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Submission + - British programmers release electronica album (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: A team of British programmers has released an electronica album designed to raise money for The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The album, Music By Programmers, includes eight tracks written by a team of volunteer coders. "It's very much in the style of 'classic' electronica of the 1970s and early 1980s, which would have been created using famous synthesizers such as the Minimoog, Yamaha CS-80 and Oberheim SEM," said the album's creator, Jason Gorman.

The album — which will be downloadable from iTunes and Amazon — aims to raise £5,000 to create a programming club for young people.

Submission + - Ubuntu sticking to six-month release schedules (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: Ubuntu has shelved the idea of moving to rolling releases, and will continue to release a new version every six months. Earlier this year, Ubuntu developers discussed the idea of moving to rolling releases, with new features added to the OS as and when they were ready. However, In an interview with PC Pro, Canonical CEO Jane Silber said the developers had taken a "cold, hard look at our long-standing practices" and decided to stay with twice-yearly releases. It has, however, cut support on non-LTS releases from 18 to nine months.

Submission + - Raspberry Pi Fuze enclosure revives 1980s micros (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: PC Pro has a first look at a new Raspberry Pi enclosure that revives memories of the 1980s micro computers. The Fuze enclosure is a chunky metal frame, with clackety, angled keyboard, in which sits a Raspberry Pi and a 640-connector solderless breadboard, "offering an easy way for beginners to play with switches, LEDs, potentiometers and so forth without having to worry about tripping over wires and dropping the whole thing on the floor."

Perhaps most interestingly, Binary Distribution also plans to offer a Maximite version of the Fuze, which boots directly into a BASIC environment, for an even more authentically 1980s experience.

Submission + - Has Ubuntu bitten off more than it can chew? (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: Is Ubuntu the world's most successful failure, asks PC Pro, in an in-depth analysis of the Linux distro's prospects on smartphones, tablets and televisions. Despite delivering the world's best-known Linux distro and arguably a better desktop OS than Windows 8, Ubuntu remains resolutely niche and is now under threat from the increasingly popular Linux Mint on the desktop. Meanwhile, its forays into televisions, smartphones and tablets have so far failed to ignite. More than a year after we first saw Ubuntu TV, it's yet to appear on a single television set.

So what does the future hold for Ubuntu? Is the poster child of Linux distros overstretching itself? Or is it primed to become the next Android, an open-source alternative to the closed worlds of Apple and Microsoft?

Submission + - Major retailers mis-selling Windows RT as Windows 8 (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: Major British retailers such as Argos and Tesco are mis-selling Windows RT devices as Windows 8 PCs, PC Pro has discovered. The confusion over Microsoft's ARM-based version of Windows could lead to consumers buying the wrong machines, and the wrong software to go with them. Argos, for example, recommends Norton Mobile Security as an add-on for its mis-labelled Windows 8 machine, despite that product only working on Android and iOS.
Science

Submission + - Should you stand up at your work computer? (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "PC Pro has an article exploring the benefits of discarding office chairs and standing at the computer desk. Aside from potentially avoiding the health risks of the sedentary office lifestyle, a standing desk may offer secondary pyschological benefits. Individuals who have switched to standing desks have found themselves approaching their work in a new way. "When you don’t have to sit down, it feels like less of a heavy decision to walk up to your desk and start on something," claims one standing desk user.

The feature examines pre-built stand-up workstations that can cost several thousand pounds, or the DIY approach of building your own stand-up desk."

Your Rights Online

Submission + - Amazon rapped for selling c-word Christmas card (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "Amazon has been reprimanded by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority for selling a Christmas card bearing the c-word. The card, sold on behalf of the charmingly named third-party retailer Smellyourmum.com, bore the message: "YOU'RE A C*** SORRY, I MEANT TO SAY 'MERRY CHRISTMAS".

Despite Amazon's protestations, the ASA ruled the listing was offensive, arguing "that consumer research showed that the use of the word 'c***' was so likely to offend that it should not be used at all in marketing communications even when it was relevant to the name of the product."

The ruling raises the question of whether internet listings count as advertisements."

Google

Submission + - Google Spreadsheet, Excel Web App "can't be trusted" (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "Cloud spreadsheets such as Google Spreadsheet and Excel Web App "cannot be trusted to perform statistical operations with accuracy", according to a paper published by the Journal of Statistical Software. The journal performed a series of standard statistical tests against three well-known cloud spreadsheets. They found that Google Spreadsheet failed more of the 22 tests than it passed, giving the correct answer to only one of 11 tests designed to measure statistical distributions. Zoho Sheet failed about half the total tests, while the Excel Web App performed much better, failing only three of the 22.

"Based on the findings, it is our understanding that the developers of cloud-based spreadsheets have not been performing basic quality control and providing sufficient documentation, and that the results of their statistical calculations cannot be trusted," the paper concludes."

Microsoft

Submission + - What if Apple had gone bankrupt? (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "What would have happened if Microsoft hadn't have bailed out Apple in the mid-1990s and Steve Jobs' firm went bankrupt? PC Pro has imagined an alternative tech history in which Windows Corp (the OS branch of the company, which was split in three by the US courts) had only just released Windows 7, the first version of the OS designed for touchscreens. "All the supporting cast is in place. Major OEMs including Compaq, Dell and Samsung are all signed up to produce Windows 7 tablets. The first device to be revealed, the Dell TouchPad 7, features a generous 13in touchscreen yet weighs less than a kilogram and promises an idle battery life of more than six hours – enough for a working day, so long as you put the device to sleep when not in use."

"If it backfires, it could provide an opening for Ubuntu Linux. With Windows 6.5 growing increasingly long in the tooth, the free OS has been steadily chipping away at its market share over the past three years.""

Science

Submission + - The wall that knows if you're a criminal (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "A German company called Dermalog is showing off a wall-sized transparent display that can tell a person's age, mood and criminal intent simply by scanning their face. The system displays data about the user next to their face, and is a demonstration of a fraud-prevention system that matches criminal intent to certain characteristics.

PC Pro's tester wasn't overly impressed. "If the face was a good enough indicator of mood then it should have tagged me as “freaked out on business technological ennui”, not simply “happy”, and no police force would accept a description of someone as “aged between 45 and 75 – that’s the gap between Daniel Craig and Jack Nicholson.""

The Internet

Submission + - EE: unlimited data caps are "unnecessary" (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "EE has argued that unlimited mobile data caps are "unnecessary" because the average user on its network only consumes 1.4GB of data per month. As PC Pro editor, Barry Collins, points out, that's a rather dim statement from a network that imposes data caps as tight as 500MB on its 4G users. "If EE imposes strict data caps on its customers, it's hardly surprising that the average usage figure isn't exactly sky-high," argues Collins. "People will stay within the bounds of their data cap because they don't want to incur extra charges. Run a pilot test with customers who aren't hampered by a data cap and let's see what that does to the average.""
Hardware

Submission + - Is it worth paying extra for fast SD cards? (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Barence writes: "Are faster grades of SD memory card worth the extra cash? PC Pro has conducted in-depth speed tests on different grades of SD card to find out if they're worth the premium. In camera tests, two top-end SD cards outshone the rest by far, while class 4 cards dawdled for more than a second between shots. However, with the buffer on modern DSLRs able to handle 20 full-res shots or more, it's unlikely an expensive card will make any difference to anyone other than professionals shooting bursts of fast-action shots.

What about for expanding tablet or laptop memory? A regular class 4 or 6 card that’s capable of recording HD video will also be fast enough to play it back on a tablet. The only advantage of a faster card for media is that syncing with your PC will be quicker. However, a faster card is recommended if you're using it to supplement the memory of an Ultrabook or MacBook Air."

Businesses

Submission + - Is Amazon eating itself? (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "PC Pro investigates whether Amazon's aggressive price cutting and expansion is a recipe for business suicide. Amazon makes such thin margins on its huge inventory that there’s little wonder the business isn’t making money in many of its activities, according to financial experts. PC Pro's analysis of the bestselling Kindle ebooks on sale from Amazon, for example, shows that 14 of the top 20 were selling for less than £1, with seven of those on sale for less than 20p. "It’s hard to conclude that in any of its non-cloud businesses it makes anything resembling an economic profit," says Lawrence Haverty, a portfolio manager with publishing and media investment company Gabelli Multimedia Trust. "The market doesn’t hold [CEO] Jeff Bezos accountable to earn a competitive return – it gives Amazon a free pass to get into these markets with a very low margin structure and then do something else.""
Privacy

Submission + - Can you erase yourself from the internet? (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "Do you remember what you posted on that music forum in 2004? Or which services you tried for webmail before Gmail? We often forget online services, but they don't forget us. PC Pro has investigated whether it's possible to retrospectively wipe yourself from the internet. It discusses how difficult it is to get your data removed from Facebook, Google and other popular web services, as well as reputation management services that promise to bury unwanted internet content on your behalf."
Hardware

Submission + - How to handle a techie (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "PC Pro has written a no-nonsense guide on how to handle the "whizz-kid" friend or neighbour who's been called upon to fix your PC.

The guide includes ten tips such as providing food, avoiding making snarky remarks when they search for a fix on Google, and leaving them alone to discover the family secrets that are lurking in the PC's file system. "If there should prove to be any skeletons in the family closet then you need to allow this hapless computer guy the room to discover them, decide whether any of them are material contributors to your problem, and then whether to bring them to your attention or not," PC Pro's tongue-in-cheek guide advises. "That actually demands quite advanced skills in psychology and diplomacy, skills that we network people seldom have any formal training in.""

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