Internet immortality

Death used to be the end, at least as far as socialising was concerned. Not any more. I recently came across Eter9 (www.eter9.com), a new social network that promises a form of internet immortality for its users. From what I understand, it works much like Facebook, at least while you’re alive, connecting you to friends, family and others who share your interests.

Uninstalling software

Remove browser toolbars that won’t shift, repair corrupted Registry entries and find missing uninstall options

Toshiba Canvio Connect II 2TB

An affordable way to carry your files with you

Available in black, white, red, blue or ‘satin gold’, this shiny portable hard disk is designed to work equally well with Macs and Windows PCs. You’ll need a modern computer to get the best from it, since it uses a USB 3.0 connector (you can normally identify USB 3.0 ports by looking for a blue stripe inside the socket). Plug it into a USB 2.0 port and it will still work, but files will copy across more slowly. No mains power is required.

Nest Protect 2

Fire? There’s an app for that

Nest, founded by the man who created the iPod at Apple but now owned by Google, is best known for its smart thermostat. That costs £249 and requires professional installation, but the Nest Protect, a smoke alarm that can similarly connects to your mobile devices, is much more straightforward. It costs £89 in battery or wired configurations (the latter to replace existing wired units), and you can install it yourself. The battery version uses no less than six AA cells, presumably because it draws power relatively fast.

Secret Tips For Dropbox

Get new features before anyone else, recover deleted files and make your Dropbox super-secure

Drag and drop web addresses

Dropbox has a brand new feature for saving and sharing website addresses (or URLs) with a simple drag and drop. Double-click your web browser’s address bar to highlight the URL you want to save and then drag and drop it into your Dropbox. You can even drop links via the Dropbox web interface at www.dropbox.com, as long as you open it in a separate browser window.

Trendnet TEW-820AP

Speed up your Wi-Fi router

802.11ac is the latest Wi-Fi standard, and potentially offers both higher speeds and better reception than its predecessor, 802.11n. If you have an 802.11ac router connected to your broadband, new devices with 802.11ac built in can take full advantage, while older 802.11n devices can still connect too. But what if you have an 802.11n router – whether one that you bought yourself or was supplied by your broadband provider – and no particular inclination to spend around £100 replacing it?

Vector Luna Contemporary

A smartwatch – in one sense, at least

Smartwatches still feel like a bit of a white elephant, but they’re not going away. Apple has updated the software for its Watch, and more devices are coming from tech giants such as Motorola, Samsung and Huawei. This one is rather different: it’s from an independent British company, looks like a real watch, and offers a stripped-down approach reminiscent of the popular Pebble.

My love-hate relationship with Windows 10

We’ve given Stuart Andrews day release from The Final Straw so he can give his verdict on the new OS

What do I think of Windows 10? Predictably, it’s a love/hate relationship. On the love side, I think it has the potential to become not just the final Windows version, but the best. I’m not sure whether it’s a brilliant strategy or lucky coincidence, but just as people are falling out of love with tablets, Windows reincarnates with the Desktop interface centre stage. From the reappearance of the Start button to a more usable Start menu and the ability to put Windows Store apps in the traditional floating windows, it’s an operating system (OS) that combines the best of Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Dino PC GS1

A complete desktop system at an attractive price

If you like your PCs solid and simple, you’ll like the look of this one. The robust case (made by Cougar) is as plain as it’s compact, but the bold, chiselled front panel stops it being boring. Thanks to a Mini-ITX motherboard, it’s small enough to fit on a cluttered desk or hide away in a quiet corner.

Intel Skylake

Prepare for faster PCs that consume less power – but do you really need them?

What is it?

Self-explanatory, we’d have thought. Intel has built a giant lake in the sky. The company has invited everyone in the world for a dip.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega

The classic home computer returns

In the early 1980s, Sir Clive Sinclair masterminded Britain’s home-computing revolution. Eschewing the American big-business thinking of the Apples and Commodores of the day, he unleashed a tiny plastic DIY microcomputer, the ZX80, followed by the ZX81 and then his breakthrough: the ZX Spectrum.

Brother MFC-J5320DW

An A3 multifunction printer for less

It’s no secret why printers are cheap to buy. When you add up what you’ve spent over the years, the price you paid for the machine itself represents a drop in the ocean. The real money’s in the consumables. A litre of petrol, one of the Earth’s most precious and fastestdwindling resources, will cost you a bit more than a pound, including tax. The same quantity of inkjet refills, however, would come to about £1,000.

Are hackers reading your text messages?

Think malware can’t affect Android or iOS? Think again. Jonathan Parkyn reveals how to find out if your phone or tablet is under attack and how to stop it

Aflaw was recently discovered in the Android operating system (OS) that could allow hackers to take control of your phone or tablet simply by sending you an infected multimedia message (MMS) – essentially a text message with a malicious video file attached.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+

The most striking smartphone you’ll see this year

When it first appeared as a variant of the Galaxy Note last year, Samsung’s ‘Edge’ design brought something properly new, if arguably pointless, to mobile devices. Other phones have bigger or smaller or squarer or longer screens, but they’re all flat. Here’s a screen that goes all the way to the, well, edge, and wraps around. It may just be a few millimetres, but it’s enough to feel startlingly futuristic.

Motorola Moto X Play

A capable smartphone that won’t break the bank

The Moto X was launched two years ago as an affordable mid-range smartphone. Last year it was reinvented as an upmarket metal option with a big screen. Now it’s got an even bigger screen, but it’s reasonably priced again. Oh, and there are two versions of it. Make your mind up, Motorola.

Windows 10. The 19 Best NEW Things You Should Do

Upgraded to Windows 10? Then you’ll want to know how it’s better than Windows 7 and 8. Jonathan Parkyn and Daniel Booth reveal the best things you can do in the new OS that you couldn’t do in its predecessors

It’s now two months since Windows 10 launched, and the general reaction among Computeractive readers has been: ‘Yes, it’s good, but…’. Every user has their own ‘but’, whether it’s updates not working, software mysteriously vanishing or hardware packing up. As promised, we are continuing to fix your problems – no buts!

HP Envy x360 15-w001na

A full-size laptop that doubles as a full-size tablet

Next month, Apple will start selling the iPad Pro, a tablet with a screen as big as a laptop. Not a full-size 15.6in laptop, because that would be crazy. It will have an optional keyboard, albeit a special flat, lightweight keyboard, not a full-size laptop keyboard that’s permanently attached, because that would be crazy. And it’s fairly heavy compared to a regular iPad, but not as heavy as a full-size laptop, because – yes, you guessed – that would be crazy.

Dell Inspiron 15 5558

The latest thing in old-fashioned portables

We were beginning to wonder if it had been made illegal to release a normal, everyday laptop, and we’d missed it. By normal we mean not ultra-small or ultra-slim, not a MacBook, Chromebook or some hybrid convertible multi-touch fantabulet – just a conventional laptop. Well, here’s one, and it’s pretty good too.

Acer H6520BD

The H6510BD has a 1.3x lens and a minimum projection distance of 1.5m, while the H6520BD tested here has a 1.1x lens and a projection distance of 1m or more. A wireless facility is claimed, via an optional HDMI dongle, for the H6520BD. However, this can be added to the H6510BD, too. Infuriatingly, the H6520BD lacks the other model's integrated control panel. As a result, the handset is essential for operation under most circumstances. Furthermore, the PDF manual covers over 50 models. This is asking for trouble, especially among newcomers.

Panasonic TX-50CX802

Panasonic has put to bed the ghost of plasma with this 4K TV champion

It may have taken time for Panasonic to refocus its engineering team from plasma to LCD, but with the CX802 (also known as the CX800 in some territories) the Japanese giant finally seems to have cracked the transition.

Not only is this the most accomplished LED screen it’s ever made, it’s one of the finest all-round 4K TVs available right now.

ASUS PB328Q

As the bridge between your PC and your eyes, the monitor is one of the most important components you’ll purchase, but many enthusiasts end up with a subpar unit by focusing on a handful of specs, such as price, refresh rate, and native resolution. The ASUS PB328Q is a professional-grade monitor that combines multiple picture quality enhancements, ergonomic adjustability, and advanced technologies that anyone who uses a PC on a daily basis will appreciate. Perhaps most importantly, the PB328Q blends into the background and lets the games, images, websites, documents, applications, videos, and everything else you view on your PC shine through.

Double Play

Intel’s Haswell-E & Skylake Lineups Offer Power For All

Who is a power user? Sure, it’s really easy to point to a $10,000 gaming PC—complete with a flagship processor, four graphics cards, PCIe SSDs, and all the requisite trimmings—and say, “that guy,” but there’s a better answer. We think that being a power user is more a state of mind than a state of hardware. True power users are those who make the most of the hardware available to them.

With a fleet of terrific, cutting-edge CPUs, Intel wants to make power users out of everyone, regardless of budget. Thanks to a pair of processor families, enthusiasts with a passion for pushing their CPUs have plenty of options.

Battle Stations

In World of Warships, Wargaming takes its multiplayer combat game to the high seas

So they sank my carrier. Again and again and again. My teammates, who’d whooped and cheered in chat when they saw the top-end carrier joining their team, scowled emoticons as their battle for survival suddenly became almost impossible. My only excuse is that the turning circle on a Midway-class aircraft carrier is more than I’m used to. I live in London, and the hackney cabs here turn on the spot. Not slowly over the course of 22km, while on fire and being peppered by torpedoes.

Adventure... like it’s 1989!

Next year, gaming legend Ron Gilbert brings adventures to the couch with Thimbleweed Park. Here’s why you should care

Way back in 1990, a young man looking to make his fortune declared: “My name’s Guybrush Threepwood, and I want to be a pirate.” His game, The Secret of Monkey Island, wasn’t the first graphical adventure, but few others have embedded themselves so deeply in players’ hearts. Fast forward to today, and its creator, Ron Gilbert, is bringing that era of gaming to Xbox One with his latest adventure, Thimbleweed Park. Think Twin Peaks, with more jokes. And shades of blue.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition

If only the people who write about games aged this well…

Sometimes our memories of a distant game can be about as reliable as a concrete parachute. We all have favourites that we remember looking incredible, stunningly realistic. They’ll never top that, we think. But booting up an old classic is almost always a nasty slap to nostalgia. We may claim to look past graphics if the gameplay impresses, but 99% of us can’t get through an early Xbox game without our eyes wanting to be sick. That’s the Coalition’s greatest achievement – it’s given us the Gears of War we remember, and then some.

The Escapists: The Walking Dead

Those prison guards are suddenly looking a bit peaky

Well, if anything proves The Escapists is all about bizarre crafting combinations, this is it. Team17 has taken February’s pixelprison indie smash and duct-taped it to seemingly the nearest random thing to hand: a set of Walking Dead comic books. It really shouldn’t work. And yet!

Unravel

Sew much more than your average platformer

The word ‘charm’ is horribly overused when it comes to indie games. It’s almost as bad as ‘quirky’. (Don’t even get us started on ‘whimsical’.) Yet when it comes to describing the adorable Yarny, a knitted character who leaves a trail of wool behind him, there just aren’t many words that suit Unravel better. Charm positively seeps out the screen during our extended hands-on. We’re immediately powerless to resist feelings of distinct fuzziness as we trot through a garden filled with fluttering butterflies and surprisingly satisfying Limbo-esque physics puzzles.

Cobalt

A game published by Mojang that isn’t Minecraft? Whatever next…

Yes, this is indeed the first game to be published by the developers of Minecraft that isn’t anything to do with the block-building masterpiece. And that’s interesting. But do you know what’s more interesting? The fact that Cobalt is a hell of a lot of fun, and exactly the kind of game we could see ourselves losing many an hour to.

Dying Light: The Following

Out in the sticks, hitting things with sticks

You’d be forgiven for thinking The Following was a sequel as opposed to a simple expansion. Taking place in the countryside around Harran, it presents rolling cornfields, forests and craggy cliffs over an area equal to the size of the city’s two regions combined. It’s this scale that our demo is keen to emphasise, as a claustrophobic cave network opens into a panoramic mountaintop view of the new playground. That we’re then invited to dive into a distant lake below suggests this is a slightly more fantastical trip than the gruelling struggle faced in Harran’s zombie-plagued streets.

OneDrive. Take Windows 10 into the cloud

Use Microsoft’s cloud storage system to access your files wherever you are

Microsoft’s online storage offering, OneDrive, has joined the likes of Dropbox, Google Drive and BT Cloud in the scramble to get your files backed up in the cloud (that nebulous term for banks of storage racks humming away in a data centre... somewhere). OneDrive has been through a couple of different incarnations since its launch in 2007. You might remember it as SkyDrive, which was its codename before it became available for beta-testing as Windows Live Folders. It became Windows Live SkyDrive very shortly after launch. The ‘Windows Live‘ part of the name was quietly dropped, and SkyDrive rumbled on through the launches of Windows 7 and 8 until 2013, when a case in the High Court in London determined that the name infringed BSkyB’s ‘Sky’ trademark. From these Murdoch-stoked ashes rose OneDrive, and that moniker is the one you’ll find today in Windows 10.

Big Pharma

The drugs don’t work… but they sell like hot cakes

Theme Hospital games have mostly avoided medicine. In fact, let’s face it, games mostly avoid difficult themes – probably because titles like the superbly depressing environmental destruction simulator Fate of the World have a tendency to not sell well. And we suspect the Democracy series only sells because the results of political and economic decisions within it are so apocalyptic. Big Pharma’s tack is more on the manufacturing side, which makes it closer to logic games such as SpaceChem. Except its focus is the drugs industry.

Armello

A dark fantasy board game inspired by Redwall

In the kingdom o f Armello, the mad lion is king. That might sound like bad poetry, but Armello is a strange game – hugely familiar, but also extremely unusual. It’s a board game, definitely, but one that’s been developed just as a computer game, so it can do things board games never could.

Alienware 15 with Graphics Amplifier

Sure, it’s a nice solution. But what was the problem?

Gaming and laptops have never been best mates. This is a simple fact. The problem is that the confines of a laptop chassis aren’t well-suited to a hot, angry graphics chip. They consume so much power. They produce hideous amounts of heat.

EK Water Blocks Predator 240

Could this be the new king of the watercooling jungle?

If you’ve spent any amount of time around the depths of the custom water-cooling world, you’ll have come across one name in particular – EK Water Blocks. Along with Bitspower, EK is one of the most popular water-cooling componentry firms globally. And for good reason. Providing top-notch cooling capacity and an aesthetic design style so clean you could eat your dinner off of it, it’s easy to stick with EKWB throughout any of your water-cooling projects.

Razer Kraken Pro

Bass, bass, buttery biscuit bass

What is it with Razer and just not doing so great lately? If there was ever a time for it to shine, you’d think it would be now. After years of research and development, it should be winning hearts and minds with its LED-encompassing peripherals of power. However, that’s simply not the case. That’s not the way the cookie crumbles, and nowhere is this more apparent than with the Razer Kraken Pro.

Razer Firefly

Let there be cables

Where on Earth should we start with this? Let’s go with a little bit of a history into mousemats. That’s what we usually do, right? Mousemats have existed for as long as there have been trackball mice.

Thief Encounters

On 18 March 2016, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will finally hit PS4. Matthew Pellett tracks down creative director Neil Druckmann and writer Josh Scherr to find out why Nathan Drake’s final outing will change the gaming landscape forever

Why is Uncharted 4 going to be the best Naughty Dog game ever made? That’s what you came here to find out, which is why it’s the first question we put to creative director Neil Druckmann when we discuss the concluding chapter of PlayStation posterboy Nathan Drake’s adventures.

Forza Motorsport 6

Our car lurches violently to the right and, for once, it’s not down to the damage caused by rear-ending an opponent during an optimistic out-braking manoeuvre. This time, it’s because we barrelled into a large puddle on the apex. Turn 10 promised much for Forza 6’s three-dimensional pools, and they don’t disappoint. The loss of traction from hitting one at speed is instantly telegraphed, and you can feel the steering lighten as you aquaplane, hoping your tread finds purchase again in time to avoid that fast-approaching wall. Equally, hit them with less pace and the thud of additional drag is palpable. Puddles, it turns out, are no damp squib.

Stellaris

Supermassive galactic strategy from one of the masters of human history

Since 1999, Paradox Development Studio has enabled us to invade and negotiate with (and even make vassal states of) global powers, and taken strategy fans to such periods as Victorian times, the Middle Ages and WWII. So until you see Stellaris in motion, it would be easy to imagine this three-act, procedurally generated 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) space opera as some sort of midlife crisis. But while history has been flushed out the airlock and the world map has been replaced by constellations of unfamiliar destinations, the evidence of 15 years’ study in grand strategy is unmistakable. Stellaris is the political domineering of its forebears run rampant in space, revelling in its freedom to invent the future, infiltrating neighbouring genres and intent on telling stories. ‘Grand’ barely covers its ambitions.

Crackdown 3

Reagent’s cloud tech might topple the status quo as drastically as it does virtual buildings

Everything starts with a single bullet. A hole appears in the barricade as the projectile smashes through it, sending cracks outward from the point of impact. More bullets follow in quick succession and the wall crumbles further, rubble piling up on the floor below until enough has been blown away that it’s possible to see through the structure to the other side. Another volley of ammunition severs a now-dangling piece of masonry, which joins the heap of debris. All of those shards are persistent, we’re told, just as all the damage inflicted in Crackdown 3’s online multiplayer sessions will be. A little later, we watch with barely contained awe as a neon-lit skyscraper yields to a sustained barrage and topples into the building next to it.

Quantum Break

Half game, half TV show, ambitious Xbox One exclusive Quantum Break forges new paths through both

Telling a story about time travel, a good one, is the scriptwriter’s Everest. A subgenre predisposed to paradox and plot holes, narrative threads getting knottier with every rewrite, it’s a stern enough challenge in any form of media. In Quantum Break, a thirdperson adventure from Remedy in which the narrative plays out both in-game and via live-action TV show episodes, and which allows players to impact the story with their decisions, it’s more like climbing Everest in a blizzard. "If we had a time machine and we knew everything back then that we know now,” says creative director Sam Lake, "certainly there’d be things we’d do differently to avoid extra work and time.”

Water Cooling 101

How and why to become a water-cooling master?

For much of recent history, water cooling has been shunned. Only a select few could afford to merrily dance with computing death, taking their chances with water-cooling hardware and components that weren’t even designed to work in the silicon environment. They’d ghetto-graft G1/4-inch plumbing fittings onto hardware and hand-mill various water blocks, all in the hope of creating a leak-proof, watertight system. A system that could efficiently and effectively transfer heat away from their component parts, to a far greater degree than traditional air coolers ever could.

Samsung U32E850R

A flawed masterpiece for lots of money

Call it Ultra HD. Call it 4K. Either way, it’s a metric tonne of pixels and simultaneously seductive and very silly. It’s seductive in a way that only really big numbers and cutting-edge tech can be. Eight millions pixels on a PC display? Extraordinary.

OCZ Trion 100

Getting a little TLC from Toshiba

In this brave new world of PCI Express storage, of M.2 drives, U.2 drives and fancy NVMe protocols, is there any space for ye olde 2.5-inch SATA drives and their piffling 6Gb/s of bandwidth and crusty AHCI interfaces?

Asus GeForce GTX 950 STRIX OC

All the grunt you need for everyday 1080p gaming

Let’s face facts. No matter what k ind of gamer you are, you can guarantee that 99 per cent of the time, you won’t be buried in the latest AAA title from [enter evil megalomaniac game publisher name here]. After all, the latest games from Ubisoft and EA, while featuring incredible levels of graphical fidelity, often have as much depth as any of Michael Bay’s recent Hollywood blockbusters.

My worthless year working for Google

Barry Collins becomes Google’s lowest paid employee, earning a pittance for his expertise

Forget the stories about Amazon warehouse workers labouring 68-hour shifts for minimum wage; I’ve just spent the past year working for Google for £10.28. Not £10.28 per hour, but £10.28 in total.

Get for FREE what other people pay for

Forget rubbish freebies that you’d never dream of paying for – it’s time to grab something of value for nothing. Robert Irvine reveals how to get the best no-catch deals

Install paid-for Android apps for free

Lots of so-called free apps have hidden costs, such as features that you have to pay to unlock and intrusive adverts that gobble up your data allowance and battery power, which is why we thoroughly approve of the ‘actually free’ apps and games offered by Amazon Underground (www.amazon.co.uk/underground). These are paid-for apps that the online giant is giving away for free, with no catches; by which we mean no time limits, no in-app purchases and no ads. They aren’t obscure or rubbish apps, either. At the time of writing, the ‘actually free’ selection includes the brilliant Goat Simulator (which costs £3.29 on Google Play), the full version of 3D body-exploring app Visual Anatomy (usual price £1.58) and the award-winning fitness app Easy Weight Loss (formerly £4.99). Underground appears to have replaced Amazon’s previous ‘App of the Day’ giveaway, with the bonus that hundreds of free apps are now available indefinitely.

Best free photo-editing apps

If you take photos on your phone, it’s handy to edit them before uploading to the web. Edward Munn tests six of the best free photo-editing apps for enhancing your snaps on the go

How Windows 10 Spies On You

Microsoft’s new operating system collects all sorts of personal data about you, including what you type and say. Wayne Williams reveals exactly what info Windows 10 is gathering and how to stop it snooping

Ask anyone what their biggest concern is about Windows 10 – whether they’ve upgraded yet or not – and it’s likely to be privacy. Most of the negative press the new OS has received has been about Microsoft’s increasingly intrusive methods of collecting, storing and sharing information about you, and recent stories suggest the company’s tracking tools may go even deeper than at first thought. Indeed, the Ars Technica blog (bit.ly/ars380) recently found that Windows 10 continues to report back to Microsoft even when you tell it not to.