MSI Wind Box DC111

A very cheap mini PC

The MSI Wind Box DC111 is an incredibly cheap mini Windows 8.1 PC that’s roughly the size of a router. Although we’ve seen even smaller mini PCs, this is still impressively compact. The DC111 comes with a stand as it needs to be kept upright due to the cooling vents on both sides, but it doesn’t come with a keyboard, mouse or monitor. The stand angles the DClll’s four front USB 2.0 ports and audio jacks upwards for easy connection. All other ports are at the rear and include two USB 3.0 connectors, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a HDMI connector and a VGA port. However, we found it far too easy to inadvertently press the power button when turning the PC around to access the rear ports. Another annoyance is the close proximity of the USB 3.0 ports to the HDMI port. Attempting to plug in a particularly chunky cable or USB stick was often a tight, fiddly fit.

Asus ZenWatch

A stylish but flawed Android Wear smartwatch

Smartwatches are difficult to judge. Because they’re so new, we’re not just evaluating each individual smartwatch on its own merits - we’re also determining if there’s any worth in the very idea of a smartwatch itself. When so many of us already own smartphones, tablets and laptops, it’s hard to see the value in having yet another portable computer.

YotaPhone 2

The YotaPhone 2 proves that dual-display technology is much more than a gimmick

It takes something special to stand out from the factory line of Android devices constantly hitting the market, but it’s a task that Yota has willingly undertaken with the launch of its latest dual-display device. From the front, the YotaPhone 2 looks like your familiar black slab smartphone, but turning it over reveals a smart e-ink display. The original YotaPhone also had two screens but flew way under the radar. While it had some moderate success, this revamped model looks better, performs better and generally works better Roth displays are no bigger than 5 inches, with quite a hefty bezel at both the top and bottom of the device. There’s the familiar 8-megapixel camera sensor above the e-ink display, while a small 2-megapixel sensor sits above the smartphone screen. Due to the lack of a backplate, there’s no removable battery here and another annoyance is the lack of a microSD slot. Users will have to make do with the 32GB of internal storage, as well as various cloud options on offer.

Build perfect website

Mark Llobrera on how content, communication and collaboration will help you make your next site the best one yet

This article’s title aside, there is no perfect site, workflow or tool. But you can probably relate to the feeling that I have at the start of every new project: no matter how well the last one went, I want this one to be even better. To put together this piece I interviewed a group of writers, editors, designers and developers to get an idea of how they go about planning sites. Their answers surprised me.

Instead of a list of favourite techniques and tools (don’t worry, there’s plenty of those in the resources section!), a few common themes emerged: the importance of content, internal and external communication, prototyping, and breaking down the divide between design and development. Their responses indicated that teams and clients are struggling with bigger, more fundamental issues than which CSS preprocessor to use.

So this is a snapshot of contemporary web workflow, touching on familiar phases and disciplines – content strategy, information architecture, design and development – but placing those in the context of the broader themes just mentioned. There’s so much that goes into planning and building a site that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. I hope this article will provide some new approaches to those broader issues, while also giving you new tools to test out and explore.

Why Native Apps Hinder Innovation

Former Mozilla evangelist Christian Heilmann argues that creating iOS and Android apps slows the development of new experiences – and we should stand up for an open alternative

Apps are consumed by us, the users, across many of our devices. They do a good job of directing us to focused content; a single source of the information we need on a single topic. With the rise of smart devices, arguments that apps are a ‘web killer’ have increased. Developers have also flocked to native app  development as they see the monetary rewards that creating a successful app can bring.

However, are native apps really the best platform for developer innovation or user experience? In this article, I will argue that the web remains the best platform for app development: not only for users but also for developers who want to push technical boundaries.