Windows Hello

Microsoft wants to turn you into a walking password

What is it?

Microsoft’s new biometric-authentication technology, which lets you sign into Windows 10 using your eyes, face and fingers. It recognises unique physical characteristics, such as your iris pattern, fingerprints and facial features, thereby saving you from the tyranny of passwords. When you sign in, you’ll be greeted with a reassuring smiley face and a friendly ‘Hello’ (see image – Terry Myerson is Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Operating Systems).

HTC One M9

A powerful and classy-looking Android phone, but its beauty is only skin deep

Many new Android phones have flashy technologies like curved screens, but HTC has taken a different route with it latest phone, the One M9. It looks almost identical to its predecessor, the One M8, with HTC opting to change most of its internal components and software instead.

Like previous One phones, the One M9 looks very classy and feels exceptionally robust thanks to its brushed metal construction.

Google Nexus Player

Android comes to your TV

The Nexus Player is Google’s new set-top box for playing online video on your TV. It’s the first device to run Android TV – a version of the popular mobile operating system designed to be used on your telly. While the Nexus Player is the first of its kind, it won’t be the last – Sony’s upcoming 2015 range of smart TVs, for example, will use Android TV.

The Nexus Player is a plain black device made by Asus, who made the Nexus 7 tablet (now discontinued), and is the shape and size of an ice-hockey puck. It’s very easy to set up. Connect it to your TV using an HDMI cable (not included) and then follow the straightforward instructions to connect it to your wireless network and enter your Google account details. You have to use Wi-Fi because it has no Ethernet port.

The Nexus Player isn’t Google’s first video-streaming device for the home. It comes in the wake of the now defunct Google TV set-top boxes, which were made by various third-party manufacturers. Its interface was essentially a poorly designed web browser controlled using a fiddly mini keyboard and touchpad. There is also, of course, the more popular and better Chromecast, which is still available as a cheaper alternative to the Nexus Player.

Things to do with an old XP PC. Part 3. Create your own NAS device

This issue, Jonathan Parkyn explains how to convert your spare PC into a network storage device

Why a NAS is useful

A NAS (network attached storage) device is an external hard drive that connects all the devices on your home Wi-Fi network. You can back up photos and other files to a NAS just as you would to a normal external drive, but you can then access the files from your phone or tablet, even when your PC is switched off.

You can also use a NAS to stream music, photos and videos to your PC, mobile devices and even to a smart TV. Most NAS systems also let you access your files securely over the internet when you’re not at home - like having your own personal cloud.

Pre-built NAS devices cost up to £200, but you can convert a PC to a NAS for free.

Linksys EA9200

Don’t pay through the nose

Before you spurt coffee all over the magazine after gazing at the price tag of this router, I should point out that at the time of print I only had access to the EA9200’s Recommended Retail Price. Every other router’s price tag is the street price, and there’s usually a substantial difference between the two; you can expect the EA9200 to fetch somewhere around $350 when it does show up in stores. Is it worth it?

D-Link Viper DSL-2900

Blistering performance, great design

With D-Link’s Dual-band baby impressing me so much, I was rather excited to see what its latest product could do. Gazing at the high price tag, I immediately assumed this was a Tri-band router, but it turns out I was wrong. D-Link is charging Tri-band prices for this Dual-band router, so it had better deliver some outstanding results to justify the price hike. Thankfully, it does.

D-Link DIR-880L

Dual-band at a nice price

I bent the rules a little by including this router, as it’s only a Dual-band beastie rather than a fully-fledged Tri-band behemoth. This means it only has a single 5GHz network alongside the 2.4GHz network, which is why it’s marketed as a 1900Mbit/sec device (5GHz = 1300Mbit/sec + 2.4GHz = 600Mbit/sec). For many users this won’t be a problem, as they may only have a couple of devices that can make use of the faster 802.11n or ac standards, and the cost saving is dramatic. But given that this is a slightly older product, does it have the oomph necessary to keep up with the latest Tri-band devices?

ASUS RT-AC3200

Let down by poor performance

Bristling with more antennae than an Air Warfare Destroyer, with a whopping six in total, this is one seriously aggressive router. It’s also one of the most expensive Tri-band routers around, and when combined with the fact that ASUS routers have historically performed well, my hopes were high indeed. Sadly it didn’t turn in quite the roaring performance I expected, but it makes up for this lack in performance in other ways.

LG 34UM67 FreeSync Display

AMD’s FreeSync kills G-Sync

NVIDIA’s G-synch technology launched to much acclaim back in October of 2013, but it took much longer for working monitors with this technology to arrive. The idea behind the tech was solid. Rather than monitors and GPUs operating at different refresh rates, leading to problems with frame tearing (V-Sync off) and stuttering or latency (V-sync on), G-Sync slaved the monitor’s refresh rate to the GPU’s outputted frames. This removed all of the problems caused by V-Sync, and also allowed for silky smooth motion at framerates of around 40fps and above. There was one issue though; it required a proprietary scaler inside the monitor to work, and this caused G-Sync monitors to be much more expensive than their V-Sync cousins, with a price premium of $250 or more. As a result we haven’t seen many G-Sync displays hit the market, with just a handful on sale today.