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58 Articles

All of us here at APC wish you (sitting somewhere delightful, we hope, as you enjoy these pages), the very happiest Christmas. We’re all looking forward to a nice break as the year winds down. Then we’ll be back at it recharged and fresh for another year of covering tech for you. And what a year it’s been. The dominant story by far has been the AI revolution. It’s not often something comes along that fundamentally changes, well, basically everything. We’ve done our best to understand the many aspects of AI and share that with you here, from the new ‘AI-powered’ laptops and CPUs, to the astonishing ways it can be used in your life. There is absolutely no doubt that AI will have an ever-increasing impact on our personal…

Exclusive downloads

Download these APC exclusives free from: www.apcmag.com/exclusives ASCOMP PDF IMAGER EASILY CONVERT PDF PAGES INTO IMAGES AND IMAGES TO PDF FILES. Anyone who should ever sign a PDF document knows the problem: How do I convert a PDF into an image file so that I can insert my signature graphic in Paint or Photoshop at the desired location? With PDF Imager, this is super easy! The software converts one or, if desired, all pages of the selected PDF document into an image file. The most common image formats are supported. In addition to BMP, JPEG and PNG, EPS, GIF and TIFF are available as target formats. PDF Imager is also the ideal solution for conversions in the other direction! Create a PDF document from one or more images in no…

Exclusive downloads

Microsoft built a PC to only runs cloud apps

Everything you need to know from the month in tech Microsoft has just launched the Windows 365 Link, a mini-PC designed to run Windows 365 Cloud PCs. The company said on its blog that it starts at just US$349 (AU RRP TBA) and will connect quickly and securely to Windows 365 servers. This device is marketed toward businesses and enterprise customers, especially as these organisations sometimes replace their computers every two to five years. However, you should note that you still need a Windows 365 subscription, priced between $52 to $589 a month per enterprise user. Microsoft says that its 4v CPU option with 16GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, starting at $123 a month per user, is most popular for employees “who only use Microsoft Teams, browsers, or…

Microsoft built a PC to only runs cloud apps

Cracks appear in the walled gardens

Five years ago, it would have been hard to imagine that the maker of Fortnite would become the biggest threat to Apple and Google. But a series of court and regulator victories in both the EU and the US means Epic Games is now arguably the most potent risk to the business model of the mobile duopoly. In the EU, Apple has already been forced to offer third-party app stores on iOS – albeit in the most grudging, inconvenient way possible – and allow app makers to use their own payment systems. Now a Californian judge has ruled that Google must do likewise with Android, among a host of new conditions placed on the company. Google is, naturally, appealing. There’s even talk of the US Department of Justice seeking to…

Cracks appear in the walled gardens

Albanese’s under 16s social media ban clutches straws and pearls

Last month the Albanese government announced it will introduce legislation banning children under 16 from accessing social media. Under the legislation, social media platforms will need to “take reasonable steps to ensure fundamental protections are in place,” with the government specifying that the onus will be on platforms, not parents, carers or young people. Why does Albanese want this? One of the prime minister’s favourite phrases is “social cohesion”, which seems to imply – among other things – that he would like society to return to a pre-internet media landscape where the government only needed to contend with a handful of powerful mass communication mediums, rather than dozens (all of which host millions of voices). Social cohesion evokes a mythical past when families ate steak and veg in front of…

Albanese’s under 16s social media ban clutches straws and pearls

You can’t swing a GPU without whacking into something AI-related. But one interesting new topic is the potential to remaster old games with AI. Take that to the next level and we could see real-time modifications, so that the graphics spit out by a game engine are munged into something radically different. Imagine firing up Quake II, but instead of blocky polygons that are shades of brown you get a realistic rendering of a futuristic soldier blasting through a military base. Such transformations are already possible, sort of. “Ultra-realistic” game reimaginings by AI using Runway ML’s Gen3 video-to-video functionality are popping up on YouTube. But it looks real in the same way as a multi-limbed human with mangled hands and a distorted face generated by Stable Diffusion looks “real.” There…

Taking the fight to Nvidia

AMD claims it wants to sell more graphics cards. The solution is simple: lower prices. Not just lower prices eventually, but from the beginning of a new GPU generation. This may seem like a retina-popping glimpse of the painfully obvious, but it needs saying, because it seems AMD doesn’t get it. That needs to change if AMD is to win market share back from Nvidia. In recent years, AMD’s playbook has been depressingly predictable, at least for its graphics cards. A new family of GPUs is rolled out positioned slightly below Nvidia’s competing cards. Maybe you get slightly more raster performance for your money, a few more GB of VRAM. But nothing truly compelling against Nvidia’s unbeatable DLSS scaling tech and undeniably superior ray tracing. Duly this new generation of…

Taking the fight to Nvidia

You know that sinking feeling moment you get when something is not really quite right? That nagging doubt that it shouldn’t be like this? It was just like that when I read that Qualcomm has cancelled its Snapdragon X developer kit, a desktop Mac mini-alike box designed for developers to create and test applications for Windows on Arm (WoA). Why does this matter? After all, it’s a desktop box for developers, it’s not mainstream. The problem is that it reveals ongoing issues with the relationship between Microsoft and its OEM partners, and its vision (if there is still one) for WoA itself. A year ago, all signs were positive. Microsoft, it was clear, was now serious about Windows on Arm. It pushed out a version that supported 64-bit Intel code…

How do we know how smart AI really is?

We explore the trends and technologies that are set to shape the future As AI becomes increasingly competent at answering emails, making funny pictures and solving complicated science problems that have long stumped us humans, it raises a question: how smart is it really? And we’re not sure how to answer that yet. The goal of companies such as OpenAI isn’t to ease the lives of office workers – though that draws investors such as Microsoft, hence the sudden focus on productivity tools – but to build artificial general intelligence (AGI). This is defined in a multitude of ways, but OpenAI describes it as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work”. Alongside AGI, we have ideas such as human-level AI, expert AI and superintelligent AI. All…

How do we know how smart AI really is?

Apple iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max

ABOUT IFIXIT iFixit is a global community of tinkerers dedicated to helping people fix things through free online repair manuals and teardowns. iFixit believes that everyone has the right to maintain and repair their own products. To learn more, visit www.ifixit.com APPLE IPHONE 16 PRO AND PRO MAX: MAJOR TECH SPECS • A18 Pro chip; six‑core CPU with two performance and four efficiency cores; six‑core GPU; 16‑core Neural Engine • iOS 18 operating system with Apple Intelligence • 6.9‑inch (diagonal) OLED display (Pro Max), 6.3‑inch (Pro) with adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz • 48MP Fusion, 48MP ultra‑wide, 12MP 5x telephoto rear cameras, 12MP front camera, shoots up to 4K Dolby Vision video at up to 120fps • 256GB, 512GB, 1TB storage (Pro Max and Pro), 128GB (Pro only) •…

Apple iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max

Find the best deals on new gear at getprice.com/au Premium laptops Apple MacBook Pro 16in (M3) STUNNING CREATIVE POWER. A reasonable processor upgrade to device with an impressive screen and unparalleled battery life. The new M3 3nm processors is more efficient, so you’ll be able to run the same tasks as the M1 using half the power draw, which helps battery life. From $4,299, apple.com/au THE ALTERNATIVES ASUS ZENBOOK DUO A dual-screen laptop that uses a practical layout and excels at everyday use. The unique form factor is incredibly handy for those who need dual screens on the go. $3,999, asus.com APPLE MACBOOK AIR The MacBook Air M3 replaces the M2 model previously listed here. It’s a powerful and quiet ultraportable with an unbeatable battery life and screen. From $2,099…

The best external SSDs are much more affordable than they used to be. Not only that, but they’re genuinely portable in a way that older external drives never were. And, if your computer boasts a USB 3.2 port or higher, they can be genuinely speedy, often enough to compete with internal SSDs. If you’re looking to share files between devices, or just carry a games library with you, here are some of the best ones you can buy – and there are even more listed in our storage feature beginning on page 72. 5 TEAMGROUP PD20 The PD20 is a portable SSD that’s so small, it might as well be a USB flash drive. It doesn’t maintain peak speeds for as long as some other drives, but it does for…

Grammarly vs. QuillBot

GRAMMARLY $0/$12 per month (annual payment) / $30 per month (monthly payment), www.grammarly.comQUILLBOT $0/$12.49 per month (annual payment), www.quillbot.com Let’s face it, out of all the languages available, there’s a good argument that English is probably the weirdest of the bunch. It’s developed in a unique way. An amalgamation of a whole host of different cultures from across the globe, one that’s been influenced by war, emigration, empire building, culture absorption, religion, regional variance, and whatever words Shakespeare fancied making up to further his sonnets on the day. It’s odd, and its grammatical structures equally so, certainly compared to the Germanic and Nordic languages that form its basis. To write in it, then apply specific style guides to it is quite the challenge. It takes time, practice, and no small…

Grammarly vs. QuillBot

Meta Orion This isn’t a make or break product. What it is, is a clear representation of the company’s mission: Meta is ready to take its extensive experience in the VR and mixed reality world to the real world. The question is whether the Orion smart glasses will be as the Metaverse was for Meta or whether this really is the time for AR to break through to the mainstream. The Google Glass damp squib happened a full decade ago. Are we, as a society, ready? Maybe. There’s a way to go in terms of marketing and support – we have no idea, basically, what the truth of wearing the Orion glasses will be, or whether there’s a killer app that’ll see these fly off the shelves. $TBA, meta.com Oura…

35 MetaQuest 3S 36 Acer Swift 14 AI 37 Logitech G915 X Lightspeed Wireless Tactile 38 LG UltraGear 32 39 Logitech Pro X Superlight 2 DEX 40 Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 41 Samsung Galaxy S24 FE 42 TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G 43 Apple Watch Series 10 44 Gamemax N80 BK case 45 Nzxt H5 Flow RGB 46 Noctua NH-U9S Chroma Black 47 Gamemax GX 1050 Pro BK PSU 47 Anker Prime Charger 200w 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…

PRICE From $499 WEB meta.com Meta is clearly determined to bring VR and AR to the masses. Along with slashing the starting price of the 512GB Quest 3 to $799, it has introduced the Quest 3S as a sub-$500 alternative. Despite this, it shares many of the same premium features. Most notably, Meta sticks with the combination of a Snapdragon XR2 Gen2 processor and 8GB of RAM, which ensures excellent performance when playing games and that the interface runs smoothly. This means that while this is a budget headset, you won’t get budget gaming experiences. For instance, Red Matter, where you explore one of Saturn’s moons, ran so smoothly that I felt as if I was truly on this extraterrestrial world. And Fruit Ninja, which requires fast controller swipes to…

Acer Swift 14 AI (Intel)

PRICE $2,399 WEB acer.com The Acer Swift 14 AI is one of the first laptops we have tested with the new Intel Core Ultra Series 2 CPUs, and our test model has an Ultra 7 258V, plus 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 14in 1920 x 1200 OLED display. The Swift 14 AI is designed to be an ultra light laptop, with decent everyday performance, and long battery life. At 1.26kg, and 15+ hours unplugged, it certainly achieves the portability goals. Connectivity is pretty good for a slim machine, and you get dual Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps) USB-C ports, two standard USB-A 3.2 ports, 3.5mm headset jack, and a handy HDMI output. The Swift 14 comes with a 65W USB-C charger and has a fairly typical 65 Wh battery.…

Acer Swift 14 AI (Intel)

Logitech G915 X Lightspeed

PRICE $399 WEB logitechg.com The Logitech G915X Lightspeed is the top-of-the-line keyboard from the market-leading peripherals maker. Mechanical, packed with RGB and sporting Logitech’s low-profile keys, the G915X is a refresh of the widely loved G915 which debuted in 2019. It’s releasing with a lower price than its predecessor (down $30) and subtly different designs across the board. Being the most expensive board Logitech has available, this is the pinnacle of Logitech’s gaming range. It includes a Numpad, media controls, a volume scroll wheel and quick buttons for switching between Bluetooth and the wireless dongle, adjusting keyboard brightness and activating ‘Game Mode’ (which cuts off the windows key to avoid misspresses). The board is also capable of wired use, with a battery life of up to 800 hours with the…

Logitech G915 X Lightspeed

LG UltraGear 32GS95UE-B.AAU

PRICE $2,399 WEB lg.com The new LG UltraGear 32GS95UE-B. AAU is not perfect. But it does a pretty comprehensive job of blowing every existing 32-inch 4K gaming monitor based on Samsung’s QD-OLED panel tech into last year. The thing is, LG’s take on the high-refresh 4K OLED gaming monitor riff isn’t on a totally different level from those QD-OLED panels. But it is undeniably and unambiguously, even if ultimately pretty marginally, better. On paper, the UltraGear 32GS95UE-B. AAU is very similar to the likes of the Alienware 32 AW3225QF or Asus ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM. Whether it’s the 32-inch panel size, 4K native resolution, 240Hz refresh, or 0.03ms response, LG’s OLED monitor looks like a dead ringer for those Samsung QD-OLED-based panels. But this 32-inch 4K beauty has something none…

LG UltraGear 32GS95UE-B.AAU

Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 DEX

PRICE $299 WEB logitechg.com The Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 DEX is a slight remix of the great mouse of the same name, minus the DEX. It doesn’t do anything particularly different to the original mouse which was only released in late 2023, and it is indeed priced identically to its earlier released sibling, but the DEX does come with a slightly different shape that may be more attractive to some users as well as more competitive gamers. Ever so slightly wider, longer and taller than the non-DEX mouse, the Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 DEX comes with almost identical specs. Both mice come with a constant motion battery life rating of 95 hours, with five programmable buttons, a maximum speed of 888 IPS, and Logitech’s much loved…

Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 DEX

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max

PRICE From $2,149 (256GB) WEB apple.com/au If you want the maximum iPhone for your money, the 16 Pro Max is your boy. Yes, the iPhone 16 Plus is large, but the Pro Max has it beaten: with a massive 6.9in display it’s the biggest iPhone Apple has ever made. As well as an outsized screen, the Pro Max comes with a wodge of extra storage. To round things out, the iPhone 16 Pro Max also claims the best battery life of any iPhone – and our testing backs that up. In our continuous web surfing test the iPhone 16 Pro Max lasted for an insane 18hrs 6mins, a full four hours longer than the iPhone 15 Pro Max and more than an hour longer than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.…

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max

Samsung Galaxy S24 FE

PRICE From $1,099 WEB samsung.com For years now, Samsung has been releasing its ‘Fan Edition’ phones several months after its flagship models. The idea is to offer customers who don’t want to spend premium money on a phone an alternative, even if it doesn’t pack all the premium features. Last year’s S23 FE was disappointing, but this year Samsung has got the balance just right. The Galaxy S24 FE receives the same level of attention as Samsung’s flagship models. Meaning, it features the same glass meets metal trim construction that the series is known for – complete with the same IP68 water and dust resistant rating. On the back, the triple cameras prominently protrude out with each lens outlined by a thick metal bezel. It adopts the same design language…

Samsung Galaxy S24 FE

TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G

PRICE $497 WEB tcl.com TCL’s Nxtpaper phones stand out from the borg crowd thanks to their screens. If you haven’t had the chance to see these, they’re almost paper-like, with a matte finish and subtle, textured coating. Gazing at them is a welcome break from the shiny monitor, laptop or phone screens we spend most of our lives staring at. Yet another clever feature is that you can switch to a finish resembling E Ink screens – as found on Kindles – by switching to Ink Paper mode. This is great for reading books and even long web articles, cutting out the noise from extra colours. Or, if you want to fully commit, you can activate TCL’s Max Ink mode. This will then switch off background processes to save energy…

TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G

Apple Watch Series 10

PRICE From $649 WEB apple.com/au It’s bbeen ten years since Apple unveiled its first smartwatch, and the anniversary brings an impressive update. Although the Watch Series 10 doesn’t look much different to previous models, it introduces some significant design changes. For a start, whether you opt for the compact 42mm model or the chunkier 46mm one, the screen area is now 9% larger than the one on the corresponding Series 9. That’s 30% more display space than the original Apple Watch; if you go for the 46mm version you actually get slightly more screen than on the Apple Watch Ultra 2. The display technology has been updated too. Thanks to a new LTPO specification, the Always-On Display refreshes once per second, compared to the once per minute of last year’s…

Apple Watch Series 10

Gamemax Infinity N80 BK

PRICE $140 WEB www.gamemaxpc.com Gamemax cites itself as an ‘Up and Coming’ brand. Its Infinity N80 BK Midi Tower case (which is also available in white) both looks good and, at first feel, exudes quality. Is it worth your time? It took a while to figure out how to open the N80. The impressive, folded, tempered-glass window is fixed in place by two, stud-like plugs which are mated to two, matching sockets. They’re certainly solid, but it takes some force to pull them apart and I can’t imagine the sockets lasting long with repeated use. They are replaceable but there’s no obvious place to buy them. Still, both would need to fail to cause any issues. The one-piece curved side-lid, is held on in a similar manner but also has…

Gamemax Infinity N80 BK

Nzxt H5 Flow RGB (2024)

PRICE $189 WEB nzxt.com The H5 Flow is on the block, newly released and newly tweaked, although nowhere near as aggressively as its H7 Flow bigger brother. There have been some serious alterations compared to 2023’s edition, though. Long gone is that bottom GPU directional fan bracket, and the removable front radiator bracket, but in its place, the H5 now supports a full 360mm radiator in the front, plus 240mm in the roof. The PSU shroud area has also had its design tweaked, shifting away from solid metal panels to a fully perforated design to better aid in dust build-up… No, wait, cooling. We meant to say cooling. It’s also got a stylised angular design to that PSU cover, which does look pretty stellar. So, what’s the big bugbear about…

Nzxt H5 Flow RGB (2024)

Noctua NH-U9S chromax.black

PRICE $130 WEB noctua.at There are certain brands that have cemented themselves as the true kings of the fields they inhabit. They have a reputation that’s almost unprecedented, backed up by years of experience, design, creativity, and brilliant performance. They become iconic. Ferrari for the Italian sports car. Rolex for premium watches. Converse for footwear. In cooling, Noctua’s just so far ahead when it comes to air solutions, it’s not even funny. But there’s always been a problem. The colour scheme. Beige and poop brown, to quote another famous tech journalist (thanks, Linus). The justification for that was simple: Noctua valued performance over looks. The materials and plastic composites it used were specially developed to minimise warp under intense RPMs, and it required them to, well, be that colour. It…

Noctua NH-U9S chromax.black

Anker Prime Charger 200w

PRICE $129 WEB anker.com Most of us have some kind of charging stations in our homes, even if it’s only an extension lead with a row of power blocks plugged into it. This neater alternative can power up to six devices, though you’ll still need to provide the cables for each one that you want to connect to it. The front panel has six ports – four USB-C and two USB 3.0. It’s worth noting that, unsurprisingly, you don’t get the same amount of charge from each of the ports. The USB 3.0 ports provide a maximum power of 22.5W, while all the USB-C ports are capable of 100W. This does mean it can charge all types of devices – from phones to laptops and everything in between. However, the…

Anker Prime Charger 200w

Gamemax Rampage GX-1050 PSU

PRICE $189 WEB www.gamemaxpc.com Gamemax is a lesser-known PC component brand with a mixed reputation online. Its 1,050-Watt-rated power supply is cheap compared to rivals and has some attractive features, but should you buy it? Gamemax has multiple PSU variants with differences that aren’t always obvious. Our GX-1050 Pro has no RGB, has an 80 Plus Platinum rating and provides labelled cables that facilitate the following, modular connections: 24-pin motherboard; four, six-pin PCIe connectors which enable 10 SATA and three PATA connections (plus a floppy); four, eight-pin CPU/PCIe connections (two CPU cables and three PCIe cables are supplied); and a 12V-2x6 power connector for high-end graphics cards. We had no issues with installation and the PSU runs silently. The main problem is Gamemax’s reputation for power supplies. PSUs are the…

Gamemax Rampage GX-1050 PSU

Intel Core Ultra 200S CPUs

After what feels like years of mild stagnation, the Arrow Lake architecture is a significant shift in Intel’s approach to CPU design and construction. The Core Ultra 200S series introduces a platform built around new chiplet technology, updated memory support, and of course further integration of AI capabilities. The new processors ditch the Core i5 /i7 / i9 moniker, and instead adopt the Core Ultra name. So far Intel has released the Ultra 9 285K, Ultra 7 265K and Ultra 5 245K, and the Z890 chipset and new LGA 1851 socket to run them. A key difference compared to older Intel 14th gen CPUs (Raptor Lake) that support sixteen PCIe 5.0 lanes, is that Arrow Lake handles twenty lanes, giving better support for high speed storage and other add-ons. A…

Intel Core Ultra 200S CPUs

PDF editor NEEDS Windows 10 or 11, or macOS WEB www.pdfgear.com PDFgear was one of our favourite discoveries of 2023, but other than a few small tweaks, it’s been fairly quiet in 2024 – until now. Version 2.1.8 brings a host of superb new tools and improvements to the brilliant PDF software. These make PDFgear an even stronger rival to Adobe Acrobat, especially when you consider that it’s still completely free. Perhaps the most exciting addition is the ability to create your own PDFs as well as edit existing ones. Click the New PDF button on the home screen or in the top-left corner of the PDF editor to open a blank page. This allows you to add your own text, images and other elements, including watermarks, stamps and signatures.…

PRICE US$15 per month NEEDS Mac with an Apple M1 chip or later, macOS 11 or later WEB flowvoice.ai The promise of computer speech recognition has never quite delivered. Whether it was IBM ViaVoice hearing “new paragraph” and printing ‘uterus’, macOS’s dictation being almost but not quite good enough for us to quit using keyboards, or Siri putting all kinds of strange-sounding products into our shopping list in Reminders, dictation software has had issues with reliability. And apps aren’t context aware either, so they work the same in direct messages as they do in dissertations. Artificial intelligence (AI) has brought about a sea change in speech recognition. Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s Whisper deliver exceptional accuracy, and that power’s been supplemented by some clever features in Wispr Flow.…

RebeccaBlackOS 2024

DEVELOPER n3rdopolis WEB https://sourceforge.net/projects/rebeccablackos/ LICENCE Mainly GPLv2+ Celebrity-themed Linux distros are nothing new. Who can forget the likes of Biebian – a mishmash of Debian with a Justin Bieber theme, or even Hannah Montana Linux? The developer, who’s wisely decided to remain anonymous, is a fan of the eponymous celebrity and has been developing this Debian-based OS since 2016. As with PorteuX, they clearly felt a dedicated website was beneath them but they have uploaded an extensive Readme to Sourceforge. It was here we discovered that the latest version is for 64-bit systems only, due to “QtWebEngine refusing to build in 32-bit chroots”. The developer also cautions that the OS does not contain any of Rebecca Black’s images or music, encouraging users to purchase these legally instead. Trying to conceal our…

RebeccaBlackOS 2024

LOCK DOWN YOUR DATA, YOUR IDENTITY, & YOUR PC

How vulnerable do you feel as a PC user? If it’s not the constant blitz of malware and adware, it’s a steady stream of newly discovered vulnerabilities that could result in all kinds of information leaking out on to the internet. In this feature, we’ll show you how to add the layers of security you need to protect yourself and your identity online. We won’t waste time on the basics – we’re going to assume you’re smart enough to have strong anti-malware software installed, while realising the key to staying safe is to minimise your exposure and risk. Neither will we tell you how to behave on social media or why you shouldn’t hand out your social security number or credit card to anyone who asks for it online. No,…

LOCK DOWN YOUR DATA, YOUR IDENTITY, & YOUR PC

What’s hot for Apple Watch

WatchOS 11 is the most beautiful watchOS yet. But in addition to its good looks there’s tons of substance to match its style – so while the three new watch faces and the redesigned widgets can make your Apple Watch even prettier, the big news is in the range of new health and fitness features that are designed to help you live even better. From new workout types, improved fitness goals and a brand new Training Load feature to new health trackers, sleep health checking and features designed specifically for pregnant people, watchOS 11 is a really big deal. As ever with watchOS, almost all of the new features are available for all supported Apple Watch models rather than just the very latest ones: that means the Series 6 onwards,…

What’s hot for Apple Watch

WHY YOU MUST BUY EXTERNAL DRIVES

WHAT YOU CAN DO • Protect your system and data against PC disasters• Access important files and favourite software on the go• Encrypt your drive to thwart thieves and snoopers• Save money on expensive online-storage plans• Transfer large files between devices in just a few seconds• Back up important data across multiple drives Backing up important files from your PC used to involve copying them onto CD or DVD (or floppy disk, going back even further). Not only was this a slow and laborious process, but the limited space offered by optical discs meant you could end up with teetering piles of them cluttering your desk. External hard drives were always an option, but they tended to be large, heavy and expensive, while the first USB sticks – though considerably…

WHY YOU MUST BUY EXTERNAL DRIVES

From the front lines of the Australian PC market The Ryzen 9000 series has turned out to be a disappointment for consumers. For the most part the Zen 5 architecture only offered around five percent gains in typical scenarios over the 7000 series, and there’s a similar if not worse situation for Intel, where its Core Ultra 200 series (in some respects) saw a regression in performance relative to the previous 14th generation parts. The newest generation x86 CPU’s have been quite underwhelming. Thankfully, AMD has released its most anticipated product for consumers in the form of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Not only does it improve upon prior X3D parts, but it also improves upon the mistakes made with its Zen 5 brethren. The 9800X3D improves upon earlier V-Cache parts…

COMPUTER ALLIANCE EMBER $1,229 tinyurl.com/APC540COM This system gets some surprisingly good basics nailed down. Starting with the CPU it’s none other than the value king i5 12400F. Seated in a H610 motherboard it’s unfortunate, but expected, given the limited budget and may limit your upgrade options later. It comes with dual DIMMs, meaning dual channel memory is enabled, great to see at this price point. Something else that’s great to see is 1TB of SSD storage! Just goes to show how cheap SSDs have become. Finally, we have the RX 6600, with 8GB of VRAM it’s good for 1080p gaming but that’s about it. FSR will help extend its capabilities though. A solid build at a price that’s hard to beat. CPU Intel Core i5 12400F; COOLER OEM; Motherboard Gigabyte…

Budget. A perfect balance between price and performance. This time of year is the best, and for one reason: hardware launches. And lots of them. We’re being treated not only to a new array of Ryzen 9000 processors, but also Intel’s latest Ultra 200S series processors will have landed, confusing everything with their new nomenclature and odd architectural designs (see our review starting on page 48). It’s not just major change for the two big chip manufacturers either. Yes, we’re updating our trusty steeds. All six of our builds are getting brand new chassis, picked from the very best cases we’ve looked at over the last 12 months (and even one that we’ve not yet featured, it’s impressed us that much that we’re able to recommend it). So, budget build…

The problem solvers

Ditching Firefox I thought supporting Firefox and Mozilla was the smart thing to do, privacy-wise, but Mozilla’s latest ‘feature’ giving advertisers information about user activity (the so-called Privacy Preserving Attribution feature) has left me unsure I can trust them, particularly as it’s been enabled by default. I’m aware of other browsers touting their privacy credentials, like Brave and DuckDuckGo, but what would you suggest – am I being overly sensitive about Mozilla, or should I be looking at yet another browser migration? Debra Pendergraft APC Responds: Unfortunately, Mozilla’s latest move to try to balance privacy with revenue generation through ads has left a sour taste in the mouth for many. The launch of Privacy Preserving Attribution came just weeks after acquiring Anonym, an ad-tech company specialising in so-called “privacy preserving…

The problem solvers

Boost your SSD performance

YOU’LL NEED • CrystalDiskMark Download it from https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark Millennial APC readers may find it hard to fathom that solid-state drives first hit the market 33 years ago in 1991. SSDs rely on non-volatile memory (usually NAND flash). This means they have no moving parts, resulting in better data transfer speeds and reduced latency compared to mechanical hard drives. Over the years, SSDs have undergone a number of revisions. The current gold standard is PCIe 5.0, which offers blazingly fast read and write speeds of up to 16GB/s. However, much depends on the number of corresponding PCIe lanes on the CPU. The number of lanes dedicated specifically to the SSD varies by the type of chip used. This may explain why SSDs using PCIe 4.0 remain a much more popular option,…

Boost your SSD performance

Make Windows better

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Add right-click shortcut to Windows Update settings With a quick registry hack you can add the option to open Windows Update settings to your right-click menu. First, search for and open registry editor, then in the address bar at the top type Computer\HKEY_ CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\ shell. Press Enter, then right-click ‘shell’ that’s highlighted in the menu under the Background heading and select New, then Key. Now name it Windows Update (or whatever name you prefer – this is what will appear in your right-click menu). Now right-click the key you just created, then select New, Key again and create a new key called command ( 1 in our screenshot below). Right-click the ‘Open Windows Update’ key once more, and this time select New, then String Value, and…

Make Windows better

Make Office better

LIBREOFFICE WRITER Keep ‘Find’ sidebar open when searching for words One of the best tools in LibreOffice 24.8, released in August, is a new Find option that stays open in a sidebar. Press the Alt+9 keyboard shortcut and it’ll appear at the top right. Type a word ( 1 in our screenshot above), press Enter, and it’ll show the word highlighted in the document on the left 2 and in square brackets in the sidebar on the right 3 . It also breaks results into page sections, so you can see on which page of the document your word appears 4 . MICROSOFT EXCEL Neatly align your data in cells Microsoft Excel lets you position text in the centre of a cell by merging a number of separate cells. This…

Make Office better

CHROME Chat with Google Gemini in a side panel Google has been surprisingly hesitant about adding its AI assistant Gemini to Chrome. While Microsoft’s Copilot AI is now firmly ensconced in Edge, and Brave and Opera have Leo and Aria chatbots respectively, to interact with Gemini you need to type @ into Chrome’s address bar and click ‘Chat with Gemini’. Entering a query then opens the Gemini website (gemini.google.com) in a new tab, which is less convenient than the ‘browsing companion’ experience offered by other AI assistants. Until Gemini is properly integrated with Chrome, you can make interaction easier by installing the unofficial extension ‘Side Panel for Gemini’ (tinyurl.com/APC540gemini), Click its toolbar button – which looks like a sunglasses emoji ( 1 in our screenshot below) – and Gemini will…

Boost Privacy settings

IT WILL TAKE 15 mins YOU WILL LEARN The key security features on your Mac YOU’LL NEED macOS 15 or later With the launch of macOS Sequoia, Apple has made many of macOS’s security features easier to find and easier to use, and there’s more consistency between macOS, iOS and iPadOS too. Sequoia’s System Settings has been given a significant redesign, and the previous Passwords features have been taken out and put in a new app. System Settings has two key places for privacy: under Apple Account > iCloud, and in Privacy & Security. But it’s not the only place with privacy protection. In the Mail app, you can use Settings > Privacy to hide your IP address and block remote content such as hidden tracking images. Safari can also…

Boost Privacy settings

Clean up filenames

Filenames come in all shapes and sizes, and are often made up of unsavoury characters. That’s because there’s no defined rules for naming files, which are often a reflection of the user’s mind. You’ll find files with unnecessary spaces, hyphens, underscores, numbers and myriad other characters. If you’ve ever worked on a project that required sharing files, you’ll have come across, suffered and resented this lack of file-naming convention. The lack of discipline in naming files can become even more tiresome when working on the CLI, as you have to escape some characters and spaces. Thankfully, Detox can help bring sanity to filenames. Detox is equipped with a number of file-renaming rules, called sequences. You can define the sequence you wish to run on a specified file or files, or…

Clean up filenames

Phone & tablet tips

ANDROID & iOS Scan documents to JPEG format in Google Drive The Google Drive app for Android (tinyurl.com/APC540drive) and iOS (tinyurl.com/APC540driveio) now lets you save documents you scan with your phone’s camera in JPEG format, as well as PDF. This creates smaller files that are easier to store and share, and edit in an image editor. To scan a document to Google Drive, either tap the camera button in the bottom-right corner of the app or press the plus sign and choose Scan. Point your camera at the item you want to digitise and hold your phone still. Google Drive will automatically detect the borders of the document and scan its content. You can then edit the result to enhance, crop and rotate the image, and remove any blemishes. Tap…

Phone & tablet tips

Work with Pi Pico temperature sensors

YOU’LL NEED • Pi Pico or Pico W• DS18B20• TMP36• DHT11• 4.7K ohm resistor (yellow-purple-red-gold)• 3x M2M jumper wires• Breadboard• Get the code: https://bit.ly/lxf321 This month, we are looking at sensors that can measure temperature and humidity (in the case of the DHT11). We’ll be using MicroPython on a Raspberry Pi Pico, but you can also use a Raspberry Pi Pico W. The goal is to learn how these sensors work and how we can integrate them into our Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico W builds. We’ll be using Thonny to write the project code. An assumption is made that you know how to use Thonny with the Raspberry Pi Pico; if not, Tom’s Hardware has a guide: www.tomshardware.com/how-to/raspberry-pi-pico-setup/. The DS18B20 Can you have a favourite sensor? If so, this…

Work with Pi Pico temperature sensors

Shattered Space

The games we play PRICE $49.99 PLATFORM PC, XBS/X WEB tinyurl.com/APC540space Starfield’s vision of the future was just too timid. The squeaky clean corridors of New Atlantis did less for me than the crime-riddled backwater of Riften, and the average planet’s points of interest were spread so thin I felt like I was bushwhacking through miles of desolate space just to find something memorable. So I went into Shattered Space with some anticipation: maybe a more focused experience would allow me to see the potential that Bethesda had previously spread too thin. Unfortunately this DLC had the opposite effect on me. The stage is set to dazzle: it’s a handcrafted zone densely packed with quests and NPCs with competing interests. There are new weapons to find, unique enemies to use…

Shattered Space

PRICE $28.99 PLATFORM PC WEB tinyurl.com/APC540rally As an arcade racer with clean, semi-realistic visuals, mushrooming dust trails, bulging wheel arches and pastiche Looney Tunes environments, #Drive Rally makes an appealing first impression. Across its four region-specific championships, it wheels out a fleet of 1990s rally legends. In Holzberg, we skid through fir forests and Bavarian towns. In the chunky Bretzel, a BMW M3; and in fiery Sandsturm, an Audi Quattro. Dry Crumbs is an Old West setting of frontier towns and sandstone buttes, while Revontuli yields snow, humble hatchbacks and a Scandi classic in the form of the Brick. Vinh Vang gives us dirt tracks passing long grass, villages and a giant Buddha, its star ride a likeness of the Toyota Celica. In its plain stylings it recalls fan-favourite Art…

FRONTIERS OF THE MIND

PRICE Free PLATFORM PC WEB bit.ly/FrontiersMind REIMAGINES A CLASSIC KIDS’ SHOW Nightmare is one of those TV shows that can be quite difficult to explain, as it was basically a dungeon crawl shown on primetime kids TV. The show – fictionalised here as Maze Masters – has been broken down in extraordinary detail, from the basic setup to the paranormal experiments and nightmarish discoveries that were really going on behind the scenes. As you click on categories, read faux-historical text and view doctored images from the actual Knightmare, it really feels like you’ve been handed a cursed CD-ROM from the Encyclopaedia Britannica era. Production stills, old paranormal book covers and tons of other appropriate images have been painstakingly collected and lightly disfigured, and it’s very hard to see the seams…

FRONTIERS OF THE MIND

PRICE Free PLATFORM PC, Mac, Linux WEB bit.ly/TerminalCity TYPE TO SURVIVE. Terminal City is a game of constant next times, turning the adventure game into a gauntlet where everyone, where everything, is out to get you. It’s only seconds before your first test: a low pipe that you have to slide under, by typing DUCK (or one of its synonyms) at the appropriate moment. This game stands out through its use of a text parser – you have to type every action you want to perform – and the fact that your character moves of their own accord. I lost count of the number of times I fumbled JIUMP instead of JUMP, causing my character to tumble down a pit. Sometimes you’ll hit a dead end because you didn’t know…

Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred

PRICE $59.95 PLATFORM PC, XB1/S/X, PS4/5 WEB diablo4.blizzard.com Diablo IV’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, marks the end of its redemption arc and the start of its vision for the future. That vision includes a brighter, more expressive Diablo IV than before, one where its story isn’t so bleak that it borders on parody (an overcorrection after complaints that Diablo III was too cartoonish), and one where everyone gets an inventory’s worth of toys to play with as they ascend to demon-slaying god status. Having more human characters by your side doesn’t rob Diablo of its darkness, it enhances it, lending relief and contrast to the campaign’s most horrific moments. I never would’ve thought I’d play a Diablo game where my character earnestly tells their friend that they don’t have…

Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred

PRICE $50.95 PLATFORM PC, XB1/S/X, PS5, Linux WEB tinyurl.com/APC540parcel You play as a well-muscled person with a predilection for tight clothing, chosen from three different courier firms. Despite the cars and buses that circle the city, occasionally honking or flashing you when you get too close, your bicycle is your only method of transport. Strapped to your back is a pack like something out of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, from which you can pull new bikes in the event of a crash, getting you back on the pedals quickly – an important thing in a game with a lot of timed missions. Your bike has extremely good brakes, and these are key to the way you move around the city. Turns require a tap, a slide will get you round…

PICTURE PERFECT

PRICE Free PLATFORM PC, browser WEB incredulous.itch.io TURNS FUNNY PICTURES INTO CLEVER PUZZLES. You know all those pictures of people seeming to lean on the Tower of Pisa, or hold monuments in the palms of their hands? Well it’s all a matter of perspective, as you’ll discover when you play this sweet, short puzzle game, which has you staging cute, Pisa-style photographs. It’s rare for a puzzle game to have no standout gimmick just the very real, but no less magical science of forced-perspective photography. In each scene, you’re given a person and a landmark to capture, along with the outline of the necessary shot, and then you’re left alone with your camera to recreate it. How to turn the Washington Monument into a pluckable little baguette, or Mount Rushmore…

PICTURE PERFECT

Curse of the Azure Bonds

Old games, new perspectives RELEASE 1989 DEVELOPER Strategic Simulations PUBLISHER SNEG LINK gbc.zorbus.net Years before Baldur’s Gate came along, the CRPGS made in the Gold Box engine, including Curse of the Azure Bonds, were my introduction to the Forgotten Realms. Which is why I’ll always associate the setting with women in impractical armour and names that can’t be taken seriously. In Curse that’s the priest Gharri of Gond, though a few years later Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures would introduce the unforgettable Lunit Bdufe a name that makes Drizzt Do’Urden seem downright mundane. The Gold Box games also introduced me to factions like the Zhentarim and the Red Wizards of Thay, two of the organisations in Curse of the Azure Bonds trying to control you via the magic tattoos of the…

Curse of the Azure Bonds

Missed call Whatever happened to the Acorn Communicator?

Inspirational stories from computing’s long-distant past Acorn is best known for the BBC Micro, and for good reason. This iconic series of computers found a place in schools in the early 1980s as a way of teaching children how to code, and it was a key component for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. But while Acorn grew during this period (its profits reaching $16.8 million in July 1983, having been just $5,800 four years earlier), the home computer market soon went through a turbulent time. As a consequence, having already sensed a need to turn things around, Acorn’s co-founder Christopher Curry began looking to target business users with new machines and identified a potential gap in the market. It led to the production of what was the only 16-bit machine…

Missed call Whatever happened to the Acorn Communicator?

Convert risky files into safe PDFs

Back in the days when my work computer was a Mac, I once forwarded a PC-using colleague a mysterious email attachment that my Apple machine couldn’t open. Happy to help, he duly double-clicked the file only to find his screen taken over by an obscene message in huge, flashing letters. Both of us were horrified, especially as most of the office could see his monitor, and the offensive screensaver could only be removed by resetting Windows. Understandably, he didn’t speak to me for weeks and though I placed the blame squarely on the prankster who’d sent me the wretched thing, I also learned a valuable lesson: never open an email attachment unless you know exactly what it contains. It’s a rule I’ve generally stuck to ever since, and frequently stressed…

Convert risky files into safe PDFs

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