MAGAZINE EXPRESS

Orange forced to apologise for 3G outage

2012-03-11T03:33:00.002-07:00

Orange forced to apologise for 3G outage

Orange has apologised to its customers after many of them took to Twitter to complain about an outage which left them without 3G access.

The telecoms company has blamed the failure on a change it has made to its network and said that only a small number of users were affected.

“We can confirm that our mobile data network is now fully restored. The issue stemmed from a configuration change made earlier this afternoon," a spokesman said.

"Orange customers who had an existing data session did not lose their connection and were able to continue as normal but a small number experienced issues in making new connections. We would like to apologise to customers who have experienced problems with their data services."

Earlier this week Facebook also had to apologise after the site went down across Europe.

The firm blamed the two-hour blackout on "technical problems", but did not provide details.

Third parties suggested a problem with Facebook's European DNS servers may have been at the root. These machines connect the address "Facebook.com" with the actual content of the website, and during the outage attempts to contact to them as normal received no response.

"Today we experienced technical difficulties causing the site to be unavailable for a number of users in Europe," a Facebook spokesman said.

"The issue has been resolved and everyone should now have access to Facebook. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Orange has not supplied any additional detail about what changes it is making to its network – nor did it reveal which locations were specifically hit.

Customers using T-Mobile, which as half of Everything Everywhere, shares its network with Orange (post the merger of the two companies), do not seem to have been affected.

Facebook rolls out 'interest lists'

2012-03-10T02:07:00.001-08:00

Facebook rolls out 'interest lists'

Facebook has introduced a new tool which allows users to subscribe to 'interests', as well as people's updates, making their news feeds more like 'personalised newspapers'.

Facebook rolls out 'interest lists'. Photo: Alamy

<The new feature means users of the social network can start creating and subscribing to these interest lists – such as recipes or sports teams.

It will roll out to Facebook’s entire 850 million userbase over the next few weeks.

Many technology experts are saying that this Facebook’s latest attempt to usurp Twitter, and create popular topics in real-time, which people can then ‘follow’, in a similar fashion to the microblogging site.

Facebook members will find the ‘interest list’ tab through the home page’s left hand sidebar – and if clicked upon, will reveal a new view entirely comprised of stories from a list's members.

Only a creator of a list can edit it and choose the privacy settings. Users can recommend lists to each other too.

General lists already live include the 2012 Presidential Candidates and several business, style and sports lists – published by Facebook.

Facebook describes the feature as “a new way to keep up with the stuff you care about and tidy up your experience…Interest Lists can help you turn Facebook into your own personalized newspaper”.

This description has led several technology pundits to say the site is also going after personalised social news feed services, such as Flipboard.

By:PC NEWS

Apple iPad still the post-PC flagship

2012-03-10T02:03:00.002-08:00

Apple iPad still the post-PC flagship

Two years after the launch of the first iPad, even a former Microsoft man says we are in the post-PC world.

"Apple has its feet planted firmly in the post-PC future," Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, told those attending the company's iPad event on Wednesday.

Cook was onstage at the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts in San Francisco to launch Apple's new iPad but he was also there to deliver a declaration of intent. The iPad is the standard bearer for a new class of computer, one that is, in Cook's words "more portable, more personal, and dramatically easier to use than any PC has ever been".

Steve Jobs, Apple's late chief executive, compared PCs to trucks - powerful and multi-purpose - and argued that tablets were like cars - less flexible but better suited to everyday tasks. As America became an urban nation, Jobs said, so cars replaced trucks. Now, almost everyone needs a lightweight computer for everyday tasks; a PC is too much power but a tablet is perfect.

Apple would say that, of course. The company is selling not one but three post-PC devices: the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Those products made up 76 per cent of Apple's revenue last year. In the final quarter of 2011 Apple sold 15.4m iPads, no PC manufacturer sold that many computers in the same period.

Ray Ozzie, formerly chief software architect at Microsoft, agrees with Apple's assessment. He told a conference in Seattle this week: "Of course we are in a post-PC world."

PLEASE POST IN YOUR FB'S WALL

2012-02-17T02:08:00.001-08:00

1912–1999

Serbia recaptured Kosovo in 1912 during the Balkan Wars between the Balkan League (Serbia,Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria) against the Ottoman Empire. Serbia lost control of the territory during both of the World Wars. During World War II, Kosovo (except the northern Serbian tip) was given to Albania, which was at that time a colony of Italy. Serbian control was re-established at the end of both wars.

When the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was established after the war, with Serbia as one of its six constituent republics, Kosovo was made an autonomous region of Serbia. The extent of its autonomy varied considerably under the communist Yugoslav system, it expanded its territory in the 1950s, gradually advanced to an autonomous province in the 1960s and since 1971 gained a distinct status of a de facto federal unit, able to veto not only internal Serbian but federal decisions as well. The gradual development of autonomy was instilled by the growth of Albanian nationalism in the province and growing demands for more autonomy and independence, escalating in during the 1960s riots and in 1981.

Western Balkan region in 1942 (during Second World War) compared to 2008

The autonomy of Kosovo was drastically returned to the status predating 1963 in 1989 by the government of President Milošević. Self-government by the province's Albanian majority—now estimated to constitute 90% of Kosovo's population—was ended. In response, the Albanian members of the Kosovo Assembly voted on 2 July 1990 to declare Kosovo an independent state, though this was only recognized by Albania. A state of emergency and harsh new security rules were subsequently imposed by Serbia following mass protests by Kosovo's Albanians. The Albanians established an unofficial "parallel state" to provide education and social services while boycotting or being excluded from Serbian-run government institutions.

Kosovo remained largely peaceful through the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s, although the severity of the Serbian regime in Kosovo was widely criticised by the international community and human rights groups. In 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking Serbian security forces and civilians whom it regarded as "collaborators". The conflict between Serbian and Yugoslav security forces and the KLA insurgents escalated until Kosovo was on the verge of all-out war by the end of 1998. In January 1999, NATO warned that it would intervene militarily if Yugoslavia did not agree to the introduction of an international peacekeeping force and the establishment of a democratic government in Kosovo. Subsequent peace talks failed and from 24 March to 11 June 1999, NATO carried out an extensive bombing campaign against Serbia and Montenegro, including targets in Kosovo itself. The war ended with Milošević agreeing to allow peacekeepers into Kosovo and hand over its governance to the United Nations.

[edit]1999–Present

Further information: Kosovo (UNMIK), Constitutional status of Kosovo, and Kosovo status process

The war ended on 10 June 1999 with the Serbian and Yugoslav governments signing the Kumanovo agreement which agreed to transfer governance of the province to the United Nations. A NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered the province following the Kosovo War, tasked with providing security to the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Before and during the handover of power, an estimated 100,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians, mostly Roma, fled the province for fear of reprisals. In the case of the non-Albanians, the Roma in particular were regarded by many Albanians as having assisted the Serbs during the war. Many left along with the withdrawing Serbian security forces, expressing fears that they would be targeted by returning Albanian refugees and KLA fighters who blamed them for wartime acts of violence. Thousands more were driven out by intimidation, attacks and a wave of crime after the war as KFOR struggled to restore order in the province.

Large numbers of refugees from Kosovo still live in temporary camps and shelters in Serbia proper. In 2002, Serbia and Montenegro reported hosting 277,000 internally displaced people (the vast majority being Serbs and Roma from Kosovo), which included 201,641 persons displaced from Kosovo into Serbia proper, 29,451 displaced from Kosovo into Montenegro, and about 46,000 displaced within Kosovo itself, including 16,000 returning refugees unable to inhabit their original homes.^[6]^[7] Some sources put the figure far lower. In 2004 the European Stability Initiative estimated the number of displaced people as being only 65,000, with 130,000 Serbs remaining in Kosovo, though this would leave a significant proportion of the pre-1999 ethnic Serb population unaccounted-for. The largest concentration of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo is in the north of the province above the Ibar river, but an estimated two-thirds (75,000) of the Serbian population in Kosovo continue to live in the Albanian-dominated south of the province.^[8]

In 17 March 2004, serious unrest in Kosovo led to 19 deaths, and the destruction of a 35 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries in the province, as Albanians started pogroms against the Serbs. Several thousand more Kosovo Serbs have left their homes to seek refuge in Serbia proper or in the Serb-dominated north of Kosovo.

Since the end of the war, Kosovo has been a major source and destination country in the trafficking of women, women forced into prostitution and sexual slavery. The growth in the sex trade industry has been fuelled by NATO forces in Kosovo.^[9]^[10]^[11]

A "Young Europeans" billboard in Pristina

International negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo, as envisaged under UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which ended the Kosovo conflict of 1999. Whilst Serbia's continued sovereignty over Kosovo was recognised by the international community, a clear majority of the province's population sought independence.

The 2008 declaration was a product of failed negotiations concerning the adoption of the Ahtisaari plan, which broke down in the fall of 2007. The plan, prepared by the UN Special Envoy and formerPresident of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, stipulated a sort of supervised independence for Kosovo, without expressly using the word "independence" among its proposals. Under the plan, the Kosovo entity would gain self-governance under the supervision of the European Union, and become obligated to expressly protect its minorities' rights by means of a constitution and a representative government, while this entity would be accorded its own national symbols such as a flag and acoat of arms, and be obligated to carry out border demarcation on the disputed Kosovo-Republic of Macedonia border. The Albanian negotiators supported the Ahtisaari plan essentially in whole, and the plan gained the backing of theEuropean Union and of the United States. However, Serbia and Russia rejected it outright, and no progress was possible on the United Nations front.

Faced with no progress on negotiations in sight, the Kosovars decided to unilaterally proclaim the Republic of Kosovo, obligating themselves in the process to follow the Ahtisaari plan's provisions in full. As of mid-April 2008, this has largely been the case, with the new Republic adopting a constitution written by local and international scholars protecting minority rights and providing for a representative government with guaranteed ethnic representation, which law is to take effect on 15 June 2008. It also adopted some of its national symbols already, including the flag and coat of arms, while work continues on defining the anthem. It has also engaged, albeit with a delay, in the border demarcation talks with Macedonia, initially insisting on being recognized first, but dropping this condition later on.

The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence elicited mixed reaction internationally and a polarized one domestically, the latter along the division of Kosovo Serbs vs. the Kosovo Albanians. Accordingly, effective control in Kosovo has also fractured along these lines.

HAPPY INDEPEDENCE KOSOVO

The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence was adopted on 17 February 2008 by individual members of the Assembly of Kosovo acting in personal capacity and not binding to the Assembly itself. These members of the Assembly, acting as "the democratically elected leaders of the people", unanimously declared Kosovo to be independent from Serbia.^[1]^[2]

It was the second declaration of independence by Kosovo's Albanian-majority political institutions, the first having been proclaimed on 7 September 1990.^[3]

The legality of the declaration, and indeed whether it was an act of the Assembly, was disputed. Serbia sought international validation and support for its stance that the declaration was illegal, and in October 2008 Serbia requested an advisory opinion on the matter from the International Court of Justice.^[4] The Court determined that the declaration of independence was not in violation of international law.^[5]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REPUBLIC OF KOSOVO

2012-02-17T01:15:00.000-08:00

Apple's Tim Cook in line for $378m pay award

2012-01-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

Apple's Tim Cook in line for $378m pay award

Tim Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs as Apple chief executive in August, is in line for almost $378m (£244.6m) in total compensation for 2011, including $376.2m in share awards.

Apple said his salary would rise to $1.4m in 2012 from $900,000.

Steve Jobs traditionally took an annual salary of $1.

Of the $376m in stock options going to Mr Cook, half will vest in 2016 and the other half in 2021, tying him to the company for another ten years.

At current market value, the shares are worth more than $422m.

Facebook adverts now in news feeds

2012-01-11T07:46:00.001-08:00

Facebook adverts now in news feeds

Facebook adverts, known as ‘sponsored stories’, have started appearing in users' news feeds, as the service ramps up its commercial activity.

Users will now see these adverts, which appear in the form of ‘stories’ or posts about a product, in their news feeds labelled as ‘featured’.

Marketers can only pay for these adverts to appear in a user’s feed if the user has already ‘liked’ the page. And the advertiser does not have the option to add its own additional message once the post is live.

Facebook is rolling the initiative out around the world and it has already started in the UK.

‘Sponsored stories’ have annoyed certain users and Facebook is currently facing a legal challenge by a group of members who are unhappy about their profiles being used in adverts. Currently if a Facebook user clicks the ‘like’ button on a brand’s page on the site, the social network can use the image and name of that person in an advert endorsing the same company.

A US court, which previously refused to progress a case of several disgruntled Facebook members who were angered by this process, overturned its decision last month.

2012-01-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

CES 2012: Intel announces first smartphones with Lenovo and Motorola

The long-awaited confirmation of Intel’s first mobile phones came at CES, as Lenovo and Motorola confirmed they were working with the chipmaker.

Lenovo’s K800 will launch in China in the second quarter of this year, while Motorola will gain regulatory approval in the summer and launch in the following months across Europe and America.The announcements mark Intel’s first tangible bid to challenge the smartphone dominance of British company Arm, whose chips power many of the world’s most popular phones. The rapidly expanding mobile market will, Intel hopes, complement its new laptops and other devices.

Paul Ottelini, the company’s chief executive, said the relationship with Lenovo was “just the beginning”, as he also announced “Intel reference designs” for phones and tablets. These emphasise improved battery life, while also keeping standard features such as a camera of up to 16MP and rapid web browsing and graphics capabilities. One Intel spokesman described the Android products as “fully buzzword compliant”. Existing software will not need to be rewritten for the new devices, which the company also demonstrated taking 10 pictures in less than a second. It hopes manufacturers will use them to build new devices of their own.

Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said that the multi-year deal would see “the best of Intel products’ in Motorola handsets and tablets.

Mr Ottelini also showcased the new Dell XPS 13 laptop, one of many new sim and light “ultrabooks” to launch at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). He also offered further demonstrations of “concept” ultrabooks using a touchscreen interface or which can transform easily from tablets to laptops. He said this offered the best of both form-factors and was made possible by Intel’s new chips. “It’s about the device adapting to us not the other way round”, he claimed.

Google and Twitter clash over search results

2012-01-11T07:44:00.001-08:00

Google and Twitter clash over search results

Twitter has clashed publicly with Google over changes to the dominant web search engine that promote Google+, its own social network.

Announced on Tuesday, Google's “Your World” update means users will see more links to Google+ when they search the web, including in part of the results page usually set aside for advertising.

It is the latest example of Google promoting its secondary services via search, a practice currently under investigation by European competition authorities for alleged monopoly abuses.

“You can find relevant Google+ posts from friends talking about an amazing trip they just took, whether they’ve shared privately with you or publicly,” Google said in a blog post.

"Starting today, if you search for a topic like [music] or [baseball], you might see prominent people who frequently discuss this topic on Google+ appearing on the right-hand side of the results page."

The move angered Twitter. Its most senior lawyer, Alex Macgillivray, branded Tuesday a “bad day for the internet” and accused Google of “warping” search.

The march of technological progress doesn't create jobs: it destroys them

2012-01-10T05:08:00.001-08:00

Twitter has been valued at $8bn, but only employs 650 people

On November 4th last year, the Prime Minister spoke about the internet startup hub that has grown up in Shoreditch, known as "Silicon Roundabout" and more recently co-opted by the government under the name of "Tech City":

The world of business is changing at an astonishing rate. Insurgent companies are taking advantage of thousands of new innovations and millions of new consumers to generate billions in revenue within a matter of years. This is where so much of the promise of new jobs and opportunities lie.

Thousands, millions, billions – impressive numbers, and in these straitened economic times, they hold out a promise of creating jobs that the country desperately needs. Indeed, if we are to believe David Cameron or any number of politicians and entrepreneurs, one way we could climb out of this recession is by innovating and creating more of the cutting-edge technology companies that we all hear about in the news. Imagine if the UK had a Facebook or a Twitter or an Apple – surely they'd provide a massive boost to the country's employment?

Well, possibly, and possibly not. Twitter has a valuation of around $8 billion – sizeable enough that one might think it'd be a real job creator. But the company has only 650 employees. Maybe you think that Twitter is overvalued, and want to look at a technology company that makes a serious amount of money, like Facebook's estimated $1 billion profit this year. It's undoubtedly a sum that would be more than welcomed by the government, but Facebook employs only 3,000 people.

Then there's Apple, the world's most valuable company with $14 billion in profits, $65 billion in revenue, and $75 billion basically sitting in the bank. Of course, at those levels we're finally reaching bigger numbers, and indeed Apple employs a respectable-sounding 60,000 people. Yet while Sainsburys has less than half the revenue and less than a tenth of Apple's profits, it employs almost three times as many people – some 150,000. We have 2.6 million people unemployed in the UK – a dozen Facebooks or a hundred Twitters wouldn't serve to solve that problem, even if you subscribe to the "trickle-down" theory.

This should come as no surprise. Innovation has always been about solving problems faster, cheaper, and better. You don't see IBM boasting that their new AI supercomputer Watson is so inefficient it'll generate the need for thousands more jobs. On the contrary, the excitement surrounding Watson is not about how it's a Jeopardy quiz show champion– it's about its ability to process natural language in a way that could save millions by eliminating tens or hundreds of thousands of customer service positions like entry-level call centre jobs.

For every invention we make, from mobile phones to online shopping, self-checkout tills, and driverless cars, we eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs elsewhere. Inventions are about doing more with less, allowing people to become more productive, and over time, the newly unemployed move into more productive sectors – from making buggy whips to repairing cars, for instance.

So perhaps we should be comforted by the belief that, as in the past, everything will work out just fine in the long term and everyone who's lost their job will retrain to become a computer programmer or someone who provides services to programmers: to think otherwise would be to cast yourself as a Luddite. But the Luddites may have the last laugh, as suggested by The Economist's Babbage; in short, whereas the technological advances of the past improved productivity while still requiring decent numbers of human operators, the advances of the future – most notably in artificial intelligence – could start permanently removing human operators from the loop.

All of this makes the current rhetoric surrounding unemployment particularly unhelpful. While it is easy to dismiss the predicament of the jobless as being that of (take your pick) deep-seated moral failings, the EU, a lack of consumer demand, the result of globalisation, or all of the above, it's clear that there are deep structural changes coming very soon to the very nature of work and employment, and that innovation is not going to solve the problems it's created this time.

Lest you think this is all pie-in-the-sky nonsense, it's a safe bet that driverless cars will be on our roads in next 20 years or so; not only does Google have a car that's safely driven itself for over 160,000 mileswithout incident, but next year you'll be able to buy a Mercedes that canfully drive itself below speeds of 25mph. There are hundreds of thousands of people employed as drivers in the UK; what happens if they become surplus to requirements? Are we so sure that they'll all be able to find work in different areas? Likewise, supermarkets' adoption of home delivery and self-checkout tills demonstrates that they have no particular fondness for having human employees when it comes to maximising profits.

It's instructive to compare this potential future with the very real present in 'petro-states' such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. The massively profitable oil industry that keep these states afloat simply doesn't generate many jobs; it's capital-intensive, but not human-intensive. The resulting lack of employment is toxic for both their people and for the entire world.

In our own country, we could do with a little less naive and self-serving championing of the digital sector and its ability to create jobs, and a little more thought on exactly how we are going to make millions of jobs in the future. Don't get me wrong – I can't wait until we have driverless cars and all the other innovations that are coming. The problem is that we can't all work in Google and Facebook (even if we are finally starting to teach programming again), and we don't want all want to work in supermarkets or nail bars either – assuming that they still need to employ people. It's no good having a strong economy if we still have millions unemployed.

2012-01-10T05:05:00.000-08:00

CES 2012: Nokia to unveil Lumia 900 Windows Phone

Nokia will begin its bid to crack the US market with the launch of a new flagship Windows Phone, likely to be called the Lumia 900, at CES in Las Vegas next week

The new device is likely to be similar to the current top model, the Lumia 800, but will feature a larger screen, at 4.3” rather than 3.7”.

Nokia is hoping to build on the positive critical reaction that the Lumia 800 garnered when it was launched in London at the end of last year. Sources at retailers, however, say that while sales have risen, Nokia’s marketing blitz, based around the slogan “The amazing everyday”, has not provided the hoped for gear change.

Microsoft's new Windows Phone platform uses an interface built on 'tiles' which both link to applications and display some information themselves. It is aimed in large part at users who are upgrading to a smartphone for the first time.

The US market, in particular, is vital to the success both of Windows Phone as a platform and to the resurgence of the Finnish handset manufacturer. The company's press conference at the CES 2012electronics show in Las Vegas will also launch a US marketing push. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop referred to the Lumia 800 as "the first real Windows Phone", but it has not been launched in America.

The new Lumia 900 is likely to be marketed by AT&T in America as the Nokia Ace, although it is currently using the codename Eloko, according to Pocketnow.com. BGR.com reported late last year that “The handset will reportedly feature a 1.4GHz processor, a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display and an 8-megapixel camera, and it will ship with Windows Phone “Tango.” It now, however, appears that the phone will, initially at least, use the current ‘Mango’ build of Windows Phone.

SONY P TABLET REVIEW

2012-01-10T05:03:00.000-08:00

Sony P Tablet review

Sony's new P tablet is £499 - can it justify the price tag?

With two 5.5” screens, Sony’s latest tablet looks like a better designed Nintendo 3DS – its rounded corners and solid weight suggest that it is a device that is as functional as it is stylish.

Turn on the P and its two screens work either together or separately, giving users a keyboard separate to their emails, for instance, or placing a game’s controls on the lower screen leaving the top one visible for the action. As a PlayStation-certified Google Android tablet, Sony is hoping it will attract some gamer attention, as well as the notice of business people after a souped-up BlackBerry. Film-buffs, unsurprisingly, will more likely want a single screen.

Indeed, those two screens are as much a blessing as a curse: they make the P feel portable, but don’t offer a huge amount of extra functionality. And of course, it’s not actually as portable as a mobile phone. So you don’t get that much extra real estate, and the theoretical advantages don’t count for all that much in practical use.

The overall result is a tablet that is a great idea, well executed with adequate processing power and battery life, but it's not uniquely useful. With the keyboard too big for easy, BlackBerry-style typing, too, the device lacks an obvious unique selling point. But it does, as Sony points out, fit perfectly in a handbag and few tablets so far have been marketed at women. Only time will tell the size of its niche.

Compact cameras losing out to smartphones

2012-01-10T05:00:00.001-08:00

Compact cameras losing out to smartphones

Smartphones are replacing point-and-shoot cameras for many people, according to new figures.

Sales of point-and-shoot cameras fell by 30% in value last year and the growth of smartphone camera usage is thought to be to blame.

Photo sharing websites such as Flickr are seeing growing numbers of users uploading pictures taken using their smartphone. Last summer the iPhone 4 became the most popular camera on Flickr, significantly ahead of the Nikon D90, which was in second place.

Research firm GfK said that 48 per cent of camera manufacturers' revenue in 2010 came from basic fixed-lens cameras. Last year that had fallen to 37 per cent.

"2011 was when sales of basic cameras seriously started to decline," GfK analyst Zhelya Dancheva told the Guardian. "It's about how consumers are using cameras, and on what occasions. The smartphone is popular because it's always in your pocket, and you are connected so you can directly upload to the internet whenever you want."

When Apple launched the iPhone 4S last autumn, the company emphasised the improvements to the camera. The iPhone 4S has an 8-megapixel camera compared to the 5-megapixel version in the iPhone 4 and it has considerable improvements in its lenses and photo software.

CES 2012: RIM updates BlackBerry PlayBook

2012-01-10T04:58:00.001-08:00

CES 2012: RIM updates BlackBerry PlayBook

The BlackBerry PlayBook will finally get its own email software from next month, its maker, RIM, announced at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas.

The new BlackBerry PlayBook operating system will allow it to recieve email without being connected to a BlackBerry smartphone. The lack of built-in support for email has been one of the main criticisms that have dogged the iPad rival since it was introduced last year.

RIM also said a new operating system for its smartphone, version 7.1, would be available from today.

Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said at CES 2012 that "with BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 we are building on this strong foundation, as well as leveraging our strengths in communications, social integration and productivity, to allow people to use their BlackBerry PlayBook in new ways throughout the day."

The update will add native email to the PlayBook and will finally remove the need to tether the device to a BlackBerry phone.

A new unified inbox will allow users to mix work and personal email accounts, while multi-tasking will let users have multiple email messages open, either in plain or rich text.

ES 2012: Microsoft aims to go out with a bang

2012-01-09T03:11:00.000-08:00

ES 2012: Microsoft aims to go out with a bang

CES 2012 will be Microsoft's last - but that's not stopping the software giant from using it to make a serious bid for new mobile, tablet and business markets

As the world’s largest technology show begins in Las Vegas today, it’s set to be dominated by industry giants on the comeback trail: Apple may have hogged the headlines since the launch of the iPhone five years ago today, but it’s Nokia and Microsoft that are seeking to reclaim the places they have occupied previously.

Indeed, according to Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, there’ll be “dazzling” demonstrations from Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) of their new Windows 8 operating system working on tablets. The company is trying to capture some of a market that is increasingly dominated by Apple, fearing that the business market may move away from its reliance on desktop computers and laptops altogether.

Windows 8 is set to unite Microsoft’s offerings for phone, tablets and PCs into a single, uniform look, if not literally a single product. The company aims to challenge both Apple and Google by providing a suite that is attractive to both businesses and consumers. Much of it will run on Intel chips, which will be able to offer security at the level of the microchip itself, thanks to their recent acquisition of McAfee.This makes Windows 8, tablets and phones a serious, integrated play for the business market.

Consumers, too, are seriously interested in buying the stylish new ‘utlrabook’ laptops, of which between 50 and 60 are set to launch at CES. Rotman Epps cautions against the current pricing strategy, but costs are likely to fall rapidly. Intel reckons four out of 10 laptops sold in 2012 will be ultrabooks, and even at $1,000 22 per cent of interested US consumers told Forrester that they would buy one. Manufacturers are already struggling to differentiate their various devices but even so, with such high levels of interest, Intel may be wondering why ultrabooks only got real interest thanks to a $300m subsidy to manufacturers from the chip maker.

Microsoft’s other key announcements will be made with Finnish handset manufacturer Nokia. Having recently launched its first handset to use Windows Phone in Europe, the company will launch its first bid to seriously tackle North America. In doing so, it should capitalise on the increasingly precipitous vulnerabilities of BlackBerry.

Netflix launches in Britain

2012-01-09T03:10:00.001-08:00

Netflix launches in Britain

Netflix, the popular US TV and film streaming service, will be available in the UK for first time today, with content from the BBC and MGM films.

The highly anticipated launch will see the leading American online film and TV subscription service go head to head with the likes of Lovefilm.

Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, is in the UK today and will formally announce the launch later on this morning in London and announce the monthly subscription cost of the UK version of the service.

The US company has already signed UK-specific content deals with BBC Worldwide, Lionsgate UK and MGM films.

More content partnerships are expected to be announced by Hastings today.

Netflix’s deal with the commercial arm of the BBC means subscribers will be able watch older series of BBC shows, such as Torchwood and Spooks, via the service.

CES 2012: Google Android TV announced by Lenovo

2012-01-09T03:09:00.000-08:00

CES 2012: Google Android TV announced by Lenovo

The world’s first television based on Google’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system has been announced by Lenovo.

The TV set, however, will initially only be for sale in China. Available in 42” and 50” versions, the device is unusual because it is not using Google’s TV software, which is based on an earlier version of Android, codenamed Honeycomb.

The K91 Smart TV will join a host of other ‘smart TVs’ that are set to be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Those made by LG are already confirmed as using Google TV, and they are expected to be joined by models from Sony and Samsung.

GigaOm reports that the Lenovo set will use a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running at 1.5Ghz, as well as offering 1GB of Ram, SD card storage and a 5mp webcam. The remote control will feature a touchscreen and an integrated microphone for voice control.

A key theme of CES is set to be TV that increasingly blur the line between computers and televisions, while their remote controls increasingly resemble smartphones. Apple is also reported to be working on a TV of its own.

Lenovo additionally announced the IdeaTab S2, a tablet with a keyboard dock that is similar to the award-winning Asus Transformer Prime, as well as laptops that include the company’s first bid to take on the ‘ultrabook’ market of new thin and light computers. The U310 and U410 will initially sell in America for just $699, but are slightly heavier than their more expensive rivals. The prices marked manufacturers’ attempts to differentiate their products in this new category of devices primarily through price. Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps had previously observed that at $1,000 ultrabooks would be too expensive for mainstream consumers.

CES 2012: Acer Aspire S5 is world's new thinnest laptop

2012-01-09T03:07:00.001-08:00

CES 2012: Acer Aspire S5 is world's new thinnest laptop

At just 15mm thin, the world’s thinnest laptop will still pack major computing punch, manufacturer Acer claims.

The computer is the latest of a nearly 60 ‘ultrabooks’ that are set to be launched at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The new category of laptops aims to be thinner, faster and more stylish than those currently on the market, and were developed with the help of a $300million investment from chipmaker Intel.

At 15mm thick, Acer’s Aspire S5 will be 2mm thinner than the Apple Macbook Air, and will weigh the same at 1.35kg.

The 13.3” screen will be accompanied by HDMI, USB3 and Thunderbolt ports, but prices and further details have yet to be announced. The use of a Thunderbolt port, for high-speed data transfer, is the first outside Apple, and all the ports are accessed via a panel built into the laptop’s hinge. CES has also seen new ultrabooks unveiled by Toshiba, which join exisiting models from Asus and Lenovo.

Acer also announced the Iconia A700 Tab, a new tablet that is the first to feature a quad-core processor and a full-HD 1080p display. The 10.1” device will also feature a micro USB and microSD memory card slot. Further details, including price and availability are set to be announced later at CES. The original Iconia Tab has been one of Google Android’s most successful designs.

How technology will change our lives in 2012 and beyond

2012-01-08T06:11:00.001-08:00

How the future will look. The Amazon supermarket is just out of shot to the left

Predictions have a tendency of tripping people up. At one extreme, if you peer too far into the future, you can end up making outlandish statements. Anyone from 1911 predicting that China would have gone from dynastic rule to a republic, then to communism, and now into a pseudo-capitalist economy that's the second largest in the world, building dozens of nuclear power plants and manufacturing hundreds of millions smartphones, would have seemed, shall we say, excitable.

By contrast, if you look too close, your predictions end up merely mundane. No-one would be surprised to hear that next year, TVs will be bigger, phones will be smaller, and the lines of the jobless will be longer. Tell us something we don't know!

Somewhere in between those two extremes are predictions that seem plausible enough to be useful, and near enough to be relevant. So in that vein, here are four predictions for the near-future:

ENERGY

It's hard to get anyone to agree on the subjects of fossil fuels, renewables, nuclear power, and climate change – but one thing everyone can agree on is that increased energy efficiency can only be a good thing. Over the next few years, companies like British Gas will finally roll out smart meters to every household, allowing people to monitor and adjust their usage (and spending) in real time. Combined with new devices like the Nest thermostat and appliances that can alter their power consumption to help even out the National Grid's load, we'll be able to do much more with much less – and save money in the process.

Of course, we'll also have something new to worry about: keeping our new "smart grid" secure against hackers…

POLITICS

We've had several false dawns when it comes to online politics taking off in the UK. While there's plenty of blogging going on, there's much less activism; certainly nothing on the scale of recent US elections. Perhaps this is more to do with the different nature of British politics – we don't have open primaries like they do in the US, for instance – but a new generation of young people who have grown up with social media their entire lives may change that, especially given their dismal job prospects and lack of any obvious party to vote for, now that the Liberal Democrats so publicly betrayed them.

In Germany, the Pirate Party gained almost 9 per cent of the vote in Berlin's election, powered largely by young people on a platform of citizens' rights, censorship, and data protection. Similar movements are springing up elsewhere around Europe. Of course, Britain isn't quite like Europe either, but expect demands for more decentralisation and the opening up of political parties here as well – they might not be met, but they'll certainly change the debate.

TELEVISION

Books, music, games, and magazine publishers have all been completely transformed and increasingly disintermediated by the arrival of Apple, Amazon, and Google. The last man standing is television, and it's been able to put up a strong resistance so far thanks to consumer's understandable reluctance to buy new 'smart TVs' so soon after ditching their old CRTs for flat panel displays, along with the highly complex set of relationships that surround the production and distribution of shows, particularly in the US.

They won't be able to last forever. Companies like Microsoft and Sony have been progressively upgrading their games consoles to allow for the easy streaming and purchase of TV shows and films, Netflix is flexing its muscles by producing its own exclusive content such as the new David Fincher/Kevin Spacey thriller House of Cards and launching in the UK, comedians such as Louis CK are able to finance and sell shows directly to audiences for millions, and Apple is widely thought to be releasing a new TV next year. Incumbent broadcasters currently enjoy a massive advantage thanks to their low channel numbers, but when viewers switch on their TVs to be greeted by a list of their favourite shows from the Apple Store or Netflix or YouTube rather than whatever happens to be on the BBC or ITV, then we'll see things change very quickly.

SUPERMARKETS

The line between online and real-world retailers will begin blurring to the point where Tesco and Sainsburys will regard Amazon as a dangerous competitor. While supermarkets have been offering online shopping for groceries for some time now, most people aren't aware that Amazon has been trialling the same service with some innovative touches, like discounts for "subscribing" to essential consumables like nappies, cereal, or toilet rolls.

It'll be some time before Amazon will be able to offer the same choice as supermarkets and there are plenty of people who will never get used to the idea of online grocery shopping, but it has three advantages. Firstly, it has already has one of the best logistics networks in the world (unlike Ocado, which had to build its own at great expense). Secondly, it holds a vast amount of information about its customers – not just their purchases, but every single item they've ever looked at on its websites and Kindle stores. Tesco views its Clubcard database as its jewel in the crown, but Amazon can compete toe-to-toe on that score, especially with tactics like their new Price Check app.

Finally, Amazon has been happy to sell practically anything through its website, whether it's books from the largest publishers or toys from the smallest of companies. With groceries, it could open its doors to an equally wide variety of suppliers including specialist foods, levelling the playing field and allowing smaller companies to reach massive markets. It's free market capitalism at its best.

What do you think will happen over the next few years?

2012: the end is nigh for faith-based marketing

2012-01-08T05:49:00.001-08:00

The XBox Kinect is providing a new way for firms to interact with consumers

TV advertising as we know it will soon cease to exist. Instead of streaming out the same ads to whoever happens to be watching, soon firms will be able to tailor their advertising to each viewer. It's been coming for a while, as television and the internet converge, but no one has quite managed to bridge the gap. Now, with the emergence of smart TVs, interactive ads and intelligent apps, things are going to change.

The problem with TV advertising is that it fails to engage with the majority of viewers. Google's search engine marketing platform has become the driving force behind the company's $10bn annual revenues, and the main reason is that it presents people with what they actually want. It is also accountable down to the last penny – something that TV and radio have never been. If you gain money through Google advertising, you know about it; with the old media, you're just guessing. Avinash Kaushik, a well-known internet business commentator, has called advertising via the old-media channels "faith-based marketing": you spend your budget on adverts, and then pray that they drive business to your door – but you have no way of knowing whether they actually do. But that is about to change, as new technologies blur the line between television and the internet.

XBox NuAds is one such innovation. When streaming TV via your Xbox Kinect, Microsoft are able to provide advertising which the user can interact with, via voice and gesture controls. With a swipe of your hand you can enter competitions, or share content to Twitter with a voice command. This gives advertisers a direct line of communication with their target audience, and gives users the chance to engage with brands if they want to.

Dual-screen apps, which recognise what you're watching on TV and provide related content for your tablet or smartphone, also offer publishers a new dimension of interaction with viewers. Disney use this technology to provide children with iPad games which match the movie they're watching. In an advertising context, apps could listen to what advert you're watching on TV, and provide offers or vouchers if you navigate to the site within a certain period of time. This would provide a previously unavailable link for advertisers between the money they spend on TV ads and actual revenue.

2011 has also seen smart TVs come to the fore; already loaded with applications such as LoveFilm and BBC iPlayer, they too are bringing the web and TV closer together. While they don't yet come with browsers as standard, it will not be long before they do, and the two strands of home entertainment will be merged. When this happens, advertising agencies will be able to serve you ads based on your viewing, social and browsing habits. It may sound like something out of Minority Report, but I've seen enough perfume ads for one lifetime already. If there was a way for the ads I have to watch on TV to be personalised to me, then I would happily opt in.

Google have also been pushing into this space with Google TV. It hasn't made an impact in the UK yet, but Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, said at a conference in Paris this month that by halfway through 2012 "most" new TVs will have it. Google TV does have a browser built in, and also gives access to a wide range of Android apps from their marketplace. And of course there is Apple, notoriously late to market with their iPhone, who are also now rumoured to also be developing a TV in addition to their Apple TV product.

There is a race on to dominate this emerging new channel, with a lot of players aiming to avoid becoming the new Beta-Max. No matter who wins, advertising will play a huge part in their success or failure. But it won't be advertising as we know it. Broad-spectrum, faith-based marketing is out; personalised data-driven marketing is in.

Flipboard for iPhone review

2012-01-08T03:19:00.001-08:00

Flipboard for iPhone review

Highly rated iPad app Flipboard is now available on the iPhone and it's a triumph.

Flipboard is one of the essential iPad apps. Drawing on links from your social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, and from pre-selected news sources, it creates a 'social magazine' that is lovely to look at and simple to use.

Translating that to the iPhone is no straightforward task. The smaller screen rules out the iPad version's expansive layouts and the iPhone is used in a different way.

While the iPad is a 'lean back' device, the iPhone is 'lean forward'. In other words, you sit down and relax with the iPad, spending half an hour catching up on reading, but your iPhone is something you use on the go, in spare moments here and there.

The Flipboard team have delivered the perfect adaptation of the app. It's designed to be used with one hand - the phone in the palm of your hand while your thumb 'flips' the pages. This time the pages flip upwards, with the bottom half 'folding' over the top, making the app feel like a pocket notebook.

A new section, Cover Stories, brings together new material from across your sources, providing the ideal channel to skim through while you're in a queue or on the bus. There are now Flipboard accounts too, so that iPad users can bring across their content.

BY PCNEWS

Apps to help you stick to new year's resolutions

2012-01-08T03:15:00.001-08:00

Apps to help you stick to new year's resolutions

You can keep to an exercise plan, write a diary and even meditate with your smartphone.

There are now all kinds of smartphone apps dedicated to health and wellbeing. If you have made a new year's resolution to be healthier then your smartphone might be the pocket helper you need if you want to stick to it.

Tracking your exercise
Dieting and exercise are probably the most common new year's resolutions. If you want to eat less or move more then keeping track of your progress will motivate you to keep going while acting as a record of how far you have come.

Abvio makes a range of apps for Apple's iPhones devices that use GPS to monitor your walking, running or cycling. For example, leaveCyclemeter (£2.99) running while you exercise and you can keep track of your time, speeds, distances and more. You can then analyse your data on a map or as a graph and even go back through your calendar to see how you have done day-by-day.

For Android users, iMapMyRIDE (free) can do most of the same things and the developer, MapMyFitness, produces similar apps for running, walking and hiking.

Meditation and relaxation
Commuting is seldom pleasant. Overcrowded trains, buses and Tubes leave you squashed in unpleasant proximity to your fellow passengers. With a smartphone and a pair of headphones, however, you can use that time to meditate.

Mindfulness meditation, which has its origins in Buddhist teachings, has a growing reputation as a tool for promoting wellbeing and relaxation. However, many people who would like to try it feel that they don't have time to do it. Buddhify (iOS £1.99, Android £1.49) is an app that teaches you meditation and is designed to be used in short bursts while you are on the go. To encourage you to keep going it borrows techniques from gaming, with unlockable modes and awards for reaching certain milestones.

Yoga at your desk
Like meditation, yoga is one of those things that many people would like to try if only they had the time. Once again, your smartphone can help.Desk Yoga (iOS £1.49), is an app that, as you would expect, teaches you to try a little yoga at your desk. It contains a set of videos featuring exercises that are tailored to office workers. No yoga mat or leotard required. A similar app for Android users, Yoga (free), acts as a pocket guide to yoga. Though it doesn't have video, it does have pictures of a range of moves, as well instructions and a description of their benefits.

A pocket journal
If your new year's resolution was to keep a diary, then your smartphone can simplify the process. For example, Momento (iOS £1.99) allows you to keep a diary in the usual way - by writing entries yourself - but also throws in your social media updates, photographs you take and music you listen to to create a rich journal of your activity. It can be password protected for privacy and it is fully searchable to make it easy to find a specific entry.

Keeping a journal can be more than a pleasant habit. Confidence Coach(iOS £2.99) is an app designed to help improve your confidence and self-esteem. It comes with an audio based on a psychological technique called cognitive behaviour therapy. When you have listened to the guide, the app encourages you to keep a record of your positive qualities and set goals for yourself. The app can remind you to keep setting goals and, because you are likely to have your phone with you all the time, it should be a little easier to keep up.

Professor Layton & the Spectre's Call review

2012-01-08T03:12:00.001-08:00

Professor Layton & the Spectre's Call review

Professor Layton & The Spectre's Call still has the Layton charm, but with some dreadful puzzle design and a meandering plot, it's starting to wear a little thin.

Format: Nintendo DS
Developer: Level 5
Publisher: Nintendo
Age rating: PEGI 7+
Released: Out now

This reminds me of a puzzle. A man has four Nintendo DS games, all in the same series. The first game is emblazoned with four stars. The second, three and a half. The third, four and a half. Based on a barely visible image, an obtusely-worded question and a series of basic but time consuming equations, calculate the number which should appear on the fourth game's cover.

It's easier when the answer's at the top of the page. No riddles are required to explain why Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call is a bit disappointing, although there are plenty of puzzles which can be used as examples as to why. The second puzzle in the game, for example, requires you to pick out an almost indecipherable detail in four tiny, postage stamp-sized images. There are plenty of variables that could affect the answer. The wording of the question doesn't account for these variables. To solve it, you're required to take a leap of logic and make assumptions. This isn't how logic puzzles work.

Let's look, also, at another early puzzle. You're tasked with working out how many mops would be required to clean up for 30 days, with specific clauses applied to the mops. One of these clauses is that the mops take two days to dry. Honestly... who rigidly waits for a mop to dry before reusing it? What's wrong with rinsing it off? In this case, if you use the logic that 'mops don't need to be dried' you can still reach the correct answer, but the game's explanation is far more complex and far less intelligent. In this case, though, it's not harmful to the puzzle solution. Sadly this doesn't apply for many of the others.

The main problem with Spectre's Call is that it's very, very apparent Level-5 has run out of puzzle ideas. You have this selection of logic puzzles, often poorly worded and requiring specific assumptions to solve (or otherwise using brute force until you guess the correct answer). The problem here isn't finding the solutions; they're often obvious--too obvious, in fact. Try and apply any clever logical thinking to the situation and, congratulations, you've outdone the game. All too often, your own logic exceeds that of the game's, and this in itself is a glaring flaw in a game designed to make you think and solve.

Rayman Origins review

2012-01-08T03:11:00.000-08:00

Rayman Origins review

Rayman Origins is a gorgeous, delightful and challenging platformer for all ages.

Rayman Origins

Format: PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360 (version tested)
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Publisher: Ubisoft
Age rating: PEGI 7+
Released: Out now

Thrust out onto a jungle landscape, ready to bounce from baddie to baddie, step to step, you're immediately struck by just how lovely the latest Rayman game is. Brightly coloured, beautifully animated, cheerily crafted. The entire thing practically yodels “happiness”. The game starts as an adventure into a sunny wilderness, with Ubisoft's limbless hero leaping wherever, however, and catching 'lums' willy-nilly. Later on, though, and there's a descent into deeper, darker lands where high speed precision is required, with split-second reactions making the difference between all and nothing.

Embracing you in a warm hug at the very first opportunity is a sweet, funky soundtrack that will, without doubt, have you pausing to listen at the menu screen. You'll follow the lead of a squibbling title animation and dance in your seat. This will happen for a good while before you remember why you're there and press onward. From there, the sense of joy only elevates as a small opening cinematic embraces you in an even bigger hug – this one lifting you right up through the air. A snoozing gang produces a wonderful, vibrant tune. This is a pointer, gesturing to sounds that will continue to brighten the adventure every step of the way. And occasionally sound a bit like Rolf Harris and his wobble board thing.

Now you're on the path to well-formed game mechanics, tight level design and shedloads of death traps. It's a rocky road, a treacherous journey and some serious concentration is required by the end levels, but Rayman's charm rarely wears thin as it guides you through, soothing any frustration and putting you back on track. Then it swiftly throws you off again of course, in a fumbling flail of downward flaps. What is achieved is a platformer with little to be sorry for and a lot to show. Levels are fresh, bright, unique and fantastically conceptualised; their themes are wide, varied, with some delightfully retro references thrown in here and there.

Though the levels - and the lands they inhabit - are somewhat short, each offers difficult collectables that challenge and extend the lifespan for the completionists. Unfortunately, though, while the scope is grand, niggly bits do crop up in places – scenery occasionally juts out at an angle, causing it to look like a functional platform or jump pad, and sometimes it's not clear enough what bad thing does what. To surpass one persistently problematic obstacle only to run headlong into another, poorly flagged as perilous, is painful at best. It's good then, that Rayman isn't a fiercely punishing test of wills, though it can be very, very difficult.

Just as Rayman and his pals can jump and run, they also learn a range of moves as the game progresses. There's flying, flattening, swimming and more, adding to the game's complexity and diversity. Mastering the use of these at high speed and keeping an eye on hidden rewards keeps the tension going as you and the slightly abnormal gang head on, quelling the rising of the Livid Dead who usually choose to dwell beneath the Glade of Dreams. It's the Livid Dead who are cheesed enough to rise up and cause wrong-doings throughout the Glade, and it's your job to bounce and bash these bad guys out, undoing a wicked scheme and setting the world to rights.

For the casual player, collecting more reachable lums and being happy to progress with a less than magnificent score is enough, but for players hoping to achieve more, the drive to collect every lum, every coin and every possible 'electoon' (happy pink beings that are earned, amongst other ways, by collecting lesser yellow lums) rapidly dwindles as the game toughens in its later stages. A shame, then, that certain sections (see: the dastardly grim reaper) can be a significant test of patience, something which at times threatens to push the player away as much as engage them.

All the same, though, Ubisoft's new UbiArt Framework engine does the game justice, proving its merit and providing a stable, accurate platforming experience with, for the most part, clean and clever delivery. The lovable, rewarding hidden rooms in which you free electoons trapped in cages and hidden in concealed gaps, or the feeling you get from bagging a King Lum and the singing underlings that follow him, subsequently doubled in worth. It's the kind of gameplay many platformers aim to achieve and Rayman: Origins nails it.

The multiplayer element can only cement how much fun the game is, allowing a casual blend of death, laughs and heroics in an occasionally crushing, frequently quirky, persistently enjoyable adventure. Players can leap from each other's heads, beat one another into fatal bubblization or use the ever-expanding array of abilities to generally pester each other. It's a colourful, chaotic carnival of mayhem and one sure to soften even the most jaded gamer.

Origins, though certainly designed to appeal to children, will captivate audiences of all ages. Adults will fall in love with that amicable charm and be captivated by the trickier - but optional - challenges further down the road, while children will laugh, be silly, wreak havoc and bonk each other on the head a lot in the fast-paced, four-way co-op. Though the occasional difficulty spike serves as a barrier for some, ultimately, Rayman: Origins is a very strong contender in the pre-Christmas line-up. It stands tall and worthy, a deep game with a unique style and good sense of humour. It is a game that will make you happy whenever you think back to it, one where frustration is almost immediately replaced by a smile, and most importantly, it's a game that thrives on having fun.

Mario Kart 7 review Mario Kart 7 is equal parts fun and frustrating, much like the series always has been.

2012-01-08T03:06:00.001-08:00

Format: Nintendo 3DS
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Age rating: PEGI 3
Released: Out now

If you've played, well, any Mario Kart game before, then the chances are there's little to surprise you in this, the series' first 3DS outing. In fact, this in itself shouldn't come as a surprise. The series doesn't change much, and there are many who'd argue it doesn't need to. There's a case for this, of course, but playing Mario Kart 7, it's impossible to shake the feeling that a few changes might have been welcome.

To begin with, it's just as cheap as you remember the series being. To Nintendo's credit, 50cc and 100cc Grands Prix are a little more balanced than before, mainly because they're both so easy that being assailed with a barrage of blue shells does little to harm your position on the podium. 150cc, however, feels incredibly unbalanced at times. There are races where you're subjected to one attack after another, events outside of your control conspiring to bring you down, and when this happens on the final race of four, sending you down from first to second, it's just as frustrating as it always has been, especially if you're playing through 150cc to unlock the 8 secret characters associated with the difficulty level.

There are some nice surprises in that 8-character bonus roster, though, which would be a shame to ruin. And there's a 9th character in the form of your Mii, who you'll never play as anyway. The new characters aren't the only addition to Mario Kart. There are three new power-ups this time. The Lucky 7, which gives you seven items to use whenever you wish, is the best of the bunch. It's insanely overpowered, of course, and you'll rarely ever get this as a pickup. This is no bad thing, as the occasional Lucky 7 grab feels like a genuine reward. Then there's the Fire Flower, which allows you to shoot rapid fire projectiles either in front of or behind you. Finally there's the Super Leaf, which gives your kart a tail. This is perhaps one of the most disappointing power-ups of the series, lasting a bit too long and being relatively useless unless there's a kart or projectile right next to you which you can thwack away.

There's also a first-person mode, which can be controlled with either the buttons or the gyro sensor. This is fun as a curio, but Mario Kart really doesn't lend itself to first person very well, and there's little reason to switch to the new view when the traditional, third person view is perfectly adequate. In either view, though, the 3D is pleasant and unobtrusive, adding a tiny bit of visual depth without going overboard. Judging from a number of recent 3DS releases, the 3D visual sweet spot has finally been found, with even the max slider setting looking good, rather than the unbearable, unfocused awkwardness of some of the earlier titles.

Of the 32 tracks in the game, 16 of them are all-new with the remaining tracks being re-imaginings of classic MK tracks from all the past games. Whether it's due to familiarity or simply because they're better, the latter 16, the classic tracks, are far more appealing than the new ones. There are some decent tracks in the new roster, though, such as Waluigi's pinball-themed course, but a few of them are lacking in the tight design of the more iconic older tracks, with annoying fiddly sections or laboured, slow areas of the track. This isn't helped by some of the new underwater sections, which sacrifice speed for, well, being underwater. It's not a worthwhile trade-off. The blue boost pads, though, which catapult your kart into the sky and prompt the appearance of a hang glider or parachute, are more welcome. Being able to control your kart in the sky, diving and pulling back to get a boost of speed, adds an extra layer of tactics to the racing. At least until you're pummelled out the sky by an unavoidable red shell, anyway.

There are time trials to partake in on all the tracks, and staff ghosts to beat. There's the familiar Battle modes too, in this version taking the form of Balloon Battle and Coin Battle. Balloon Battle has you trying to pop as many rivals' balloons as possible, and Coin Battle has you collecting as many coins as possible. There's not really much more to it than that; three of the courses are new, three are classic. The Battle mode is fun, as always, albeit exceptionally lifeless in single player. But really, Mario Kart has never been about solo play.

Multiplayer is where Mario Kart has always shone, and is where Mario Kart 7 shines too. As well as being able to play against friends locally, there's a fairly robust online mode. The online isn't perfect, as is trademark for Nintendo games, but concessions have been made here to make it a little more accessible than you'd normally expect from the Big N. Most notable is the ability to create Communities. These communities can be tailored to the type of game you want to play, and then provide you with an associated code. Simply give this code to anyone you want to play with and they can play a match in your community, regardless of whether they're on your friends list or not. Handy for online groups and matches.

However, the community aspect is still scuppered somewhat due to the rigidity of the options. Fancy playing a few rounds of Balloon Battle with the group you've been doing some 150cc races with? Need to set up a new community. Fancy doing those 150cc races with items off, instead of on? New community. Want to shift down to 100cc instead of 150? New community. Quite why some of these options can't be changed post-creation but pre-match is a mystery, especially when there's a limit to the number of communities you can be a member of.

Simply diving into a random match works nicely though, pairing you with players from across the globe. It's playing with real people where the game comes into its own. It's not as cheap, not as dependent on luck, and of course the rubber banding is far less of an issue when you know there's a person behind the custom-built kart. It's the multiplayer mode where the majority of time will be spent, and in this respect, Mario Kart really is quite unrivalled when it comes to multiplayer kart-racers. Minor niggles such as not being able to back out of a match anywhere other than the brief results screen at the end of a race do little to hamper the title's multiplayer fun.

Mario Kart's an odd one, then. In some ways it feels a tiny bit too familiar, but it's difficult to pinpoint what, exactly, should be changed. The magic of the series, strongly present in the first few Mario Kart titles, has faded somewhat. But is that a result of the series flagging, or because many of us have played every single Mario Kart title to death? Should the series change and adapt to retain the magic for long-time fans, or should it provide the same magic we once felt, to a new generation of players? It's a hard question to answer. Certainly there are new aspects this time round, such as the gyro controls and some nifty ghost-sharing Streetpass features. Whether you love this iteration or not relies entirely on your tolerance of Mario Kart being Mario Kart. Unbalanced, flukey, stagnant even, but still managing to offer plenty of fun.

MAGAZINE EXPRESS

Orange forced to apologise for 3G outage

Orange forced to apologise for 3G outage

Orange has apologised to its customers after many of them took to Twitter to complain about an outage which left them without 3G access.

Facebook rolls out 'interest lists'

Facebook rolls out 'interest lists'

Facebook has introduced a new tool which allows users to subscribe to 'interests', as well as people's updates, making their news feeds more like 'personalised newspapers'.

Apple iPad still the post-PC flagship

Apple iPad still the post-PC flagship

Two years after the launch of the first iPad, even a former Microsoft man says we are in the post-PC world.

PLEASE POST IN YOUR FB'S WALL

1912–1999

[edit]1999–Present

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REPUBLIC OF KOSOVO

Apple's Tim Cook in line for $378m pay award

Apple's Tim Cook in line for $378m pay award

Tim Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs as Apple chief executive in August, is in line for almost $378m (£244.6m) in total compensation for 2011, including $376.2m in share awards.

Facebook adverts now in news feeds

Facebook adverts now in news feeds

Facebook adverts, known as ‘sponsored stories’, have started appearing in users' news feeds, as the service ramps up its commercial activity.

CES 2012: Intel announces first smartphones with Lenovo and Motorola

The long-awaited confirmation of Intel’s first mobile phones came at CES, as Lenovo and Motorola confirmed they were working with the chipmaker.

Google and Twitter clash over search results

Google and Twitter clash over search results

Twitter has clashed publicly with Google over changes to the dominant web search engine that promote Google+, its own social network.

The march of technological progress doesn't create jobs: it destroys them

CES 2012: Nokia to unveil Lumia 900 Windows Phone

Nokia will begin its bid to crack the US market with the launch of a new flagship Windows Phone, likely to be called the Lumia 900, at CES in Las Vegas next week

SONY P TABLET REVIEW

Sony's new P tablet is £499 - can it justify the price tag?

Compact cameras losing out to smartphones

Compact cameras losing out to smartphones

Smartphones are replacing point-and-shoot cameras for many people, according to new figures.

CES 2012: RIM updates BlackBerry PlayBook

CES 2012: RIM updates BlackBerry PlayBook

The BlackBerry PlayBook will finally get its own email software from next month, its maker, RIM, announced at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas.

ES 2012: Microsoft aims to go out with a bang

ES 2012: Microsoft aims to go out with a bang

CES 2012 will be Microsoft's last - but that's not stopping the software giant from using it to make a serious bid for new mobile, tablet and business markets

Netflix launches in Britain

Netflix launches in Britain

Netflix, the popular US TV and film streaming service, will be available in the UK for first time today, with content from the BBC and MGM films.

CES 2012: Google Android TV announced by Lenovo

CES 2012: Google Android TV announced by Lenovo

The world’s first television based on Google’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system has been announced by Lenovo.

CES 2012: Acer Aspire S5 is world's new thinnest laptop

CES 2012: Acer Aspire S5 is world's new thinnest laptop

At just 15mm thin, the world’s thinnest laptop will still pack major computing punch, manufacturer Acer claims.

How technology will change our lives in 2012 and beyond

2012: the end is nigh for faith-based marketing

Flipboard for iPhone review

Flipboard for iPhone review

Highly rated iPad app Flipboard is now available on the iPhone and it's a triumph.

Apps to help you stick to new year's resolutions

Apps to help you stick to new year's resolutions

You can keep to an exercise plan, write a diary and even meditate with your smartphone.

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Professor Layton & the Spectre's Call review

Professor Layton & the Spectre's Call review

Professor Layton & The Spectre's Call still has the Layton charm, but with some dreadful puzzle design and a meandering plot, it's starting to wear a little thin.

Rayman Origins review

Rayman Origins review

Rayman Origins is a gorgeous, delightful and challenging platformer for all ages.

Rayman Origins is a gorgeous, delightful and challenging platformer for all ages.

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Mario Kart 7 review Mario Kart 7 is equal parts fun and frustrating, much like the series always has been.

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