Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i TechLife

$3,499, www.asus.com Considering the hardware on offer, the Asus Zephyrus G14 is thinner and lighter than you may expect. Coming in at just 0.7 inches thick and weighing just 3.53 lb, this is extremely portable for a gaming laptop. It’s not as thin and light as, say, your average XPS 13, but it doesn’t need to be. Even compared to other thin and light gaming laptops like the Razer Blade 15 and the MSI GS65 Stealth, it’s just as thin and even lighter than either of them, thanks to the magnesium alloy-equipped chassis. If you are after a thin and light gaming laptop that’ll fit in your bag without weighing you down, the Asus Zephyrus G14 is it. Being thin and light isn’t everything, though, and the laptop needs to…

Aerojet Rocketdyne is working on technology to help knock high-speed manoeuvrable vehicles out of the sky under a new contract from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Since 2018 DARPA has been developing a hypersonic defence interceptor system called Glide Breaker, which is designed to intercept threatening vehicles moving at hypersonic speeds – at least five-times faster than the speed of sound – in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Aerojet Rocketdyne will develop ‘enabling technologies’ for Glide Breaker under the recently announced contract, which is worth around US$19.6 million. “Advancing hypersonic technology is a national security imperative,” Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president, said in a statement. “Our team is proud to apply our decades of experience developing hypersonic and missile propulsion technologies to the Glide Breaker programme.” Developing…

$1,599, www.apple.com/au There’s no radical redesign of the MacBook Air with the 2020 model (on the outside, at least), but then many people will argue that there’s no need for Apple to tinker with such a successful design. So, the MacBook Air remains impressively thin and light, as the name suggests, with dimensions of 30.41 x 21.24 x 1.61cm. That’s a slightly thicker build than the 2019 model, and this year’s MacBook Air 2020 also weighs slightly more at 1.29kg compared to the 1.25kg weight of the 2019 model. As is the case with modern MacBooks, the MacBook Air (2020) doesn’t come with many ports, so you’re stuck with just two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports and an audio jack. The Thunderbolt 3 ports are at least versatile, offering transfer speeds…

$79 Switch www.nintendo.com.au As I grin at the simple pleasure of seeing Goldie, an old Animal Crossing favourite, pottering around her tiny one-room house in a Wee Willie Winkie-style nightcap and pyjamas, I realise how good it feels to be home. Not home in the sense of being curled up on the sofa in real-life, but that sense of comfort that comes from immersing myself again so deeply in the animalese world Animal Crossing. There’s nothing that quite compares to the quiet, peacefulness of existing within the bright, simplistic world Nintendo’s life simulator, and with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, that sense of the series being the ultimate getaway from reality is amplified tenfold. Animal Crossing: New Horizons has perfected the gameplay loop the series is famed for, and somehow manages…

In the fiercely competitive and innovative world of the PC, it’s always an exciting thrill seeing products and technologies come along and shake things up and move the industry forward. We use and choose good gear because of the performance on offer, the nice design, the new things it lets us do. We buy something for these reasons, and are always mindful of the value when comparing options. It is these tangibles that drive the Australian PC Awards each year. The Awards are a joint undertaking by several of Future Publishing’s technology titles, being APC, TechLife, PC PowerPlay, TechRadar and PC Gamer. The teams behind these magazines and sites live, love and breath PC tech, and together we have distilled all of the most notable releases of 2019 across all…

$249, www.gearbest.com Every now and then, a product surprises not by its technological prowess but by its ability to zero in on a barely exploited niche. The Ticwris Max 4G seems to be one of them; it is essentially a small smartphone with a wristband and a bargain price tag, at less than $250. Although it targets the B2C market, there’s some extremely interesting potential in enterprise/ B2B as well for obvious reasons; wearing a computer on your wrist means you’ve got free hands. A big watch is how one could describe the Ticwris. With a thickness of 15mm and a footprint of 50 x 74mm, it looks like a smaller version of the iPhone 3G when viewed from above and at 155g, it is actually heavier than the aforementioned…

$429, www.seagate.com PCIe 4.0 SSDs have been trickling onto the market ever since the launch of AMD’s X570 platform, though they remain very much enthusiast- and prosumeroriented drives, at least until we see budget chipset support and particularly support on Intel platforms. Seagate is the biggest company yet to jump aboard the PCIe 4.0 train with its FireCuda 520 series SSD and its specifications look very tasty indeed, easily faster than the best PCIe 3.0 drives. At $429 for the 1TB model, it’s definitely on the pricey side. The Seagate FireCuda 520 is a standard form factor M.2 2280 (80mm length) NVMe drive. In something that’s rare among PCIe 4.0 drives, the FireCuda 520 doesn’t come with a heatsink. This might seem like an oversight, but with almost all X570…

We’re kind like that. But there is another, slightly frivolous way to do a reinstallation if you’ve got working hardware to play with: you can turn one Windows installation into two. If you have a second drive that is able to support a Windows 10 installation, or enough access to your current Windows 10 installation (and enough free space) to be able to trim down its drive using Disk Management then create a new clean partition, you can install a second copy of the operating system alongside the first. Simply select a custom install, and then point Windows 10 at that spare disk space – it should then do the rest for you. It’s questionable whether you’d technically need a second Windows licence to do this – you can only…

A hardware failure, a cryptographic malware attack, whatever the case may be, you don’t want to be left stranded. We’ve talked about using Windows’ File History tools elsewhere, which is a good way to keep regular copies of your personal files, but Windows also includes a more thorough backup procedure in the form of Backup and Restore (Windows 7). Now, we can’t be entirely sure how long this is going to last, given its archaic name, but for now, it works, and we’d wager that Microsoft will supply a tool to restore its backups even if the facility gets removed from future versions of the operating system. If you have a backup on an external drive, you can reinstall Windows from scratch and restore it using the same tool –…

The great thing about Apple products is that they just work, right? Well, most of the time, yes, that’s right (thankfully). But what happens if your Mac simply doesn’t want to play ball? Is your Mac refusing to start up? Has the display gone all stripey? Or is it switching on okay but being really slow to respond? Your first thought may be to go online (on another device, of course) and book yourself an appointment with an Apple Genius. Or arrange for an Apple Support call. Obviously, these guys are the experts – and it’s fantastic that us Apple fans have these reassuring services to hand. But you could spend a while on the phone explaining the issue or you may not be able to book a Genius Bar…

What does a flashing question mark on startup mean? Your Mac can’t find a drive to boot macOS X from. The first thing to do is wait, because occasionally a minor problem causes this to happen as a one-off. If the Mac eventually starts up, go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select your startup drive. If not, try Recovery (see “How do I use Recovery to get my Mac working again?”, below right). Could resetting the NVRAM or SMC help to solve my problem? Non-volatile RAM (along with PRAM, parameter RAM) stores things like your startup disk selection, screen resolution, time zone, and sound volume. The system management controller (SMC) deals with battery and heat management, what happens when you press the power button or open or close…

What does iCloud Photos do, and should I use it? In iOS’ Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Photos and in macOS Catalina’s Photos > Preferences, what used to be iCloud Photo Library is now just called iCloud Photos. If you activate iCloud Photos in iOS, all your photos are kept online until your iCloud storage fills up. To buy more, go to Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > Manage Storage > Change Storage Plan, or in macOS’ System Preferences go to Apple ID (or iCloud) and click Manage. On your Mac, check iCloud Photos to upload all photos from your Mac in the same way (check “Copy items to the Photos library” in Photos > Preferences > General to include newly imported pics) and display all iCloud…

After being one of the pioneers of mirrorless, Olympus has been a little quiet of late. Still, it’s been plodding along in the background making reliable and decent all-rounders, with a respectable set of useful specifications. The OM-D E-M5 Mark III is awkwardly named, but it brings with it a number of high-end specifications including best-in-class five-axis image stabilisation, swift autofocusing and a light body that’s weather-sealed. Being a Micro Four Thirds camera, this model has a smaller sensor than the others in this group. There are both upsides and downsides to that. While image quality in lower light conditions might not be on par, and it’s harder to create very shallow depth of field effects, it means that the overall system is pleasingly dinky. It’s easy to pack the…

The relationship between Google Photos, the photo storage service, and Google Drive, the cloud storage service, hasn’t always been obvious – so Google’s decided to tidy things up. Since July last year, automatic syncing between the two services has stopped. That means photos you add to Google Drive are no longer automatically added to your Google Photos, even if you stick them in the Photos folder in your Google Drive. The change doesn’t affect any images you’ve already got stored in either service, but it does mean that in future there’s no confusion over what’s gone where. It also means you can’t accidentally delete something from Google Photos by deleting an image from your Google Drive and vice-versa. So how does Google Photos get images now, and what else can…

1 CHOOSE A DISK Choose a disk for your backup and connect it to your Mac. If you’re not asked if you want to use it for Time Machine, go to System Preferences > Time Machine, or open Preferences from the Time Machine menu bar item. 2 SELECT THE DISK If required, click on the padlock, enter your username and password, then click Select Backup Disk. Click on the storage device you’ve connected, then Use Disk. If you want backups to be encrypted, click Encrypt backups. 3 COPY DISK DATA If your disk isn’t properly formatted for Time Machine, you’ll be prompted to erase it, so make sure you’ve copied its data elsewhere. Choose Backup Automatically to start regular automatic backups.…

When you enter Time Machine and navigate to the date you’re looking for, the Finder window behaves just like a regular Finder window. That means you can use it to search for files. One neat trick is to create a Smart Search and save it, making sure the “Add To Sidebar” box is checked. Now, when you use Time Machine, the Smart Folder with the search results will be accessible in the Finder sidebar. The results will update according to what was on your Mac on that date, and you’ll be able to select files in the folder as you would any other file.…

The last year has seen a massive move to meeting, communicating, and working online, so webcams are part of our everyday interactions. Most portable computers have cameras built in, while desktop computers tend to use a separate camera. But inbuilt cameras are inflexible and can be less than ideal when you are trying to work on the device during a meeting, and the old wired webcams have their limitations – if you can even find yours! How about using a spare Android device as a webcam? What device do you need? Any Android device with a camera can be used, and this is a perfect application for an old Android smartphone. The phone already supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and typically has a decent built-in camera. The battery might be failing,…

You probably wouldn’t know it without diving deep into the Windows settings, but Windows now has some genuinely robust parental control features built in. Windows 10 Family allows you to apply content filtering to your kids’ online activities, to limit funds spent in online stores and control which Windows apps they can access. One of its most useful features is the screen time limiting. As any modern parent knows, kids will spend roughly 100% of their waking time online if given the chance, and managing their screen time has become a significant part of modern parenting. So let’s take a quick look at how to set up screen time limits on Windows. Step 1: Creating user accounts The first thing you need to do is create separate Windows logins/Microsoft accounts…

The Filter Gallery is a creative hub for an abundance of effects in Photoshop. If you’re looking for a different look or a fun treatment, you’ll find plenty of vibrant options here that let you take your image in all kinds of interesting directions. Broadly speaking, these are creative effects filters rather than the more pragmatic filters found in the Blur Gallery or the Liquify Filter. They can be used, for example, to give your image a pencil sketch look, a painterly finish or a pattern-like texture. “If you’re looking for a different look or a fun treatment, you’ll find plenty of vibrant options here...” However, its versatility can also be a negative. All the filters in the Filter Gallery work by altering pixels using universal algorithms, so the effect…

Arebo US$240 (about $375), kck. st/3dlwXBU If you want to be a premium human like the rich and famous every second counts, and those precious moments dabbing your body with a towel after a shower could be entirely automated by a full body dryer like Arebo. The Arebo works by bathing you in a warm flow of air to perfectly dry every inch of your body. This does mean that you are bound to the drying platform for an extended period (rather than walking around the house with a towel), but you can use this time to make yourself better than others by spending longer on your makeup or personal grooming. The Social Distancing Badge $60, kck.st/2UyOrDD We’ve seen a number of creative ways to signal to others that they’re…

Apple is known for releasing some pretty pricey products, but it might have gone too far with the asking price for the Mac Pro Wheels Kit – which offers four wheels for the new Mac Pro for a staggering $1,049. That’s almost twice the price of the newly-announced iPhone SE update, which is on sale for $749. For the price of nearly two of its latest smartphones, Apple is offering Mac Pro owners a kit with four wheels, a 1/4-inch to 4mm hex bit tool and an installation guide. That doesn’t exactly scream ‘value for money’. Apple describes the wheels as “custom-designed stainless steel and rubber wheels [that] make it easy to move your Mac Pro around”. We previously reported that Apple was going to ask for US$400 for wheels…

One of the universe’s biggest mysteries - why there is more matter than antimatter - may be a step closer to being answered. That answer, in turn, could explain why everything from atoms to black holes exist. Billions of years ago, soon after the Big Bang, cosmic inflation stretched the tiny seed of our universe and transformed energy into matter. Physicists think inflation initially created the same amount of matter and antimatter, which annihilate each other on contact. But then something happened that tipped the scales in favour of matter, allowing everything we can see and touch to come into existence – and a new study suggests that the explanation is hidden in very slight ripples in space-time. “If you just start off with an equal component of matter and…

$3,799, www.acer.com The Acer ConceptD 7 is the latest example of laptop makers using their expertise in creating thin, light and powerful gaming laptops to create stunningly-designed and powerful workstation laptops aimed at creatives – and directly challenging the MacBook Pro. Apple’s traditional dominance in mindshare is under serious threat from Windows laptops. This is largely due to Nvidia’s RTX Studio initiative, where the GPU maker works with laptop makers to create workstation laptops that feature Nvidia’s latest RTX graphics cards – which is what has happened with the Acer ConceptD 7. It’s a stylish and powerful laptop that’s squarely aimed at professionals and creatives who need plenty of graphical oomph – and with some of Nvidia’s latest and greatest RTX graphical tech on board, it’s not a bad choice…

The 60-Second Quiz Pens at the ready, your time starts now! 01 How much RAM did the Apollo 11 guidance computer have? A 2 kilobytes B 20 kilobytes C 2 megabytes 02 How fast did its main processor run? A 20 MHz B 2.3 MHz C 2 MHz 03 How much faster is an average processor from today? A 100 times B 1,000 times C 100,000 times 04 How many laptop PCs are aboard the International Space Station? A Around 10 B Around 100 C Around 1,000 05 Which of these manufacturers does not have a PC on board? A IBM/Lenovo B Alienware C HP 06 How fast is the internet connection to the ISS? A 1 Mb/s B 10 Mb/s C 100 Mb/s…

With everyone cooped up in lockdown and the world’s best neural nets all attempting to find a coronavirus vaccine or medicine, virtual reality has never been more important. This month VR is helping athletes compete in virtual triathlons, it’s bringing the museums of Juresleum to the world, and it is the centrepiece of the first online Tribeca Film Festival. AR is on a similar path, facilitating the remote attendance of students at graduation ceremonies, taking unnecessary Zoom meetings for us and even giving us free deepfake face swap filters to make it easy to mimic our favourite celebrities. Emerging tech seems to be one of the few bright lights in this dark time. VR Half Life: Alyx $84.95, half-life.com/en/alyx Half Life: Alyx is finally out and the long anticipated VR…

$79, PS4, ffvii-remake.square-enix-games.com Final Fantasy 7 Remake really lives up to its “Remake” title. It truly is a reinterpretation of the classic 1997 release in every sense of the word. Meticulously rebuilt, Final Fantasy 7 Remake succeeds at hitting the difficult balance between staying faithful to the original story and introducing elements that make it feel so fresh and new. Playing the remake is like returning to a place I once knew and reuniting with old friends I haven’t seen in years, but everything is so much more impressively detailed and fleshed out than I remember it. As someone who played the original in my formative years, plenty of moments bring a big goofy grin to my face and make plenty of feelings swirl around my heart, but there’s so…

War of The Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius Free with IAP A PSOne darling, Final Fantasy Tactics is beloved by many and still renowned as one of the best Japanese turn-based strategy games of all time. With a wonderful story, complex and deep battle system, and beautiful graphics that have aged remarkably well, it has been crying out for a modern reenactment. In many ways, War of The Visions is that re-enactment – it features a wonderful story, a strong and deep battle system, great cutscenes, graphics, and music – but unfortunately finds itself a story of two halves. In one, this game is a wonderful example of how to build a great strategy title on mobile, especially in its single player modes. “This game is a wonderful example of…

$799, www.acer.com Despite coming in at a low price, the Acer Aspire 5 doesn’t come across with an immediately cheap impression. There’s a sandblasted aluminum lid and a clean aesthetic to the design. It even includes helpful keyboard backlights. Most of the laptop frame is plastic, but it all comes together well enough and with just enough rigidity to feel like a solidly built machine. We do notice that the base of the laptop is wider than the display, giving it an unrefined if not unforgivable look. Just a bit of excess keyboard flex and the plain-to-see plastic bezels around the display are the only signs the whole laptop isn’t just soft aluminum. Still, it’s not overly thick for a 15-inch laptop, and manages to stay just a hair under…

“Everything is more streamlined, with a more ergonomic viewfinder, relocated microUSB port for easier charging, and a digital shot counter that clearly shows how many prints you have left.” $279, www.polaroid.com.au It took the best part of a decade, but what began as the Impossible Project has managed to bring Polaroid back from the brink. Previously Polaroid Originals, the brand now owns the rights to the name – and the Polaroid Now is its first new instant effort. An evolution of the fixed-focus Onestep 2, the Now is the first camera in the range with an autofocus lens. It’s meant to take some of the guesswork out of shooting on instant, helping photographers avoid blurry images that waste expensive film. Purpose-built for fun, spur of the moment snaps, it should…

$2,299, www.epson.com.au Like all affordable 4K-capable projectors, the shiny white 3800/ EH-TW7100 is a pixel-shifter. The ‘4K enhancement’ technique, called ‘E-shift’ by Epson, works thus: a 4K image is split into two Full HD images, with each one projected side-by-side to create an ‘enhanced’ 4K image. However, despite not being a native 4K creature, the 3800/EH-TW7100 has plenty of other features to tempt. Chief of which is its native brightness. At 3,000 lumens, a contrast ratio of 100,000:1 and 10-bit colour processing, it ought to be able to create a likeable image in any ambient light conditions, and at any time of day. Based around Epson’s own 3LCD engine, the 3800/EH-TW7100 is also capable of projecting in sizes from 40-inches to up to 500-inches in diameter, which is… way too…

The act of reinstalling Windows 10 can feel daunting. Never fear: we’re going to step you through the entire process from booting from your Windows installation media to running carefully through the post-install setup options. If you’ve not yet done so, visit www. microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 and click Download tool now to download and run the Media Creation Tool. Insert a blank DVD, or plug in an unused USB flash drive (8GB or larger). After launching the tool, accept the licence terms, then choose Create installation media… and follow the prompts (use recommended options when asked) to create your flash drive or generate an ISO file. If you choose the ISO file option, click Open DVD burner at the end to write it to your blank DVD. Once your installation media has…

“Before taking drastic action and shipping your PC off to military school, you should really do everything you possibly can to fix the problems you’ve got, and find out the cause of its misbehaviour, because you might just find that a simple solution works better.” Many people look at a Windows reinstallation as a way to fix any and all ills. However, we consider it as being more of a last resort. It’s a little like dealing with unruly children. Before taking drastic action and shipping your PC off to military school, you should really do everything you possibly can to fix the problems you’ve got, and find out the cause of its misbehaviour, because you might just find that a simple solution works better. Heavy-handed metaphor aside, keeping a…

Where is the power button, anyway? A desktop Mac will have a physical power button, usually on the back, marked with the “standby” symbol, a circle broken by a line. MacBooks have a button at the top right of the keyboard; this includes Touch ID models, but to start from cold you’ll need to hold the button down, not just touch it. Why won’t the power button respond? A common reason for not being able to power up your Mac is that it’s already powered up but failing to wake from sleep. It’s similar to when macOS hangs while you’re working, usually because an app or Finder has crashed – it’s just less obvious because you can’t see what’s happening. All you need to do is hold down the power…

What should I do when my Mac won’t connect to the internet? If your Wi-Fi stops working, click the Wi-Fi symbol in the menu bar at the top right of the screen (if it’s not there, go to Network in System Preferences, select Wi-Fi on the left and tick “Show Wi-Fi status in menu bar”). Check that the correct network is selected and showing plenty of bars. Choose Turn Wi-Fi Off, wait a few seconds, then go back and Turn Wi-Fi On. It should connect automatically, but again, pick your network if necessary. “Don’t forget to check your router, which could be the cause of no connection or a connection but no internet. Its status lights should indicate any problem, which can nearly always be resolved by turning it off,…

Why can’t I access my iPhone in the Finder when I connect it via USB? In macOS 10.15 Catalina, desktop file exchange with iOS and iPadOS devices is now done in Finder. Connect your iPhone or iPad with a suitable USB cable and it should appear in the sidebar of a Finder window; select it to see options similar to those previously found in iTunes. To make this happen, you need to unlock your iPhone (with your passcode, Touch ID or Face ID), then select it in the sidebar, click the Trust button, and tap the Trust option on your device. You can check “Show this [device] when on Wi-Fi” to see it listed in the sidebar in future without a cable, whenever it’s on the same network as your…

There are generally two styles of Fujifilm mirrorless cameras. There’s those that look a little like smaller DSLRs, with the viewfinder centrally mounted and offering a large, deep grip. By contrast, the X Pro series is a flatter, rangefinder style design, with the viewfinder in the left-hand corner. The X-Pro has always been the model most beloved by traditionalists, but for the X-Pro3, Fujifilm has taken that one step further by removing the main screen from view altogether. Aiming to give a similar to experience to shooting with an analogue camera, the only thing you’ll see on the small rear screen on the back of the camera is a selection of shooting settings (such as film simulation mode, battery life and remaining shots). Aiming to stop photographers from ‘chimping’ (constantly…

The overall winner is… Nikon Z 50 1ST Same lens mount as other Z cameras; easy handling including a deep grip; tilting touch; sensitive screen; very usable viewfinder; good value for money; can use existing DSLR lenses via an adapter. WE’D IMPROVE Only a single card slot; tilting screen can’t be used with tripod; relatively limited number of native lenses (for now). THE LAST WORD The newest mirrorless system here is also in many ways the most well-rounded. Good handling and excellent pic quality are enticing – when more lenses become available it’ll be even better. Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II Fujifilm X-Pro3 2ND Small and light; weathersealed; fully articulated screen; huge range of native lenses. WE’D IMPROVE Smaller sensor than others; single card slot. THE LAST WORD Highly portable…

1 CHOOSE YOUR IMAGE SOURCE If you’ve already been using Google Photos, this should look familiar: Google shows you the most recent ones when you log in, as shown here. To add more images, look at the icons towards the top right of the window and select the Upload one. This gives you two options: you can upload images from your computer, or you can add photographs stored in your Google Drive. 2 ACCESS YOUR GOOGLE DRIVE Google Drive and Google Photos no longer automatically sync with each other, so images you add to Google Drive won’t appear in Google Photos unless you specifically add them. To do that, choose the Google Drive upload option. As you can see there are four tabs here: recent images, your Google Drive, images…

1 FIND THE DATE Click on the Time Machine menu bar item and choose Enter Time Machine. When it launches, use the arrows or the slider to navigate to the date you’re looking for. Then navigate to the file or folder. 2 RESTORE FILE OR FOLDER Once you’ve found the file or folder, click Restore to put it back in the same location. Or, click on the gear icon in the Finder toolbar, pick “Restore to”, then navigate to where you want to put it. 3 RESTORE MAC To restore your Mac from Time Machine, restart while holding Cmd-R. When you see macOS Utilities, choose “Restore from Time Machine backup”. Click Continue until you see a list of backups. Choose one and click Continue.…

REQUIRES AnyFont plus some font files YOU WILL LEARN How to add new fonts to your iPad apps IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes Every iPad comes with a great range of fonts, but sometimes the style you want just isn’t there. That’s where AnyFont ($2.99) comes in. It enables you to add new fonts to your iPad, and those fonts are then available to any app that uses the system’s library of typefaces: Pages, Keynote, drawing apps and others. You can add fonts to AnyFont in two ways: first by installing font files you’ve already downloaded, like fonts you have bought from a font library website; or by unlocking the bundled fonts that come with the AnyFont app. If you’re installing font files, the app supports TrueType, OpenTypeFont and TrueType…

Most of us who subscribe to VPN services tend to put a lot of faith in them. We’re prepared to route our data through a third party that likely has our personal information, knows our IP, and who can see all the data coming from our home network. On top of that, VPN technology itself is not flawless. There are several kinds of leaks possible, where unencrypted data spills outside the link, allowing hackers to monitor and see your traffic. So how do you make sure your VPN service is as safe as possible? Let’s take a look at some of the key ways. No logs policy You should start with the VPN provider itself. You have to take it on some faith that they are legitimate, and will do…

One way to make your filter effects stand out from the crowd is to apply different effects to different areas of the image. This is easily done by using layers and masks. After converting a layer to a Smart Object (see opposite) and applying a filter, you’ll see a Smart Filter mask thumbnail appear in the layer. You can highlight this mask and paint with black to hide the effect over parts of the image. What’s more, you could also duplicate the layer and change the filter settings, then select part of the image (try Select > Subject) and add a Layer Mask to make the filter work selectively.…

$2,599, www.razer.com When Intel unveiled a new generation of laptop processors, equipped with powerful new Iris Plus integrated graphics, modern notebooks suddenly became more capable of gaming than ever before. It’s only taken a few months for a gaming-oriented manufacturer to jump aboard, and we’re glad it was Razer, because the new Razer Blade Stealth 13 might be the best gaming experience we’ve ever had on integrated graphics. The previous integrated graphics version, the Razer Blade Stealth 13 (2018), however, was a bit lacking. An 8th-gen Intel processor alone wasn’t enough to carry anything but the most basic games, so despite the lower power draw and quieter running volume, it wasn’t quite worth the asking price. Iris Plus has changed the game, though, and Razer has put it to work…

Group your tabs to make life easier. Chrome has just received an update that should make your everyday browsing much more straightforward. It is all too easy to keep dozens, score, even hundreds of tabs open in your browser – believe us, we speak from personal experience. But while you may think it is helpful to keep all of these tabs open for when the time comes that you need to use them, when this time does roll around, you’re probably going to have a hard time finding what you need. But Chrome has a solution. Google recognises the mess people are able to get themselves into with tabs, and has added a grouping option to the browser that makes it easy for anyone – or just about anyone –…

A newfound species of parasitic worm wiggles its way into the brains of baby lizards long before the reptiles hatch. How do the nematodes break into developing lizard brains? They sneak in through the lizard mothers’ ovaries, new research finds. Parasitic nematodes that prey on mammals can sometimes jump from mother to offspring through the placenta in utero or through breast milk after birth. But until now no one thought that reptiles could also pass down their parasites from mother to offspring; evidence suggested that because they lay eggs, animals like lizards are less vulnerable to certain routes of parasitic transmission. But much to scientists’ surprise, the discovery of worms in lizard embryos suggests that reptilian eggs aren’t as impenetrable as once thought.“I was shocked when I saw something moving…

Just as the (false) promise of saucy pictures of tennis legend Anna Kournikova once led hundreds of thousands of computers to be infected with a nasty virus, the threat of a nasty real-world virus has led to a rather infectious email. In the midst of the recent Coronavirus outbreak, many Ukrainian citizens received an email purporting to be from the country’s ministry of health, announcing several cases of infection within the country. The email did not come from the ministry of health (it did not even originate from within Ukraine) but it did lead to violent protests as Chinese evacuees were brought into the country. Email is not the only source of misinformation. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube et al have all been used to spread false news about the outbreak,…

Steam is hosting a summer game festival from June 9 through June 14 to highlight upcoming games through limited-time demos and other ways to “connect with the developers.” If that date sounds familiar, that’s because E3 2020 was scheduled to kick off on June 9 before it was canceled due to coronavirus concerns. With an E3-sized hole in the games industry’s summer lineup, it seems Valve has stepped in to give some developers an opportunity to show their stuff. Developers have until April 24 to submit their game for the festival.…

Journey is coming to Steam on June 11, just over eight years after it made its debut on PS3 and one year after it arrived on PC exclusively on the Epic Games Store. If you still haven’t played Journey, this will be the perfect time to give it a shot - and honestly, the less you know going in the more floored you’ll probably be. If you’ve already played before, it will also be a lovely time to go back in for a second (or third or fourth) Journey years later on this new platform. Minor spoiler warning: as an online multiplayer game, seasoned Journey-ers can always go back in and help out neophytes on their first expedition through the desert and up the mountain. Like a Destiny sherpa but…

US$59.99, PC, www.half-life.com Half Life: Alyx is a technological marvel, but more importantly, it’s the best game you can play in VR right now. A shooter that makes you feel smart, coupled with a truly immersive experience that will impress Half-Life hardliners and newcomers alike. You play as Alyx Vance, working your way through City 17, trying to save your father, Eli. It would be a lonely mission if it weren’t for Russell, who – thanks to a headset – chats to you along the way. In a masterstroke of casting, he’s played by Rhys Darby from What We Do In The Shadows (“werewolves not swear wolves”) and the banter is warm, funny, and never irritating. He’s also the one that talks you through your various kit, gravity gloves that…

It’s all coming together. An enemy unit has strayed just a little too close to the edge of the plateau on which we’re fighting. I’ve had my war monk lurking just a few spaces away for a few turns, waiting for exactly this kind of opportunity. I move him into position behind his opponent, and then instruct him to flip his victim backwards. My enemy goes flying, plummeting over the cliff to his gruesome death on the rocks below. It’s not a particularly delicate solution, but it’s certainly effective, and a clear example of how Urtuk: The Desolation forces you to use the world around you as one of its deadliest weapons. Played out across a hex-based board, each battle pits the titular Urtuk and his band of allies against…

$1,959, www.msi.com As first world problems go, the fact that it’s hard to find a PC monitor with more than eight million pixels has got to be up there. But if you want a truly high density display, your options are limited. Yes, you can choose from a huge array of 4K UHD monitors, but 4K doesn’t automatically equal high DPI. Take a typical 32-inch 4K screen. That works out at 138 pixels per inch, not much higher than the circa 100 dpi that most flat panel monitors have offered for years. As ever, a relevant but not entirely empirical yardstick involves Apple and its Retina displays for Macs. Apple has decided on a minimum of around 200 dpi for its portable and desktop systems, including the new Pro Display…

$13,499, en.leica-camera.com A camera that costs $13,500, only shoots in black-and-white, and doesn’t shoot video is always going to divide opinion. The Leica M10 Monochrom is the successor to the Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246) that was launched back in 2015. The new M10 version sees a host of upgrades that make the camera a much more enticing proposition than its predecessor. Of course, the price will prove the greatest hurdle for most photographers, but the real question is – does a camera that only shoots black-and-white and uses manual focus lenses have a place in the modern photographic world? The M10 Monchrom is, at its most fundamental level, a monochrome-only version of the Leica M10-Pm, but with a higher resolution. The camera features a newly developed 40MP full-frame sensor…

$219, www.beatsbydrdre.com If you’re a fan of the tried-and-true Powerbeats design, you’ll like the new models. The new Powerbeats have the same curved stem design as previous models but they instead terminate in new, smaller ear nozzles that come from the Powerbeats Pro. Inside the box you’ll also find a small Lightning to USB Cable plus a soft carrying case and directions for the earbuds, though setup is as simple as holding them near an iOS device or pairing them via the power button to an Android device. Inside the large housing are the drivers for the earbuds, and behind each of those on both sides are the controls for the headphones. On the left housing you’ll find the power/Bluetooth pairing button while on the right housing you’ll find a…

Reinstalling Windows 10 is a fairly trivial task. Put in the right media, boot from it, grind away the old OS, and replace it with the pristine bits of a shiny new install. This can be a painless, if time-consuming, procedure that leaves you with a like-new PC, or perhaps an even better one if you were unlucky enough to buy a PC burdened with preinstalled trashware. Before you do this, make sure you’ve checked off a few prerequisites, all of which are good practice even if you’re not planning to wipe everything and start again. First, keep a record of your product key (if you have one – most likely if you’ve upgraded from a previous version of Windows), or make sure your digital licence is well looked after.…

“It’s basically a clean install without you having to directly perform the actions of reinstallation.” If you’ve gone to the trouble of creating new installation media for any version of Windows 10 past the Creators Update, you’ll probably feel a bit silly when you discover that Microsoft tucked a ‘fresh start’ option into its later Win 10 editions. Using it takes any Windows 10 installation back to the basics of a Windows install, even removing any preinstalled software your manufacturer might have included, and stripping away all your drivers – and it doesn’t require any special media. It’s basically a clean install without you having to directly perform the actions of reinstallation. You’ll find it in a corner of Windows Defender Security Centre, aka Windows Security – select Device performance…

You obviously won’t get 100 percent of bare metal performance from a virtualised instance of Windows 10, but it has a host of advantages. When you’ve got a system running just as you like it, you can take a snapshot, then quickly return to it at any point in the future. You can whip up a fresh copy of Windows in minutes, without any risk to your existing install. You can fire up other operating systems, and run them simultaneously on the same machine. If you’re the kind of person who loves to settle down to a good Windows reinstall in the evening, then you’re probably the right candidate for running a virtualised system. We could fill an entire issue of this magazine with ways to do it, but if…

I created a file, but where did I put it? When you lose track of something, just press Cmd+Space Bar to launch Spotlight and type all or part of the sensible file name you gave it… or failing that, any text that you think would be in the document. Scroll through the results and double-click the one you want, or press the Down Arrow key down to it and hit return. What if I still can’t seem to find that pesky file? In a Finder window, go to the drive the file should be on, or ideally the folder it should be in. In the search box (Cmd-F), enter part of the file name or content. In the bar below, select the drive or folder (not This Mac). Too many…

Is there a way to check my Mac for hardware problems? Hardware faults are thankfully relatively rare, but if you can’t find the cause of a problem elsewhere, use the built-in Apple Diagnostics. First shut the Mac down (don’t just put it to sleep) and disconnect everything except power, keyboard, mouse, display, and internet. Then turn your Mac back on and immediately hold the D key until you’re asked to choose a language. Apple Diagnostics then takes a couple of minutes to do its work, and lets you know the verdict. If it looks like you will need professional help to resolve the issue, see “Professional repair options” further on. Why can’t I log in to my macOS user account? We’ve all been there: you enter the password for your…

What can I do if my MacBook’s battery is giving up the ghost? It’s obvious when your MacBook’s battery starts to struggle: it runs down faster, then might charge erratically. These symptoms can have other causes, so try resetting the SMC. To check the battery, Opt–click the Apple menu and go to System Information > Power. Compare the cycle count to bit.ly/ apple-battcycnote , which lists the design life for each model. If it’s well under its limit, suspect something else is up; but if you’ve eliminated other problems and the battery is failing early, Apple will normally replace it free, in line with your consumer rights. If the battery is at the end of its natural life, it’ll cost a few hundred dollars to swap it out: see support.apple.com/…

Nikon has already proved its worth in the mirrorless market, with its fantastic full-frame Z 7 and Z 6 cameras introduced in 2018. The natural next step was to bring out a more consumer-friendly mass market option, which now appears in the form of the smaller sensor (APS-C) Z 50. A 20.9-megapixel sensor is at the heart of this camera, which essentially distils everything we liked about its full-frame siblings, but puts it in a smaller and lighter body. Importantly, it has the same lens mount as the Z 6 and the Z 7, so you can share lenses between the cameras. Handy if you want to pick this up to use as a backup or travel camera to your full-frame ‘main camera’. Alternatively if you later decide to upgrade…

“Don’t skip the System File Check – this is where you may come across corruption that needs repair.” THIS MONTH Q&A Your questions answered WINDOWS Use Google Photos like a pro MAC Time Machine basics iOS Add more fonts to your iPad ANDROID How to use an Android device as a webcam SECURITY & PRIVACY A more secure VPN HOME NETWORKING Manage screen time in Windows FITNESS Become a better you with Headspace PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS Make the jump to hyperspace DIGITAL DARKROOM Get creative with the Filter Gallery WINDOWS Fix Windows Update My laptop has stopped installing updates since the 1903 update a couple of months ago. It gets to seven percent, then rolls back. Can you help? Raymond Whitehall We stepped Raymond through all the standard procedures, including downloading…

REQUIRES External storage disk YOU WILL LEARN How to use Time Machine IT WILL TAKE 30 minutes Backing up your Mac is essential. We know it. You know it. Apple knows it too, which is why it created the Time Machine application to make it as easy as possible to back up your Mac. Sadly, Time Machine’s hardware buddy Time Capsule is no longer with us. However, several NAS boxes do support Time Machine, albeit with varying degrees of success and difficulty in setting them up. The other option is to use a regular external hard drive – fine if you have a desktop Mac, not so convenient otherwise. Time Machine backs up everything except folders you specifically exclude, then makes incremental backups at regular intervals, deleting old ones when…

1 FORMAT THE DRIVE Plug in the new drive and erase it in Disk Utilities, formatting it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) GUID. Select the new drive and press Cmd-I. In Sharing & Permissions, deselect “Ignore ownership on this volume” if selected. 2 COPY BACKUPS To briefly turn off Time Machine, go to System Prefs > Time Machine and uncheck Backup Automatically. Now copy the folder “Backups.backupdb” from the old drive to the new one. Type in an admin name and password. 3 OLD AND NEW Go back to System Preferences > Time Machine. Click Select Disk, pick the new one, then tap Use Disk. You can now turn Time Machine back on, and subsequent backups will be saved with the old ones on the new disk.…

1 INSTALL ANYFONT AnyFont has three options: Install Own Fonts, Bundled Fonts, and Already Installed Fonts. The bundled fonts are unlockable via a small purchase. We’ll use those here, but see bit.ly/2HZ5BFq for how to add absolutely any font. 2 FIND YOUR FONTS The app will show you a long list of fonts, each of which has a little preview so you can get a peek at roughly what it looks like. Tap on one of the fonts to find out about it, to see a better preview of how it looks, or install it. 3 OPEN THE FONT AnyFont doesn’t actually go straight to the preview as you’d expect; you’ll need to tap Preview at the top right to see the large preview. The icon shows you what kind…

Here’s a tutorial that’s certain to inject your images with a sense of motion and create the illusion that a car is travelling at the speed of light. You’re going to need some basic photographic kit – a DSLR or mirrorless camera with creative MASP modes, a wide-angle lens to squeeze in as much of the car interior as possible, a tripod to lock off your composition and ensure consistent framing between shots, and finally, a friend who you can persuade to drive you around while you take shots from the back seat. You need to take several long-exposure images as you drive around town at night. The long shutter speed will blur any neon signs or car headlights that come towards you into long streaks of light as you…