Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i APC

WINDOWS 11 IS GETTING ITS OWN INTEGRATED AI ASSISTANT POWERED BY BING CHAT AND CHATGPT. Microsoft is bringing its AI Copilot functionality to Windows 11 as a built-in tool for enhancing productivity workflows. The Windows Copilot feature can analyse content on screen and offer contextual suggestions and actions based on what’s being viewed by the user. The Copilot is accessible via a button on the Taskbar, can be moved around or docked to the right or left side of your screen when running, and features a chat box that runs along the bottom for inputting commands and asking questions. Microsoft says the new Copilot acts like your “personal assistant” for everything Windows, essentially replacing Cortana that came before it. You can ask it to configure Windows settings, open apps, analyse…

If you have your ear to the ground on environmental issues, you’ll probably have heard of a class of chemicals called PFAS, or more colloquially, ‘forever chemicals’. Usually found near airports hosting firefighting drills with flame retardant compounds that include polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the chemicals have become a major focus of environmental regulation in recent years because of their resistance to natural degradation and significant impact on human health. In March the EU began public consultation on a plan to ban the chemicals from all industrial applications, a step that will have major unintended consequences on the global tech industry if not done carefully. "The chemical-resistant plastics that coat pipes, pumps and seals used by semiconductor manufacturing plants will be even more difficult to substitute" The proposal includes a 13…

PC sales nosedived by about 30 percent in the first quarter of this year. But that is no reason to panic – pretty much all digital devices have taken a hit of late. Besides, if you bother to give the numbers more than a cursory glance, you’ll see that PC sales are remarkably strong. To get more specific, two leading research outfits have released numbers for PC sales covering the first quarter of 2023, and it’s not pretty. Canalys reckons PC shipments tanked by 32.6 percent compared to the same period in 2022, while IDC puts it at 29 percent. Cue tales of woe across online media and the broader commentariat. IDC notes that PC sales now are worse than before the pandemic, implying that the fall is more than…

FIND THE BEST DEALS ON NEW GEAR AT GETPRICE.COM/AU PREMIUM LAPTOPS APPLE MACBOOK PRO 16IN (M2) STUNNING CREATIVE POWER All the upgrades to this 2023 model are within, as Apple’s M2 Pro and M2 Max processors take charge. Combine this power with the 16.2in mini-LED screen, superb sound system and phenomenal battery life, and you have the world’s premier workstation laptop. From $3,199, apple.com/au ALTERNATIVES DELL XPS 15 (2022) Surely the best Windows all-rounder money can buy, with a slim design, gaming potential and plenty of power courtesy of Intel’s 12th gen Core processors. From $2,924, dell.com APPLE MACBOOK AIR The MacBook Air M2 looks like a standout to us. A powerful and quiet ultraportable with an unbeatable battery life and a great pro display. From $1,899, apple.com/au MICROSOFT SURFACE…

1 LG TONE FREE TF8 Fitness first buds with a big sound. $369 | lg.com/au LG’s naming convention may make these wireless earbuds seem like they’re incapable of mediating pitch, but these true-wireless buds are actually pretty great in terms of audio quality, especially for fitness focused headphones. A partnership with Meridian and Dolby means you can play spatial audio on these sporty buds and there’s Active Noise Cancelling and ambient sound options to allow you to adapt to your workout surroundings. While the headphones have a novel SwivelGrip in ear bud and wing grip technology, all the in ear bud options were too large for us, so you’ll need larger than average ear canals for these ones. 2 ROG ALLY A gaming teammate that’ll go anywhere with you. $1,299…

■ $7,499 | rog.asus.com/au It’s been a while since gaming laptop vendors really pushed their most monstrous rigs, but it seems 2023 is keen to unleash a new breed of 18-inch gaming workstations onto the local market. Asus is first cab off the rank here but you’ll see plenty more in subsequent pages of APC since just about every gaming laptop vendor has built an 18-incher this season. And why not? When you consider the ROG Strix Scar 18 can be configured with Intel’s top of the line Core i9-13980HX CPU, 32GB of RAM and the most powerful Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU with a 175W power allocation, that’s a solid array of expensive components to make a margin on. The Scar 18 described above retails for $7,499, an unapproachable…

■ $399 | razer.com Compared to the earlier BlackWidow V3 Pro, this latest update tweaks the media controls, repositions the control dial, and adds a fistful of macro buttons. You also get RGB illumination underneath both the keyboard and the included wrist rest, because apparently BlackWidow keyboards weren’t shiny enough already. There are only two switch options: Razer’s clicky greens or linear yellows. Our review unit came with yellows, and while they weren’t awful, they felt a little heavy in use. Whichever you pick, they come with pre-lubed stabilisers and two layers of dampening foam, although there’s no hot swap option. As you’d expect from Razer, the plastic and aluminium construction exudes premium quality. Yet for such a chonker of a keyboard, it is impressively lightweight. Where the BlackWidow V3…

1999 802.11b The first mainstream Wi-Fi standard, 802.11b operated exclusively on the 2.4GHz band. It offered connection speeds of up to 11Mbits/sec, and could work on any of 13 user-selectable 20MHz channels to avoid interference. The companion 802.11a standard used the faster 5GHz frequency range, but licensing delays and higher manufacturing costs meant it never caught on. 2003 802.11g The first major Wi-Fi upgrade came four years later and used the same 13 channels as 802.11b, while raising the maximum data rate to 54Mbits/sec. As would become the norm, the specification was designed for backward compatibility with older devices – but if a single 802.11b client was connected to an 802.11g network, it slowed the connection down for everyone. 2008 Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) The 802.11n standard was the first to…

SCORPTEC PHOENIX RX 7900 XT $2,299 | tinyurl.com/APC521SCO At the same price as the Aftershock system, this rig offers around 25 percent more gaming performance thanks to the RX 7900 XT. It also has double the SSD capacity at 2TB, it’s a little slower, but games won’t notice that very much. The CPU, while good, isn’t ideal if you’re after high refresh rate gaming, as long as you keep quality settings high to load the GPU it is more than up to the task. 16GB of RAM is ok at this price though the 650W PSU is the bare minimum for the GPU inside. A solid system for those that like playing with all the quality settings turned up. CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600; Cooler: OEM; Motherboard: Asus Prime B550M-A…

WINDOWS 11 Tap bigger taskbar icons in tablet mode Released in March, the ‘Moment 2’ update adds a new taskbar design to make it easier to use when you’ve got Windows 11 in tablet mode. On the left of the screenshot above is the ‘expanded’ mode, which shows bigger taskbar icons 1 . Windows 11 will automatically switch to this taskbar when you remove or fold back a keyboard on a laptop-tablet ‘2-in-1’ machine. A second new ‘collapsed’ mode removes the taskbar icons, leaving only the information on the System Tray at the bottom right, such as the time and battery status 2 . As well as freeing up more screen space, it means you won’t accidentally trigger the taskbar with your fingers while holding your device at the bottom.…

iOS Improve the sound quality of phone calls One of the best new features in iOS 16.4, which was released at the end of March, lets you improve the audio quality of phone calls you make on your iPhone. It’s called Voice Isolation and uses machine learning to remove background noise and block microphone interference so your calls sound clearer than ever. Previously, Voice Isolation was available for VoIP calls in apps such as FaceTime and Skype, but it now works for calls you make over your mobile network. However, the feature isn’t enabled by default and can only be switched on during a call – once it’s activated, it will remain so for future calls. To turn on Voice Isolation, start a phone call and once the other person…

■ Free | Browser | bit.ly/UnchartedWanders Created for this year’s Dungeon Crawler Jam, Uncharted Wanders is in fact a game about dungeon crawling to turn a profit, as you lug goods from one town to another. They might only be minutes apart from each other, but monsters are a persistent hazard on the grid-based pathways. Everything in the world is geared towards the trading business. The Ministry of Trade sells licences that determine how many hired hands you can bring with you, while the only things the shops sell are trading goods and exploration supplies. Mapping the dungeon is really a by-product as you shift table legs from Physopolis to Spiriton on the reverse journey. The traditional crawling experience has been ruthlessly streamlined here. Combat is automatic, as you step…

■ Free | Browser | bit.ly/driftrGame Driftr is a Vampire Survivors-like, meaning you’ll be fending off waves of enemies and carefully curating a character build, as a timer ticks away. However, you’re only being asked to survive for a piddly three minutes here. Child’s play. No, I haven’t managed it. Driftr is hard. Where it differs from the rest of the genre is the nature of character movement. As if you’re steering a car, you direct the plain white block protagonist by using the Left and Right arrow keys. The block will accelerate automatically, but you can also activate a hard-to-control boost by holding either key down. You begin by simply dodging enemies, which is tricky enough, before the temporary green and yellow zones are introduced. Successfully steer into a…

Currently available for testing in limited beta, Google’s new Search Generative Experience (SGE) shifts the site from being a search engine that links the best content to a publication offering its own mini-articles. But instead of hiring expert writers to do the work, Google employs an AI that ingests data from human-authored content and spits out weaksauce advice with no expertise or authority to back it up. Old product listings, poor advice Let’s take this query: “What’s the best CPU?” There’s a very noncommittal set of text (bottom right) saying that you should consider performance, speed and power consumption when choosing a processor (no duh, Captain Obvious). And then there’s a list of outdated processors that are not among the best CPUs available today. The top choice is a Ryzen…

With the release of the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, we’re now able to see how the current-gen CPU market shakes out for gamers. The good news is that you don’t need a huge budget to get a processor that will give you great performance and last for years to come, although as always, you can still up the budget if you want something that does more than just game. Here are our top picks. 1 INTEL CORE I5 13600K $485, www.intel.com We love Intel’s mid-range chip, which will be the right CPU at the right price for the vast majority of PC gamers, as it matched the previous-gen top-end Core i9 12900K in many of our tests. Real-life performance doesn’t match up in every regard, but it delivers something similar…

■ $269 | thermaltake.com.au The Thermaltake CTE C750 Air is a member of Thermaltake’s new CTE case family. CTE stands for Centralized Thermal Efficiency. The idea is to position the hottest components more towards the center of the chassis where they will benefit from the best possible airflow. It’s a sound theory. But shifting the motherboard placement a little isn’t the highlight of this case. Its flexibility is. While not a new concept, the CTE C750 is designed to house a 90 degree rotated motherboard, meaning the I/O and GPU outputs are at the top of the chassis. Add that to that a huge range of possible fan and radiator placement options and it is something refreshingly different. Here for review I have The CTE C750 Air version. It doesn’t…

Windows offers pretty good value for money - especially when you can upgrade for free from the previous version. As well as the main operating system, you get plenty of extra apps and tools for performing everyday tasks, so you don’t need to waste time downloading programs when you first set up your PC. However, there’s no reason you should stick with these default tools forever just because they’re convenient to use. Some of the features built into Windows haven’t been updated for years, which means they’re starting to show their age, and virtually every tool installed by Microsoft has a superior alternative you can download for free. In this feature, we recommend the best free software to replace 16 tools that come with Windows 10 and 11.…

BUDGET A perfect balance between price and performance. In the last issue, we made quite a few changes on our Intel Budget Build. The biggest of them all was the GPU – no shock there! We swayed across from team Nvidia and hopped onto the new Intel GPU train with the A750. For 1080p gaming, we were more than satisfied with our results. Additionally, you can pick these up for $380. That’s not a bad little package, is it? So we kept this GPU in place, along with our newly added Intel Core i3-13100F for this issue. As for the rest of the Intel budget machine components, nothing changed other than our motherboard, the Asrock B660M-HDV Micro ATX. The Pro RS B660M Micro ATX board from Asrock is a better…

MICROSOFT EXCEL Count the number of cells containing data The COUNTA function counts how many spreadsheet cells are not blank – which means those that contain any form of value or information. Cells that contain a zero are counted, as are those that show an error message. In our example, we want to count how many non-blank cells there are between A1 and E12. We click in the cell we want the answer to appear in (G1), then type =COUNTA(A1:E12) ( 1 in our screenshot below). This produces the answer 34 2 . The same function works in LibreOffice Calc and OnlyOffice. LIBREOFFICE Switch on dark mode manually Released in February, LibreOffice 7.5 was a major update that added several handy new tools, including a dark mode that automatically matched…

You wouldn’t think of the command line as the go-to resource when it comes to image processing. After all, rotating, cropping, resizing and adding watermarks to images involves extensive mouse work. Or does it? ImageMagick has long been the tool of choice for users who don’t mind working with the CLI and want a single tool that can perform all these operations and more, such as creating animation, adding 3D effects to images by adjusting shadows and lights, and so on. As useful as ImageMagick is, it can also be quite daunting for novice users, who feel overwhelmed by the incredibly feature-rich project that has inspired many graphical image-processing front-ends and is also the subject of various books. Korkut is an ImageMagick derivative that offers only a handful of features,…

■ $69.95 | PC, PS5, XBS/X | paradoxinteractive.com/games/age-of-wonders-4 Age of Wonders 4’s structure should be familiar: you start with a single city, erect new buildings, develop the surrounding provinces, recruit armies and explore the map to find treasure and new enemies. Resources like food, gold and mana must be managed, rival rulers can be engaged diplomatically or aggressively, and eventually you’ll start working towards one of the victory conditions, perhaps focusing on magic, or maybe just conquering everyone. But the latest game in this long-running series is still distinct from both its forebears. It makes this clear right away, when you pick the foundations of your magical empire. First, there’s the map. There’s an abundance of premade maps, including ones that are part of the story-driven campaign, but you can…

APC is Australia’s oldest consumer technology magazine – having been consistently in print for over forty years, since our first issue way back in May 1980 – and we take that heritage and responsibility very seriously. While our focus is obviously on the personal computer the very definition of the PC has changed and shifted markedly since the early 1980s. As such, we touch on many other areas of tech, too, from smartphones and apps to peripherals, accessories, and beyond. We have two goals: to find the best modern tech and to help you make the most of it. We’re also an open church in terms of platforms. We know most people aren’t wed to a single brand’s products and use a variety of devices. And, like you, APC’s journalists…

The PCI Express 5.0 specification was finalised on May 29, 2019. The first PCIe 5.0-ready consumer platform arrived with Intel’s Z690 chipset and socket LGA1700 platform in November 2021. But PCIe 5.0 graphics cards and SSDs were nowhere to be found. In fact, outside of certain Nvidia data centre H100 solutions, PCIe 5.0 GPUs are still not here, but after waiting for over a year, the SSDs are starting to trickle out. The first crop of PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs all use Phison’s E26 controller. Coupled with the controller is a single LPDDR4 DRAM chip. All the 2TB Phison E26 products we’ve looked at so far are using a 32Gb IC, or 4GB of total RAM – twice the amount we’d expect to see. Whether that’s necessary to hit higher…

■ $1,799 | online.acer.com.au Occasionally there is a major shift in technology that causes an entire overhaul of the types of laptops available for consumers… and in 2023 that means anyone buying a mid-range laptop can now get an impressive OLED screen without bumping up the price. The Acer Swift Go 16 is the first out of the gate with a 16-inch Ultrabook offering a 3K OLED panel, a 13th Gen Intel i7 CPU and solid supporting specs for $500 to $1,000 less than anything we saw in the premium Ultrabook space last year. While those specs might seem a little unbelievable right now, we’ve scouted a few other premium ultrabooks on the horizon with OLED screens that will be sold for even less, so rest assured Acer’s offering is…

■ $749 | store.google.com The Google Pixel 7a is not your usual budget phone. Rather than cutting features from the Pixel 7 to keep the price low, Google has packed in as many capabilities as possible, to the point where there isn’t a huge difference between the Pixel 7a and the fully featured original. Even the launch price is the same. Where last year’s Pixel 6a came in at a tempting $749, the 7a launches at exactly the same price. It’s not a huge leap, but it’s a harder sell: the regular Pixel 7 can be found online for around that same price, too. The old 6a is still on sale too, now at a knockdown $599. Double down The Pixel 7a keeps the distinctive Pixel 7 design, with a…

■ $159 | hyperx.com Eight years is a long time between numbered Cloud verisons, but that’s just testament to just how good a headset it is. If it aint broke and all that. The Cloud III takes an already great headset and tunes it up a notch further. Taking the general tour of the Cloud III is pretty quick. It’s pretty barebones, boasting what you really need without any of the faff. There’s a volume scroll on the right side cup, while the left houses the cable socket, detachable noise-cancelling mic plus a handy mic mute button. The addition of a mute LED on the boom mic itself is a great QoL improvement. The overall design is largely the same as the previous gen headset but with some minor tweaking.…

1 IT’S RIGHT ON SCHEDULE If you’re not ready for Wi-Fi 7, that’s understandable. Most of us haven’t caught up with Wi-Fi 6E yet, which only hit the mainstream around 18 months ago. Strictly speaking, though, Wi-Fi 6E wasn’t a new standard. While it introduced support for wireless networking in the 6GHz frequency range, it’s otherwise based on exactly the same 802.11ax specification as Wi-Fi 6. It could justifiably have been called Wi-Fi 6.1. So really it’s getting on for four years since the last major Wi-Fi update – and when you look back over previous releases, that’s about par for the course. From the original 802.11b release in 1999 onwards, each generation of the technology has reigned for between four and six years, before being replaced by something smarter…

In late April several owners of AMD Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs began posting online about their now-dead CPUs. Strikingly, they were shown along with burned and bulging CPU substrates and damaged motherboard sockets. As users banded together to try and find commonality between the dead CPUs, it soon emerged that all had EXPO memory timings enabled. Enabling EXPO memory timings by itself shouldn’t cause a CPU to burn out, EXPO merely contains various memory timings to run the DDR5 kit optimally and a voltage to run the memory kit at. Nothing out of the ordinary. After some analysis by the tech community while they waited on AMD’s investigation it came to light that motherboards made by Asus in particular were largely to blame for killing 7000X3D CPUs, though Asus wasn’t alone,…

TOP TIPS TO TACKLE TECH TROUBLES M.2 adapter for storage I’m considering building a small-factor NAS-like server based on an Asrock J4125-ITX board in a four-bay tower. I need to keep the PCI-e slot free for a TV tuner card, and want to use all four onboard SATA ports for storage, so I was wondering if I can run the OS from a NVMe drive plugged into the M.2 (Key E) slot? Martin Bilton APC responds: The short answer is yes. There are numerous adapters that can convert the Key E slot into one for plugging in both SATA and NVMe drives. If all you need is extra storage, search eBay for ‘M.2 key A+E male’ to add two SATA ports via a $10-15 adapter. TAPC recently fitted one with…

PART 5 Don’t miss next issue, subscribe on page 20! YOU’LL NEED THIS • All of the code for this project, circuit diagrams and images can be downloaded from this GitHub repository: https://github.com/lesp/ Linux-Format-Robot/archive/refs/heads/main. zip By the end of part four, we had successfully built our robot from a kit, tested the motors and looked at a number of sensors, then we learnt how to use a Bluetooth controller. All of the previous parts are building up to our robot becoming complete in the final sixth part. For this section of the build, we are going to learn how to use a free web service called Anvil (https://anvil.works). The Anvil service is where we can develop web apps in pure Python. Using an uplink, we will connect our robot to…

■ Free | PC, Mac | bit.ly/MurderSonic Sonic has been murdered – well, not really – and it’s up to Tails, I guess, to finger the suspect from a cast of his anthropomorphic mates. This is an affectionate visual novel that redeems an oft-maligned band of mascots. It’s also, of course, a joke game – an exceedingly polished one – released on April 1, for free, on Steam. Set aboard a luxury train where Amy Rose has organised a murder mystery party, you have to solve the murder of Sonic the Hedgehog – who has really been attacked and rendered unconscious – by examining clues in each train carriage, and interrogating such suspects as Knuckles and Rouge the Bat. While there has been no actual murder, this is still a…

■ $49.95 | PC, PS4/5, XB1/S/X, Switch | minecraft.net/en-us/about-legends Minecraft Legends captures the flavour of standard Minecraft well: the action strategy spinoff has a familiar art style, a colourful world, and a procedural map. It doesn’t bring along Minecraft’s substance, though, and the result is a genre mashup that’s disappointing as an action game and as a strategy game. Legends has avoided calling itself a real-time strategy game, opting instead for ‘action strategy’ because I have control of my own hero character and command my units from the ground rather than a godlike RTS perspective. Ultimately, Legends has wound up with a style of combat that serves both action and strategy poorly; it requires intense micromanagement without actual strategic depth. "The only ‘action’ in this combat is using a single…

■ Release: December 9, 2008 Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: In-house Link: ubisoft.com By the late 2000s, the Prince of Persia series was already on its way out. 2008’s entry, simply titled Prince of Persia, wasn’t quite the last gasp, but it was the last attempt at forging a real future for the series – a reboot that took big swings in an attempt to update the formula. Though well received critically at launch, it doesn’t hold much of a place in the heart of your average Prince of Persia fan – but I’ve always had a soft spot for it. That fondness has only grown as modern videogaming has gradually dumbed down traversal. Sure, Assassin’s Creed still lets you climb any building you like, but all you’re doing is pointing in…