CyberLink at CES 2012 introduced the latest version of their pouplar media player PowerDVD 12. We got a first time look at the software and we can tell you Cyberlink has gone into tremendous lengthens in making  this a worth while purchase. Some of the cool and new features you will see in our video walkthrough is the very impressive DLNA feature set, that allows you to not only share content from PC to tablet or phone with the Power DVD app. But all the ability to share content from all you device be it Android, iPhone, iPad and more via the app as well as PC. So you can load content from you iPad and Play on a Xoom tablet or PC and vice versa.

Also the up scale feature from 2D to 3D is solid and gives you full control to maximize the degree and depth of 3D content. This applies to Blu-ray movies as well as, photos and content recorded on your own camera. Also a good amount of social integration that allows you to easily download photos from Facebook in batch format and access YouTube content directly from the play.
CyberLink has successfully added a host of features that makes PowerDVD 12 look like a very inviting offering. Till we get time to fully review it  in the coming weeks. Please enjoy our walkthrough video.

The New Facebook Messenger for windows client is available, and is strictly Windows 7 compatible. The app allows access to chat, ticker fed, and notification from you Facebook page. Also the app currently requires a web browser sign-in. This adds to Facebook’s collection of stand alone messaging apps for Android, iOS, & Blackberry. For all Facebook Fanatics, enjoy our walkthrough below and hit the download link  to start using the app on your PC

Facebook Messenger for Windows Download Link

Facebook Help instructions

Power Director 10 the latest in video editing software from Cyberlink studio. PD10 continues its trend of easy to use video editing software, PD10 like its predecessor PD 9 now takes advantage  64 bit processor to allows faster video rendering. there are a few more addition to the software interface, with better hardware acceleration and the ability to edit 3D movie. Also the addition of new pre-loaded titles as well and the new tile menu structure has been improved. Enjoy the screencast video and see what Cyberlink has brought to the table with this edition of Power Director 10.

Power Director Features

Intelligent Video Rendering with SVRT

Complex calculations done for you! Intelligent Smart Video Rendering Technology (SVRT) analyzes an entire project to assess the types of media and formats used, then selects the best output profile for optimal production speed.

Once the output profile is chosen, your video is rendered in the shortest possible time using patented¹ SVRT technology that recognizes the portions of a movie clip that have been modified and only renders those portions during production and not the entire clip.

OpenCL Support for Optimum Hardware Acceleration

OpenCL is the latest technology aimed at utilizing the full potential of system GPU and CPU power. Added into PowerDirector’s new TrueVelocity 2 rendering engine, OpenCL harnesses the power of your system’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and applies it to 48 video effects, greatly improving the speed of the editing process.

Broad Video Production Options

PowerDirector 10 offers a complete set of video production options so that you can play & display your work in your setting of choice.

• Burn to Disc: Create DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, AVCHD, and even BDXL discs with professional disc features like subtitles, 5.1 channel audio, and first-play video intros.
• Export to Portable Devices: Output directly to the most popular mobile devices, such as iPad, iPhone, iPod, BlackBerry, PSP and many others so you can enjoy them wherever you are.
• Output to SD Card: PowerDirector lets you output your AVCHD videos to an SD Card. Other output options include backing up to HDV or DV tape by writing back to your camcorder.

3D Rendering

PowerDirector’s supports all kinds of 3D content whether from files or straight from 3D cameras/phones. You can even convert your 2D videos & photos to 3D with TrueTheater® 3D.

• Videos: Support for all the most popular 3D video formats: MVC (M2T), Side-by-Side, Top-Under, and Dual-Stream AVI.
• Photos: No need to convert from MPO to JPS or vice versa – PowerDirector 10 supports both. Import straight from your camera, phone or PC.
• TrueTheater ® 3D: Converting your 2D photos and videos into a super cool 3D experience with TrueTheater® 3D is a great new way to enjoy and add new life to your media.

When it comes to Apple there seem to be two different beasts. On the phone front, it’s largely hype and bullshit with the company claiming it invented things that the world knows it didn’t and offering a service that does less than the competition; but in the world of computers the hype is more justified. Apple is boasting Lion is the most advanced OS ever, and I’m akin to agree.

I’ve always used Windows, from 95 to Xp to Vista to 7. Even with Windows 7 64-bit running on 4GB RAM, there’s no denying that Windows is sluggish. Just turning it off takes far too long, turning it on can feel like a slow death, and constant updates cause annoyance and fear that they will kill the computer. Opening certain programs takes an eternity too, and while Aero and certain aesthetics make it feel more modern, it hasn’t really progressed much. And let’s not forget the constant worry about getting a virus.

When my laptop kept giving me problems I upgraded to an iMac running Lion, my first real foray into OSX. I say ‘real’ because I have dabbled with Snow Leopard on other people’s computers, but by and large I was a Mac novice. With the learning curve being very small and quick to overcome, going to Mac is a design I won’t regret and I can’t see myself returning to Windows.

First and foremost, Lion is fast. It’s no surprise, because OSX has always been fast and this is most noticeable when turning it on and off, and when in sleep mode. With Windows, having the machine in sleep was a recipe for disaster – it took far too long to wake up, if it woke up at all, and very often it would knock the resolution out of whack, too. So with that in mind, I had my laptop to stay on while the machine itself was on, so never in sleep mode. With a Mac, ‘sleep’ seems little more than a black screensaver because clicking a button has it back up and running in a split second. This is also on 4GB RAM, the same as my Windows machine. Updates come along and they are no trouble to install, taking mere seconds and even a reboot is no concern because everything is up and running in under a minute – Lion even reopens all your windows and documents so the computer is in the exact same state it was before it shut down.

When I first got it, I wanted to setup my wireless printer. With Windows 7 this meant going to the manufacturer’s website and downloading the drivers and setting it up manually. On the Mac? It found the printer and automatically downloaded and installed the drivers – in a fraction of the time it took Windows just to setup after I installed the drivers. A real breeze.

As for everyday usage, it’s a world apart from Windows in that it’s so easy and so advanced. Windows users are still limited to the mouse only, whereas Lion is a gesture-based OS. This can seem intimidating, but for anyone used to a touchscreen phone it’s second nature. By using Magic Mouse or the Bluetooth Trackpad, interacting with the computer is totally different and very intuitive. Swipe up to show all running programs (like an easierALT+TAB), spread four fingers to show the desktop, pinch-to-zoom or, thanks to Mac offering multiple desktops natively, swipe left and right to switch desktops. For me, this means I can have a Word document open on one desktop, mail in another, and Firefox in another, so I can simply swipe to get what I want without minimising or resizing windows. What could be easier?

My main concern was that I wouldn’t be able to use certain programs that are Windows-only. However, with the help of VM Fusion I run Windows 7 as a program within Lion and have my accounting program open in there. That means I can dip in and out of Windows at will without affecting overall performance. Because I have my mail setup on the Mac side, though, I had concerns about getting invoices from Windows to Lion. The reality is that it just takes a swipe – drag the document from Windows to the Lion desktop and there it is, sitting pretty. I can then drag it into an email and it’s an attachment, no more clicking ‘browse’ and navigating to the document.

When it does come to navigation, though, that’s also far better implemented than in Windows. In Windows clicking one folder to go down a level keeps it in the same window, whereas in OSX it opens to the right, and using the mouse or Trackpad a simple left or right swipe shows the previous level. That makes it easy to know where you are and therefore easier to find what you want.

The Mac comes with various neat little features. For instance, Photo Booth acts like a real photo booth and uses the webcam to take photos, and you can apply an array of effects to them. Hitting a couple of keys on the keyboard takes a screenshot of what’s showing and saves it to the desktop – so no more ‘print screen’, ‘paste’ to Paint, ‘save as’ wherever you want it. It’s fast, easy and intuitive.

Windows Live Essentials offers some nice photo editing software, but OSX goes one further by offering excellent stuff natively. With iPhoto, you import your photos and can edit them at will, but also show and search for people by face recognition. If you use geo-tagging on your photos the Places section shows where on the globe you’ve been to, which is great for finding snaps from specific holidays. Also in iPhoto, you can use the gesture interface to zoom or rotate a photo, no buttons necessary.

Then there’s iChat, giving you multi-platform support for various IM services, while Garage Band lets you compose your own songs with various instruments, for free. The Address Book looks like a real address book and makes managing contacts incredibly easy. Windows has an awkward and confused system of contact cards that frankly are a mess, but OSX doesn’t have this problem.

In fact, during my time of using Windows I learnt that most things require third-party software – I didn’t use Windows Media Player, or Live Mail, or Explorer, or most other things. The only exception was Zune. When it came to mail, I use a desktop client to manage my various domain email accounts and Thunderbird was my client of choice because Windows Live Mail was just awful. I assumed I would continue using Thunderbird on the Mac but I was pleasantly surprised with Apple Mail. Threading conversations on the right-hand side of the panel makes reading correspondence easy, and flagging or moving mail is just as easy. The ability to add or save an attachment by dragging to or from the folder of choice makes life so easy that it’s pretty remarkable, and makes the Windows approach of saving and attaching seem incredibly archaic.

Then there’s the backup client. With Windows I used Acronis because the native client was just no good. Lion has Time Capsule though, an absolutely amazing service. With a symbol in the top taskbar I can click ‘open’ and be taken into a screen that looks like a Star Wars introduction. There are then a series of panels that show the Finder (or Windows Explorer to those who don’t use Apple) and I can search around backups just like I was searching through the computer. Time Capsule is customisable, offering backups every five minutes, then every hour, then every day, so you can delete and save at will confident in the knowledge that your data will be safe. When you do want to save something you deleted, simply find it in Time Capsule and click ‘restore’, and that’s all there is to it.

Purchasing a Mac is a departure from Windows, but a great one. No, it won’t make me buy an iPod, iPhone or iPad, and thanks to the Windows Phone 7 Connector I can still use a Windows Phone 7 device with the Mac. Not only is the hardware all contained in an elegant screen with no tower to worry about, the entire experience is flawless. With Windows using a computer was a battle, with finding decent programs to do simple tasks like backing up or reading emails, or getting anti-virus programs and running anti-virus scans that kick the computer in the balls, to painfully slow start up and shut down times. With a Mac, it feels as though the computer is there to help you get done what you need to, which is precisely what a computer is for.

The hardware and software are combined brilliantly into a flawless product that makes the computer worth every penny.

Have I become cynical in my old age? Maybe my fanboyism to Android has grown out of hand? Or maybe Apple have just given their worst unveiling since the Newton. I concede that Steve Jobs who, to be fair to the guy, was one of hell of a sales person, is now absent from centre stage but it is no excuse. The very worst aspects of the ‘Apple machine’ seemed to combine together to deliver what was quite frankly a massive let down for all involved.

The Iphone 4S, does this change everything again, again? No. Granted it is a nice little refresh to the iPhone 4 but it is just that, a refresh. Had Apple unveiled it as a budget alternative to the Iphone 5 then it would have been all hugs and kisses, and I would have commended them for taking another leaf out of Android’s book. However as a stand-alone device the 4S is a woeful attempt to upgrade the Iphone, even I (someone who would rather pickle my left ear than buy an IOS device) was disappointed. I wouldn’t have minded so much if they had announced it as an incremental upgrade and at least mentioned the Iphone 5, but no. Not a sausage. How long until the Iphone 5 is launched? It could be next year, or it could be before christmas seeing as they have blown their previous launch pattern to smithereens. Thanks for making us wait 15 months, getting us all hot and bothered about it, and then leaving us to stew for god knows how long more.

The 4S itself is a nice little phone (little being the operative word) but it doesn’t contain 15 months worth of upgrades. Even IOS5 seems to me more interesting than the new device and I am a hardware fanatic. Apple can vomit up technical specifications and graphical benchmark results all they want on stage, but when push comes to shove I would rather hold a new (bigger) device in my hand than poke my finger at a piddly 3.5” screen and slobber over graphics which make little or no difference to 99% of my smartphone usage. The only games I play on a regular basis are casual, light addictive games, often involving irritated avian characters and their porcine rivals. I don’t sit on the train playing a hardcore game which requires me to concentrate and gawk at graphics whilst draining my battery in 3 hours flat. And I make it my business to play the latest games as I review most of them but still spend less than a few hours on most ‘hardcore games’ and I enjoy them on a 4.3" screen, not a 3.5" tiddler. Oh, did I mention it’s dual core? Much like many phones I could mention which have been out for almost a year. The camera is now 8MP with 1080p video capture, something which we have all seen before, but wait it has two antennae. Wonderful.

Iphone 4S aside, Apple also announced IOS5, or to rephrase that showed us a bunch of stuff they have already shown us, an iPod Nano with BIGGER ICONS! And some Ipod Touch’s which are now in white, splendid. I won’t even bother slating IOS5, but I do wish to mention SIRI, if only in brief. Voice control has been around for years, and it is a nice concept but in practise it fails in 9 out of 10 situations. It is so easy to type something into google, or to open your SMS or Email that voice commands make the whole process more difficult. Unless you are in the car, or are sitting alone at home, then it makes you look ridiculous and never works due to background noise. Also, more often than not, when I send an email I generally don’t want to announce it to everybody in the vicinity, heck that’s why I email instead of calling someone. But I have faith in Apple zombies everywhere, if Apple say it is the future then I look forward to walking into an office and seeing blurry eyed executives yelling corporate secretes into their phones whilst the one dodgy bloke in the corner asks SIRI where the nearest lap-dancing bar is.

All in all it was a disappointing day for tech fans, and it leaves me wondering if Google and Samsung are going to do the same thing at their little get together next week? I think releasing the Samsung Galaxy S2 with a new 3MP front facing camera, and a choice of two new lock screens in the UI of ICS would just about bring them up to par with Apple. I think it is unlikely, and I am confident that Apple will have to release a new device before next summer or risk falling even further behind Android, ICS running on quadcore in 2012 anyone?

I now understand why they chose not to broadcast the event live, can you imagine how boring it would have been for us poor unsuspecting civilians?

We have windows 8 developer Preview 32bit installed on an older PC. Build specs listed below. Having spent some time with it, I decided to give a hands-on look at how Windows 8 looks like and handles as an operating system. Taking a look at the Metro UI; how the interface works, what are the differences and similarities with Windows 7 and basically how smooth is the experience so far in this early representation



PC Build Specs

AMD Athlon 64bit 32000- 2.2Ghz

2GB of Ram

150GB HDD

ATI Graphics card

Download Links

Windows Developer Preview 32 bit ver. here

Windows Developer Preview 64 bit ver. here

Windows Developer Preview 64 bit ver with Developer Tools here



Steven Sinofsky (President, Windows and Windows Live division, Microsoft), says “We’re gonna reimagine Windows. From the chipset, to the experience, Windows 8 reimagines what Windows can be.”

It all starts with the word “Metro”. A design language by Microsoft that puts YOU at the centre and works the way you want it. It’s your life – digitized. Your people, your content; everything is about YOU. Metro makes things work just the way they should. If you’ve used a Windows Phone 7 device, you know what I’m talking about. Metro is about bringing the stuff you care about closer to you; it’s about getting the technology out of your way just so that you can enjoy your digital life.

What do you think of a computer? What first thought do you get when you hear about using a computer? It’s probably sitting on a chair in front of a monitor typing with a keyboard and using a mouse. It’s been like that for ages! Sure there are laptops, but they are pretty much the same. Sure there are Windows slates but they’re not that good at what they do. Sure there are iPads and Android tabs but they are essentially just oversized smartphones. They just can’t do what a desktop OS can do like full video editing, smooth full featured web experiences etc. You get the point.

When Windows 7 was designed, the shifts that were happening then were around high performance notebooks. People wanted thinner and lighter notebooks; notebooks that would resume from sleep immediately, with batteries that last longer and mobility features like that and Windows 7 did successfully fulfill all those needs and wants.

· About 450 million copies of Windows 7 have been sold!

· Windows 7 consumer usage greater than Windows XP.

· 1502 seamless non-security product changes delivered

· Internet Explorer 9 is the fastest growing Windows 7 browser

· 542 million people signing into Windows Live services.

These are very successful statistics.

Changing World of Computing

But, the shifts that are happening now have changed. Today there are trends around immersive internet computing, ultraportable devices that have touchscreens. Windows 8 is the reimagining of Windows for trends we’re seeing today. The web is driving a lot of this. The web is affecting the way we work, the way we play, the way we connect with other people and it’s only getting more immersive, more personal and more significant in our lives.

· Form factors and user interaction models create new scenarios and opportunities

· Mobility means devices you use while carrying, not just devices you carry then use

· App developers want rich connectivity and sharing capabilities, connection to customers

· Services are intrinsic in all software

Windows 8 – How does it look?

Windows 8 features a Windows Phone 7 like lockscreen which is very personal. It has a beautiful background of your picture. It shows you the time, date, your next appointment and your notifications.

Windows 8 features the “Start Screen” inspired by Windows Phone 7. The Start Screen is your personal mosaic of tiles; the apps on your system are represented by Tiles. Tiles are better than icons for a couple of reasons – they have a lot more space for the apps to show it’s personality and information. For example, you can see stuff like Weather status, stock status, status updates, notifications, news headlines etc. without having to open any app. The information is surfaced to you. That’s the start screen.

Windows 8 experience

· Fast and fluid user experience – Responsive, alive and beautiful with animations and Metro style

· Immersive and full-screen – Focuses attention on your apps

· Touch-first with full keyboard and mouse – Enables choice of interaction

· Web of apps working together – Apps are connected to each other and the cloud

· Experience for all PC devices and architectures – No compromise across new form factors, desktops and laptops

What about the apps? Windows 8 features a new app platform based on standard web technologies like HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. These languages form the backbone of the web. So, on day 1 when Windows 8 ships, hundreds of thousands of developers will already know how to build great apps for Windows 8. HTML5 is doing a freaking good job at building interactive and immersive web apps. Apps using this technology would be pretty rich and engaging for the end users. These apps are called “Metro Apps” (Of course) and these apps will be available through the Windows App Store, a one stop shop for your Windows 8 app demands. The revenue will be the 70/30 split for the developers/Microsoft apparently. Though, it’s not confirmed yet.

The great thing about Windows 8 is – these apps aren’t silos. These apps can talk to other apps. For example, you can tweet a photo stored in your friend’s Facebook album without saving anything to the desktop or someplace in the sky. You can imagine being able to search for anything on the web, twitter, music, games, apps through a single vie. That’s a pretty slick feature that nobody has done before and developers and consumers alike are going to appreciate a lot.

Features

Windows 8 is entirely gesture based; although you can use buttons too. To go to the start screen using a tablet, you swipe from the right. That’s the place for you to tinker around with the setting and to access more options. Windows 8 features real multitasking. You swipe from the left to switch between apps. Windows 8 also includes a great feature – Snap. The ability to dock two apps side by side which none other touch operating system supports.

IE10 is the best hardware accelerated browser out there. You can run hardware accelerated flash, ActiveX, do in private browsing and experience HTML5 content and other stuff that most other touch operating systems don’t support.

Another really important factor is speed. Windows 8’s UI is blazing fast. That’s because it is hardware accelerated. All the transitions, graphics, animations, effects and even the Metro style apps everything is hardware accelerated to the core which means the power of your GPU is used to make everything slick and smooth.

Microsoft has also redesigned the Windows Explorer with the Ribbon interface familiar to Office 2007 and Office 2010 users.

Windows 8 also features an improved task manager and a better multiple monitor support.

Windows 8 will also include Xbox LIVE functionality.

Windows 8 includes support for all the latest and greatest technologies like TPM, UEFI, Compass, Gyro, Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Near Field Communication, Ambient Light, LCD TSP, SSD, WLAN, GPS, Cameras, Touch, Ink, 3G/4G.

Also, buzz is that Windows 8 will include Phone capabilities. That would be a real nice addition I guess.

Windows 8 PCs with UEFI and SSDs will be able to boot in just about 8 seconds!

Windows 8 fast boot up -

Windows 8 will also have Microsoft SmartScreen technology and Microsoft Security Essentials built right into the OS. A Metro version of Microsoft Office is in the works according to some rumors.

At the BUILD Conference, about 5000 Developers were given a Samsung Windows 8 developer slate.

This isn’t all. Microsoft says there are hundreds other features that aren’t shown yet. I think we’ll know about them till Windows 8 reaches Beta.

Check out Windows 8 in action:

Will Windows 8 be able to take on the iPad? Decide for yourself!

I am sure you have gone ahead and installed Windows 8 developer preview as we did yesterday and hopefully our instructions where helpful. But here are some helpful Windows 8 tip from Windows observer, be sure to hit the link to check out more tip from their site.


More tips here from windowsobserver



I just read an interesting article on Gizmodo on reasons BlackBerry is screwed. You can’t help not agree with them, especially if you are a blackberry owner like myself.

In a way we all know this too… I mean, RIM seems like a boring company with nothing going for its product except blackberry messenger. which is also the only reason half of us have this unexciting device anyway.

If you compare the BB  OS to any of the top 3(IOS, Android & WM7), then you can see how far behind they seem. Even if you argue that the BBs are business phones, then answer me this who said business had to be boring?

Be sure to read the article and see if you agree or disagree with their case. Gizmodo

Blackberry Bridge also you to connect you Blackberry smartphone to your playbook, to securely access you email and other Blackberry Apps.  In this video we should we how to set that up and what apps are needed on your Blackberry Smartphone.

Tethering can be achieved with  Playbook and a Blackberry Smartphone via Bluetooth

If you are an AT&T customer you can use the links below to download Blackberry Bridge for your device

Download links for Blackberry Bridge:

Download BlackBerry Bridge OTA to your device (OS6)
Download BlackBerry Bridge OTA to your device (OS5)

Ok, now there is an app for everything. Apple is getting stick for approving an app that claims to cure homosexuality. Well the app is currently only available in Britain for free, so…

I find this app funny more than offensive, and I don’t get why so many people are up in arms about it. But then again, I haven’t seen the content. But from what I read, there wasn’t anything hateful.

Its Christian makers claim the app gives them a chance of “freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus”.

If any of our UK readers gives it a try, please let us know how it turns out.

For the full lowdown, check the DailyMail

This is a DIY video of installing MeeGo OS on a Dell Inspirion Mini 1012 netbook. MeeGo is a cross platform OS developed Nokia that can run on Netbooks and smartphones. Enjoy this video of the installation process.

Instructions below

System Requirements
CPU: Intel Atom or Intel Core 2 CPU (support for SSSE3)
Note: MeeGo will not work on non-SSSE3 CPUs
Platforms with the GMA-500, Nvidia, or ATI graphics chipsets are not supported
A tested netbook or nettop platform

Overview
Steps for loading the MeeGo live image on your netbook, nettop, or PC:

Download the latest live image. http://meego.com/downloads/releases/netbook
Byte-copy the image to a USB drive.
Boot the image on your netbook, nettop, or PC.

Windows Instructions
There is a simple way to put the MeeGo image on a USB drive.

Download the Win32DiskImager.exe program:
https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/+download (zip file)
Unzip the file and extract the contents to a known directory
Run W32DiskImager.exe (screenshot)
Select the MeeGo image file (.img)
Select the drive letter which corresponds to the USB key
Click the “Write” button to byte-copy the image to the USB drive.

Procceed to Install MeeGo on Dell Inspiron Mini 1012

This video is a full preview look at the HULU Plus app on the Apple iPad. We will cover what the app has to offer and look at a few differences from the browser version of the app.

In a nutshell, it’s a more expansive API similar to iPhone voice control. There are 12 actions in total plus search (so… 13). So far we’ve seen a couple applications for it: "send message to [person] [message]," or — if voice calling is more your cup of tea — "call Millennium Knightsbridge in London" for a location-specific phone call. You can also set alarms, go straight to a website ("go to Wikipedia"), or speak addresses or locations for directions.

"Find music" is particularly interesting and works across multiple apps, looking for tunes across the web, too. In this example, "find music by The Decemberists" brought up the option to create a Pandora station. Speaking "Note to self," however cliche, creates a message reminder for you later. Blue words in a spoken message highlight potential errors that you can fix via more standard input mechanisms. It’ll come pre-installed on Droid 2and should be available via the Android Market for 2.2 devices — just look for "voice search."

Gizmodo Demo

Looks like it works very well.

Via Engadget , Gizmodo

Nice

websites can be pushed from the Chrome browser to your Android device, with certain apps (Maps, YouTube) taking over for the browser when contextually appropriate. Additionally, the code is open, which we’re hoping means this Chrome extension will find its way to other browsers. The team is “looking into” bringing the capabilities to other mobile OSs

Via Engadget