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12 The Hot FiveO Apple iPhone 5sO Apple iPhone 5cO Samsung Galaxy GearO Qualcomm Toq

� � O Audi Nanuk22 Vital statistics Sony Xperia Z1

Waterproof and beautiful? We’re in love 26 Gigapixel The Martin Jetpack

Finally – a jetpack! You go first...31 My gadget life Alan Moore

The king of comics talks about his life in a 19th-century cocoon, and Kickstarter

32 GamesBig tonking battlesuits falling from the sky

34 5 reasons The Xbox One can still winThe next-gen console war isn’t over just yet

38 Icon Sony QX10Sony’s bonkers clip-on phone camera

41 AppsOur pick of this month’s mobile offerings

42 Geek on the road Nat. Museum Of ComputingTake a trip to the home of the codebreakers

44 Choice MapsCartographical wonders of fun, not function

50 Opinion Nokia: a farewell to innovation?Is this the end of our quirky Finnish friend?

70 First test Apple iPhone 5s Apple’s new flagship has more power, new camera tricks and a new OS. Is that enough?

72 First test LG G2 The Android arms race continues apace, with this full HD-screened, 5.2in mega-blower

75 Versus Apple iPhone 5s Vs LG G2You’ve read the reviews… but which is best?

77 App:roved Stuff-certified apps for…Hailing taxis and mixing cocktails

78 Tested Bargain TV smart boxesO Now TV Box O Google Chromecast O Roku LT

81 Tested Ricoh ThetaIs this 360° camera worth the price tag?

83 Stuff picks BikesO Pinarello FP Quattro O Douze Messenger O�Genesis Croix de Fer O Pitango Classic O Charge Cooker O Hoy Sa Calobra .003

91 Tested Small PCsO Intel NUC O�Zotac Z Box O Sapphire Edge VS8 O Acer Revo L O Lenovo IdeaCentre Q190

94 Big game hunt The month’s best gamesBeyond: Two Souls O FIFA 14

99 Tested 4K TVsO Sony KDL-65X9005A O�Samsung UE65F9000p111

p70

11.13

FEATURES PROJECTS

p105 p132

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EVERYTHING

11.13WIN!p52

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7

55 Why Google is taking overApple’s outing of its tweaked iPhones is but a twitch of the tarsus of the bug in the ear of the Highland Cow of tech that is Google.We look at the many facets of its fab future

105 Design DrinkswareSlap that knowing smile off your face; we don’t mean barware. We mean the very British pairing of tea and juice. Laid back…

111 Future foodWhy your Friday-night takeaway may soon consist of a grasshopper dhansak, algae pilau and 3D-printed poppadom

117 Fashion Watches Because not all timepieces need to be smart these days…

162 Next big thing? Synaptic chips Computers that think like us, only clevererer

128 Beta yourself Home StudioOnce you start letting her watch MTV, little Winifred is going to want to be a rap star. With the proper equipment, you can keep her caterwauling adjusted for comfort

131 How to build your own... Steam box Because we’ve been waiting for an offical box from Valve for too long. Gather up your tiny screwdrivers and let’s begin…

132 Supergeek Weather stationsMother Nature and the BBC are in cahoots to get you all rainy. Time to take things into your own hands and forecast your own day

135 Re-awesomise your Xbox 360 There’s still time to get a Red Ring of Death

137 5-minute hacks If nothing else, at least…Give your screen a body-clock O�Turn snaps into posters O Automate your Mac

OUR PRICESPrices in Hot Stuff are RRPs. Prices in features, tests and

Top 10s are the best we could find from a reputable online retailer at the time

of going to print.

The Smartphones Top 10 gets a

proper shaking up and the new Nexus invades

the Tablets Top 10. Find out what

else is the best from p139

WELCO�

Simon Osborne-Walker, Editor / simon@stuff.tv / @simon_ow

Haymarket is certified by BSI to environmental standard ISO14001

THIS MONTH IN STUFF’S iOSAPP EDITION

www.stuff.tv facebook.com/joinstuff twitter.com/stufftv google.com/+stufftv

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There’s some new iPhones! Oh, you heard?

One’s mega-powerful and the other’s super-colourful,

but will they inspire enough adulation to restore Apple’s

place at the head of the tech pantheon? The first coming

of iPhone and iPad ensured years of fan worship for the late Steve

Jobs and his disciples, making them seemingly insurmountable.

We’ve reviewed the iPhone 5s on p70 to see if it at least restores

the iPhone idol to its place atop the smartphones altar.

In many ways, though, Google is the new Apple, only geekier and

with a broader reach. It’s certainly providing the wow-factor with the

likes of Glass and its Nexus devices – and it’s fair to say that most

manufacturers would still be playing catch-up to Cupertino if it

weren’t for the search giant’s Android efforts. In recognition of its

omnipotence, we’ve examined Google’s takeover on p55, exposing

every crevice of our tech world into which its message is being

carried, why we shouldn’t fear its divine presence, and some

alternatives for those who can’t abhor idolising a single deity.

Android’s also behind the smartwatch rumblings in the gadget

heavens, with the Samsung Galaxy Gear you’ll find on p18. No sign

yet of an Apple iWatch, but we prophesise its birth will be soon.

1 …this great mag landing on your doorstep before it hits the shops, every month. 2 …a 2nd year’s subscription free. Details on p124.3 …exclusive reader offers and discounts.4 …spiritual fulfilment.

Call 08448 488 806 or visit www.themagazineshop.com/stuf/m1113p

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Editorial Editor Simon Osborne-WalkerDeputy Editor Tom WigginsProduction Editor Marc McLarenFeatures Editor Mark WilsonNews Editor Will DunnReviews Editor Tom ParsonsSenior Reviewer Tony HorganReviewer Sophie ChararaArt Editor Alex FanningDeputy Art Editor Ross PreslyApp Art Editor Chee Chiu-LeeJunior Digital Designer Will ClarkeGlobal Online Editor Will FindlaterOnline Deputy Editor Stephen GravesMultimedia Editor Lucy HedgesStaff Writer Esat DedezadeCameraman Owen Marshall

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k Volume 17 issue 11 k ISSN: 1364-963 k On sale 2 Oct 2013 k Audit Bureau of Circulations: 73,441 (Jul-Dec 2012)

© 2013, Haymarket Media Group Ltd. Reprographics by Anthony McDonald at Fresh Media Group. Printed by Wyndeham Heron; cover printed by Stephens & George. Distributed by Frontline Ltd, Midgate House, Midgate, Peterborough, PE1 1TN. The US annual subscription price is $75.50. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named Air Business Ltd, c/o Worldnet Shipping Inc., 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. Subscription records are maintained at Haymarket Media Group, Teddington Studios, Broom Road, Teddington TW11 9BE. Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent. All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form in whole or in part without the written permission of the publishers. Liability: while every care has been taken in the preparation of this magazine, the publishers can’t be held responsible for the accuracy of the information herein, or any consequence arising from it. In the case of all product reviews, judgements have been made in the context of ware based on UK prices at the time of review, which are subject to fluctuation and only applicable to the UK market.

12

LUCKY NUMBER SEVEN

Apple iPhone 5s

HOT FOUR

#1

As with films, you can tell the quality of

a gadget by how the sequels hold up.

The French Connection II is superb;

Evil Dead III: Army Of Darkness is a

masterpiece; Crocodile Dundee In Los

Angeles, not so much. To make it to

Part VII, you’ve got to have something

pretty special, and the iPhone’s epic

saga shows no signs of jumping the

shark. That’s because, in many ways,

it’s still a first: the first phone to run a

64-bit operating system, the first phone

to incorporate a separate brain for

detecting movement, the first phone

to make fingerprint scanning

straightforward, the first gold phone

that looks anything other than

hilariously tacky. Although that last

one’s up for debate, obviously.

As hot as… a pile of melting KitKats

from £550 / apple.com

13

BUT HOW

GOOD IS IT?

Seeing as you ask, we’ve

whisked the 5s into our

rigorous testing lab.

Read the results on p70.

28 PAGES OF THE BIGGESTSTORIES FROM PLANET TECH

1It’s fast. Very, very fast

Though it’s worth noting

that the move to a 64-bit

architecture is not so much

about speed, as it is about

capability. And we won’t eat

that delicious fruit until the

countless developer bees

pollinate the seeds of the

next generation of apps

and games. There’s an

in-depth guide to 64-bit

at stuff.tv, and it doesn’t

involve any garden-based

metaphors. Regardless of

what the 5s’ quad-core A7

chip is really up to, it’s fair to

say that the 5s is pretty

nippy. Usefully, noticeably

faster than the 4s… and

the only way is up. (In speed

terms at least.)

2It reads your fingers…

…to unlock the phone

and make purchases in the

App Store and iBooks. The

metal ring around the home

button lets the phone know

when a finger is being

applied, and the button

itself is a sensor that reads

your finger – or any of five

of your fingers, or any five

fingers you choose to

register – right down to the

subdermal layers for extra

security. The button itself

is nigh-on-scratchproof

sapphire crystal and the

biometric data doesn’t

get uploaded to Apple’s

servers, or anyone else’s.

3 It shoots in slo-mo

Well, technically it

shoots really, really quickly

– at 120fps – and then

plays that footage back at

30fps, slowing your ball-

catching dog down by four

times. And it does so in

720p, putting the 5s

alongside some of the best

action cams for capturing

high-speed hijinks.

4It’s double flashy

Close-to-the-lens,

LED flashes on phones

tend to give washed-out,

unrealistic pictures. The 5s

uses its power to analyse

the light in the scene, then

tells its pair of flashes to

create a flash colour (from

a palette of over 1000

shades) that works best.

5 It watches you move

Data from the 5s’

compass, gyrometer and

accelerometer are passed

to the M7, a ‘motion

coprocessor’ chip that

deals just with movement

sensing. It should make the

(ever increasing number of)

fitness apps much more

reliable. This isn’t just for

gym bunnies, though – it

also saves battery. The M7

is so sensitive that it can tell

when you’re driving, and

stop pinging nearby Wi-Fi

networks to save power.

Apple has never traded on the specs of its phones – while

the world was scrabbling for quad-core, the iPhone 5 calmly

outperformed most competitors on a 1.3GHz dual-core. So

why the sudden lurch to a 64-bit, quad-core megachip?

Because things like fingerprint scanning and intelligent flash

colouration take a great deal of power to run, and what

Apple does trade on is tech that works without any fuss.

THE WORLD’S FIRST 64-BIT SMARTPHONE

WHY 64-BIT NOW?

H SO T FT U F

14

1

3 4

5

2

HOT FIVE#2

H SO T FT U F

17

APPLE AIMS FOR THE CORE

iPhone 5cWhile you, dear Apple aficionado, obviously

want an iPhone 5s, there are some people

who aren’t so bothered about its incredible

new tech. Some may be Androidites or

Windophiles, but others are the sort of

people who buy a 720p TV because it

matches their curtains, who choose a car

because they like the name. The middle of

the market. The Normals. People, dare we

say it, who buy a phone because it’s a nice

bright colour. Do those people have to miss

out on the delights of iOS 7? Not any more.

The 5c is basically the iPhone 5 in a nice

bright coat, although it does sport slightly

improved battery life and connectivity, and

as such it’s not the phone you’re looking for.

But your husband/aunt/friend/pet/

coworker? They’ll snap one up. We predict

they’ll sell like hot, multicoloured cakes.

As hot as… well, hot multicoloured cakes

from £470 / apple.com

18

H SO T FT U F

19

HOT FIVE#4

HOT FIVE#3

…QUALCOMM MAKES IT BETTER

Qualcomm ToqWhile Samsung’s wristputer is basically a

small smartphone with a strap, chip-maker

Qualcomm has gone down a different route:

the Toq is basically a very techie watch. It’s quite

a bit slimmer than the Gear, mainly because

the battery is cleverly hidden in the clasp,

and keeps going for longer (three days to the

Gear’s one) thanks to a low-power Mirasol

display – like your Kindle, but in colour. It’ll

work with any phone running Android 4.03 or

above (although you can’t take calls, as

there’s no microphone) and will run similar

music, exercise and notification apps. Add

Qualcomm’s AllJoyn platform, which will help

it control your Internet of Things, and you

have a watch that can turn on your coffee

machine from your bedside table. The catch?

Qualcomm isn’t really a consumer hardware

company, and it doesn’t plan on making many

of these. It just wants to show how it’s done.

As hot as… Dick Tracy in four overcoats

£tba (due winter) / toq.qualcomm.com

SAMSUNG MAKES THE FIRST REAL SMARTWATCH…Samsung Galaxy Gear

If Google Glass was the first shot in the

wearable technology war, the Galaxy Gear

is a marauding battalion. Because while

Google’s faceputer has spent six months on

the faces of an elite few, the Galaxy Gear is

wearable tech for the masses. Well, the

masses who have the right Samsung Galaxy

phones plus £300. It’s mainly a companion

device that will add voice control to your

phablet and answer calls, and you can dial

numbers, read texts, tweet and control music

from its 1.6in, 320x320 Super AMOLED

display. Without a phone, though, it’s still a

capable little wristputer that runs over 70

Gear-specific apps (at launch), and even has a

1.9MP camera built into the strap. We wonder

if anyone else is going to make a smartwatch?

As hot as… Dick Tracy in two trenchcoats

£300 / samsung.com

20

H SO T FT U F

AUDI SENDS YOUR SUV ITS P45

Audi Nanuk QuattroWe’re going to have to update the List of

Things We’re Going to Need When the

Zombie Apocalypse Starts. You see, for

some time we’ve considered a conventional

4x4 (with blades, roof guns, etc) to be the

automobile of choice for evading the undead.

It’ll off-road, it’ll store a lot of guns, and it’ll

wade patiently through moaning hordes of

former humans. But there’s nothing patient

about the Nanuk: it has an end-of-the-

world 5-litre V10 turbo diesel engine that will

get from 0-60 in under 3.8 seconds, despite

weighing almost two tonnes. And with those

huge tyres and a nifty four-wheel steering

system, it’s as dementedly happy off road as

it is on. It’s a car straight out of a computer

game, and we salute Audi for dreaming it up.

As hot as… Nunuk of the North African desert

HOT FIVE#5

22

V I T A L S T A T S

Just like ’90s Aquaman, Sony’s sleek, watery Xperia Z has been reborn with more power. (Unlike Aquaman, it has no cybernetic harpoon )

O It’s beefier!Where its predecessor toted a by-no-means-dowdy 1.5GHz processor, the Z1’s Snapdragon 800 quad-core chip clocks in at 2.2GHz. Translation: whoosh! Special moves including encoding and decoding 4K video and 7.1 virtual surround sound. Take into account the 2GB RAM, and you’ve got yourself a superphone.

O It’s snappier!Not content with having a pop at its Android rivals, the Z1 is gunning for Nokia’s mega-camera’d Lumia 1020, too. There’s a ‘G’-branded f/2.0, lens and a 1/2.3in, 20.7MP sensor. This is Cyber-shot-level kit, says Sony, and we almost believe them. Open the camera app and a number of nifty sub-apps pop up; more on which over there in the panel. Eyes… Right!

O It’s the same in some ways!The screen is still a 5-incher, 1080p and 441ppi, although it gets the swishening abilities of Sony’s latest Triluminos tech. In the hand it’s pretty much identical, too, with the same body built from a single piece of aluminium and a couple of slices of Dragontail glass. And you still get a microSD slot for adding up to 64GB to the storage.

O It’s longer and less absorbent!We were a bit ‘meh’ about the Z’s battery life. As if by magic, the Z1 is fuelled by a generous 3000mAh battery. It’s also now even more waterproof: you can keep it 1.5m underwater for 30 minutes, which will come in handy for little, except justifying your phone choice down the Hope & Anchor. You might want to wait for next month’s supertest against the handy-looking LG G2 and iPhone 5s.

Sony Xperia Z1

£600 / sony.com

ZED’S DEAD.LONG LIVE THE Z1!

Sony’s ever-expanding stable of Z-things already contains (from left) the ZR, the ZL, the Z, the Z1, the Z Ultra and the Tablet Z. They’ll run out soon. Then what? The Xperia A?

VITAMIN Z

H SO T FT U F

23

Oh, just call it the G Pad Mini

LG G PAD 8.3It might sound like something 50 Cent would call his penthouse apartment, but the G Pad 8.3 is in fact a tablet, and one that may give the iPad Mini a run for its 50 cents. It has a very similar 8.3in display, but

1080p, and a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 that should more than keep Android ticking over. As with

LG’s superb G2, you can turn the screen on or off with a double-tap, which we love. And it’s nicely built.

Though we wish LG had generously built in 4G, too. £tba (due winter) / lg.com

Form an orderly Q

THEQAndroid-running cameras have their apps and things,

and you can run Skype on them if you really want, but they don’t impress friends and suitors. The Q,

however, has a cool name and it looks all fashionable with a ring flash around the manual-focus f/2.4 lens, a range of nice colours, and waterproofing so you can

hang around down at the pool and take pictures of your beautiful friends. No complaints. And yet, it has a 3G connection, like one of those fancy Android cams,

albeit only for uploading photos to TheQ Lab, its fashionable editing and sharing website.

US$200 / theqcamera.com

THE NIFTIEST OF THE SONY’S NIFTY CAMERA APPS LIVESTREAMS VIDEO TO FACEBOOK

O Social LiveThe niftiest of Sony’s nifty camera apps livestreams video to your Facebook page. You can choose whether you want to make the broadcast public or private. The stream is an un-TV-tastic 240x360, but it saves an HD version to the phone .

O Info EyeAs with Google Goggles, Info Eye lets you point your phone at things and have them identified by the hive mind. While Goggles is prone to randomness, Info Eye is a commercial collective: Amazon, TripAdvisor, Vivino, etc. Better? We’ll tell you very soon.

O Timeshift BurstIn this mode, the Z1 is constantly buffering 30 frames. Hit the shutter and it takes another 30, giving you 60 shots to scroll through. It’s a trick we’ve seen on Samsung’s Galaxy S4, but a very effective one nonetheless.

THE Z1’S NEW CAM SKILLS

PRESSYfrom US$17 / pressybutton.com

BRAKEBOARDfrom US$200 / brakeboard.com

TRSSTfrom £free / trsst.com

START MENU

Slicker clicker Power slower Fitter Twitter

Status Status Status

H SO T FT U F

A 4K phone!... sort of

ACER LIQUID S2

One of the open secrets of the tech world is that no manufacturer makes every component of its gadgets. Some make screens, some make chips, some make cameras, and you see similar parts in most things. What matters is what you do with them. So, while there are plenty of 13MP camera modules out there and an increasing number of phones running Qualcomm’s 4K-capable Snapdragon 800 chip, Acer is the first to use these bits to make a phone that shoots 4K video. Sadly you can’t watch 4K on its 6in, 1080p screen – those parts definitely aren’t available yet. £tba (due Oct) / acer.com

Probably the closest you’ll get to physically customising your Android phone is putting it in a case, or scratching your initials into the back. Unless, that is, you add a Pressy: stick it in the headphone port and it becomes a customisable button. So you can set combinations of clicks to perform complex actions. Two short clicks

to take a photo, one long click to turn on Wi-Fi, three long to check in to a location, and so on.

There’s nothing like the feeling of bombing down a hill on a longboard. And there’s really

nothing like the feeling of noticing a car pulling out in front of you, and there’s really, really

nothing like the feeling of rolling around in the gutter, clutching a knee that looks like freshly

prepared steak tartare. You know what longboards need? Brakes. Like these stand-on brakes, which can be fitted to any board.

What if the government suddenly started imprisoning cat photographers without trial? Then you’d wish you’d posted all your catpix on Trsst: it looks and works like Twitter (with the added option to include RSS feeds), but

it’s anonymised, decentralised and encrypted, so your information can’t be unlocked, even

by the people running it. Think of it as preparing for a future you hope won’t happen.

24

The month’s best concepts, start-ups, crowdfunded projects and plain crazy ideas

Status: funded (kickstarter.com) Status: funded (kickstarter.com) Status: funded (kickstarter.com)

The bigger picture in tech

YOUR JETPACK IS READY SOON, SIRFor 30 years, engineer Glenn Martin has been building a dream: the dream of strapping 45 litres of petrol to one’s back, lighting it and soaring high into the air on a roaring, white-hot cone of flame. He’s had prototypes since 2008, but the New Zealand-based inventor says his company will start selling jetpacks, for upwards of US$150,000, by 2015. The P12, pictured, will fly for 30 minutes at up to 60mph, reach up to 8000 feet and self-stabilise like a giant AR Drone. You’ll be needing a rooftop space.

H SO T FT U F

27

MICROSOFT BUYS NOKIAThe software giant’s expansion into hardware continues apace. It picked up Nokia’s phones unit (not the whole company) for €5.4 billion, which will make Microsoft the world’s second-largest phone manufacturer after Samsung.

iPLAYER DOWNLOADS ARRIVE ON ANDROIDAt long last, Android users can join their smug, Apple-toting brethren in getting their money’s worth from their license fee. You can now download TV on the Android iPlayer app just as you can on iOS, allowing you to catch up on Great

British Bake-Off or Robert

Peston Goes Shopping .

OPERATING SYSTEM ASSOCIATED WITH CHOCOLATE BARIn a marketing move that many feel is the tech equivalent of renaming a beloved football stadium after a brand of cigarettes, Google has decided to name Android 4.4 after the KitKat. More on Google’s latest (less sweet) work on p55.

DROP EVERYTHING AND DOWNLOAD...

Coast £free / iPad

28

H SO T FT U F

One of the few areas in which Windows 8 tablets get to feel superior to Android and iOS is the surprisingly lovely, gesture-based IE10 (seriously, don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it). Opera has made a beautiful iPad browser, Coast, that’s on a par, with home screens that you fill with websites instead of apps. There’s no browser bar and no tabs, just a subtle little home button that takes you back to your sites and to a search bar. You move and refresh, after a minute’s practice, by swiping. It’s our new favourite tablet browser.

Shell for pleather

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 3Even in the forward-thinking Stuff office, the original

Note caused snorts of derision. But, like an obese child who reveals amazing breakdance skills, the

Note has become popular. So this is big news. Hiding behind that doesn’t-matter-if-love-it-or-hate-it-

because-it’s-a-Samsung-so-you-replace-it stitched leatherette back (also in black or white) is

3GB RAM, a quad-core 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800, a 3200mAh battery and 24-bit audio. Up front,

a luscious 5.7in 1080p AMOLED. As always, though, big news about big phone always ends in big price.

£650 / samsung.com

The interlo-cutest thing

SIGMO

The babelfish device has arrived; all translators are redundant. Or so the makers of the Sigmo would have us believe, claiming in their Indiegogo pitch that their matchbox-sized translator speaks 25 languages – via a mobile app. Talk into one grille, and perfect French/Russian/Cantonese emerges from the other. Half of us wants to believe them, and half of us wants to stand and watch while they enter a Ukrainian farming village and listen to their box say something about putting ham in their satellite. Either way, it promises to be a fun device. US$50 / buysigmo.com

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31

1 2 3

My latest graphic novel, Fashion Beast (1), was [manager of the Sex

Pistols] Malcolm McLaren’s idea.

He had three ideas: Surf Nazissounded like fun, but probably not my kind of fun. Then there was one about Oscar Wilde on a Madonna-esque tour of mining camps in the American West. But the third idea, combining Beauty And The Beast with the strange life of Christian Dior – that sounded like something I could get my teeth into. I could see how those two could fit together; the fashion industry is already a fantasy where everyone’s in extravagant costumes.

I don’t have an internet connection,

or a mobile phone, or a TV signal.

I am pretty much cut off from the 21st century. Culturally I’m trying to establish a kind of sensory deprivation tank. On the other hand, not much escapes me. You hear about everything, because you’re talking to people,

you’re absorbing a lot of this information as if by osmosis.

By embracing the internet,

society has embarked on

a massive experiment.

And we have no idea how those technologies will impact upon us socially, politically and psychologically. So I think if there’s this huge experiment going on, it’s best that I remain outside the petri dish, as a kind of control, so that we’ll be able to see how badly the rest of you have mutated.

I have two successful Kickstarter

campaigns [the Occupy Comicsseries and Jimmy’s End films (2)] …

But this was at the suggestion of people who live in the modern

world, rather than in some imaginary version of the 19th century with me. It was a success, but it does seem like aggressive begging. That’s not to decry the service at all; it sounds like a way for a lot of fringe material to actually see the light of day, but perhaps it’s not for me.

The mask V wears in V For Vendetta (3) has become a

symbol for Anonymous and

the Occupy movement.

I’m glad the modern protest movement, which I admire for the most part, has found something of use in something that I did 30 years ago.They’re the ones out there braving the tear gas and the nightsticks, while I’m sitting at home in comfort writing my comics. It’s always a bit strange when things that were previously only inside your head are suddenly rampaging up and down the high street, but I’m quietly pleased with the phenomenon.

The future isn’t necessarily dark,

but it is more complex.

My books are about the present, they’re warnings. Human information is doubling around every 12 months, and, if the graph holds up, there comes a point where human information is doubling every split second. Every split second, there will be more information created than has existed in the previous history of the world. I don’t know what human culture is like on the other side of that. I suspect that it will be a mixture of a utopia and a dystopia, an apocalypse and a genesis. It will be the usual glorious human mess.

Fashion Beast is out now.

ALAN MOOREThe greatest writer in comics talks fashion, films and the future from his place on the outside of the human petri dish

“I AM PRETTY MUCH CUT OFF FROM THE 21ST CENTURY”

MY GADGET LIFE

G A M E S

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FIRST LOOK TITANFALL EA.COM

DUEMAY

Of all the games at this year’s Gamescom, one stood with its head and massive, meat-spattered, mechanical shoulders above the rest. It has none of the cloud tech that will be bumping up the graphics on Call Of Duty: Ghosts, or the genre-reshaping gameplay of Destiny. Instead it gives the player the chance to go from one end of the character spectrum to the other, mid-play.

You begin each battle as a human ‘pilot’, running up and along walls and jumping 30 feet in the air thanks to a small jetpack. At this level it’s an excellent FPS, but the really brilliant bit comes

when your contact in the spaceship above announces that your Titan is ready, and drops a giant warsuit for you.

There is no stopping the gleeful cackle that escapes as you fire up your 20-foot-tall mech warrior and stomp across the battlefield, hosing the enemy with heavy munitions and punching them into pink mist with your giant mechanical fists. Sadly, your spree doesn’t last long because your Titan is a huge, extremely noisy bullet magnet. Though getting blown up is almost the best bit: hit eject, shoot vertically out of your

burning, exploding mech, land on a rooftop, and resume combat.

Titanfall is huge, huge fun because its type-switching system levels the field: even if you’re rubbish, it’s easy to get a few kills, because as a Titan you’ll always take out a few pilots, and as a pilot you’re manoeuvrable enough to get on top of a Titan now and then. It removes a barrier to enjoying multiplayer battles – the frustration of constantly being killed by better players, without ever notching up any points – and replaces it with huge explosions and giant robots. Play it as soon as possible.

INCOMING

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THE CREWXbox One/PS4/PC

If you’re someone who spends most of their time in GTA-style games just driving around as fast as you can with the radio on, Ubisoft’s open-world homage to the Driver series is for you. You get the entire continental United States to hoon around; you and three pals could race from coast to coast in about an hour and a half, which sounds like a nice way to waste a Sunday afternoon. The cars are just tricky enough to offer some realism without making things difficult, and there’s a vast amount of scenery peppered with jumps, canyons, cities, deserts, rivers and plenty more for you to crash into. And all without ever encountering a loading screen.

WOLFENSTEIN: THE NEW ORDERXbox One/Xbox 360/PS4/PS3/PC

There’s plenty in the new Wolfenstein

that recalls its beloved predecessors: playing series protagonist William ‘B.J.’ Blazkowicz (now dropped in a dystopian 1960s Europe), you run down corridors in which Nazis jump out at you around every turn, firing two assault rifles at the same time and grabbing food to replenish your health. On medium difficulty it’s fast-paced and fairly challenging, but then Wolfenstein isn’t supposed to be easy. While the gameplay is a faithful update, the story gets much darker – you might have played Wolfenstein as a kid, but we can’t see next-gen nippers being allowed to partake in this disturbing gorefest.

ASSASSIN’S CREED 4: BLACK FLAGXbox One/Xbox 360/PS4/PS3/Wii U/PC

Sailing around in a big boat was most people’s favourite thing about AC3, and the latest game very sensibly ups the ship time. Our play on a PS4 was huge fun – we harpooned a whale, got eaten by a shark, explored a few islands and hopped around the rooftops of Havana before our assassination attempt – which, thanks to some sharp-eyed henchmen and our not having played Creed for a while, was unsuccessful. The game world is huge and there’s a great deal to do at sea, but there’s also plenty of the roof-running and crowd-blending that was missing from AC3. This could be a real return to form for the series.

NOVEMBER

O�CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS

O NEED FOR SPEED RIVALS

O WATCH_DOGS

O ASSASSIN’S CREED 4: BLACK FLAG

O BATTLEFIELD 4

O KILLZONE: SHADOW FALL

DECEMBER

O�GRAN TURISMO 6

O�WII FIT U

HERE’S WHAT ELSE GOT OUR THUMBS TWITCHING…

H SO T FT U F

Sony may already be crowing victory in the Eighth Great Console War, but a lot of Xbox gamers we’ve talked to aren’t too keen on trudging over to The Other Console. We’ve always said it’s crucial not to count your electronic chickens before they hatch, so we’ve got five reasons to keep calm, and carry One…

REASONS THE XBOX ONE CAN STILL WIN

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H SO T FT U F

1 The new Kinect makes Move look like an old-fashioned toy.

In the hands-free control stakes,

there’s no contest. You can do

some fun, Wii-style stuff with

PlayStation Move, but Kinect

seems more impressive. Full-body

scanning and face-mapping let you

create a freakishly lifelike avatar in

Kinect Sports Rivals, while the

Recording Studio in Project Spark

uses Kinect as a motion-capture

studio for making CGI animations.

Needs good games, though.

2 People like TV. Some sections of the internet

howled with dismay at the fact that

the Xbox One – which, let’s face it,

does look like a nicely made VCR –

was a conduit for your TV channels

as well as your games. But TV is still

massively, massively popular.

That’s why the PS3 sold so well:

because people wanted to watch

Blu-rays on it, as well as playing

games. If we had to pick one box to

put under our lounge screens, the

One’s voice and gesture control

would put it at the top of the list.

3 It’s out a week earlier. OK, so when you’re buying

something that you’ll probably be

playing on for five years or more, a

week shouldn’t make a difference.

Then again, the opportunity to get

a week’s head start on Watch_

Dogs will be enough to convince

some people. Possibly us.

4 Specs are fairly difficult to compare in console land.

The PS3 outspecced the Xbox 360

by some margin, but did you

notice? Nope, us neither. That’s

because games are built for a

specific console and just ported

across platforms, so they don’t

perform all that differently. Mind

you Microsoft’s giving the One a

last-minute 10% speed increase.

5 It has Forza 5, Project Spark, Ryse, Dead Rising 3…

...and Titanfall. Did we mention

Titanfall? Then again, pretty much

everything we’ve played on the

XBox One (and PS4) so far has

been stunning, so we’re hugely

excited about what the next few

months will bring. We’ll have full

reviews of both consoles soon,

so keep an open mind until then.

…AND THREE REASONS THE

PS4COULD STILL TRIUMPH

Phil HarrisonXBOX SUPREMO TALKS GAMING BATTLE PLANS

NAMES TO DROP #3

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Very few people can claim as

much influence in the gaming

world as Phil Harrison. As

executive vice president of Sony

he helped launch the PS3, and

now, as corporate vice president

of Microsoft, he’s launching the

Xbox One. We asked him why he

believes the new ’box will win the

face-off with Sony…

It’ll win because of the games.

We have the best games and the

best exclusives lined up. At E3,

Xbox One and the games that are

going to be on it received over 100

awards, more than twice as many

as our nearest competitor.

Titanfall, which is exclusive to

Xbox on console, is the most

awarded game in the history of E3.

It’s also the most attractive

console to indie developers.

Today, if you want to develop for

any console you have to buy an

expensive developer kit. They’re

not widely available, and there are

some practical challenges with

getting them out to people. Our

goal is that every Xbox One will

be able to be turned into a dev kit

just using software, and we’ll get

to that point next year. Until then,

we’ll be giving two free developer

kits to every qualifying developer

who joins our programme. We’ve

been asking indie developers

what they want, and the number

one thing they wanted was help

with discoverability: what’s

trending, what your friends like,

and the ability to share video of

what you’re playing with others.

Independent developers love

that because it helps people find

their games; we love it because it

brings more games to the

platform. Personally I’m really

looking forward to playing Cobalt.

Mojang [developer of Minecraft]

have such an amazing ability to

capture tens of millions of people

with games that have depth and

playability and longevity, so I’m

really looking forward to seeing

what they do with Cobalt.

Cloud processing adds to its

own power…

Think of it as dedicated CPU

performance that is available to

games over the internet. So, in

Call Of Duty: Ghosts, a dedicated

server means that the multiplayer

experience will be faster and it’ll

have more performance and less

interruptions, so it’ll feel like a

better game as a result. The

other thing it does is it allows

for things like the Driveatar in

Forza 5. Basically, the game

that you play on your console

at home trains an artificial

intelligence in the cloud. So, when

you’re not playing Forza, your

friends can still play against a

version of you: the way you drive,

the way you play the game, will

persist online. We’re doing a

similar thing in Kinect Sports

Rivals, so even when you’re not

online, your friends will be able to

see a version of you in the game.

…and it’ll allow us to upgrade

games in the future.

Slightly longer-term, but still

completely feasible with this

architecture, is being able to have

real changes made to games by

the server. So it could update a

game with better lighting, better

graphics, more sophisticated

physics or audio. Those will

get unlocked over time, but

we do have some things in

development that are going to

demonstrate that relatively soon.

New controlsMicrosoft spent 100 million dollars (really) deciding not to change its controller much, while Sony has added touch control. Our initial swipings have been very promising...

It’s £80 cheaperTwo similar machines selling for the same price, but with the Xbox One, you have to buy a Kinect with it. The mere fact that the price begins with a 4 rather than a 3 will turn people away.

Beyond: Two SoulsDavid Cage’s story-driven games will be the decider for some: for every gamer who goes to Xbox for Titanfall, there’ll be a Heavy Rain fan going the other way. See our review on p94.

“WE HAVE THE BEST GAMES AND THE BEST EXCLUSIVES. AT E3, XBOX ONE GOT TWICE AS MANY AWARDS AS ITS NEAREST RIVAL”

35

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“FOOTBALL CLUBS SPEND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS ON WI-FI AND IT DOESN’T WORK”

The Sussex Uni trio explains the smarts behind Brighton & Hove Albion’s signal-sharing app

IW I’ve had a passion for football all of my life and have followed Chelsea since I was six. Having been to plenty of stadiums I know how bad internet connectivity can be . My other passion is computer science, so I thought I’d bring them together.

JR About 20,000 people in one concrete-walled, steel-girdered bucket makes for no signal. We

have spoken to clubs that have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on Wi-Fi and it still doesn’t provide adequate coverage, which is why we looked for an alternative. Digital Stadium connects to everyone else with the app and creates what’s called a delay tolerant network (DTN) within the stadium. A request is sent out by your phone and passed around the network until it finds someone that has a connection. The app uses their signal to get your data – the latest scores or league tables, say.

IW To create that network the Android version uses Wi-Fi Direct. Apple is yet to put that technology on the iPhone but we’ve made it so your iPhone

thinks the app is a game, meaning it scans the area looking for other people running the Digital Stadium ‘game’.

CF We’ll be looking at iOS 7 to see if we can make use of any of the new features. iBeacons might make it possible to steer requests towards phones higher up in the stands where a signal is more likely. AirDrop looks like it uses Wi-Fi Direct, so in that case iPhones could join the same network as Android phones, increasing overall performance.

JR There’s nothing worse than going to the loo and missing a goal, so we’re also looking at whether we can offer video replays provided by the club. We’ve had discussions with the Football League and some other major clubs about branded versions of the app. We can do that pretty quickly.

IW The latest Android version of the app is available through our website now. It’ll be October or November before we’re happy to submit an iteration to Apple.

WE MADE THIS

The first hybrid hot hatch

PEUGEOT 208 HYBRID FEEco cars are great and all, but they’re too often either

expensive luxury snore-wagons or twee, guilt-alleviating run-arounds for families that already have an SUV. The 208 Hybrid FE is different – it’s a green car for

real people. The product of a motorsport division looking for a place to turn its wrench after Peugeot pulled out of

Le Mans racing, it takes a basic 68bhp 208 and adds a hybrid drivetrain and aerodynamic gubbins to make it do 0-62mph in 8.0 seconds while also managing 141.2mpg.

Shame it’ll probably cost £75,000 or something.£tba (concept) / peugeot.com

We’re dumbstruck

NOKIA 515We often think that if you’re carrying a 4G-toting

iPad Mini or a Nexus 7 everywhere, you only need a ‘dumbphone’ for calls and texts. Then we have a quick look at what non-smartphones are available, followed by a quick laugh at how dumb they seem. But the 515 is

different: an aluminium and Gorilla Glass wedge of pocketability that, when it comes to the internet, is

thicker than week-old jam but has a few smart features – particularly its 38-day battery life. Not as

dumb as you might think, then. €115 / nokia.com

DIGITAL STADIUM – THE APP THAT GETS A STADIUM SIGNAL

Ian Wakeman, Jon Rimmer and Ciaran Fisher

INGENI-O-METERSharing phone signals for the greater good of geek kind

38

I C O N

At last! A camera partwork. Yep, the first installment is this lens, for just £180. Subsequent editions will add the other necessary sections of your Sony compact camera … except that they will be incredibly difficult to find and even if you do, £600 each. Only kidding. This is a one-off product that adds a 10x optical zoom lens to your smartphone.

Oh, like one of those little plastic lenses that stick on your phone? Nope, it’s a working camera in its own right. Although the QX10 and its heftier f/1.8 Zeiss brother, the QX100, look like lenses, they’ve got smarts: the QX10 has an 18MP Exmor R back-illuminated sensor, a 630mAh battery, and its own shutter button. But no screen. Your phone has a screen, and now

also the Sony app that connects to the QX over NFC-tap Wi-Fi. You can either physically attach the thing to your phone, or hold it separately – like an old-school snapper with a flashbulb.

That’s nice. Still, I don’t have a Sony phone, so I bid you adieu.What’s nicer still is that it will link to any Android or iOS device over

Wi-Fi, so you can take pictures with your iPad without being one of those awful people who take pictures with their iPad. Sony’s hoping that while the compact camera is heading for the Great Cables and Chargers Box in the Sky (or possibly just the loft), smart lenses that upgrade your phone’s snapping power will have a bright future.

SONY QX10£180 / sony.co.uk

THE QX10 IS A WORKING

CAMERA IN ITS OWN RIGHT

H SO T FT U F

39

My other speakers are convertible

PHILIPS FIDELIO E5If hi-fi speakers are the sports cars of the audio

world, surround-sound systems are SUVs: they’re handy in the situations for which they’re

designed, but the rest of the time they’re noisy and take up too much space. These E5 speakers manage to be the best of both. Most of the time

they’re a zoomy 2.1-channel hi-fi setup, but when you want to watch a film, you just take their

tops off and move them to the back of the room – they’re wireless and have 10-hour batteries.

Boom! Enjoy your guilt-free 4.1 surround sound. €700 / philips.com

Smartbeat

NYMI Apple may think its Touch ID is terribly clever, but Canadian biometrics company Bionym is

way ahead of it. See, your fingertips aren’t the only part of you that’s unique: the beat of

your heart is, too. The Nymi wristband has an ECG sensor that identifies you in order

to unlock your phone, smartlock, car or whatever. No point stealing the

band, or cutting it off – see ‘fingers’, above. Pre-order now

for a 2014 launch, or wait for Apple to catch up.

US$80 / getnymi.com

You can say what you like about the future, with its choking pollution, its invasive hypercapitalism and its huge, blind, radioactive mole-rats, but at least in the future you never experience the appalling sensation of meeting someone whose name you can’t remember, because everyone you meet is identified by your smart contact lenses.

How do your electro-eyes know who your acquaintances are? Because in the beginning, gigantic databases recorded faces from every angle, in every light and time.

These databases were called Facebook and Google+, and they were built by users. Every time one of your friends tagged you in a picture, it became part of a vast searchable trove of faces, making you easily recognisable to the machines.

In some cases facial recognition has already been well received – letting you unlock your phone by looking at it, for example – but it has also been controversial. Facebook’s facial recognition software, which auto-tags people, is disabled in Europe because of

privacy concerns. Google, too, has disabled face recognition in Glass, but one developer, Stephen Balaban of Lambda Labs in San Francisco, has already built an alternative Glass OS that runs facial recognition. Once it becomes popular, Google will re-implement its own system. You’ll be able to opt out and many will, just as people opted out of Street View when it was released, but Search By Face is going to be one of the next big, weird, futuristic things that happens to us. Not as big or weird as the mole-rats, though.

FUTURE STUFFSEARCH BY FACEWhy tagging that guy as ‘RatFace’ is going to come back and bite you

1 Morning£1.99 / iPadIf you’re the sort of person who reaches for their iPad within moments of consciousness, this app aims to cram everything you need to know about your day into one glance. Eight panels fit in iCals and news and whatever you like.

4 Dots£free / iOS, AndroidFor the past few months this simple colour-connecting iOS game has been picking up more addicts than a particularly good batch of bath salts. It’s now launched on Android, too – so get ready to miss a few trains.

7 CBeebies Playtime£free / iOS, AndroidFour games featuring the Octonauts, Mr Tumble, Tree Fu

Tom and the Alphablocks, plus the ability to add custom messages. We were fairly nonplussed by it, but the two small people we showed it to were enchanted.

2 Call Of Duty: Strike Team£4.99 / iOSThe latest touchscreen Call Of

Duty eschews franchise history by being a well-made, big-budget title that lets you switch between traditional FPS view and overhead, third-person strategy mode.

5 Explore Shakespeare£9.99 per play / iPadYou might think only a clodpole would pay a tenner for a play that passed into the public domain over 300 years ago, but the play’s not the thing you’re paying for: it’s all the fancy interactivity, and the possibility of a better GCSE grade.

8 Kairo£3.15 / AndroidWander around the huge, empty isometric architectures of a distant world, solving puzzles and awakening alien machinery in this highly atmospheric first-person mystery. About as far from CBeebies as you can get.

3 HabitRPG£free / Android, iOSMost of the RPGs you play are just ways of wasting your life, but this one is your life. Your life goals are the tasks: tick them off and you’ll level up and earn pretend money, weapons and armour; fail them and you’ll lose Hit Points.

6 Fleep£free / iOSIt might sound like a French person saying “Philip” but Fleep is a potentially very interesting idea – a chat service that’s also an email client. You can chat to other Fleepers and pull out the most relevant lines to the PinBoard.

9 Middle Manager Of Justice£free / AndroidAs the line manager of a team of superheroes it’s your job to make sure the universe is saved, on time and under budget. Hire heroes, buy them a new photocopier and send them into battle.

A P P SThis month’s mobile must-downloads

£free / iOS

The dream of remote working is finally coming true, although it still has its limitations – you can’t just wander over and talk to someone. With Perch, you can: it maintains an always-on video connection between two iOS devices and switches on the audio using face recognition, so instead of calling someone you just look into the ‘portal’, see if they’re busy, and talk.

APP SPOTLIGHT

PERCH

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THE WAR OF THE MACHINES

Geek on the

road

42

It is a universally acknowledged truth that a single man in posession of a motorbike will eventually end up in Milton Keynes.

The reasons for this are unclear. It might be to do with the proximity of the Silverstone race circuit, or the corresponding availability of cheap hotel rooms if there’s not a race on. Then again, it might be that Milton Keynes’ much derided abundance of roundabouts is a hoot on a bike if you’ve got good tyres.

But there’s another reason to go to the (slightly creepy) retro-futuro city, and that’s because it is the location of Bletchley Park, the ‘Home of the Codebreakers’. During the Second World War, Milton Keynes was out of range of bombers from Europe and so it was here that intercepted Axis communications were sent to be decoded by a small army of mathematical geniuses and Wrens. Alan Turing worked there; you might have heard of him.

The Bletchley Park complex is interesting, though it’s essentially a collection of concrete cabins in which people spent large amounts of time staring at bits of paper.

Hidden at the back of the complex, however, is the National Museum Of Computing – a much geekier collection. Why is it here? Because the code-breaking of wartime cipher machines was too complex a task for meatbrains. Or, it could be done, but not nearly quickly enough. And, thus, computers were born.

The most celebrated of Bletchley Park’s accomplishments, of course, was cracking the Enigma machine. But important though that was, it was used mainly by German staff sergeants, whereas German High Command used the more secure Lorenz machine. So, Lorenz had to be ‘broken’.

And so it was, eventually, by a code-breaking machine named Colossus, designed and built by British Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, working with his team day and night in shifts for months and months. How did it work? We’re not going to tell you, otherwise you won’t go to the NMOC. But it very likely tipped the war in favour of the Allied forces. And there is much more to see than a rebuilt-from-scratch Colossus.

Fraser Macdonald is still dizzy from a full day of code-breaking. And roundabouts

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COMPUTING

Heath RobinsonThe first code-breaking machine built at Bletchley was slow and the hole-punched tape it used often snapped. It was named after the famous cartoonist, who probably felt his ears burning when the thing broke.

ColossusThe new breed also used tape, but read it optically and much, much faster. Useful, as Hitler’s Lorenz machines had 1.6 million billion potential ‘start’ positions. Colossus broke intercepted code in hours, instead of days.

WITCHNot a code-breaker, but a peacetime computer, designed in the 1950s in the UK’s Atomic Research Centre in Harwell. The NMOC staff have restored it. It makes the most captivating mechanical noise. A must-hear.

There’s a geek-baiting Aladdin’s Cave of vintage computers: Apple Lisa and Acorn and Oric and Dragon and huge clanking and clicking factory machines from the 1950s.

When you leave, your head will be spinning with stories of secret messages, unbreakable codes… and you’ll still be in Milton Keynes, a place seemingly designed to a code no-one’s ever really broken.

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Great for jazzing up walls; bad for getting you home

3 North By Northwest PassageIllustrator Andrew DeGraff creates ‘treasure maps’ of the journeys different characters take through films; this Hitchcock homage is our favourite but the Indiana Jonesmaps are amazing, and his Gooniesmap is spot on. US$75 /nineteeneightyeight.com

4 The Light And Dark Realms Of HyrulePin artist Bill Mudron’s huge Hyrule map to your wall, sit back and let yourself relive SNES sessions playing Legend of Zelda (in your imagination). Try not to make too much noise when you’re pretend-fighting Ganon, though. US$45 /mudron.bigcartel.com

5 World Scratch MapA world map overlaid with copper foil, so you can scratch off the countries you’ve been to. Unless you’re Sir David Attenborough or Brian Cox, in which case just buy a normal map and write I’VE BEEN EVERYWHERE at the bottom. £15 /luckies.co.uk

MAPS

1 Song MapAn A-Z style map that is both completely useless for navigation and thoroughly fascinating because it’s made up entirely of song names, from Highway 61 Revisited to Penny Lane, with Itchycoo Parkand others along the way. from £20 /wearedorothy.com

2 World Tube MapDesigner Michael Tompsett’s schematic map imagines a metro service for the entire world. Possible routes take in such lines as ‘Tropical’ and ‘Med-Siberian’. Nod off in Islington, wake up in Irkutsk. We’ve all been there. £20 /firebox.com

H SO T FT U F

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Don’t you wonder sometimes ’bout sound and vision?

O With Netflix showing up traditional telly left, right and centre, Virgin Media sticking it on its Tivo box seems like a bad idea (for Virgin Media, at least). For subscribers, however, it’s one over on those smug Sky customers. You’ll have to be a Netflix subscriber to use it and it won’t be available to all until later in the year – it’s being tested by lucky trialists at the moment – but with the final episodes of Breaking Bad and Orange Is The

New Black (pictured) just two of the TV shows available, it’s clearly worth the extra £6 a month.

TOM WIGGINS

MEDIA HOARD

NAPSTER TRIALO Music is great. In fact without our office playlist of equal parts hardcore punk and R Kelly sex songs, there’d be no Stuff each month. Because we love music, we’ve teamed up with Napster to offer you a free trial of its Napster Unlimited Plus Mobile subscription package for 3 months. If you’re a UK reader, not a current Napster subscriber and hip as a kitten, go to napster.co.uk/stuff and click through to where you’ll find a pre-filled promo code. You’ll have to enter your credit card details, but you can cancel any time before the end of the trial. Offer ends 5 Nov.

FREE

Eye fidelity

SONY HDR-MV1While small action cams and phones can shoot lovely

1080p or even 4K, they all too often sound like they’re in a cardboard box, underwater. Not so this lovely-looking device: its two 120-degree mics will pick up the crisp,

leafy rustlings as you pluck your berries, the succulent burbling of your pan as you boil them up, the musical

ringing of jars and the delicious soft crunch as you spread your preserves on to a fresh piece of toast. At least, we

assume that’s what Sony means when it says this is “perfect for recording your jam sessions”.

£260 / sony.com

I like your toner voice

SAMSUNG INDIE PRINTER“Hey, Brian, let’s listen to the new Arcade Fire album.”

“Sorry, Alan – there’s only one plug socket in our house, and I need to spend the next six hours printing my novel.”

“What? Oh, for crying out loud.”“I know. If only someone would invent a printer that’s

also a speaker dock. Admittedly this is a problem that’s unlikely to occur for anyone else, ever, but wouldn’t it

make things easier for us at this exact moment?ӣtba (concept) / samsung.com

I WAS PROPELLED……around Nike’s ‘Run to the Beat’ half marathon by the musical tag team of 18 live stages and a pair of Beats by Dr.Dre Powerbeat earphones. Could have done with a Martin Jetpack (see p26) to get up the hill into Greenwich Park, mind.

I’VE ADDED STARS……to my long list of fascinations. A modest Celestron NexStar 130 SLT telescope now sits in my study, but by Christmas I’ll probably have a domed observatory housing a 12in Dobsonian in the back garden.

I UNIFIED ANDROID AND iOS…...well, I charged them from the same cable. The QDos Powermax Dual is a USB power cable with both Lightning or microUSB heads. Terribly useful. I give it a week before it disappears off my desk.

I UP-NERDED MY COFFEE TABLE…...by buying Star Trek: The Art of Juan Ortiz (£25, titanbooks.com) He’s made each of the 80 episodes from the first three series of Star Trekinto a retro movie poster, and the results are pretty stunning. A worthy addition to my books about tractors.

I USED A LASER-GUIDED BEARD TRIMMER…...and augmented reality beard-trimming app. Seriously. The Philips Beard Trimmer 9000 has a pop-out laser for mathematically perfect sideburns and it is amazing.

I DOODLEDIN 3D… …because 2D doodles and I have grown apart, and I consider my imagination is best expressed with the 3D-printer-pen 3Doodler (US$100). In truth, I got a bit of stage fright and drew a squiggly mess in thin air.It’ll probably win the Turner Prize.

Mark Wilson features editor / poor man’s Gump

Simon Osborne-Walkereditor / Brian CoxMarc McLaren

production editor / cable guy

Will Dunn news editor / Captain Berk

Will Findlater global online editor / chin deforester

Sophie Charara reviewer / doodle bug

OUR MONTHWhat the past 30 days have brought us by way of geekery

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F1 2013It’s a year for golden oldies – just as FIFA 14 brings in the chance to play as Pelé, F1 2013’s Classic Editionarrives with drivers, tracks and cars from the ’80s and ’90s. For proper F1 fans, though, it’s the inclusion of every team, driver and circuit from 2013 that’ll make this indispensable.

ENDER’SGAMEHarrison Ford, Sir Ben Kingsley and Oscar-winning director Gavin Hood update the classic novel by Mormon sci-fi titan Orson Scott Card. Hopefully removing the homophobic bits in the process.

BATTLEFIELD 4The first batch of next-gen gunishment arrives, with Call of Duty: Ghosts snapping at its heels a week later. This would be a good time to replace the bearings in your Quickshot II Turbo.

THE FIFTH ESTATE

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the role of Julian Assange in this retelling of the story of WikiLeaks, from its inception as a platform for whistleblowers to its demonisation as the most controversial site on the net.

SKELETON-WITCH – SERPENTSUNLEASHED

As autumn draws in, warm your cockles with some pictures of skulls, demonic screaming and the ear-mashing riffage of Skeletonwitch.

LONDON SCIENCE FESTIVALA week of talks, demonstrations and events, some of which are free of charge, on the themes of Engineering, Technology and Science & London. More details on their website, the URL for which is too long to print. Google it.

A goodly mix of autumnal treats to keep you busy until the Halloween japes begin

YOUR MONTH OCT

Tom DunmoreFormer Stuff

editor

VOTEGRAPH

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H SO T FT U F

NOKIA 5110 18.3%NOKIA 3210 45.4%NOKIA N95 36.3%

What’s your favourite ever Nokia phone?

Nokia N93 2006 Simon Osborne-Walker, editor“This camcorder-alike is the perfect example of Nokia’s bravery and willingness to not jump on the bandwagon without stopping it first to pimp it out with massive alloys, a turbo and a pine-tree air freshener. I still have one in my desk drawer today.”

Nokia 5110 1998Esat Dedezade, staff writer “I loved the fact that it could be customised with tons of covers, and its tank-like build. When I bought a Nike tick to replace its operator logo – early downloadable content – I felt like the coolest kid on the block.”

Nokia 3210 1999 Mark Wilson, features editor“Compared to modern-day smartphones, the 3210 really was a brick. It was also heavy, slow and a chore to text on. Yet I still have one somewhere. Either it’s nostalgia, or the fact that they were built so tough that they never, ever die or fade away.”

Yet by the end of 2006, one in every two smartphones sold was a Nokia. Yes, the Symbian software was a little creaky and the battery life awful, but if you wanted a future-phone, you got Nokia. Until January 9th, 2007.

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, it was obvious that Nokia was in trouble. But few realised quite how much. Nokia was too

locked into its development cycle to respond. It took nearly three years to retaliate with a smartphone that had a capacitive screen. And five years to find a half-decent operating system (the Linux-based Meego).

By that time, new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop had set in motion the events that unfold before us now: Meego was dumped in favour of Windows, hundreds of millions were spent to sell just over 10 million Windows Phones, and Nokia fell from number one in the smartphone market to number 10.

The shame is that Nokia’s latest Windows Phones really are lovely. But a big part of their appeal is Nokia’s heritage. Without the allure of the Nokia brand, the future of Windows Phone looks bleak. Nokia wasn’t sold wholesale: it still has its brand, mapping services and a bunch of spin-off startups such as Jolla, which has transformed the Meego OS into the tasty-looking Sailfish.

Let’s hope Nokia refuses to follow its European peers, Ericsson and Siemens, into obscurity. Because I, for one, believe the world of technology would be a much duller place without Nokia.

Is Nokia really on its way out? What once seemed unthinkable now seems inevitable. The mighty Finns are facing twin humiliations: the shame of being devoured by Microsoft and the news that the takeover spells the end for Nokia-branded smartphones. It’s enough to make a grown geek cry.

If you bought your first mobile in the 1990s, chances are it was a Nokia. I started with a reassuringly chunky 5110. With intuitive menus and battery life measured in weeks, these phones were easy to use and quick to get on with.

By the time I became editor of Stuff in the early noughties, Nokia was totally dominant. The mobile market was exploding, and Nokia was pioneering new technologies such as cameraphones, mobile web and apps that you could download. The comically brick-like Communicators of the ’90s soon evolved into the pocket-friendly Nseries models.

And they were joined by some of the most bizarre industrial designs ever seen. In these days of identikit smartphones, it’s hard to imagine anyone releasing a lipstick-shaped fashion phone (like the 7280), leaf-shaped camphone (7600) or a phone that looks like a flattened Stormtrooper helmet (7700).They didn’t sell, but these phones crowned Nokia as the leader of a new geek-chic movement.

There were signs of complacency, though: Nokia completely missed the trends for thin phones and clamshells, losing ground to Motorola and Samsung. It also disastrously misjudged mobile gaming with the N-Gage.

NOKIA: A FAREWELL TO INNOVATION?

Now that Microsoft has bought Nokia, is this the end of that legendarily leftfield Finnish creativity? Tom Dunmore basks in warm Nokia memories...

Join the debate at www.stuff.tv

OUR FAVE NOKIAS

HURRY! COMPETITION

CLOSES 7 NOVEMBER

2013

LIGHT UP YOUR LIFE BY WINNING A

PHILIPS AMBILIGHT TELEVISION

W I N

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to enter go to www.stuff.tv/win

WIN MORE!

When you next watch TV, think for a minute about the thousands of terabytes of information being processed by your visual cortex. Then think about how much of that information is just a whole section of your biological bandwidth noticing that there’s a wall behind your TV. Some dutiful brain section – while all around it are going gaga about the TV’s colourful output – is saying “Yes, but there’s still a wall behind your TV. Are we all aware of the wall? That wall’s still there.”

Philips has a solution. Its Ambilight TVs

have rear-mounted LEDs that cast light out from the back of the TV, extending and enhancing what is happening on-screen – so all of your neurons and synapses are in paroxysms of delight at the pretty lights and see not the wall behind.

The 55PFL8008 is an Ambilight TV – and one with active 3D, Perfect Pixel HD, Smart TV features and two punchy 15W speakers to boot. It’s so good, in fact, we gave it five stars in the August issue and stated that “the Philips is a TV to die for”. And now we’ve got one to give away.

HOW TO ENTERFor a chance to win a Philips 55PFL8008 Ambilight TV, visit stuff.tv/win and answer this simple question:

PHILIPS’ AMBILIGHT TECH PROJECTS LIGHT FROM THE TV ON TO…

A … the wallB … the garden fenceC … the depths of your subconscious

For more info, visit philips.co.uk

WIN A NEW IPAD MINI WITH THE CALL

Stay connected with The Call, starring Halle Berry and Abigail Breslin, and in cinemas 20 September.

Veteran emergency call centre operator Jordan (Halle Berry) has the kind of job that’s not for the faint of heart: navigating the public’s distress in order to save lives. But when a young woman’s frantic report of a prowler ends tragically, Jordan is devastated. Reassessing her life, Jordan wonders if perhaps she’s experienced her last gut-wrenching phone call.

That lifeline to strangers isn’t over yet, though. When average American teenager Casey (Abigail Breslin), is abducted by a serial killer (Michael Eklund), she manages to place a 911 call from the trunk of the killer’s car…

To be in with a chance of winning an iPad Mini, just call in at stuff.tv/win.Closes: 7 November 2013

Terms & conditions1 Open to UK residents aged 18 or over. 2 Entries close: 11.59pm on 7 November 2013. 3 Prize is as stated. 4 Prizes are non-transferable. 5 Only one entry per person. 6 For full Haymarket terms and conditions see: www.stuff.tv/legal. Promoter: Haymarket Media Group, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 9BE.

IS TAKING OVERAND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. FORTUNATELY, WITH NEW CONSOLES, 4K PHONES AND SMARTWATCHES, YOU WON’T WANT TO EITHER

Model pictures David VenniStylist Vicki Hillman

Hair & makeup Michelle Marsh Model Stacey H at IMM

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IN YOUR HOME

ANDROID CONSOLES

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YOU DON’T HAVE TO JOIN THE QUEUE FOR AN XBOX ONE OR PS4 IF YOU WANT A NEW CONSOLE TO STICK UNDER YOUR TV BEFORE CHRISTMAS. THERE’S A WHOLE ARMY OF ANDROID-POWERED EFFORTS VYING FOR A SPACE...

Green Throttlefrom US$40 /greenthrottle.com

Unlike all the others here Green Throttle uses your phone to do all the grunt work. Essentially it’s just an Xbox-style controller that you connect via Bluetooth, with up to four of the not-very-green pads supported at once. Download the Green Throttle Arena app, though, connect your phone to your telly and its flatscreen-friendly interface turns it into a console, with a marketplace for compatible games.

Killer feature No extra hardware required. Just download the app and your phone becomes the console.

Nvidia ShieldUS$300 / shield.nvidia.com

While it might be handheld and come with its own 5in, 720p touchscreen, the Nvidia Shield is no puny little mobile phone. Its quad-core processor and dedicated GPU will have Shield-optimised games such as GTA: Vice City and Real

Boxing running smoother than a buttered weasel down a waterslide. Plus, it runs standard Jelly Bean, so you can download apps, send emails and browse the web, too.

Killer feature Play PC mode is in beta at the moment, but it lets you stream full PC games from your Nvidia Geforce-equipped PC to the Shield.

Mad Catz M.O.J.O.£tba / madcatz.com

After years of making slightly cheap-looking gaming peripherals, Mad Catz has used the Android uprising as an excuse to make its own console. It’ll come with access to Google Play, so you’ll be able to play every single Android game available, rather than just the ones supported by the individual console’s manufacturer. Whether that’ll lead to compatibility issues remains to be seen.

Killer feature Mad Catz’ decent range of GameSmart accessories, including a wireless mouse, will be compatible with both the M.O.J.O. and your phone or tablet.

GOOGLE TAKEOVER

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DON’T DUMP YOUR CONSOLEJUST YETTom Wiggins

Great fun though they are, Android boxes such as these will soon be lagging behind the next generation of consoles. Sure, they’re cheap, but PlayStation has just announced the Vita TV in Japan: essentially Sony’s handheld crammed into a box that you plug into your telly and control with a DualShock 3. It’ll play Vita games that don’t require touch or motion controls plus PSP and PSone games, and can stream video and games from your PS4. Right now Android consoles are limited by underpowered processors and games designed primarily for mobiles, while home consoles excel at big, immersive games. Until Android can recreate those, power will always win.

WikipadUS$250 / wikipad.com

Wikipad’s two-piece console consists of a 7in tablet that can be slipped into a special gaming chassis to add a D-pad, two analogue sticks and physical buttons. It’s powered by a quad-core NVIDIA processor and 1GB RAM, so it’s clearly no slouch, and has 16GB of memory – plus a microSD slot – to stuff with games. You’ll be spoilt for choice on that front too, with the whole of Google Play, including Sony-certified PlayStation Mobile games, to pick from.

Killer feature Wikipad is the mullet of gaming tablets: party in the dock, business without.

GameStick£80 / gamestick.tv

A bit like Google’s Chromecast but for gaming, the GameStick plugs straight into your TV’s HDMI port and comes with a Bluetooth control pad (it supports up to four at once) so you can be up and fragging in minutes. There’s 8GB of built-in memory, with an SD card slot for expansion, and an optional contactless pad (£35) to charge your controllers one at a time. The wotsit itself should last for up to 40 hours, though you can power it via USB, if your TV has a spare slot.

Killer feature Pocket size + cloud storage for games = gaming wherever you are.

GamePopfrom US$6.99/month /gamepop.tv

GamePop is a plug-in job with a difference. Subscribe to its 500-strong game library for a year and you get the Mini console for free. Stump up a one-off US$130 on top and you’ll get the more powerful Boxee-esque version, although GamePop is yet to unveil specs for either machine. You can use either your phone or the supplied gamepad to control it.

Killer feature: GamePop’s ‘Looking Glass’ tech means they could release games usually only available on iOS, even though it’s Android.

Ouya£100 / ouya.tv

The original Kickstarted Android console arrived on the scene to much fanfare but turned out to be something of a disappointment, with a real lack of decent games being the major bugbear. Still, while it might not have turned the gaming industry inside out, it arguably opened the door for everything else you see on this page – and that’s got to be worth something.

Killer feature The Ouya can be turned into a dev kit for making your own games. Simply download the SDK from the company’s website and add talent.

IN YOUR HOME

ANDROID GAMES

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FOR SO LONG ANDROID HAS LAGGED BEHIND iOS WHEN IT COMES TO QUALITY GAMES – BUT NO LONGER. THESE EIGHT GEMS ARE THE EQUAL OF ANY iGAMER

Active Soccer £1.44It’s no FIFA 14 (although it does have 360-degree control), but this is a football game that harks back to the glory days of Sensible Soccer. No official licences, no multi-million-pound contracts; just addictive gameplay that moves faster than Theo Walcott at an all-you-can-eat full-back buffet. (By the way, FIFA 14 is reviewed on p96.)

Sine Mora £4This side-scrolling shooter is a port of an Xbox 360/PS3 game released in 2012, which should give you an idea of how lovely its steampunk-meets-R-Type graphics are. You pilot a plane in a battle against time – take damage and it runs out more quickly, destroy enemies and you add vital seconds to the ticking clock. Not just a pretty face, see?

Asphalt 8: Airborne £0.69It’s certainly no Gran Turismo

but what A8: Airborne lacks in realism it makes up for in preposterous stunts. It won’t win any awards for the accuracy of its physics system, but that does mean you can pull off insane flat spins in some of the world’s superest supercars, including the Bugatti Veyron and Lamborghini Veneno.

Ravensword: Shadowlands £4.63This open-world RPG, full of ogres, giant spiders and mountains, borrows pretty heavily from Skyrim, but when it looks this good it’s hard to hold a grudge. Wander through the Kingdom of Tyreas in search of the Ravensword, taking on enemies (including dinosaurs, bizarrely) and completing side-missions.

Blitz Brigade £freeBorrowing liberally from Valve’s Team Fortress – which we should point out is no bad thing – this online FPS allows up to 12 people to frag it out online as one of five different player classes: Soldier, Gunner, Medic, Sniper and Stealth. It also supports voice chat, so you can concoct battle plans while you play. Or just take the mick out of n00bs.

Rymdkapsel £3.29Seemingly named from the remnants of an accident in a Scrabble factory, Rymdkapsel

is actually a clever strategy sim. Your job is to build the best space station the solar system’s seen and the gameplay takes in everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey

to Thomas Was Alone. Not the longest game ever, but a challenge while it lasts.

Frontline Commando: D-Day £freeRemember the days before Activision decided to turn Call Of Duty into a series of interactive Michael Bay movies? Frontline Commando:

D-Day harks back to those simpler times when life revolved around gunning down Nazis, blowing up tanks and liberating towns like the world-saving colonialists we Brits are.

Cordy 2 from £freeThe latest in a long line of platformers that aren’t just for kids (what do you mean you haven’t played Rayman

Legends yet?), Cordy 2 isn’t exactly original. What it is, is well executed, good looking and – with Copter Bot, Magnet Bot and Smash Bot helping you through the levels – a lot of fun to play. All too easy to forget that bit sometimes.

IN YOUR HOME

TV AND HOME AUTOMATION

GOOGLE TAKEOVER

Alternatively... Alternatively...

ANDROID’S REACH STRETCHES BEYOND THE GAMES CONSOLE UNDER YOUR TV – IT’S MAKING ITS WAY INTO THE REST OF YOUR HOUSE, ONE ROOM AT A TIME...

ANDROID GOES 4K: ACER’S LIQUID S2 SHOOTS VIDEO IN 4K (SEE P64) BUT LG’S NEW G2 PHONE CAN ALSO SQUEEZE THE MOST OUT OF YOUR NEW 4K TV. AT THE IFA TECH SHOWCASE LAST MONTH, LG SHOWED OFF A G2 RUNNING A GAME IN 4K (DESPITE ITS 1080P SCREEN) AND BEAMING IT TO A 4K TV OVER WI-FI. LG SAYS IT’LL BE AVAILABLE NEXT YEAR. SEE P99 FOR OUR VERDICT ON TWO NEW 4K TELLIES AND P72 FOR OUR REVIEW OF THE G2

ON THE TELLY...Google Chromecast

Google’s Nexus Q streamer may have failed to launch, but it’s been reborn as the so-small-you-could-likely-swallow-it Chromecast. Living in one of your telly’s HDMI ports, it plays video from your phone, tablet (Android and iOS) or Chrome browser. Well, sort of. There’s no actual video sent from one to the other; the phone/tablet/laptop essentially just operates as a remote, with the Wi-Fi-enabled Chromecast fetching the content itself. It currently works with YouTube, Netflix and Google Play, or anything open in Chrome. That means Spotify, Vimeo and other video sites should work too. Who needs an Apple TV now?US$35 / google.com

IN THE LOUNGE...Ubi

Ubi is short for ubiquitous computer. Plug it in and it’ll start listening for its name. Say “Ubi” and it’ll be waiting for instructions. Ask it to search the web and read out the results, set alarms or add calendar events. A multicolour notification light alerts you to new emails and other events, while multiple Ubis can be linked together and used as an intercom or baby monitor system. With Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and sensors for temperature, humidity, air pressure and ambient light built in, it’s well equipped. The company is encouraging devs to create apps and help turn this blank canvas into a hub of home automation.US$220 / theubi.com

Now TVAn even cheaper option than Google’s Chromecast is Sky’s Now TV box. For your tenner you get access to BBC iPlayer and other terrestrial catch-up services, with Sky’s Now TV movie streaming available for £15 a month, or Sky Sports day passes for £10 a pop. Read reviews of both streamers on p78.£10 / nowtv.com

Ivee SleekIt might look like a supercharged alarm clock rather than full-on robo room service, but Ivee’s voice-controlled Sleek can be connected to other smart kit (such as Belkin’s WeMo, Nest’s Wi-Fi thermostat and even Roomba vacuums) to take control of your whole home. US$230 / helloivee.com

ON YOUR BODY

WEARABLE GADGETS

APPLE iWATCHAlternatively...

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TECH YOU CAN WEAR IS BUZZIER RIGHT NOW THAN A NEPALESE MEGA-BEE IN AN ANGRY MOOD. ANDROID’S FLEXIBILITY MAKES IT IDEAL FOR RUNNING THIS NEWBREED OF BODY-AUGMENTING GADGETS

So who wants a smartwatch anyway?You do. But what kind? It turns out there’s more than one way to skin a smartwatch and so far we’ve seen two similar but slightly different approaches. It might not have its own SIM card but the OGalaxy Gear(£300, samsung.com) is more like a smartphone for your wrist than an extension of the one in your pocket. Preloaded with apps including Ebay, MyFitnessPal, Pocket and Evernote it does a lot more than just tell you when you’ve got a text message, plus there’s a mic and speaker to make and take calls. Sony’s OSmartWatchsequel (£130, sonymobile.com) is an altogether more understated effort

than Samsung’s, with a Henry Ford style ‘any colour as long as it’s black’ approach and a focus on notifications rather than trying to compete with your phone. The apps are more extensions for email, Twitter and weather forecasts than standalone affairs. The thing to remember is that these are first attempts. Like the early days of smartphones some will try and fail but in doing so will forge a path for the smartwatch’s ‘iPhone moment’. With plenty of people already using apps such as Strava and RunKeeper, which suit wrist-based deployment perfectly, especially with the growing popularity of mega-size screens, the smartwatch revolution seems inevitable – it’s just a matter of time.

Still the most-wanted product that doesn’t actually exist (yet), Apple’s iWatch could do for smartwatches what the iPhone did for smartphones. But how long will we have to wait for it?

GOOGLE TAKEOVER

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IN THE CARWe’re still waiting to find out if the Department of Transport will approve Google Glass for use while driving, but there are already other ways you can get your Android fix in the car. Those of you who drive a McLaren P1 (and at just £866,000 a pop, surely there are plenty) will benefit from Parrot’s new Android-powered in-car system. IRIS has been designed especially for the British supercar’s upright dash and provides everything from hands-free calling and iGo Primo navigation to internet radio from TuneIn, using your phone to connect to the internet. With Apple’s iOS In The Car working with Honda, Nissan et al, we know which one we’d rather have. Obviously owning a supercar isn’t the only way to augment your commute with Android’s help. Google Now provides real-time traffic info and tells you when to leave the house in order to make it to work on time, while apps such as iOnRoad (£free, ionroad.com) use your phone’s camera to peer ahead of your car and work out stopping distances in relation to the car in front, warn you if you drift out of lane or if it looks like there’s a potential collision ahead.

Google GlassThe Big G, as we’ve never called it before, is adding functionality to Glass all the time (probably in the hope of convincing more people it’s worth looking like a part-time cyborg). The latest update adds sound search, meaning you can bypass Shazam and get your clever specs to name that tune instead. YouTube videos now show up in search results and you can take ‘vignettes’ as well as photographs, meaning whatever was on your display will also appear in the screen grab. If that’s not enough to convince you, Zapier – an IFTTT-style trigger ’n’ response web app – has just switched on its Glass support, meaning your specs can connect to over 200 services, including Dropbox, Twitter, Ebay and Pocket, and create useful automation rules.£tba (due 2014) / google.com

IN YOUR HAND

ANDROID MOBILES

Alternatively...

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THE WORLD’S FIRST 4K-SHOOTING PHONE, AND THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE KITKAT OS 4.4 ITERATION. YEP, ANDROID GOT IT GOING ON

WHAT’S COMING IN ANDROID KITKAT?Key Lime Pie is dead! Long live Android KitKat! In one of the more bizarre brand tie-ups of recent times, the next

version of Google’s OS will take its name from everybody’s favourite four-fingered chocolate snack. What changes we’ll see in version 4.4 is almost as closely guarded as the announcement was – unlike the

iPhone 5c, absolutely nothing leaked in the run-up – but with the Nexus 4 celebrating its first birthday this month, the smart money is on KitKat appearing on a new Nexus. Is there time for Apple to change to iOS 7Up?

4K and ‘phablets’Yes, it’s a horrible word but it looks like the phablet is here to stay. Fortunately, they’re getting more awesome by the day. Qualcomm promised it wouldn’t be long before we saw phones beefy enough to shoot 4K video, and Acer just threw itself over the line first, with Samsung’s similarly skilled Galaxy Note 3 a close second. The 6in Liquid S2 (£tba, due October, acer.co.uk) runs on a Snapdragon 800 processor, with 4G, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and a 13MP camera for shooting said 4K footage. Its 6in screen might only be able to show 1080p video, but you haven’t bought that 4K telly yet anyway, have you? (At least not until you’ve read our test on p99.) By then there’ll be plenty more Android phones upping the number of pixels you can push down their camera lenses.

Sony Handycam FDR-AX1It won’t fit in your pocket, but Sony’s latest 4K camcorder is designed for more serious shooting than any phone. It’s Sony’s most affordable 4K cam yet, but given that it costs US$4500, we’re still in cheap-if-you’re-Roman-Abramovich territory.

GOOGLE TAKEOVER

IN YOUR HAND

AND DON’T FORGET...

Alternatively...

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HTC Mini+This accessory handset pairs with your HTC smartphone, picking up notifications and calls without ruining the cut of your jib, or interrupting the LOLtubez you’re watching. Has a laser pointer, too.

Nexus 7Google’s own tablet is the only one that realistically challenges the iPad and its Mini companion. The latest version of the 7, with its 1080p screen and slimmer chassis, is no different. It’ll sell like hot cakes, but last longer.

Chrome OSThis stripped-back operating system hasn’t exactly worried Windows or Mac OS for laptop supremacy but its lightweight, web-only approach makes it perfect for cheap netbook 2.0s with a robust data connection.

Chrome BrowserGoogle’s own web browser is the perfect, slick antitote to the woeful Internet Explorer and iffy Safari. Get it on your computer, phone and tablet to totally sync your bookmarks and browsing across all devices.

Rise of the smart cameraSamsung and Nikon have installed Android on cameras before but the Galaxy NX (£1300, samsung.com) is the first to combine a phone OS with semi-serious, lens-swapping skills – and it certainly won’t be the last. Rather than playing Worms while you take breaks from papping, it enables you to install editing apps, so you can spruce up your snaps on the back of the camera. Plus, a slot for a 4G SIM card means you can upload them to Dropbox or Flickr and share them on social media straight away. With O2, Three et al

about to launch their own faster tariffs and with powerful processors getting cheaper, it’s not just phones that will be taking advantage of 4G.

NOKIA 1020There are better phones and better cameras, but Nokia’s 41MP 1020 is the best combination of the two we’ve ever seen, with enough pixels that you can crop to make up for the lack of zoom. Just a shame it runs Windows Phone 8.

IN YOUR HAND

ESSENTIALNEXUS 7 APPS

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THE NEW NEXUS 7 IS ALREADY OUR FAVOURITE ANDROID TABLET, BUT THESE APPS WILL MAKE IT BETTER STILL. IN FACT, THEY’LL IMPROVE ANY ANDROID TAB

Gyro £freeIt’s just a circle split into coloured segments. There are little dots coming in from the edges of the screen, and you must rotate the circle to match the colour of the incoming dots. Easy, right? Easy, wrong. Give it 30 minutes, and we guarantee that you’ll try bending your new Nexus 7 as you contort yourself to move that circle fast enough.

Netflix £6/monthThe new Nexus 7 is the first tablet to stream from Netflix in 1080p – and considering it’s got the highest-resolution screen ever seen on a tablet, you should probably put it to the test. It’s not as good as Lovefilm for movies, but for TV series it’s streets ahead, plus you can stop watching on one gadget and pick up exactly where you left off on another.

TabletTalk £1.93Getting tired of having to switch back to your phone to answer calls and texts? TabletTalk delivers calls and text messages to your tablet’s screen via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and allows you to reply without reaching for your phone. You’ll need a headset to make calls but chances are you’ll be at home, so nobody will see you anyway.

DynamicNotifications £free Motorola’s Moto X might not be destined for the UK any time soon but this app adds one of its neatest features to any phone or tablet running stock Android 4.3. Rather than just an anonymous notification light, it pushes specific icons to your home screen, so you can decide whether or not they need immediate action.

Google Music All Access £10/monthWith the 7’s capacity maxing out at 32GB you’ll need to be fairly thrifty when it comes to media storage. Music All Access enables you to free up some space by streaming from its 20m-strong catalogue, plus you can upload a whopping 20,000 of your own songs to access from anywhere with an internet connection.

YouTube £freeIf you’ve splashed out on Google’s USB stick-sized Chromecast streamer, the YouTube app is an essential install, enabling you to zap clips from your phone to the telly. If not, the new picture-in-picture feature makes this new version of the app roughly 4 million times more usable than the last one, turning YouTube into the time vacuum it should be.

Feedly £freeAfter Google euthanised Reader, most people have chosen Feedly as its replacement. Prettier and more useful, Feedly has even introduced a Pro version (US$45/year), which adds integration with Evernote and Pocket. There are four different reading experiences: we reckon the magazine view is perfect for the Nexus 7’s screen.

TIP! GOOGLE HAS RECENTLY LAUNCHED ANDROID DEVICE MANAGER TO HELP FIND LOST OR STOLEN PHONES AND TABLETS. LOGIN TO YOUR DEVICE ACCOUNT VIA A WEB BROWSER AND YOU CAN RING, WIPE OR PINPOINT YOUR PRIDE AND JOY, DEPENDING ON HOW CONFIDENT YOU ARE OF EVER SEEING IT AGAIN

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5s, but i

t did

n’t phase th

e 5 e

ither

It tu

rns o

ut the p

hoto a

pp is g

reat f

or

rem

emberin

g forg

otten p

ress tr

ips

I shall n

ever again

record

a v

ideo o

f

anythin

g with

out usin

g slow

motio

n

It’s ta

ken just 2

0 seconds to scan

my th

umb fo

r use w

ith To

uch ID

The spindly

new

fonts

are

pre

tty,

but they’re

not a

s readable

as b

efore

Tony H

organ’s so addicte

d to A

irDro

p

he keeps sending m

e random

stuff

Apple’s ow

n case is n

icely m

ade,

but not a

ll that p

rem

ium

or p

rett

y

24 hours with the 5s

GoodMehEvil

1mins 3mins 15mins 30mins 1hr 90mins 4hrs 4hrs20 6hrs 6hrs10

£550 / apple.com/uk

I still own an iPhone 5, but I have to admit that with every new flagship Android launch

I get a little closer to jumping ship. What I need is for Apple to produce something revolutionary, to prove that it’s still the innovator that first made the smartphone and tablet indispensible.

On paper the iPhone 5s is not what I was hoping for. Short of an optional (and decidedly divisive) gold finish it looks the same as the previous model, and promises of more power and a better camera – while welcome – don’t exactly set the heart racing.

But let’s not forget that the iPhone 5 was already arguably the best-looking phone around, and inarguably the best made. The big frustration was how far iOS had fallen behind Android, so perhaps the most exciting aspect of the 5s is the bundling of that extra power with iOS 7, an OS that’s emerged from the clean slate of Apple’s heir-apparent, Jony Ive.

I’ll also admit to my techy tastebuds being tickled by the idea of the fingerprint sensor. But is it just a gimmick? And is there enough within the familiar exterior to put the iPhone back on the top spot? Let’s find out…

It’s got 64-bit power and a spanking new OS, but Tom Parsons isn’t convinced the 5s can beat Android’s best

71

4

3

5

RINGING THE CHANGES

5 Battery Apple’s claims for the iPhone 5s’ battery are decidedly modest – up from 8hrs of talk time to 10hrs – and getting a full day of intensive use can still be a struggle, despite the more efficient M7 coprocessor that’s designed to handle some of the more mundane tasks so the A7 doesn’t have to.

4 Camera 8MP is nothing these days, but the 5s’ sensor is 15% bigger to let in more light. Snaps aren’t as punchy and vibrant as they could be, though. The True Tone flash does a brilliant job of ensuring skin tones and colours emerge accurately from the gloom, and burst mode is fantastically fast.

3 Power Thought Apple was stuck in the past? Well the 5s is the world’s first 64-bit phone. What difference does that make? Right now, very little. It powers the camera’s burst and slo-mo modes, but the iPhone 5 was already lag-free. Games that make use of the new chip will come soon, though.

1 Build The iPhone 5 was an exceptional piece of design and the 5s is just as slim, light, and easy to scratch. The lightly concave home button is now flat and ringed by stainless steel, but that’s about the only change. Well, other than the gold version, which I like more than I expected but wouldn’t dare buy.

Apple’s iOS has looked increasingly fusty with the arrival of each new version of Android, but the fresh-faced iOS 7 is full of goodies

Q Give it the fingerNo, not like that. Spend a minute going through a finger-scanning process and you’ll be able to unlock your phone and make iTunes purchases with the power of a single digit. It’s quick, secure, and hopefully just the start of a whole series of shortcuts.

Q Personal assistanceNotification Centre’s new Today page gives you all the info you need for another day on Earth. In truth it’s like Google Now, only less specific and less tailored just to you.

Q Sensory perceptionInside is an M7 coprocessor that constantly tracks your motion. It knows when you’re walking, driving or running and should usher in a whole bunch of new, more autonomous, sports apps.

Q Anti-NFCThere’s no NFC but the new AirDrop is a very quick way to share almost anything with a nearby iOS 7 user. Meanwhile iBeacons is likely to handle many of NFC’s specialties, including mobile payments.

The initi

al dow

nloadin

g has ta

ken its

toll –

I’m a

lready ru

nning o

n fum

es

Ah, the A

pp Sto

re. S

till A

pple’s b

est

weapon again

st the A

ndroid

hord

es

I’m ta

king p

icture

s of f

ellow

ers

Stuff

in a

dark

ened room

, which fe

els odd

Start

ing to

wonder h

ow I e

ver liv

ed

with

out Com

mand C

entre

It fe

els like iO

S 7 could b

e a b

it of a

grow

er, but w

e’re o

ut of t

ime fo

r now

6.5hrs 7hrs 12hrs 15hrs 24hrs

2 Screen It’s bright and vivid, with outstanding viewing angles and colour reproduction, but this is exactly the same 4in panel offered by the iPhone 5. Its sub-HD resolution has fewer than half the pixels of the LG G2, and even on the smaller screen that equates to a visible loss in density.

Tech specs

STUFF SAYS

OS iOS 7Screen 4in Retina IPS, 1136x640, 326ppiProcessor 64-bit Apple A7 with M7 coprocessorStorage 16/32/64GBCamera 8MP (rear), 1080p@30fps; 1.2MP (front)Connectivity 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, Lightning, Wi-Fi (a/b/g/n)Battery UnspecifiedDimensions123.8x58.6x7.6mm

It’s not enough to reclaim the top spot, but the 5s is still the best iPhone yet★★★★★

72

3

2

FIRST TEST LG G2

THE NEW KING OF ANDROID

Sleek, s

exy and g

reat i

n the h

ands.

Now, w

here’s th

e pow

er butt

on?

…but the d

ouble-ta

p-to-tu

rn-on-

the-phone fe

ature

makes u

p for i

t

Wow

. Photo

s look stu

nning, e

ven in

low

light.

Seriously

impre

ssive snaps

Have now

played fi

ve 3D g

ames o

n

the G

2. Not o

ne slow

ed it d

own

Full HD v

ideos lo

ok am

azing. G

reat

natura

l colo

urs a

nd deep ri

ch bla

cks

Wow

. The scre

en is stu

nning. M

y

eyeballs a

re cla

pping in

appre

ciatio

n

Ah there

it is

, on th

e back. W

hich is

sadly p

lastic

(alb

eit stu

rdy p

lastic

)

It’s slip

perier t

han a Je

llyfis

h covered

in K

Y jelly

. Bett

er be care

ful h

ere

Gaaaah! I ju

st deafe

ned myself.

Keep

hittin

g volum

e butt

on to lo

ck screen…

Not a h

uge fan o

f LG’s O

ptimus U

I 4.0

skin, b

ut it’s

bett

er than To

uchWiz

120 hours with the G2

GoodMehEvil

1mins 2mins 5mins 15mins 1hr 90mins 2hrs 2hrs10 4hrs 7hrs

£470 / lg.com

To be perfectly blunt, LG’s past smartphone efforts have always left me underwhelmed.

Well, other than the Nexus 4, and as that doesn’t bear the LG name it doesn’t count. That’s all changed now. With a spec sheet that any true Android fan would sell their gold-plated grandmother for, plus an intriguing design, the G2 has got my gadget senses tingling.

That’s just as well given the competition it faces. The HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Sony Xperia Z have raised the smartphone bar to exospheric heights this year, so for the G2 to stand out LG was going to have to take a few risks. And that’s exactly what it’s done with the design, shifting the power and volume buttons to the back of the device. Crazy, but it might just work…

Elsewhere, things are more conventional – well conventional if you’re one of the highest-spec phones on the planet. The G2 has a 5.2in full HD screen, 13MP camera and massive 3000mAh battery, plus a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor – which makes it the most powerful Android device ever. For a few weeks. So it’s a genuine contender on paper at least. Let’s see how it gets on in the real world.

@esatdedezade

You can forget your HTC Ones and Galaxy S4s, says Esat Dedezade – LG’s power-crazy G2 is the best Android ever

73

4

1

5

SKINNED FOR THE WIN

5 Battery Often the Achilles heel of the modern phone, we’re happy to report that the G2 delivers battery life in spades, serving up 19 hours of real-world use on a single charge. Its huge 3000mAh battery is sadly non-removeable, but with enough juice to rival the Duracell Bunny, we’re happy to let that little niggle slide.

4 Camera The 13MP camera produces wonderfully detailed snaps in good light, while Optical Image Stabilisation helps it take low-light shots that wipe the floor with the Galaxy S4’s 13MP offering. Full HD 1080P video at 60p is the icing on an already mouth-watering cake.

3 Power The G2 packs the smartphone equivalent of a nuclear warhead. Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU is an absolute beast, and the G2 runs Android without a hitch. Even the highest of high-end 3D games don’t slow it down – and believe me, I really tried to trip it up.

1 Build LG’s taken a gamble by moving the power and volume buttons to the back of the device to reduce the screen’s bezel. It takes some getting used to, but after a day or two my fingers knew what to do. The plastic back is a bit bland, but I was too busy caressing the sleek and sexy front to care.

Samsung has TouchWiz, HTC has Sense and LG has… Optimus UI 4.0. Catchy! So what treats does the G2 have under its skin?

Q Knock KnockThe G2’s screen detects touch input even when it’s off. A quick double-tap is all it takes to turn it on, with the same action on the Home screen turning it back off. All of which helps make up for the odd placement of the power button.

Q Guest Mode No longer will little Tammy rack up £1000 from in-app purchases – with Guest Mode you can pre-select the apps and media that others have access to, complete with custom lock-screen.

Q RemoteThe G2’s combination of built-in IR blaster and remote app means you can ditch the sofa clutter at long last. The G2 can even learn from existing remotes if you can’t find the right preset option.

Q QSlideA multitasker’s best friend, Qslide lets you overlay widgets such as a calculator and notepad on top of any active app, a bit like Dashboard on Mac OSX. Very handy for note taking. Or doodling when you should be working.

…but it c

an ‘learn

’ fro

m m

y existing

rem

ote. S

o it d

oes work

afte

r all

Got this p

ower b

utton th

ing d

own

now. N

o more

volum

e hiccups fo

r me

Never thought w

e’d see 2

4-bit audio

on a p

hone. Music sounds a

mazin

g

Bah. My te

levisio

n doesn’t

work

with

the R

emote

app…

I have to

giv

e it b

ack alre

ady? But

we’v

e only

just m

et. I’m

in lo

ve!

12hr 12.5hrs 22hrs 23hrs 120hrs

2 Screen The G2’s 5.2in full HD display is stunning. Videos and text are crystal clear, colours are vibrant (but not over-saturated) and it’s bright enough to punch through sunlight with ease. Coupled with deep blacks and true whites, it’s one of the best mobile screens I’ve seen.

Tech specs

OS Android 4.2.2Screen 5.2in IPS, 1920x1080, 423ppiProcessor Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 @ 2.26GHzRAM 2GBStorage 16/32GBCamera 13MP (rear), 1080p@60fps; 2MP (front)Connectivity 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, USB2.0, Wi-Fi (a/b/g/n)Battery 3000mAhDimensions138.5x70.9x9.1mm

STUFF SAYSFrom superb screen to stellar battery life, the G2 is close to flawless+++++

FORM

SCREEN

POWER

CAMERA

OS

VS

STUFF SAYS+++++ +++++

i P H O N E 5 S v s LG G 2

LG G2Apple iPhone 5s

75

[ W

ord

s T

om

Pa

rso

ns

]

TESTWINNER

New 64-bit architecture and a healthy 2GB of RAM could theoretically make the 5s supremely powerful but, like the advent of 64-bit desktop computers, there’s no software yet that really makes use of its potential. That said, it flies.

Ignore the 8MP rating, as the increased sensor size and bigger pixels result in impressive photos. Realism is favoured over

punch, so daylight pics can look a bit subdued, but the True Tone flash and easy 120fps-enabled slo-mo mode are great.

Apple had some catching up to do with iOS 7. While it’s a far more stylish and welcoming interface, it still lacks the

customisability, individuality and sense of life that Android now has. But for quantity and quality of apps, iOS is still king.

On paper, an AnTuTu Benchmark score of 34,191 makes this the fastest phone we’ve ever tested. Reality doesn’t disagree – this is a very smooth Android experience with not a stutter to be found, even when floating widgets on top of video apps.

The flash and image stabilisation are weaker here, but the LG’s 13MP snapper captures more dynamic and more detailed snaps in most circumstances. The lack of a physical button makes it marginally less satisfying in actual use, though.

Google Now is what Apple’s new Today feature wishes it was, and live widgets are as useful as they are energising. LG’s skin might be a bit bloaty but it’s also got some useful features, and if you don’t like it you can simply switch to a new one.

A Retina display was once a marvel, but in the glare of full HD smartphones, 1136x640 no longer cuts it. Even though the screen is just 4in, it’s noticeably pixelly. Natural colours and

almost-flawless viewing angles are some compensation.

It’s 5.2in, full HD and flaming fantastic. 423ppi isn’t the highest pixel density out there but it easily out-pixels the iPhone 5s. Looking at stills, the G2’s a touch warmer than neutral in the colours, but feed it some 1080p video and it stuns.

The HTC One was the only Android phone that ever got close to the iPhone 5 on build or styling, so the 5s is still the winner here. It’s a meticulous slab of slick design, and the fact that it

feels smaller than trendier smartphones is actually quite nice.

Your early days with the G2 will involve plenty of fumbling around the back for the unusually placed power button. But you’ll soon forget you ever thought it strange, and otherwise the phone is ergonomically sound and solid, though plastic.

iOS 7 is a step foward for Apple, but Android remains on top with the G2 as its new champion

The G2’s the new golden boy of Android, but can it best the gold 5s?

AT E ST

77A...taxi cabbers GetTaxi

...booze trackersChange4Life DrinksTracker

...movie triviaMovie Triangles

...Droid boardersSwiftKey Keyboard

App:roved

Stuff-certified apps for...

Kabbee DrinkControl Enscripted Swype Keyboard

Also consider... Also consider... Also consider... Also consider...

There are few things more annoying than watching taxi lights blink off as you stand on a cold pavement with your arm in the air. So don’t bother. GetTaxi enables you to summon one from the warmth of the pub, with an in-app map showing your cab’s progress towards you (plus a picture of the driver), so you can relax and finish your drink while you wait. You can pay via the app, so there’s no need to take a detour via a cashpoint, and it’ll send a receipt to your inbox so you can cheekily attempt to claim it back on expenses.

£free / iOS, Android, BB10Stuff says +++++

OK, OK, so it looks like an alcohol app for toddlers – but you’d be surprised how helpful big coloured icons can be when tracking a drinking session in real time. With tips to keep your units in check, a colour-coded timeline graph and sliders to choose measures, strengths and types of tipple, it’s got everything you need to track your boozing. Combine it with a blood alcohol calculator app to see how long it’ll be until you’re sober enough to drive. Clue: stop drinking and it decreases.

£free / iOS, Android Stuff says +++++

This Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon-style app may look basic, but give it a go and you’ll soon be glued to your iPad screen. The object is to rearrange triangles within a grid so that the actor and film names within it match up – which sounds simple, but in practice is anything but. Sure, there are tons of other movie quiz apps out there from the likes of IMDb, but this one a) doesn’t feel like work and b) is weirdly satisfying when completed. And no, there’s not a single annoying pop-up ad from the Baconator himself. £free / iOS Stuff says +++++

An obvious choice maybe, but SwiftKey takes touchscreen keyboards to unreal extremes. Blindingly fast spelling corrections, customisable themes and just the right haptics are all plus points, as is SwiftKey Flow – its own version of Swype. If you’re willing to let it, SwiftKey will also ‘learn’ from your Facebook, Twitter, blogging and SMS writing styles to personalise predictions in up to three languages at once. A new version, currently in Beta, brings a host of cloud-based features including the ability to sync across devices.

£2.99 / AndroidStuff says +++++

This app shuns black cabs to find the best local taxi deals. It’s quick to find pick-up locations and gives both the cheapest and closest quote, with options for ASAP or specific times. It’s currently London-only, but look out for the incoming, nationwide, Tap-a-Cab.

£free / iOS, Android Stuff says +++++

DrinkControl looks a little staid by comparison, but it’s just as simple and effective. With a smartphone-style calendar and statistics on money spent, it throws in weekly ‘trends’ and encouraging messages. Now, is it time for a cognac or a port?

from £free / iOS, Android Stuff says ++++,

This is hard. Really hard. And only the most devoted cinema fans will get anywhere. Enscripted gives you scrambled movie quotes (and the titles), from the last 30 years, to solve. By swapping one letter at a time. One new quote a day has you coming back for more.

£1.49 / iOSStuff says +++++

SwiftKey’s got the predictions sewn up, but Swype is still one of the quickest keyboards once you learn its shortcuts. We’re big fans of being able to change the case of a word we’ve just typed, and with dictation from Dragon also chucked in, it’s a solid alternative.

£0.65 / Android Stuff says +++++

78

Roku LT

Google Chromecast

Google Chromecast Now TV Box Roku LT

Now TV Box

G R O U P T E ST

3 OF THE BEST

What to watch

[ W

ord

s C

ed

Yu

en

]

What’s on?A tiny box with a lot of apps, including Netflix, Now TV and BBC iPlayer. Spotify recently joined the party, and others are being added all the time. We’re holding our breath for 4oD and Lovefilm. Meanwhile, the Plex app lets you stream audiovisual goodies from your own server. It’s a doddle to set up: plug in the power and HDMI cable, connect to your Wi-Fi, and you’re ready to, ahem, Roku.

Smarty or pants?It’s a joy to use. The interface is clean, the remote is simple, and there’s an app that gives you full keyboard input. Picture quality is alright, but it maxes out at 720p; if you want full HD, you’ll need the new Roku 1, Roku 2 or Roku 3. Despite a few strange offerings – The Ringtone Channel? – the choice of apps is great. And although I did suffer a few iPlayer crashes, it’s a fine way to bring your TV into the 21st century.

What’s on?A TV box that’s not a box, Chromecast is instead a USB stick-sized dongle. Plugged into your TV’s HDMI port, it streams or ‘casts’ one of four things: Netflix, YouTube, Google Play videos and Chrome browser tabs. Sadly, it can’t draw power from HDMI, so you’ll need to plug in a USB cable – not the neatest of solutions, but it’s so small that I soon forget all about it. It’s also US-only, but should reach the UK soon.

Smarty or pants?Your computer or smartphone acts as a remote, telling the Chromecast what to stream from the internet. As such, the quality depends on your connection. Videos run smoothly and come in full HD where possible. YouTube cat clips are unsurprisingly fuzzy on average, but The Hobbit looks great on Netflix. Chrome browser casting is only alright, but then it’s still in beta. So in summary, it’s all lovely, but also a bit limited.

What’s on?A basic version of the Roku LT, rebranded by Sky, it’s got fewer apps, but is £25 cheaper. The highlight is the Now TV app, which offers Sky Sports and Sky Movies without a satellite dish and subscription. You can get 24-hour sport passes for £10, or a month of movies for £15. You’ll also find the main offerings from the Roku store, such as Spotify and BBC iPlayer. Unsurprisingly, there’s no Netflix though.

Smarty or pants?If you’re only after movies and sport, this is a great way to get them. Sky’s selection of films is good, with many titles available a full 12 months before they make an appearance on Netflix or Lovefilm. The sports pass is a neat idea, especially if you split the cost with mates. Like the Roku LT, the picture is maxed out at 720p. And there’s no remote app. But did we mention it’s only a tenner?

Breaking BadIf you’re not already a fan, now’s a great time to start. Each episode was available on Netflix just six hours after US broadcast.

Premier League footballThe ideal way to catch those few unmissable games without the cost and hassle of subscribing to a dish package.

An American Werewolf In London Netflix and Now TV get you the best stuff, but free services such as Crackle occasionally turn up classics such as this.

Forget the listings. These days it’s all about video on demand. Make TV bend to your every viewing whim – for as little as a tenner

STUFF SAYS +++++

A tiny box of goodies to instantly make your TV smarter

STUFF SAYS ++++,

This brilliant little stick does everything it’s told to, but we want more stuffSTUFF SAYS +++++

Not the greatest range of content but it has the best pound:punch ratio

Price £35 / roku.com/uk

Price US$35 / google.com/chromecast Price £10 / nowtv.com

BUDGET STREAMERS

79

G R O U P T E ST

TEST

WIN

NER

BEST FOR… A BIT OF

EVERYTHING

BEST FOR… GOING

GOOGLE

BEST FOR… ULTRA-LOW

COST

81

T E ST

An appcessory camera that uses two opposing lenses to take spherical photos… No, we didn't see that coming either. Fraser Macdonald gives it a whirl

360º visionAt first it appears to be a grainy still image. But with a swipe you can spin right round, and up and down! But not up and over in a penguin-toppling way. Look up: you can see the ceiling behind you. But to see all of it, you have to spin 180º and look down again.

Circular thinkingZoom right out and you can see the donut of space that is your image. You can see that it is two hemispheres made into a sphere, and you can see the join. In some of our images, the two lenses seem to have made different exposure decisions. Not ideal.

Q There are two identical camera lenses on either face of the Theta. Ricoh hasn’t released lens details, but clearly they’re both near-as-dammit 180º fisheye wide-anglers, and they’re protected by convex glass. Hopefully scratch-resistant glass, because the device sits on them when you put it down.

Q On one face there’s a shutter button; on t’other there’s nowt. One side has power and Wi-Fi buttons; on t’other, nowt again. The bottom has a tripod mount and microUSB port for charging and wired transfer, while the 4GB of memory inside will hold roughly 1200 images.

Q Press the shutter button, and what happens? It goes ‘meep’ and stores a spherical image (created by stitching together two fisheye hemispheres) in its internal memory. This is not the fun way to play with the Theta…

Q …the fun way to play with the Theta is to connect it to the iOS app, then see your image appear on your iThing’s screen. Or, more usefully, you can have the Theta anywhere within Wi-Fi range and hit the app’s shutter button. Once you’ve taken a photo, you can swipe around it at will (see panel) or share it to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Microsoft Photosynth, via Ricoh’s own theta360.com site.

Q What next? Why, take another one! That’s all the Theta does. And tremendous fun though it is, for £330 that’s not really enough.

Price £330 / theta360.com

In a technosphere where almost everything is a smartphone, or an app on a smartphone, the Theta arrived in the office and soon drew a crowd, just for being new and different. But for all of its ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’, no-one would agree to pay £330 for it. There are decent compacts with panormama stitching modes that still seem clever, and there are a plethora of apps – yep, them again – that offer photo trickery for less than £3.

So what am I looking at?

The Theta is cool, but it’s not

cool enoughSimon Osborne-Walker

@simon_ow

TESTED RICOH THETA

SPHERICAL ERROR

STUFF SAYS A true ‘gadget’, but the repayments will long outlast the novelty ++,,,

BIKESFrom cargo to ‘crosser’, the Stuff team has put foot to pedal

and hand to ’lebar to test the entire bike spectrum

ST U F F P I C K S

83

The aluminium frame serves up a smooth ride and is the same

one found in its pricier .004 brother,

making this the Sa Calobra range’s

sweet spot.

Hoy Sa Calobra .003

BIKES

My commute is a jumbled mix of potholed roads, cycle lanes and a sprint through Richmond Park,

so I need an all-rounder to boost my Strava rankings. Cut from the same pragmatic cloth as Halford’s Boardman range, this sensible but smart Hoy is the perfect fit. Its carbon fork is on hand to absorb road judder, while the high-quality Shimano components and low riding position could yet propel me to being crowned king of Spankers Hill. All I need now are the somewhat harder to obtain tree-trunk thighs.

Mark Wilsonfeatures editor

£1000 / evanscycles.comStuff says +++++

84

G R O U P T E ST

Customisation options for the

Pitango range from deeper rims to drop handlebars.You can also flip the rear hub to switch from fixie

to freewheel.

Pitango Classic

I’m not one of those trendy types with cheap sunglasses and skinny jeans who rides around

on a fancy fixed-wheel bike. However, a budget bike without gears could be perfect for commuting; maintenance is low and so is the cost of replacement if it gets pinched. Having sat astride the Pitango for a few days, I’m sold. Its components feel a bit cheap, but it’s great looking, fast and fuss-free. All of the things I’m not. But if I’d gone down the high-tech route, I’d have ended up with Fraser’s monstrosity.

Tom Parsonsreviews editor

from £375 / pitangobikes.comStuff says ++++,

85

Suspension forks can handle more

than just mountains. Turning the Lockout

knob limits the shock travel for

sharper road riding and less sponginess.

Charge Cooker

What better for taking on the pothole-ridden UK roads than a 29in-wheeled mountain bike

with a springy steel frame? I also fancy something to take advantage of the nearby South Downs – those big wheels should help gobble up the miles and get extra traction on the hills. I’m old school at heart, so the round steel frame tubes and amber-walled tyres are right up my street, while the RockShox XC 30 fork and SRAM X5 drivetrain keep it riding like a modern mountain machine.

Simon Osborne-walkereditor

£1000 / chargebikes.comStuff says +++++

86

Genesis Croix De Fer

The Avid BB7 disc brakes give massive stopping power – no matter the terrain or conditions. They are

of course also excellent for doing

massive skids.

G R O U P T E ST

I haven’t got space in my flat for an array of different bikes, so I need one that does it all. The

Croix De Fer is that bike. So now when Simon emails about mountain biking, I can reply “See you on the trail!” And when Will D FaceTimes me in his Lycra, it’s *call rejected* – but I can later text: “Sure I’ll do a 100k sportive.” And when Monday morning rolls around, I’m able to weave my way through the traffic to the Stuffbunker. And if I have time left for cyclocrossing or touring, it handles those with ease too.

Ross Preslydeputy art editor

£1150 / genesisbikes.co.ukStuff says +++++

87

G R O U P T E ST

Douze Messenger

The Douze has two wheels, not three, so it’ll lean into corners. However, its length means it has a very

‘relaxed’ turning circle – avoid tight spots and U-turns.

Bikes are versatile things. You can strap on pannier bags and carry a weekly shop. Or bolt on

a child seat and carry a child. Or fix up a trailer and carry the weekly shop and several children. Has anyone got the time to do these things? No. So into the car they jump. The Douze is the solution; it’s the pickup truck of bikes. Throw whatever you like into the cargo area – it’s in front, so you’ll see if he/she/it falls out – and the seven- or eight-speed transmission will keep you rolling when the load gets lardy.

Fraser Macdonaldcontributor

from £1940 / londongreencycles.co.ukStuff says ++++,

88

G R O U P T E ST

Pinarello FP Quattro

The FP Quattro’s lightweight carbon

frame tips the scales at just 1100g (in the 54cm size), which is

about the same as an 11in MacBook Air. No keyboard, though...

I’ve wanted to try a Pinarello since meeting Mark Cavendish last year, just after he won his fourth Tour

de France green jersey on one. The Quattro’s Shimano 105 groupset and R500 wheels are fairly standard items that you’ll find on lesser bikes, but the carbon frame is as light and stiff as a buzzard’s thighbone, and it’s peppered with nice touches such as internal cable routing. It’s low and racy to ride, and it fairly floats up hills. It feels fast, and it is: on my first ride home 12 of 19 Strava segments were personal bests.

Will Dunnnews editor

£2550 / halfords.comStuff says ++++,

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SMALL PCs5 OF THE BEST

Zotac Zbox Nano ID64

Easy inWhip off the

bottom and you can add your own gubbins. There’s

room for two tiny mSATA SSDs with

an adaptor.

Hey, short-stuffLike Sapphire’s PC on the next page, the auto-correct-hating Zbox is supplied without an OS. The rigmarole of installing Windows is compounded by the fact that the computer’s utterly essential Wi-Fi and LAN drivers are supplied on a CD-ROM, so you have to go to the library, sit next to a shifty man who’s trying to hide

whatever he’s looking at, copy them on to a USB stick, then take them home and install them. None of this ticks any of the boxes in the ‘pleasant user experience’ section.

Perfectly formed?Thankfully, this titchy PC performs really well and its Core i5 processor is noticeably snappier than the Core i3s in the other PCs when it

comes to gaming, almost on a par with Sapphire’s AMD-powered fire-breather in fact. Aside from a leg-stretching whirr of the fans when you first turn it on, the Zbox is the quietest we tested too, at just 37 decibels. For something so small, it’s impressive that it includes DisplayPort out as well as HDMI, and Zotac even bungs in a connector for S/PDIF audio. So

despite getting off to a poor start, we ended up liking the Zbox a lot.

Price £375 / zotac.comTech 1.8GHz Core i5 processor k Intel HD 4000 graphics k 4GB DDR3 k 500GB HDD

STUFF SAYS ++++,

A really capable, well featured PC in a really small form factor

Computers are getting smaller by the day. We pick up our magnifying glass and tweezers to examine five of the teeny-weeniest

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G R O U P T E ST

Lenovo IdeaCentre Q190 Intel Next Unit Of Computing DC3217Hey, short-stuffYou can trust in Lenovo to make the most corporate-looking mini PC in the world. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, and we can imagine it fitting in to a living room with a Perspex coffee table and an anodised steel sofa. Whoever designed the front flap needs a serious talking to, though: it’s like something from a 1980s VCR. Don’t ever put it in the same area code as a toddler: they’ll break it off just by being near it. Mind you, you can keep it away from little Sophie’s powerful fingers by VESA-mounting it to the back of a flatscreen TV – there’s a bracket for just such in the box.

Perfectly formed?Inside the uninspiring-looking case it’s business as usual, with a Core i3 processor, but a nice touch is a 1TB hard drive – loads for a wee PC like this. It happily plays 1080p video files, but choppiness abounds when you attempt Unreal-powered gaming on it. Our sound meter said it’s the loudest in our test, coming in at 45 decibels. For something that you want to be unobtrusive, it could well be a deal breaker.

Price £280 / lenovo.comTech 1.4GHz Core i3 processor k 4GB DDR3 RAM k�Intel HD 4000 graphics k 1TB HDD

STUFF SAYS�+++,,

Small and loud, it’s the Prince of PCs. Big hard drive, though

Hey, short-stuffThe tiniest PC in our test is about the size of an upturned ashtray, but that hasn’t stopped Intel’s resident gadget-shrinker packing it with a Core i3 processor and a miraculously small 4in-square motherboard. You’ll have to supply your own memory (DDR3 SO-DIMM) and hard drive (mSATA), but thankfully those friendly chaps at Kingston memory provided us with 16GB of the former and a 120GB variant of the latter. You’ll also have to install your own operating system, so add an extra £80 on to the price for Windows 8. (Or you could get your geek on and install Linux.)

Perfectly formed?Once you’ve inserted the gubbins and connected the supplied external Wi-Fi dongle, the Next Unit Of Computing is a decent little performer. The default HD 4000 graphics ploughed through our Source test, but – as usual – struggled with Unreal Engine 3. Full HD media playback is lag-free, but it lacks a dedicated audio-out port (even for headphones), so you’ll have to make do with your TV’s speakers via HDMI.

Price £250 / intel.comTech 1.4GHz Core i3 processor k�16GB DDR3 RAM k�Intel HD 4000 graphics k�120GB HDD

STUFF SAYS�++++,

Tiny – but you’ll have to shell out extra for the essentials

Remote control

For an extra £45 Lenovo will flog you a

remote keyboard thing, which includes a keyboard and a

trackpad.

Essentials?Our NUC didn’t

come with a power lead, yet the packaging has a sensor that plays

the Intel jingle every time it’s opened.

Priorities, eh?

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G R O U P T E ST

Acer Revo LSapphire Edge VS8

TESTWINNER

Hey, short-stuffThe biggest mini PC in our test is still pretty damn small – think along the size and shape of one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pectorals in 1987. Its muscular looks are toned down by a copper strip, which gives it a hint of steampunk. Why is it bigger than the others? Because it has an optical drive - ours came with a DVD rewriter, but you can spec a Blu-ray drive if you’re feeling futuristic. It ships with a Core i3 processor, 6GB of RAM and up to a 1TB hard drive so there’s room for all your multimedia files. Or are you still watching everything on disc-based media, you maverick?

Perfectly formed?Add a USB TV tuner, sign up to Netflix, plug the optical audio output into your stereo and you’ve got a smashing all-round media centre – although you might decide to throw £100 out for Microsoft Media Center in Windows 8. A VESA mount is provided so you can slap it on the back of your telly. It’ll manage a little light gaming, but it falls over if you push the detail and resolution too much.

Price £300 / acer.co.ukTech 1.8GHz Core i3 Processor k 6GB DDR3 RAM k�Intel HD 4000 graphicsk 750GB HDD

Hey, short-stuffThose crazy fools over at Sapphire have ignored Intel and gone down a darkened alley that leads to AMD: a wise decision because the VS8 came top in our gaming benchmarks, thanks to AMD’s A8 accelerated processing unit plus dedicated HD7600G graphics. While you won’t get a gaming PC level of performance here – fair enough with this size of product – you will be able to play the latest titles at decent frame rates if you drop the detail levels. And it’ll also take up less space, and be quieter, than an Xbox 360. But really, if you want a gaming PC you’re still better off looking elsewhere.

Perfectly formed?The Edge VS8 is another one supplied without an operating system, so you’ll have to get your own and bung it on a USB stick. It’s good if you like Linux, but if you want to have a complete trove of games to play you’ll have to shell out an extra £80 to get a copy of Windows 8. We rather like its angular design and matt finish, even if it does look like something a Terminator would carry his sandwiches around in.

Price £335 / sapphiretech.comTech 1.6GHz AMD APU A8 k 4GB DDR3 RAM k AMD Radeon HD7600HG graphics k 500GB HDD

STUFF SAYS�++++,

The Revo wins plaudits for its media smarts, but more power would be niceSTUFF SAYS�+++++

Sparkling performance, slick design, small footprint… what’s not to like?

HDM-ayeWe wept tears of joy when we saw

Sapphire was the only manufacturer thoughtful

enough to include an HDMI cable

in the box.

DiscoThe Revo L’s

heftiness is down to the inclusion of a DVD

drive, which is not to be underestimated. We’d probably stump up for

the Blu-ray option.

TESTED GAMES

BEYOND:2 SOULS

STUFF SAYS More interactive movie than game, but a thrilling one all the same ++++,

n the roughly ten hours it took me to finish Beyond:

Two Souls, I only very occasionally felt as though I was playing a game. A few days later I’m still not sure if that’s a problem.

The story follows Jodie, who was born connected to a ghostly entity, and tracks her from early experiments, through a stint at the CIA and on to a life on the run. And I’m not spoiling anything there – it plays in a chronological jumble that gives you a taster of most of Jodie’s life within the first hour.

Flitting along the timeline isn’t only a strong storytelling device, it also ensures variation in setting and pace – so you switch from a stealthy sortie behind enemy lines to a Paranormal Activity-style scare-fest with a brief stop for a romantic dinner in between.

Controlling Jodie’s floating friend Aiden (pronounced ‘eye-dun’, to the discomfort of my English ears) provides the most fun, especially when you’re given free rein to cause mayhem. Throwing chairs at a bunch of

teenagers is one of my all-time favourite gaming experiences.

The problem is that these moments are rare. Most of your time will involve minimal interaction – you’ll wander around, investigate objects, occasionally choose a line of dialogue, and tackle fights and other set pieces by flicking the right stick or hammering a button. You are making decisions, but they’re so well hidden that you feel pretty unimportant to the whole thing.

Still, the story is compelling and

is brought to life through superb acting and motion capture. But while you genuinely invest in the characters and plot, a bit of silliness does creep in towards the end. Worse, the love interest is too much of a git to make the romance very convincing.

Beyond is still an effective and affecting experience, and one that I’d recommend to anyone who loved Heavy Rain – but it’s not a game, and it’s not quite a perfect story, either.@tomparsons

I

PS3 / beyondps3.com

94

Quantic Dream follow 2010’s Heavy Rain with another

grown-up tale about love and loss. But, Tom Parsons

wonders, is Beyond actually a game?

95

T E ST

Beyond was inspired by an experience in my personal life. I lost someone I’m really close to. It was totally unexpected and shocking and brutal: one second this person is there and you love her and the next this person is gone, forever. I started writing this game about a girl who had a link with an invisible entity, and the more I wrote, the more I realised I was writing about what I’d experienced.

The script is 2000 pages long, but it’s difficult to say how much of it you’ll play. Different players do very different things, so some will see 70% of what I wrote, some will see 40%. My hope is that whatever path you take it’s consistent, correctly paced, and enjoyable.

There’s no flashing sign when you have to make a choice. Everything is implied, organic. In real life you don’t have a big flashing sign saying ‘do you want to do this, or do you want to do that?’. And this is exactly how the game works.

Writing something interactive is exciting because you become the co-writer with the player. It’s a collaborative work, and it’s more immersive for the player. They’re in the shoes of the main character and they feel what your character feels.

Meet the directorDavid Cage

Got any friends? A multiplayer option lets you control Jodie while they direct Aiden.

Beyond is rated 16, and with reason: it covers adult themes such as suicide and love. Boring!

Xbox 360, PS3, PC / easports.com

FIFA 14

o a cynic each new version of FIFA is little more than a database update. A few

new kits, the latest line-ups and you’ve got a new game. To those people, FIFA 14 will come as a bit of a shock, because it introduces the biggest change to the way the game plays since 360-degree control made its debut in FIFA 10 – namely realistic momentum.

Players now take time to shift direction, especially at speed, meaning there’s more emphasis on anticipation and reading what

your opponent is going to do next. Commit a defender too early and a change of pace or direction from a more nimble forward will leave you chasing shadows.

At first I thought the game had become slow and unresponsive – reaction times have been noticeably reduced – but it results in more scope to change the pace and requires you to react intelligently to what’s going on around you: Where’s the space? Do I need to hold the ball up? And that’s when the new Protect the Ball

function allows stronger players to get their own back on those nippy little soccer ferrets. With the right player it really works, even just to buy yourself a few seconds until support arrives. Pace is still a valuable commodity in attack, but it’s no longer the only approach – as Stuff ’s art editor Alex found out when I put five past him with the mighty Brighton & Hove Albion.

Fluidity and control are still encouraged, and playing the way you’re facing is often the most sensible approach. Keep the ball

moving and you’ll reap the rewards; play a pass slightly behind the receiver and the move is liable to break down. But get it all spot-on and it’s more rewarding than ever.

FIFA 14 won’t suit everyone. It’s more of a simulation than ever before, so if your FIFA habit doesn’t extend beyond post-pub kickabouts, you might want to stick with last year’s game. But for football fans aiming to recreate real-life moments of glory and drama, it’s never been better.@tomwiggins

STUFF SAYS Plenty will love it, but some will find it infuriating. Let’s call it Zlatan +++++

T

TESTED GAMES

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T E ST

A new season, a new FIFA. But, as Tom Wiggins finds out, this one’s different

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THE TIME IS NOW

G R O U P T E ST

You can call it 4K or you can call it Ultra HD, but either way it means millions of pixels. Over 8 million, in fact – that’s four times more than 1080p. Previously the only route to 4K was to

remortgage your house for a £25,000 84in telly, but the big boys of electronics have now launched 65in sets for people who aren’t called Gareth Bale. They’re still expensive and there’s little 4K content out there, but who cares when you’re leading the way to UHD enlightenment?

TEST

WIN

NER

100

G R O U P T E ST

Sony KDL-65X9005A

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Let’s talkabout (tech) specs

Of the four HDMIs, two can handle 4K and one has MHL for mobiles. Even better, the dinky remote’s got NFC for quickly linking and sending

of content from phone to flatscreen.

4KING OUT FOR UHD ON-DEMANDSony’s snappily named FMP-X1 is a server with ten 4K films pre-installed and 2TB of storage for more movies to be downloaded from the company’s own Video Unlimited 4K service. Sadly, it costs US$700 and both service and server are currently US-only.

The storyIt seems there’s Red Bull in the water at Sony HQ, because its new flagship 4K TV has wings. And wings that contain fancy Magnetic Fluid speakers, no less. It makes for a striking design, even if it is an unusually wide one.The 65in, 3840x2160 screen sits in front of an edge LED backlight and boasts tech with names as silly as Triluminos and Motionflow XR 800Hz.

You also get eight ‘Mastered in 4K’ Blu-rays in the box, but sadly they’re not true 4K and the selection includes the new Karate Kid. Still, you also get the full Sony smart TV line-up, including Netflix and Lovefilm.

The actionWith 4K it’s bloomin’ marvellous. Just incredible detail, edges as crisp as a Kettle Chip and colours that make real life look dull. 3D

Blu-rays look better than ever thanks to the 4K resolution delivering full HD 3D with easy-on-the-eyes passive tech, and those speakers are worth the increase in size – no other flatscreen sounds as good. Having to guess 19 of every 20 pixels means standard-def looks pretty ropey, and blacks could be deeper, but feed it the right content and the Sony absolutely pops.

STUFF SAYS ++++, An eye-popping picture with 4K, HD and 3D – and it sounds ace, too

Price £5000 / sony.co.uk

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G R O U P T E ST

Samsung UE65F9000

The evolutionwill be televised

The TV’s processor and inputs all live in the external

One Connect box, and the whole thing can be upgraded at a later date to ensure you

remain at the cutting edge of 4K TV tech.

The storyWe’ve never found need to accuse Samsung of being subtle before, but considering this is a flagship 4K set we’re surprised it hasn’t warranted more of a song and dance, design-wise. It looks good, though, and unlike Sony doesn’t have those big waistline-expanding speakers on each side. Unusually, all the connections are in a wee box that can be

tucked out of sight and can be upgraded if 4K standards change – a nice bit of future-proofing. And as with the Sony, it has all the usual on-demand and smart treats.

The actionSubtlety abounds once more. This is just as detailed as the Sony with 4K, but not quite as bold with its edges or vibrant in its colours. It’s a natural picture, but if you want to

wow your mates, the Sony will do it better. The 3D is of the active variety, and you know the only time you go to watch it you’ll find the batteries in both pairs of bundled glasses are flat. And that’s a shame because 3D movies look good here. As does 1080p and (to a lesser extent) 720p. But avoid standard def – that’s like buying a Ferrari and filling it with blancmange instead of petrol. Messy.

STUFF SAYS ++++, A future-proofed all-rounder, but it doesn’t wow quite like the Sony

Price £5000 / samsung.com/uk

COMMAND AND PONDERThe Samsung’s got voice and gesture control, but it doesn’t recognise swear words, which are what you’ll be hurling at it after it fails to recognise ‘approved’ commands. But the pop-up camera works a treat for Skyping your mum (or anyone else’s mum for that matter).

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WHY 4K IS THE FUTURE OF TV WHY 4K ISN’T THE FUTURE OF TV

STUFF SAYS

WHAT’S NEXT FOR

Joe CoxOnline editor, What Hi-Fi? Sound And VisionThe future’s bright,

the future has 8,294,400 pixels. And I can’t wait. Everything is falling into place, slowly but surely, for our goggle-box experience to be ramped up to the next level: TV, movies, live sport, heck, even gaming. The obstacles for a 4K future are slowly being overcome.

Remember the leap from fuzzy old standard-definition TV to crystal-clear HD? That’s five times the pixels right there. HD to

4K is four times more pixels again. And what do pixels mean? Detail. Get in my TV, 4K.

You may not realise how much more immersive a better picture makes your viewing experience, but trust me – for I’ve seen it – those pixels make all the difference. More information means sharper edges and more detailed pictures, more vivid yet utterly realistic colours and action so immediate you’ll feel you’re part of it. And all from the comfort of your sofa. That sounds like a pretty awesome TV future to me.

Tom ParsonsReviews editor, Stuff I really want to be

excited about 4K, and having seen it I can confirm it looks lovely. But it’s not going to happen, and that’s because it’s just too darn massive. Large parts of the UK are still struggling with 1-2Mbps broadband connections – barely enough for 720p, let alone 4K video that’s about ten times bigger. It’ll be years before our connections have got that sort of speed, so what’s required for 4K

to take off is a good ol’ fashioned disc format. But the fact that Sony and Panasonic have only just announced one and that it’s not expected until 2015 just isn’t good enough – it should have happened before now.

4K will come, but by the time it does we’ll all have moved on to the next thing – 6K, glasses-free 3D or mother-flipping holograms – and all because the television manufacturers were too busy making the screens without bothering to think about what we might actually watch on them.

The lack of actual 4K content looms large over the Sony and Samsung TVs here, but it hasn’t dampened our excitement for Ultra HD. Being an early adopter has always meant

taking a punt, and that’s what buying one of these is. Our sensible head says wait until next year before taking the plunge, but the heart’s still saying we should dive right in.

These Sony and Samsung 4K TVs are only the beginning; there are more Ultra HD TVs incoming. LG, Panasonic, Philips and Toshiba have all announced new 4K TVs that should be out in time for Christmas, while Chinese brands Seiki and TCL have launched sub-US$1000 4K TVs in the States. We can’t vouch for the quality, but it’s obviously encouraging in terms of bringing down screen sizes and prices for those of us with bills to pay.

Next we need content. Sony has launched a 4K Media Player in the US, promising a regular

supply of 4K TV and movies, and access to the first 4K download service – though you’ll need one heck of a network connection for that. Naturally they’re not hanging about in Japan, where 4K broadcasts straight to set-top boxes have already been successfully trialled, with the country promising to make the 2014 World Cup the first 4K football feast.

In the UK? No word from Sony on the Media Player – but the company did shoot 4K video with the BBC at Wimbledon this year, while Sky went one better with a live 4K broadcast

(to Sky HQ) of a recent Premier League match between West Ham and Stoke – no, we’re not sure why they chose that game either.

As for 4K discs, while ‘Mastered in 4K’ Blu-rays are largely a marketing exercise, Sony and Panasonic are jointly developing a next-gen optical disc format with 300GB of storage, ripe for Ultra HD video.

So plans are definitely afoot and the interested parties seem, well, interested. Watching 4K Sky Sports on an affordable 50in TV in 2014? It’s not an impossible dream…

fluid

dyn�ics

105

What could be more British than a cup of tea and a glass of juice? What could be more Stuff than to deliver it with a drop of style and a whole dollop of geekery?

EVA SOLO TEA EGGLooking for all the world like something that should be available in a veterinary catalogue, or possibly Ann Summers, the Tea Egg is an artistic and conversation-starting tea delivery system. Not for you the mass-produced generic tea bag purporting to be from Ceylon, but actually from Lidl. You go to a shop – probably the same shop where you buy unground coffee beans each week – and you choose your tea from big glass jars. You are a child in a leafy sweet shop or Bond picking up his custom blend cigarettes. You are a connoisseur. You are tea-mendous.

£15 / evasolo.com

106

DESIGN

KITCHENAID ARTISAN KETTLEAll this time, you thought of your kettle as a binary object. It isn’t. Let’s examine the processes. Firstly: kettle is present/not present. Simple enough? No, there’s a variable: kettle is present and looks ace. The curvaceous KitchenAid, particularly in this lustrous Candy Apple Red, meets this test. Next: kettle is on/off. Again, the Artisan differs: kettle is on but will turn off at a certain pre-set temperature. Nature abhors binary, and 100ºc water will scald coffee and certain herbal teas. And totally destroy Ribena.

£120 / kitchenaid.co.uk

107

DESIGN

HUROM SLOW JUICERIn fruit circles, they call you ‘indiscriminate killer’. To them, you’re like a lion that rips out the throat of your orangey gazelle, just to then leave the rest for scavengers. Thus it is with manual juicers.The citrusy carcasses remain, with much of the pulp and nutrients still on-board. A blender’s high-speed blades might be fun, but they get hot and kill goodness in your blendee. The Hurom Slow Juicer is more humane. It compresses; it extracts. It gets all the juice and the good stuff. Fruit aren’t fools. They know for why they were bred. But they want to die with dignity… and nutrition.

£395 / ukjuicers.com

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DESIGN

SAGE BY HESTON BLUMENTHAL

THE TEA MAKEROne is heartened to see that this tea

maker comes from a range to which a famously perfectionist foodie has turned

his hand. But one dreads to think what eccentric ingredients found their way into

its stainless steel brewing basket in his lab. No matter; all you need is tea. Green, white, oolong, herbal… this machine

knows them all, and will automatically lower the leaves into the water for

the ideal amount of time. It can also brew at a pre-set time, making it

the world’s fanciest teasmade.

£200 / johnlewis.com

COFFEE? YOU FOREIGN OR SOMETHING?

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DESIGN

GrinderKitchenAid makes a rather nice burr grinder to match your Artisan kettle, but it costs another £220. The Dualit 75015 (£70, dualit.com) uses similar bean-mulching tech but costs less.

Espresso makerOver in Euroland, pretty art students sit on radiators, pulling tighter their blanket and waiting for their sixth Bialetti Moka Express (from £18, anothercoffee.co.uk) serving of the day.

Milk frotherThe brand name Hostess, and the unneccessariosity of its milk frother (£45, debenhams.com) make this delightfully kitsch. Mind you, it also makes damn good hot chocolate.

All-in-oneIn the dark of morning, maybe the last thing you need is separate caffeine peripherals. The Krups EA6930 Falco Picto (£400, hartsofstur.com) will take care of it all, from bean to cup.

ALESSI TEA STRAINERWITH BIRD CAGE

Here’s one for the Terry Gilliam fans among you. Someone comes to your

flat; someone mundane, like an insurance assessor or a Bible salesperson. Ask them

if they’d like a cup of tea. (They’ll say yes. This is Britain.) With a completely straight face and a huge flourish, unveil this caged

strainer from where it was under a sheet in the corner of the room. Bring it to the

coffee table, cooing softly to your ‘little precious’, and serve tea through it – all of

the while keeping strong, deadpan eye contact with your guest. It’s stuff like this

that makes not being at work so much fun.

£70 / johnlewis.com

FUTURE FOOD

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Humans have a food problem – and it’s a lot more serious than dropping a yoghurt in the supermarket. By 2025, the UN predicts that the world population will be 8.1 billion, an increase of nearly a billion. We all need food, and it’s placing a substantial burden on Earth’s resources.

That’s not the only problem. Animal farming is emitting more greenhouse gas than transport. Monocultures, desertification and pollution are all taking their toll. And the World Wildlife Fund reckons that 120 million hectares of natural habitat will become farmland by 2050. Fortunately, science and its sidekick technology could hold the key – but we might have to get used to a few changes on our dinner plates first…

CULTURED MEAT

Meat may not grow on

trees, but it doesn’t have

to grow on animals either.

INSECT PROTEIN BARS

You might think that

eating insects just isn’t

cricket, but really it is.

3D PRINTED FOOD

Made-to-measure ready

meals and printing food in

space: the final frontier?

EDIBLE PACKAGING

Waste not, want not –

thinking outside the box,

and then eating it.

NEW FOODSOURCES

Algae, plant eggs and

meals-by-the-millimetre.

Fancy a Soylent shake?

Unlike video game steak power-ups, food sadly isn't infinite. If we're to avoid a future of cannibalism, we need to look to tech…

112

ARE FAKE BURGERS THE FUTURE?

FUTURE FOOD

YES PROFESSOR MARK POST, MAASTRICHTUNIVERSITY

“In the beginning, for all sorts of practical reasons, we are focusing on processed meat – that will change the perception of processed meat in that it will become a highly regulated and much more environmentally friendly and animal-friendly product.”

NODR MORGAINE GAYE, CURATOR OF FUTUREFEST GASTRODOME

“Loads of people are resistant to in-vitro meat – people who aren’t keen on playing god or interfering with nature. But meat prices will double in the next five years, so if people want to keep eating the quantities of meat they’re eating, something has to change.”

CULTURED MEATWhen your research project has the backing of Sergey Brin, you know it’s going places. And Professor Mark Post’s research into lab-grown meat has been funded by the Google founder to the tune of £215,000. This is because, as Post says, “Pigs and cows are very inefficient in converting the vegetable proteins in their food to animal proteins.”

Lab-grown meat will mean fewer resources poured into rearing livestock for meat – although we can’t expect to chow down on in-vitro burgers for at least a decade.

How does it work? Muscle cells are extracted from a cow and cultivated in the lab, where they’re arranged into small myotubes. These contract and bulk up, forming strands of tissue. Around 20,000 strands are required to create a single burger; the first was unveiled at a tasting event in July this year, where it was pronounced “close to meat” by taster and nutrition researcher Hanni Rützler and “like an animal protein cake” by food writer Josh Schonwald. So, some work still to be done, then.culturedbeef.net

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FUTURE FOOD

NEW FOODSOURCES

ALGAEThis ‘algaculture symbiosis suit’ is just an art installation – but algae’s already making its way into our food. US company Solazyme Roquette Nutritionals is producing Almagine, an ‘algal flour’ which can be used in place of butter, eggs and flour – and which it claims means up to 40% less fat and cholesterol in your diet.solazyme.com

MILLIMEALSSci-fi’s often teasing us with the idea of a meal in a pill. Millimeals puts a new spin on the concept; it’s a set of tearable food strips created by a team of students for the Science Museum in London. You can layer them up to create full meals – and cleverly, Millimeals also lets you measure nutritional value by length, rather than weight.bit.ly/millimeals

PLANT EGGSOne of three companies praised by Bill Gates for its futuristic food, Hampton Creek has picked out the 22 key traits of a hen’s egg and duplicated them with plant-based alternatives. Beyond Eggs won’t be part of your fry-up, but it could replace the entire third of the world’s eggs used in cookies, mayonnaise and muffins.hamptoncreekfoods.com

SOYLENTNo, not the mysterious green wafers used to feed an overpopulated Earth in the 1973 film Soylent Green, but a customisable beige liquid (powder mixed with water) that’s promising to be a new food substitute. Recently tested by several journalists whose only complaint was the bland taste, it’ll be available in the US from December at US$65 for a week’s supply.campaign.soylent.me

THEY SAY...“I’ve always been skeptical of edible packaging. The point of packaging for me is that it protects the food from potentially harmful foreign bodies, stops it getting damaged, etc. I think that it could be a gimmick in a high-end scenario, not spilling off the shelf in Tesco.”Peter Firth, trend forecaster at LS:N Global

EDIBLE PACKAGINGWe’ve all seen excessive packaging in the supermarket – fruit and veg cocooned in layers of polystyrene and cling film for no obvious reason. WikiPearl is a new form of packaging based around edible ‘WikiCells’, a protective membrane made of plant-based material. Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a silly idea – because you’ll need to package the WikiCell too, if you want to eat it (as indeed WikiPearl does, in a biodegradable wrapper). But the real trick is that foodstuffs such as yoghurts, and ice cream can be turned into new types of finger food. And let’s face it, the mango ice cream with coconut skin sounds mighty appetising.wikipearl.com

THEY SAY...“It’s unlikely that we will be able to enjoy a 3D printed veal escalope. The food that gets 3D printed will be more functional and borne of necessity as the world population swells, and traditional modes of food production and distribution are no longer feasible.”Peter Firth, trend forecaster at LS:N Global

3D-PRINTED FOOD IN SPACE3D printing food sounds like a gimmick – hooray, you can make a cheesy puff in the shape of a swan – but NASA is taking it seriously. It’s looking at the possibility of using a 3D printer to make food during deep-space missions, with printers mixing up the ingredients for meals themselves and printing them off using additive manufacturing.The possibilities are intriguing – recipes could be shared on a Thingiverse-style site and downloaded to your printer, or customised to meet your own specific calorific needs based on your BMI and activity. Once cultured beef comes on the market, you could even print your own hamburger in space.bit.ly/nasa3dfood

THEY SAY...“In the 1600s, lobster was considered the vermin of the sea, and no-one wanted anything to do with it. Now people pay top dollar. We think we can eventually get to a point where insects have the same level of high esteem as lobster, crabs and shrimp do now.”Greg Sewitz, co-founder of Exo

INSECT PROTEIN BARS Set aside your squeamishness – according to a UN report, 2 billion people worldwide eat bugs. And entomophagy (the eating of insects) is good for you, too. “Crickets are about 70% protein, and they have more iron than beef, gram for gram – they have a ton of calcium, so they’re super healthy,” says Greg Sewitz of Exo, a company that makes protein bars out of cricket flour. It’s also good for the planet – insect farming uses fewer resources and takes up less space than livestock. Pioneers such as Exo want to get bugs on your plate in the next few years – and designer Katharina Unger has gone a step further, creating Farm 432, an insect breeder for the home (below).www.exo.co

114

GROWING YOUR OWN

COME DINE WITH THESE…

FUTURE FOOD

IN THE GARDENNOURISHMATS

Unleash your inner Alan Titchmarsh with this garden in a mat, packed with 82 pre-planted seedballs and a built-in irrigation system. Roll it out, attach a hose pipe and go write a saucy novel while you wait for your crop to flourish.US$65 / urbnearth.com

IN THE LIVING ROOMAQUAFARM Fertilise your veg using a fish. But don’t grind up Tiddles just yet – this aquaponics tank uses your fishy pal’s waste to feed a crop of plants. In return, your salad leaves freshen up his tank water.US$60 / backtotheroots.com

ON YOUR WINDOWSILLWINDOWFARMSNo garden? That’s no excuse – this vertical hydroponic garden will sit pretty in any window, pumping nutrient-spiked water into a column of plants so you can feast on home-grown foliage.US$200 /windowfarms.com

The future of food isn’t simply about snacking on deep-fried crickets. The way we choose, buy and grow food is ready to go all Jetsons too. How will you get your future food fix?

115

EATING SMARTER

AT THE SUPERMARKET

COMMUTINGEATING OUT

FUTURE FOOD

SWEETGREEN USA

US salad chain Sweetgreen is doing away with credit cards – scan your card into its app, and you can pay by QR code in its restaurants. Spend more and you’ll pick up awards and vouchers. Achievement unlocked: extra salad.sweetgreen.com

LYFE KITCHENS CALIFORNIA

This restaurant uses tech to save energy. Its TurboChef ovens cook with microwaves and 60mph hot air, while combi ovens steam and crisp food at the same time. It even uses dishwashers that recapture the heat from washing.lyfekitchen.com

DONQ BAKERY TOKYO

Unexpected item in bagging area? Not at this Tokyo bakery. This scanner developed by the University of Hyogo uses machine vision to identify tasty baked goods with 98% success and automatically tot up the price.bit.ly/donqbakery

FOODPAIRINGThere is very little that science can’t improve – food included.This website whips up hundreds of inspirational ‘foodpairing trees’ that show you exactly which ingredients work well together. You’ll never have a marshmallow macaroni disaster again.foodpairing.com

BIG BARNSupermarkets aren’t the only online grocery stores out there. This local food website gives individual producers a marketplace where they can trade their wares, selling direct to customers and leapfrogging the supermarket supply chain.bigbarn.co.uk

ULTRAVIOLET SHANGHAI

Fish ’n’ chips with a side of The Beatles, anyone? This multisensory Shanghai restaurant uses 360-degree video walls, surround sound speakers and even scent diffusers in a choreographed performance built around each course. Turn on, tune in – and tuck in.uvbypp.cc

FOOD FACTSThis concept from designer Fabian Kreuzer adds a Minority Report-style interface to the humble supermarket cheese, meat and fish counter. Point at the food and the price will pop up on the glass, while syncing your smartphone to the counter will serve up other useful info, including origin, nutritional info and recipes.bit.ly/smartcounter

PEAPODYou might soon be able to do the weekly shop while waiting for the 18.15 to Chester. These posters, trialled by online US grocer Peapod, put a whole supermarket on a train platform. Shoppers simply scan the barcodes and then wait for the items to arrive at their door. And it’ll be even better when everyone’s wearing Google Glass.bit.ly/peapodshop

2

3

1

1. Maurice Lacroix Pontos S Diver£2200 / mauricelacroix.com

2. Mondaine stop2go£450 / mondaine.com

3. Ball BMW Power Reserve

£3670 / roomofluxury.co.uk

Smartwatch? Pah! If you want a smart wrist,

wrap a marvel of analogue engineering around it

[ Pictures Rowan Fee ]

FASHION

117

2

3

1

4

1. Superdry Field Professional£80 / superdry.com

2. Seiko Astron GPS Solar£2350 / seiko.co.uk

3. Omega Speedmaster ’57£5620 / omegawatches.com

4. Montegrappa NeroUno Chronograph£1575 / montegrappa.co.uk

FASHION

2

1

3

4

119

FASHION

1. Jorg Gray JG8300-24£530 / jorggray.com

2. Corum Admiral’s Cup AC-One 45 Chronograph£6825 / frostoflondon.co.uk

3. Swiss Military Hanowa Navalus£325 / watchshop.com

4. Lambretta Cesare€115 / lambrettawatches.com

3

1

2

4

1. Tissot T-Complications Squelette£1240 / tissot.ch

2. Nite MX10-400TS£280 / nitewatches.com

3. Luminox Scott Cassell Deep Dive£1650 / luminox.com

4. Casio Edifice EQW-A1200RB£650 / edifice-watches.co.uk

FASHION

120

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QUOTE REF M1113P

SIGNATURE

DATE

127

p 128BETA YOURSELF: HOME STUDIOTips and tricks for recording your own voice or sweet music

p 132SUPER GEEK: WEATHER STATIONSYou’ll never look at mackerel sky in the same way

p 135RE-AWESOMISE YOUR XBOX 360Because a console is for life, not just for Christmas

p 137IF NOTHING ELSE, AT LEAST...Download a new body clock, or poster-ise pics

PROJECTSMAKE. DO. UPGRADE.

THE BASICS

PROJECTS | 11.13

128

SOFTWARE

Start with Garageband or Audacity on Windows. Garageband has loads of virtual instruments and synths, while the free Audacity is flexible and easy to use.

Get two-channel apps for Skype interviews. Try Pamela (£27, pamela.biz) for Windows or Call Recorder (US$30, ecamm.com) for Mac.

Upgrade to Cakewalk Sonar. Powerful software for musos, it includes console emulators for tweaking effects and lets you add analogue warmth and other vintage effects.

HOME STUDIOYour iTunes-smashing debut album is ready for recording. Cup your ears to this sound advice from Blue Microphones’ Grammy-winning mixing engineer Phil Magnotti…

Invest in the essentials. A good USB microphone, headphones and a computer will kick you off, but crisp recordings will require a microphone with XLR output, an audio interface, a mixer and some studio monitor speakers.

Soften your surfaces. Hardwood floors, concrete walls, tiles and counter tops are all reflective and bounce sound around a room like Flubber. Use carpet, closed curtains, rounded furniture and open wardrobes to help ‘deaden’ the room. Hang a blanket on the wall behind the vocalist and stand near a wall.

Turn off the fish tank. You need to make sure that background noise is minimal or, ideally, non-existent.

Buy a pop filter. These help to catch these annoying bursts of air that defile your recording. If you don’t have one, angle your vocals to the side of the microphone

Aim high. Bon Iver’s For Emma,

Forever Ago, Bastille’s Bad Blood

and The Rolling Stones’ Exile on

Main St were all recorded outside of studios. Whether you’re podcasting or cutting a homebrew album, you’re in good company.

BETA YOURSELF

11.13 | PROJECTS

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129

LEVELUP WITH...

BUILD A DIY

RECORDING BOOTH

MIC TECHNIQUE PLAYBACK

1 Buy a foam mattress topper from a homeware store, plus an 80L rectangular plastic storage container (ideally wider at the front) with some foam-friendly spray adhesive.

2 Measure your container and cut the foam to fit. Cut a hole in the base section for your microphone and keep any trimmings for filling in gaps later.

3 Now take the container into your garage, spray the inside with adhesive (leaving the hole for your mic) and fix the foam. Doubles as a handy carry case.

Don’t get too close. As you get nearer to the microphone, your audio will become louder and more saturated. Six inches is normally about right.

Choose the right pattern. For a single-person recording, the ‘cardioid’ pattern is a good default choice. ‘Omnidirectional’ will pick up sounds from all around the room, which is great for a chorus or group.

Get your angles right. Most microphones are ‘front address’, but some are ‘side address’ (where the mic capsules face out rather than upward).

Use the right cans. For home recording, closed-back headphones are best as they don’t bleed sound into your microphone.

Buy some monitors. While most speakers give colour to sound (deeper bass or sharper mids), monitors (such as the KRK Rokit series) give you uncoloured sound. This is more accurate for editing.

Go triangular. The playback sweet spot will be when you’re at one of the points in an equilateral triangle, and the monitors are at the other two.

THE BOOK

GUERILLA HOME RECORDING£10 / amazon.co.uk

This anti-jargon guide to

home recording tells you

how to squeeze the best

sound out of limited

equipment, often

delighting in mocking

equipment junkies in the

process. It recommends a

hybrid ‘digital-analogue’

approach and has a handy

chapter on good

songwriting practice.

THE FILM

SOUND CITYUS$10 /

buysoundcitymovie.com

A paean to an analogue

’70s mixing board

doesn’t sound like

great inspiration for

your homebrew digital

projects. But this Dave

Grohl documentary’s

misty-eyed, insightful

portrayal of a pre-digital

LA music studio is a treat

whether you’re recording

on computers, tapes or

wax cylinders.

THE PODCAST

SIMPLY RECORDING£free / itunes.com

Rather than delve too

far into theory and chat

about ‘phase cancellation’,

this monthly podcast

offers light, friendly tips

on home recording for

green musicians and

fledgling bands. Chapters

range from ‘mixing hacks’

to puncturing the myth

that more expensive

gear is always better.

Proof that podcasts rock.

11.13 | PROJECTS

131

HOW TO...

Build your box

from scratch

M y a pre-built

gaming monster

Method 2Method 1

Streamcom F7C

Sharkoon Silent Eagle

AMD A10-6800K

Samsung 840 EVO

BUILD A STEAM BOX

01 Choose your weapon. Building your own PC can be daunting, so you can turn to a company such as PC Specialist (pcspecialist.co.uk) if you’d rather not get your hands all thermal paste-y. Its £950 Vanquish Prodigy MkII isn’t as small or quiet as our cheaper AMD rig, but it’s still about half the size of even a modest desktop tower, so it’s ideal for the living room. It’s got an Intel Haswell processor, a new Nvidia graphics card, an SSD for storage and even water-cooling.

02 Pimp it. The Vanquish only needs a couple of modifications to ready it for living room gaming. Dual-band wireless adaptors cost around £15, and Bluetooth adaptors are less than a fiver. Add the Xbox controller and wireless keyboard for another £65, and you’ll have a PC that’ll last for years, for a little over £1000.

IngredientsO AMD A10-6800K APU

O Gigabyte F2A85XN-WIFI

motherboard

O Corsair Vengeance Red Low

Profile DDR3 8GB memory

O Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD

O Toshiba MQ01ABD100 1TB HDD

O Noctua NH-L9a heatsink

O Streacom F7C Evo case

O Streacom Nano150

power supply

O Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 –

80mm case fan

O Xbox 360 Wireless Controller

For Windows

O Xebec Tech Bluetooth Keyboard

Total price: £765

the motherboard 01 Attach the processor to

APUs combine a processor and a graphics core – perfect for small PCs. Being careful of the A10-6800K’s delicate pins, raise the socket lever, line up the corner arrows, push the chip home and lower the lever. Spread thermal paste on top of the APU.

02 Fit the heatsink Place the heatsink atop

the processor, lined up with the motherboard’s holes. Place the heatsink’s backplate on the underside of the motherboard, and screw to the heatsink. Use Noctua’s low-noise adapter to plug the fan into the motherboard.

03 Install the memory Open the plastic gates on

the memory slots, and push in the DDR3 RAM until the gates snap shut. Locate the board’s corner holes and screw them to the points on the enclosure base.

04 Get connected Slot the power supply

into the 24-pin connector on the motherboard. Then attach the front panel power and USB cables, and install two SATA cables. Finally, screw the fan to the bracket beside the motherboard.

05 Fit your storage The SSD and HDD attach

to a bracket. Install both drives facing upwards, mount the bracket and connect the SATA cables. A slot-loading Blu-ray drive (£110) can be added if you attach one drive underneath instead.

06 Install Windows Download Win 8 and install

the Win 7 USB/DVD Download Tool – despite the name, it’s Win 8-compatible. Use a 4GB USB stick, load the app, and select the Win 8 ISO file. Boot from the USB stick and install to the SSD.

07 Get gaming Install drivers from AMD

and Gigabyte’s websites and update Windows. Then head to steampowered.com and install your games – if you’ve got a Steam account. If not, hit the store, or wait for one of Steam’s ludicrously cheap sales.

With no sign of an official Steam Box, it’s time to create your own next-gen Valve machine. Here’s our guide to building a lounge-friendly box around AMD’s Accelerated Processing Unit (APU)…

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PROJECTS | 11.13

WIRELESS WEATHER CENTRE

NETATMO

132

ULRIKA JONSSON

PRE-1987MICHAEL

FISH

WEATHER STATIONSSUPERGEEK

I’ve never again felt quite the same rush as I did in a field in west Texas in April 2007.

I was standing a few hundred metres from a tornado – a huge and incredibly destructive column of violently rotating air. My companions and I just stood, mouths agape, while penny-sized hail rained down on us from the churning clouds above and the tornado turned a huge tree into matchsticks in seconds. It was nearly impossible to process the sheer power of what I was seeing.

These stormchasing adventures came at the end of

my degree in Meteorology. It’s not the most obvious thing to study, but I became fascinated by weather in geography lessons at school – and by the occasional thunderstorm that erupted over southern England in the early summer. When I was moving out of my parents’ house for the first time, I found a collection of old schoolbooks where I’d meticulously noted down the weather at the time of writing on almost every page.

But enough about me. It’s time for you to become a weather-head too, and here’s

why. For starters, it’s one of those rare sciences that’s not only fascinating and full of mind-blowing facts (for instance did you know that 1800 thunderstorms rage around the world at any one time? Or that the largest snowflake that ever fell was 38cm across?) but also tremendously useful in everyday life. Who wouldn’t find it handy to have their own front-door weather forecast? Plus, of course, the weather is considered a suitable topic of conversation for almost every British social occasion.

The best way to start is to get a weather station of your own, log some observations, then submit them on the Met Office’s crowdsourced Weather Observations Website (see panel). Being aware of what’s normal lets you know when conditions are abnormal, which is when things get interesting. And you don’t have to be Rob McElwee to understand why – all of the below weather stations are suitable for learner meteorologists, and none cost a fortune either. So without further ado, let’s get forecasting.

Maplin’s ‘professional’ station is basic, but delivers plenty of information on wind, rainfall, pressure, temperature and humidity. Erect the instrument pole in your garden, ideally away from buildings and obstacles, and it will wirelessly broadcast readings to the backlit LCD screen in your house. It’s built from sturdy ultraviolet-protected plastic, and after it collects enough data it can begin to forecast future conditions based on pressure tendency. The main drawback to Maplin’s model is that the data can’t be downloaded to a PC – you’ll need to log it manually.

£45 / maplin.co.uk

The Netatmo calls itself an ‘urban’ weather station, designed for the needs of city-dwellers. Its star feature is the way it interacts with Android and iOS devices, delivering information to a bespoke app that also pulls in data from other nearby weather stations. As well as temperature, pressure and humidity, the Netatmo also keeps track of indoor and outdoor air quality, pollution levels and acoustic comfort, indicating good moments to open a window to let in some fresh air. Unfortunately it lacks its own wind or rainfall measurement. Elegant, but a little expensive given those limitations.

£140 / netatmo.com

JARGON BUSTER

Q ANEMOMETER

A device for

measuring wind

speed, often

consisting of three or

four cups that spin

around. High-end

modern versions

track wind with

lasers or ultrasound.

Q MSLP

Mean Sea Level

Pressure is the air

pressure at a weather

station adjusted as if

it were at sea level, so

that forecasters can

track high and low

pressure areas.

Q UTC

Meteorologists log

their observations

in Universal Time

Coordinated, an

updated timezone

that’s like GMT, but

that’s also more

precisely defined.

Q STEVENSON

SCREEN

The name for the

slatted screen that

surrounds most

weather stations. It

lets air flow through,

but stops sunlight

falling directly on

the thermometer.

Duncan Geere explains why getting geeky about the weather is more fun than just complaining about it

11.13 | PROJECTS

DAVIS VANTAGE PR02

THOR, GOD OF THUNDER

133

FURTHER WEATHER GEEKING

Q FORECAST.IOLooking for the best

weather forecast on

the net? Forecast.io

gathers data from

sources including

its own hyperlocal

precipitation

forecasting system in

the UK and USA, and

presents the resulting

forecasts in a clear

and beautiful way.

forecast.io

Q MET OFFICE WEATHER OBSERVATIONS WEBSITEWOW, as it’s known

to the initiated,

enables amateur

meteorologists around

the world to exchange

data. Anyone can

submit observations at

any time, and these are

merged with official

data to improve

forecasts. The

associated discussion

groups are a great way

of finding fellow

weather enthusiasts

near you, while a photo

gallery lets users share

weather images.

wow.metoffice.gov.uk

Q WESTWIND.CH

One of the best stores

of raw meteorological

data in Europe that’s

open for anyone to

use. It’s not remotely

user-friendly and

you’ll need to poke

around a bit to find out

what’s available, but if

you click ‘UKMO’, then

‘UKMO Brack’, you’ll

see the official forecast

charts issued by the

Met Office for the

next five days.

westwind.ch

This is the real deal for amateur meteorologists who want to take their hobby to the next level. The Davis Vantage Pro2 collects data on pressure, indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, rainfall and wind speed and direction. Other sensors can be added, including soil moisture and solar radiation. It delivers its data through a 30-metre cable to a console, where it can be downloaded to a computer; a wireless version is available for £585. That data portability is the biggest strength of the Vantage Pro2 – a true meteorologist will want to analyse their own readings.

£490 / skyview.co.uk

11.13 | PROJECTS

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2

RE-AWESOMISE YOUR XBOX 3605WAYS TO…

135

Turn it into a guitar teacherWhile you can’t make your 360 sprout arms, legs and a brain, you can plug an axe into it and transform yourself from senseless strummer to guitar hero with Rocksmith 2014. It comes with a Brooklyn Electric guitar and includes a session mode which uses a virtual AI band to join in with your jam, making it the next best thing to having Slash sitting in your living room with you. £180 /gear4music.com

Convert it into a portable gaming stationThe Darkmatter kit turns your faithful Xbox 360 into a portable laptop console, complete with built-in 15in, 720p screen, speakers and touch controls. The more you spend, the more you’ll get – including a 3D-printed case and display. Or, if you’re feeling ambitious, spring for the custom Arduino-compatible board and build the rest yourself. from US$75 /kickstarter.com

Give it an insatiable appetiteSoup up your 360’s memory with the Media Hard Drive. With 320GB of space, it should give you more than enough room for all of your movies while still leaving a few GBs free to install and run your games. Faster load times and quieter operation? Sounds good to us. As a bonus, it comes with a pre-loaded copy of LEGO Star Wars III:

The Clone Wars to get you started. £65 / game.co.uk

Transform it into the ultimate media streamerThe 360’s media smarts aren’t just limited to Netflix and Sky. TVersity is a free program which lets you stream almost every video format out there to your 360 from your network-connected PC. It even converts incompatible formats on the fly as it streams. So, less time faffing around and swearing at obscure file formats and more time kicking back and enjoying your shows.£free / tversity.com

Take GTA V car chases to the next levelThrustmaster’s Ferrari Vibration GT Cockpit 458 Italia Edition (great name, guys) puts you in the sort-of driving seat of a Ferrari F458. It’s built around a replica of an F458 wheel and also has two metal pedals plus a 10kg weighted base for extra stability. You’ll soon be mowing down pedestrians and avoiding the fuzz like a true gangster. £190/ dabs.com

The Xbox One might be out this month, but that doesn’t mean your trusty old 360 should be taken out back and shot in its console head. Here are 5 ways to inject new life into your loyal gaming pal

137

IF NOTHING ELSE, AT LEAST...5-MINUTE HACKS

…GIVE YOUR SCREEN A BODY CLOCK

…AUTOMATE YOUR PC OR MAC

…TURN SOCIAL SNAPS INTO POSTERS

11.13 | PROJECTS

8:00 AM 8:00 PM

1

2

3

TUNE IN NEXT MONTH FOR...O Build the ultimate toys O Upgrade your home security using the power of the thingternet O Get better at snowboarding

A screen’s brightness that looks fine during the day can scorch your eyeballs when the sunlight fades. Use these nifty tools to auto-adjust the levels:

O On your PC or Mac, download f.lux (£free, justgetflux.com). In ‘Preferences’, provide your location and adjust the daylight and night lighting to taste.

O On Android, download the Lux Auto Brightness app(£1.98, play.google.com). It adjusts screen glow and colour according to your environment using your phone’s light sensor.

O We don’t recommend jailbreaking your iOS device, but if you’ve already done it, f.lux is available for iThings. Just open Cydia, search for ‘f.lux’ and install.

Your poor fingers are always typing emails or hammering mouse buttons. Give them a rest with an automated script:

O On a PC, go to autohotkey.com and click download. All Macs running Tiger (10.4) or later have the more limited ‘Automator’ baked into them.

O In AutoHotkey, right click and go to ‘New’ then ‘Autohotkey script’. This creates a text file for you to create your automated action. Refer to the ‘Command list’ on AutoHotkey’s site for examples and shortcuts.

O Click ‘Run script’ and your automated action will run in the background. To do the same in Automator, choose ‘Workflow’, drag and drop actions from the library, and press ‘Run’.

Some of your web-based photo galleries (OK, maybe not ‘Blackpool crawl 2009’) deserve to live in the physical world. Set them free with this slick British web app:

O Head to posterista.co.uk and click ‘Let’s get started’. Now spec up your poster, including the size (the smallest is 30x40cm and costs £15; the largest 70x100cm/£44), layout type and background colour.

O Log into Facebook, Instagram or 500px and find the gallery of photos you’d like to fill your poster with. Click ‘Import’ and – if you have a sluggish internet connection – make yourself a cuppa.

O If you want to re-order the snaps, click ‘Shuffle’. Once you’re happy with the arrangement, choose to order a printed poster or download the file to print yourself.

DON’T MISS THE NEXT ISSUE! ON SALE 1 NOV

ooks more like fluoro spaghetti.Or the memory-flavoured jelly bootlaces of the soul. Sour on the outside, sweet within, they indelibly

mark the tongue of our existence with the E-numbered building blocks of our personality. But, nope, that is not what the picture shows. It’s a visual representation of why the human brain is so much smarter than any computer ever built, an infographic that screams to anyone able to discern its significance that skullular splodge simply slays silicon.

You know that ‘skullular’ isn’t a word, right? Well done! You fell into my expositionary trap, by acting just like a computer. The word ‘skullular’ registered a single ‘0’ among a whole gaggle of literary ‘1’s – even if I do say so myself – and instantly the process stopped. That’s what processors do: deal with instructions in sequence. The brain, however, absorbs a huge amount of data continuously and deals with it simultaneously – through its network of neurons and synapses and biological magic. Wouldn’t it be ace if computers could do that?

Isn’t the answer just to get more computers?That doesn’t work, because the aim is to develop causal relationships between things – something humans do all the time, for instance when tracking moving objects or realising the humorous context of an error. DARPA’s SyNAPSE project abandons conventional programming absolutes and instead teaches supercomputers to ‘think’ in a neurosynaptic way. In 2011 IBM researchers created a chip for it, called TrueNorth, and they’ve now worked out how to code it so that it thinks like a brain. Yes, even yours.

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