Beyond the remote control: using gestures Who needs buttons and onscreen menus when our hands and feet lay idle? It was the Nintendo Wii that first got us moving, before augmented reality apps and games-stuffed smartphones had us waving them in a ridiculous figure-of-eight, but so far the humble television has remained stoically still. [......]
Today's round up of alternative tech news is brought to you by social networking faux-pas – from wannabe record breaking on Facebook to answering calls while in the privvy via a holiday ruined by Twitter jokes – and not even funny ones at that. [......]
Beyond Siri: simplifying commands Showing off to non-iPhone owning friends has never been easier. Pick up your phone in the pub, confidently say 'Siri, what's the circumference of the Earth divided by the radius of the Moon?' and barely seconds later, you're the only one there who knows the answer is 23.065. It's a magical experience, and a great toy. [......]
A high performing solid state drive at a reasonable price is something every enthusiast wants, but they're harder to find than a needle in a mountain of hay. Kingston believes it's found that balance with its new SSDNow V+200 line. Featuring a SATA 6Gbps interface and SandForce's SF-2281 controller technology, the SSDNow V+200 offers some serious speed for "performance minded yet cost-conscious business or home users," Kingston says. [......]
Best Ultrabooks: 15 of the best Is 2012 going to be the year of the Ultrabook? The term Ultrabook is a marketing term dreamt up by Intel but like Centrino and unlike Viiv , it's starting to stick as a catch-all term for thin and light laptops, or ultraportables as they're sometimes classified. The best way to think of an Ultrabook is a MacBook Air that isn't made by Apple, a netbook that isn't underpowered or a laptop that's been on a crash diet[......]
The winners and losers of CES 2012 Now that our jetlag is subsiding, it's time to take a look back at the utter madness that was, and always is, the Consumer Electronics Show. CES 2012 didn't have a huge amount of absolute stand out kit, but for a time of financial uncertainty, there sure were a lot of launches and the industry certainly hasn't been shy in terms of coming forward with expensive designs. This was the biggest CES ever, with 1.861 million square feet of exhibit space, beating the previous record from 2008. [......]
The hottest and coolest thermostat on the market this year was clearly the Nest . This intelligent hunk of steel looks great on a wall and, more important, helps save energy in the home. The Nest learns as you use it, ensuring your home is comfortable year-round. [......]
If you've got a car with a video player you'll almost definitely want the impressively small Kivic One. [......]
A Canadian man successfully gained entry into the United States using a scanned image of his passport on his iPad. Matt Reisch, from Montreal, realised he'd forgotten his passport as he approached the US border while driving to deliver Christmas presents to Vermont[......]
To celebrate the release of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol , at cinemas and IMAX 26 December (cert 12A), TechRadar has teamed up with Paramount Pictures UK to offer you the chance to win a pair of limited edition high-tech snow goggles, worth £500. Channel your inner Ethan Hunt (once again played by Tom Cruise) as you hit the slopes this season with all the info you could need right in front of your eyes[......]
Video on demand vs Cinema: Online buzz When you can access films direct from your television, laptop, tablet, phone or game console, is there still a place for cinemas? The arrival of streaming video has not only made it easy for us to access films at times of our choosing wherever we happen to be, it has opened up a massive range of content for us to browse and be entertained by. You can now enjoy 3D at home, along with surround sound, big screens and a wealth of inexpensive entertainment, all at the touch of a button[......]
'Tis the season for stuffing your face and dodgy panto, so it seems apt that we've teamed up with the Pantomime-Dame-named Twonky to give you the chance to win an iPad 2 Wi-Fi 16GB, Apple TV and a host of the company's finest software. It's all to celebrate the launch of the Twonky Video and Twonky Beam Browser, which lets you share and beam video, music and photos from any mobile device to any web-enabled TV. [......]
Maybe you've heard of Mimo Monitors, maybe you haven't. Either way, the company that's taking credit for "ushering USB touchscreen monitors into the U.S[......]
After managing to successfully hold onto the top spot in TechRadar's 20 best mobile phones in the world ranking, we've teamed up with Samsung to offer one lucky reader the chance to bag their very own Samsung Galaxy S2. The top-end features on Samsung's flagship handset are almost too many to mention, packing in a Super AMOLED Plus 4.3-inch screen, a blisteringly fast 1.2GHz dual core processor (with 1GB of RAM to manage all that power) and is one of the slimmest phones on the market, at just 8.5mm thick. But it's not just the hardware that's impressed us, it's the range of features on board too[......]
While your friends dreamed of becoming firemen and astronauts, did you spend your formative years fiddling with phones and wishing there were some kind of giant interactive slab you could watch movies on and brandish at commuters on the tube? If so, we want to hear from you. We need a new person to join the team at TechRadar covering mobile devices – that's anything from your mum's latest cheapo feature phone to cutting-edge, thin-as-a-shard-of-glass tablets. [......]
