Prison Architect

Prison Architect isn’t only significant because of the final product’s quality, but also because of the nature of its development. It was one of the first games to adopt an ‘Alpha’ development model, before the creation of Steam Early Access. Over the past three years, it’s proved itself a stalwart example of this design process, receiving constant updates that have carefully expanded upon its basic premise of constructing and managing a maximum security prison. Now, finally, Introversion has officially updated Prison Architect to the hallowed version 1.0, and the result is one of the most distinctive and fascinating management sims since Theme Hospital.

Aria Halo Rampage

Many retailers offer water-cooled PC these days, and the range of off-the-shelf components is now huge, so building one is easier than ever, even if it can still be a faff. However, it isn’t often you see a water-cooling loop as instantly accessible as the one in Aria’s Halo Rampage. The company is working in partnership with Thermaltake, which recently delved headfirst into the custom watercooling scene with a range of its own radiators, fans, pumps and other accessories. It’s sure to shake up the market a little, but for now, Aria has used Thermaltake gear for all but the GPU waterblocks system in the Halo Rampage’s water-cooling system.

Pointless ‘likes’

I’ve never been a big fan of Facebook’s Like button. Some among my friends and family suggest that this is because I’m not particularly amiable or even that I’m downright misanthropic, but I’m inclined to think it goes deeper. It seems to me that people ‘like’ Facebook posts because they have some sort of vague good feeling about a post but don’t really have anything to say. They might agree with an opinion aired, but they themselves don’t have anything to add.

Li-Fi

You may soon be able to go online with a flick of your light switch

What is it?

A way of transmitting data using the light emitted from LED lightbulbs. Supporters of the technology say it has several key qualities that will make it a viable alternative to Wi-Fi.

Luckies Smartphone Projector

See the bigger picture

Digital projectors are complex pieces of kit, but this one goes back to basics to project an image from your smartphone for under 20 quid. First you have to build the projector, which arrives as a couple of sheets of cardboard and an impressive-looking glass lens.

HP Officejet Pro 6830

For the busy office… if you’re patient

Marketing a computer product? Want to charge more for it? Don’t bother making it work better – just write ‘Pro’ after the name! It’s a useful tip that HP long ago took to heart with its Officejet Pro printer series. This time, though, it’s forgotten to bump up the price. The Officejet Pro 6830 really does look like a professional machine, with its bulky, but business-like shape and a big automatic document feeder (ADF) on the top. Yet it’s under 70 quid. Could it be a bargain by any other name?

Elgato Eve

Connect your home

Everybody got very excited when Apple announced HomeKit, a home-automation system. That was back in June 2014. Then nothing happened. Then nothing happened some more.

To be fair, a few months is nothing in the history of home automation. It’s been a computer-industry theme since the 1980s, after Tomorrow’s World imagined it  in the 1970s. But adverts were promising it in the 1940s. The Victorians had a mechanical contraption for every task. And mostly we were all just reinventing the Romans’ ideas, with their running water, clocks and under-floor heating.