First look: Microsoft Office 2016

Wednesday, June 10, 2015


This week Microsoft released a public preview of its upcoming productivity suite, Office 2016. You can download and try Office 2016 Preview for 180 days, as long as you're running Windows 7, 8.1, or 10, or Mac OS X. However, the Windows Office preview can't run alongside a current version of Office unless you set up a virtual machine. Read on for our sneak peek at what you can expect in Office 2016, before its expected final release in fall 2015.

Inside Office 2016

We ran Office 2016 Preview inside a Windows 10 virtual machine, which you can try for yourself with our handy guide. Keep in mind that Office 2016 is in active development, so things you see in this story may change over time.
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App tabs

The top border of each app is colored-coded: Word is blue, Excel is green, and so on. In Word, the Page Layout tab is shortened to just Layout. The Apps section of the Insert tab has a direct link to a Wikipedia tool that opens up wiki pages in the sidebar to the right of your document. This might be handy for laptop users or others who are limited to one screen. The Add-Ins tab is gone, though. There's a text-entry field to the right of the tabs now that can use search terms to help you find functions, like creating a table or using a grammar checker. There's a link at the bottom of your search results that will send you to Office's documentation for more info.

File menu

The File menu looks largely the same. The Open section has renamed Computer to This PC and specifies which OneDrive account you are logged in to (if any). The recent documents list to the right now contains date stamps. In the Save As section, the Browse button has been moved from the right to the left.
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Options menu

In the Options menu, we have a few more themes to select from, such as Medium Gray and Colorful, with the latter as the default. You can switch to White to make Office 2016 look more like 2013. Other than that, the Options section appears to be identical. It's also the only place to access your Add-Ins settings.

Excel 2016

In Excel, the Cell Styles menu now drops down from a button -- all the previously visible presets are now tucked into this drop-down. Those presets took up a lot of real estate on the ribbon, so this is probably a good change. Similarly, your sources on the Data tab have been condensed to a Get External Data drop-down menu. The Data Tools icons are smaller, to make room for two new sections labeled Data Model and Forecast. The first section plugs you into Power Pivot, which integrates a function that was previously available as an add-in. Forecast was also available before, just not featured on the ribbon. Like all other software in the Office 2016 suite, Excel has the new search field and no Add-Ins tab.
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The future of Office 2016

During the Build 2015 conference, Microsoft demonstrated Office 2016 integrating with third-party services -- Excel logged in to an SAP server, for example, and Outlook offered calendar notifications from Uber. But those features don't appear to be available in this preview, at least not yet. Meanwhile, Microsoft has not issued an official release date, though the Office blog projects fall 2015. Historically, Office has come out in January, but perhaps Microsoft doesn't want to miss the holiday season this time around. We'll keep you posted.


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Xbox One doubles storage to a terabyte, gets jacked-up controller


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The new (and bigger) Microsoft Xbox One.Microsoft
A new Xbox One is launching next week with a slightly modified design and double the storage, putting the onus on PlayStation maker Sony to respond.
An Xbox One game console with 1TB of onboard storage will launch on June 16 in the US, Microsoftannounced Tuesday. The console, which will feature twice the storage of the previous model, will also boast a matte finish across the top, rather than the half-glossy finish that previously topped the console. The 1TB Xbox One will set customers back $399/AU$549. For a limited time, Microsoft will also include Halo: The Master Chief Collection with the console.
A 1TB Xbox One was previously only available as part of the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundled offered last fall.
Microsoft also on Tuesday announced an update to its Xbox One wireless controller. The new version, which will ship with all versions of the Xbox One, comes with a 3.5mm stereo headset jack -- a conspicuous omission from the previous version that launched with the Xbox One. The addition means users can pick whatever headset they'd like to use with the console, rather than only those that would plug into the Xbox One's micro-USB port.
The addition of 500GB of storage to the Xbox One is likely to be well-received among the hard-core gaming cohort that plays dozens of titles. In a world where digital game downloads are increasingly popular and even disc-based titles are downloaded to hard drives, 500GB gets filled up rather quickly. With 1TB of space, gamers will have more room to keep games that are several gigabytes in size on their consoles.
The launch of the 1TB console also means that the previous version of Microsoft's Xbox One, featuring 500GB of storage, is now cheaper. Microsoft said Tuesday that the 500GB Xbox One will remain at $349 permanently. The console has been offered at $349 as a "special" price. Its official price was previously set at $399.
The timing of the announcement might come as a surprise, though a brief listing on Amazon last week gave a heads-up that change was coming. New consoles or additions to product lineups are often announced at the E3 Gaming Expo. This year's edition of the event, which is one of the biggest gaming shows of the year, is scheduled to be held next week in Los Angeles.
By making the announcement a week before E3, Microsoft is firing an early salvo against Sony's PlayStation 4, which is also rumored to be getting a 1TB version. That model is expected to be announced at E3 next week.

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Next-gen Siri versus Google Now on Tap: The battle to read your mind best

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Apple
Apple's answer to an increasingly solicitous Google Now is a more skillful Siri of its own.
At the company's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) on Monday, Apple introduced a more advanced version of Siri for iOS 9 that comes with "proactive" personal assistant features -- like prompting you to resume a podcast you paused, or suggest calendar events based on the contents of your email.
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CNET
Some overlap exists between the new capabilities in Google's Now on Tap forAndroid M and Apple's extended Siri, but there are differences as well. Mainly, the two battle to be the best at giving you the most relevant shortcut to the thing you want to do or know: background info on a TV show, weather advisories, reminders before you knew you wanted to set one.
There are a lot of detailed scenarios that would make an exhaustive list equally exhausting to read, but here's how they compare, roughly.

The new Siri and new Google Now, compared

The next generation of Siri will excel at original features, like rooting through your email to try to match a phone number to an unknown caller ("Deep caller ID" in the chart below), and gathering photos and videos that you may have taken on a specific day or place. For example, "Find all the photos I took in Turkey."(Siri searches dates, geotagged locations and album titles.)

SIRI (IOS 9) VERSUS GOOGLE NOW (ANDROID M)

Proactive SiriGoogle Now on Tap
Context-aware suggestionsXX
Complex video, photo searchX
Context-aware, location-based remindersXPartially
Information cardsXX
Playlist suggestionsXX
Auto-fill recipients for email and eventsX
Tell you when to leaveXX
Deep caller IDX
Prompts actions based on email contentXX
Surface contacts from search barXX
Collects background infoX
Travel help when you landX
Sharing shortcutsX
Siri will also suggest people to email or add to an event based on your patterns. For example, if you usually email the same five people in a group, iOS 9 will recognize your intentions and offer to auto-fill the rest of the names (my desktop Gmail does this, too).
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In large part, Siri in iOS 9 will help bridge the features gap between it and the next version of Google Now. For instance, Siri surfaces "cards" that tell you the weather, sports scores, stocks, calculations and conversions, something that Google Now already has.
The same goes for showing you contacts when you start searching by name, like "John". (Siri, however, streamlines the latter by also making it easy to launch a phone call or text message.)
Once their new versions are released, Google Now and Siri will both offer some additional information when you call up their search functions. In iOS 9's Siri, that takes the form of Siri Suggestions of favorite apps you might launch or people you commonly call. Siri will also shortcut you to nearby places and headline news. It isn't clear how much these change on context, or if you'll see the same names each time.
Siri's suggestions anticipate what you might want to do next.Apple
In Google Now on Tap, the suggestions feature will dish up relevant actions or details pertaining to what's on the screen. That could equate to presenting buttons for sharing a story through social media (I called this "sharing shortcuts" in the chart), or creating a reservation if an email mentions a restaurant.
Google Now will also offer to set a reminder, and link to a Wikipedia entry on an actor or event. Since Google aims to be dynamic and context-aware, what you can do with Now on Tap totally depends on what you're doing.
Like Siri, Google Now also has its own unique tricks, like flagging gas stations as you return the rentalcar to the airport (Google already knows your flight, your car rental confirmation and your location), or recommending information and services if you change locations (e.g. weather information and a link to Uber if you need a ride).

In your business

Both Siri for iOS 9 and Google Now for Android M pack in specific scenarios for ways to preemptively lend a hand. But for me, the take-away message is this: to really make your life easier, these concierge services have to dig deep into your personal life -- your schedule, your contacts, your habits. To be truly useful, they must also learn and adapt over time.
The level of intimacy required to "get" you is a trade-off in privacy. Even helpful suggestions reflect the fact that Google and Apple already know so much about our daily lives. Both companies will need to address privacy issues, or else scare away concerned users.
Personally, I'm excited to pit the two against each other to see, but it's a showdown that in reality must wait until fall when the two launch in their fully grown forms. For now, matching up features will have to do.
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Windows 10 will be available July 29, Microsoft confirms

Sunday, June 7, 2015


Microsoft’s eagerly-anticipated Windows 10 operating system will be available July 29, the software giant announced Monday.

Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Microsoft’s operating systems group confirmed the availability date in a blog post Monday. “Through the feedback and testing of over four million Windows Insiders, we’ve made great progress on Windows 10 and we’re nearly ready to deliver this free upgrade to all of our Windows customers,” he wrote.

The initial Windows 10 release will be for PC and tablets.

“On July 29, you can get Windows 10 for PCs and tablets by taking advantage of the free upgrade offer, or on a new Windows 10 PC from your favorite retailer,” Myerson added. “If you purchase a new Windows 8.1 device between now and then, the Windows 10 upgrade will be available to you and many retail stores will upgrade your new device for you.”

Key features of Windows 10 include the Cortana digital assistant and the new Microsoft Edge browser and enhanced gaming capabilities with Xbox Live built into the operating system.

Last month Microsoft revealed that Windows 10 will come in six core editions. In announcing the new editions, the software giant reiterated that the full versions of Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro will be free for “qualifying” Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year after launch.

Windows 10 Mobile, for smartphone and tablets, will also be offered as a free upgrade for Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft said.
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5 ways to make money with your phone


You don't like to think about it, but between the up-front cost and the monthly contract payments, your phone costs you a fair bit of money. What you might not realize is that it can make you money, too.

You won’t get rich, but you can pay for a few trips to Starbucks. Here’s how to get started.

1. Sell your photos

I've talked in the past about making money with microstock photography, but it involves taking pictures, moving them to a computer, cleaning them up, finding a good site to upload them and then promoting them. It would be nice if you could trim down the process.

Foap is an app (Android, Apple; Free) that does just that. Simply take pictures with your smartphone's camera and your favorite photo app, and then add them to Foap.

Just about any kind of image can sell if a company thinks it will work for it. That means that cute pet picture, vacation photos, even photos of food if you have those.

There are no limits on how many photos you can upload, and for every sale you get $5. If you want to make more, Foap offers photo missions where big brands pay hundreds or thousands to get specific photos.

2. Do tiny tasks for big payoffs

If you don't mind getting out and about, you can take small jobs around your city. These are things like verifying that a display stand has been put up in a store, or the arrangements of products on a shelf. If you don't like to travel, some tasks can even be done from your living room.

Just grab the Field Agent app (Android, Apple; Free) and create a profile. Then do a few fast "screener" jobs that open up certain types of work. It could be taking pictures of your pet or the kind of beer you drink.

Once you're approved, you'll be able to take real jobs. These pay from $2 to $12 a task, which might not sound like much, but if you're already at the store or it's something you can do at home, it's no big deal.

Payments are sent though PayPal or Dwolla, so you will need a free account with one of them. Field Agent says it's paid out over $4.5 million to agents so far. Some of that could be yours if you get going now.

3. Get cash back for shopping

Shopping is something you have to do, so why not get some money back on products you've purchased? No, I'm not talking about mail-in rebates, which take forever and can be hit or miss.

The Ibotta app (Android, Apple; Free) gives you instant rebates on items you buy. You can use it at stores like Walmart, Target, Kroger, Safeway, Costco, Sam's Club and many more. Plus, it works for online stores like Amazon and many retailers' online shops. You can even use it on top of other coupons, promo codes and discounts for extra savings.

The money you get back from Ibotta can transfer to your bank account as cash via PayPal or Venmo. Or you can turn it into gift cards for Best Buy, Starbucks, iTunes, Amazon and more online places you or your family like to shop.

It might sound too good to be true, but it works. In fact, Ibotta says it's the 16th most-used app in the U.S. Plus, it's free, so you have nothing to lose.

4. Get your expenses reimbursed

For frequent business travelers, or for freelance and contract workers, expenses are a big deal. You're spending your money and trusting that your company or the client is going to pay you back (or you're hoping the money you spent on the company's dime doesn't get taken out of your pocket). If your paperwork isn't ship-shape, you could end up losing big.

You need a foolproof and easy way to prove to the company or client that you actually spent the money, and that's usually a receipt. But who wants to collect and carry around a stack of receipts?

The Expensify app (Android, Apple, Windows Phone; Free) is the answer. It automatically creates reports right from the photo of a receipt. You can track the hours you worked with a tap, and it also tracks mileage using GPS or with a picture of the car's odometer.

Expensify will link up with your bank account or credit card to pull transactions that don't have a receipt. It can even generate IRS-guaranteed eReceipts. Finally, it's compatible with major accounting software for easy report submission, or you can create a PDF to submit.

5. Give your opinion and get money

Whether it's a product, brand, movie, TV show, government policy or something else, I'm sure you have an opinion on something. Now you can get rewarded for sharing that opinion.

The market-research company Ipsos operates a service called i-Say. After you sign up, it will send you surveys about a wide range of topics. The average user gets about eight surveys per month.

You can sign up to get email notifications, or you can occasionally check the website. To access and fill out surveys, you can log in to the i-Say site on your computer, smartphone or tablet.

Every complete survey gives you reward points you can use to exchange for gift cards or products at major retailers. Plus, every survey you finish gets you an entry into a drawing for prizes like overseas vacations, TVs, iPads, gift cards and more.

Ipsos is very clear that you won't get rich with i-Say, but it is good for a little extra spending money. You might also be a lucky winner and get a gift card or that gadget you were saving up for.

On the Kim Komando Show, the nation's largest weekend radio talk show, Kim takes calls and dispenses advice on today's digital lifestyle, from smartphones and tablets to online privacy and data hacks. For her daily tips, free newsletters and more, visit her website at Komando.com. Kim also posts breaking tech news 24/7 at News.Komando.com.
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Playstation 3 Firmware 4.75 is now available!



Sony has just released a new Firmware for the Playstation 3.
This new firmware is the version 4.75 and seems to be a mandatory firmware to use the Playstation services.
Sony has just made this firmware publicly available, and the German twitter account of Sony was so kind to tell me what the firmware changes.
In case that your German might have gotten a bit rusty, let me help you with this. They say that the firmware just aims to enhance the system stability.
We all know these words. It can be expected that it only aims to fix a new security flaw and tries to lock out CFW users.
We are going to tell you what this new firmware exactly changes, after the firmware has been analyzed.
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Webkit exploit confirmed to run on PS4 Firmware 1.76!


Developers nas and proxima have extended the recently released Vita Webkit exploit, and made it compatible with the latest PS4 firmware, firwmare 1.76. (Update: Proxima actually clarified that although this is the same webkit exploit, it was developed in parallel to the Vita exploit, and not “based” on it)

Their proof of concept code provides several samples, including a module dumper and some tool to create more advanced ROP code.

I am not close to my PS4 right now and cannot confirm if the Proof of Concept actually works, but the code looks perfectly legit, the devs behind this have a great track of record, and it should be a matter of minutes now for other people to confirm that this indeed works.

This webkit exploit, just like in the case of the same exploit for the Vita revealed last week, will not be extremely useful to the end user, except to confirm that their PS4 is indeed exploitable. It does however seem to provide some basic tools for developers who want to explore its functionality, and, more importantly, it is the first public entry point into PS4 hacking ever, which is a massive breakthrough.


This piece of news comes just as Sony have announced upcoming firmware 2.00, which will be released next week. It goes without saying that if you have expectations to use the hack that just got released, it might be wise to not update your PS4.

Where to test this?

I have uploaded the proof of concept pages here, you can point your PS4 to these urls, and report:

Click on blue text and get the links from adf.ly.

Of course as soon as I have the possibility, I’ll be testing those myself.
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Chinese hackers blamed for 'massive' US government data breach

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Up to four million US government personnel records compromised by an alleged China-based cyber attack, in fresh embarrassment for Obama administration



Suspected hackers from China have achieved a massive data-breach in the US, compromising the personnel records of around 4 million US government employees, senior US government officials admitted on Thursday.
The cyber-attack on the US government’s Office of Personnel Management was described by one US government official as “one of the largest thefts of government data ever seen” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
It is understood to have occurred last April, and is now being investigated by the FBI, according to multiple US media reports.
As a result of the incident the Office of Personnel Management said in a statement that it will send notifications to approximately four million individuals.
The intruders gained access to information that included employees’ Social Security numbers, job assignments, performance ratings and training information, agency officials said. No direct-deposit data was exposed, officials said. They could not say for certain what data was taken, only what the hackers gained access to.
The news of the hack comes less than two months after the White House was forced to concede that Russian hackers may have read President Barack Obama’s unclassified emails after successfully hacking unclassified emails systems at the White House and State Department.





The Office of Personnel Management detected new malicious activity affecting its information systems in April and the Department of Homeland Security said it concluded at the beginning of May that the agency's data had been compromised.
“We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems seriously, and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace,” an FBI spokesman said.
The breach affected IT systems the Department of the Interior's data centre, which is a shared service centre for federal agencies, a Department of Homeland Security official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Since the intrusion, the Department said it had implemented additional security precautions for its networks.
Pin-pointing the source of hacking is notoriously difficult, and last night officials said it not yet clear whether or not the attack was state-sponsored.
“China is not a monolith,” one official told Politico, “There are many different things that can be Chinese. You may be seeing something where we’re not going to be pointing the finger [in public], because we don’t have an indictment to lay down.”
The Obama administration has frequently raised concerns about Chinese hackers, taking the highly unusual step in May last year of announcing charges against five members of the China’s People’s Liberation Army known to be part of an Shanghai-based hacking collective known as Unit 61398.
However the Chinese embassy in Washington said that it had made great efforts to combat cyberattacks.
Zhu Haiquan, the embassy spokesman added: "Jumping to conclusions and making hypothetical accusation is not responsible, and counterproductive,"


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New app identifies mystery plants in your garden

An amateur botanist has launched an app which identifies up to 6,000 plants and flowers




We all know what it’s like – you spot a beautiful plant growing in a neighbour's garden you'd like to buy, or find a mystery flower growing on your own patch of land, but have no idea what the plant is or how to look after it.
A new app, however, promises to clear up any horticultural haziness by helping to identify over 6,000 plant species with the click of a button.
See: Amazing close-up photographs of plants and flowers
Read: How to grow echinacea, those lazy, crazy daisies of summer
Users of PlantSnapp simply take a photo of their mystery plant using a iPhone or iPad, and upload it to the app.
Within a few hours, a team of horticultural experts will respond and reveal the plant's name, care information and even links to nurseries where you can buy it.
Twenty-three year-old amateur botanist and Leeds University graduate Georgie Williams had the idea for the free app while working at the Chelsea Flower Show and at Burncoose nurseries in Cornwall.
“We want people to have access to any plant that catches their eye at the touch of a button and if we can boost the popularity of gardening as a result and in turn make Britain a greener place that would be a wonderful achievement," he said.
The app has been co-founded with entrepreneur Angus Rankine, and in partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
It is hoped that once a strong database has been built up, the app will be able to identify plants automatically without the need to consult experts.
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Twitter launches live-streaming video app Periscope

Twitter has launched its own live-streaming video app for iOS, just weeks after a similar service called Meerkat took the SXSW festival by storm




Twitter has launched its own live-streaming video app for iOS, on the same day that similar service Meerkat received $12m (£8m) in venture capital funding.
Once you have installed Periscope you can begin live-streaming video footage from your camera to anyone who wishes to view it online.
As soon as you start a broadcast an optional alert can be sent to all of your Twitter followers. They can then watch your video live, comment on it and send “hearts”.
It is also possible to "lock" a broadcast so that only certain people are able to view it.
As is increasingly common for new functionality on existing services, Periscope has been launched as a completely separate app to Twitter. Currently it is only available on iOS but an Android version will be released in coming months.
Meerkat, which performs a similar function, was launched on the App Store in March but Twitter has been working on Periscope since before it emerged.
Periscope was created by a start-up which Twitter acquired in January for a reported £67m, and has has been in development for around a year.
Although Meerkat already has a large user base of around 100,000 it is likely that Twitter can use the weight of its existing users to promote Periscope and gain dominance.
Nonetheless, today the company received a reported $12m in venture capital funding, led by Greylock Partners, the group that has also invested in Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
The investment would value the company at $40m.
One of the key differences between the two apps is that Periscope saves the video streams once you are finished, so that anyone can view them for a period of 24 hours; Meerkat is ephemeral and live video disappears once you finish broadcasting.
Both Meerkat and Periscope are pre-dated by other attempts at live-streaming apps, all of which fell by the wayside. But now, with open Wi-Fi networks and faster 4G mobile networks, it appears to be an idea whose time has come.
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Leaked email reveals iPhone 6s sale date

A leaked email from Vodafone has given away the date the next iPhone will go on sale




The iPhone 6s' sale date has been given away in a leaked internal email from Vodafone.
The email reveals the newest handset will go on sale on September 25, with pre-orders being accepted from September 18.
The memo, seen by Mobile News, does not clarify the exact name of the model, called simply 'the new iPhone' rather than the iPhone 6s or iPhone 7, as predicted.
The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are expected to be outwardly similar to the current iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models. However, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities suggests that Apple could offer rose gold versions of the phones.
Internal upgrades are expected to include the “biggest camera jump ever”, according to blogger John Gruber, who describes a "weird two-lens system where the back camera uses two lenses and it somehow takes it up into DSLR quality imagery.”.
Another likely feature is wireless charging. This has already been announced as part of the Apple Watch so it's likely that it'll be rolled-out to phones as well.
Sapphire glass - a scratch resistant material used in screens - is another likely feature. It was widely slated for an appearance on the iPhone 6 but manufacturing problems reportedly got in the way.
There could also be a new processor - the A9 - produced by Samsung. It will be smaller, faster and use less power. The current A8 series use a 20nm process and the new ones would use 14nm.
The Taptic Engine and Force Touch from the new MacBook and Apple Watch are rumoured to be making an appearance on the new iPhone, giving users new ways of interacting with their handset.

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Ex_Machina is a film from technology’s highest Gods

As the film is released to a new at-home audience, the actors in Alex Garland’s Ex_Machina are almost as impressive as the awesome visual effects provided by UK company Double Negative



Some actors just seem to be from the future. One such thespian is Dublin-born Domhnall Gleeson who started off in Harry Potter films, but is now the face of ‘near sci-fi’ movies, where the science and technology portrayed are all too believable.
Gleeson stars in the Black Mirror TV series of programmes as Ash in the Be Right Back episode where his character dies in a car crash, but is brought back to life as a ‘being’ based on his social media and online profile.
On the back of that ethereal performance, he starred as the time-travelling hero in Richard Curtis’s About Time and he is currently filming the new Star Wars movie. But the most interesting of all his recent roles is as Caleb in the extraordinary film Ex_Machina.
Ex_Machina tells of a young coder at the world’s ‘biggest internet company’ who wins an internal competition to spend a week with the company’s reclusive CEO Nathan on his sprawling estate in unnamed, but recognisable, North American mountains.
On arrival Caleb realises this is not because he has been chosen as the company’s rising star, but because he is best suited for an experiment in which he meets Ava, a beautiful AI prototype robot girl. Under a Non-Disclosure Agreement, he must then perform a live Turing Test to see whether he can distinguish the machine from a human. I have to stop there, but let’s just say things become very interesting.


If Gleeson is excellent as Caleb, then Alicia Vikander as Ava is sensational and Ex-Machina is one of the most interesting and smart movies released this year. I took my wife to see it and she hates sci-fi movies… but she thought it was amazing. It creates a scenario that will be very familiar within the next two decades and underlines that the most interesting movies being currently made are about the near-future and how it will affect those living now.
Grossing $33 million worldwide, the film is likely to receive a much more deserving and wider audience after its release on Blu-Ray and DVD last week. If ever a film had potential cult status, it is this one. Ava may be one of the first robots, along with the Scarlett Johansson-voiced operating system in the film Her, to possess a sexual charisma that will appeal a certain type of young man.
“The key challenge was to make Ava's AI plausible so that Caleb (and the audience) will be convinced that she is a conscious, self-determining being. But it was all in place in the script. Director Alex Garland had done his research, and studied and absorbed the works of AI expert Professor Murray Shanahan.
“The philosophy and science of consciousness was there on the page, so being a scientific consultant on Ex_Machina was not an arduous task, compared to other movies I’ve worked on. It just needed Alicia Vikander to bring life to Ava, which she does perfectly,” said Adam Rutherford, Science Advisor to Ex_Machina, speaking at the DVD & Blu-ray launch of Ex_Machina.
At a London event last week, Double Negative, the technologists behind Ex_Machina and winners of two Oscars for its visual effects and computer animation work on Inception and Interstellar, went one step further.
Its Virtual Reality team created a VR experience by using a custom built digital spherical stereo camera designed for use with its 3D rendering software. The result allowed the viewer, wearing the Samsung Gear VR headset, to look around the entire hi-res environment and to ‘meet’ Ava using a specialised Android Oculus playback app.



“A key aspect of Ava’s believability as a character was the mix of hard metal and then softer outer skin mesh. Ava’s inner mechanical parts constantly moved as she did. They were all built into a rig where all of the muscles would fire correctly, and then various organs and gyroscopes were added that would just spin throughout.
“The gold mesh was based on air-actuated robot modules which were wrapped with a spiral of metal because that helped read the contraction of the muscle as it moved. It’s almost subconscious in the end,” said Andrew Whitehurst, VFX Supervisor, Double Negative.
Conscious or subconscious, the creation of Ava is a spectacular triumph for technology, and the UK in particular. Double Negative is based in London’s Fitzrovia and now employs more than 1,000 people, it special effects having been used on some of the world’s biggest-grossing movies over the past 15 years.
With such technology and the supernatural acting skills of Gleeson and Vikander as Caleb and Ava respectively, Ex_Machina is already one of the films of the year and the Oscars may yet come calling again for Double Negative.
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HOME»TECHNOLOGY»VIDEO GAMES»E3 E3 2015: what to expect

Schedule for the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015 in Los Angeles, including the times of press briefings from Bethesda, Sony and Nintendo




Electronic Entertainment Expo (or E3), has long been the highlight of the gaming calendar. Every year, thousands of video game developers, publishers and distributors descend on Los Angeles to check out the latest releases from the world's biggest gaming companies.
This year, E3 will run from 16 to 18 June, but he first press conferences will be held ahead of the show, on Sunday 14 and Monday 15 June. Announcements are expected from Bethesda, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Sony, Nintendo, Activision and Square Enix, among others.
Some of the most highly anticipated games include the latest installment of Bethesda's post-apocalyptic role-playing game, Fallout 4, Microsoft's first-person shooter, Halo 5: Guardians, and Ubisoft’s time-spanning action-adventure series, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate.
Activision is expected reveal the latest chapter in its Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, as well as a revamped version of Guitar Hero, which keeps the fundamentals of the classic game but gives it a long-overdue upgrade.
Meanwhile, Electronic Arts' new Star Wars Battlefront is expected to make an appearance, as well a sequel to the popular Mirror’s Edge action-adventure game. However, Sony's Uncharted 4 and Nintendo's latest Legend of Zelda have both reportedly been delayed.
On the console side, things are expected to be fairly quiet, as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all launched consoles relatively recently. However, it is rumoured that Microsoft is planning to launch a new Xbox One controller during E3.
Virtual reality is also expected to be a major trend, with Facebook's Oculus Rift, HTC's Vive and Sony's Project Morpheus all exhibiting at the show. With so much research and development going into the latest generation of headsets, many are saying the virtual reality's day has finally come.
The details of the confirmed press events are as follows:
14 June
Bethesda: 19.00 PST (03.00, 15 June, BST)
15 June
Microsoft: 09.30 PST (17.30 BST)
Electronic Arts: 13.00 PST (21.00 BST)
Ubisoft: 15.00 PST (23.00 BST)
Sony: 18.00 PST (02.00, 16 June, BST)
16 June
Nintendo: 09.00 PST (17.00 BST)
Square Enix: 10.00 PST (18.00 BST)

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Power beamed to camera via ambient wi-fi signals



Wi-fi signals have been used to beam power to a surveillance camera.
The battery-free camera was modified so it could scavenge power from ambient wi-fi signals, store it and then use it to take photos.
The experiment was one of several by US researchers looking at ways to use wi-fi as a power source.
The team behind the project believes its techniques will be useful for powering the many devices expected to form the "internet of things".
Adding noise
The system, known as power-over-wi-fi, has been developed by PhD student Vamsi Talla and colleagues at the Sensor Systems Lab at the University of Washington in Seattle.
The team realised that the energy contained in ambient wi-fi signals that are now ubiquitous often came close to the operating voltages required by a variety of low power devices.
Unfortunately, because wi-fi signals are broadcast in bursts across different frequencies the required amount of energy was only available too intermittently to be useful.
To fix this, the research team modified standard wi-fi hotspots and routers to broadcast noise when a channel was not being used to send data. This meant the power of the wi-fi signals stayed constant and, though low, was high enough to power some components.
Adding the noise did little to slow data rates across hotspots, said the team.
The team used the power beaming system to run a temperature sensor and a small surveillance camera that both sat several metres away from a wi-fi hotspot.
The low-power camera gathered energy from wi-fi and stored it in a capacitor that prompted the camera to take a picture when it was charged. By leaching off the ambient radio signals, the camera gathered enough energy every 35 minutes to take a snap.
In a paper detailing their work, Mr Talla and colleagues said it had the potential to help power the small, low-power sensors and actuators that are expected to become common in homes and workplaces as part of the internet of things.
"The ability to deliver power wirelessly to a wide range of autonomous devices and sensors is hugely significant," said a story about the research in MIT's Technology Review. " Powi-fi could be the enabling technology that finally brings the internet of things to life
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Hate Windows 8? Its long, ugly reign comes to an end with Windows 10





Many will not be sorry to see the end of Windows 8, often a source of frustration due to its quirky, hybrid design.

Microsoft announced on Monday that the successor to Windows 8, Windows 10, will be available next month.

“On July 29, you can get Windows 10 for PCs and tablets by taking advantage of the free upgrade offer, or on a new Windows 10 PC from your favorite retailer,” Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Microsoft’s operating systems group wrote in a blog post Monday. The initial Windows 10 release will be for PC and tablets.

The often-vilified Windows 8 operating system tried to straddle the tablet and desktop worlds but failed for many -- who stayed with Windows 7 and/or made constant appeals to Microsoft to change the software. Which Microsoft did with Windows 8.1. But that was too little too late for lots of loyal Windows users and corporations -- many businesses stayed with Windows 7 rather than make the jarring transition to Windows 8/8.1.

And users have been very vocal. Comments below articles about Windows 8 are often laced with expletives that represent a broad spectrum of user frustrations.

PC companies have been more diplomatic but their own frustration isn’t hard to decipher when you read between the lines.

Frank Azor, one of the co-founders of Alienware and executive director/general manager of the XPS laptop line at Dell Computer, said that the novelty of Windows 8 -- when it first came out -- and its touch interface failed to ultimately win over some customers and even proved to be a deterrent because of the higher price of touch systems

Jeff Barney, GM and VP of Toshiba America’s PC business, cited the “difficulty” and “fear” of Windows 8 because of the “radical UI [user interface] change,” which made consumers less enthusiastic about buying laptops.

Will Windows 10 rectify that? Only time will tell, but Microsoft is designing Windows 10 to be more palatable to users who want just a mouse-and-keyboard operating system. The touch-friendly tablet mode will still be there but less intrusive.

 "Believe or not the [new] Start menu is a big deal.  I think there will be a lot of positive word of mouth around Windows 10. We believe people will go back into the market and upgrade their hardware," said Toshiba's Barney, who added that a lot of users are still using Windows 7 because they decided to skip Windows 8.

Other marquee changes on the desktop include the new Edge browser and Windows Hello biometric authentication, which uses your face, iris, or fingerprint to unlock devices. Microsoft will also bring the Cortana virtual assistant, similar to Apple’s Siri, to the Edge browser and Windows desktop. Cortana is already available on Windows Phone.

Touch-friendly Universal Office apps will be coming to Windows, too. Early this year, Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of Universal Office apps for Windows 10, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote that can be installed on PCs, tablets and phones.
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