iPhone Users Are About to Be Screwed Over

There has been a lot of talk about the addition of an NFC (near field communication) chip to the next-gen iPhone. This will allow the phone to be used as a swipe-it-yourself credit card. I consider this technology to be the most onerous ever.
I first discussed the idea of your mobile phone becoming your credit card in the mid-1990s and was just biding my time before it came to pass. Bluetooth was invented in 1994 and gave rise to a lot of speculation regarding its usefulness. For a few years, all sorts of futuristic uses were imagined and a serious discussion of the so-called PAN (personal area network) began, but never went anywhere.

The PAN, spurred on by Bluetooth, would allow you to walk down the street and be told about sales, bargains, events and other nonsense from nearby stores and museums. You'd walk into Walmart and your name would be displayed a computerized sign to greet you as an old man pointed at the sign and then pointed at you in some creepy manner.
When you checked out, the Bluetooth device would take care of the payment accounting, and you'd never use cash again. This process could easily be mobile phone centric.
Over the years, through what I consider incompetent marketing, Bluetooth was relegated for use as a wireless earpiece technology and not much else. The PAN was dead as a doornail and my take on the phone as a credit card fell by the wayside. For the moment.
But good ideas can't be killed. But this "good idea" isn't about the convenience of paying with a phone swipe, but the idea of running your tab through the phone company. If you think your banker is a gouger with dubious fees and no-leeway, what do you think the phone company will be like? Yes, let AT&T handle all your money for you, and see how that works out in the end.
I'm immediately reminded of the online scams that took place during the modem era of communications. You'd be given a number to call, and it would actually be some sort of scam. The local number would connect to a BBS of some sort which would send a code back to the modem to turn off the speaker, so you couldn't hear the modem disconnect and then redial a number in Bulgaria or some obscure island. You'd then be connected to a phone service that charged $100/minute for the connection. After racking up thousands and thousand of dollars in phone costs, you'd get the bill from your phone company for $30,000.
You'd bitterly complain about the bill—these stories were all over the news during this era—but the phone companies said they couldn't do anything about the charges. The rates were protected by some U.S. treaty scammed together by the phone companies and signed into law. There was nothing they could do! So, you had to pay or lose your phone service and be sued in court.
This was unbelievable.
I've always been convinced this was test marketing to show the banks and everyone that the phone companies were the best collection agencies and should be in charge of your credit card and other transactions. After all, you can stall the bank, and what can they really do, anyway? You stall the phone company and you are disconnected from the world.
Do not let AT&T or Verizon or any phone company anywhere near your day-to-day financial transaction business!
You've been warned.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Nvidia stormed the mainstream video card market last summer when it released the GeForce GTX 460, a surprisingly potent performer with a lean $200 price. But when you redefine normal, what do you do the next time around? That's the trap into which Nvidia has fallen with its new GTX 560 Ti. This $249 (list) gaming card competes very well with AMD's own similarly priced offerings, in terms of both gaming performance and power usage, but may be a less-compelling value than some versions of the still-available GTX 460. If it's been a few years since you upgraded, the GTX 560 Ti is good enough to be worth a look, but you shouldn't consider this the first must-have video card of 2011.
For most intents and purposes, the GTX 560 Ti is a down-the-line update of the GTX 460 and GTX 465 low-end-enthusiast cards, along the lines of the relationship between the GTX 580 and the GTX 570 and their predecessors: relatively minor technology tweaks rather than full-scale rethinkings. (The "Ti" portion of its name is even a throwback to Nvidia card names from eight or so years ago.) The GTX 560 Ti sports a GF114 GPU, an updated version of the GF104 style used in the GTX 460, with the same two Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs) and Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), but with 384 CUDA cores instead of 336 and 64 Texture Units instead of 56. (The number of ROP Units has remained unchanged, at 32.) The graphics clock, processor clock, and memory clock have all received boosts as well: respectively from 675 MHz to 822 MHz, from 1,350 MHz to 1,644 MHz, and from 3,600 MHz to 4,008 MHz. Like the larger version of the GTX 460, the GTX 560 Ti is loaded with 1GB of GDDR5 memory; the memory interface is the same width (256-bit).

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Also like last generation's midrange cards, the GTX 560 Ti is only nine inches long, which means it will be able to fit in nearly every gaming case on the market; and has the usual requirements of two expansion slots (one PCI Express x16 to plug the card into, and an adjacent slot to accommodate the heat sink assembly) and two six-pin power connectors. (Nvidia recommends a power supply of at least 500 watts for use with the GTX 560 Ti; the card has a TDP of 170 watts.) Like other current Nvidia cards, it has three output ports: two dual-link DVI and one mini HDMI.
As a member of Nvidia's 500 series, the GTX 560 Ti boasts new a new design with multiple types of transistors that use power more efficiently; an improved cooling system, though unlike the GTX 580 and 570's vapor chamber, this one uses a base plate for the graphics memory, an additional copper heat pipe, and a larger heat sink and cooling fan; and onboard power monitoring that ratchets down the quality on applications specifically designed to stress the card's thermals. (This is an optional feature that may not appear on every card from every manufacturer.) Like all of Nvidia's cards, the GTX 560 Ti supports CUDA parallel processing, PhysX physics processing, and 3D Vision for stereoscopic 3D gaming and video watching.
Just as the GTX 560 Ti's features are best described relative to other current cards, the same is true of its performance. We compared our stock version of the card against a 1GB GTX 460 from EVGA, overclocked to 850 MHz; a GTX 470 from Galaxy, overclocked to 625 MHz; and two reference models of AMD's first 6000-series cards, the "Barts"-class Radeon HD 6870 and the Radeon HD 6950 "Cayman" card (which costs about $50 more, but Nvidia recommended for comparison testing).
In some cases, the GTX 560 Ti looks impressive. It beat the 6950 on seven of our performance tests—no small achievement. But in four of those cases (Far Cry 2 and H.A.W.X. 2, at both 1,680 by 1,050 and 1,920 by 1,200), the frame rates were so high for both cards that the differences were largely academic; and in one case (Heaven Benchmark 2.1 at 1,680 by 1,050) the GTX 560 Ti just barely eked out a win (25.1 frames per second, or fps, versus 24.5 fps). In the Lost Planet 2 system-pushing test (Test B), the GTX 560 Ti came out well ahead in both resolutions (40.5 versus 30.9 and 35.4 versus 28.2), which shows in actual game play it would deliver a more playable experience with all the details maxed out.
But the 6950 took the prize on the FutureMark 3DMark 11 benchmark (using both the Performance and Extreme presets), as well as on more real-world gaming tests: the Heaven Benchmark at 1,920 by 1,200 (though just by a hair—22.3 fps as opposed to 21.8 fps); and Aliens vs. Predator, Just Cause 2, Metro 2033, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, all at both 1,680 by 1,050 and 1,920 by 1,200. The GTX 560 Ti's most direct AMD competition, the 6870 (priced at about $220), won the 3DMark 11 and Just Cause 2 tests, but otherwise lagged behind the new Nvidia card by greater amounts.
What was most interesting was how the GTX 560 Ti compared to the EVGA GTX 460 card. At the time of this writing, EVGA's 850-MHz GTX 460 could be found on Newegg.com for $199.99—the same price as many cards using that GPU running at the standard clock speed. That provides a serious challenge to the GTX 560 Ti—in our tests, it routinely scored just a few frames faster than EVGA's GTX 460. (For example, at 1,920 by 1,200: 30.2 versus 27.8 in Aliens vs. Predator; 78.88 versus 74.35 in Far Cry 2; 118 versus 113 in H.A.W.X. 2; 28.07 versus 26.05 in Just Cause 2; 22.33 versus 21 in Metro 2033; and 42.83 versus 39.38 in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) Though priced at around 79 percent of the GTX 560 Ti, EVGA's overclocked GTX 460 routinely turned in upwards of 90 percent the performance.
The ratios are noticeably better with the GTX 470, the card Nvidia says the GTX 560 Ti will officially replace, and their results differ only by a few percentage points themselves. We haven't been able to test yet against a standard-clocked GTX 460, but Nvidia estimates the GTX 560 Ti would turn in performance about 30 percent higher. That would make for a better price match than an overclocked GTX 460, but if they cost the same, why not go with the faster card?
The major area in which the GTX 560 Ti really does excel is power usage. Our total test system's power consumption when idling was 120 watts, the lowest of any card we tested (the original GTX 460 was second, at 123 watts, and the GTX 470 required the most, at 143 watts); and its 283-watt power usage under load was second only to the AMD Radeon HD 6870's 257 watts (the GTX 470 and GTX 460 were worst and second worst respectively, with their systems using 331 and 300 watts under load). Nvidia's attempts to remedy its last-generation cards' power-hungry tendencies are really paying off.
Even so, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti is in a bit of a tough position. Though a good replacement for the GTX 470 and reportedly a nice stepping stone between the GTX 460 and the GTX 570, the presence of overclocked GTX 460s in the market somewhat spoil the GTX 560 Ti's price advantage. We're looking forward to testing overclocked GTX 560 Ti cards from Nvidia's add-in partners—if their price and performance are in sync, they could make a good solution for PC gamers able to spend slightly more than $200 on a video card. But for now, overclocked GTX 460s like our EVGA card provide a slightly better value.

Windows 8 Allows PC Refresh Without Deleting Files, Settings

The phrase "reinstall Windows" is not something the average PC user wants to hear, but with Windows 8, Microsoft is promising a more simple process for refreshing or resetting your PC.
The updated operating system will include the option to reset, which will restore factory settings, as well as refresh, which will clean up your PC without removing installed apps.
With existing versions of Windows, users have a variety of options when it comes to getting their PCs back to what Microsoft refers to as a "good state." That includes accessing your PC's hidden partition to reinstall the OS, using a third-party imaging product, Windows systems image backup, or doing a clean install with the Windows DVD.
"While these tools all provide similar functionalities, they don't provide a consistent experience from one PC or technique to another," Desmond Lee, a program manager on the Windows Fundamentals team, wrote in a Wednesday blog post.
If you're ever tried to help a relative restore their PC or talk someone through a refresh on the phone, you know the feeling.
As a result, the Windows 8 team wanted the refresh/reset process to be as easy as pressing a button. "Our goal was to make the process much more streamlined, less time-consuming, and more accessible to a broad set of customers," Lee wrote.

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The updated OS will therefore include two features: Reset your PC, which removes all personal data, apps, and settings from the PC, and reinstalls Windows; and Refresh your PC, which keeps all personal data, Metro style apps, and important settings from the PC, and reinstalls Windows. Both options will be accessible via the Control Panel Metro app.
Reset is mainly for those who want everything wiped from their computer—perhaps you're donating an older machine and want to remove personal files before giving it away.
With this option, the computer will boot into the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE), erase and format the hard drive partitions with personal data, install a fresh copy of Windows, and restart with the newly installed copy of Windows.
"For those of you who worry about data that may still be recoverable after a standard reset, especially on PCs with sensitive personal data, we also will be providing an option in Windows 8 Beta to erase your data more thoroughly, with additional steps that can significantly limit the effectiveness of even sophisticated data recovery attempts," Lee wrote.
If your computer is acting up and you want to start anew with your files intact, meanwhile, choose refresh.
With this option, the PC boots into Windows RE, scans the system for your files and puts them aside, installs a fresh copy of Windows, restores your data and settings, and reboots. You won't have to go through initial setup again.
"To accomplish this, we actually use the same imaging and migration technologies behind Windows Setup," Lee wrote.
Microsoft said things like wireless network and mobile broadband connections as well as desktop wallpaper will be preserved, but other settings will not "as they can occasionally cause problems if misconfigured." That includes file type associations, display settings, and Windows Firewall settings.
Along the same lines, Windows 8 will only preserve Metro style apps, not desktop apps that did not come pre-installed on the PC.
"We do this for two reasons. First, in many cases there is a single desktop app that is causing the problems that lead to a need to perform this sort of maintenance, but identifying this root cause is not usually possible," Lee wrote. "And second, we do not want to inadvertently reinstall 'bad' apps that were installed unintentionally or that hitched a ride on something good but left no trace of how they were installed."
The PC will create a list of apps that were not saved so you can refer back to it when re-installing.
However, there will be an option to create a customized refresh setting via a command-line tool that will preserve certain desktop apps. "After you've created the custom image, whenever you refresh your PC, not only will you be able to keep your personal data, settings, and Metro style apps, but you can restore all the desktop apps in your custom image as well," Lee said.
If your PC is dead and won't boot, meanwhile, "there will also be a tool that you can use to create a bootable USB flash drive, in case even the copy of Windows RE on the hard drive won't start," Lee said.
For more, see PCMag's Hands On with Windows 8 Developer Preview and the slideshow above, as well as Windows 8: Early Speed Tests and Installing Windows 8 on a MacBook Air.

The Last Gadget Standing at CES 2012

A fun competition called Last Gadget Standing is one of my favorite events at the International CES each year. In this event, a group of judges combined with a popular vote select 10 finalists among a group of new technology products. Then, CES attendees and online voters narrow it down to crown the "Last Gadget Standing." An audience voice makes this exciting and although the winners aren't always the world-changing products, they are often neat gadgets.
I’ve been one of the judges on this competition for years, along with a number of well-known computer journalists and analysts (including PCMag's Dan Costa this year). I always look for neat gadgets that usually haven’t gotten as much attention as they deserve.
This year's finalists include:
• Autom, an interactive, robotic, weight loss coach which encourages you to exercise and keep track of your diet.
• Basis Band, which tracks your heart rate and other health measures throughout the day.
• Cotton Candy, from FXI Technologies, which puts a full computer on a device the size of a USB memory stick. It allows you to turn PCs or other electronic devices into a secure point of access for cloud service and applications.
• Lytro, the very intriguing new "light field camera" that lets you take the picture first, then focus later. (I wrote more about this here.)
• Origami, a stroller that folds at the push of a button and also charges mobile phones.
• PlayStation Vita, Sony's new hand-held gaming device with augmented reality technology and what promises to be 3D-style play.
• Swivl, a device for capturing hands-free video on your mobile device, so you can catch yourself in action.
• Wimm One, a platform for wearable devices, creating a wristwatch-sized device with multiple applications on it.

There are two more as-yet-unannounced (due to NDAs) products among the finalists, which will be unveiled next Monday.
So far, my favorites are Lytro and Cotton Candy, but I'm looking forward to seeing demos of the other products as well, and I wonder what the audience will think.
More details on all these products are on the Last Gadget Standing website and you'll be able to see them at CES on Thursday, January 12 at 10:30 a.m. PST at the Las Vegas Convention Center room N257. I hope to see many of you there.

Will Nokia Launch Its First Windows Phone on Oct. 26?

SHENZHEN, CHINA—Nokia set the date for its annual Nokia World conference on October 26-27 in London, fueling speculation that this will be the venue for the company to announce its first Windows Phones.
Right now there aren't many details on the Nokia World site. Each day of the show has a keynote, and the agenda is bland. But at the Communicasia conference today where Nokia announced its MeeGo-based N9 phone, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop confirmed what EVP Jo Harlow told us in May that Nokia would be releasing its first Windows Phone 7 devices this year.
In February, Nokia said that it was abandoning Symbian and relegating the MeeGo OS to "science projects" in favor of Windows Phones, which Harlow told us will come out every few months. The first Nokia Windows Phones will run the Windows Phone Mango OS release coming out this fall, which PCMag previewed this week.
Nokia has traditionally used Nokia World to introduce prominent new products, and an October 26 introduction both puts Nokia's first phones in line with the potential Mango release date and on sale in time for the critical Christmas shopping season. With Nokia's market share slipping every quarter, the company can't ramp up Windows Phones fast enough.
Nokia announced the N9, its first MeeGo-based smartphone, early this morning. Even though Nokia has all but abandoned MeeGo, the N9 is an impressive device, including a 3.9-incled AMOLED screen, Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, and an intriguing feature called swipe, which allows users to swipe from the edge of the display will pull up your home screen. Check back with PCMag for a full review of the Nokia N9 when it's released.
Additional reporting by Alex Colon.

10 Coolest Android Ice Cream Sandwich Features

New User InterfaceTaking a cue from the Honeycomb tablet operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich sports a sleek futuristic design that more closely aligns the phone and slate OSes. Android 4.0 also has a multitasking icon that calls up your recently used apps, and eliminates the need for physical keys, as it features adaptable software buttons.

New Camera Capabilities
Have you ever wanted to take a photo with your phone, but lost the moment due to the relatively lengthy snap time? Ice Cream Sandwich aims to eliminate that with swift, multiple shot shooting that plays catch up with the recently released Apple iOS 5. Android 4.0 also packs a new filter-filled photo editor, and a particularly cool sounding feature: an image rotator that spins the photo based on where your eyes are looking.
Speech
Does Apple iOS 5's Siri have voice control competition in Ice Cream Sandwich? That remains to be seen, but Android 4.0’s live voice-to-speech feature lets smartphone users create e-mail, texts, and perform other functions simply by speaking. This should (hopefully) make dictation and messaging a swifter, more streamlined affair.
Simple ScreenshotsAndroid finally lets you take screenshots without requiring users to install apps, pull hair, or gnash teeth. How is it done? Users (especially hardworking Android app reviewers) will appreciate the operating system’s ability to grab a screenshot by simultaneously holding power and volume-down buttons.
Widget Management
Ice Cream Sandwich gives you widget flexibility by letting you select the size of displayed information on the home screens. Android 4.0 makes it easier to place widgets on the desktop; you simply press and hold the screen which opens a menu that reveals all of the widgets.

Mac OS X Lion vs. Windows 8: Who Will Win the Post-PC World?

In the past week, both Microsoft and Apple laid out their visions of the future of computing, and the message is clear: it's all mobile, all the time. First Microsoft revealed Windows 8, borrowing heavily from Windows Phone to be friendly to tablets and touch interfaces. Then yesterday Apple took the stage to show off its Mac OS X "Lion" system software, which owes a lot to its mobile platform, iOS. Whose vision is more compelling, though?

Apple appears to have the advantage of having been focused on mobile for longer. Sure, Microsoft had a mobile version of Windows for years before Apple got into phones, but Windows Mobile is as far removed from current smartphones as a Walkman is from an iPod touch. Microsoft is making the bigger bet on the mobile-centric philosophy, though, as it appears to be all but throwing out the familiar Windows interface in favor of the touch-friendly tiles, simplified menus, and full-screen modes that are the norm on smartphones and tablets. (I should point out there is a "legacy view" in Windows 8, which brings back the folders and Windows, though it's certainly not the emphasis.)

For all of Lion's iOS roots, it's still primarily made to be used with a keyboard and (non-touch screen) monitor. I imagine this is because of Apple's general stance against "vertical" touch screens like the HP TouchSmart line (even though those aren't vertical in the strictest sense). It appears Apple draws a line in the sand between traditional personal computers and anything portable. Beyond here there be Lions.

Microsoft's approach is different. While Apple scales up its iOS mobile platform for the iPad's larger touch screen, Microsoft plans to give Windows tablets the same OS as desktops and laptops, in fact architecting the new OS from the ground up to be friendly to both. Smartphones are stuck with the scaled-down version, Windows Phone. At least, that appears to be the approach, based on what Microsoft showed at last week's All Things Digital and Computex events.

Why would Microsoft go this route, when Apple has clearly shown that a "lite" tablet OS, centered around showcasing media (music, video, and photos), is enough for consumers? The simple answer: for Microsoft, it's not all about consumers. Business and enterprise have always been a big factor in whatever Windows does, and with tablets it needs to appeal to customers who want to do more "serious" things than watching Netflix and posting tweets. Certainly there are companies itching for Microsoft to release a tablet worth buying, as a Goldman Sachs study from earlier this year found that 32 percent of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) surveyed were planning to buy a Windows slate for their businesses (though, tellingly, 42 percent were planning on getting an iPad).

There's something more fundamental fueling Microsoft's approach here, though. By revamping Windows to more closely resemble Windows Phone, the company appears to be trying to make the OS experience more consistent across all devices; even the new Xbox 360 dashboard is starting to look more like a mobile OS. It's now clear that when Microsoft announced in January that it was re-engineering Windows to run on ARM processors (heavily favored in mobile devices) it was not some kind of "let's wait and see" side bet. It's going all-in on Windows being on everything, come what may to the OS itself. The company hasn't given any details on exactly how this will affect Windows Phone 8, but I suspect that when it's revealed, the lines between it and full-on Windows 8 will be blurry—much more fuzzy than the line between Lion and iOS 5.

In the end, I think Apple's approach will win out. While I admire the ambition and holistic approach of Microsoft's Windows 8 master plan, it appears too ideal. People don't use all devices in the same way (it's actually why we have different devices in the first place), and drawing the OS line between portable touch screens and keyboard-and-monitor setups seems sensible—at least for now. At Computex, when Microsoft demonstrated that its touch-friendly Windows 8 could still be operated by keyboard and mouse, it almost sounded like a workaround or worse, an apology.

Someone needs to remind Microsoft that there are still many displays that aren't touch screens, and, more to the point, that it hasn't shown a compelling Windows tablet yet. Having a touch-centric OS is certainly a key part in creating one, but taking the entire Windows environment down the same road is either brilliantly forward-looking, or premature.

We'll find out which when Windows 8 finally debuts next year (probably), right around the time Apple will likely be readying the iPad 3 for release. Whose OS strategy will come out on top? My money's on the guy with a proven track record in mobile.

MacBook Pro Reviews

The MacBook Pro are Apples best laptop yet, here I have done a MacBook Pro review, so you can choose the right laptop for your needs.

The MacBook Pro has a 13", 15" or 17" screen, 2.2 GHz or faster processor, up to a 160 Gig hard drive, 2 Gig of Memory, an 8x double-layer drive, and an NVIDA GeForce 8600M GT graphics card with 256 MB SDRAM. They are both amazing laptops.

This computer has a 13 inch unibody. It is noticeably faster than previous models. For example to convert 10 minute MP3 file to AAC in iTunes now only takes 14 seconds, computer processors have gotten faster.

The 13.3-inch MacBook Pro (model MC700LL/A) features a 2.3 GHz Core i5 "Sandy Bridge" dual-core processor, 320 GB hard drive, and 4 GB of installed RAM, so plenty of storage space, but of course you can get more Ram is you need it for those videos or movies.

The MacBook Pro is a great place to start. The computer is a breeze to use and has all the apple programs, iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto already loaded. The best part of the computer is screen. The clarity of the computer screen is superb.

The only negative I have found so far is the price, it's around $1100, but you get what you pay for and with the Apple MacBook that is quality.

The cheapest model is a 13 inch laptop at over $1100. It's portable, sleek and very fast (the dual core processor is great). The 15 and 17 inch models have the new quad core processors, which are even faster (they can do four things at once).

If you want a full feature PC, in laptop shape, go for the MacBook Pro. You'll be able to do photo-editing real quick and that sort of thing.

MacBook have some great accessories that maybe of interest to you, the Magic mouse is fantastic, no more cords, and finally a quality mouse Apple has bought out here. Check out some of the other amazing MacBook Accessories now available.

The MacBook Docking Station will incorporate your MacBook computer into your home theatre system or desktop setup so you can get the best media centre set up around.

The fact that these 15-inch and 17-inch models now include Quad Core Processors standard is a breakthrough. This is putting recent top of the line desktop performance, into a sleek and attractive Mac Notebook. I truly recommended the MacBook Pro laptops; they may cost you a little more, but well worth while in the long run.

Check out the complete MacBook Pro Review