Pc magazine january 2015 usa

DIGITAL EDITION
JANUARY 2015
GET
MORE
DONE
IN 2015
Tips and tools
for transhuman
productivity

5 WAYS TO BOOST YOUR
PRODUCTIVITY TODAY
With these tips, tools, and tech products, you
can make 2015 your most productive year yet.
TOPS IN TECH:
THE TECHNICAL
EXCELLENCE AWARDS
Want to know what recent
discoveries, innovations, and
advancements are most likely to
change the world? Here they are.
FEATURES
COVER STORY
JANUARY 2015
CONTENTS

Bowers & Wilkins T7
Toshiba Satellite Radius 11
REVIEWS
CONSUMER
ELECTRONICS
Canon EOS 7D Mark II
Amazon Fire TV Stick
Fitbit Charge
Bowers & Wilkins T7
HARDWARE
Toshiba Satellite
Radius 11 (L15W-B1302)
HP Stream 13
(13-c020nr)
Acer Chromebox
CXI-4GKM
Lenovo Erazer X315
SOFTWARE
& APPS
CyberLink
PowerDirector
Ultimate 13
Our Favorite Apps
for January
Fitbit Charge

TECH TO WATCH IN
2015 AND BEYOND
New products and technologies
will redefine everything about
how you live, work, and play in the
years—and decades—to come.
HOW WI-FI IS
CRIPPLING THE
ETHERNET STANDARD
Companies need to agree on a
newer, speedier wireless
standard—and soon.
CHAT
Using Video Games to Prepare
for the Culture Shock of War
TOP GEAR
LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
3 4
LAUNCH WINDOW:
MELLOW
Release: Early 2015

GET ORGANIZED
Organize All Your Stuff
TIPS
11 Sweet Features in
Android 5.0 Lollipop
SHOPPING
Shop Smarter Online
TECH ETIQUETTE
What Are You Texting New
Year’s Eve?
DIGITAL LIFE
DAN COSTA
First Word
READER INPUT
SASCHA SEGAN
Don’t Buy a Smartwatch
(Yet, Anyway)
MATTHEW MURRAY
Life, the Universe,
and Everything
DOUG NEWCOMB
Making Robot Cars
More Human
JOHN C. DVORAK
Last Word
OPINIONS
Hook up
everything to
the Internet?
What’s the
point?
PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION I SUBSCRIBE I JANUARY 2015

S
ony has always been a prime target for
hackers. In 2011, the PlayStation network
was shut down for 23 days because
hackers penetrated it. What happened to Sony
Pictures Entertainment in late November was
even worse. The breach by the self-proclaimed
Guardians of Peace represents an unprecedented
kind of corporate doxing.
For those of you who live in the kinder and
gentler corners of the Internet, doxing is the
practice of searching for and then publishing an
individual’s private details online. It is often used
for retaliation for some online offense and has
figured prominently in various digital imbroglios,
such as Gamergate.
But imagine if every email, document, and file
on your computer were dumped online: salaries,
invoices, Social Security numbers, budget
forecasts—everything. That is what the Guardians
did to Sony. There were personal emails here, not
just corporate documents. Both business and
personal relationships will be harmed by this.
As a journalist, I’m almost always in favor of
more transparency. The press has a long history of
using stolen documents for the public good. With
the Pentagon Papers we learned the secret history
of U.S. political and military involvement in
Vietnam. The Snowden leaks revealed the depth
and breadth of our government’s ability to spy on
virtually any form of private communication. With
these leaks, we discovered some Sony executives
don’t like Adam Sandler movies. As far as we can
tell, there is no public good here—just clickbait.
Doxing Goes
Mainstream
DAN COSTA
FIRST WORD

The Guardians of Peace wanted to dox Sony, for
whatever reason. (Although the release of The
Interview seems like an appropriately banal
motivation.) In the process, they violated the
privacy of thousands of the company’s innocent
employees and contractors, and redefined what’s
private and what’s public. Now what used to be
private is scraped, dumped, and picked over by
digital dumpster divers. Sony is just the beginning.
But I can’t end on such a depressing note. This
issue of PC Magazine has some stories that show
technology at its most effective. Our in-house
organizational expert, Jill Duffy, explains how you
can reach transhuman levels of productivity in
2015. We also name our latest slate of Technical
Excellence award winners. These are the
technologies that will be shaping the future. We’ll
deal with doxing in an upcoming issue, I promise.
Finally, we’re launching a letters section. This
may seem quaint, given that you can also interact
with our editors and analysts on Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, and of course by
email. But the truth is, readers have been asking
for it, so we’ll give it a try. Feel free to email us at
letters@pcmag.com and offer suggestions,
compliments, or criticisms. Just keep mind that
anything you write could be read by everyone.
dan_costa@pcmag.com

Manage
Passwords
InJust
One Place
YOUR EMAILS
READER INPUT
OUR ANSWER:
For this we recommend Sticky Password 7
(stickypassword.com). Sticky Password has more
sync options than any other password manager
I’ve seen. You can sync to encrypted storage in the
cloud if you want. You can set it to sync directly
across your home Wi-Fi network, device-to-
device, with nothing stored except on your
devices. And you can choose to keep all data local,
regardless of which type of device you’re using.
As an alternative, you can use Dashlane 3 (one
of our two Editors’ Choice winners for password
management; the other is LastPass) and set that
up for no-sync on a PC or a Mac—but not on a
mobile device.
—Neil J. Rubenking, Lead Security Analyst
TURNING THE PAGE TO
DIGITAL COMICS
I never read comics in my childhood, but I wanted
to start now... 39 years later. I also have kids that
may enjoy them as well. I grew up watching
characters like Super Friends, X-Men, etc., so I
am a bit out of the loop on the stories, but I’ve
heard there is a way to buy and read comics
online. My questions to you are: What app do I
need to be able to buy and read older and new
comics digitally on my iPads and iPhone 6 Plus?
And is it possible to read older versions?
—Lou Regan
I read your reviews on
password managers,
but I still have a
concern. Which ones
are standalone apps? I
do not want my app to
be connecting to the
cloud or on a server
somewhere. I want all
my information only
in my iPhone and
nowhere else.
Thank you in
advance for your help.
—Ronald Simpson

OUR ANSWER:
Hi, Lou! Thanks for dropping a line.
You (and the kids!) should check out
Marvel Unlimited (marvel.com/
comics/unlimited). It’s the Netflix of
Marvel Comics. For roughly $10 per
month, you can access a ton of
digital comics dating back to Stan
Lee and Jack Kirby. It’s a
subscription service, so once you
stop paying, you have no more
comics to read.
If you want to buy comics,
Comixology (comixology.com) is the
way to go. It has a great mix of old,
new, and indie books. You can read
comics on your PC via the website or
on your iPad and iPhone. It has a
cool panel-by-panel reading option
that’s good for smaller devices.
—Jeff Wilson, Senior Software
Analyst
THE MORE THINGS
CHANGE
Since most of your stories are now
about Apple and Android products, I
suggest you change the name of PC
(which in the old days meant Wintel
computer, etc.) to AppDroid Rag.
I’ve been a subscriber to PC for many
years, but I’m definitely not an
Apple/Google person.
—Keith D. Vogt
OUR ANSWER:
Thanks for writing, Keith. Obviously,
we’d love to keep you as a subscriber.
But PC Magazine has always
considered the whole computer
industry. In our second issue (April–
May 1982), for example, we ran a
lengthy feature about the TRS-80
Model 16 (“High Noon,” by Carl
Warren). And less than a month
after the original Macintosh was
released in 1984, Apple appeared on
our cover alongside IBM, the subject
of a six-article feature package
running 34 pages. The technology
landscape has changed a lot since
then; now, smartphones, tablets,
wearables, and so on are the primary
ways many people compute. Rest
assured, though, that we remain
committed to PC hardware and
software, too, and will always cover
those, in addition to all the other
ways that personal computing
redefines itself over the next year—
and hopefully the next 30—to come.
—Matthew Murray, Managing
Editor, Digital Editions
Ask us a
question
Have a question about a story in
PC Magazine, one of the products
we cover, or how to better use a
tech product you own? Email us at
letters@pcmag.com and we’ll
respond to your question here.
Questions may be edited slightly
for content and clarity.
?

NewNow
What’s
TECH TO WATCH IN
2015 AND BEYOND
HOW WI-FI IS CRIPPLING THE
THE ETHERNET STANDARD
CHAT: USING VIDEO GAMES
TO PREPARE FOR THE
CULTURE SHOCK OF WAR
TOP GEAR
LAUNCH WINDOW

W
hen you’re looking for the coolest, most science-fictiony tech out
there, it’s not always a shiny new gadget or even something that’s
very new at all. One of the most exciting, future-busting
technologies of 2014 was a system created more than a decade ago, scarcely
improved on since, and only deployed at the end of the past year. But because of
it we landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The scientific data we
received as a result of doing so points us down a path that many in the space
exploration community believe will occupy our attention and potentially bear
tremendous rewards in the decades to come.
That’s just one example. Here’s a look at other futuristic technology we can
expect to play major roles in the months and years to come.
TECH TRENDS
WHAT’S NEW NOW
Tech to Watch in 2015
and Beyond BY DAMON POETER

“Maker”Tools for the IoT
From the Raspberry Pi, Gizmo, Edison, and Arduino development boards to the
availability of inexpensive, tiny processors, sensors, and microcontrollers for
Internet of Things (IoT) devices, we’re on the brink of a new era of distributed
innovation in computing. Just as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak famously built
Apple out of a Silicon Valley garage—though the bit about the actual garage is a
myth, according to Woz—small-scale operations are now poised to challenge tech
giants with the next wave of clever, connected devices that make our homes
smarter, our factories more efficient, and even turn our clothing and accessories
into intelligent computing engines.
STUFFTHAT
ARRIVED IN 2014

Samsung Gear VR
Collaborating with Oculus VR, Samsung managed to get out the first generally
available, eminently affordable virtual reality headset before 2014 expired,
releasing the Gear VR on December 8. At just $200, this rig serves up a
360-degree virtual reality gaming experience for a whole lot less dinero than
expensive VR prototypes, like the Oculus Rift, which still have limited availability.
There’s a catch, of course: Samsung’s VR goggles require the company’s Galaxy
Note 4 phablet to work.
STUFFTHAT
ARRIVED IN 2014

Intel Core M Chips
It’s taken a while for Intel to challenge ARM with a full-throttled x86 chip
possessing low enough power and temperature thresholds to enable fanless
tablet and laptop designs. With its 14nm“Broadwell”architecture, Intel finally got
the power draw and heat down, and the new Core M line is the first fruit of that
accomplishment. There are already several Core M–based devices on the market
and you can bank on a whole lot more arriving in 2015.
STUFFTHAT
ARRIVED IN 2014

Apple Watch
No, Apple won’t be creating the smartwatch market the way it did with
smartphones and consumer tablets. And yes, it seems like Apple could have
released this device at any point in the past couple of years, instead of making us
wait until early 2015. But we bet the Apple Watch, when it does arrive, will quickly
establish a standard for what a wearable should be. And it seems certain that
Apple will sell a ton of them.
STUFFYOU CAN
EXPECT IN 2015

Lightning-Fast Wireless Charging
Device chargers are terrible. But until now, there hasn’t been any alternative to
charging cords that are easily lost or forgotten when you need them most.
Wireless charging is much more elegant and it’s starting to appear in retail outlets
like Starbucks, which has set up wireless charging stations in several of its San
Francisco stores in a pilot program. Semiconductor firms like Freescale and
Broadcom are leading the charge, so to speak, to make the technology even
better. The former company says its new 15-watt, Qi-compliant wireless charging
solution will be available early in 2015, meaning we could soon have wireless
charging stations that recharge batteries faster than wired technologies like USB.
STUFFYOU CAN
EXPECT IN 2015

Affordable, Printable Prosthetics
Earlier this year, our hearts were lifted when Kansas teen Mason Wilde used a 3D
printer to craft a prosthetic“Robohand”for his young friend, nine-year-old
Matthew, who was born without fingers on his right hand. Traditional prosthetics
can cost upwards of $40,000, but volunteers with groups like E-Nable are now
helping other kids with similar conditions, using as little as $45 in materials to craft
3D-printed hands that work via cables and an integrated tensioning system. But it
gets even better. We may soon have much more complex, 3D-printable
prosthetics using powered-up servo motors instead of simple cabling systems. To
wit, Open Bionics won the $200,000 second prize at Intel’s recent Make It
Wearable competition for its 3D-printable robotic hand for amputees—the
startup says it aims to bring the cost for such a prosthesis down to just $2,000.
STUFFYOU CAN
EXPECT IN 2015

SpaceX’s Reusable Rocket
In just a few years, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has gone from testing a reusable rocket
design, dubbed Grasshopper, to installing key vertical takeoff, vertical landing
(VTVL) functionality in the Falcon 9 rockets used for official missions like cargo
runs to the International Space Station. In July, the private space firm managed to
guide the Falcon 9’s first stage to a“soft”ocean landing after the launch of six
Orbcomm OG2 satellites from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The key to making its VTVL
launch vehicle reusable is to accomplish a guided set-down on land, and though
SpaceX has set a pretty ambitious timeline for making that happen as part of an
official mission, we think it may not be a reality for a few more years yet.
STUFFTHAT’S A
FEWYEARS OUT

Wearable Drones
The winner of the $500,000 grand prize at Intel’s Make It Wearable contest, Nixie
has designed a drone aircraft that folds up its copter arms and is worn like a watch
on your wrist when not in use. It could be some time before the rather rough-
looking prototype is ready for prime time. But the Nixie, which can take photos and
video in“boomerang”or“follow me”mode, points us toward a future where drones
become truly mobile even when they’re not buzzing around in the sky.
STUFFTHAT’S A
FEWYEARS OUT

Mainstream Self-Driving Cars
In 2014, California joined Nevada in issuing permits for self-driving vehicles—a big
step, to be sure, but automated cars like Google’s and Volvo’s remain novelties for
the time being. So when can we expect robot carriages for the masses to begin
hitting the roadways? Davide Santo, the head of Freescale’s Advanced Driver
Assistance Systems microcontroller business, says mainstream, semi-
autonomous vehicles should arrive around 2017. Over the next decade, we’ll begin
sharing the road with fully automated cars, trucks, and buses. And eventually,
Santo believes, the self-driving versions will likely crowd out driver-operated
vehicles in all but a few designated areas, to the point that human-controlled
driving goes the way of the horse-drawn buggy.
STUFFTHAT’S A
FEWYEARS OUT

United States Navy’s Laser Cannon
The U.S. Navy may have delivered 2014’s most“Star Wars is real”moment at the
very end of the year. What else can we say about the impressive demonstration of
a working laser weapon aboard the Afloat Forward Staging Base vessel, the USS
Ponce, which showed the laser blowing up ships and even a drone aircraft? The
Navy has now approved the combat use of its laser weapons system, or LaWS, in
the Persian Gulf. All very nice, but when will get an ion cannon?
STUFFTHAT’S A
FEWYEARS OUT

Quantum Computers
By harnessing the weird, baffling properties of entangled subatomic particles, we
could someday develop computers based on quantum bits, or qubits, which are
orders of magnitude more powerful than our current calculating engines and
which could instantly transmit messages at great distances with uncrackable
security protection. The sticking point: This has proven exceedingly difficult to
accomplish, and successful experiments in quantum computing have thus far
been confined to carefully controlled laboratories, not real-world environments.
But scientists continue to plug away at the problem. Quantum computing on a
practical scale may still be a decade or more away. But just in the past few years,
researchers have developed silicon-based building blocks for a quantum
computer, created the first working quantum network, used lasers and diamonds
to achieve breakthroughs, and continued to set new distance records for
quantum teleportation.
STUFF A FEW
DECADES AWAY

Soft Exosuits
There’s already been a lot of work done to create powered exoskeletons to assist
soldiers carrying heavy loads or even help people suffering from severe spine
injuries to walk again. Many of these early efforts certainly look cool, but they’re
bulky and very mechanistic—think of the fearsome contraptions shown in films
like Edge of Tomorrow and Elysium. Early-stage development of“soft”exosuits
promises something very different: a much subtler muscular enhancement
system that could be worn unobtrusively. Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute
for Biologically Inspired Engineering, recently awarded $2.9 million in funding from
DARPA, aim to create a smart suit that can“be worn comfortably under clothing
and could enable soldiers to walk longer distances, keep fatigue at bay, and
minimize the risk of injury when carrying heavy loads.”Wyss researchers also say
“[a]lternative versions of the suit could eventually assist those with limited
mobility as well.”
STUFF A FEW
DECADES AWAY
PhotocourtesyofArmyTimes

Haptic Holograms
The holodeck from Star Trek may be arriving sooner than we think. The next big
breakthrough in virtual reality could be the haptic hologram, a technology using
sound waves to make virtual objects feel real to human users. Researchers at the
University of Bristol in the United Kingdom use a Leap Motion sensor to detect the
location of a user’s hand then project the feel of three-dimensional objects like
spheres and pyramids by means of“high-frequency sound waves emitted by an
array of tiny speakers [which] create the sensation of touching an invisible,
floating object,”according to New Scientist. Adding touch to the imaginary world
of increasingly advanced visual and aural replication technology would begin to
complete the futurist vision of all-encompassing VR that’s indistinguishable from
actual reality. And we can’t wait for it to happen.
STUFF A FEW
DECADES AWAY

E
thernet, the wired networking technology that originated at Xerox
PARC more than 40 years ago, has always been remarkably solid. Much
as Wi-Fi has ruled wireless networking since its inception in 1997,
Ethernet has always stayed the course, adopting and refining new technologies
as required, but never diverging from the path. After all, that is Ethernet’s
strength: Without standardization, the world (or at least the world’s networks)
would fall apart. Unfortunately, it now seems that those four decades of calm,
gradual, standardized updates to Ethernet might finally be coming to a close.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is currently
working on a new standard that will provide either 400Gbps or 1,000Gbps
(1Tbps) of bandwidth over fiber-optic or copper cables when it’s ready for use in
2017 or so. There is a 10-gigabit Ethernet standard, but it requires costly Cat 6a
How Wi-Fi Is Crippling the
Ethernet Standard BY SEBASTIAN ANTHONY
TECH TRENDS
WHAT’S NEW NOW

cabling. Other efforts to bring 40GbE and 100GbE over
from fiber-optic to copper will take a while and also need
fancy cables. And because it’s already easy to saturate a
typical Gigabit Ethernet connection with multiple 802.11ac
devices, and second-generation devices using that
standard threaten to make the problem worse, Gigabit
Ethernet is rapidly becoming insufficient.
To resolve this problem, two separate factions have
formed to offer technology that will push either 2.5Gbps or
5Gbps over Cat 5e cables. Though both of these “alliances”
are made up of big players—Cisco is heading up NBASE-T
and Broadcom is over in the MGBASE-T camp—neither is
ratified by the IEEE. To make matters worse, neither
group promises interoperability with the other, or with the
next-gen IEEE standard (whenever it comes along). It
actually seems like each alliance plans to commercialize its
own tech, attempt to popularize it, and then try to
convince the IEEE to recognize its standard as the winner.
There are two ways of looking at this scenario. The idea
of pushing 5Gbps over a home LAN is exciting—and
802.11ac really is hamstrung by Gigabit Ethernet. But we
really don’t want networking standards to diverge. The
entire reason you can take your smartphone and use Wi-Fi
anywhere is because of standardization. Likewise, what if
your next laptop comes with an NBASE-T chip, but your
office decided to use MGBASE-T?
Ultimately, this is a simple case of technology being is its
own worst enemy: Our demand for bandwidth is growing
faster than the pace at which new standards are ratified.
When a standards body like the IEEE needs to make sure
that thousands of worldwide hardware and software
vendors are all on the same page, it simply isn’t feasible to
move as fast as the single entities (Google, Netflix, Intel,
Samsung, Apple, and so on) that are driving these rapid
technological changes. In reality, there isn’t much we can
do about either alliance—ostensibly they’re both doing the
right thing, but it really would be better if they joined
forces and did it together.

CHAT
WHAT’S NEW NOW
Using Video Games to Prepare
for the Culture Shock ofWar
BY SOPHIA STUART
T
he shelves at your local GameStop are filled with war-themed games,
from Call of Duty to Assassin’s Creed. Of course, picking up a console
controller hardly prepares you for a real war, but what if it could?
That’s what the team at Alelo is doing, but rather than teaching our military
personnel about combat, their games focus on cultural sensitivity.
Alelo’s VRP MIL (Virtual Role Players for Military Training Environments)
technology comes as the armed forces have evolved from deploying en masse
for front line action to more intelligence-based tactical maneuvers. It provides
full immersion to make sure that troops develop culturally and linguistically
correct communications, including nonverbal cues, before deploying to places
like Afghanistan.

Alelo (which means “tongue” or “language” in
Hawaiian) has contracts with the U.S. Department
of Defense, the U.K. Ministry of Defence, and the
German Armed Forces, and was cofounded by W.
Lewis Johnson, Ph.D. PC Magazine visited Alelo
at its Los Angeles headquarters for a look at VRP
MIL in action and to learn how it came about.
Johnson previously worked at the Center for
Advanced Research in Technology for Education
(CARTE) at USC, where he focused on Tactical
Language and won DARPA’s 2005 Significant
Technical Achievement Award. It was at USC that
the vision for Alelo took shape, thanks to a
collaboration with Lockheed Martin that
resulted in the development of a virtual coach
named Steve.
In 2007, Johnson left academia to run Alelo full
time because, as he explained it, “I always saw a
lot of potential to integrate gameplay with AI.
“But a lot of gameplay is pretty superficial—
badges, leaderboards, and so on—just a layer of
material grafted on top,” he continued. “What
we’re really about is building tools to help people
develop their communication skills. Our virtual
role-player simulations are measurable and
repeatable, and really work in achieving our aims.
“As PC-based 3D games took off, I could see that
made the technology much more accessible. So we
started on the initial prototypes for Alelo in 2003,”
Johnson said. “Our main platform architecture is
not specific to any one platform—we developed it
all in-house—but it works via a plug-in. Originally
written in C++ and developed in a Java wrapper,
but we’ve removed the Java up to this point. The
actual behavior files [to define how characters
speak and interact] are built using JSON, and it’s
fully compatible with Bohemia Interactive
Simulations VBS3 [virtual battlespace].”
LEARNING TO SPEAK A
DIFFERENT LANGUAGE
W. Lewis Johnson (top)
cofounded Alelo, which uses
video games to help the military
better understand and
communicate with people in
other countries.

Andreas Gruendel, a former soldier in the U.S.
military, now leads the VRP MIL division. Since leaving
active duty, Gruendel has worked extensively on virtual
military training scenarios. Prior to joining Alelo, he
was the Senior Military Analyst on the Future
Immersive Training Environment (FITE), which was
used to train ground troops being deployed to
Afghanistan and Iraq.
“When I retired I went into Fortune 500 in business
development, but I was missing the interaction with
soldiers that I’d spent most of my career with,”
Gruendel said. “When I saw the work Alelo was doing I
knew I wanted to get involved. A great proportion of
work for the modern soldier is non-kinetic
[psychological operations, surveillance, dealing with
civilians] these days. VRP MIL is how we can train
military personnel in soft skills before they get deployed
to enable them to complete their mission.”
Gruendel put on a headset with a microphone, leaned
toward a monitor, and booted up his system; an Afghan
sentry appeared on the screen and glared at him in a
deeply hostile manner. The setup can be run on an
VRP MIL is how
we can train
military
personnel in
soft skills
before they get
deployed to
enable them to
complete their
mission.

ordinary PC display or projected onto a life-size screen for the most realistic
immersive environment.
The virtual characters have been assigned culturally relevant behaviors,
including speech and gestures, that are based on research from the U.S. Defense
Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO), so they respond
and react in the most lifelike way possible.
In practical terms, this means characters suddenly go off the deep end when
not addressed properly or if the soldier tries to cut to the chase too quickly; just
as they would in real life. The Middle East has protocols that need to be
negotiated carefully, for example. As Gruendel moves through the simulation,
selecting dialog prompts (which can be any language required, including
English removed of idiom for very basic communication), the virtual characters
come up and respond naturally while the soldier tries to complete a mission.
A commanding officer can then get an output of the gameplay and ascertain
whether the solider is fit for deployment to a war zone. The Alelo software can
also be modified for specific engagements. If the mission contains certain well-
known Sunni rebels, for example, the avatars can be morphed into their
likenesses so soldiers get a dry run of a mission before they leave base camp.
The stark fact is that many soldiers have not been trained in war zone
interaction in such an immersive way before now and have, as a result, lost their
lives. To date, VRP MIL has had 55,000 enrollments where individual soldiers
have enacted virtual engagements. Almost 48,000 of those have been Army
personnel on active duty who were about to deploy overseas. And hopefully
make it back home.

What We Love Most
This Month STEPHANIE MLOT
TOP GEAR
WHAT’S NEW NOW
PRESSY: THE ALMIGHTY ANDROID BUTTON
Can’t be bothered to scroll through your smartphone’s screen on the hunt for a hidden app?
Just tap the Pressy button to take a photo, send your location, check into a social network,
and any number of other personalized tasks. This teeny toggle plugs into any Android
smartphone’s headphone jack to send unique signals to connected applications. Available in
red, white, or blue, the device earned great acclaim during last year’s Kickstarter campaign.
$27 get.pressybutton.com

What We Love Most
TOP GEAR
WHAT’S NEW NOW
DUBS ACOUSTIC FILTERS
Earplugs don’t have to be unsightly fluorescent-orange foamy cylinders that pop out of your
head with even the slightest movement—they can look good, fit well, and be productive.
Dubs Acoustic Filters are earplugs that reduce volume without sacrificing clarity, perfect for
watching a concert, sleeping on a plane, or cheering on your favorite sports team at the
stadium. By filtering sound instead of muffling it, Dubs make sure you hear what’s important,
without blowing out your eardrums. Plus, they’re reusable, and come in four color accents.
$25 getdubs.com

What We Love Most
TOP GEAR
WHAT’S NEW NOW
NABI SQUARE HD
Equipped with their own smartphone, many children can easily snap a photo or capture video
on the go. But for the budding filmmaker or mini adventurer, try the nabi Square HD pocket
cam. Built specifically for kids, the“GoPro Lite”comes with an HD camera, waterproof case
(up to 60 meters), LCD screen, and remote control. The hand-size gadget is also shockproof,
dustproof, and, most important, kid-proof. Included are a wireless remote, battery, microSD
card, and two mounts for shooting action videos.
$169.99 nabitablet.com

What We Love Most
TOP GEAR
WHAT’S NEW NOW
STRIDE SENSOR BLUETOOTH SMART
Wrist-worn wearables are all the rage for athletes. But Polar is taking the technology in a
different direction: to your feet. Aimed at runners who want to improve their technique, the
Stride Sensor Bluetooth Smart attaches to your shoelaces to measure each stride. The
shock- and water-resistant device can handle any run—be it on a treadmill or a track. Once
the Stride is synced with the iOS Polar Beat mobile app, you can scrutinize your speed and
distance, and better understand which areas need more work before the big marathon.
$79 .95 polar.com

What We Love Most
TOP GEAR
WHAT’S NEW NOW
HOOKUPZ UNIVERSAL ADAPTER
No one who’s anyone goes anywhere without their smartphone. Now instead of just playing
Candy Crush Saga, you can put your handset to good use, with the HookUpz Universal
adapter. It connects any smartphone to any optical device—including binoculars,
monoculars, spotting scopes, telescopes, microscopes, or night-vision goggles—to give you
an instant small-screen look at everything from minuscule images to distant stars.
$57.99 carson.com

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
Hot Future Tech Releases
Wondering what’s coming out in the world of
technology, gadgets, and games? This calendar
tells you when the best new stuff ships.
BY ANTONIO VILLAS-BOAS
1
KEECKER
HOMEPOD
keecker.com
Release: February 2015
Projectors can create
“displays”you measure in
feet rather than inches, but
not all of them are designed
with mobility in mind.With its
mobile robotic HomePod
projector, Keecker plans to
unleash the Internet and your
media from the confines of a
screen to any surface in your
home—and deliver 360-
degree sound, too. Once
you’ve connected the
HomePod to your mobile
device, you’ll be able to
instruct it to move around on
its built-in wheels and project
pictures wherever you like.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
2
FITBIT SURGE
fitbit.com/surge
Release: Early 2015
Fitbit’s original lines of
everyday activity trackers
were relatively basic, but
we’d have an easier time
listing what the Surge won’t
have. Designed for the fitness
maniac, the Surge looks like a
Flex on steroids, and will
feature GPS tracking,
automatic sleep and heart
rate monitoring, smartphone
connectivity for notifications
and playing music, and
multi-sport logging.
Swimmers won’t feel left out,
either, as the Surge will be
water resistant to 165 feet.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
3
RITOT
ritot.com
Release: Early 2015
What if your skin could tell
you the time? Technically, the
Ritot watch will do that by
projecting the time, as well as
alerts and notifications from
your smartphone, directly
onto the back of your hand.
The company claims the
watch’s built-in pico
projector will be bright
enough to project in bright
outdoor environments.You’ll
also be able to customize the
projection colors.The Ritot
will be available in casual or
sport models.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
4
KÚLA DEEPER
AND BEBE
kula3d.com
Release: Early 2015
Kúla’s Deeper and Bebe are
stereoscopic accessories you
attach to your D-SLR and
smartphone cameras,
respectively, to add a 3D
effect to your photos—
without your having to buy
(or learn how to use) one of
the 3D cameras already
available.As with most of the
3D cameras that are on the
market today, you’ll need 3D
lenses to see the finished
effect, and you’ll also be able
to use virtual reality headsets
like the Oculus Rift or
pseudo-VR devices like
Google Cardboard.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
5
SAMSUNG
UD590 AND
UE850
samsung.com
Release: March 2015
Samsung is collaborating
with AMD on the UD590 and
UE850, two 4K monitors
compatible with both AMD’s
open standards–based
FreeSync and Nvidia’s G-Sync
technologies.These help
eliminate tearing and reduce
stuttering in order to provide
a smoother gaming
experience—something you’ll
definitely want at
3,840-by-2,160 resolution.
The UD590 will be available
in 23.6- and 28-inch models,
and the UE850 in 23.6-, 27-,
and 31.5-inch variants.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
6
AMBI
CLIMATE
ambiclimate.com
Release: June 2015
“Smart”versions of common
household devices are nice,
but they often mean you
need to buy a new device to
replace a perfectly functional
“dumb”one. If you’d rather
not buy a new smart air
conditioner, you could simply
add connected functionality
to your current one with the
Ambi Climate. It works with
yourAC’s infrared receiver
and connects to your mobile
devices to let you control the
cool from wherever you are in
the world.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
7
MELLOW
cookmellow.com
Release: Early 2015
Though sous vide machines,
which use water to slowly
cook food in a sealed plastic
bag at a relatively low
temperature over a long
period of time, are becoming
a staple of restaurants,
they’ve had trouble breaking
through to the home kitchen.
Mellow might change that. In
addition to performing the
usual sous vide feats of
cooking your food evenly and
letting it retain its moisture,
it’s also smart, so you’ll be
able to control the Mellow via
your mobile devices.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
8
BLUESMART
CONNECTED
LUGGAGE
bluesmart.myshopify.com
Release: August 2015
We thought we’d seen it all
when we crossed paths with
a Bluetooth connected
toothbrush. Now, Bluesmart
is about to connect your
suitcase to your smartphone
with its Connected Luggage.
From your phone, you’ll be
able to control locks, locate
your luggage anywhere in the
world, and receive
notifications if it strays too
far away.You’ll be able to
weigh it from the handle, and
a built-in battery charger will
be able to charge your mobile
devices several times over.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
9
MOTA SMART
RING
mota.com
Release: Mid 2015
For some, the usually high
prices smartwatches
command are rarely justified,
especially if you’re already
sentimentally attached to
your“dumb”watch. Smart
rings could be the answer,
and they don’t need to
replace any current jewelry
adorning your fingers.The
Mota Smart Ring will connect
to your phone so it can
display alerts and
notifications without
requiring you to pull out
your smartphone.

LAUNCH WINDOW
WHAT’S NEW NOW
10
LG QUANTUM
DOT 4K ULTRA
HD TV
lg.com
Release: 2015
A quantum dot may sound
like something that will take
you to a fourth dimension,
but it’s really a technology
that uses microscopic
crystals to produce a brighter
picture with an extremely
wide color gamut and even
more accurate colors than
the already-brilliant OLED.
LG’s new 4KTVs will use this
technology for superior
picture quality, and will also
contain no toxic heavy
metals such as cadmium.

Pc magazine january 2015 usa

Opinions
SASCHA SEGAN
DON’T BUY A SMARTWATCH
(YET, ANYWAY)
The watch
just doesn’t
make a very
good input
device.
SASCHA SEGAN
MATTHEW MURRAY
DOUG NEWCOMB

SaschaSega
T
rolling post-holiday sales for great deals
on gadgets? Let me save you a few bucks:
Don’t buy a smartwatch. They’re useless.
I’ve been wearing the Moto 360 for two weeks
now. It’s probably the finest of the new Android
Wear watches. I’ve found some of my
assumptions unfounded. It isn’t ugly. Charging it
at night isn’t a problem. I put it by my bedside in
its little cradle.
The problem is that it doesn’t actually do
anything more useful than tell time. When it tries
to, it’s frustrating and ultimately pointless.
Android Wear right now falls apart because of
its interface, or lack thereof. This isn’t just
Android Wear’s problem—it’s true about
Samsung’s and Sony’s smartwatches, as well—but
it’s worse with Android Wear because there’s no
central menu, so you’re just swiping vaguely
through cards and hoping the one you want
comes up. Sometimes it never does. (Why does
the weather go away?)
It makes a lousy activity and sleep tracker. It
has two activity apps on it, from Motorola and
Google, and they completely disagree about how
much I’ve walked in a day. It doesn’t do anything
for sleep tracking.
The watch should respond to voice commands,
but I have to slap it a bunch of times and keep
saying “Okay Google” to wake it up. My Moto X
was much more responsive. Somewhere in the
Don’t Buy a Smartwatch
(Yet,Anyway)
OPINIONS
Sascha Segan is the
lead mobile analyst
for PC Magazine. His
commentary has
also appeared on Fox
News, CNBC, CNN, and
various radio stations
and newspapers
around the world.

middle of the process, I look like a ridiculous
dork—like, to Google Glass levels of dorkage. I’d
love it to take voice notes, but it typically cuts off
in the middle of them.
The one thing it does, which smartwatches have
been doing for years, is pop up all of your spam
on your wrist so you can either delete it or decide
whether to take your phone out to respond to it.
That is, indeed, useful. It isn’t worth $200.
I imagine that this thing would be much more
relevant if I were carrying a giant, honking
phablet like a Nexus 6 in a purse or a backpack.
But the lack of any real ability to browse or
respond to information on the watch would still
trip you up.
This is why the Pebble Steel still crushes the
rest of the smartwatch players. It acknowledges
its limits and optimizes for them. It knows there
are really no fully functional applications for color
displays and voice input on wearables yet, so it
keeps things slim, light, and battery-efficient.
Wireless carriers and retailers have already
figured out that the entire smartwatch sector is
full of dogs. If you looked at their Black Friday
specials, smartwatches were being discounted
and given away with purchases left and right.
That’s because the retailers preordered a bunch of
these things and couldn’t get rid of them.
COULD APPLE SOLVE THIS PROBLEM?
Smartwatches, like all technology, need to be
either cool or useful. Right now they’re neither.
They’re geek accessories that you rant at like an
idiot and that only prove you like geek
accessories. This has been true since 2005, when
I fawned over the Fossil Abacus Wrist PDA—
which, insanely, ran more functional apps than
these Google watches do.
SaschaSega

Of course, Apple’s waiting in the wings with its
Apple Watch, and it could address either or both
of these issues. Apple has a tremendous
marketing ability to turn technology into fashion
accessories. The Apple Watch will require an
iPhone; if Apple suddenly makes smartwatches
hip, Google’s smartwatches will benefit as well. As
I said, the Moto 360 isn’t ugly.
Apple is also very good at creating simple, clear,
and consistent interfaces. Though Google’s
Android Wear interface is simple and consistent,
it’s far from clear—you never really know what
information you’re going to get. Apple’s zoom-in,
zoom-out interface might be clearer. But you can
see that Apple is still struggling, just as much as
Google is, with the fact that the watch just doesn’t
make a very good input device. Apple’s tap,
scribble, and heartbeat messaging apps feel like
the company is throwing approaches at the wall
to see what works.
That’s where we are with smartwatches:
throwing approaches at the wall to see what
works. Android Wear doesn’t. Samsung Tizen
doesn’t. The Apple Watch very well might not.
That doesn’t mean that nobody will ever produce
functional smartwatches, just that the
penetration of phablets and the perfection of
voice interfaces hasn’t yet reached a point where
they’re useful in the least.
I say, wait until 2016.
sascha_segan@pcmag.com
SaschaSega
That’s where
we are with
smartwatches:
throwing
approaches at
the wall to see
what works.

O
ur first view of Dr. Stephen Hawking in
the film The Theory of Everything, now
in wide release across the United States
and soon to expand internationally, is of the man
as we know him now. At once stiff and limp, he’s
confined to an electric wheelchair far more
intricate and elaborate than those most of us see
every day. It is, as we know today, more than
merely his source of mobility—it’s also his lifeline
to the world.
The scientist, who was diagnosed with the
debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS,
better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) almost 50
years ago, is no longer capable of walking or
speaking unaided. So when the opening scene
ends with him, ostensibly in charge of his
faculties, driving the wheelchair around in
endless tight circles, we can’t help but wonder
whether director James Marsh’s new movie will
indeed be about the pain that silently torments
Hawking: He’s literally capable of unraveling the
deepest secrets of the universe, but has no easy
way to communicate to those in the rest of the
world what he discovers.
As becomes clear immediately afterward, when
Anthony McCarten’s screenplay thrusts us back
to England’s Cambridge University in the 1960s,
we’ll be going a lot deeper than that. The Stephen
Hawking we meet here, as played by Eddie
Redmayne (previously seen in My Week With
MatthewMurra
Life, the Universe,
and Everything
Matthew Murray, PC
Magazine’s managing
editor, has edited its
hardware, software,
and consumer
electronics content,
and previously
served as an editor at
Computer Shopper.
OPINIONS

Marilyn and Les Misérables), is for all intents
and purposes an ordinary college kid, obsessed
variously (and not necessarily in this order) with
classes, parties, and girls. The particular girl
who’s captured his interest at one particular party
is Jane (Felicity Jones), who will in not-too-short
order become Mrs. Hawking and, more or less,
the love of Stephen’s life. But it’s early on in their
marriage, after Stephen has proven his brilliance
by solving insoluble physics dilemmas and begun
investigating how to reverse the black hole
process to examine the beginning of time, that
ALS creeps into his life and begins transforming a
serious intellect into a serious icon.
Stephen and Jane’s unconventional love story,
which touches on dependency as well as drifting
apart once life circumstances alter internal
chemistry (the pair divorced in 1995, after 30
years of marriage), is the central thrust of The
Theory of Everything, and certainly what’s likely
to capture most viewers’ hearts. And if you’re not
familiar with the nuances of Hawking’s life and
work, which comprise books such as his
landmark A Brief History of Time and lectures,
appearances, and other writings that popularized
dense concepts and democratized them into
something that ordinary people could latch onto,
you’ll be stunned to discover how much he did
years before Neil deGrasse Tyson became a
scientific sex symbol.
But from my perspective, the title tells the
deepest story of all, and reveals the true point of
the movie: Just as Hawking has spent his career
searching for the Grand Unification Theory,
which would bring together everything we know
about existence and (hopefully) explain the
purpose of it all, so too must we all devote our
lives to unifying ourselves and being the best we
MatthewMurra

can be, even if it’s something no one else will
accept or appreciate.
We’re constantly reminded us that we must find
our own “theory of everything,” and, if we do, to
quote Stephen from late in the film, we’ll see that
he’s right that “there should be no boundary to
human endeavor.” Perhaps we won’t always
accomplish everything we set out to—even
Hawking hasn’t (yet)—but we can take advantage
of the limited time we have, and do as much as
possible for others along the way.
The movie also insists that we remember
something even more important. In it, technology
is an inextricable part of Stephen’s existence; it
replaces his legs early on, and, following an
emergency tracheotomy in the mid 1980s, his
voice. (Much of the last third of the action
involves him first learning to tap out words on a
simple computer keyboard, then, as his condition
worsens still more, adopting new methods by
which where and how he looks at something can
express complex ideas.) But the things that really
distinguish him are not his collection of gadgets
and remarkable mind, but his own
resourcefulness and drive. His struggles to
remain an integral part of his children’s lives, and
to keep doing what he loves for as long as he’s
physically able—and, for that matter, well after he
no longer is—are what really explain who and
why he is.
Thanks to the Internet and smartphones, each
of us alive right now has far more resources than
Hawking did during his early years to affect more
lives in more places all around the globe—and all
in an instant. But no computer, no device, will
ever replace the one-of-a-kind tools within us, the
biological hardware and software that not only
make us unique but also make us uniquely
MatthewMurra
We can take
advantage of
the limited
time we have,
and do as much
as possible for
others along
the way.

capable of participating in and reshaping the
world around us.
It’s easy to get distracted by the enormity of it
all, to lose sight of the remarkable and powerful
gifts we’ve been given to interact with and
ultimately change the world. We need to make
sure we don’t, because it’s a privilege the likes of
which no one else in history has been afforded.
The purpose of technology, in whatever form we
utilize it, should always be to help us better
realize our deepest dreams and ambitions, and
those of the people closest to us.
It’s from the human mind, not electronics, that
our greatest ideas spring, and it’s through them
that we move furthest ahead when we most need
to. As The Theory of Everything demonstrates,
Hawking has known that for decades. And despite
the challenges he’s faced, he’s never slowed down.
Neither should we if we want to not only touch
the stars, but understand them in ways our
ancestors could never have imagined. It’s an
achievement that’s within our grasp and, should
we attain it, really will mean everything.
matthew_murray@pcmag.com
MatthewMurra
It’s from the
human mind,
not electronics,
that our
greatest ideas
spring.

T
o better avoid accidents, autonomous
cars can do things that human drivers
can’t. Their eyes—or rather sensors and
software—never leave the road to change a radio
station or glance over at a passenger. They can
see through fog or other inclement weather, and
sense a stalled car or other hazard ahead and
take appropriate action.
But as automated technology progresses and is
tested on the road, developers are finding that
human drivers have certain advantages, and the
machines’ lack of humanness may be a liability
when it comes to the adoption of the self-driving
cars. Robot cars don’t drive as defensively—or as
aggressively—as humans, for example. And they
can’t understand the subtle cues and hints that
most people intuitively comprehend while on
the highway.
So before self-driving technology becomes
mainstream, the challenge will be to make robot
cars more human, something Google and others
are already working on. According a recent report
from the San Jose Mercury News, Google has
begun programming its fleet of self-driving cars
to inch forward at four-way stops, lest the
vehicles defer to more aggressive human drivers
and sit too long at a stop sign.
Google’s autonomous vehicles are also learning
to drive closer to cars ahead to close the gap and
keep other drivers from cutting in front of them.
DougNewcom
Making Robot Cars
More Human
OPINIONS
Car tech expert Doug
Newcomb has
written for Popular
Mechanics, Road &
Track, and other
publications, and is
the author of Car
Audio for Dummies.

“We found that we actually need to be—not
aggressive—but assertive,” Nathaniel Fairfield,
Google’s technical lead for the team that writes
software to fix problems uncovered during
driving tests, told the Mercury News. “If you’re
always yielding and conservative, basically
everybody will just stomp on you all day.”
Of course, not everyone drives aggressively or
the same. So if robot cars are going to behave
more like humans, the technology will have to be
fine-tuned to different types of drivers, according
to Peter Skillman, head of design at HERE, the
division of Nokia that provides mapping for self-
driving cars. He said that this adaptability will
help convince people to trust machines to drive.
At a recent conference, Skillman said that even
when they aren’t controlling the car, people
should be able to decide how they want to be
driven and whether they want to take certain
routes over others. He called this integrating of
personal preferences into autonomous vehicles
“humanized driving,” and added that a big part of
the experience will be making passengers feel like
they still have some sense of control.
“Knowing where you are and what’s around you
is key to trust,” Skillman said. “You need a visual
gestalt of where you’re going.” As an example,
Skillman noted that swerving to miss something
in a car’s path or hard braking can be jarring even
when humans are in control of the car, and could
be especially startling when robots are in charge.
Skillman said that providing passengers in self-
driving cars with plenty of notice in such
situations can help soften being startled. “It’s
important that you see the intent of the car to
change lanes, so if your car takes evasive action,
you know why it happens,” he added.
Although some of these features won’t be
DougNewcom

difficult to incorporate into self-driving cars,
another human aspect of driving could be the way
people communicate with glances and gestures
while behind the wheel, such as with a nod of the
head or a swipe of the hand. Google is working on
this, too.
“Driving can be a social thing, where you’re
using your vehicle and a little bit of body language
in your car to communicate with other drivers
what your intentions are,” said Brian Torcellini,
who oversees the group that tests the company’s
cars on public road. “So we’re now trying to teach
the car different ways to sort of fit in with society
and the way that other people drive.”
We wonder if that means driving as
aggressively as, say, a cabbie in Manhattan or
some other big city, and whether it includes
interpreting the meaning of a middle finger.
DougNewcom
We’re now
trying to
teach the car
different ways
to sort of fit in
with society
and the way
that other
people drive.

ReviewsCONSUMER
ELECTRONICS
Canon EOS 7D Mark II
Fitbit Charge
Bowers & Wilkins T7
HARDWARE
Toshiba Satellite Radius 11 (L15W-B1302)
HP Stream 13 (13-c020nr)
Acer Chromebox CXI-4GKM
Lenovo Erazer X315
SOFTWARE & APPS
CyberLink PowerDirector Ultimate 13
Our Favorite Apps for January

EDITORS’
CHOICE
The Canon EOS 7D Mark II is the long-awaited
successor to the company’s flagship APS-C
D-SLR, the 7D. The 20-megapixel camera may
bear the same moniker, but the Mark II is
completely revamped. Its 65-point autofocus
system runs circles around the original 7D’s 19-point
system, and on-sensor phase detection vastly improves
autofocus speed when recording video. There are some
drawbacks; it doesn’t have an articulating rear display or
integrated Wi-Fi like the less expensive Sony Alpha 77
II. But the 7D Mark II is a killer SLR that action shooters
and videographers should take a close look at.
Canon EOS 7D
Mark II
$1,799 (body only)
L L L L H
Sharpen Your Focus With
This Killer Canon D-SLR
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
REVIEWS

DESIGN AND FEATURES
The 7D Mark II is as big as some smaller full-frame
bodies, measuring 4.4 by 5.9 by 3.1 inches (HWD) and
weighing 2 pounds. Its 1/8,000-second shutter is rated
to 200,000 cycles and the body is sealed to protect it
from dust and water. The result is an extremely durable
body that feels a lot more solid than the company’s
entry-level full-frame offering, the EOS 6D.
Some design choices had to be made to achieve the
durability the 7D Mark II promises. The rear
1,040k-dot-resolution LCD is a fixed panel, which isn’t
quite as useful for video as the vari-angle display that
Canon uses in the midrange 70D, and the magnesium
alloy chassis means that there’s no built-in Wi-Fi, as an
all-metal build interferes with wireless data
transmission. That didn’t stop Canon from including a
GPS module, which adds location data to images when
enabled; Sony went the opposite route with its Alpha 77
II, omitting a GPS and including Wi-Fi, as well as a
hinge-mounted display.
Canon doesn’t include a lot of controls on the face of
the camera, just the programmable depth-of-field
preview button and a button that raises the built-
in pop-up flash. There’s a standard mode dial on
the top plate, to the left of the viewfinder, and
the Power switch is next to it. The right side
of the top plate houses the monochrome
information display, plus a few
additional controls. On the rear
you’ll find a Live View button
with a toggle switch for video
and still capture, autofocus and
exposure controls, and several
others. Image playback and
delete controls run along the
left side of the rear LCD. You
change the focus mode by way
of a lever system.
Canon EOS 7D
Mark II
PROS 10fps
continuous shooting.
65-point cross-type
autofocus system.
Good control layout.
Huge JPEG shooting
buffer. Lots of detail
at high ISO. Access to
Canon lens system.
1/8,000-second
shutter. Integrated
GPS. CompactFlash,
SD card slots. Shoots
1080p60 video.
CONS Pricey. Lacks
built-in Wi-Fi. Fixed
rear LCD. Servo AF
unavailable when
shooting at 1080p60.

As you’d expect from an SLR that’s positioned at the top of its class, the 7D
Mark II features a big, bright optical viewfinder with 100 percent frame
coverage. A black outline shows the area covered by the 7D’s autofocus system
that lights up in red when the focus system is engaged. The active focus point is
also displayed in the OVF, as is a digital level, and icons that let you know when
the autofocus system is engaged and when you’re shooting under flickering
lights. Shooting information is displayed via a green LCD that runs across the
bottom and along the right side of the finder.
PERFORMANCE AND CONCLUSIONS
The 7D Mark II starts and captures an in-focus image in just about half a
second, and it locked focus speedily in a variety of lighting scenarios. Our
standard focus speed test involves shooting an analog stopwatch on an LCD
display, and the 7D consistently locked focus and fired in about 0.05 second.
Doing the same with Live View enabled only extended that time to 0.1 second,
with a mere 0.4 second required if the EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens
was significantly out of focus before the shutter was pressed. In low light the 7D
slows to about 0.8 second to acquire focus and fire a shot—that’s really quick.
The 7D’s focus system features 65 AF points, all of which are cross-type. The
focus system can be set to choose a point or points automatically from the
entirety of its area or do the same from one of three zones (left, center, and
right), or you can select from a point or group of five to 15 points. When set to
direct control, it’s very quick to change between focus modes and move the
WHEN DENSITY
CALLS
The rear LCD on
the Canon EOS 7D
Mark II isn’t
hinged, but its
1,040k-dot
resolution makes
it look incredibly
sharp.

active point around. And, unlike less-expensive cameras, the 65 points cover
almost the entire frame. Like Canon’s full-frame flagship camera, the EOS-1D
X, the 7D Mark II features an autofocus system that you can adjust to your
heart’s content. It has six main customizable modes to choose from, each
corresponding to a different type of scene.
Canon rates the 7D at 10 frames per second (fps), and it just about lives up to
that claim, hitting 9.8fps over full bursts of shots in our lab tests, even with AI
Servo continuous focus enabled. Depending on the format you’re shooting, the
number of images you can capture in a burst varies. In Raw+JPEG mode it
manages 18 shots before slowing down; it can keep shooting at a slower pace,
but if you want to clear all of those images to a memory card and start with a
fresh buffer, only about 7.6 seconds is required. If you use Raw mode, the buffer
holds about 26 shots before the 7D slows, with a short 6.4 seconds required to
clear all of those images. But when I opted to shoot JPEG, I held the shutter
button down for a full 2 minutes, capturing more than 1,200 full-resolution
images with no signs of the 7D slowing down. That’s pretty amazing.
I used Imatest to check and see how the 7D Mark II’s image quality holds up
at higher ISOs. When shooting JPEGs at default noise reduction settings the
camera keeps noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 3200. Minor smudging
became noticeable at ISO 3200, but images are very crisp at ISO 1600 and
below; detail drops off further at ISO 12800 and the top standard setting, ISO
16000, but both should be fine for Web use. Raw images show strong detail
through ISO 25600, although there’s a lot of grain.
The 7D Mark II records QuickTime or MP4 video at up to 1080p60 quality.
You can only record footage at 1080p60 using an IPB compression scheme,
INTERFACE READY
A number of
interface ports let
you easily get your
data from the 7D
Mark II; there’s even
support for two
memory cards.

which is more heavily compressed than the ALL-I
recording options available at 1080p30, 1080p24, and
720p60. If you plan on shooting video with the
intention of editing it into a finished project, ALL-I is
the way to go. The camera features both a microphone
input port and a headphone jack, so you can connect a
pro-grade microphone and monitor audio while
recording. Video quality is excellent, with sharp details,
but as with most large-sensor cameras, rolling shutter
can be an issue when panning quickly or capturing
fast-moving action. Video autofocus is very quick, as
on-sensor phase detection handles all of the work.
The 7D can also be set for Servo AF, which
constantly adjusts focus as the scene changes,
though this feature is disabled when shooting at
1080p60. Autofocus modes available when
recording video include face detection with
tracking, a wide focus area, and an adjustable
flexible spot.
The 7D Mark II has a number of interface ports.
It uses USB 3.0 for data and it has a mini HDMI
output to send uncompressed video footage to a
field recorder. There’s also a remote control port
and a PC sync socket to connect to studio strobes.
It supports two memory cards, one CompactFlash
and one SD, SDHC, or SDXC.
Owners of the original 7D have been patiently
waiting for an updated camera. The 7D Mark II
proves that the wait was worth it. It has the best
autofocus system that I’ve seen in an APS-C
body, and its image quality holds up against the
stiff competition in this category. When you add in
smooth autofocus when recording video or using Live
View for stills and access to Canon’s extensive lens
system, you have a camera that is worthy of being called
our Editors’ Choice.
JIM FISHER
The 7D Mark II
proves that
the wait was
worth it.

EDITORS’
CHOICE
Amazon is joining Google and Roku as a purveyor of tiny stick-shaped
media hubs with the Fire TV Stick. Like the Google Chromecast and
the Roku Streaming Stick, the Fire TV Stick is a tiny bar that you
insert into your HDTV’s HDMI port and use just like any other
streaming device. It’s a scaled-down version of Amazon’s excellent
Fire TV, lacking its big brother’s impressive speed and included microphone-
equipped voice search remote (though it’s an available option), but offering a
much smaller form factor and a $39 price tag. It’s an ideal media streamer for
Prime members, but even if you don’t subscribe to Amazon’s catch-all premium
service it still offers a compelling selection of apps and features.
DESIGN
Like most stick-shaped media devices, the Fire TV Stick is nondescript and
unobtrusive. It’s a matte black bar the approximate size and shape of a pack of
gum that plugs directly into your HDTV’s HDMI port. If there isn’t enough
$39
L L L L H
This Tiny Media Streamer
Packs Huge Functionality
REVIEWS

space around the port, Amazon includes a short
extender cable to add some wiggle room. A micro USB
port on the side of the stick powers everything through
the included lengthy cable and wall adapter. Don’t
count on your HDTV’s USB ports to provide enough
juice for the Fire TV Stick; you’ll probably have to plug
it into the wall for it to consistently work.
The included remote is chunkier than the Fire TV’s
microphone-equipped remote. It’s a relatively slim
matte black bar, with a circular direction pad and six
buttons for controlling playback and menu navigation.
It lacks a Voice Search button, and you can’t simply talk
into it to search for content the way you can with the
Fire TV remote. Amazon offers an optional voice search
remote upgrade for $29.99 that effectively gives the
Fire Stick the Fire TV’s remote.
You can also use voice search with your Android
smartphone or tablet, if you install the free Fire TV
Remote app. It adds full control over the Fire TV Stick,
including text input and menu navigation. An iOS
version of the app is planned for the future, but is
not currently available.
FIRE OS AND FEATURES
Although it’s technically a version of
Android, the Fire OS software that drives
both the Fire TV Stick and Fire TV is
thoroughly reskinned and restructured to
be HDTV-friendly. The Fire TV Stick
offers effectively the same interface as
the Fire TV, with large tiles
representing media and apps arranged
in a series of easily navigable rows. Amazon’s
own movie and music libraries take center stage,
integrating directly into the Movies, TV, and Music
menus. If you have Amazon Prime (and a 30-day trial
subscription is included with the Fire TV Stick), you can
access a lot of content without downloading any apps.
Amazon Fire TV
Stick
PROS Inexpensive.
Feature-rich. Lots of
content and services
available, especially
for Amazon Prime
members.
CONS Interface is
curated primarily
around Amazon
content. Not as quick
as the Fire TV. No iOS
version of the remote
app yet.

Amazon Instant Video stands at the front of the
experience, with Prime Video’s strong-but-not-quite-
Netflix library making Prime membership very appealing
when used with this device. Prime membership also
includes Prime Music, a similar service that offers more
than a million songs that can be selected and played for
free in custom playlists. Amazon Cloud Drive syncs
photos and videos from your mobile devices for sharing
via the Fire TV Stick, and Amazon Prime members get
unlimited photo storage compared with the 5GB storage
offered to all Amazon users. If you have Prime and don’t
already have a Fire TV, this is a must-have device, just for
the wealth of content available.
The third-party app selection is generous for a media
hub, with dozens of online media services and a few
hundred games. Except for HBO Go, which will be added
in the spring, all major movie and music services are
available: Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and Twitch. About
half of the games on the Fire TV Stick can work with the
included remote, but really good titles like Sonic CD and
Terraria require the optional $39.99 Fire Game Controller
or another compatible Bluetooth gamepad.
The Fire TV Stick includes an option to enable ADB
debugging, which lets Android developers directly load
If you have
Prime and
don’t already
have a Fire TV,
this is a must-
have device.

their own apps onto the device outside of the Fire TV App Store. We have not
tested this option, which isn’t intended for users.
The Fire TV is much more powerful than the Fire TV Stick. The Stick isn’t
nearly as fast as the Fire TV when jumping between different services or
browsing the various menus. Amazon Instant Video is incredibly quick to load
and resume videos because it’s integrated directly into the Fire Stick’s operating
systems, but during testing I faced modest wait times when loading YouTube or
Netflix, and jumping out of and back into those services required reloading the
apps completely each time. For the smaller size and the lower price of the Fire
TV Stick, you have to trade the very snappy experience of the Fire TV for a
slightly longer wait (if one not nearly as long as with the Google Nexus Player).
This means you can’t expect as smooth a gaming experience with the Fire TV
Stick, though we can’t recommend relying on any media hub for serious
gaming. In tests, Sonic CD felt noticeably slower on the Fire TV Stick than on
the Fire TV.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick takes most of what made the Fire TV compelling
and cuts both its price and size by more than half. It’s $5 more than the Google
Chromecast and can do so much more, like letting you use it without a mobile
device at all. It’s not as peppy as the Fire TV, but for its price and size it’s an
excellent media hub you can pop into the back of your HDTV and forget about.
If you’re not an Amazon Prime member, the Fire TV Stick sits neck-and-neck
with the excellent Roku Streaming Stick, offering a more curated experience
with nearly the same functionality (save for HBO Go, at least right now) for $10
less. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, the Fire TV Stick is an incredibly
appealing, affordable gateway to all the content you’ve already paid for.
WILL GREENWALD
USE A STICK TO
START A FIRE
Amazon’s Fire TV
Stick doesn’t do
everything the Fire
TV does, but it does
a lot—and offers
terrific value.

T
he best activity trackers sell a promise of motivation to exercise, or at
least walk more. Fitbit has long been a champion of modern-day
pedometers, with its original Fitbit Ultra largely kicking off the new
wave of fitness trackers that have become all the rage since 2011. Fitbit’s new
Charge is exceedingly similar to its Force, a wonderful product that fell from
lofty heights when it was recalled after some users reported a skin reaction
(likely the result of a metal allergy). The Charge is everything the Force was—a
wrist-worn tracker that measures steps, distance, stairs, sleep, calories burned,
and activities—minus the skin irritation, and with a few improvements, notably
caller ID for incoming calls on a connected phone. If you loved the Force, the
Charge is an obvious replacement—unless you’re ready to upgrade to a more
sophisticated model, and there are plenty.
Fitbit Charge
$129.95
L L L L m
You’ll Get a Charge Out of
Fitbit’s Wrist-Worn Tracker
REVIEWS

DESIGN
Like the Force, the Charge is slim and sleek, except the
band is now textured and has a more secure two-prong
clasp; it’s incredibly comfortable, too. The Charge is
available in black, blue, burgundy, and slate, and it
comes in three sizes to fit almost any wrist. It’s water-
resistant, but not fully waterproof, so you shouldn’t
swim while wearing it.
One aspect of Fitbit devices I have long adored is that
most of them come with a tiny USB syncing device that
automatically puts your Fitbit data into your online
account whenever you’re near a Mac or Windows
computer. The Charge also syncs with iOS and Android
devices, but the effortless and continuous syncing with
that USB stick is a godsend.
Owners of the simpler and less expensive Fitbit Flex
would notice that the Charge has a few design
differences that make it appreciably more useful. The
Flex is a tracker inside a wristband, and it pops out for
charging. That’s fine if you want to change the band, but
bad because the tiny device is easy to lose. The Charge,
meanwhile, is one piece only. It comes with a USB
charger that locks into a connection point on the
underside of the display.
Speaking of displays, the Charge has the same
sharp OLED screen as the Force, and it’s a beautiful
yet simple piece of work. A single button on the side
lets you cycle through your data. The Flex, on the
other hand, doesn’t even have a full display, just a
row of lights that you activate by tapping it.
FEATURES AND THE FITBIT APP
One of the most notable features of the Fitbit Charge is
that it supports caller ID for incoming calls on a
connected mobile phone. It’s the first time Fitbit has
dipped its toe into smartwatch functionality, and it’s a
truly hesitant step indeed. The Charge doesn’t do any
other notifications at all; caller ID just doesn’t seem
Fitbit Charge
PROS Slim design.
Tracks steps, miles,
stairs, calories
burned, sleep,
exercise. Excellent
app, website.
Compatible with
Android, iOS,
Windows, Mac.
Beautiful, sharp OLED
display. Caller ID
feature. Silent alarms.
CONS No heart rate
monitoring, idle
alerts. Limited
smartwatch
functionality. Not
waterproof.

truly useful, although theoretically, a firmware update
could turn on other features at a later date. The Garmin
Vivosmart supports all kind of push notifications,
although only for iOS, and the Basis Peak will be
updated to support incoming text messages and
possibly other notifications by early 2015.
Let’s say, however, that you don’t care all that much
about smartwatch functionality. What you really want is
a fitness tracker that’s focused on improving your
health. Fitbit stands very tall in this department. Its
website and mobile app are more thorough than any
other I’ve seen.
Fitbit offers a free account, both online and in a
mobile app, where you make sense of all the data the
Charge collects. Your account also offers a lot of settings
for customizing and fine-tuning your Charge. You can
turn on silent vibration alarms, indicate whether you
wear the device on your dominant or non-dominant
side, customize the display, log your calorie intake, and
even monitor other health data that you input, such as
blood pressure, heart rate, glucose readings, and allergy
severity. With a free account, you can create one custom
measurement to track anything else you’d like. (A Fitbit
Premium option for $49.99 per year lets you track more
custom data and offers additional perks.)
The site and app are extremely well designed and easy
to use. You can view your sleep history, step counts, and
much more information, all very intuitively. I also love
that Fitbit connects to a wide range of other apps, such
as MyFitnessPal, Nudge, and MdRevUp (a new
telemedicine and health-coaching service). One thing
I’d like to see added is an idle alert to remind you to
move after a specified number of minutes; this is a
feature that makes the Jawbone line of fitness trackers
really useful.
Heart rate monitors are becoming increasingly
common on activity trackers, but the Charge doesn’t
have one. And as far as sleep tracking, the Charge only
IT’S ALL ABOUT
THE APP
Like Fitbit’s other
trackers, the Charge
benefits from a
superb app and
website for
monitoring data.

shows times that you’re asleep, restless, and awake, but
not your light sleep, deep sleep, and REM times. To
estimate those readings, some experts have told me a
heart rate monitor and skin temperature sensors are
needed, which is how the Basis Peak can report that
data. The Jawbone devices also estimate light and deep
sleep (but not REM), although they only use motion
sensors to do so.
FITBIT CHARGE FOR BASICS
The Fitbit Charge is an excellent fitness tracker,
powered by the outstanding Fitbit website and mobile
apps, though the device itself isn’t as advanced as many
options that are on the market now or coming out soon.
If you are a veteran self-quantifier, the Fitbit Charge
isn’t really an upgrade over other models that came out
in 2013. The 2014 and 2015 devices of note have heart
rate monitors, skin temperature sensors, and more
advanced sleep-measuring technology. They also
support more smartwatch functionality. Of those, the
Basis Peak is our current Editors’ Choice. But if you’re
looking for the best among the more basic trackers, the
Charge is a superb option.
JILL DUFFY

EDITORS’
CHOICE
Bowers & Wilkins’ first portable Bluetooth
speaker is a stunning design piece that will
class up any desk, countertop, or picnic
blanket. The T7 delivers rich bass response
and well-defined, crisp highs, and does so
without distorting—though it employs digital signal
processing (DSP) that will irk purists who’ll hear the
sound signature alter at higher volumes. The speaker
sounds fantastic at most volumes with most content,
and it’s probably the most handsome portable design
we’ve seen in years.
Bowers & Wilkins T7
$349.99
L L L L m
Breathtaking Design Paired
With Powerful Sound
REVIEWS

DESIGN
Visually speaking, the 4.5-by-8.3-by-2.1-inch (HWD),
2.1-pound T7 is a most original-looking speaker. The
color tones are gray and black, but the real star of the
show is the transparent housing, in which the speaker
appears to be suspended. The transparent panels have a
beautiful, honeycomb-like hexagonal pattern that is
also functional; the transparent material serves as a
shock mount of sorts that reduces speaker vibrations.
The dual 2-inch, 12-watt drivers and passive bass
radiator are covered by a speaker grille on the front
panel; a second bass radiator pushes sound out through
the back panel. On the back, there’s a connection for the
included power adapter, a 3.5mm Aux input, a micro
USB port for service updates, and a Reset pinhole
switch. Along the right rubberized side contour, status
LEDs light up to show what mode the speaker is in; the
Power button is situated below them. Buttons across
the top control Bluetooth pairing, Play/Pause, and
Volume. A rubberized oval ring on the bottom panel
prevents the speaker from dancing across tabletops.
Pairing the T7 with an iPad Air was a simple, quick
process. Bowers & Wilkins estimates the T7 has a
battery life of roughly 18 hours, but your results will
vary depending on how loudly you play your tunes.
For a speaker this price, the T7 is rather light on
accessories—there’s no carrying pouch or case, and no
3.5mm audio cable for the Aux input. There’s also no
speakerphone functionality on the T7, so you can’t field
phone calls through the speaker. Instead, your music
will become softer, so you can answer the calls on your
device. Most portable Bluetooth speakers have some
form of speakerphone, but not all; the Bose SoundLink
Mini doesn’t, for example.
PERFORMANCE
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, the T7
produces admirable low end for a speaker this size.
Bowers & Wilkins
T7
PROS Powerful audio
output for size. Offers
rich bass, well-defined
high-mids and highs.
Stunning design.
CONS Not for purists.
Sculpts sound at high
volumes. Comes with
few accessories. No
speakerphone feature.

At moderate volumes, the bass actually sounds more
robust than at higher levels; when you hit top volumes,
the aforementioned DSP kicks in a bit and prevents the
drivers from distorting. This is a good thing, as no one
wants distortion, and the T7 gets loud enough that its
drivers would probably suffer were it not for the DSP
reducing the intensity of the sub-bass range as the
speaker hits top volumes. Thus, the thumping bass on
our standard bass test track, The Knife’s “Silent Shout,”
has a bit more thunder at moderate volumes and
sounds more like a powerful-but-thinner tap when the
volume is turned up.
On tracks that lack such intense low end, like Bill
Callahan’s “Drover,” the T7 sounds rich and crisp. It
delivers Callahan’s baritone vocals with a perfect
balance of low-mid depth and high-mid edge. The
drumming on this track takes a backseat to the vocals
and guitar strumming through the T7, compared with
extremely bass-heavy speakers that tend to boost the
drums unnaturally and wildly throw off the balance of
the mix.
The attack of the kick drum loop on Jay-Z and Kanye
West’s “No Church in the Wild” gets plenty of high-mid
presence to help it slice through the dense mix, while
TRAVELING
COMPANION
The Bowers & Wilkins
T7 is a Bluetooth
speaker that’s small
and light enough to
take anywhere you
may want to listen
to music.
On tracks with
intense sub-
bass content,
the T7 produces
admirable
low end for
a speaker
this size.

the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the loop are delivered with a laudable
sense of round low end at moderate volumes. When the volume gets higher,
however, the bass’ roundness seems to disappear again and the track becomes a
more treble-focused affair.
Classical tracks, like the opening scene in John Adams’ The Gospel According
to the Other Mary, are given an added presence in the low-mids that helps
bring out lower register instrumentation in the mix. The spotlight still clearly
belongs to the vocals and higher-register strings and brass, and the end result is
a wonderfully balanced, bright-but-rich sound.
If you love the idea of the T7’s balanced sound signature, the similarly priced
Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay A2 is another outstanding portable Bluetooth option,
but like the T7 is expensive. If these prices are beyond your budget, the Bose
SoundLink Mini is a solid portable Bluetooth speaker that still delivers decent
balance. The Jabra Solemate Max has plenty of boosted low end, but is also
larger, and still cannot deliver the type of bass response a stationary speaker
can. And if you’re looking for a far more affordable Bluetooth option, the Jabra
Solemate Mini is not nearly as powerful or balanced as the T7, but is a solid
portable Bluetooth speaker for $69.99. At $350, the Bowers & Wilkins T7 is
quite an investment, and you can spend the same money and get a much more
powerful, non-portable sound system. But for its clean audio delivery, rich lows,
crisp high-mids, and original, intriguing design, the T7 earns our Editors’
Choice award.
TIM GIDEON
STYLE MEETS
SUBSTANCE
The striking design
of the T7 combines
with its strong
hardware to make
a Bluetooth
speaker that looks
every bit as good
as it sounds.

L
ooking for an inexpensive laptop that doubles as a tablet? The Satellite
Radius 11, on sale exclusively at Best Buy, is Toshiba’s entry in the
growing category of small, inexpensive convertible-hybrid laptops
similar in design to the Lenovo Yoga line. Although it’s a decent performer and
an affordable option among multimode laptops, there are plenty of other
capable laptop and tablet hybrids to choose from.
DESIGN AND FEATURES
Like other two-in-one designs, the Radius 11 offers both laptop and tablet
functionality. Instead of a detachable docking tablet, the laptop hinge lets the
screen be folded back into other positions: Laptop, Tablet, Tabletop (folded
flat), Presentation (propped up like a tent), and Audience (touch screen shown
Toshiba Satellite
Radius 11
(L15W-B1302)
$349.99
L L L H m
Affordability Defines
Toshiba’s Hybrid Laptop
HARDWARE
REVIEWS

with keyboard folded back as a base). Lenovo was there
first with the dual-hinge design, but we’ve also seen the
HP Pavilion 11t-n000 x360 and Dell XPS 11 doing their
best interpretations in this now-crowded category.
When closed, the Radius 11 measures 0.86 by 11.4 by
7.8 inches (HWD), and weighs 2.9 pounds. The 11-inch
form factor works well as both a highly portable laptop
and a tablet that can easily be carried and used on the
go. The small size and sleek design owe a lot to the Intel
Celeron N2840 processor inside, which doesn’t require
the same sort of cooling and battery power as a Core i3
or Core i5 laptop CPU. Intel has recently introduced the
much more capable Intel Core M (seen recently in the
Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro), which offers better performance
with the same sort of energy efficiency and fanless
cooling, but it’s not something you’re likely to see in this
price range.
The 11.6-inch screen works for both laptop and tablet
use. Its 1,366-by-768 resolution isn’t anything special,
but the display is reasonably bright and clear, with ten-
finger touch support and edge-to-edge glass. The laptop
keyboard has a basic chiclet-style design, with square
black keys but no backlight, so using the keyboard in a
dimly lit environment might be a pain. When you fold
back the display, the keyboard is automatically
disengaged and automatic screen rotation is turned on.
The accompanying touchpad is squarely centered in the
palm rest; it has the multitouch gesture support you’ll
want for Windows 8, as well as separate clickable right
and left buttons.
Toshiba Satellite
Radius 11
(L15W-B1302)
PROS Affordable
price. Convertible
design folds for five
usage modes. Good
port selection.
Spacious 500GB hard
drive.
CONS Lots of
bloatware. Short
battery life.

FEATURES
Past its multimode design, the Radius 11 has a fairly standard feature set, with
the ports located along both sides of the laptop chassis. On the right are a USB
2.0 port and a headset jack, along with a Kensington lock slot and physical
buttons for volume control. On the left are a full-size HDMI-out port, a USB 3.0
port, and an SD card slot, along with a power connector and an On/Off button.
Other features on the system include 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and WiDi
wireless video streaming.
For storage the Radius 11 boasts a 500GB hard drive, which is fairly standard
for the class (if much higher capacity than the 64GB solid-state drives offered in
tablets like the Acer Aspire Switch 10 and the Asus Transformer Book T100TA).
With so much space, Toshiba doesn’t hold back on the preinstalled software.
There are 30-day trials of McAfee Live Safe 2014 and Microsoft Office 365, as
well as free services such as Adobe Reader, Google Drive, Amazon Kindle
reader, and others. Then there are retail apps (Amazon, eBay), entertainment
apps (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Spotify, iHeart Radio), and samples of about a dozen
games from WildTangent. Toshiba also throws in several branded apps,
including App Place, Book Place, Media Player by sMedio Truelink+, and more
utilities for system recovery, password management, and power management.
Toshiba covers the Radius 11 with a one-year warranty.
FIVE, FIVE, FIVE
SYSTEMS IN ONE
The hinge on
Toshiba’s Satellite
Radius 11 lets you fold
it into any of five
usage modes.

With its Celeron processor and 4GB of RAM, the Satellite Radius 11 didn’t
dazzle us with its performance. It’s functional, but noticeably slow, even when
performing basic tasks such as opening a new browser tab. It will do for typing
up papers or checking email and Facebook, but most anything else will be laggy.
In PCMark 8, the Radius 11 scored 1,627, ahead of both the Acer E3-111-C1BW
laptop (1,605) and the Acer Switch 10 detachable-hybrid tablet (1,576). In
Photoshop, the Radius 11 was actually faster (13 minutes, 34 seconds) than the
Acer Aspire E3-111-C1BW (15:04), the HP Pavilion 11t-n000 x360 (15:59), and
the Lenovo Yoga 2 11 (16:08), but that’s a contrast between slow and slower.
The Dell XPS 11 had the best time by a wide margin on Photoshop (6:50),
thanks to its significantly more powerful Intel Core i5 processor.
Battery life is a bit short on the Radius 11: just 5 hours, 17 minutes, on our
rundown test. Asus’ T100TA more than doubled that (11:20), but even among
more similar systems, like the Lenovo Yoga 2 11 (6:53), HP Pavilion 11t-n000
x360 (5:40), and Dell XPS 11 (5:55), the Radius 11 is at the back of the crowd.
Looking at its performance, the Toshiba Satellite Radius 11 isn’t particularly
impressive, though it still may be the best entry-level convertible-hybrid we’ve
seen. It certainly leads the growing crowd of dual-hinge convertibles, though
the Editors’ Choice Asus Transformer Book T100TA offers a better overall
package. At this price point, however, I’m strongly inclined to recommend a
Chromebook over the majority of budget-friendly Windows systems, as Chrome
OS offers better performance when paired with low-power processors. Our top
pick for Wi-Fi-only Chromebooks is the Acer Chromebook C720P-2600, which
offers a slim design and touch screen; for those who want a convertible design,
we also highly recommend the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e Chromebook.
BRIAN WESTOVER

EDITORS’
CHOICE
The HP Stream 13 is an attractive
ultraportable laptop priced to compete with
inexpensive Chromebooks, as well as closeout
specials in Sunday papers and on deal
websites. It’s a full Windows 8.1 PC for users
who can’t bring themselves to use a browser-based
laptop, and it’s versatile and speedy enough to hold its
own against more expensive notebooks.
DESIGN AND FEATURES
The Stream 13 is thinner and lighter than the desktop
replacement Dell Inspiron 15 Non-Touch (3531) with
HP Stream 13
(13-c020nr)
$229.99
L L L L m
Only $230 Nets You a Full
Windows 8.1 Laptop
HARDWARE
REVIEWS

which it’s priced to compete. It measures about 0.77 by
13.25 by 9 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.33 pounds, so
it’s easy to carry around. It’ll fit perfectly on an airline
tray table or on your lap at the local Starbucks while you
write your latest TPS report or term paper.
The system comes in two colors: Horizon Blue (our
review unit) and Orchid Magenta. It’s quite handsome,
and looks like it has higher quality plastic than some of
the inexpensive entry-level laptops and Chromebooks
we’ve seen. The white chiclet-style keyboard, a nice
contrast to the chassis hue, is full size and easy to type
on, and the one-piece touchpad is responsive. The
keyboard isn’t backlit, but that’s to be expected at this
price level.
The 13.3-inch, 1,366-by-768-resolution screen is
bright enough for use in a dimly lit room. Naturally,
text and user elements display larger than on 11-inch
screens with the same resolution like on the Acer Aspire
E3-111-C1BW and the HP Stream 11 (11-d020nr). The
13-inch screen on the Toshiba CB35-A3120
Chromebook is full HD (1,920-by-1,080 resolution), but
that system is more than $100 more expensive and isn’t
Windows-compatible.
If there’s a flaw with the Stream 13’s screen, it’s that it
has somewhat narrow viewing angles. If you look at the
display while situated too far to the sides or vertically,
images look washed-out or dark. In-Plane Switching
(IPS) screens like the one on the HP Chromebook 11
have better viewing angles and display smoother text,
but the Stream 13’s LCD is certainly fine for a budget
laptop. The speakers are capable of playing
loud enough for a small room, but they
sound a little tinny.
Storage is on the light side:
32GB on an eMMC
solid-state drive (SSD),
with only 17GB free after
the initial setup. You can
STAND OUT IN
THE CROWD
The plastic casing of
the thin and light HP
Stream 13 comes in
two bold colors,
Horizon Blue and
Orchid Magenta.
HP Stream 13
(13-c020nr)
PROS Inexpensive.
Very good battery life.
Solid-state storage
speeds up operations.
Good selection of
ports. Has OneDrive
storage, Office 365
free for a year.
CONS Narrow viewing
angles. Somewhat
tinny speakers.

supplement storage locally with either a USB drive or by
using the system’s microSD slot. HP includes a one-year
subscription to 1TB of online cloud storage on Microsoft
OneDrive and use of Office 365 Personal with the
system. Note that if you want to continue with both
services you’ll have to pay $69.99 per year or $6.99 per
month after the first year. Still, for that first year, you’ll
have fully functional copies of Access, Excel, Outlook,
OneNote, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word. The license
also includes one install of Office on your phone and on
one tablet. Wireless connectivity is standard
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.
In addition to the microSD card slot, the system’s
HDMI port, headset jack, two USB 2.0 ports, and single
USB 3.0 port are all on the sides of the system. The
three-cell, 36-watt battery is non-removable. The
system comes with a one-year warranty.
The Stream 13 uses a 2.16GHz Intel Celeron N2480
processor with integrated Intel HD graphics; system
memory is 2GB. That may not sound too impressive,
but remember that the system’s SSD helps speed things
along. Reboots are quick, and launching most programs
only takes seconds. The Stream 13 returned a
respectable 1,771 on PCMark 8 Work Conventional.
That’s better than most budget laptops with
traditional spinning hard drives, including the Dell
Inspiron 15 Non-Touch (1,554) and the Lenovo G40
(1,581). The Stream’s 3D gaming scores aren’t worth
talking about: Suffice it to say, sub-$500 laptops are
best suited to basic browser games like Angry Birds.
Multimedia scores were good for the category: The
Stream took 9 minutes, 50 seconds, to complete the
Handbrake video encoder test and 13:31 for the Adobe
Photoshop CS6 test. The Dell Inspiron 15 Non-Touch
lagged behind by a couple of minutes (11:00 for
Handbrake, 14:21 for CS6), and the Lenovo G40 took
IT DOES WINDOWS
Because it’s equipped
with Windows 8.1, the
Stream 13 can run
your most important
Windows programs; a
one-year subscription
to Office 365 Personal
is included.

more than 15 minutes on both multimedia tests. Because they have identical
internal components, the HP Stream 11 performed within a few percentage
points of the Stream 13 on most of the benchmark tests. Essentially, the Stream
13 is best at day-to-day tasks, but can handle the occasional photo or video edit,
as long as you have some time to finish each task.
Battery life is where the Stream 13 shines. It lasted 9 hours, 9 minutes, on our
rundown test. That’s hours better than the Acer C720P-2600 (7:20), Dell
Inspiron 15 Non-Touch (6:19), the HP Pavilion 10z (6:38), the Lenovo G40
(5:56), and the Toshiba CB35-A3120 Chromebook (7:04). The only system in
this price category that beat it was the HP Stream 11, and only by 14 minutes.
The HP Stream 13 is a fine laptop for the money. It reverses the conventional
wisdom that you have to pay a premium for an ultraportable laptop, and it
undercuts the pricing of most of the recent Chromebooks we’ve reviewed by
anywhere from $20 to $100. It’s quicker than other Windows PCs at or above
its $230 price tag, thanks to its SSD. And if you have constant Internet access or
a spare $12 to $40 for a 64GB microSD card, you won’t have to worry about
running out of storage space. Competitors include the Editors’ Choice for entry-
level detachable tablets, the Asus Transformer Book T100TA, which has double
the SSD storage and a few more hours of battery life, but costs $170 more and
has a smaller 10-inch screen. The Editors’ Choice for budget laptops, the Dell
Inspiron 15 (I15RV-6190 BLK), also is an alternate choice with a larger 15-inch
screen and quicker performance, but it is also more expensive (by $120) and
has worse battery life. Overall, the HP Stream 13 is the portable PC I’d pick for
under $250, and our first Editors’ Choice budget ultraportable laptop.
JOEL SANTO DOMINGO

A
cer has been in the Chrome
business almost since the
beginning, with a
surprisingly robust assortment of
small notebooks boasting Google’s
Chrome OS. Yet despite offering
several award-winning Chrome
devices, there wasn’t a
Chromebox—a desktop with Chrome
OS—available from the company
until now. The Acer Chromebox CXI-
4GKM offers everything we like
about Chrome at an affordable price,
with strong performance for casual
Web browsing and a few features we
haven’t seen offered before.
DESIGN AND FEATURES
This compact Chromebox measures
just 6.51 by 5.12 by 1.3 inches (HWD),
which makes it about the same size
as other compact desktops on the
market, such as the Mac mini—and a
convenient size for placing on a
desktop or shelf, or even mounting to
the back of a monitor to roll your own
version of the LG Chromebase. The
sides of the case have a textured
pattern, and are adorned with the
Acer and Chrome logos.
Acer Chromebox
CXI-4GKM
$219.99
L L L L m
Acer’s First Chromebox Is
Small but Spunky
HARDWARE
REVIEWS

The small plastic box comes with a base for standing
up the Chromebox vertically, and a VESA mounting
bracket for attaching it to the backside of a monitor or
HDTV. The Chromebox comes bundled with an
inexpensive USB keyboard and corded mouse. Neither
is particularly impressive, but I wouldn’t expect much
given that they’re bundled with such an inexpensive
system, and they do the job just fine.
The Chromebox’s compact size means there’s not a lot
of room for ports and connectors, but there’s still a
decent selection. On the front you’ll find an SD card slot
and two blue USB 3.0 ports, along with the system’s
Power button. On the back are an Ethernet port, two
more USB 3.0 ports, DisplayPort and HDMI video
outputs, and a headset jack. A Kensington lock slot lets
you physically secure the device, which is sort of
comforting considering that it’s smaller than a
paperback book.
The processor is a 1.4GHz Intel Celeron 2957U and
there’s 4GB of RAM; the combo may not sound
impressive, but that’s plenty of horsepower for the basic
Web-centered experience for which a Chromebox is
built. Because there’s only 16GB of local storage,
however, you’ll definitely want to get familiar with cloud
storage options, and Google provides you with 100GB
of space in Google Drive that’s free for 24 months. As
with other Chrome-based devices, the Chromebox
doesn’t support Windows software, but you can use a
number of Chrome apps and browser extensions to
perform the same basic functions.
PERFORMANCE
The Chromebox offered one of the fastest desktop boots
I’ve ever witnessed, going from off to the sign-in screen
in mere seconds. The Chrome setup process is quick
and painless, and lasts only moments, just long enough
to connect to your network (via Wi-Fi or Ethernet), and
another moment to log into your Google account—if
Acer Chromebox
CXI-4GKM
PROS Affordable
price. Solid
performance. Decent
feature set. Includes
keyboard, mouse,
stand, mounting
bracket.
CONS Limited local
storage. Relatively
more expensive than
competitors.

you’ve ever logged into Gmail, the process is pretty
much identical.
That basic experience was consistent throughout
my testing, whether I was browsing Facebook,
watching YouTube videos, or using Google Docs.
Things loaded more or less smoothly, though
streaming media from Netflix and YouTube
sometimes loaded a bit slowly. I did notice some lag
while running several open tabs, but that didn’t really
happen until I hit the ten- to 12-tab mark. That
means that I was able to do the majority of my Web
browsing completely unhindered by the system’s low-
powered processor or small allotment of memory.
Some of those issues would disappear with a faster
processor, like the Core i3 CPU used in the similar
Dell Chromebox 3010, but you’ll pay an extra $100
for that small performance boost.
CONCLUSION
All in all, the Acer Chromebox CXI-4GKM is
everything we expect from a Chrome device. It’s
inexpensive, easy to use, and it easily supports the
casual use to which Chrome is tailored. It does come
in at a slightly higher price than the Asus Chromebox
M004U, but that’s somewhat offset by the extra RAM
and the inclusion of a stand and mounting bracket.
(The bundled keyboard and mouse didn’t sway me
much, as you can pick up a cheap keyboard and
mouse combo for less than $20.) All things
considered, the Asus Chromebox M004U stays on as
our top pick, but only because it costs a little less. If
you want something like it that’s easy to tuck out of
the way or mount to a TV, the Acer Chromebox CXI-
4GKM is a solid alternative.
BRIAN WESTOVER
PINT-SIZE PC
The Acer Chromebox
CXI-4GKM is not
much larger than its
port selection, but it’s
highly affordable and
runs Web apps well.

EDITORS’
CHOICE
The Lenovo Erazer X315 is
an entry-level desktop PC for
budding hard-core gamers.
It has the performance to
play today’s strenuous
gaming titles, with features that are
usually lacking in even midrange
gaming rigs, like a gaming-oriented
power supply, extra memory, and a
discrete video card. The system’s mix
of features, performance, future-
proofing, and a nice price earn the
Erazer X315 our Editors’ Choice for
budget gaming desktop PCs.
DESIGN AND FEATURES
The black, angled front panel of the
Erazer X315 and matching mouse
instantly communicate that this isn’t a
utilitarian midtower for the masses.
The top door covers a DVD burner;
the second pops open to give you
access to a headphone jack, a
microphone jack, an SD card reader,
and two USB 3.0 ports (one with
sleep-and-charge capability). The back
panel holds surround-sound audio
connectors; DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI,
and VGA video ports; an Ethernet
port; four USB ports (two USB 2.0,
Lenovo Erazer X315
$799.99
L L L L m
A Desktop That Makes It
Easy to Get Into the Game
HARDWARE
REVIEWS

two USB 3.0); and the external Wi-Fi antenna. The
faceted and blue-backlit Power button is shaped like the
start button on a sports car. The case is vented on both
sides, but you’re hardly able to hear the fan noise from
the system when it’s running.
Inside the chassis you’ll find a single 2TB solid-state
hybrid drive with an 8GB SSD cache for speeding
operations like reboots and wake-from-sleep, and an
empty bay with a tool-less sled for adding another
drive. There are three free SATA ports to service that
drive, as well as a single DIMM slot to supplement the
included 12GB of system memory. There’s one free PCI
Express x1 slot, but because the system already comes
with Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and 802.11ac Wi-
Fi, you probably won’t need it. Even so, this is still a
much more expandable chassis than you’ll see on other
SFF gaming desktops such as the Alienware X51-R2,
the Maingear Spark, or the iBuypower Revolt A960.
The system has a 450-watt power supply with two
six-pin power connectors. The included 2GB AMD
Radeon R9 260 video card only uses one of the
connectors; this means you may be able to swap it out
for a more powerful model down the line, as long as it
doesn’t need a beefier power supply.
A few preloaded apps are included, among them Daily
Motion, Evernote, Google Play Music, Hightail, McAfee
Security Center, Power DVD, TripAdvisor, The Weather
Channel, and Zinio. Thanks to AMD, the system comes
with a download code for three AAA releases: Just
Cause 2, Sleeping Dogs, and Tomb Raider. Though
these are aging titles, it still means you’re all set to play
some pretty serious games as long as you have an
Internet connection. The system comes with a one-
year warranty.
PERFORMANCE
The Erazer X315 comes with a 3.7GHz AMD A10-7850K
quad-core processor and the aforementioned video
Lenovo Erazer
X315
PROS Good 3D
performance for the
price. Expandable.
Hybrid hard drive.
12GB of memory.
802.11ac Wi-Fi. Comes
with code for three
AAA games.
CONS Multimedia
performance is slower
than that of the
competition.

card. With this combination, the system excels at playing 3D games. It ran the
Heaven test at a rock-steady 60 frames per second (fps) and the Valley test at an
adequate 38fps, both at medium quality. That’s smoother than the Maingear
Spark (42fps on Heaven, 31fps on Valley), and splits the wins with the
Alienware X51-R2 (40fps on Heaven, 50fps on Valley). The system also did well
on the 3DMark Cloud Gate (9,332) and Fire Strike Extreme (1,752) tests
compared with the competition.
Multimedia ran a little slower on the Erazer than on the competition: 3
minutes, 8 seconds, on the Handbrake test and 6:35 on the Photoshop CS6 test.
In contrast, the Intel-powered Alienware X51-R2 was about twice as quick (1:27
on Handbrake, 3:25 on CS6), although the AMD A8–powered Maingear Spark
brought up the rear by a wide margin (6:37 on Handbrake, 9:54 on CS6). The
Erazer X315 was left behind on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test (2,500),
but keep in mind that you’re not buying a gaming PC to do day-to-day work.
The system is sufficient for Web surfing and file downloading before and during
game sessions.
The Lenovo Erazer X315 is a very good entry-level gaming rig with the power
to run today’s AAA games at moderate quality levels. It’s like a set of training
wheels on a bike or the tutorial levels on a game: powerful enough to get you
started. The things that put it ahead of the competition are its nice price, extra
features, and expansion room. With all those qualities in its favor, the Erazer
X315 is our new Editors’ Choice for budget gaming desktop PCs.
JOEL SANTO DOMINGO

EDITORS’
CHOICE
PowerDirector has been our top pick for
enthusiast video editing software for nearly
five years. Even though it consistently
outpaces the competition in speed, features,
and ease of use, CyberLink hasn’t sat still,
adding an impressive 60 new features, effects and
templates for PowerDirector Ultimate 13, along with an
interface touch-up to match today’s flat design
aesthetic. It’s also beefed up with a new cloud service,
title effects, improved stabilization, support for new
formats, and it still boasts the fastest rendering
performance of the editors we’ve tested.
CyberLink
PowerDirector
Ultimate 13
$129.99
L L L L H
Edit YourVideos Using All
the Latest Technologies
SOFTWARE
REVIEWS

GETTING STARTED
The program is a 467MB download, so make sure your
PC has sufficient drive space. Unfortunately, the
installer tries to install extra unrelated software
alongside the video editor, something you really
shouldn’t see with paid software. You can try out
PowerDirector with a 30-day downloadable trial version
that adds brand watermarks.
PowerDirector’s Easy Editor mode guides you
through the workflow of importing, theming, adjusting,
previewing, and outputting a canned digital-movie
project, or Magic Movie. My default setup only had four
themes, but you can choose from hundreds more to
download from DirectorZone, CyberLink’s online
community of media enthusiasts. After choosing a style,
you can add background music from your computer.
PowerDirector also makes it easy to fix lighting and
color, and to stabilize your video. You use
PowerDirector’s unique and intuitive selection cursor to
split video and delete sections. Fix/Enhance options
also include video denoise, audio denoise, and
enhancements to punch up color and sharpness. You
can independently adjust the brightness, contrast, hue,
saturation, sharpness, and white balance.
FLAT IS WHERE
IT’S AT
CyberLink has
followed the trend
toward flatter
interface elements in
PowerDirector’s
latest design.
CyberLink
PowerDirector
Ultimate 13
PROS Fastest
preview, rendering.
Clear interface. Loads
of effects. Multicam
editing. Supports 3D,
4K. Authors Blu-ray
discs. Direct upload to
most popular video
sharing sites. 64-bit
native code.
CONS Installer tries
to sideload unwanted
software. Storyboard
view not very useful.

The full editing interface uses the familiar three-panel layout, with source
content in the top-left panel, video preview at top right, and the multitrack
timeline across the bottom; all panels are resizable. The timeline is easy to
customize and navigate, but the storyboard view in PowerDirector is one of the
app’s weak point: It’s just thumbnails, with no ability to add transitions or other
effects. It does let you insert clips, but if you try to add a transition the view
switches to timeline.
ADVANCED FEATURES
With so many people shooting events simultaneously with their HD camera
phones, multicam is no longer just for professionals. PowerDirector 13 ups the
track limit from four to 100, but what this really means is that you can sync that
many tracks by audio in the main timeline; the actual multicam-switching
interface still just has four video sources. For synchronization you get a choice
of Audio Analysis (the best choice for amateurs), Manual, Timecodes, File
Created Time, and Markers on Clips. The tool creates sub-clips labeled 1 to 4 for
the camera angles, with adjustable split points. When you’re done cutting, the
clip sequence appears on the regular timeline. Subclips are in separate tracks,
but you can’t adjust the cut points there without losing footage and messing up
the synchronization. The multicam designer lets you adjust these, and you can
reopen a multicam sequence in the designer after you’ve sent it to the timeline.
Theme Designer offers templates including Memory Field, Beach, Ink
Splatter, and Voyage, with slots for photos or videos, and lets you enter text for
titles. You can autofill the slots from your library, and you’re not required to use

all slots. Music is supplied with the theme, and you can balance the original clip
audio with this background music. PowerDirector is still lacking a template/
theme like Premiere Elements’ new Video Stories, which specifies shot types and
offers pretimed slots you populate with your clips, adding appropriate
background music and transitions. This gives amateur moviemakers an idea of
how to craft compelling visual presentations.
If you’re into keyframe editing (which gives precise, frame-based control over
when effects begin and end) PowerDirector offers picture-in-picture, overlays,
motion, cropping, and time codes. All effects and adjustments can be pegged to
keyframes. You get 165 transitions to choose from, and 129 special effects.
Transitions are easy to add, and the program can decide what material before
and after to use when you drop this kind of effect to a join line between clips.
New in version 13 is the ability to create custom transitions using your images
with the Alpha set of transitions, which rely on masking and transparency.
The chroma key tool in PowerDirector offers controls for tolerance of
saturation, luminance, and edge sharpness. The program offers preset picture-
in-picture grids—2 by 2 up to 10 by 10—and your clip tracks snap to fill the
resulting spaces. The PiP Designer window makes creating PiP movies simpler
than in any competing app. And no competitor can preview these types of
movies as PowerDirector can: without jerky, stop-and-start playback.
PowerDirector supports 4K video content, and new for version 13 is support
for the XAVC-S standard of 4K and HD videos used in Sony cameras and
camcorders. This joins support for Canon 1DC, JVC HMQ-10, and GoPro 4K.
Unlike Premiere Elements, PowerDirector can import, edit, display, and
produce 3D video. It can even attempt to convert 2D content to 3D. It supports
various 3D systems, including anaglyph (red/cyan glasses), 3D-ready HDTVs,
MULTICAM
DESIGNER
PowerDirector 13
includes powerful
tools for processing
video and audio from
multiple cameras.

and popular video and photo 3D formats. Once your 3D content is in the
program, you can add 3D transitions, particles, and titles.
Audio tracks in the timeline by default show waveform lines, and you can
raise and lower volume by grabbing and dragging them. The Audio Room, a
simple track volume mixer, features Normalize buttons for each track to even
out clip sound levels. It’s also easy to create voiceovers with the Voice-Over
Recording Room, accessible from a tab sporting a microphone icon. CyberLink’s
WaveEditor is a separate included app that lets you correct distortion, equalize,
generate reverb, and apply a few special effects. It also includes VST plug-in
support for third-party effects.
The standard video editor also includes beat detection, which puts markers on
the timeline at music beats so you can synchronize clip action. But for really
advanced mixing, recording, syncing, cleaning, and restoration, there’s
AudioDirector (included with the Ultimate Suite edition). With this you can
easily round-trip the audio tracks from your movie and apply effects and fixes.
PERFORMANCE
CyberLink includes 64-bit native operation and graphics hardware acceleration
that’s paid off. Other speed boosters include OpenCL support and “intelligent
SVRT,” which determines how your clips should be rendered for the best-
quality output and fastest editing.
In a head-to-head rendering performance test, I took a movie consisting of
the same four clips of mixed types (some 1080p, some SD) with the same
transitions and rendered it to 720p MPEG-4 format in several programs at
720p30 at a bitrate of 10Mbps. I used a 3.4GHz AMD quad-core Windows 7
Ultimate PC with 8GB DDR3 RAM and an Nvidia Quadro 2000 graphics

adapter. PowerDirector proved the clear speed leader: Its render speed with
OpenCL acceleration enabled is nothing short of astonishing. PowerDirector
also shows you the time elapsed, time remaining, and what frame in the movie
you’re at during the process.
OUTPUT AND SHARING
PowerDirector offers a multitude of output options: AVI, MPEG-1 through 4,
H.264 and H.265, WMV, MOV, and MKV. It also can output 4K. You can also
choose a device to output the right format for, such as Apple devices, or
BlackBerry, Android, or Microsoft phones. The Sony PSP and Xbox gaming
consoles aren’t left out of the output party, either. And retro types can write
movies to DV or HDV tape. For disc output, options include 2D and 3D Blu-ray
(with DTS), AVCHD, or DVD. There’s no 4K format for discs yet. A direct
upload option lets you easily share your movies via Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo,
and DailyMotion. CyberLink Cloud also offers 10GB online storage for $9.99
per year. DirectorZone, the product’s separate online community for sharing
custom templates and effects, has social network-style features, including a
newsfeed, notifications, and a nifty new ISO disc image option.
REAL POWER FOR YOUR DIGITAL MOVIES
PowerDirector continues to impress with its speed and pro-level video editing
capabilities. Corel VideoStudio Pro X7 still leads in things like motion-tracking,
screen-cam, and stop-motion tools, but for those who place more importance on
top performance, CyberLink PowerDirector Ultimate 13 joins it as our Editors’
Choice for consumer video editing software.
MICHAEL MUCHMORE
TITLE
DESIGNER
You can now
apply the full
range of video
effects (more
than 120 of
them) to all
the titles you
use in your
video projects.

Our Favorite Apps
APPSCOUT
REVIEWS
BrilliantVision OneShot Windows Phone FREE
L L L H m
Windows Phones rock some of the best cameras found on any smartphone, and OneShot
helps you take better advantage of them. It provides a multitude of manual shooting
controls, post-shooting editing adjustments, and visual effects, along with plenty of ways to
easily share your shots via email, Facebook, OneNote, and various messenger programs.
Other Windows Phone camera apps may offer more speed or a wider variety of filters, but
OneShot is still one of the most powerful you can download.

Our Favorite Apps
APPSCOUT
REVIEWS
Flipboard Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Phone FREE
EDITORS’CHOICE L L L l h
There’s a reason Flipboard remains our favorite multiplatform newsreader: It deftly
aggregates articles, video, podcasts, and social media into an accessible but feature-rich
print-style digital magazine. Flipboard’s freshly updated mobile app introduces a more
streamlined interface, a daily magazine, and a new reading model that encourages you to
follow topics, people, and curated magazines. It may lack dedicated offline reading support,
but Flipboard gets everything else right.

Our Favorite Apps
APPSCOUT
REVIEWS
OpenTable Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Kindle, Windows Phone FREE
Recently updated to make best use of all the latest mobile devices (including the large-
screen iPhone 6 Plus), OpenTable remains the premier app for making restaurant
reservations for both customers and businesses. It simplifies everything about dining out,
now even including paying when it’s all over (you can use your own stored credit card number
or Apple Pay). Using the app more often earns you vouchers to save money on future
restaurant visits, too. If you travel a lot or live the nightlife to the fullest, OpenTable is one of
the best apps you can install.

Our Favorite Apps
APPSCOUT
REVIEWS
Transit Android, iOS
Every commuter with an Android or iOS device who’s felt the sting of not knowing the
schedule of public transportation should download Transit. The free app delivers real-time
bus, train, and ferry information to users in more than 80 domestic and international cities,
all with an outstanding interface and compelling additional features (such as Uber
integration). The lack of detailed delay information and a location sharing feature, so you
can more easily meet up with friends, are our only gripes about this must-try app.
FREE

Features
5 WAYS TO
BOOST YOUR
PRODUCTIVITY
TODAY
TOPS IN TECH: THE
TECHNICAL
EXCELLENCE
AWARDS

Everyone wants to be more
productive, but there are tricks
to doing it right. Follow these
tips for better productivity right
now and avoid common pitfalls
that lead to self-sabotage.
BY JILL DUFFY
FEATURES
5WAYSTO
BOOSTYOUR
PRODUCTIVITY
TODAY

I love that line. It hits on our cultural fixation on optimization and
maximization. And who doesn’t want to be more productive? Who doesn’t want
to accomplish as much as Beyoncé does, even if those accomplishments are
wildly different?
It all comes down to what you do to get it all done. No matter whether your
current obsession is writing a novel or meditating more, the trick is figuring out
how to fit it into your life without letting all your other important things go.
Here are five ways to boost your productivity so you can get done everything
that truly matters.
1. WRITE DOWN AND PRIORITIZE YOUR TASKS
One of the simplest things you can do to be more productive is write down your
tasks for a set period of time, such as the day or the week, and prioritize them.
Any task management app will do, and a few I like are Awesome Note, Any.do,
and Wunderlist.
Part of the reason it’s important to write and prioritize tasks is to have clarity
and certainty about what you’re planning to do. Additionally, writing things
down makes them more concrete. In your head, a list of objectives can be rather
vague. When you write them down and assign yourself a due date, they become
definitive and deadline-driven.
Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do Before
Breakfast, told me via email that she writes her list weekly. “I usually do this on
Fridays, looking forward to the next week. This priority list has both
professional and personal items on it. Time is time, and by putting both kinds of
items on the list, I make sure that I invest adequately in both.”
You have as
many hours
in the day as
Beyoncé.

How you phrase your priorities is as important as
writing them down.
Jacob Bank is CEO and cofounder of Timeful, a
company with an app of the same name that helps
people maximize and manage their time. The app offers
suggestions for goals and good habits people want to
create, such as “exercise.” But “exercise” is vague. “A lot
of people in the company replace ‘exercise’ with ‘bike’ or
‘swim’ or ‘run,’ and we tend to see completion rates
increase when people get more specific,” Bank told me
by phone recently. “That’s definitely a best practice:
Customize your habits. Make them specific to you both
in the content of the habit and how much you want to
do it.”
So let’s say you write down that you want to run for at
least 25 minutes three days a week. Is that goal more or
less important than, say, sending out a proposal? If you
decide ahead of time which is more important, it makes
it easier at the critical moment to use your time wisely
and more productively.
2. LIMIT YOUR TASKS
Feeling ambitious? Of course you are! You’re about to
become really productive! But don’t get too ambitious.
That could be self-defeating. If you have too many tasks
and priorities on your to-do list, or you try to take on
too many new good habits at once, you’ll feel beaten
down when you don’t accomplish them all.
In other words, it’s important to be realistic and not
overwork yourself.
BE YOUR
BEST
TIMEFUL
Timeful is an iOS-only app
that aims to help you be a
better version of yourself.
At its core, it’s a time
management, task
management, and
scheduling app, but its
focus is really on
prioritizing which tasks
you most want to do while
also considering
everything else on your
plate. It syncs with other
calendars to get your
primary appointments
into its system, then asks
you to add habits, or
smaller objectives you
want to achieve, a few
times a week as you work
toward a larger goal. Then
Timeful recommends
times to do these
activities or habits based
on how long the task will
take and when you have
free time.

Exactly how many tasks you can manage is highly
dependent on the kinds of things you write down and
how detailed you make them. For example, I don’t write
down every single task at work that I need to do—just
the bigger ones. And I know I max out at about three
per day. If I were to try and push myself to five tasks, I
would end up being disappointed in myself at the end of
the day when they weren’t all completed. Then, I’d
probably roll over the uncompleted tasks to the next
day, where they’d pile up. That’s exactly the scenario
you want to avoid to be productive.
On the other hand, if I complete all three things I set
out to do, I feel good, and sometimes I even have a little
extra time at the end of the day that I can use to, say,
make a list of my priorities for the next week, or just
kick back and do something enjoyable. If you have 30
minutes free and clear at the end of the day, it’s better
to either reward yourself or have a habit that you always
do (like making a list), rather than punish yourself with
new chores.
TASK
MASTERS
These apps will help you
wrangle your tasks and
get started on your
journey to productivity.
vity.
AWESOME NOTE
As its name implies,
Awesome Note is an
awesome app for creating
to-do lists, calendar
entries, and notes. It’s
among the most visually
compelling and
customizable out there,
and uses a terrific
graphical calendar to
greatly simplify deadline
management.
ANY.DO
This list making and task
management app is best
for jotting down tasks and
goals, and includes a
unique feature called the
Any.do moment that
encourages you to make a
habit of reviewing your
daily tasks.
WUNDERLIST
Task lists make the world
go ’round, or at the very
least they help you get
things done. Wunderlist is
for creating lists you can
share with others,
annotate, and sync with
other computers and your
iOS or Android phone. Oh,
and it looks cool, too.
WUNDERLIST
MOBILE APP

3. TRACK YOUR TIME
How can you make better use of your time if you don’t
know how you spend it? If you work on a computer all
day, one simple tool that will track and quantify your
time is RescueTime. This little program watches which
applications you have open and which websites you
visit, and then measures when and how long you use
them. You can classify different programs and sites as
productive, neutral, or distracting, and then find
patterns in your own behavior to make better use of
your time.
“For me, the most profound realization is that the
time is there,” Vanderkam told me. She’s tracked her
hours long enough to know she needs to work 50 hours
per week and sleep 7.5 hours per night, leaving her a
balance of 66 hours per week for everything else.
“That’s not an infinite amount of time, but it’s not a
small amount of time either. I view my time as putting
together a puzzle. It does all fit. I just need to try
different pieces in different places and see what works.”
If you can pinpoint which hours in the day are
effectively wasted, you can change other behaviors and
habits to use them more productively. For example, I
already mentioned a few ways of using lesser productive
time—the hours when your brain needs a break from
heavy-duty work—for other kinds of tasks, things you
want to do but are less cognitively demanding.
Tracking your time with a tool like RescueTime can
also shed light on bad habits, like excessive online
RACING
WITH THE
CLOCK
RESCUETIME
Proponents of
productivity are always
looking for tips, tricks, and
data that can inform
them how to eke a little
more out of themselves,
both personally and in the
office. RescueTime is an
indispensible tool for any
productivity kit: It
monitors all your
computer use, or just the
apps and sites you
instruct it to log, and
informs you when and
how you’re both
productive and distracted.
It’s compatible with Mac
and Windows, and can
work across multiple
computers. With excellent
settings and options for
customization,
RescueTime is aces.

shopping or social networking. Where would you put
Facebook surfing, for example, on your list of priorities?
If it’s not very high, but your time-tracking points to 6
hours a week spent on that activity, then you need to
reclaim that time for something more useful.
4. CREATE HABITS
Making habits is very hard. Breaking habits is also very
hard. So how do you create positive habits so that you’re
consistently doing the things you consider productive?
First off, only try to adopt one new habit at a time.
“It’s unrealistic for most people to go from zero to five
immediately,” said Bank. “The users that we tend to see
being most successful [in the Timeful app] start with
one habit, and then go to two, and then three.” It’s
extremely difficult to pick up more than one new habit
at a time. Don’t set yourself up for failure.
Second, remember that habits are things you do
consistently. They usually have a trigger, too: either a
time of day or some other event that cues you to do
the habit.
Vanderkam’s writing down what she needs to do
every Friday afternoon is a habit. Plus, she said, “It
turns what could be wasted time into productive
planning time.”
Vanderkam also happens to work from home, where
it’s even more important to have a routine and positive,
productive habits. “I build in two intentional, longer
breaks into my day,” she said. “I work at home and eat
lunch with my three-year-old daughter at noon. I also
go for a run mid-afternoon. Having these two breaks
gives the day a nice rhythm.”
One smart habit hack of productive people is that they
use less cognitively demanding moments for more
productive purposes, and make a habit of it. For
example, many people aren’t very focused in the late
afternoon, which means it’s not a good time for digging
into mentally taxing work. Your mind needs a break. It
HABIT
HACKER
TIME OUT FREE
Don’t spend more time in
front of the computer
than you have to. Time
Out Free, for Mac OS,
reminds you to step away
at intervals you define—
and locks down your
desktop or laptop to make
sure you do. This is the
least expensive (free!)
and most customizable
software of its type that
we’ve tested.
How do you
create positive
habits so
that you’re
consistently
doing the
things you
consider
productive?

JAWBONE
UP24
is a good time, however, to tidy up your desk, wash your
coffee cup, take a short walk, or do something else
positive that you would like to become routine.
If building breaks into your day is a habit you want to
create, there are a few hacks to make it happen. One is
to use a break-time app, a small program you install on
your computer that locks you out at intervals you set.
These include Time Out Free, BreakTime, and Coffee
Break. Another way to remind yourself to take breaks is
to use an idle alarm on a fitness tracker. When the
tracker notices that you’ve been sitting still for too long,
it vibrates to remind you to get up and move. Two
trackers with this useful feature are the Garmin
Vivosmart and the Jawbone UP24.
A few examples of other productive habits are:
reviewing your calendar first thing each morning
consistently taking breaks during work hours
flossing
staying up to date on current affairs by reading or
listening to daily news
scheduling meetings during times of day that
aren’t your peak productivity hours.
Just as you should prioritize your tasks, you should
also prioritize your habits and start with only the most
important one. Then, after three weeks or so, once
you’ve become consistent doing the habit, you can add
the next most important one to your life.
5. TRICK YOUR FUTURE SELF
I asked Bank if he had any tricks for motivating himself
to do productive things. He said one way is for your
GET UP
AND MOVE
Activity trackers let you
know how much you
move, but what if you
need help getting up in
the first place? These two
can help.
GARMIN VIVOSMART
$169.99 L L L L m
Sit still for too long and
Garmin’s Vivosmart will
vibrate and flash an on-
screen reminder to get up
and start your blood
circulating. This is a good
overall tracker for entry-
to mid-level fitness
enthusiasts who want
smartwatch functionality.
JAWBONE UP24
$149.99 L L L L m
Although the Jawbone
UP24 requires a
smartphone and lacks a
display, it’s comfortable
and sleek, it monitors
sleep, and it’s loaded with
alarms that can push
reminder notifications for
whatever you want to
remember to do.

present self (who has every good intention of being
productive) to change your environment to trick your
future self (the one who procrastinates) into making
good decisions.
“The classic example is to bring things that your
future self should do into more convenient places, and
to put things your future self shouldn’t do into further
places,” he said. “One that I do is put my exercise
clothes into my car. When you finish work, you have a
choice: Am I going to exercise now, or am I going to go
home? Once you go home, typically, at least for me, I’m
down for the count. But if you have all the materials you
need to exercise with you, you shape the environment to
make it easier to make the right decision. It’s sort of like
your present self is creating an implicit plan for your
future self.”
Another way to trick your future self is to make your
most important task for tomorrow visible when you
leave the office today. For example, if you have to fill out
an expense report, leave your receipts on top of your
keyboard so you physically have to move them before
you can do any computer work. That’s a strong
reminder to get that task done first thing. Or you can set
your computer to automatically launch the programs
you need, so they are in front of your eyes before you get
caught up in email or some other distracting and less
productive task.
LOCK OUT
STAYFOCUSD
If surfing the Web is
what’s keeping you from
completing tasks, the free
StayFocusd can help you
kick yourself into gear. It’s
a free Chrome extension
that blocks you from
surfing time-wasting
websites so you can focus
more easily when you
need to get work done.
You can customize days
and times when you need
more self-discipline, or
grant yourself a daily
allotment of time for
surfing, watching videos,
or whatever else you do to
distract yourself. Yes,
there are a number of
ways you can get around
the software’s protections
if you find them too
restrictive. But instead,
why not just take the hint
and use StayFocusd to
stay focused?

You’re also effectively tricking your future self when
you enable a break-time app, like the ones previously
mentioned. Your present self knows you need frequent
breaks to stay productive, but your future self might be
really caught up in the moment and not want to walk
away from the screen. Similarly, a browser plug-in
called StayFocusd can lock you out of distracting
websites during peak work hours, or limit the number
of minutes per day you can spend on them. For
example, your present self can lock your future self out
of Facebook from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through
Friday. The entire website will be blocked during those
times, and Stayfocusd makes it intentionally difficult to
undo those parameters once they’re in place.
REWARD YOURSELF!
As you work to increase your productivity, don’t forget
to reward yourself. Rewards are underutilized. They are
excellent sources of motivation.
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, who’s also a
cofounder of Timeful, is an expert in the art of
procrastination and motivation. (I highly recommend
his book Predictably Irrational.) I asked him about
how he uses rewards in his life to stay motivated and
productive, and he offered an example of a contract he
and his cousin made to eat healthy and work out.
“There are punishments if we misbehave,” Ariely said.
“But there’s also a financial reward at the end. Her
financial reward is sooner but smaller, and for me it’s
bigger but at the end of the year. She wanted to go to a
spa from time to time, so that was her reward—doing
something luxurious. And I wanted something bigger.”
His prize? A new motorcycle.
The point is that both Ariely and his cousin crafted
rewards to their individual tastes and motivations.
Ariely knows he’s more motivated by a big reward
that’s a long way off, but his cousin needed more
immediate gratification.
MEET THE
PRODUCTIVITY
EXPERTS
LAURAVANDERKAM
lauravanderkam.com
Laura Vanderkam is a writer
and public speaker who has
appeared on numerous TV
programs and in major
publications across the
United States.
JACOB BANK
timeful.com
Jacob Bank is the CEO and
cofounder of Timeful.
DAN ARIELY
danariely.com
Behavioral economist Dan
Ariely is an active public
speaker and the author of
the books Predictably
Irrational, The Upside of
Irrationality, and The Honest
Truth About Dishonesty.

FEATURES
PC Magazine’s Technical
Excellence awards
celebrate the recent
breakthroughs that will
shape our future.
BY ERIC GRIFFITH

H
ere at PC Magazine,
we’re pretty focused on
products—the technology
you can buy and put in your hands
(or on your devices of choice) and
derive some real-world use. But we
also like to look at the technology
underneath the hood: the
breakthroughs in science, coding,
materials, and more that will have
a major impact. The best of these
receive our Technical Excellence
award (or TechEx, as we call it
around here).
This our 31st year of TechEx. In
the past we’ve handed the award
to some truly game-changing
technologies, everything from the
first 386-based computer in the
1980s to the Touch ID fingerprint
sensor on the Apple iPhone 5s
in 2013. In between there have
been breakthroughs in software,
chipsets (just about every cool thing
Intel and Nvidia have ever made),
product designs (the iPad was so
amazing in 2010!), and even clothing
(remember when it was a big deal
that gloves worked with a touch-
screen smartphone?).
Of course, we’ve also handed
the TechEx award to some tech
that went nowhere—we miss you
PalmOS! That happens when you
focus on the technology that powers
technology. Some of the items on
this new list may never make it to
market, but the potential they have
is almost kinetic in nature—they
could explode off shelves as the next
big thing. This could very well be
what the future has in store.
STORAGE
Samsung 850
Pro’s 3D NAND
and RAM Caching
POWER
Titanium Dioxide
Nanotubes on
Lithium Ion
Batteries
Lockheed Martin’s
Nuclear Fusion
IMAGING
Lytro Illum
HEALTH
Ecosphere
PowerCube
HealthPatch
SECURITY
EyeLock Myris
CertainSafe
DISPLAYS
Kyocera Brigadier
with Sapphire
Screen
PRINTING
Microscale 3D
Printing
MATERIALS
Newlight
Technologies
AirCarbon
Graphene Mass
Production
NETWORKING
Full-Duplex
Wireless Circulator
Circuit
DESIGN
Lenovo Yoga 3
Hinge
SOFTWARE
LiveLight
Software
Indistinguishability
Obfuscation
PROCESSORS
Intel Core M
VISC CPU
“virtual core”
WINNERS
TOP
TECH
TOP
TECH

Back in 2005, we handed out a
TechEx award to three-bit-per-cell
NAND chips—the innards of 16GB
memory cards, which had squeezed
in more capacity (three whole levels)
by using multilevel cells. What a
difference nine years makes.
Now, we have 3D NAND with RAM
caching in large (256 GB) solid-state
drives (SSDs), a process that in 2014
was commercialized by Samsung in
its 850 Pro drive. Other vendors,
such as Intel, have already
announced that they will join this
revolution soon. The way it works:
Stack the levels horizontally, not
vertically. This allows for more levels,
ultra-high density, and even more
reliable production.
Why does it matter for end users?
Longer product life. Although SSDs
are wicked fast and easy as is,
they’ve always had one Achilles’heel:
a finite number of times to write to
the chips inside. But 3D NAND
doubles what you get in today’s
SSDs, allowing as much as 40GB to
be written or read every day for a
decade. This will have a major impact
on the price of SSDs going forward.
STORAGE
SAMSUNG 850 PRO’S
3D NAND AND RAM
CACHING

In nuclear fission—the process
we use in the nuclear plants here
on planet Earth—an atom is split
and dangerous radiation leaks
out. In nuclear fusion, on the
other hand, atoms are combined.
The energy output is just as
fantastic—and it’s safe. That’s
why fusion is considered the holy
grail of energy production.
Because it’s almost impossible
to do outside of a star.
The Lockheed Martin Advanced
Development Program known as
Skunk Works (named for the
moonshine factory from the Li’l
Abner comics) is on to
something new. Called the
compact fusion reactor—that
“compact”part is critical, as it
implies“smaller than a star”—it
could be the beginning of
creating an aircraft that never
needs refueling. And who knows
what compact fusion reactors
could mean for the fuel we use
on the ground.
Lockheed is years from even
having a viable prototype outside
of a lab. The final unit would
hopefully fit inside a tractor
trailer—and could potentially
power up to 80,000 homes.
POWER
LOCKHEED MARTIN’S
NUCLEAR FUSION

Lytro is no stranger to our TechEx awards—in
2011, the company’s first light field camera made
the cut. Three years later, it’s back with the
$1,599 Illum, its first device to look like a true
camera instead of a flashlight. It comes complete
with a 30–250mm (35mm equivalent) f/2.0 lens
and touch-screen LCD screen on the back.
The key to enjoying a Lytro is embracing the
aftereffect of taking a shot with light field (or
plenoptic) photography, where every possible ray
of light is processed, so you can actually refocus
the image after the picture is taken. There are
mobile apps and software for Mac and Windows
to perform the aftereffects.
Similar tech is coming from other companies—
Intel is working on RealSense, which will allow
after-the-shoot focusing (the company calls it
“depth photography”—it uses three lenses to
take one shot). RealSense will also incorporate
3D scanning at home plus gesture control.
We all know, and frequently tolerate, the role of lithium ion
batteries in our everyday lives. From tiny headsets and
phones to PCs and our cars, they’re everywhere—they do a
respectable job, but no one would say they’re great. The
limitations—the time it takes to charge them and the overall
limited lifespan (about ten years)—are a pain, at best, for our
mobile society.
Now, what if you had a better battery you could charge to
70 percent—in just 2 minutes? And what if it lasted 20
years? That would drastically change your daily routine, as
well as your smartphone/tablet/laptop/car upgrade cycles.
The new tech comes from Nanyang Technology University
in Singapore, where developers led by Associate Professor
Chen Xiaodong have found that using titanium dioxide
(TiO2
)–based nanotubes in a gel on the negative pole of a
lithium ion battery provides exactly those benefits. The
journal Advanced Materials has already published their
findings. They’re building a large-scale prototype and might
even get it to market in a couple of years.
POWER
TITANIUM DIOXIDE NANOTUBES ON
LITHIUM ION BATTERIES
IMAGING
LYTRO ILLUM

Imagine that you’ve just had minor surgery
and are feeling good, but your doctors
want to keep you in the hospital for an
extra two days just to monitor your
condition. HealthPatch is a device that will
let you go home instead. It’s an adhesive
bandage filled with sensors that read your
vital statistics, such as heart rate and
respiratory rate, so doctors can monitor
you from afar and call you back into the
hospital if something seems off, or send
help to your home if, for example, the
device detects a fall.
HealthPatch, which received FDA
clearance in 2014, could effectively lower
the cost of your health care, and let you
spend more time in your home instead of
the hospital. It’s a huge step toward
bridging the work of fitness and health
trackers with actual medicine.
The truck-sized Ecosphere PowerCube
at first looks like nothing more than a
giant set of portable photovoltaic solar
panels, all extending from drawers in the
top, expanding the footprint by 400
percent or more. And that’s an accurate
description up to a point. But because
it’s portable in nature (coming in 10-,
20-, and 40-foot ISO shipping container
footprints), it’s perfect for military,
humanitarian, or disaster relief uses,
where power is needed for
communications, creating potable
water, and a lot more. The first one was
built this past July, and will hopefully be
the first of many.
HEALTH
ECOSPHERE POWERCUBE
HEALTH
HEALTHPATCH

Though iris scans are depicted all
the time in film, most people
haven’t yet used one to access a
PC. EyeLock is marketing its
$279.99 Myris scanner—which
plugs right into a USB port—to
home users, even though the
encrypted digital signature it
uses, looking at 240 points on the
eye, is worthy of big business and
government contracts. EyeLock
says that there’s a 1-in-1.5 million
chance of a false positive; only
DNA would be a better match.
Everybody’s using cloud storage systems for
personal and business data, even when
company policy says otherwise. If your
company has to comply with HIPAA or other
standards for protection, the mere act of using
a non-compliant cloud storage system could be
a costly violation. That’s where CertainSafe
comes in.
This entirely cloud-based service not only
encrypts your data, its MicroEncryption system
scatters the encrypted bits across multiple
servers. A hacker who breached the encryption
on one server would get nothing but bits and
pieces, useless without the other parts of the
file. CertainSafe maintains PCI Level One
certification and is fully HIPAA compliant.
SECURITY
CERTAINSAFE
SECURITY
EYELOCK MYRIS

It’s safe to say that 3D printing is a known
quantity and only getting better. But
microscale printing is one area where the
tech truly shines. Imagine being able to
print with materials to get features as small
as one micrometer—that’s ten times
smaller than a red blood cell. Researchers
at Harvard, Princeton, and Cambridge are
already working on it, and some are actually
printing things to replace human tissue, like
the cells in a retina. It’s only a matter of
time until we’re printing things like sensors,
chips, and batteries. The secret is in the
“ink,”but getting that to work at room
temperature without getting destroyed by
the print nozzles involved is taking a lot of
work. Eventually, it might lead to
breakthroughs where you can print out
genetic-specific bandages—or even
entirely new body parts.
PRINTING
MICROSCALE 3D PRINTING
There was talk for a long time that the iPhone 6 and
6 Plus would have sapphire screens rather than ion-
strengthened glass. The promise of sapphire is that
the surface is virtually unbreakable and scratch-
proof. That didn’t happen for Apple, but it’s worked
out okay for Kyocera.
The Japanese company claims to be the largest
manufacturer of single-crystal sapphire products,
and it put that to the test with a new Android-based
phone, the Brigadier, available for $50 from Verizon
in the U.S. Guess what? Sapphire delivers. Our
reviewer tried to scuff it up with stones, steel wool,
and a knife—not a scratch. It’s even submersible in
water up to 4 feet. If you’re looking to avoid a
cracked screen in the future, and are willing to settle
for a less-than-optimal phone, the Brigadier is
reporting for duty.
DISPLAYS
KYOCERA BRIGADIER
WITH SAPPHIRE SCREEN

We’ve known the future was plastics since The Graduate.
But 50-plus years of plastic has used up a lot of fossil-fuel
oil and created a ton of noxious byproduct. In typical
manufacturing, three times as much CO2
is created as
actual, usable plastic.
Newlight Technologies says its AirCarbon material, which
has been in the works since 2003, is a plastic created by
“sequestering carbon emissions that would otherwise
become part of the air.”It takes all that greenhouse gas and
makes it into biodegradable resin, suitable for all sorts of
products, from furniture to packing film. It’s all based on
decades-old science, but Newlight thinks its method is the
first to make it cost-effective. Your next PC, phone, or chair
might be made from chemicals you personally exhaled.
MATERIALS
NEWLIGHT TECHNOLOGIES AIRCARBON
Graphene as a material has been around a long time,
hailed as the durable wonder conductor that will replace
silicon in microprocessors. Chips will be able to get ever
smaller and more effective that way. One problem: Making
graphene in volume is a pain.
Several steps have been taken in the last year to change
that. Samsung has a new technique to grow single-crystal
graphene right on silicon wafers—and it’s reusable.
Researchers at the University of Dublin are attempting
mechanical exfoliation of graphene, a souped-up version
of how graphene was originally found using exfoliation via
Scotch Tape (for real). Finally, researchers at Chonbuk
National University and the Korean Research Institute of
Chemical Technology have worked out a way to get carbon
fiber, a graphene substitute, in nanosheets used by solar
cells. It’s a lot quicker (and leads to less degradation) than
the chemical vapor deposition method used to create
graphene today.
All told, these are strong steps. But we’re still several
years away from chips made from the stuff.
MATERIALS
GRAPHENE MASS PRODUCTION

The Lenovo Yoga—a hybrid laptop-tablet, which folds over
backward—already had a pretty cool hinge in previous
versions. But the Yoga 3 Pro’s hinge has an utterly unique
design. Rather than the two dual-axle hinges, it’s more like
a metal watchband strap with 813 hand-assembled
components. It runs the full length of the device and will
hold the screen in any position you want, whether as a
laptop, upright like a tent, backward for kiosk mode, or flat
as a tablet.
The Yoga 3 Pro also has an Intel Core M-70 processor
inside, and it runs with just one tiny fan, making it all the
thinner and better able to take advantage of that
innovative hinge design.
There’s a big difference between full-duplex—sending
and receiving data at the same time (like when you’re
on a landline phone and able to talk at the same time
as the person on the other end)—and half-duplex
(one person talks at a time). Radios today—even the
kind used by Wi-Fi and LTE networks, fast as they may
be—are only half-duplex.
That may change soon. While some are working on
software workarounds, researchers at the University
of Texas are tackling it in hardware, according to the
journal Nature. They’ve designed a circuit called a
circulator that transmits signals in a way that won’t
get any interference from signals coming in. That
could effectively double the throughput capability of
many wireless systems.
There are still questions of what this means for heat
generation and battery life, but there’s plenty of time
to work that out. It’ll take a few years before this
advance makes it to handsets and routers.
NETWORKING
FULL-DUPLEX WIRELESS
CIRCULATOR CIRCUIT
DESIGN
LENOVO YOGA 3 HINGE

It’s something cryptographers and
software creators have long dreamed
of—a way to completely hide their code
within some gobbledygook, obscuring it
from prying eyes that would hack it,
reverse-engineer it, or steal it. It’s never
been truly possible. Even commercial
packages that promise to mystify
attackers are just speed bumps. All the
bad guys typically need is time.
Amit Sahai, an M.I.T. grad who’s now a
computer science professor at the
University of California, Los Angeles, has
been pondering this for years. In 2014, he
copublished two papers on the topic of
creating a universal obfuscator. It would
let code work as intended—but without
revealing itself to the outside world. It’s
a few years away from going
commercial, but the potential—
everything from completely hack-proof
software to truly secure
communications—already has the
cryptography community very excited.
SOFTWARE
SOFTWARE
INDISTINGUISHABILITY
OBFUSCATION
Have you ever looked at footage from
a security camera or CCTV? It can be
mind-numbingly dull watching
nothing happen for a long, long time.
Minutes turn into hours, hours turn
into... sleep.
Carnegie Mellon University’s
Machine Learning Department is
taking on the task for bored security
people (and film editors) with
LiveLight. It automatically
summarizes unedited video without
human intervention. It takes out all
the repetitive boring stuff, so what’s
left is just what you want. For
example, footage of a front door will
only show the entries and exits;
footage of a road can be told just to
look for accidents.
SOFTWARE
LIVELIGHT

If you’ve been around computing much at all you’ve
probably heard of“virtual machines.”That’s when you
can run software emulating an entire system on top of
your existing computer—like getting Windows to run
on a Mac.
Now imagine that at level of your computer’s
microprocessor. That’s the promise of Variable
Instruction Set Computing (VISC), as created by Soft
Machines, a well-funded startup run by chip experts.
A modern processor typically has several cores, but
most software only utilizes one at a time. A VISC virtual
core would allow use of all the cores, for better
efficiency. Suffice it to say, should Soft Machines land
some licensing partners like Intel, AMD, or ARM (Soft
Machines is not planning to make chips), it could make
a big difference in future computing.
“Core processing power without a cooling fan.
Hot.”That’s how our Lead Systems Analyst Joel
Santo Domingo described the promise of Intel’s
new 14nm transistors. They’re significantly
smaller than the last generation (at 22nm).
They’re half the size and use about half the
power (4.5 watts instead of 11.5)—perfect for
tablets and ultra-light laptops.
The first system with Core M inside was
Lenovo’s Yoga 3 Pro, which already gets TechEx
kudos for its cool hinge. Unfortunately, the 3
Pro with Core M isn’t entirely fanless, but it’s
close. Other systems using Core M include the
latest HP Envy x2.
There may be some discrepancies in claims
versus what’s delivered, but Core M still
represents a major leap forward. With multiple
versions of the chip in the pipeline running as
high at 2.9GHz, it should be gracing many a
system in the coming years.
PROCESSORS
INTEL CORE M
PROCESSORS
VISC CPU “VIRTUAL CORE” DESIGN

Digital
e
GET ORGANIZED
TIPS
Android 5.0 Lollipop
SHOPPING
Shop Smarter Online
TECH ETIQUETTE
Ask Alex: What Are You
Texting New Year’s Eve?

Clean up your actual physical clutter, and keep
track of where you put it all, with these apps and
services. BY JILL DUFFY
GET ORGANIZED
DIGITAL LIFE

T
his column typically tackles the issue of
cleaning up your digital life, but I wanted to
focus this New Year’s edition on using apps
and services to help you clean up actual stuff. With
2015 finally here, now’s an excellent time to tidy up
your home—and get started keeping it that way.
MINI MINI STORAGE
In the U.S., we love off-site storage, also known as self-
storage, public storage, or mini storage. People use it for
innumerable reasons, but one of the biggest is to free
their homes from clutter they just can’t let go of for
good. But renting an entire storage space, packing up a
car full of stuff, driving it to the storage facility, and
unpacking it may be more work than the payoff you’d
reap from it. Plus, depending on what you need to stash
away and for how long, it might be complete overkill.
MakeSpace solves exactly that problem. The company
delivers bins to your door that you can pack up with
your stuff, and people will come and haul them off to
the facility for you. It opens up the option of storing just
a small amount of stuff you don’t need now, but might
want later, such as maternity clothes. When you want
your stuff again, you just make an appointment online,
and MakeSpace sends your bins back.
When I visited MakeSpace’s New York City
headquarters earlier this year, Founder and CEO Sam
Rosen explained that the company is very much focused
on making storage more flexible and convenient for
tech-savvy individuals. In addition to offering online
pickup and delivery scheduling on the website,
MakeSpace can also inventory your stuff for you. After
you pack your bins and have them sent to the
warehouse, MakeSpace will take high-quality, overhead
shots of your open boxes, if you choose to opt into this
part of the service. On the website, you can add more
detail about what else is in the box to account for
anything beneath the top layer that’s visible in the

photo. The pictures are then uploaded to your account,
where you can add descriptions so you’ll have an online
catalog of the contents of your boxes. Then, when you’re
ready to get your items back, you can ask MakeSpace to
send you only the bins you need.
Because MakeSpace launched in New York City first,
bin delivery in that area is very fast. Customers who live
in other parts of the country may have to wait a few
days, or even as much as a week, for their bins to be
returned to them. (MakeSpace serves the continental
United States, but not Alaska, Hawaii, or Puerto Rico at
this time.)
MakeSpace costs $25 per month for four
bins, with three months minimum, plus
pickup or shipping fees; additional bins cost
$6.25 per month. Each bin is about 3 cubic
feet, measuring 13 by 27 by 13 inches (HWD).
According to the company, a single bin can
hold around 12 pairs of shoes, or 30 shirts and
ten sweaters, or 70 paperback books.
TIPS FOR STORING AT HOME
An alternative to mini storage is of course to
pack up your stuff and stash it in boxes in the
back of a closet, under a bed, at your mom’s
house, in a garage, the attic, the basement—
whatever free space you have or can borrow.
But what always happens with those boxes?
You forget what’s in them.
Consider taking a page from MakeSpace by
snapping photos of what’s inside the boxes as
you pack them. Seeing as all your stuff is in
your control, you can take multiple photos to
document everything, not just the top layer.
Label the boxes in a way that makes sense to
you, maybe something like “Kitchen Extras” or
“Holiday Decorations.” Assign that same label
to the image you snap and you’re done.

But what if you have an iPhone and can’t rename
images stored locally? One solution is to use an app,
such as Evernote or OneNote, that lets you upload
images to a note, where you can annotate and tag them,
and make the whole kit and caboodle searchable in the
process. In my opinion, that’s actually easier and
quicker than renaming a photo file on your phone.
ORGANIZING BOOKS
Not everything belongs in a box out of sight. Books are
one example. Let’s say you want to manage your book
library by creating a database of the books you own,
and maybe even logging their locations on a bookshelf
(or noting to whom you lent them and when) to make
them easier to track down.
Seriously nerdy control freaks might look into using
FileMaker Pro (or the free FileMaker Go) to create
their own database of books, customized entirely
to their liking. The Pro version is a pricey program
($329), but if you already have a license or need
one for other purposes, go ahead and use it to
inventory your books, too. Note that this option is
only for those who like a lot of deep control over their
inventory system and don’t mind all the work they’ll
have to do to set up and customize a system.
4 5
WHAT ABOUT
EBOOKS?
The best way to organize your
ebooks is the free software
program Calibre. It keeps your
books appropriately tagged for
easy searching and sorting, and
has plenty of file formatting
tools to boot. Calibre works well
if you have a bunch of ebooks
stored on a computer or
external storage device.

When it comes to making your shelves an attractive and orderly display, there
are many theories about how to organize books. For visually stimulated people,
my favorite method is to group books by similarly colored spines. It has a
stunning effect. But color grouping means you might have a cookbook next to a
textbook about the history of Panama, and for people who care more about
content that just won’t do. Another option is to group books by category, in
terms of content, type of book, or both: paperback fiction in one set, hardcover
fiction and leisure nonfiction in another set, cookbooks together, and so forth.
One visual benefit of organizing your books by content and book type is that
you’ll never have a huge hardbound book jutting out among smaller
paperbacks. That just drives me nuts.
THE REST OF IT
The rest of the stuff in your home that you can’t pack up and put away—well,
perhaps you don’t need to organize it exactly, but for insurance reasons, you
might want to make note of the fact that you own it. Among my favorite
software and websites to help you catalog your personal possessions:
Compartments (Mac only), Doxo, KnowYourStuff.org, and NeatCloud.

U
nlike Apple, which has full control over its hardware and software, the
Androidiverse is far more fractured. But one of Android’s greatest
faults may also be an asset. The many flavors of the operating system
across so many different manufacturers give Google a lot of ideas to pick from
to add to its stock Android platform. And the latest version, Android 5.0 (aka
Lollipop) contains plenty of these you’ll want to know about. Here are our
favorites. (Note: We tested on a Nexus 9 tablet, which runs Android more or
less as Google envisioned it, but your experience may differ on other devices.)
Android 5.0 LollipopBY EVAN DASHEVSKY
TIPS
DIGITAL LIFE

Wake Your Device With Your Voice
You can now wake up your Android Device just by saying“Okay Google,”though
this has some scary implications: It means your device has the capability to always
be listening—even when it’s off. Luckily, you have to opt in. (We should also note
that this feature is only available on devices with the appropriate hardware, such
as the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9, though other manufacturers may use it in the future.)
If your device supports this function and you’d like to enable it, go into the Google
Now app, then navigate to Settings > Voice >“OK Google”Detection, and toggle
on“Always on.”This will ask you to say the phrase three times in order to“train your
phone.”Once you do all that, your phone can eavesdrop on you. Hooray?

Guest Mode
Lollipop lets owners add guest users to a single device. This way, a number of
people can use the same device but not run into all their same apps, preferences,
passwords, and other digital flotsam (in other words, it’s perfect for multiple
family members who want to use the same phone or tablet). To add guest users,
just double-pull down the notification panel and choose the identity icon in the
top-right corner. This is also available via Settings > Users.

Don’t Get Interrupted
Your device is your conduit to the greater physical and virtual worlds. All those
people, companies, and apps vying for your attention can get overwhelming.
Lollipop can help mitigate this.
If you go to Settings > Sound & notification > Interruptions, you can choose what
notifications get through. You can also use this panel to choose repeating
“downtimes”(certain days or times), when only priority interruptions will get
through to you.
You can also access this option whenever you hit the volume button where a pop-
up menu will give you the option to turn off all interruptions (or just non-priority
ones) for a set amount of time or indefinitely.

Turn Off Annoying App Notifications
The Android development team has made the very wise decision to streamline
the process for organizing app notifications. Whenever you find yourself
confronted with an unwanted app notification, you can easily block it from
bothering you ever again. Just long-press the notification to prompt an
information panel, which gives you an option to directly access that app’s
notification option (via a little“I”icon). From here, you can choose to make these
notifications a priority or block them altogether.
Conversely, you can access all your apps’ notification privileges via
Settings > Sound & notification > App notifications.

Lock Screen Notifications
Lollipop gives you the ability to view detailed notifications directly on your lock
screen. You can even dismiss them with a swipe left or right without unlocking
your device. This is a neat little function that can help make your digital day a little
bit easier, but it also leaves your info open to anyone who happens to pick up your
device. If you want to turn off this function, just go to Settings > Sound &
notification > When device is locked and change the setting to“Don’t show
notifications at all.”

Built-In Flashlight
As of this writing, there is a flashlight app on Google Play’s top free app charts.
You can be assured that at any given time there will be some flashlight app on the
top charts of Google Play. Why? Because they’re really useful to have around!
Apple’s iPhones have featured a built-in flashlight function for a while, and now it’s
come to Google. Although you’re free to download any number of flashlight apps
(some of which are sketchy), Lollipop comes with a one-touch toggle available via
the swipe-down notification pane.

Battery 2.0
Although not as extreme as the Ultra Power Saving mode in Samsung’s Galaxy S5,
which can keep your phone running for days, this new stock feature will prolong
the life of your battery by what Google claims is an additional 90 minutes. It does
this by reducing your device’s performance, limiting vibrations, and only updating
apps if you specifically open them.
The easiest way to access this function is to double-swipe down to reveal the
battery icon, which lets you see at a glance how much life you have left. Simply tap
the battery to go to the“Battery”page. Here you can tap the menu in the top-right
corner (the three dots) and select“Battery saver.”From here, you can toggle the
Battery saver feature on and off as well as set a trigger point in your battery (either
5 or 15 percent full) for when it will turn on. (Note: This function turns off by
default if your device is plugged in.)

Search Is Everywhere
Google’s search bar is always on top of the Lollipop home screen—in fact, it
doesn’t seem possible to get rid of it. (I think Google Search is a bit of everyday
magic, so I’m okay with that.) You can quickly prompt a search by tapping the
search bar or by tapping any of the bottom buttons and swiping up. This even
works when you’re in an app.
If you’re a fan of Google Now, you can access it by swiping all the way over to the
left. Just make sure it’s turned on, which you can do via Google Settings—easily
accessed by typing“google”in your Google search bar.

Pinning the Apps on the Android
Lollipop gives you the option to“pin”apps. This means that the app sort of takes
over your device; in other words, you can navigate inside that app, but it’s very
difficult to leave. This function may be useful if you have a habit of accidentally
hitting the navigation buttons and leaving what you were doing. This also may aid
parents in that they can hand a child a YouTube video to watch, but not have them
jump around into the rest of the device.
To activate this function, go to Settings > Security > Advanced > Screen pinning
and toggle it on. Now when you go to Overview, pinnable apps will feature a little
blue thumbtack icon in the bottom-right corner of their card. Tap that and Android
will ask you to confirm that you indeed want to pin it. And then you’re pinned.
To break the pin, the official directions say you just have to hold down the Back
and Overview buttons—this didn’t work for me. In fact, I found that I had to hold
them down and swipe up into a Google Search.

Easy to Cast
Android makes it easy to cast content from any device to any Chromecast or
Android TV on your shared Wi-Fi network. (There’s no need to download an
additional Chromecast app—it’s now baked in.) To access this, swipe down the
control panel and hit“Cast screen”or go to Settings > Display > Cast screen.

Support for the Color-Blind
Google has added a function that will“correct”screens so they’re more viewable
by people with certain forms of color-blindness. (Note: This function comes with
the warning that the function is experimental and“may affect performance.”) Just
go to Settings > Accessibility > Display and click on“Color correction.”This will give
you the option to correct the screen for Deuteranomaly (red-green color-
blindness), Protanamaly (red-green), and Tritanomaly (blue-yellow).

SHOPPING
DIGITAL LIFE
O
nline shopping is certainly convenient, but going the brick-and-
mortar route has some distinct advantages. When you shop in person
you can consult store employees and friends for advice, and if your
smartphone is loaded with the right apps you can quickly compare prices and
discover killer deals. When you’re shopping online, on the other hand, you’re
constricted to single websites and using your own best judgment to make your
final purchase decision.
Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way. These online tools will help you save
the most time and money on whatever you’re looking to buy.
Shop Smarter Online
These tools can keep you organized, locate the
products you want, and ensure you get the best
possible price. BY KARA KAMENEC

1. THE SHOPPING LIST CREATOR
You likely find products you like on your PC or smartphone all the time but
then quickly forget about them. We often casually browse throughout the
day and try to remember products by bookmarking pages, emailing
ourselves links, or taking screenshots, yet rarely do any of the shopping
discoveries we make on our phones turn into actual purchases. To help
you remember the products you really want, try using an online list
platform. These tools handle the simple but necessary task of saving and
organizing products for you.
Designed specifically for multi-site shoppers, Wishlistr is a Web-based
tool for organizing products and creating lists. It comes with all the
features you need to store the products you want online in one location.
For remembering products on the spot, install the free bookmarklet to
your Chrome browser; it creates a button at the top of the window that you
simply click to add items from any website.
Wishlistr also lets you invite friends to view your wish list via email or
social services such as Twitter and Facebook. Other features include
tagging options to label specific items with keywords and a feature for
marking items as bought or reserved. To help you fill out your wish list
instantly, the app connects to Amazon and Delicious and can import
products you’ve already saved.

2. THE PRODUCT AND SHIPPING TRACKER
Slice is a website and mobile app that first originated as
a product delivery tracking service, but has now
evolved into an online shopping must-have. The service
keeps a digital eye on stored products to help you
determine the best time to buy and save the most
money. Slice has dominated the marketplace for such
tools after alternative price tracking tools such as Nifti
and Hukkster shut down.
Slice syncs with your Gmail account to automatically
keep track of your purchases and emailed store
receipts. If you’ve bought items at stores to which the
service syncs, Slice will automatically alert you if the
products’ prices have dropped since you made your
purchases. This Price Drop Alert function, as Slice calls
it, is an easy way to instantly put money back into your
wallet even after you buy.
3. AGGREGATED COUPON TOOLS
Automate the often-cumbersome trial-and-error
method of couponing by using aggregated tools. These
do most of the work for you by scouring the Web for
coupon codes based on your current domain and
sometimes even the products and brands you’re
shopping for. They also automatically filter the results
to bring you only usable, non-expired coupons that can
be applied to your purchase.
Since the extreme couponing hype hit, various
coupon code browser add-ons have been released, each
claiming to be the best online shopping tool. One such
tool is Coupons at Checkout, which lists available
coupon codes next to a standard “Enter Coupon Code”
box at checkout. It’s compatible with Chrome, Firefox,
Safari, and Internet Explorer
Another option is the Chrome-only plug-in Honey,
which places a “Find Savings” button on the checkout
screens of hundreds of merchant sites. When you click
“Find Savings,” Honey crawls the Web and filters

through all working coupon codes to find the code or combination of codes that
will net you the most savings, and automatically applies the codes to your
shopping cart. Poachit takes a more all-in-one approach by letting you save
products, track pricing, and apply coupon codes using a bookmarklet.
4. THE SOCIAL BUYING AID
Smart social shopping is more than just product shares, pins, and tweets; it’s
shopping optimized by online social connections. The Hunt is a community that
crowdsources solutions for shoppers looking to create “a designer look for less,
completing a look from a photo, finding similar products from a picture, [or]
locating an exact product or styling a product.”
The Hunt helps you find products you like but don’t know where to buy. You
can “Start a Hunt” by submitting a picture of a product using the image URL or
by connecting to a Pinterest, Instagram, or Tumblr account. Other users then
hunt online to discover where the product is available and share the discovered
purchase page URL if found. Once a product purchase URL is attributed to a
product and confirmed, the product is marked as “found,” and remains on the
site in the product showcase.
As an added benefit, the platform is a strong social discovery network, helping
you find new, under-the-radar shopping sites. Currently The Hunt mainly
caters to the fashion industry, but it’s expanding into a community where users
make product purchase recommendations.

5. PRICE COMPARISON TOOLS
When you need to buy right now, price comparison
tools are your best bet. These simple browser add-ons
automatically compare prices across a variety of sites,
alerting you to better deals elsewhere. When you’re
looking for discounts on high-margin purchases such as
airline tickets and hotel rooms, in-browser price-
comparison tools can usually save you more than
individual comparison engine sites such as Expedia.
PriceBlink and InvisibleHand are two non-intrusive
add-ons that provide in-browser price comparisons to
save you time and money. Installing either will improve
your shopping experience and require no extra effort.
6. THE SMART ONLINE SHOPPING CART
Mavatar started as a smart shopping bookmarklet that
let you track and compare prices across various stores.
The service has since expanded into a full discount aid
and adjacent social shopping site focused on
discovering the lowest-priced products. Mavatar acts as
a smart shopping cart from which you can complete
your purchase, bypassing the retailer checkout page. It
scours the Web to find the best promo codes and
automatically applies the one that will save you the
most to the items in your Mavatar cart.
Unlike most other browser-based shopping tools,
Mavatar also lets you upload your own coupons by
manually entering a code you’ve found elsewhere. With
Mavatar installed, you’ll get automatic price-drop
notifications for items you’ve saved. This eliminates the
need to play the shopping cart game with retailers, in
which you leave items in your cart for extended periods
of time until the retailer emails you a promo code to
incentivize the purchase. Mavatar is compatible across
desktop, tablet, and mobile devices, and comes
complete with social shopping features so you can share
items in your cart via Facebook and Twitter.

TECH ETIQUETTE
DIGITAL LIFE
Have a question
for Alex? Send it to
askalex@pcmag.com
Ask Alex
Q I was unfriended on Facebook, what
should I do? —It’s Complicated
Alex Says: Untiore
cone nis doluptas et
dolorerum fugiant
quunte iunt estion
nist, tem faccab ide
fgfgfk voloressimet
labo tafe.
What are you texting New Year’s
Eve? BY ALEX COLON
New Year’s Eve is a time for reveling, but
how can you keep from waking up the
next morning to discover you’ve sent a
bevy of drunken texts, tweets, and
Facebook updates? —Season’s Tweetings
Alex Says: You could always just not get drunk. Anyway, I’m going to assume
that most of the drunken New Year’s messaging takes place on phones, as it
doesn’t seem likely you’d get smashed, go home, and then spend hours sitting in
front of a computer screen. But it’s way too easy to send out incriminating texts
while curled up in bed with your smartphone, minutes before falling asleep.
Here’s one easy solution: Delete your social networking apps for the night. All of
your messages, stickers, and tweets will still be at your fingertips when you
reinstall the apps with a clear mind the next day. If that sounds too drastic, there
are also plenty of third-party apps you can download to temporarily block access
to your phone dialer, messages, and so on. Most of these apps are password-
protected, so your best bet is to get a friend to set a password for you—and
ideally stick around in case you need your phone for an emergency.
Really, though, drunk messaging is ultimately a test of willpower. So perhaps the
best thing you can do is resolve to have some more of it in the new year?

TECH ETIQUETTE
DIGITAL LIFE
Have a question
askalex@pcmag.com
Ask Alex
Alex Says: Untiore
dolorerum fugiant
quunte iunt estion
fgfgfk voloressimet
labo tafe.
Eve? BY ALEX COLON
Given that New Year’s brings the
potential of kissing a stranger at
midnight, what are the rules for posting
that sort of pics to the Internet and/or
social media? —Should All Acquaintance Be Uploaded?
Alex Says: I think we need a new golden rule. At least a digital one: Don’t post
photos of others you wouldn’t want posted of you. I’m not saying that all photos
posted online need to be perfect. If that were the case, I’d have a lot fewer
followers on Instagram. And not to get all corny, but often those impromptu,
imperfect photos capture a lot more than a generic smile and pose.
That said, you should exercise a certain level of taste when deciding what to put
out there. If it’s a cute, innocent photo of two friends kissing in the background of
a party, I don’t think anyone’s going to freak out about it. But if it’s a photo of your
best friend making out with your coworker’s husband, you probably shouldn’t
share it on Facebook. Actually, don’t post photos of people making out in general.
And don’t forget: To prevent any embarrassing photos of yourself from making
their way around the Internet, be sure to familiarize yourself with your privacy
settings, so you can at least approve any photos that bear your name.
But if we all follow my new golden rule, then none of this should be a problem.

TECH ETIQUETTE
DIGITAL LIFE
Have a question
askalex@pcmag.com
Ask Alex
Alex Says: Untiore
dolorerum fugiant
quunte iunt estion
fgfgfk voloressimet
labo tafe.
Eve? BY ALEX COLON
Last New Year’s Eve I lost my phone and
my socks (don’t ask). Any tips for
retracing steps after a wild night out?
—Find My Dignity
Alex Says: There’s no easy way to recover your socks—or your dignity—but you
can take a couple of steps before heading out this year.
The first, most obvious tactic is to activate the feature on your phone that lets
you track it remotely via GPS. Apple has Find My iPhone, Google has Android
Device Manager, and Microsoft has Find My Phone. With each of these you can
also make your phone ring, or remotely lock it or erase your data.
Or you can try checking your location history through Google. Provided you were
signed into your Google account on the device you lost (and didn’t turn off
location history), you can head to maps.google.com/locationhistory to see where
the device has recently been.
Finally, you might want to consider adding your phone’s IMEI number to a lost-
phone database, such as missingphones.org. This probably won’t result in you
getting your phone back immediately, but it’s sort of like a mobile lost and found,
in case your device ever does show up.

T
he Internet of Things, or IoT, is the idea
that every “thing” can benefit if it has
some connection to the ’Net. For example,
an array of ceiling lights could be more
controllable if the lights were all separate IoT
entities in a complex scheme and could be
individually dimmed or turned off without having
to resort to dozens of actual switches.
This use is banal; the fact is, nobody has
managed to come up with a genuinely exciting
application for the idea yet. In one report by Intel,
a company deep into this, I found this general
description of the usefulness of the technology:
“This momentum toward the Internet of Things...
offers the potential to make data more efficient,
cut operational costs, reduce impact on the
environment, improve customer satisfaction, and
create new revenue streams.”
You can see why everyone is so jazzed about the
IoT. Three of the five rationales have something to
do with either saving or making money. Over the
last 50 years, the goal of technology has been to
save time and money or make money. The subtext
of this is the real driving force: to reduce the need
for workers.
When I was a kid there were jobs to be had
everywhere. During my high school years it was
possible for me to easily get a well-paying summer
job in various factories and manufacturing
operations. Nowadays, the best most high-
schoolers can do is bus dishes—if they can even get
hired to do that. It’s laughable.
What jobs were left after most manufacturing
Useless
Cool
JOHN C. DVORAK
LAST WORD

left the country were white-collar or service jobs.
But few of these kinds of jobs are available for a
high school kid.
The IoT is the end of a very long road where
many of the jobs remaining have been eliminated
by technology. The IoT will continue this trend
until nothing is left.
Even writers like me are gradually being
displaced, thanks to never-ending attempts at
creating robot writers that produce simple stories.
Many of the very low-end corporate news articles
are already written by robots.
Long before “IoT” was a common term, IBM
promoted many of these same ideas in its
futuristic presentations. My all-time favorite was
even turned into a TV commercial. It began with a
look into the future. The doorbell rang. A woman
answered and was confronted by a repairman.
Their exchange went like this.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“I’m here to fix the washing machine!”
“But I didn’t call anyone to fix the washing
machine.”
“I know, your washing machine called!”
This is comedic. First of all, I do not want my
appliances making phone calls. And who would
send out a repairman without checking in with the
owner of the house? There may be a cell meeting
for the local Communist party going on. It could
be a crack house. A sexy orgy may be in progress.
The whole idea is dumb. Now this exact same
scenario is being promoted by the IoT folks.
The other old and failed idea is the connected
coffeemaker. This was previously promoted by
IBM, and then I heard the Sun Microsystems CEO
push this nonsense 25 years ago.
“Just think: You could be driving home from
work and remotely tell your coffeemaker to brew a

fresh pot, so that when you walk in the door your
coffee is ready!”
Is this really something people hanker for?
Wouldn’t a coffee addict be drinking coffee in their
car already?
One of the big targets for the IoT is another long-
term dud, home automation. The whole house gets
loaded with IoT devices that you can control over
the Internet.
Most people are not now, nor will they ever be,
into home automation. They would just as soon
turn on a light with a switch. Someone might get a
Nest Learning Thermostat, but that will be the end
of it.
Hook up everything to the Internet? What’s the
point? It’s what I like to call “useless cool.” It’s
kind of neat, but who really needs it?
What I imagine are the ever-lurking hackers.
You’ll come home to find the house at 91° and the
lights putting on a show while the garage door
opens and closes like crazy. Fantastic. And you
paid extra for this convenience.
Of course, nobody ever discusses the downside.
There is no money in that, is there?
john_dvorak@pcmag.com
You’ll come
home to find
the house at
91˚ and the
lights putting
on a show while
the garage door
opens and
closes like
crazy.

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