Coding with empathy

Amanda Glosson explores what we can gain by putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes

Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. If I were to relate a story to you and ask you to empathise with me, I might say something like, ‘Imagine yourself in my shoes’. But if you were to follow these instructions, you would only be part of the way there. Empathy isn’t imagining yourself in my situation. Empathy is imagining what it’s like for me to be in my situation.

Sony KD-75X9405C

With its bold design and 75in panel, this TV puts the 'big' into bigscreen entertainment

If the current trend is to try and minimise the space the new generation of TVs take up by giving them incredibly slim frames, Sony’s KD-75X9405C is the untrendiest TV of the year. It's not just content with assaulting your living room space with a vast 75in screen; this monolithic beast adds sidebars down each side of that screen, making it look more like an 85in set.

LG 55EG960V

Representing OLED in our high-end TV tussle is this curved, 4K style icon from LG

OLED technology has finally gone from being the stuff of AV fantasy to a living, breathing reality you can actually buy. What’s more, you can actually already buy it for less than you might imagine. The 55in 55EG960V costs £3,800, despite being only the second native 4K/UHD OLED TV we’ve seen. That makes it the most affordable set in this roundup, albeit at a smaller screen size. Expect to pay £6,000 for the 65in model of the 960V series.

SiSoftware Sandra 2015 SP2b

SiSoft's Sandra (the Sytem ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) had a recent upgrade last November with the 2015 edition and followed by SP2b, which was released on 6th July this year. Better support for all current versions of Windows along with Windows 10 were included with the new version, along with updated hardware, Device Performance Certification, new GPU, APU and CPU Scientific Analysis Algorithms and an updated overall score. There were also many other tweaks and improvements to the main structure of the program itself and a dash of Windows 8-esque flair with a set of new styles and themes.

UniGine Valley Benchmark

UniGine is the commercial game making engine that allows you to design multi-platform game environments. As a result and because of its use in the industry, the company has on offer a number of GPU stress testing tools available.

There are a four main benchmark stress testing tools for download: Valley (which is what we're reviewing here), Heaven, Tropic and Sanctuary.