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In the right hands this product can give you amazing results, it can create 3D images from photographs add cartoonish features and much more however it can also create lip sync to audio or voice so you can be there even when you are not.
In my hands it created a reasonable 3D image of me from a forward facing head and shoulders shot and a selfie side on. You just click a number of points around your head to match eyes and mouth end of nose etc. and it does the rest. In total around five minutes from importing the images. This was only rough but the image was quite good.
As one of the new iconic meeting places in London, the Shard was the location for a recent Toshiba briefing.
A popular advertisement of yesteryear, that no doubt some older readers will have fond memories, featured a couple street urchins being captivating by the aroma created by flavoured gravy granules. This advert, with the tag line of “Ah Bisto”, was brought to mind at a recent press lunch when it was revealed that “Ah Bisto” was an anagram of the company hosting the event. I must admit that I was not the one who had spotted this.
If you have touch then you should have Windows 10 as it was designed with that in mind, certain things like annotations only work with touch. So a Notebook and Tablet all in one with Windows 10 should be the way to go.
The unit is 29.5x20x1.5cm and it weighs 1176grams. Unlike some devices that are tablets with an attachable keyboard this unit is the conventional Notebook design with it becoming a Tablet when the screen in turned through 180degrees and then the keyboard and trackpad – although exposed – become dead until you turn the unit back into a conventional Notebook.
So what version would you expect to follow version 11. In the case of this next product it is a sizeable jump to 365.
When is the “Last” not the “Last”. Presumably when developers feel a follow-up title is appropriate.
The Last Door Season 2 could be regarded by some as a “blast from the past”. By that I do not mean the game’s storyline is based on historical events, although it is set two centuries ago. No, the reference to the past is due to the style of graphics and other elements used in this game.
This is a three in one unit (no fax) it prints, scans and copies. With recent units this can not only be via a PC but also other devices via the WWW. It is unlikely to pass the lounge police so with Wi-Fi it can sit behind the sofa or even in a cupboard.
The Epson ET-2550 measures 46.5cm wide, 41cm tall (with A4 paper inserted in the rear insert tray) and 42cm deep with input and output trays open, so this is nearly a cube. Apart from Wi-Fi you can also link it via USB. Give yourself plenty of time and some old newspapers – not to read – to place under the unit as however careful you are a few drops of ink will spill and better on old newspaper than the carpet.
Some users prefer a notebook while others opt for a tablet. With this next product you get both options.
From its base in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong, Venturer has released its hybrid 2-in-1 Mini Notebook product. This unit is available in either BravoWin 10XT or EliteWin 11KT models. In both cases the Mini Notebook has a detachable screen which can act as a standalone tablet once it has been removed from the keyboard element with both the notebook and tablet running the latest Windows 10 operating system. This review is based on the slightly larger EliteWin 11K unit.
The AOC model I2475PXQU is a 24 inch 1920 x 1080 full HD monitor incorporating an IPS panel for good colour rendition and wide viewing angle together with LED backlighting for long life and energy efficiency. It is a good all-round monitor for both work and pleasure.
The narrow black bezel around the 10:6 aspect ratio screen, which has an actual screen diagonal of 23.75 inches, has resulted in the monitor being just 22inches wide. Hence, it does not appear to take up an enormous amount of desk space. The design of the stand makes it easy to set the screen at a comfortable position and angle.
As most will know Braun and Gillette are under the same ownership. Normally Braun mainly deals with dry shaving and Gillette deal with wet shaving. So this is a combination device that can be used dry or wet when the occasion demands.
Recently I have covered head hair and beard hair. Or course the requirements or shaving cover other parts of the body as well as what is normally on show for all to see. Fashions change and I have heard from younger people in a relationship that if she shaves or waxes the lower part of her body she expects him to do the same. I am aware some prefer to go to their hairdresser for such treatments but most surely get a ‘friend’ to access such areas.
A pair of on/over ear headphones, a pair of rather comfortable on/over ear headphones, a pair of on/over ear headphones giving an excellent sound. Put all these together and you get the PhonAudio Headphones with the less than catchy name of PHN100.
These are designed for use with ‘i’ devices, so if you have a recent iPod, iPhone or iPad then the full range of functions are available. For other devices then you have a very decent set of on/over ear headphones. The rubberised lead is 1.3 metres long. I cannot tell you about the box or anything else it may or may not contain as I was sent just the headphones and detachable lead. 30cm down the lead is a single button control on one side and a range of presses will do most things.
With dimensions of 143 x 69 x 7.7 mm (H x W x D) and weighing 152g, the Xperia X is Sony’s latest entry into the rather overcrowded smartphone market sector.
The Sony Xperia X handset is currently available in a choice of colours. The user can select from models coloured White, Graphite Black, Lime, Gold and Rose Gold. My review sample is the Graphite Black model. The Sony Xperia X’s metallic casing is dominated by a 5-inch screen that is capable of displaying Full HD 1080p resolution with bright clearly visible content in different lighting conditions.
I am sure we have all misplaced our keys, I know the last time I did it cost £160 for a replacement lock and yes you’ve guessed it they were then located. Here something that may help in the more mundane task of finding them around the home or maybe even further away.
Voila has been developed by Philippe Stark who is known as an iconic designer. This looks like a USB stick it is 6.5cm long, .6cm wide and 2.2cm across. The top end has a hole with which you can attach it to your keyring, the bottom end has a 1cm area in a transparent plastic in one of four colours mine was orange. You can have different colours for different things and they show up in that colour on the App.
As our personal storage needs increase, we need to look for a solution to offer easily accessible storage capacity. A NAS box could be the answer.
Forming part of Buffalo’s LinkStation 500 series of NAS devices is the LS510 model. Adding a sizeable wedge of storage capacity to your home network resources, the NAS LS510 is a single hard disk unit for creating your local Cloud based storage. I have been checking out the 2TB version of the product and I have been led to believe that 3 and 4TB modules are currently available.
I could have entitled this review as “Be Afraid!” which might give you a clue as to the game’s content.
True Fear: Forsaken Souls is a Hidden Object Adventure game that is available in Standard or Collector’s Edition formats. My review of this game, developed by GOBLINZ, is based on the Collector’s Edition which contains a number of bonus items, some of which are available immediately while others require you to make progress or complete the main game.
Until recently mobile phones could accept up to 32GB micro SD cards which gave you another way of storing data, photos and most likely videos. Now the majority of recent phones will accept larger capacity Micro SD Cards up to 64GB and possibly even more.
Recently I ventured halfway up The Shard for a presentation by hard disc manufacturer Toshiba. It covered what Toshiba do, with the essence on their recent hard drives including a new 8TB desktop unit and while there I requested their mid-range external USB unit that I will tell you about when it arrives.
The iHealth Track not only provides an easy way of measuring blood pressure, the associated app takes the hassle out of tracking and recording results.
The Track consists of the controller and the cuff to which it is connected by means of a 55cm long rubber tube. The controller is white in colour and roughly 10cm square, with radiused corners, and is 4.5cm thick. There are two push buttons -- start/stop and Memory/sync -- as well as a 6 x 5cm LCD display. This shows the pulse rate and the two measures of blood pressure -- diastolic and systolic. Captions printed on the body of the controller identify the particular reading.
Following on from its popular industry leading portrait make-over software, entitled Portrait Pro, Anthropics Technology has moved its focus from the foreground to the background with its new LandscapePro software.
Described as being the industry’s first intelligent landscape photo editing package, LandscapePro from Anthropics Technology is available in either Standard or Studio edition mode. With the latter edition, the software comes as a standalone offering or as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoshop Elements. This review is based on the Studio standalone version of the software.
I have already outlined the ‘phone’ part of this latest offering from Huawei on the 18th April. At the time I said I would tell you about the cameras when I had more time to study them. So here goes the camera are very good as they are made by Leica.
Perhaps if you think of this as a camera first and everything a phone does for you second then that gives you an idea of what it can do. Very early on I took a picture of the local lake and right at the top of the image was a branch of a tree that spread almost by mistake into the picture, every nodule of the bark of the branch showed up and although the lake a fountain and the wildlife on the lake were clear and sharp I still remember that branch.
Having recently resurrected the cassette player groov>>e now think that the portable CD Player still has legs. Certainly while I have downloads the majority of my audio collection is still on CD but is that only a generation thing.
The Groov-e GVPS110 retro CD player measures 15x12.5x2.5cm and weighs not a lot. It runs on ‘2xAA’ batteries or a DC power supply neither are supplied. There is a small circular display that shows track number and elapsed time. The majority of the unit is black apart from the top which is a silver grey colour.
I’m for ever blowing bubbles could be the theme song when I am applying a screen protector.
It has been said that there is “more than one way to skin a cat” and this could be one of those occasions. I should point out that, in this case, the cat is the screen of a mobile device and the skinning involves the addition of a layer rather than the removal of the epidermis.
Like most people I think I can just install the battery, check it has power and then insert a Micro SD card. I go outside, the garden is not looking too bad at this time of year, shoot a few test short clips and then expect to view them.
You know what I am going to say next, yes you are right, it defaults to 4K and my PC screen will not show 4K so all I got was the sound. So RTFM and find out how to work through the menus. It is small and light at only 135grams. It is 9.5x5x3cm with the normal lens cover fitted, slightly longer with the underwater one on. There is a small TFT on the top 3x2.
The more you use Windows, the more reluctant your computer will be to perform at its optimum level. This next product offers to help.
Over the years Nero (the company rather than the Roman Emperor of old) has developed from a company producing burning software (hence the name) to one that has developed a number of titles dealing with topics such as media manipulation and data backup. The latest string to Nero’s bow to appear concentrates on the area of keeping Windows computer and Android devices running smoothly.
One of my grandmother’s was named Nelly but she was nothing like the main character of this next game
I have used Samplitude Silver for some time; I probably use only a small amount of its ability in my regular adjustment of .wav files. Here it’s very big brother ‘think Twins’ and this Arnold to Danny. So exactly what can this powerful product do?
I have always liked manuals especially printed ones, I read them in bed, in the bath or in the smallest room, these days there are no printed manuals but at least with notebooks you can still read in bed. This offering is just over 1000 pages long so you see this is no trivial product. I use what is called Samplitude Silver a very small sibling to this and spend all the time in editing .
It is time to give my home a good cleaning while checking out a Hoover vacuum cleaner.
The Hoover Velocity is a bagless, upright vacuum cleaner which could, more or less, seem to cover everything about the product. This is, after all, a product has been manufactured by Hoover. It is both bagless and an upright vacuum cleaner plus it has been christened “Velocity”. Fortunately there are a couple of other issues that means this review will be of a reasonable length rather than just a few sentences.
In my youth I had a beard which came to a nasty end when the chef I was working for took a dislike to it and removed one side of it with the fish scissors, such things today would end up in a court case. So while I often go a day or two without shaving going several weeks in order to test this was something my neighbours had not seen before.
Certainly after not having a real beard for nearly 50 years it felt strange and what was a dark mid brown offering which used to bear the name ‘goatee’ now is a grey mess which would take far longer to become something worthy of the name beard but it did allow me to test the ability to set the length or should I say shortness of cut/trim. It is 16.5cm long, 4.5cm wide at the head and a maximum 4,2cm just below the head, it weighs 177grams.
Bluetooth audio systems able to play music from your phones, here a device that you just link via Bluetooth and the music plays as long as you have charge no lead is required.
These are lightweight on ear headphones weighing only 180grams. There is 3cm of movement in each arm and the measurements I am giving are when the arms are fully extended. From the base area in between the earpieces to the top of the headband is 19cm, the earpieces themselves are circular at 7cm across and 3.5cm deep. When I wear them I tend to use about half the expansion and being old I wear them in the old way on top of my head.
This is definitely a case of company action negating a review.
Not only does Vodafone offer users a vast range of mobile devices from the industry’s leading manufacturers but it also has its own brand of handsets. The Vodafone own branded handsets form the Smart range of products.
Larger Sainsbury’s stores have their mobile phone shops and this more basic level product is one offering available from them. However when you look at it you see something chunky that would be ideal from the older person to have.
The F24 Power from Archos measures 12.5x5x2cm and it weighs 156grams. The viewable screen is 3.5x5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 2.5 inches. However despite its small screen size it is far more than a phone and text system.
Bluetooth speakers come in various shapes and sizes with a price point that reveals the audio quality delivered by the device.
With an easy to remember name, the Riva S is a Bluetooth mobile speaker that is available in a choice of three colour schemes. You can opt for Black with Titanium, White with Silver or, as in the case of my review unit, White with Gold. In each case the first colour is used for the top and bottom of the unit while the second colour decorates the heavily perforated aluminium band that encircles the main body as it acts as the speaker grille.
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