
and requires that you have a standard hardwarebased account first. To get things started, you can
even use the free but limited service from Free
World Dialup, which will connect you only with the
traditional telephone network’s toll-free numbers—
and with geeks like me who use its network.
If you want to go with a single POTS line, you
will need a V.90 voice-capable modem with an Intel
537EP or Ambient MD3200 chipset, which emulates the X100P card from Digium. More than one
of these cards in your PC will give unpredictable results, so to support more than one POTS line spend
the money on a Digium board, which starts with a
single POTS module and can move up to four T1 or
PRI ISDN lines depending on the model. Digium,
incidentally, was the company that created Asterisk
and released its source code. (President Mark Spencer is a nice guy for making that decision.)
Installation
3
3
Choose a build of Asterisk, download the ISO,
and burn it to CD-R. This setup once required
a Linux guru to configure the operating
system and install Asterisk on top of it. Now selfinstallers such as Asterisk@Home (officially called
Trixbox, www.trixbox.org), Xorcom Rapid (www
.xorcom.com/rapid), and FreePBX completely automate the entire installation and provide you with
Web-based management “front ends” to the ugly
Linux code running behind the scenes that makes
everything work. Trixbox is the easiest to use.
3
Restart the system Once Linux wraps
up its installation you’re ready to rock.
Your computer will load and report on
the status of modules as it boots up, a
feature you’ll find quite handy.
1
Boot the CD in your old computer and follow
the on-screen prompts for setting up your
hardware and networking. Remember, everything that was once on this hard drive is going to be
wiped out, so make sure you don’t put this CD in a
computer that you use for other purposes. You’ll
need to plug in a fixed IP address on this box, so that
client computers running Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) software or hardware phones can find it,
and any firewall holes can be opened up for outside
connectivity, if it’s required.
2
To get the most out of this server, you’ll need
to open up some holes on your firewall. Set
up port forwarding—check your router’s
manual to find out how—to allow outside connections (when appropriate) for VoIP service providers
and your laptop while you are at home or within a
hot spot. Accessing your dial tone when you travel
is a great feature of this PBX. I have a box that’s both
secure and easily accessible from anywhere I travel
in the world; it links with two other Asterisk boxes
for three-digit dialing between my home and office.
Once the PC boots, immediately change the
default passwords for the management system, using the built-in helper utilities found
with the help-asterisk or help-trixbox reminder
program. Hint: You’ll need to execute passwdmaint, passwd-amp, passwd-meetme, and passwdadmin. You should also make the box a little more
secure by changing the default Web port—or not
allowing external Web access at all. Standard Telnet is locked down, so you will need a Secure Shell
Telnet (SSH) program such as Putty if you want to
BUILD IT
Create the Ideal Setup
access the box’s console when you are away from
the keyboard and screen. Advanced users with
Asterisk boxes on publicly visible Internet addresses need apply only these last two steps.
Configuring Your System
1
1
Log on to the server Use an ordinary browser on a different computer to attach to Asterisk’s Web
server. The system offers a host of
configuration options that you can
tweak remotely. Get familiar with the
choices.
2
Add features via modules Click
FreePBX for the admin page, and
install all of the available modules
only if you have at least a 500-MHz
CPU. On slower systems, Asterisk will
run best with fewer modules.
Open a browser on your Windows computer
and type http:// plus the IP address and port
of your Asterisk server. Click on FreePBX
to log onto the Web-based configuration engine to
install all of your required modules. I like them all,
but some take more processing power than others.
If you have a slow system, use only those that are
necessary. With Rapid Asterisk, you must go into
the Asterisk console menu and select “Enable SIP
and IAX Extensions”; they’re prebuilt for you but are
turned off by default. You will also want to change
the extension passwords, as they are the same as
the extension numbers and start at 501 for SIP clients. (Tip: Those of you who want to get a system
up quickly can go with the build from Xorcom Rapid
and skip to “Adding the Final Software.”)
2
Create numeric SIP extensions for your PC or
hardware clients. Be sure to use strong passwords, as anyone who has access to this box
via the Internet could use it to make phone calls at
your expense. If you want users to have voice mail,
you can configure it here too, along with the e-mail
address that voice mail will be sent to when people
leave messages.
3
3
Create your extensions Next,
build out all the extensions for
phones, PDAs, and software-based
clients your office will require.
There are numerous options you
can play around with later.
4
Make the trunks Finally, build the
“trunk” lines, the main connections
between your office and your POTS
modems or VoIP provider. Asterisk
allows for complex ones, but start
out with something simple.
SUPER POWER-USER TIP If you don’t want to dedicate a new box to Asterisk, you can install a VMware
version on something as simple as a 2GB thumbdrive!
Check www.nerdvittles.com for details.
Create your trunk lines for calls; this process
has been automated under VoicePulse and
X100P-compatible modems offering POTS
connectivity. You will need to create a dial plan, so
under ZAP G0, start with a basic one that includes
the area code and seven digits (NXX-XXX-XXXX
or 1NXX-XXX-XXXX). You can work on more complex ones later, for low-cost dialing and toll-free
calls. And of course, don’t forget to set up emergency 911 dialing too!
Once trunks are created, you will need to ensure
that they are enabled under Outbound Routes. A
common and default route is “9 for an outside line.”
You can create more sophisticated ones for leastcost routing here too, but do that tweaking later.
You can even remove the need for a “9” and have
the system automatically dial out whenever seven,
ten, or eleven digits are entered.
Adding the Final Software
1
Install a SIP-compliant phone on your laptop
or PDA. Gizmo Project has built-in support
and an easy setup for Asterisk (where Name
is your extension); you can download it online from
www.gizmoproject.com. But the old favorites are
X-Pro and SJphone. The reason for this is that
Gizmo requires you to log onto its own server too.
Note that SJphone calls your Asterisk server the
“proxy domain,” and the communications port, or
field after the “:” is 5060. You can leave all the check
boxes as the default, as the system works fine as is.
Once you click OK, Initialization will pop up. The
field Account is your extension number, and your
password is that supersecret number you created.
SIP has trouble traversing dual Network Address
Translation or NAT routers, so if you have firewalls
with private IP addresses on both ends of your Internet connection, you’ll want to use the Internet
Asterisk Exchange protocol (IAX2), which is growing in popularity. Putting your Asterisk box on an
outside Internet address space helps, but that leaves
it open to other security vulnerabilities.
2
When you succeed in getting two computers
logged on to your Asterisk server, make a
call between the two extensions. For better
sound quality, use a microphone and an earpiece to
eliminate feedback. Laptop models with Bluetooth
wireless connections can even attach to your cellular phone earpiece to eliminate the cord! Once
you have the in-office communication tweaked, try
making calls outside of your LAN to the WAN. Free
World Dialup will even give you communication
links to toll-free numbers and to voice-activated
information services such as Tellme!
After the PC software client setup is perfected,
you will probably want to upgrade to VoIP phones
and not rely on a computer to place calls. With Asterisk, you can use any telephone supporting SIP or
IAX2. You can easily find a SIP-compatible Pingtel
or Sipura (now Linksys) phone on eBay.
One important note: If you choose a model from
Cisco, finding SIP firmware can be a bit tricky, as
most of these communicate and are configured with
the company’s proprietary “Skinny” protocol. Cisco
doesn’t allow just anyone to download firmware, so
buying it preflashed for SIP or knowing a certified
network engineer is a necessity if you go this route.
The Linksys phones are all SIP-compliant but do not
have the “heft” of the Cisco-branded hardware.
All set up and ready to try something trickier?
Something with Bluetooth, perhaps, or blacklisting
telemarketers? Check out the hooks and projects
available at nerdvittles.com.
Asterisk can’t order your office supplies (perhaps a script expert could “fix” this problem), but
it performs amazingly well as your office’s voice
portal. It can save you money and even make
your life a little easier—once it’s set up, that is.
Dave Mathews (www.davemathews.com) is an inventor and hardware hacker living in San Francisco. Q
SIP Phones Galore!
Push this setup to the next
level by outfitting your office with IP-based phones.
For reviews of over two
dozen models, see
go.pcmag.com/ipphones
Attach the Software Clients
A software client will get the PCs in your office on the switch easily and cheaply.
Once you have these clients working, you may want to look into hardware SIP
phones. For starters, try the Avaya one-X Quick Edition, a recent Editors’ Choice.
1
Set up with SJphone Download
and set up a softphone, which lets
you place calls using a headset connected to your laptop. For a solid
free SIP client, check out the popular
versions from SJ Labs. It’s the one
that I use most of the time.
2
Or try the Gizmo software Gizmo
offers a softphone that plugs into
Asterisk as well. It’s a decent enough
piece of software, but it demands
that you log on to the Gizmo servers
in addition to your PBX. I’m not fond
of this unecessary imposition.
3
Configure your SIP Match the logon information in your SIP software
with the data you set up on your
server and you should be all set. Try
placing a call between two PCs in
your office to confirm that everything is working properly.
AS K N E I L S O F T WA R E
CONDITIONAL FORMATTING
FOR PLOTTED POINTS IN EXCEL
Q
I am trying to create a graph that
will contain two series. Series 1 is
the expected data derived through
calculations. Series 2 is the actual
data collected through research.
Series 1 is plotted with a black line. Is it possible to vary the color of points in series 2
according to value? I’d like the color of series 2
to be red each time it goes below series 1 and
green each time it is above series 1.—Raymon Sahib
NEED ANSWERS?
Each issue, PC Magazine’s software expert,
Neil J. Rubenking,
tackles your toughest
software and Internet
problems. Send your
questions to
askneil@ziffdavis.com
A
Since Excel’s conditional formatting feature
doesn’t extend to data points in a chart, you’ll
just have to fake it. I’ll assume your x-axis
values are in column A, the expected values are in
column B, and the actual observed data in column C.
Insert two columns to the left of column C and give
them headings “Actual (above)” and “Actual (below)”.
In cell C2, the first data cell in the “Actual (above)”
column, enter the formula =IF(E2>=B2,E2,NA()).
In cell D2 enter =IF(E2<B2,E2,NA()). Copy
these formulas all the way down the two columns. For each row, the actual data appears in
column C if it’s greater than or equal to the expected
value and in column D if not. The other column displays #N/A.
Actual data points above the expected value are in
green, while those below are red. To get this result
we split the actual data into two distinct series.
Highlight all of the rectangular data area except
column E (which contains the actual data) and click
the Chart button on the toolbar. Select the “XY
(Scatter)” chart type and click Finish. In charts, cells
having the value #N/A are ignored: No data points
appear, and if there’s a line connecting points it just
“bridges” the #N/A value. Thus the “Actual (above)”
series will display only points above the expected,
and the “Actual (below)” series will display only
points below. All you need to do now is finalize your
formatting. Right-click one point in each series and
choose Format Data Series from the pop-up menu.
Then set the appropriate color and line options for
each series to produce the desired result.
FIREFOX FAVORITES TO GO
Q
I use FavesToGo by Charles Petzold. I
switched to Firefox from IE6. I want to use
FavesToGo to make a copy of my favorites,
which are now stored in the Firefox bookmark
folder, but don’t know how. FavesToGo copies
my favorites only in IE6.—Michael Rosensaft
A
The PC Magazine utility FavesToGo reads
Internet Explorer bookmarks and generates a formatted and organized HTML file
containing links to all your Favorites. You can copy
that file to a diskette, e-mail it to a friend, and even
use it as your home page. FavesToGo works only
with IE, because it isn’t needed in Firefox. Firefox
bookmarks are already stored in one compact
HTML file.
Launch Windows Explorer and navigate to the
folder C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\mozilla\firefox\profiles\random.default, where username is your username and random
is a randomly assigned profile name. If while trying
to do this you can’t find the Application Data folder,
you’ll need to change a setting in Windows Explorer. Select Tools | Folder Options from the menu, click
the View tab, select the option titled Show hidden
files and folders, and click OK.
In the specified folder you’ll find a file named
bookmarks.html. This is the equivalent of your
FavesToGo output, except it updates automatically
when you change your Firefox bookmarks. You can
copy it, share it, or launch links directly from it. Of
course, if you’re pining for the custom formatting or
other features of FavesToGo, you could import your
Firefox bookmarks back into Internet Explorer and
then use FavesToGo just as you always did. Q
AS K LOY D H A R DWA R E
Q
STREAMING INTERNET RADIO TO HI-FI
I like to listen to (not download)
streaming music from a couple
of radio stations and 365Live on
my computer. I’d like to be able to
feed that music to my hi-fi system
instead of playing it through my computer
speakers. What equipment should I get in order
to do that? My computer is located across the
room from my hi-fi gear, and I want to accomplish this without wires.—John Membrino
NEED ANSWERS?
ExtremeTech.com’s
editor, Loyd Case,
tackles your toughest
hardware problems
each issue. Send
him yours at
askloyd@ziffdavis.com
You can stream
Internet radio to
the Squeezebox
even if your PC is
turned off.
A
I needed this, too, and my setup in my home
office isn’t all that much different from
yours. A number of devices are available
to do this. One of the simpler new products is the
Sondigo Sirocco (www.sondigo.com), which is a
sort of wireless sound card. You can continue to
stream music as usual from your favorite Internet
radio sites. It’s one of the less-expensive solutions,
at $139.99 (direct). The downside to the Sirocco
is that it pipes all of your PC sound to your home
audio system, it being a replacement for your PC
sound hardware.
One of my favorite devices for single-system
configurations is the Slim Devices Squeezebox
(www.slimdevices.com). The wireless version costs
$299, but it works very well. The cool thing about
the Squeezebox is that you can stream Internet
radio to it even if your PC is turned off. It will also
play back almost any digital music format, including
MP3, Windows Media (both compressed and lossless formats), Ogg Vorbis, AAC (the compression
format used by iTunes), and Apple Lossless. The
only downside is that it won’t play back protected
content, such as songs bought from the iTunes
music store.
The Roku SoundBridge (www.rokulabs.com) is
similar to the Squeezebox, and it’s available in a few
different configurations ranging in price from $150
to $500. Nearly all audio formats are supported (including protected WMA, but not protected AAC),
and it’s easy to use and set up.
A HARD-DRIVE UPGRADE
HEADACHE
Q
I have been trying to add a hard drive to my
Dell Dimension 8100 desktop, which I bought
in 2001. It has a 1.3GHz Pentium 4 and 640
megabytes of RAM, and it is running Microsoft
Windows XP Service Pack 2. The system came
with a 20-gigabyte hard drive, and I subsequently added a 40GB (Western Digital) drive.
I recently decided to add a larger drive. I bought
a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 200GB drive and asked
Dell for advice on how to install it in place of the
old 20GB drive. The drive’s instructions said that
to get the fullest use of all 200GB, I would need
either to connect it to an Ultra ATA/133 PCI card
or to run the MaxBlast software that came with
the hard drive. I used MaxBlast in order to format
and partition the drive. Upon trying to change
the BIOS, I discovered that it did not recognize
the drive as being there. Dell finally told me that
the BIOS recognizes only 127GB. I also tried the
Intel Application Accelerator driver. A Dell supervisor has told me that my motherboard will not
support a 200GB drive. Is this true? Do I settle
for the 127GB, or is there a way to make full use of
the drive?—John L. Kerns Sr.
A
The easiest way for you to gain full access
to your hard drive is to install a PCI ATA/
133 card. The BIOS on those cards will supersede the Dell BIOS and allow full access to the
hard drive. Note that the Dell supervisor wasn’t
completely correct. Dell 8100 systems can support
larger hard drives, but they require a BIOS update.
Dell added 48-bit LBA (logical block addressing)
in a BIOS update, and the A09 BIOS, which you
can download from the Dell Web site, should do
the trick.
Updating a BIOS, however, can be a nerveracking proposition. If the BIOS update goes awry,
you could be left with an unusable system. Installing an ATA/133 PCI card is the safer solution. Q
SMB BOOT CAMP
E-Mail: DIY or Outsource?
Running your e-mail in-house or using a hosted solution depends
on your needs and budget. Either way, make sure it’s secure.
BY MATTHEW D. SARREL
E-MAIL
SERVER
OPTIONS
E-MAIL SERVERS
Dell PowerEdge 2850
$1,549 direct and up
go.pcmag.com/
poweredge2850
llllm
Gateway 9115
$1,692 direct
go.pcmag.com/9115
lllhm
Aberdeen Stonehaven
A261S
$6,575 direct
go.pcmag.com/a261s
llllh
E-MAIL PLATFORMS
Gordano Messaging
Suite
50 users, $2,195 direct
go.pcmag.com/
gordanosuite
lllhm
Scalix Connect
for Outlook
First 50 users, $995 list
per year
(not rated)
HOSTED SERVICES
MailStreet Microsoft
Exchange 2003
$12.95 per mailbox per
month
(not rated)
FuseMail Business Basic
20 mailboxes, $36.95 for
3 months (not rated)
MORE ON THE WEB
For more about smallbusiness issues, go to:
go.pcmag.com/smb
J
UST HOW BIG HAS E-MAIL BECOME? IT’S
estimated that about 60 billion e-mails
are sent every day. Compare that with the
U.S. Postal Service, which delivers 212 billion pieces of mail each year and employs
more than 700,000 people. That’s more e-mail sent
in a week than postal mail in a year.
Whether you’re starting a business, expanding
your business, or finding your e-mail solution inadequate, you need to determine whether you should
invest in an e-mail server and keep your messages
in-house, or outsource your
e-mail to a hosting service.
The good news is that it’s
fairly easy to switch if you
grow out of one solution or
decide later that you prefer
another.
The first question you
should ask is how much
s pa re t i m e yo u h ave to
devote to running an e-mail
server. If the answer is none,
then the obvious choice is a
hosted solution. But if you
have the resources (in terms
of both time and manpower),
then consider bringing your
e-mail in-house—especially
if your company has complicated needs, such as managing dozens of domains or
preparing elaborate e-mail
newsletter campaigns.
If you choose to host your own e-mail, you must
first make sure that you have a reliable, redundant
Internet connection. You should also consider
investing in a UPS (uninterruptable power supply)
to protect the e-mail server in the event of a brownout or blackout.
When choosing or configuring your server,
make sure that you select a drive configuration
that includes some form of RAID (typically RAID
5) in order to protect the data store, and get plenty
of storage space (at least 10GB per user). A midrange CPU should suffice. Include at least 1GB of
RAM and consider doubling that if you intend to
run webmail. We recommend the Dell PowerEdge
2850, which starts at around $2,000 for a configuration like this. You should deploy your e-mail server
in your firewall’s DMZ.
In choosing an e-mail platform, remember that
Microsoft Exchange is not the only game in town.
There are plenty of inexpensive Windows- or
Linux-based solutions available, such as Gordano
Messaging Suite, Scalix Email and Calendaring
Platform, and Novell’s SUSE Linux Openexchange
Server 4.1. If Microsoft Outlook is your preferred
platform, then consider
r u n n i n g M i c r o s o f t ’s
Small Business Server,
which includes Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003.
If you choose to outsource, price and features
(primarily storage space)
are still important considerations. If you and
your employees use Outlook, then find a company
that hosts Exchange. 1&1,
MailStreet, USA.NET,
Mi8, and others offer
competitive pricing, at
about $15 or less per mailbox per month. Expect to
pay much less for POP3
or IMAP4 accounts such
as those offered by 1&1,
Yahoo! Small Business, and FuseMail (below $3 a
month). Make sure the service backs up your e-mail
regularly. Hosting providers should offer Web mail
and often BlackBerry or Treo integration.
With either solution, you’ll have to become
acquainted with the MX (mail exchange) record of
your DNS entry. This is what tells inbound e-mail
the location of the server for your domain.
E-mail is often the primary or only point of contact you have with the outside world. Taking the
time to investigate your options will ensure your
customers and clients get the right messages.
Matthew D. Sarrel is a consultant and former PC Magazine Labs technical director.
Illustration by Scott Menchin
©2006 Visa U.S.A. Inc.
No matter what you’re working on, Visa Business gives you the debit and credit payment tools
to get it done more efficiently. So you can put all your projects to bed a little earlier. For more
information, visit visa.com/smallbusiness. Your business is your life. Life takes Visa.
VISTA REVEALED
Windows Photo
Gallery
M
es (originals
Clean up your imag you can
are saved so that
changes)
easily reverse your
ICROSOFT WINDOWS XP DOESN’T OFFER
much in the way of built-in tools for
organizing your collection of digital and
scanned photographs. Sure, you can
launch the anemic Windows Picture and
Fax Viewer and page through your images—but if you
want to edit one of them, you’re dropped unceremoniously
into Windows Paint. There’s no way to tag or caption your
images so you can easily find them later, and watching a
slide show in Win XP isn’t much more engaging than turning the pages in a photo album.
Considering the hugely growing popularity of digital
imaging, I’d say it’s a good thing that Windows Vista manages to make the experience more appealing from start to
finish. When I plugged in a digital camera, Vista seamlessly installed the drivers and asked if I wanted to apply a tag
to all the images I was downloading. It also offered to rotate automatically any pictures that it thought were taken
in a vertical rather than horizontal orientation. Moments
later, Vista launched the Windows Photo Gallery application so that I could view and organize all my photos.
The imaging features built into Vista aren’t a substitute for a full photo-editing application. But for the many
users who want the instant gratification of being able to
plug in a camera, download pictures, correct basic defects, and build up a library of images to share with friends
and family, Vista looks poised to provide a much more
seamless and enjoyable experience right out of the box.
PHOTO EDITOR
Photo Gallery tries to make common imaging-oriented tasks
easier, starting with simple photo touch-ups. Click the Fix button and you can adjust an image’s contrast and color balance,
correct red-eye, and crop. There’s also a one-touch Auto Adjust
feature that, in Beta 2, tended to alter color balance in ways I
found unsatisfying.
SLIDE SHOW
Slide shows in Vista are
vastly improved over
those in Win XP. Vista
actually uses animation,
zooming, and compositing to display images in a
visually compelling way—
though on one of my test
bed machines it had to
switch to a low-resolution
mode that introduced
prominent “jaggies.”
—John Clyman
Automatically crop
a picture
to the size you spec
if
launch an e-mail m y and
with the downsizedessage
photo
attached
GALLERY
Rate your
photos, and
add tags and
captions
The gallery view in Windows Photo
Gallery lets you see file details or
thumbnails that you can scale to
arbitrary sizes. Most important,
Windows Photo Gallery lets you tag
photographs with any keywords
you choose. These tags provide
a convenient and natural way to
organize images thematically—no
more trying to shoehorn them into
a directory hierarchy.
CAN’T GET ENOUGH VISTA?
go.pcmag.com/vista
SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
Must-Have
Firefox Extensions
W
ANT TO BE COOLER THAN YOUR
coworkers? We’d say the key is
tricking out Firefox with envyinspiring extensions—add-ons
that tweak existing features or
add new ones. Clever coders have churned out
over a thousand of these handy little helpers, all of
which are just as free to download as Firefox itself.
An extension can be as simple as Auto Copy,
which instantly copies selected text to the clipboard
(not that hitting Ctrl-C takes so much time); as profound as UndoCloseTab, which reopens tabs you
closed, saving a history until you exit Firefox (how
cool is that?); or as specific as Book Burro, a popup window that automatically fetches prices from
other stores when you shop online for books.
These are just the tip of the extension iceberg.
We asked PC Magazine editors what their favorite
extensions are; they answer below. Mozilla’s Firefox
page (addons.mozilla.org/firefox/extensions) is
home to a growing library of extensions as well.
When you find one you like, click the Install Extension button and follow Firefox’s prompts. You may
have to restart the browser to access the new feature, but that’s a small price to pay for out-cooling
the whole office.—Rick Broida, frequent contributor
STAFF PICKS
MyStickies
lets you
add tags
to your notes
for
easy
sorting
MORE ON THE WEB
You’ll find PC Magazine’s
coverage of Firefox, from
reviews and security news
to tips and extensions, at
go.pcmag.com/firefox
With Cooliris, the pop-up previews are live!
MyStickies
I surf a lot. MyStickies (1875*) lets me place sticky notes on Web pages, then tag the notes for easy
sorting later.—Sean Carroll
IE Tab,
Download Statusbar
IE Tab (1419*) lets me actually run Internet Explorer within a Firefox tabbed window. I also use Download
Statusbar (26*), which bypasses the annoying Firefox download manager pop-up.—Loyd Case
Colorful Tabs,
Launchy
Colorful Tabs (1368*) adds colors, making tabs much more readable and the browser pleasanter to look at.
Launchy (81*) lets you launch pages in a variety of browsers and apps within Firefox.—Ben Z. Gottesman
AI RoboForm Toolbar
The RoboForm toolbar (750*) not only fills in Web forms in an instant, it automates Web log-ons.—Cade Metz
Clipmarks
Clipmarks (1407*) adds icons to the main Firefox menu bar that make it übersimple to save just about anything from a Web page, from an art element or frame to the entire page.—Davis D. Janowski
SessionSaver
Don’t forget SessionSaver (436*). It restores my browser session to just as it was when I closed it. It rocks
my world.—Jeremy Kaplan
Cooliris Previews
I use Cooliris Previews (2207*) during Google searches to pop up a preview of a page, instead of clicking on
it to see if it’s what I want.—Jim Louderback
SiteAdvisor
www.siteadvisor.com
McAfee’s SiteAdvisor marks each search engine hit green, red, or yellow. Red means the site is bad. Green
means it passes all SiteAdvisor’s tests. Yellow equals caution.—Neil J. Rubenking
Gmail Space,
Tab Mix Plus
I use Gmail Space (1593*) all the time for transferring files between computers using my Gmail storage cache.
And Tab Mix Plus (1122*) saved my sanity by letting me tweak tab behaviors to perfection.—Sarah Pike
Hyperwords
Hyperwords turns every word on any Web page into a potential link to a Google search, a Dictionary.com
lookup, a news search, or another option.—Dylan Tweney
www.hyperwords.net
*To fi nd the extension quickly, add this code to the URL addons.mozilla.org/fi refox/
SECURITY WATCH
Gangland Web Attacks
How not to get whacked by the botnet mafia.
T
BY ROBERT LEMOS
HE INCREASINGLY FREQUENT ATTACKS
in cyberspace make the Web look a
lot like the mob-infested cities of the
1920s. Through spam, phishing attacks,
and merchant fraud, online criminals
are making a lot of money on the Internet, and they
don’t take kindly to anyone messing with their
businesses.
A particularly potent example of this came in
May, when spammers targeted the Israeli antispam
firm Blue Security for retaliation. Blue Security had
created a small program called Blue Frog to turn a
spam flood back on the advertiser, thus raising the
cost of sending spam. The program would send a
single opt-out request to the advertisers’ Web sites
for every registered user who received a spam message. Blue Security had about 500,000 subscribers to
its service, so if a spam flood hit 20 percent of those
users, then 100,000 opt-out requests would hit the
advertisers who requested that the spam be sent.
In revenge, one of the spammers—reportedly the
one called PharmaMaster—attacked Blue Security
and all Internet services associated with it for more
than two weeks. The attack was so crippling that
Blue Security was forced to close its doors.
Criminals seeking profits on the Internet are
perhaps the greatest security threat facing businesses. Online fraudsters gauge their power by the
number of compromised computers, or bots, they
can control through a central command network,
known as a botnet. A discriminating online criminal
no longer bothers with home PCs,
because attacking them yields a
small number of bots, and because
a home PC typically operates
with a low bandwidth. A company Web server, on
the other hand, is an attractive target because it
controls multiple systems with lots of bandwidth.
An individual system that’s been compromised
allows the controller to grab personal data, send
spam, or attack other networks. But a botnet consisting mainly of Web servers can wield such massive attacks on company bandwidth that it is much
harder to shut down, sending nearly unstoppable
floods of data at a target. (At times, Blue Security
faced nearly 10 gigabits per second of data.)
The duality of online servers—as both potential
victims of and beachheads against Web attacks—
should double the incentive for businesses and
home users to lock down their systems.
More people are putting up sites to collaborate
or publish photos and blogs. Yet using software that
has not had its code adequately audited for security problems is a sure way to become an unwilling
draftee in some cybercriminal’s botnet army.
Small businesses should always ask hard questions about a Web product’s security, such as how
often the code is audited. Your IT should keep up
to date with patches and security upgrades for all
its Web software. For businesses, a regular security
scan (such as ScanSafe or Acunetix) can provide
peace of mind. And using a Web-application firewall can further harden servers against attacks.
Being on the Web is a must for businesses today,
but installing and forgetting about your Web software is no longer an option. Just as many businesses
require security cameras, a Web site needs occasional attention to make sure that its users stay safe.
Rob Lemos is a freelance technology journalist and the
editor-at-large for Security Focus.
LOCKING
DOWN CODE
Open-source projects offer a wide variety of Web
software to run your business or host your hobby.
A few steps can help you
lessen the chances of a
security breach.
1
Research the
security history of
the product Check
the project to make
sure it’s actively
maintained, browse
forums to find posts
on security issues,
and make sure the
developers have a
transparent security
process.
2
3
Regularly update
your software Flaws
happen. When they
do, update your site’s
software as quickly
as possible.
Consider a vulnerability scanning
service If your users
are giving you valuable information,
a scanning service
can flag the most
important issues to
be fixed.
4
Use an application firewall Many
flaws go undetected
until an attacker uses
them. An application
firewall can flag odd
behavior that may
indicate a breach.
KEEP YOURSELF
SAFE!
Subscribe to our
Security Watch
newsletter and get
up-to-date info on
the latest threats
delivered to your
inbox automatically:
go.pcmag.com/
securitywatchletter
Illustration by Robert Neubecker
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“Aberdeen surpasses HP… markedly higher scores…
the AberNAS 128 boasts outstanding features”
G A M I N G + C U LT U R E
Vista and Your Games
We dedicated hours of playtime to the latest
prerelease version. Here’s the scoop.
W
BY JASON CROSS, EXTREMETECH
VISTA EXCLUSIVES!
Our moles inside Microsoft get the latest betas
before anyone else. How?
You don’t want to know.
For continuing, up-to-theminute coverage, see
go.pcmag.com/vista
INDOWS VISTA BETA 2 IS A
landmark. While it’s too
early for us to say with confidence that you can use it all
day for your normal tasks,
Beta 2 is solid enough for us
to report on this important question: How well will
your games run on this new OS?
To find out if Vista’s got game, we set up the 32bit version of Vista Beta 2 on a high-end gaming test
rig using a 2.8-GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 chip, an
nVidia nForce 590 SLI chipset, 2 gigabytes of memory, an ATI Radeon X1900 XTX graphics card, a Creative sound card, and a 160GB Seagate hard drive.
ATI released new drivers on the Web to coincide
with Beta 2, and nVidia did the same with platform
drivers, so we used the latest and greatest.
The good news is that most of the games we ran
worked well. Not everything was rosy, however.
Here are some of the details:
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory The latest stealth action
thriller from Ubisoft doesn’t work in Vista, but it’s
probably not any fault of the application itself; it’s
the StarForce copy protection. StarForce installs
a low-level (ring 0) driver to access your optical
drive; this driver hasn’t been certified for Vista. So,
when you reboot after installing, which Splinter
Cell Chaos Theory asks you to do, Vista informs
you that it won’t load the driver because of “compatibility problems.” The 32-bit version of Vista
will allow unsigned kernel-level drivers if installed
from an account with admin privileges, as ours was.
At the time of our research, we were unable to find
TOP10
MOST POPULAR
PS2 GAMES
any sort of workaround or Vista-ready driver on the
StarForce site, and we have yet to test the special
driver that StarForce subsequently put up.
Steam/Half-Life 2 We didn’t
have any problems at all running the Steam platform,
downloading games, or playing Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2:
Lost Coast, or Counter Strike:
Source.
Battlefield 2 We ran Bat-
impressive action games yet released, but to enjoy
it with all the bells and whistles you need a hefty PC
with lots of RAM and a beefy video card. It just so
happens that’s what we used. Still, performance was
a bit of an issue. Some driver
work or OS optimization
clearly needs to be done here.
Rise of Legends Installation
runs smoothly, but when
you launch the game you get
a warning that your sound
card drivers are out of date,
and therefore the hardwareaccelerated audio will be disabled. The game still sounds
great without hardwareaccelerated audio. We’ll chalk
this up under the heading
“Creative needs better Vista
drivers.”
tlefield 2 in both its native
unpatched state and with the
latest 1.3 patch; both seemed
to work just fine. But one
significant gotcha crept up
several times in our testing:
PunkBuster. The PunkBuster
anti cheating code is a common part of many online Beat the Punk In Battlefield 2, PunkBuster
games (particularly shoot- created a problem. We solved it by running
Grand Theft Auto Here’s a cuthe program as an admin.
ers), and it works by scanning
rious one: GTA ran perfectly
game files to make sure they’re not compromised.
and even showed up in the Games Explorer. That’s
Most Battlefield 2 servers have PunkBuster enabled:
the curious part. We were running Grand Theft
When we joined one, we were promptly kicked out
Auto: San Andreas (“AO” Version), one of the origiof the game with a message indicating PunkBuster
nal releases of the game that could be modified with
had failed owing to “inadequate OS privileges.”
the controversial “Hot Coffee” mod that caused the
The solution, however, is simple enough: RightESRB to change the game’s rating retroactively to
click the BF2 icon, choose Properties, and then in
Adults Only. But the actual rating still showed up as
the Compatibility tab check the box that reads “Run
Mature. Otherwise, the game is good to go on Vista.
this program as an administrator.” After doing this
we encountered no problems joining any server.
Prognosis Good but Needs Work Among other
games we tested, Guild Wars, Oblivion, and The
Sims 2 ran perfectly. Overall, we’re happy with the
F.E.A.R. It’s well known that F.E.A.R. is a real sysstate of gaming on Vista, but it isn’t perfect. Yet. Q
tem hog. Sure, it’s one of the most technologically
AUCTION BLOCK
MOD WORLD
Online Headset
for Xbox 360
Plug this headset
into either your
Xbox 360 console or your wireless controller.
eBay price: $7
The tinkerers at Llamma.com
came up with this mod of an
Xbox 360 console, designed
to highlight RockStar Games.
They mixed an auto body–
grade paint with hardener
and sprayed it on. (You can’t
scratch the stuff with a fingernail.) They cut the DVD lid and
provided a window so players
can see games as they spin.
The hackers made other case
cuts too, and they reproduced
the RockStar logo through a
three-step painting and masking process. Oh, and one mod
you can’t see is a variablespeed fan controller. By adjusting the voltage to the fan, from
the stock 5.4V to as much as
12V, the user can set the speed.
About 8V is reported optimal.
Shredder PS2 Guitar Hero Controller
Hendrix wannabes, put down your air
guitars and grab this.
eBay price: $9
1 Jaws Unleashed
You get to play the
shark!
2 Disney-Pixar Cars
Hot-shot animated
cars.
3 Halo 2
4 AND 1 Streetball
Sequel to
the original shooter.
Street basketball
action.
5 NBA Live 2007
More basketball
action!
Blood
6 Hitman:
Money
Fourth
installment of the
franchise.
Football
7 NCAA
07
A year in the life
of college football.
8 GTA: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto.
Again.
Wars:
9 Star
Knights of the
Old Republic
Set
in the distant past.
Wars:
10 Star
KOTOR: The Sith
Lords
Fantasy roleplaying.
Source: 1Up.com.
Ranked by online buzz.
GEARLOG
Watch baby
on color screen
Camera
has night
vision
Cell dock lets you use
cellular plan minutes
for home phone longdistance calls
Batteries + Wi-Fi = no wires!
DIALING IN BABY
I
T’S A PHONE, IT’S A CAMERA, IT’S A . . . BABY MONITOR? MOTOROLA’S
SD4500 system, at under $100 per piece, combines a modular cordless phone system and cell-phone dock with a wireless camera, so you
can use the color-screen phone handset as a baby monitor. The little
camera can sit anywhere in the house and communicate back to the
SD4500’s base station via RF on the same 2.4-GHz band used by many
cordless phones. You can leave the camera plugged in or run it for about four
hours on its built-in rechargeable battery. It can even see in the dark.
Integration is the key here: By merging a land-line phone, cell phone, and
baby monitor, you can replace three gadgets with one, giving you fewer things to
lose. The upcoming C51 model promises further refinements.—Sascha Segan
MORE ON THE WEB
Future Memories’ $24.95
shower radio defies conventional logic. Would
you bring an iPod into the
shower? For more info,
visit www.gearlog.com
J O H N C. D V O R A K
The current PC platform is so close to being permanently broken that I’m
stunned that people aren’t already up in arms. Everyone should be sued
for false advertising. None of this stuff works at all!
A
MORE ON THE WEB
Can’t get enough
Dvorak? A new rant
goes up every Monday at
go.pcmag.com/dvorak
You can e-mail him
directly at pcmag@
dvorak.org
S WE MOVE INTO THE AGE OF
Vista, multimedia’s domination on the desktop, and
Web sites controlled by cascading style sheets running
under improved browsers,
when will someone wake up
and figure out that none of
this stuff works at all?! The current PC platform
is so close to being permanently broken that I’m
stunned that people aren’t already up in arms.
Everyone should be sued for false advertising.
As most readers know, I’m a blogger. I’m in the
process of redesigning the Dvorak Uncensored
weblog, which means playing with its cascading
style sheets, or CSS. The first time I heard of the cascading style sheet was in December of 1996, when
the World Wide Web Consortium announced CSS1,
telling the world that Microsoft, Adobe, Netscape
and others were “among” the consortium members
that would be adding support.
The idea behind CSS is a good one. With HTML,
Web pages can become monstrosities of content and
formatting information. To change the look of a site,
you have to sift through the content to redo a lot of
detailed information. It’s painful. CSS was designed
to separate the content from the formatting, so that
when you want to change your site’s look and feel,
you simply change the formatting information.
CSS’s real benefit was that the layout not only
could be changed easily but also could become
dynamic: The content is stored in a database and
presented as necessary, with instant updates. With
dynamic content, it’s possible for 100 people to go to
the same Web site and get 100 different versions.
Here is where a great idea begins to fall apart.
And it does so progressively, worsening over time
as “improvements” are made.
The first problem is the idea of “cascading.” It
means what it says: falling—as in falling apart. You
set a parameter for a style element, and that setting
falls to the next element unless you provide it with
a different element definition. This sounds like a
great idea until you try to deconstruct the sheet. You
need a road map. One element cascades from here,
another from there. One wrong change and all hell
breaks loose. If your Internet connection happens to
lose a bit of CSS data, you get a mess on your screen.
That’s not the worst thing. You can live with the
basic cascading mess; it’s a matter of debugging.
The real problem is that no two browsers—let alone
no two versions of any one browser—interpret CSS
the same way! The Microsoft browser interprets
a style sheet one way, Firefox interprets it another
way, and Opera a third way. Can someone explain to
me exactly what kind of “standard” CSS is, anyway?
There actually are Web sites that mock this mess
by showing the simplest CSS code and the differing
results from the three main browsers and the Safari
and Linux browsers. The differences are not trivial.
And because of the architecture of this dog, the bugs
cascade when they are part of a larger style sheet,
amplifying problems. Worse yet, nobody except the
most techie insiders wants to talk about this mess.
Everyone loses here, from users who can’t understand why things look screwy, to developers who
can’t get CSS to do the job right, to baffled content
providers. And what’s being done about it? Nothing!
Another fine mess from the standards bodies. Q
Illustration by Christian Northeast

YOU - Pabs` Website

Transcription

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