Содержание выпуска: May 2018 — Tech Advisor

Microsoft sees a future without passwords in Windows 10 Insider Build 17093, at least for Windows 10 S users. The firm has quietly worked to downplay passwords via PIN codes, fingerprint sensors, and even facial recognition. But actually killing them entirely within Windows 10 S is one of the key changes coming with what may be called the Spring Creators Update, code-named ‘Redstone 4,’ expected to launch in late March or early April. The build, which is available now, also includes new multi-GPU graphics settings, improved eye tracking, quicker connections using Bluetooth, and clutter-free printing, among others. Let’s take a look. Windows 10 S takes a pass on passwords Last October, one of the hidden features within the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update was a mechanism to eliminate passwords and…

£2,279 inc VAT from fave.co/2BToJ4w The quest to create a thin and light laptop that delivers great performance goes on, and LG has updated its Ultrabook with an 8th-generation Intel chip, and more. Read on for our thoughts. Design It’s commonplace in the laptop market for new models to come with the same design as previous generations, with new internals, and that’s the case here. Overall there are only minor tweaks to the design so you’d have to be eagle-eyed to spot the differences. On the lid is a ‘gram’ logo instead of ‘LG’, the webcam has been moved and power key looks a bit different. The latter is because LG has added a fingerprint scanner and another way to long into Windows. Tweaks aside, the design of the LG…

£319 inc VAT from fave.co/2rRVNWv The HomePod is Apple’s smart speaker that’s controlled using Siri and designed primarily for high-quality music playback. It’s taken its sweet time to arrive, but arrive it has and our ears have decided that it was worth the wait. Naturally, this isn’t merely an AirPlay speaker. With Siri built in, you can use it for many other tasks – just as you can with Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant. From checking the weather and sports scores to setting reminders, alarms and timers, Siri is a pretty capable assistant. It can also control all your HomeKit devices, such as lights, heating and switches. As you’d expect, the HomePod is very much an Apple product. It’s designed to work within the Apple ecosystem and it does this…

Chromebooks may be impressively versatile, but a good Chromebook hack helps it break out of its browser-based confines and try new talents on for size. Top of the list, of course, is the ability to install a full Linux desktop operating system via the Crouton project. But there’s a lot you can tweak or add to multiply a Chromebook’s powers. Some of these features require you to install Linux, but many do not. Here are five Chromebook hacks that will improve your user experience and make these laptops even more powerful. 1. Steam streaming Just as everyone knows you can put Linux on a Chromebook, it’s probably common knowledge that you can install Valve’s Steam to play games. The problem is only a few Chromebooks come with a GPU that…

Is your computer’s CPU too hot? If your PC starts spontaneously shutting down, locking up, or acting sluggish during intense tasks, overheating could be the issue. Keeping tabs on your CPU temperatures is crucial when you’re overclocking your PC’s processor, too – you don’t want to accidentally push the performance pedal too far to the metal. Bizarrely, Windows doesn’t offer any way to check your computer’s CPU temperature. You could dive into your system’s BIOS to find the information, but that’s a lot of hassle to find a simple sensor reading. Fortunately, several free programs exist that make it easy to see your processor’s temperature. Check your CPU temperature The fastest, easiest way to check your CPU temperature is the aptly named Core Temp (fave.co/2C0SFLW). Be mindful during installation, though.…

Intel plans to hit the hard drive harder with its one-two punch of Optane and NAND solid-state drives (SSDs) this year: the goal is to knock local storage entirely out of the PC, and into the cloud. The firm certainly has plans for its SSD business, including adding 1TB and even 2TB capacity points to products like its 760P SSD. But so does everyone else. The more interesting question is what Intel will do with its nearly unique Optane technology, and how it will convince users that it’s worth the investment. Optane occupies a unique niche between a hard drive and DRAM, and originally served as a caching technology for hard drives or SSDs. The first Optane memory gave way to larger, bootable Optanepowered SSDs like the 900P SSD, at…

£259 inc VAT from fave.co/2nh34ub Long has the Moto G line of budget smartphones been considered excellent. Not just at Tech Advisor but worldwide, we’ve come to expect a lot of phone for not a lot of money when the latest one comes out. There are only two real differences between the older G5 Plus and this newer G5S Plus – the larger screen and dual cameras. Thankfully, the G5S Plus continues the trend and is the best Moto has ever made. It costs a little more than you might expect, but the extra money is worth it for a phone that packs dual cameras, decent battery life with fast charging, a sleek design and offers superb performance. Design We prefer the design of the G5S Plus to the rest…

£49 inc VAT from fave.co/2BUCJed McAfee is a long-time name in the world of PC security. These days the company sells four security products for home users: McAfee Antivirus Plus, Internet Security, Live Safe, and Total Protection. This review is looking at McAfee Total Protection, which along with other McAfee products, recently got an upgrade. McAfee says the new Total Protection packs improved anti-malware protection, and a uniform interface on both PC and Mac. Total Protection comes at a variety of price points depending on how many devices you want to license. For a single device you’ll pay £49, add another £20 and you get Total Protection for five devices, and for £79 you’ll get coverage for 10 devices. McAfee only licenses a maximum of five True Key password/identity manager…

Picking a gaming laptop today isn’t as easy as it was five years ago when a ‘real’ gaming laptop meant 5kg of back-breaking hardware to haul around. With major advances in laptop video cards and CPUs, you can now get great gaming performance from laptops ranging from light to super heavy and from super expensive to budget. The problem these days: too many choices. A luxury problem, to be sure. Still, you need to know how to navigate this bounty. In this guide, we’ll not only name the best gaming laptops currently available, we’ll also highlight what to look for when buying a gaming laptop. The ‘best’ screen for a laptop When you buy a gaming laptop, one of the most important decisions you’ll need to make regards the screen.…

Windows Defender, built into every Windows 10 PC, is considered the bare minimum for securing your PC from viruses and malware. Microsoft recently announced that Windows Defender has expanded its role into preventing ‘scareware’ apps that use the hard sell to warn you of dangers to your PC. The firm has always had an uneasy relationship with optimization programs, which purport to clean up your PC from unwanted junk, potential spyware, and more. “While Microsoft does not endorse the use of these tools with Windows, we do not view them as unwanted or malicious,” the company said in 2016. At the time, Microsoft began blocking optimizer or cleaner apps that didn’t spell out what they did, in part to prevent customers from paying for something that they didn’t understand. (Typically…

£699 inc VAT from fave.co/2rJmXOY As expected, HTC is back with some new smartphones including a bigger and better version of the U11 flagship. It’s onwards and upwards for the firm following its deal with Google. Design As you’d expect from a ‘Plus’ version of any phone, the U11+ is a bigger version of the U11. It’s got a bigger screen, of course, but there are a few other design bits and pieces that are new. The device still has the same design language with HTC’s ‘Liquid Surface’ curved glass at the back. This time round there are two colours to choose from starting with Ceramic Black, which to our eyes in real life looks more like chrome/silver. A Translucent Black option, as teased ahead of the launch, is a…

Open-source software runs something in your life even if you don’t realize it. Raspberry Pi fans take advantage of it. Linux and BSD open-source servers run our websites and corporate networks, as well as in-flight entertainment units and computer kiosks. Open-source software sits at the core of Android phones. Even popular browsers are open-source, including Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera, and the Chromium project, which feeds into the not-so-open-source Chrome browser. Open-source software such as Linux is so critical to developers that Microsoft even integrated it into Windows 10 with Bash on Ubuntu on Windows. The term that helped define all this technology was born 20 years ago. Notions of ‘free software’, where users could view a program’s source code, already existed thanks to the efforts of Richard Stallman and the Free…

Operating system patches alone can protect against the nasty Meltdown flaw affecting Intel processors, but fixing Spectre – Meltdown’s nasty sibling, which affects all CPUs – requires firmware updates for your hardware. Those firmware fixes are finally starting to appear after Intel’s first round of Spectre patches were yanked for causing system instability and potential data loss. Stable patches for 6th-gen Intel Skylake CPUs are now available, and both Intel and AMD are working on CPU microcode updates for other chips. Installing Spectre fixes aren’t so easy, though, especially if you’re using a computer you’ve built yourself, or one from a boutique PC builder that uses off-the-shelf parts. You can’t download CPU firmware patches directly from Intel or AMD; instead, you need to download them from your motherboard’s provider, such…