Computer systems today are often called on to make predictions based on data provided to them. Sales forecasts, power usage, the weather, and even the little lights that come on in posher cars that tell you something is starting to go wonky are all based on software that is in turn based on predictive algorithms. This is how Amazon constantly changes what it thinks you might buy, and Goggle can creep you out by offering to sell you what you are searching about. The crafting of such programs are calls for laborious and highly skilled coding and constant fine tuning of the factors used to make the predictions.  Each system has to be customized for each situation and is very expensive to maintain. We are a long way away from the Star Trek world of telling the computer what you want analysed or having Mr. Spock work it out.

Perhaps we are not that far away after all, OGs (Original Geeks) know that Jeff Hawkins was the mastermind behind the first successful  handheld computer, the Palm Pilot, the grandfather of all Palm PDAs. He then went on to co develop the Treo, the first smartphone. Since 2005, he has been working with Numenta following what was actually his first love, neuroscience. Hawkins has since been seeking a solution that has dogged artificial intelligence developers since day one, how to make computers learn and understand without all the tweaking it takes now.  Grok, a prediction engine, now in private beta seeks to do just that.

Calling the cloud based system “Grok” is both a homage to the late Grand Master of science fiction, Robert A. Heinlein, who coined the phrase as a Martian word in his 1961 classic Stranger in a Strange Land   and as a thumbnail explaination of what Hawkins seeks to do. The Heinlein defines the word thus; ”Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience.”

Grok seeks to meet its ambitious name by use of Cortical Learning Algorithms that allow the system to create models on the fly and modify them based on new data in a process called “online learning” Grok can also flag anomalous and unusual data as well, based on what it is fed. It is also far more generalist in its approach, being able to tailor itself to a specific situation. For example, if you are an engineer tasked to create building climate control systems, instead of custom programming a system for every building,  one instance of Grok can be developed for a building and then deployed to all similar buildings and Grok will learn the quirks of the particular building system its managing.

Its still early days yet, but Grok promises to lead to systems that make Siri developmentally delayed by comparison. And understand you all the time.

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Is Grok Jeff Hawkins Third Act?

Intel recently released its Ivy Bridge family of processors and anyone who likes gadgets should be asking the question -is it a good idea to upgrade? True, its always a good idea to upgrade but sometimes neither the purse, nor the bank manager (my wife hates me calling her that) will yield the necessary quid. In this case, unless your system is more than two or three years old, it might be worth waiting, especially if you are running a Sandy Bridge processor based desktop.

The marketing mavens at Intel have come up with describing processor updates as “tick” or “tock”, with a tick release being a smaller sized processor that are aimed at reducing heat and power and a tock release being changes in chip design where  faster speeds and processor throughput are the goals.  Ivy Bridge is a tick release that reduces the processor footprint to 22 nanometres from the 32 nanometres of the Sandy Bridge class chips. Other than reduced die size and better heat management, Ivy Bridge offers better onboard graphics but relatively little in the way of a desktop speed bump.

An interesting point for those who don’t mind getting into the guts of their desktops, the Ivy Bridge processor is pin compatible with Sandy Bridge motherboards, if you are keen to swap out the Sandy Bridge chip. Honestly, that is not a good idea, but if the desktop is a bit long in the tooth, its a good time to consider a motherboard swap.

The case is a bit different for laptop users. Intel’s “tri-gate”transistor technology according to Intel, “…uses three gates wrapped around the silicon channel in a 3-D structure, enabling an unprecedented combination of performance and energy efficiency.”   Sources claim that Ivy Bridge processors use half the power of prior processors, which translates into mobile battery savings. Further, Ivy Bridge supports native Direct X 11 and improved HD rendering. Not to say you will be happily running Crysis with the integrated graphics chip but, for most games and workaday tasks, its a definite step up.

So the question remains, should you wait for Ivy Bridge to hit your price point? Right now the systems out there are top end systems. If you were going to buy, the decision is definitively easier for a laptop upgrade, particularly for older machines. Another consideration is taking advantage of some of the sales out there by retailer who are shifting stock to make room for newer devices. You need to be careful but if you go that route you could well pick up quite a bargain without being very far behind the curve.

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What you need to know about Ivy Bridge-Is it worth waiting for?

Kindle Touch

The Kindle Fire may be absent from the UK but Amazon rewarded those who ordered the UK version of the Kindle Touch by besting its promised release date by a week from 27 April to the 20th. There are reports that those who electronically queued up to order on the first day got their Kindle Touch either on the 20th or the next day after. Early returns seem the mirror the American experience, except for a few forum posts claiming the touch screen is a bit laggy compared to the basic Kindle, confirming the recent review in the Telegraph. While that is true, it seems to be relative. Individuals who have never used a prior generation Kindle don’t seem to notice the lag.

The big difference between the basic Kindle and the Kindle Touch is the touch screen. THe touch screen not only makes navagation easier, but opens up the e-reader to additional roles, such as the possibility of acting as a notetaker for handwriting recognition in addition to the virtual keyboard, and the X-Ray advanced search feature that allows for many books to be searched based on the context of the word rather than the characters (lengthwise vs wise for example: X-ray is smart enough to know you wan the term “wise” rather than pulling up every match of the grouping of w-i-s-e) In my opinion, those two features are worth the extra twenty quid.

If you are new to the Kindle line, be sure to check out the “experimental features, which include a very basic browser, text to speech and an audio and mp3 player, although if you want to download podcast files you need to do so with a USB connection. In addition the the above features you can email and annotate personal texts and pdfs as well. In fact, the Kindle Touch or any of the keyboard enabled Kindles can serve as very rudimentary tablets in a pinch even to doing email for web based mail services such as Gmail. However, the situation needs to be truly dire as the web browser is quite slow compared to a LED screen.

The price of the wifi only Kindle Touch is £109 and the wifi plus 3G data version is £169.  The smart buy is the wifi only version, especially if you also have a smartphone that is capable of acting as a wifi hot spot.  Unless you have some sort of very odd situation, you should be able to either load content with a wifi connection,  or plan ahead for that trip to the Shetland Islands  by taking advantage of the Kindle Touch’s approximately 3,000 book capacity.

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Kindle Touch arrives early to UK

Recently Three lent us a Sony Ericsson Xperia Play to review, which ironically isn’t even available on Three anymore, but anyway we decided to review it as the phone is excellently priced at around £150 – £200 sim free at the moment.

When his was this was released Sony were asking for iPhone-esque prices so for such a big price drop is fantastic for the end user (unless you paid full price in the first place).

The phone itself is a decent size with a 4-inch capacitive multi-touch LCD touch screen with a 480×854 pixel resolution and 16.7 million colours, and a 5.1-megapixel camera recorder with autofocus, flash, image stabilizer and geotagging. It is obviously rather chubby due to the built in controller (119 x 62 x 16mm) and it weighs 175 grams.

It currently runs Gingerbread 2.3.4 and we found it to be very snappy with no obvious lag at all. There is 400MB of internal memory, but an 8GB microSD card is included and this can be expanded up to 32GB. The internal space is an issue if you want to install a lot of games/applications, but with the microSD you have plenty of space for media.

Obviously the major selling point of this phone is the fact it is the “PlayStation Phone” and comes with a slide out controller, and there is no question about it, this is the best way to control games. It is by no means perfect, but comparing it to controlling games via the screen it is infinitely better.

Where the Xperia truely shines, and makes it well worth the investment, in my opinion, is gaming emulation. Sony have released a few games themselves, which have been good, but they are few and far between. However there is a full range of emulators for most old games systems giving you thousands of games to choose from and a phone that can be used to play them properly!

I was also quite surprised with the battery life of the Xperia. I currently use a Galaxy S2 as my main phone, and the battery has been well reviewed, but I have found it hit and miss, however I found the Xperia would often outlast my S2 on daily tasks. Thinking about it, it is not surprising really the S2 has a 1650mAh batter and the Xperia has a 1500mAh batter, but the Xperia has a smaller screen, and a single core processor. It is still nice for your phone to last a good day though!

Overall I found the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play to be a great phone (at its current pricing) and would make a wonderful Christmas present for someone. It is no iPhone, and 3 don’t even do it anymore with the only Sony on 3 at the moment being the Sony Xperia arc S.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Review

Approximately 3 months ago my 18 month contract expired with O2. Initially I was planning on moving to Tesco Sim Only and get an iPhone 5 when it was released during summer but the iPhone wasn’t announced and the Samsung Galaxy S2 won me over along with a previously (for myself) unheard of network called GiffGaff.

GiffGaff is a mobile virtual network operator running on the O2 network, just like Tesco Mobile, but deviates from convention by allowing its users to run certain aspects of the business in favour of payback.

Obviously the payback aspect is one of the major selling points of GiffGaff, but due to the community run aspect the running costs of the company are significantly reduced which means the cost savings are also passed onto the customer.

You can buy credit in 2 ways, a normal top up with cheap tariffs of 8p/min to UK mobiles and landlines, 4p texts and 20p a day (up to 20MB) mobile internet. Alternatively you can buy a goody bag for £5, £10, £15 etc. I personally use the £10 goodybag which gives me 250 minutes, unlimited texts, and truly unlimited web per month.

This is significantly cheaper than the big companies, and while some virtual operators offer excellent deals, many cant compete with GiffGaffs excellent reputation. 

In the 3 months I have been with them there have been a couple of little issues with data speed but these seem resolved now, and I can see myself staying with them for quite a while, and more importantly I cant see myself ever going back to a contract.

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GiffGaff Review : Mighty Gadget ditches contracts

Plextor have been one of the leading brands for optical drives for many years so it is no surprise they are still churning out various drives to suit all needs.

Today we have the Plextor PX-B310U External Blu-ray Combo Drive which unsurprisingly is a external Blu-Ray Reader and Super Multi Writer. The super multi writer means this can burn your standard array of DVDs/CDs  etc with DVD writing speeds up to 16x.

On opening up the packaging you realise this is large for an external drive, it dwarves the Lite-On Slim DVD writer that I will be reviewing next. However while it is quite large it is a good looking device and doesn’t take over my desk. It is also nice to have my Blu-Ray drive at reaching distance rather than having to reach around the back of my desk to insert a disk.

The PX-B310U is powered externally with the supplied adapter and connects to the PC via USB 2.0. This means it is an absolute breeze to install and move between PCs.

I have been using the PX-B310U as my main Blu-Ray/DVD drive for the past couple of weeks and have found no issues with it at all, I found it quite quiet, at least compared to the drive in my PC. It does make the usual noise when burning or writing but this is always the case with optical drives.

Obviously one issue people need to be aware of is that their PC needs to be powerful enough to process 1080p.

Overall the PX-B310U is a great optical drive and if you are looking for an easy way to add Blu-Ray functionality to your laptop or desktop PC then I would 100% recommend it. However if you are running a desktop PC and don’t mind fiddling with the insides of it then it maybe worth buying an internal drive as these can now be bought for as little as £50.

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Plextor PX-B310U External Blu-ray Disc Combo Review

In the old days pay as you go phones were cheap, cheerful and do everything required out of a phone one would need. They text, they ring. Nowadays, although not packing the super technological goods of an iPhone, HTC Desire or Galaxy S they still do their job and have basic extras. The LG “Cookie Fresh” GS290 is just that. As one of the cheapest touchscreen PAYG phones on the market (from £40ish) you wouldn’t expect too much, but if you want to know more on what we thought of it, then please click on and read our review.

Small, light and reasonably thin is the Cookie. Sporting a matte black finish, the one we’re reviewing is the standard all black affair but (as the picture shows) you can get the GS290 with coloured sides if you so desire. Despite it’s small appearance, the phone features a 3” WQVGA or 240×400 pixel display which takes up the majority of the phone, which is great, more screen is better. Below the screen you have the usual concoction of the phone button to pick up/make calls and the call end/power button with a little Home/Menu button sandwiched inbetween. On the sides of the phone you get the volume controls, a camera ready button and a button/screen lock button. There’s also two gated slots, one for your USB charger and the second hides your microSD slot. All in all everything you’d expect so far. On the reverse of the phone is a 2.0MP camera and some script telling you that it’s a 2.0 Mega Pixel camera. Besides that the reverse is pretty boring, not that that is a fault or anything, it’s pretty normal for a phone, anyway enough said about that.

Let’s switch on and go. First noticeable thing that you’ll come across is the screen. Now as it’s a cheap phone the resistive touchscreen is in full effect here rather than the smarter capacitive screen, but when you’re looking at the price range of this phone it should be expensive. As with the majority of resistive touchscreens I’ve come across this is no different. They’re not the most responsive and if you’re used to using an iPhone or other smartphones you may find that trying pinching and multi-touch gestures don’t work. Also a problem I can see arising here is the size of the on-screen icons and the accuracy of the touchscreen. I kept finding myself pressing the wrong button, usually through a little frustration but mostly just because things were a little close together on the small screen. One thing we can say that’s great about it though is that for it’s size and the general price of the phone, it’s sharper than any entry level phone I’ve come across before with very bright colours and very clear, easy to read text.

The interface itself is alright. If you’re used to LG phones you’ll probably know what i mean by it’s homescreens. Much like the iPhone you have screens that can be flicked between each other with a gesture. The first screen is for your apps/widgets. These can be customised and moved to whatever you desire. There are some pre-loaded apps/widgets for you to use but you can also download more if you so wish but remember this isn’t Android or AppStore standard apps but their is a Facebook one which I’m sure the majority of people including myself was happy to see. The second screen is what LG are calling the “livesquare” This is your social networking screen. You can place avatars of your favourite contacts on here and from this it can quicklink to calls, emails or texts to said friends. The third screen is essentially a variation on the livesquare but is solely a speed-dial screen, only a couple of clicks quicker than than the livesquare, so really a bit pointless.

So what’s next, let’s press the menu button. Again if you’ve used LG phones before particularly the S-Class one’s you’ll know the layout and icons. Basically the screen fills with 16 icons broke down into 4 different lines. Each line represents what type of shortcut is represented within it such as communication, entertainment, utilities and settings. If you scroll over to the right with your finger, you’ll notice there’s another screen with another 16 icons for you to pick from. However this is a strong point for the touchscreen to let you down. Scrolling the screens from left to right could sometimes prove difficult and more often than not you’ll be opening programs you don’t want to open etc. Maybe when you get fully used to the response of the screen you might become a master but in reality patience could be lost quite quickly. One good thing about the Cookie Fresh though is it has a multitasking cool which proves to be easier to get the programs you want running. Another press of the Menu button brings up a shortcut screen which lists what’s currently being run at the time. If you keep programs open all you’ll need to do is click on whatever you want to go to on the list and you’ll be transported there quick as a flash, i liked this.

Making a call is pretty much the same with all phones so we can’t really discuss much other than the fact the sound quality was pretty good. The volume controls on the side are easy to use when you’re on the phone and the volume levels are great at no point did i struggle to hear the caller on the other end. Texting was quite basic but very easy to use. The Cookie Fresh has opted for a software alpha-numeric input. This makes sense really. An on-screen QWERTY would be very difficult to use so going back to alpha numeric meant I had to polish off the old-skool texting skills. It worked reasonably well although again you might often find you mis-typing things due to the resistive screen.

Now I didn’t spend lots of time trying all the programs/widgets on the phone as most were rather basic and uninteresting. I’m not completely writing them off, it’s just the phone is rather basic and thats all the apps are. The web browser isn’t fantastic, ok I guess for checking football scores or basic text surfing, but as there’s no WiFi or 3G connectivity that’s pretty much all you’ll be able to do anyway. I had a rather extensive play with the camera in different scenes etc. If you’re in a well-lit room or outside and have a steady hand the picture quality isn’t that bad. However in low light and someone with not so steady hands like myself a bit of blur crept in. Due to a lack of Flash too there’s no real way round it. All in all though the camera wasn’t that bad and I was quite impressed with a couple of the shots I took. The camera also has a video mode. Again similar problems, it’s not super smooth and in low light the picture quality isn’t great.

The Conclusion. Well the Cookie Fresh is what it is, an entry-level phone. We were very impressed with the super bright, sharp display which is usually bobbins on this price-range of phone but LG have nailed this making a non-smart phone look……… smart. The phone itself is aesthetically pleasing it certainly doesn’t offend the eyes in anyway at all and is hardly noticeable in your pocket. Certain aspects of the interface and OS are good like the avatars for your friends and the quick text/phone options. The only downsides to the phone really are the resistive nature of the screen which could make me frustrated at times in trying to open things or flick through the homescreens and the odd text message mistakes. The other problem is the lack of high speed connectivity. Not a problem if you don’t need it, but if you’re an internet addict and need plenty of information then you aren’t going to get it in a hurry from this phone. All in all a great entry level phone if all you want to do is talk and text and for the price it certainly offers everything and more you’d expect from it in comparison to to other phones at that price.

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LG Cookie Fresh GS290 Review

Recently I have had chance to play with some of Creative’s new products. The first being the Creative ZiiSound D5 Speakers, which to be honest I have heard nothing about until now, so for those of you not in the know:

The ZiiSound D5 speakers redefine the way music is to be enjoyed – wirelessly in pristine form. Sit back and enjoy an audiophile-like experience like no other has done. Our award-winning Bluetooth^® technology present in our Inspire S2 Wireless 2.1 speakers are being ported over to the ZiiSound D5, bringing to you the best wireless audio can offer.

Pair up this premium one-piece speaker system effortlessly with any Bluetooth device, such as your notebook or mobile phone, and immerse in the music that fills up the whole room. Try it on with your iPhone, iPod or iPad, plug in the bundled transmitter to gain total control over the speakers and enjoy immaculate wireless music playback.

So basically we have quite an expensive (£279.99) but possibly quite a unique iPod dock with Bluetooth.

The Bluetooth functionality is quite an interesting choice as I was somewhat concerned about the possible sound quality issues due to the low bandwidth of Bluetooth. However at the same time it is quite a smart move as it moves the speakers away from just being an iPod dock and allowing them to work with anything that has Bluetooth functionality.

My first impressions were of its rather decent build quality, it is a very solid and simple one-piece design. It also comes with a small port to connect your iPod, which initially looked very odd as it is far to small to fit an iPod but in fact it fits the Bluetooth dongle which attaches to the iPod to provide Bluetooth functionality, and then the dongle has connections which will charge your iPod. Overall this works quite well.

My first test was with my 5th Gen iPod classic, I simply connected the Bluetooth dongle, selected my song and away it went. I was quite shocked at just how simple it was. I was sort of expecting to have to pair the device up as you do with so many Bluetooth devices, but it worked immediately.

It is also important to note that the Bluetooth dongle provided by Creative isn’t some general Bluetooth device, it actually uses the apt-X audio codec which apparently provides superior Bluetooth stereo audio, and I have to say it did sound pretty good.

Next up I decided to try using my Palm Pre to play music, this is slightly more complex than the iPod option as I had to keep my finger on the sync icon until it flashed then pair them up. This was quite easy though, if you have ever paired anything up in the past you will have no problems at all. In regards to audio quality via normal Bluetooth (rather than the apt-X audio codec) it was perfectly fine, I was expecting the quality to degrade quite a bit but it was pretty good, maybe not quite on par with the Creative.

Finally I tested the 3.5mm aux jack at the device’s rear. There is not much to say about this, it performed well just as you would expect!

In general the audio quality of the speakers was excellent, maybe not the best I have heard, but certainly excellent considering the size of the unit. The problem due to its smallish size the bass can be somewhat lacking. Don’t get me wrong though, the bass is pretty good thanks to an integrated bass port, but it is just not on par with a dedicated subwoofer. The unit itself can also get pretty loud if you want it too, especially considering its size, but at higher volume levels you may notice the bass not keeping up as much. I never experience the unit suffer from distortion or deterioration in quality with louder volumes, but I didn’t go all the way up to full volume.

Lastly it is worth mentioning all the controls on the unit are touch sensitive, which design wise may look nice but they are not always to everyone’s liking. There is only volume and sync options so you don’t need to worry too much.

In general I am not normally a fan of this type of product, I prefer larger bulky things that can go very loud. For example I use Acoustic Energy Aego M 2.1 speakers at the office, which are fantastic, but the sub is large and they are messy with all the wires. The ZiiSound D5 caters to a slight different market, they are stylish and minimalist while incorporating some pretty handy features. These speakers would be ideal for a bedroom or a kitchen, or just anyone that uses an iPod/iPhone all the time. If the price is not an issue I would be surprised if there are many iPod docks out there that could be the ZiiSound D5.

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Creative ZiiSound D5 speakers review

Last September I had the pleasure of going to Berlin for the IFA and attending the Sony press conference where they revealed the astonishingly good looking Sony Vaio X which is a 14mm thick, sub 800g, carbon fibre netbook.

Recently I was lucky enough to borrow the laptop for a review, and to be quite honest, as much I love Sony and love the looks I approached it with a certain amount of scepticism. Regardless of looks this is still a netbook and it is using an Intel Atom processor while costing in excess of £1500! I have previously reviewed the Dell Mini 9 and while it was a decent little netbook it was woefully underpowered and I was very worried the Vaio X would be the same.

Anyway, when I received the laptop I have to say I was taken back by just how good it looks, the build quality and just how ridiculously light and thin it is, it is seriously like no other laptop I have ever held it is that light. It is also so thing the Ethernet port actually has to be click open because the main body is thinner than the Ethernet socket.

The next big thing i noticed is the way the keyboard is laid out, for Mac and Sony laptop users you are already used to it, but the key are separated apart, now i believe this is a love it or hate it style, personally I love it, it looks smarter and there seems to be less chance of typos especially on a smaller keyboard.

Turning on the Vaio X was shocking to say the least, I was sort of expecting to be waiting around for the sluggish CPU to load Windows 7 but this is not the case at all. The Vaio X comes with an SSD and the boot up time is seconds, far far faster than my Quad Core desktop that uses a mechanical velociraptor HDD.

When it comes down to general use the Vaio X was surprisingly good, I could easily browse the net, use Digsby, go on Spotify at the same time without any obvious slow down. I also tried it out with various types of media this included some standard def AVIs and a 720p MKV and it managed them all fine. The fact that it managed to handle the MKV was quite a surprise as it used integrated graphics and normal Atom CPUs fail with HD content. It is worth noting that this is a 2.00 Ghz Atom with 2GB of ram, whereas the Dell I previously testing was 1.6 Ghz with 1GB of ram.

It is also worth noting the screen is excellent, it is paper thin (ok that’s an exaggeration) with a really crisp picture quality and more importantly a decent resolution of 1366×768.

I would say the only down side of the Vaio X is the slightly pathetic speakers but to be quite honest, in a laptop this thin you can hardly expect loud speakers and a built in subwoofer.

In summery I love the Sony Vaio X, a lot, but it is very hard to ignore the price tag. I think it is important to realise that this is clearly not aimed at the mainstream, it is aimed at people with too much money, commuters that need adequate performance while adding negligible weight to their bag. Personally if I was that rich and didn’t mind carry something slightly larger at double the weight I would chose the Sony Vaio Z Series where you literally get desktop performance in an ultra portable size.

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Sony Vaio X Series Review

Warnlaser recently sent us their 20mw Razor Series Laser to review. This is Warnlaser’s new series of violet lasers which actually use a genuine Sony Blue-Ray diode.

The Laser we are reviewing currently retails at $99.99/ £60 which does seem quite expensive though this is actually the cheapest in the Razor line with the 200mw laser retailing at $379.99!

However this is no cheap and tacky laser pointer you buy off the market, you can immediately tell it is quality by the quality black case you receive with it similar to what you would get if you bought an expensive pen.

The laser is quite large compared to cheaper laser on the market, and is about the size of a pen, though if you are using this for a presentation it is probably more comfortable to sue this way.

It also comes with an attachment which appears to spread the laser into multiple tiny dots, I am not sure if there is any practical application for this but I guess it looks pretty.

The beam itself is quite appealing and it does appear to have a good range, it manage to cover about 20m of my office with no problems.

Overall I think their is limited appeal to this gadget, it would make quite a nice stocking filler but at £60 it is a bit on the steep side for a stocking filler. If you spend most of your work time doing then presentations then yes this laser definitely will have some appeal.

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Warnlaser 20mw Razor Series Laser Review