HomeMonitor HD Pro Outdoor Security Camera

Protect access to your home from the outside

Developed by Y-CAM, the HomeMonitor HD Pro Outdoor Security Camera (model HMHDE05) offers to provide your home with a degree of security. This kit comes with the claim of being the only camera that stores the seven days footage in the cloud for free with no subscription required. The main camera unit, which does need to be wall-mounted in an appropriate position, comes with the required wall mount, screws, rawl plugs and tools for attaching the kit. Included in the box are an Ethernet cable, power lead with various adapter plugs, a wi-fi antenna and Quick Start guide.

Below

Capy gives new meaning to the pen-and-paper RPG

We’re bleeding. Our avatar might only be a tiny presence onscreen, but it’s pretty obvious we’ve been cut. There’s the trail of blood, for one thing, which has already been set upon by a group of leeches. Below’s UI is sparse by design – invisible, in fact, unless there’s something you need to see – so there’s no ignoring the sudden appearance of a heart slowly being drained of its ruby-red hue either. We should probably do something about this.

Edit Videos Everywhere

Video editors are on your PC, on the web and on your phone and tablet. Which is the best and what are the pros and cons? Roland Waddilove investigates

It was not so long ago that when you wanted to edit a video clip or produce a movie, you had to use a video editor running on your PC. These days you have a lot more choice, and it’s possible to shoot, edit and share videos on a mobile phone or tablet, which is super convenient and no PC is required. Everything is done on a gadget that fits your pocket, but do these apps have sufficient features?

For Honor

Ubisoft takes a swing at something different in this game of multiplayer sword duels

When Ubisoft Montreal needed help with Watch Dogs’ driving model, it enlisted the services of Driver: San Francisco studio Ubisoft Reflections. Sweden’s Ubisoft Massive has recently brought its multiplayer-specialist stablemate in Annecy, France, on board to help with The Division. Ubisoft’s greatest asset is its studio network, a global spread of genre and functionality specialists able to provide expertise when required, although the downside is that it contributes to a highly familiar house style across its games. For Honor, however, is that rarest of beasts: a new Ubisoft game that bears no immediate resemblance to anything in the publisher’s back catalogue, borrowing no mechanics or assets as the team puts together something that – in the context of this company’s output at least – is unique.

Alternative Operating Systems

Keir Thomas takes a walk on the wild side of desktop operating systems that offer an alternative to Windows and Linux

The desktop wars are over and the surprise result is that we don’t care who won. It’s all about what you can do online nowadays, and Microsoft’s even giving away the latest update of Windows. That said, the desktop is still the jumping off point for PC users, and those who find Linux as irksome as Windows might be wondering if there’s a third choice – something that’s neither, yet provides the basic capabilities we’ve all come to expect.

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst

To tell Faith’s origin story, DICE strips away city edges to give her the run of the place

The opening sections of Mirror’s Edge did a fine job of disguising their linearity, but freerunning protagonist Faith never seemed as if she should be constrained at all. Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst addresses that longing for a lack of boundaries by giving her an entire city’s worth of rooftops to dash across and buildings to infiltrate, and the rush of doing so is enough to put mission objectives firmly to the back of your mind when you start playing. Moving Faith, a character always meant to embody the joy of unrestrained locomotion, feels better than before.

Google’s Advanced Technology And Projects Group

David Briddock uncovers the latest technology from Google’s skunkworks-like group

The Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP) is but a small division in the huge Google empire. Yet its impact on the direction of the company and the technology industry as a whole is enormous. The members of this skunkworks-like group are a pretty radical set of individuals – even for a free-thinking organisation like Google. In fact they define themselves as a “small band of pirates. Believers. Makers.”

Hitman

IO preps a world of marks for the coldest-blooded assassin in games

The latest entry in the Hitman series might have shaken the subtitles that have been tailing these games ever since Agent 47 first snuck menacingly onto our screens, but it’s not the reboot you might expect from such an act of nomenclative restraint. Io-Interactive instead sees its new game, which takes place after Absolution, as a distillation of everything that’s good about the series – its perfect assassin sim.

MIA: 10 Things Microsoft Didn’t Put In Windows 10

Mark Pickavance points out some obvious features that never made it to the all-you-can eat buffet that is Windows 10

Whenever a product like Windows 10 comes to fruition, those behind it create lots of lists highlighting the new features they’ve included.

These are good bullet points, especially for those that want to justify the upgrade or for journalists to provide a checklist for their readers.

Build a Raspberry Pi 2 Server

Traditionally, servers are great b ig devices that consume vast amounts of power and generate a considerable amount of heat. That’s why data centres are huge, air-conditioned rooms full of racks housing multiple units. But for home or small business use, they don’t have to be that way, and with the Raspberry Pi, we have a small Linux computer that consumes very little power and generates only a small amount of heat.

Infinifactory

The smartest game in the solar system just went 3D

Here’s a fascinating historical ‘might’vebeen’ for you. The man who made Infinifactory – Zachtronics, aka Zach Barth – almost made Minecraft. After all, Notch’s game was an admitted copy of Infiniminer, one of Zachtronics’s early games. But Infiniminer’s source code was leaked shortly after launch and the game was abandoned, allowing Notch to swoop in and make a (much-improved) copy, then sell it five years later for $2.5bn.

Hit the road to anonymity

From blocking cookies to hiding your IP address, here’s how to get off the grid

Internet privacy tends to make headlines with stories of autocratic governments spying on their citizens, creating the impression that we’re careering straight into an Orwellian dystopia. But while state surveillance is undeniable, the first invasion of your privacy is far more likely to come via a humble Google search. Although apparently anonymous, Google has a habit of tracking your searches in order to bombard you with ever-more personalised adverts. By contrast, a search engine such as duckduckgo.com generates unbiased search results without the added user profiling or tracking.

Razer Mamba Tournament Edition

Setting a new bar for sensitivity, without being all touchy-feely

Not that long ago, customisation was all the rage in the mouse world. Back when the first Cyborg R.A.T. scurried across our desks, we thought that every mouse from that point on would be customisable for the subtle nuances of our sweaty palms. And indeed, since its first release, there have been numerous R.A.T.s and copycats released, suggesting that there is indeed a market for mice that can be perfectly tailored to your hands. However, as the latest Razer Mamba proves, there’s more to customisation than how big a mouse is.

Noctua NH-C14S

Impressive design, but lacks cooling capacity

Noctua is best known for its beige and brown fans, and has dominated the market for silent-operation, performance-heavy cooling options for as long as we can remember. It’s a company with ideals pitched at those who don’t care for the aesthetics of the components, more the properties they exhibit. Notably noise cancellation and a high degree of static pressure. As a result, it delivers some of the best performance that money can buy.

Gigabyte P34W V3

Has Gigabyte really found the ‘no compromise’ ultra-thin gaming laptop?

One of the holy grails for a gaming laptop manufacturer is the powerful, ultra-slim gaming machine. That’s the focus from Gigabyte on its P34W v3, and it gets oh-soclose to pulling it off.

The 14-inch laptop hasn’t been a form factor we’ve seen much of; it’s always been held back from our market for reasons we don’t particularly understand. Maybe it’s been a lack of efficient hardware, which might explain why we’re now starting to see more small gaming machines – both the main CPU and GPU manufacturers are now really focusing on power efficiency for their performance hardware.

MSI R9 380 Gaming

Premium looks, value results

On a tight budget? Looking for a graphics solution under £150? Want to play the latest games comfortably at 1080p? Well, the R9 380 might just be the card for you. Okay, we’ll drop the advertising pitch. But seriously, if you’re looking for a budget buy to build your 1080p gaming/LAN rig, the 380 is a serious competitor.

18 Quintillion Worlds

At our E3 show this year, Hello Games announced that the space exploration game No Man’s Sky is coming to PC. The studio’s Sean Murray tells us what you’ll be doing in this colossal, colourful universe

I'm talking to Sean Murray, one of Hello Games’ four co-founders, at our E3 PC Gaming Show in LA’s Belasco Theater. He’s just announced that No Man’s Sky is coming to PC at the same time as PS4. We always had an inkling his game of procedurally generated space exploration was coming to our platform – the team letting us see it at gamescom last year was a big clue – but now it’s confirmed. I can’t think of a better match. It’s a space game with clear shades of Elite, mixed with elements of the survival games that have become such a phenomenon on Steam. It’s so us.

Resist or Die

XCOM 2 envisions a dystopia where mankind lost the war

In Enemy Unknown, the alien invaders were on your turf. In XCOM 2, you’re on theirs. That significantly changes the pace and dynamic of the game. In the demo Firaxis shows me, I see civilians crowded behind barriers, futuristic police cars right out of the Total Recall remake, armoured fascist twats known as Advent and floating holographic billboards. The aliens control everything. In XCOM 2’s world, you lost the war against the extraterrestrial invaders of Enemy Unknown, and this is not your planet any more. You must take it back.

Panasonic TX-50CX700

Firefox, 4K and a smart design make Jamie Carter an instant fan of Panasonic's TX-50CX700

Many will expect a 50in 4K TV that sells for less than £1,000 to care little for design. Corners have to be cut somewhere. And yet Panasonic's £900 TX-50CX700 offers one of the most arresting style flourishes of all – two barely visible feet providing that ‘floating look’ that so many TV designers aim for but usually miss. This may be a budget TV, but it's a beauty.

Pioneer BDP-LX58

Someone should remind this over-achieving Pioneer Blu-ray player that it only sells for £500, chides

The BDP-LX58 is Pioneer’s Blu-ray Prince Regent. By designation it ranks below the brand’s flagship LX88 (and sells for half as much), but it doesn’t doff its cap to anyone. It looks beautiful and is built like a hotel room safe. A 1mm-thick steel-plated bonnet keeps a lid on erroneous vibration, while the chassis features a 1.6mm-thick base, reinforced by a 3mm plate. In operation it’s library quiet. You’ll want to load discs simply for the pleasure of ejecting them again.

Rip, convert and stream your DVDs

Wayne Williams shows you how to clear your living room of DVD clutter and bring your movie collection into the 21st Century

It’s a familiar sight in living rooms everywhere: towering stacks of DVDs littered around the TV, from muchloved movies and current favourites to birthday box sets and friends’ recommendations that are yet to be watched. While DVDs take up less space than chunky old video cassettes, they still clutter up shelves and cupboards, and the chances are that you only watch them infrequently. In this issue’s Weekend Project, we’ll show you how to kill two birds with one stone by freeing up space and making your movie collection more accessible.

Transfer any file to any device

Want to copy a file to or from your PC without having to faff about with USB drives? Jonathan Parkyn explains the easiest, fastest ways to transfer files between your devices

Windows to Windows

Emailing yourself files or using a USB memory stick is fine for the occasional transfer, but if you often need to move files between Windows PCs, then setting up a shared folder is the smartest option. First, make sure all the PCs are connected to the same network and belong to the same HomeGroup. To do this, click Start, type homegroup and click the HomeGroup option on each PC to either create or join a HomeGroup as required. Certain libraries are shared among HomeGroup PCs by default, including Music, Pictures and Videos, and you can also add specific folders.

Windows 10 The Truth

Don't believe the hype! Wayne Williams reveals why Windows 10 might not be the all-conquering operating system that we've been waiting for - at least not just yet

Microsoft has released its fair share of bad operating systems over the years: Windows Me, for example, infuriated users with its frequent crashes, while Windows Vista introduced the universally loathed User Account Control. But even by those standards, Windows 8 was a mess, and it’ll come as no surprise to anyone who used it in its first year that it’s the software giant’s least successful operating system ever.

Firefox blocks Flash after hackers exploit countless flaws

What happened?

Mozilla has blocked the Flash plug-in by default on its Firefox browser, after a host of bugs were found that were being used by criminals to attack users.

Mozilla said the block may only be temporary, suggesting it may reverse its decision if Flash’s developer Adobe fixes the security flaws. Other tech companies including Apple have long blocked the plug-in, which is used to show videos, adverts and other multimedia content online.

Libratone Diva

Libratone is back with another fabric-coated soundbar that has designs on Adrian Justins' living room. But can this app-controlled audio booster impress where it really matters?

If you're in the market for a soundbar you have a choice to make. You can accept a few sonic compromises and go for something slim and demure (and usually bargain-priced) or you can go for something with a bit more meat on it, something that’s more likely to deliver the sonic goods by virtue of having much larger drive units. And the latter option also offers up the possibility of discarding the otherwise essential requirement of a separate subwoofer.

Panasonic DMP-BDT270

Impressive 4K upscaling and 3D playback convinces Jamie Carter that this affordable Blu-ray player could find a place in a budget AV setup

Under fire from the likes of Netflix and an incoming Ultra HD format, the received wisdom is that the basic Blu-ray player is on borrowed time. The compact quality of the Panasonic DMP-BDT270 suggests otherwise.

Biostar Z97W Gaming

Welcome to the year 2005

What can we say about Biostar? As a company, some of us weren't even aware it existed until a month ago. That was until it debuted a new range of rather interesting consumer Z170 boards at Computex, boards with a strange ability to swap between using two sticks of DDR3 or two sticks of DDR4, depending on your budget. The Taiwanese manufacturer, of course, has actually been around for decades, but has traditionally leaned more toward business-to-business sales, as opposed to the enthusiast end of the market. So, what can be said for its Z97 gaming motherboard?

The High-Bandwidth Bomb

The PC platform, and motherboards in particular, are about to drop a bomb on your desktop

In the future, motherboards will be all about bandwidth. Actually, they already are. That’s because the big news for the PC is a whole bunch of new interconnects. And they’re all about boosting bandwidth. They’re also borderline baffling. Firstly, there’s the crazy nomenclature. Whoever thought that "SFF-8639" was a keeper needs to be strung up with SATA cables. More on that later. The confusing naming, that is, not death by middling-bandwith cable connects.

Acer V17 Nitro Black Edition

This mainstream gaming notebook

A name like V17 Nitro Black Edition inspires images of fast cars and powerful engines. Acer, not normally a company associated with high-performance systems, might be trying to change its image, it seems. And indeed, on the surface, the V17 packs some decent hardware, such as a gimmicky 3D RealSense camera. But while some parts are good choices, others leave us wanting.

Dial M for Android

Android M will usher in a new era of smartphones. Darren Yates investigates Google’s next-generation Android OS and the major advances we’ll see

Android has come a long way in a relatively short space of time since its launch in the HTC Dream in 2008. With Google’s popular I/O conference having come and gone for another year, the search giant has pulled back the curtain on its next Android release, for now called ‘Android M’. Not only will it pick up where Lollipop left off in terms of power management, it’ll coincide with some impressive new features such as faster charging speeds, thanks in part to the arrival of new USB hardware. Here’s a taste of what we can expect to see later this year.

Boot Linux faster

Neil Bothwick goes back to the start of Linux, even before root existed

When you boot your computer, the bootloader only needs two pieces of information: the path to the kernel and the location of your root filesystem, which is then passed to the kernel. In Grub, this would look something like:

linux /boot/vmlinux-3.19.0 root=/dev/sda1

Windows 10: the review

It’s loaded with changes, many improvements, but still the odd feature that makes us wince... plus some important unanswered questions. Darren Yates reviews Windows 10

As we’ve noted elsewhere, Windows 10 has a lot to try and live up to, from Microsoft’s ‘Windows Everywhere’ strategy to giving Windows 7 users reasons to come back after Windows 8. It has to appeal to consumers and business alike, which effectively means innovation and predictability in almost equal measure. It’s a tall order — so how well has Microsoft done?

Windows 10: tweaks & secrets

Get ahead of the pack with these mods and tricks for Microsoft’s new OS. Darren Yates reveals the top tips from build 10158

CHANGE THE COMMAND PROMPT OPACITY

Windows 10’s command prompt has a new trick — adjustable window opacity. Right-click on the command prompt header, select Properties, choose the Colours tab and at the bottom, drag the Opacity slider left to make the command prompt window progressively more see-through. Very handy if you still need to see what’s behind the prompt.

Windows 10: under the bonnet

What are the big-but-invisible changes in Windows 10? Darren Yates dives under the bonnet to find out what Microsoft has tinkered with

While Windows 10 comes with obvious changes like the new web browser and Start menu (more on these elsewhere), what other technical changes are there inside the OS that may affect you? Not surprisingly, Windows 10 has plenty of new tech, none more critical than the one you’ve probably heard least about — a new shared-component platform called Windows Core (tinyurl.com/q7vdbcq).

Windows 10’s new lighter, faster browser

It wouldn’t be a new Windows OS without a new browser. Darren Yates explores the new internet explorer-replacement called Edge

Internet Explorer has long been an object of derision amongst PC users over the years, whether it’s the security holes, the variable performance or its wobbly adherence to web standards. But incredibly, as of May this year, it still maintained more than 55% desktop market share, according to the latest available data from NetMarketShare (tinyurl.com/6umm2xe).

Windows 10’s new old Start menu

Microsoft has heard the roar of disapproval and the start menu has returned. So how does it work? Darren Yates looks at the changes

We reckon there’ll come a day when Microsoft looks back on Windows 8 and admits the decision to remove the traditional Start menu was far from one of its best. Sure, plenty of geeks were happy to use Modern UI, some even preferred it, but I’ve seen nothing in 20 years galvanise Windows users quite like losing that little Start icon.

How to get the free upgrade

Confused about how the free Windows upgrade will work? You’re not alone. Darren Yates explains what’s involved

Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn’t made a great fist of explaining how the free Windows 10 upgrade will work and given the emails we’ve received from readers, it seems there are still more questions than answers. So, here’s what we know so far:

Microsoft launches Windows 10

Almost 20 years after Windows 95 changed the world, Microsoft is back with Windows 10 — but has the world changed too much? Darren Yates digs into the latest release of this iconic OS

It’s hard to believe but come this August, it’ll be 20 years since the release of Microsoft’s game-changing Windows 95 OS. And a game-changer it was, turning the PC from a business and enthusiasts’ box of tricks into the device all of a sudden everyone had to have. In that first year, Microsoft sold 40million copies of Windows 95 and the consumer PC market took off.

Build your own Chromebook

Neil Mohr helps you install Google’s other OS on an old laptop

The first question in your head is “why would I want to install Chrome OS, even on my old laptop, when there are perfectly adequate awesome full-fat Linux distros to choose from?” Good question, and the answer is not everyone wants a full-fat distro, nor can everyone use a full-fat distro. Part of the success of Chromebooks — and they are successful with 5.7 million Chromebooks being sold in 2014 and 7.3 million predicted for 2015 (source: Gartner) — is their cut-down, lightweight Gentoo-based OS. If you want to give someone easy, no fuss access to Google services it should be a tempting choice.

MSI R9 390X Gaming 8G

AMD goes back to Hawaii for its ‘new’ mainstream flagship

A step down from the Fury X, AMD’s pitting the R9 390X — its new mainstream flagship GPU — against Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 980. And priced at around $100 cheaper, it just might have what it takes to seal the deal.

Stream machines

In-home game streaming has truly arrived, but it’s a Wild West of new tech. So which options work best?

Streaming games from your PC to other devices. It’s a crazy idea, right? It is if you really think about the nuts and bolts. Start with a control input from your client streaming device, whatever that may be. A precision flick of the mouse in reaction to gunfire behind you. That kind of thing. The signal has to be processed by the client box and then sent over your network to the host PC. That PC then processes the input and updates the game state by rendering new 3D frames, calculating some AI, number crunching the audio and everything else that goes into a modern game engine.

Yubikey Edge

Mark Crutch tries to improve the security on several cloud services with just one handy little device

Sites get hacked and password databases stolen, so it's wise to take additional steps to secure your logins with "second factor" authentication wherever you can. The trouble is that there are a wealth of second factor options available, and you need to make sure you have the right one for the site you're using. The Yubikey Edge is one such option, and it has some limited configurability that might enable it to do the job of several other devices.

Atom 1.0

Ben Everard's hair is beautiful - as is this lovely text editor.

GitHub primarily concerns itself with project hosting, so it came as a bit of a surprise to us when the project released a text editor. According to the Atom release announcement, Atom exists because GitHub co-founder Chris Wanstrath wanted a text editor built using modern programming techniques, "His dream was to use web technologies to build something as customisable as Emacs and give a new generation of developers total control over their editor."

Kalimba

It’s not easy being green, when there’s a purple force field between you and the next place to be, but this is why you brought your purple friend along. You can stand on his head, be propelled higher when he jumps or just observe as he negotiates the purple safely, switching places whenever you like. Wait, though. Green forcefield? That means he’s using you, too, for the equal and opposite purpose. You know what else is weird? He moves exactly as you move, all the time.

Square Heroes

One of the great things about sourcing content for these independent gaming pages is that I can follow game development, and the people doing it, over time. I first saw Square Heroes at PAX Australia in 2013 and I recall it as being so immersive, I could momentarily ignore the madness of the indie pavilion, just to get lost in something really fun. Recently, at full release, I got so busy playing the campaign that I forgot to put my kids to bed. This game speaks right to my inner escapist.

Bad Dream: Series

Do you sleepwalk? I don’t. At least, not very often. One night, however, I woke up in my Grandma’s old fl at, trying to unlock the front door with what was, possibly, my dad’s right slipper. I blame falling asleep with the heater on in a small space. It was actually pretty scary, so if you do sleepwalk, you have my sympathies. Bad Dream Series is this exact experience in short, loosely sequential, adventure games, providing confusion and horror through simple line drawings on yellowing paper.

Apple to adopt ad-blocking in iOS 9?

Is this the death of ads on the world wide web?

At Apple’s recent WWDC conference in San Francisco, the company introduced something massive. Instead of announcing it on stage, however, the revelation was hidden away in the developer notes of the iOS version of Safari 9.0. The controversial new feature is an inbuilt ‘Content Blocker’ pathway, which will allow third-party ad-blocking-apps to bind to Safari and potentially prevent any ad script from running anywhere on the entire web.

Killer Instinct: Season 2

Xbox One’s premier fighting game continues to grow

At last! The final character has been released and the second ‘season’ of Xbox One’s headline fighting game has been brought to a close. It’s been a pretty good year for Killer Instinct, despite a rocky start with Season 1 developer Double Helix Games leaving the series to make something for Amazon and being replaced by Iron Galaxy, which was best known for porting other games. Turns out, it’s actually pretty damn good at making its own, too. Season 2’s new characters make for one of the most interesting lineups of all the current fighting games and, thanks to a big injection of prize money from Iron Galaxy, Killer Instinct is one of the featured games at EVO 2015 – the world’s biggest fighting-game tournament. Not a bad year at all.

Tom Clancy’s The Division

Hands-on impressions from New York City’s most godforsaken zone (no, not the discount rack at Macy’s...)

Deep in the heart of The Division’s plague-ravaged imagining of Manhattan, just north of Times Square, lies an area dubbed ‘The Dark Zone’. If the Big Apple’s gone rotten, then this fenced-off area is its rancid core – the area where the pandemic first took hold, and where concentrations of the virus are at  its highest. According to the game’s fiction, before society crumbled, the Dark Zone was quarantined off in a futile attempt to contain the virus’ spread.

Where Now For Windows 7? (And Why Windows XP Is Still Hanging On Too)

David Crookes looks at Microsoft's plans for Windows 7 now that its latest operating is available

Microsoft's release of Windows 10 is just days away. It is the successor to the ill-fated Windows 8 and 8.1 operating systems and it has, in the upgrade process, skipped an entire number, as many of you will know. The company has kept quiet over the reason why it has done this, leading to speculation that it's because the number 9 is unlucky in Japan or that it's to do with an issue surrounding software checking for Windows 95 or 98. But the effect has been to put some distance between the new and old. The only problem is the old could so easily linger and bite Microsoft on the bum.