Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » juillet 31, 2014

BetaNews.Com (7 non lus)

CyberLink Media Suite 12 Ultimate: A great value-for-money bundle [Review]

Publié: juillet 31, 2014, 8:12pm CEST par Mike Williams

powerdirector

After almost 20 years developing multimedia software, it’s no surprise that CyberLink has some impressive products. But they can seem expensive. PowerDVD is definitely a versatile and feature-packed media player, but if you’re used to freeware then its $99.95 list price might send you elsewhere.

Fortunately CyberLink’s Media Suite 12 Ultimate offers a more value-for-money option, providing a big chunk of the CyberLink range -- a total of fifteen products -- for as little as $139.95.

The suite has 12 PC packages. PowerDVD 14 handles media playback, PowerDirector 12 and PhotoDirector 5 provide video and photo editing, PowerProducer 6 and Power2Go 9 cover disc authoring and burning, MediaEspresso 7 handles your media conversion needs, and MediaShow 6, WaveEditor 2, PowerBackup 2.6, PowerDVD Copy 1.5, Label Print 2.5 and Instant Burn 5.0 are also thrown in.

Three content packs (Holiday, Travel, Romance) extend all this with effects, templates and other extras.

And the suite also offers a trio of mobile apps. PowerDirector Mobile and a new PhotoDirector Mobile bring video and photo editing to Android and Windows 8 devices, while Power Media Player (formerly PowerDVD Mobile) is a media player for Android, iOS and Windows 8.

This looks like a good deal, but how does it work in real life? We grabbed a copy and headed for our test PC.

Getting started

Media Suite 12 Ultimate has just one installer, which means setup is relatively straightforward. Read the license agreement, clear the checkbox to say you don’t want to install Google Toolbar (slightly annoying on a commercial product), select the applications you’d like, and everything else is handled automatically.

We ran into one problem on our test PC: the installer couldn’t remove an existing copy of PhotoDirector, and so wasn’t able to install the new one. This was probably an issue with our local system, though, and CyberLink’s support pages quickly revealed the solution. A simple cleanup tool properly removed the previous build and the installer then ran correctly.

Once everything has finished, a simple front-end menu helps you access Media Suite’s tools. This is organized by task, conveniently, so you don’t have to remember which CyberLink application does what. Instead, just choose a category ("Movie", "Video", "Photo", "Music", "Data & Backup"), then a task ("Play a Movie Disc", "Convert Videos", "Upload to Social Networks" and more), and the appropriate program is launched.

Suite management tools seem relatively weak. If you chose not to install WaveEditor, for example, there’s no easy way to add it later (you can uninstall the entire suite, but not add or remove individual components). And although an "Update" icon tells you when there’s a new version of a program available, there’s no automated way to download or install it: you just get a link to the relevant web page, and are left to do everything else yourself.

Still, Media Suite 12 Ultimate delivers well on our core requirements: all its applications can be installed or removed from a single tool, and a front end menu makes it easy to find and launch whatever application you need. You’ll soon be ready to explore.

Highlights

While Media Suite 12 Ultimate includes 15 applications, they vary considerably in usefulness, and probably only 6 or 7 have real value.

Our favorite is PowerDirector 12, a fast and professional video editor. This starts with novice-friendly features to help you cut your movies, add music, effects, burn them to disc or put them online. If you know what you’re doing then you can go to work on the 100 track timeline, customize effects, add transitions, fix lighting/ noise/ shaky footage. The latest build adds multicam editing, custom subtitling, PowerPoint import and more, and overall it’s still the best consumer video editor around.

PowerDVD 14 is another big plus. It doesn’t just play the usual discs, audio and video files: there’s also support for H.265 and UltraHD 4K content, RAW images, 3D media, and browsing YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and Flickr. You’re able to stream media between all the Windows, iOS, Android and DLNA devices on your network, and CyberLink’s TrueTheater technologies can help to stabilize videos, enhance detail and colors, reduce noise, and more.

All this functionality means PowerDVD can take a while to learn, and some options require powerful hardware to run smoothly. But it’s still a quality media player, and a major asset to the suite.

PhotoDirector 5, CyberLink’s photo editor, isn’t quite such a clear-cut winner: editing novices may be happier with something like Paint.Net, while experts often prefer Lightroom. But if you’re looking for a good mid-range tool then you’ll appreciate the powerful correction tools (now automatically fixing lens distortion), creative effects, content-aware removal features, people beautifier tools and more, especially with a performance boost from its new 64-bit engine.

The mobile apps may also be useful, particularly PowerDirector (you’re able to start work on simple projects immediately, or save them for later editing on your desktop). As we write, all three get four star ratings on Google Play.

The remaining program of note is Power2Go 9, a capable tool for burning CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray and BDXL discs. While not exceptional, it easily outperforms the best-of-breed freeware, and (if you’ve nothing similar) will be a plus to your PC.

powerdirector2

And there’s more

Media Suite 12 Ultimate has plenty of other applications on offer. They don’t have quite the same general appeal as our favorites, but there’s still some value here for the right person.

MediaEspresso is a tool for converting videos into a mobile or tablet-friendly format, for example. Some of the free competition offer more device profiles, and extras like a built-in editor. But if you need them, MediaEspresso’s H.265 support and TrueTheater optimizations will be a major plus.

If you’d like an audio editor then there are a stack of quality free products around, and you don’t really need CyberLink’s WaveEditor 2. But it’s a likeable tool, easy to use and with one or two surprising extras (vocal removal, VST support, direct Freesound import, CD creation).

MediaShow 6 is a decent media organizer, nothing special but with plenty to explore, including face tagging, slideshow and social media support (Facebook/ YouTube/ Flickr).

The remaining apps are relatively basic, simpler add-ons than major programs in their own right (DVD copying, label design and packet burning). But that’s fine, as there’s more than enough elsewhere to justify Media Suite 12 Ultimate’s purchase price, and these extras are effectively thrown in for free.

Verdict:

We wouldn't pay for every Media Suite Ultimate application, but if you'll use two or three of them - PowerDVD, PowerDirector, PhotoDirector, maybe the mobile apps - then it's great value for money, and there's a stack of interesting extras to explore.

We Like:

Value for money, excellent video editor, quality media player and photo editor, well-designed mobile apps, generally easy to use, convenient task-oriented front-end menu

We Don't Like:

Can't easily add/ remove suite components, a few "filler" programs, poor Help files for some applications

Overview

Manufacturer:	CyberLink
Price (RRP):	$149.95
Best Price:	$139.95
Platforms:	Windows XP, Vista, 8/ 8.1, both 32 and 64-bit editions
Requirements:	5GB free hard drive space for installation, 10GB (20GB recommended) for DVD production, 60GB (100GB recommended) for Blu-ray Disc/ AVCHD production

Windows Phone is like OS X a decade ago -- gaining respect, finally

Publié: juillet 31, 2014, 7:34pm CEST par Joe Wilcox

Four years ago, I asserted: "Windows Phone 7 series is a lost cause", and it was. But you gotta give Microsoft credit for persistence. Today the foundation is solid, and app developers are finally starting to notice, like they did in 2004 with Apple's flagship operating system.

But pundits howl like the zombie apocalypse, which is pretty good analogy for mindless Android and iOS users constantly clicking and scrolling. Microsoft's Windows Phone "glance-and-go" design philosophy is all about living beings and interacting with them rather than cold plastic and metal slabs. (Say, isn't that where we lay the dead before burying them?)

Ex-Microsoftie Robert Scoble is pundit-of-the-minute (honestly, twenty seconds given zombie attention spans), demanding that Microsoft abandon Windows Phone and surrender its collective mobile soul to Android. I have expressed many times in the past that Microsoft's mobile strategy sucks -- or did before buying Nokia. The path reaching Windows Phone 8.1's release was a long road to ruin. But from devastation, new things rise.

"That train has sailed" Scoble tells GeekWire. "The real answer is, give up Windows Phone, go Android, and embrace and extend like you did with the Internet. But they don’t listen to me".

Trains sink. Except in science fiction movies where they fly, like the closing of "Back to the Future III" -- end of a series that got the year ahead, 2015, wrong. Cars don't fly and most homes don't have fax machines. The point: The future isn't always what you predict. Scoble is too caught up in the numbers game.

As is colleague Mihaita Bamburic with today's headline "It's game over for Windows Phone". Mihaita reports about Strategy Analytics data showing Windows Phone "28.94 percent decrease year-over-year in market share", based on unit shipments.

Yeah, yeah, hand me a hanky so I can blow my nose.

Given Microsoft's purchase of Nokia, the world's largest Windows Phone maker, and the logistical handicaps, the decline is unsurprising. Windows Phone remains a distant third to Android and iOS, but No. 3 nevertheless. Let's silence the gripe and pass the snickerdoodles.

Comment banter to my story "Why is iPhone so destructible?" makes a valid point about these stats. John Topper asks WP7Mango: "Is that why in the US Windows Phone market share dropped from 4 to 3.8 percent?" He answers: "Why should I care what the market share is? I don't buy my phones based on market share stats. In fact, I don't buy anything based on market share stats".

Right. Who does? I don't. Do you?

Mean Transition

Again, I am reminded of OS X, which transition left Apple an applications wasteland -- all while Windows surged. The modern Mac operating system released in March 2001, into a market where the best way to measure Apple PC share was a magnifying glass. But by 2004, the same year Service Pack 2 made Windows XP usable, enough good apps grew from the OS 9-to-X-transition devastation to promise revival.

What pundits ignored then about OS X as they do now with Windows Phone: The platform isn't a single entity. By 2004, Apple had retail stores, iPod, iTunes, and iLife pulling consumer sales -- many "halo", people buying music players also adopting Macs, for example. Pretty computers running a UNIX core pulled niche creative professionals, and their demand for supporting apps spurred developers to produce them. Then there were the rebels: People seeking escape from Windows or looking to live a different digital lifestyle.

Windows Phone also doesn't stand alone. Microsoft's efforts to tie the platform to existing strong-hold products like Exchange and Office are more sensible today than four years ago, in part because the platform and the integrated strategy around it has matured. I bought the Nokia Lumia Icon, and to my surprise really enjoy using Windows Phone 8. But I got the phone anticipating Surface Pro 3, purchased day of availability. Like someone choosing iPod and a Mac a decade ago: Product synergy.

The Windows Phone apps wasteland observed a year ago -- even just a few months ago -- fills with new growth. All the majors I care about -- Adobe PhotoShop Express, Facebook, Flixster, IMDB, Instagram, Kindle Reader, Netflix, Shazam, Tumbler, Twitter, Vimeo, and Vine, for example, among others -- are available. My bank and credit card provider have apps. Absent: Apple and Google apps, although most Big G services work just fine in the browser, including Plus, and Microsoft provides solid support for Google Calendar and Contacts and Gmail.

Six months ago, I would not have considered Windows Phone, which app selection still looked too much like a graveyard. Momentum grows, even as zombie pundits seek to feast on the platform. Like OS X in 2004, for which Apple produced the best apps, Microsoft does same with Windows Phone. Office is surprisingly useful -- more than it ever was on Windows Mobile. I write on my Icon with increasing frequency. Then there are the Nokia apps, which are absolutely great, providing the kind of digital content creation capabilities reminiscent of Apple applications on OS X a decade ago. Nokia's stuff isn't as tightly integrated, but the utility bangs heads -- or should I say the zombie dead.

Reaching Down to Move Up

Where Windows Phone's future can -- and I predict will -- defy the doomsayers is the brilliant low-cal, high-nutrition strategy. Nokia is still a leader in the global mobile marketplace. In most geographies, the flip and other so-called dumb phones being converted to smart slabs bear the Nokia brand. Meanwhile, in the overall handset market -- not singling out smartphones -- Nokia still ranks number two, according to most reliable market-research firms.

Not that you would know. There is way too much misinformation about the global handset market. BGR headline from yesterday: "Strategy Analytics: 85% of phones shipped last quarter run Android". That's inaccurate. The analyst firm says smartphones, which make up the largest chunk of the global handset market but by no means all of it.

As I predicted three years ago, Microsoft's platform deal undid Nokia. But actual ownership, with resurgent Windows Phone and some solid devices could save the device maker. Nokia Lumia 635 is great example. It's a tasty smartphone morsel that offers lots for little cost, and that's exactly the winning way to move existing Nokia customers using hundreds of millions of dumb phones to smarter ones with the same brand. I can walk into my Microsoft Store and buy the no-contract phone for $99 or $129, for AT&T or T-Mobile, respectively.

That's what smartphones should cost, with no carrier-contract obligation, or even less. In India, where Nokia once commanded 70 percent market share, the official brand store sells a dual-SIM Lumia 630 for ₹11,329 or about US $186. That's exactly not cheap based on household incomes but bargain basement compared to iPhone 5c, which Amazon India sells for ₹32,900 ($540) but lists for ₹41,900 ($689).

Microsoft should keep up the entry-level push, while courting aficionados with devices like Lumia Icon, 930, or 1020. Windows Phone will get more respect, and Nokia will help bring it. Sure the apps go to Android and iOS first, like they did Windows a decade go. But people still bought Macs, and increasing numbers for a convergence of previously stated reasons. The only thing dead here is the zombie apocalypse of mindless smartphone users and pundits seeking to eat Windows Phone's brain.
Endpoint management is very much alive

Publié: juillet 31, 2014, 7:06pm CEST par Ashley Leonard

There are plenty of IT managers who would argue that device management -- for PC, laptop and tablet fleets -- has long gone the way of the Dodo.

In fact, Info-Tech analyst Mike Bassista agrees, recently suggesting that "organizations should treat IT as utility; any endpoint should be able to access the applications and services needed by its user. And like the power company doesn't need to manage light bulbs receiving electricity, IT doesn't need to manage endpoints receiving IT services". Whilst there is some merit to his comment, I really believe device management is more important now than ever before.

New challenges

Virtually every company has encountered the problem whereby employees viewing IT as non-responsive actively purchase new hardware and software behind the backs of the IT department, in order to do their job. A 2014 survey by Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan found that 80 percent of respondents admitted to using non-approved SaaS applications in their jobs.

This problem of shadow IT is creating a hidden, growing pool of assets that companies own but are unaware of, which creates legal, security and compliance risks. Imagine a scenario whereby an employee has downloaded software to a company PC, which is leaking records data to the internet. Any penalties and fines issued by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) would be aimed at the company and not the employee.

The main concern surrounding shadow IT is that this is just the beginning. As more individuals trust cloud based software and services, it is likely that growing numbers will bypass IT and download applications without thinking. The risk of data leakage grows significantly with increasing trust in the cloud.

Shining the light on Shadow IT

The real issue with shadow IT is the unknown danger. IT managers should be worried about those unseen, unmanaged, and unpatched PCs, Macs, tablets, and phones, which have a greater likelihood of being connected to the corporate network and pose a greater risk of data leakage.

Assuming that Wi-Fi and corporate networks are secure, the usual anti-viral / firewall protection is in place, what do IT managers need to be thinking about?

Endpoint management technology can counter shadow IT as well as support existing BYOD (bring your own device) practices by first discovering what devices are connecting to the corporate network. Second, the technology can run an inventory to understand what software is being used and by whom. Third, it is not only possible to patch those devices and applications, but manage them with the correct permissions in place.

5 essential factors of endpoint management

If, like me, you can see that endpoint management is very much alive and necessary, there are five things to consider before deployment:

Cloud-delivery: IT managers -- and specifically those in large organizations with disparate sites -- must be able to discover, patch and manage devices remotely. It's unrealistic to expect the IT manager to visit every site to load the endpoint management software.

Rapid discovery: if the process of discovering devices takes days or, worse, weeks, it's a waste of time and a security risk. IT managers should look to partner with a vendor or MSP (managed service providers) that develops an endpoint management service, which can work within minutes.

Reduce burden: if the endpoint management service actually adds a permanent layer of software code to each device, it is making more work for the IT manager, who will have to maintain the very code he or she has deployed.

Management automation: an endpoint management solution needs to automate repetitive management tasks; a good example is patch management. You need to know; that patches exist, be able to scan you environment to see if a patch is required and then deploy the patch. Selecting a solution that provides a patch content database can allow automation of the process.

Development road map: vendors must be able to clearly communicate the future of the services, which devices it will be able to identify, manage and protect now and in the future.

Moving forward

Endpoint management is more vital now than ever before. The devices we all carry into work are changing at a rapid pace and are increasing in number. Certainly, the laptop isn't going anywhere soon [any more than the TV will be ousted from our homes]. Managing endpoints is essential to combat shadow IT, police BYOD and help organizations focus on what is important.

Ashley Leonard is CEO of Verismic.

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.
How to overcome the main challenges faced by IT departments

Publié: juillet 31, 2014, 6:34pm CEST par Sabelline Chicot

IT departments always used to be the butt of jokes. Perhaps this was because being nerdy and geeky wasn't hip and cool until social media took the world by storm and made multimillionaires out of self-confessed geeks like Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

Technology firms like Apple and Google are partly responsible for making consumer IT cool, but the IT department is still often viewed as an impenetrable world only inhabited by geeks and boffins that are often arrogant, rude and obstructive.

IT needs a PR makeover and this is probably the first and most important challenge that any IT professional has to contend with. Its consequences are far reaching. Not only is it hard to recruit good staff into IT, but the relationship with the rest of the business and employees can be strained, which doesn't help with job satisfaction or prospects.

So how can you alleviate the challenges faced by your team?

Staffing is key

In the US, it is forecast that 10,000 baby boomers will be eligible to retire every day for the next 15 to 20 years. Some of these boomers work in IT departments and their knowledge of the organization and its wants and needs will be lost.

Replacing boomers can be tough, as finding good, qualified staff isn't easy and today's graduates and students entering the workforce have different motivations. They are unlikely to stay in a job for life, so a motivating, flexible and challenging environment can help you attract the best staff, but also ones that stay for longer.

For Google's CIO Ben Fried, employing the best people in IT is not only a way of bringing IT costs down, it also has a huge role to play in improving the image of the IT department.

He told the Harvard Business Review that the IT team should be more knowledgeable about technology than other employees. This might seem common sense, but is actually not an easy task in today's world of tech savvy workers. If you have a broken laptop you want the first person you contact in the IT department to know more about it than you do and not offer a series of pre-scripted questions and responses as they are the lowest paid support service.

Having fewer, better qualified and more knowledgeable support staff, he argues reduces costs as they can tackle more problems and do so more quickly.

Work with people, not against them

IT departments traditionally had the role of the enforcer, preventing employees from connecting their own devices to the company network to maintain and protect business systems and networks.

With consumer proliferation of smartphones and tablets that battle has been firmly lost and users now bring in their own devices and apps and use them for personal and work-related tasks. Cisco estimates there will be 1.62 billion mobile devices in the office by 2016, so the trend is increasing.

Embracing rather than preventing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is now the best approach for IT departments, who still need to protect company data and information.

According to Paul Simoneau, a senior instructor and course director with Global Knowledge, the IT department's solution should be to controlling data access and securing the organization’s data rather than being pre-occupied with preventing users access to the network.

First, secure the data on servers, he says. Then provide users access to that data in the form of mobile web apps. This lets them access the data on any server they are authorized to access, but doesn't store any data on the mobile device.

Embrace mobile technologies

If your business hasn't gone mobile yet, then it almost certainly will. Mobile technology empowers individual employees to process, consume, manipulate and share huge amounts of information nearly instantly, from almost anywhere in the world, and often at very low cost.

All this mobility creates new IT management challenges. Mobile technology, combined with the related BYOD trend, is pervasive and ubiquitous providing challenges for IT departments who must integrate these mobile devices with IT systems and secure the networks against a wide range of mobile threats, including malware, unauthorized access and theft.

In a recent CIO Barometer survey, 65 percent of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) noted the development of mobile applications as one of IT's major challenges. Nearly as many (63 percent) also cited managing BYOD and other consumer technologies in the workplace as nearly as important.

Leverage big data

Harnessing data is one of the big tests facing businesses in the information age. Data growth is accelerating and anticipated to grow by 800 percent in the next five years. Understanding the scale, diversity and complexity of data demonstrates the challenge. Every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. This comes from a wide range of sources, such as social media updates, emails, digital pictures, climate sensors and cell phone GPS signals to name a few.

There is huge potential in capturing and understanding data, much of which is unstructured, to inform business analytics and customer behavior.

The State of the CIO 2014 survey rated leveraging data and analytics among the most important technology initiatives in the coming year with 72 percent of CIOs seeking to improve the use of data and analytics to benefit business decisions and outcomes.

But if big data offers huge opportunities, protecting data and maintaining its integrity is a challenge that many IT departments are well aware of, especially given the fact that 71 percent of security breaches targeted user devices.

And according to Eric Williams, executive vice president and chief information officer at Catalina Marketing Corp., another big challenge is resisting the temptation to gather every available piece of information available to only throw it into a data warehouse. It is much more effective and satisfactory to take a limited sample of data to start with and get real insight out of it, then grow the methodology for analysis.

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.
Logitech TogetherWeGame will make you a game developer -- no skills needed

Publié: juillet 31, 2014, 6:27pm CEST par Brian Fagioli

Growing up as a computer nerd, I remember thinking that I would learn how to program, so I could develop my own video games. I think this is a dream that many nerds share. I remember that my dad bought me a huge book on programming and after about 5 pages, I gave up and began reading comic books instead. The moral of this story is not that I'm stupid (although that is debatable), but that not everyone is cut out to be a programmer. My dreams of creating a video game were dead.

Or were they? Today, Logitech announces that it will be crowdsourcing a video game. This means that the direction of the game will be handled by fans on the internet -- pretty cool, eh? The best part is, no technical skills are required. In other words, my dream of contributing to a video game is alive and well.

"We're developing a 16-bit tower defense game, but here's the kicker, every other decision is up to you, the fans. The characters, environment, weapons, rules -- when we say everything, we mean everything. This is the first ever crowdsourced video game that will be developed by a consumer brand. We have no idea what the final product will look like, and that is both terrifying and thrilling", says Logitech.

The company further explains, "we're excited about this project because we believe design is all encompassing, something bigger than materials, color schemes product angles and weight. It's meant to tell a story and create an experience, and we'd love to share that experience with you, our fans. So whether you're a hardcore gamer, a casual gamer or a not-at-all gamer, please stop by the subreddit page and let us know what you want to see. This is something new for everyone, including us, and we can't wait to see what you create".

Let's be honest, this won't exactly be the next Call of Duty franchise -- it will likely be a rudimentary tower defense game. However, the final product is less important than the shared experience and feeling of accomplishment to be had by the participants. It will be interesting to see how Logitech organizes the contributions and weeds out the trolls; you just know some knuckleheads will suggest nonsense for comedic purposes.

If you are interested in participating, you can check out the reddit page here. Tell me what ideas you have in the comments below.

Photo credit: kitty / Shutterstock
Google Chrome 64-bit Beta arrives, edges closer to final Windows release

Publié: juillet 31, 2014, 1:25pm CEST par Nick Peers

Google has moved its dedicated 64-bit Windows build of Chrome one step closer to its final release with the launch of Google Chrome 37.0 Beta (64-bit). The new release requires Windows 7 64-bit or later to run.

The new build, which is also available in 64-bit form for Linux, moves to the beta channel, but despite media speculation, users should not assume a final release is just a few weeks away – it could yet be months before Google deems the build is stable enough for general consumption.

The new build, which is not compatible with 64-bit versions of XP or Vista, can be installed over the top of an existing Chrome installation -- users should find their settings and bookmarks are preserved.

On the surface, little should change for those switching to the new build -- while the move to 64-bit should, in theory, open up more than 3GB RAM for Chrome users, it’s worth noting that each open tab is given its own separate process. This means that the 32-bit build already allows up to 3-4GB RAM per open tab, which is more than ample for most people’s current browsing needs.

In fact, the switch to 64-bit puts users at risk of allowing individual Chrome tabs to gobble up more available RAM should memory leaks occur, affecting overall performance as a result.

However, switching to 64-bit architecture isn’t simply memory related; it also opens up Chrome to benefit from more general 64-bit performance improvements, while it can also be seen to represent a move to future-proof the browser.

Users should also be aware of question marks over compatibility with existing plug-ins, some of which may need to be upgraded. One notable example is that the Google Talk plugin doesn’t work with Chrome 64-bit; however, the plugin should become redundant when Chrome 38 reaches the beta channel. That’s because version 38 -- currently in the Dev channel -- adds a built-in WebRTC component that allows Google Talk to function without the need for a separate plugin.

Other compatibility considerations include the need to install a 64-bit version of Java.

Google Chrome 37.0 Beta (64-bit) is available now as a free download for PCs running 64-bit versions of Windows 7, 8 or Linux. Also available for Windows, Linux and Mac is Google Chrome 37.0 Beta (32-bit).
J butterfly joins HTC's premium Android lineup

Publié: juillet 31, 2014, 12:59pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

Today, HTC introduces a new smartphone in its premium Android lineup. Called J butterfly, the device features similar specs to the One (M8) flagship, but without making use of the latter's 4 MP UltraPixel main camera, employing a 13 MP unit instead. Pixel fans, rejoice!

That said, J butterfly retains the Duo Camera technology HTC baked in One (M8). It allows the smartphone to capture depth information to achieve a bokeh effect in photos, which is typical of DSLRs. On the front, there is a 5 MP camera, that is also taken from One (M8), designed for selfie-lovers. So far, J butterfly is shaping up to be what some had hoped One (M8) would be.

On the front, there is also a 5-inch Super LCD3 display with a resolution of 1,080 by 1,920. But, sadly, the BoomSound speakers are nowhere to be seen; HTC is trying to make up for it with JBL's High-Performance In-Ear Headphones. The company is launching Dot View cases for J butterfly.

Inside, there is a 2.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, with 2 GB of RAM and a 2,700 mAh battery to back it up. J butterfly ships with 32 GB of internal storage and a microSDXC card slot, the latter of which can be used to extend the capacity by up to 128 GB.

As far as connectivity goes, J butterfly offers 4G LTE and WiMax 2+ cellular network support, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 as its main highlights. It is also water and dust-proof. It comes in at 145 x 70 x 10 mm and 156 grams.

HTC, as you might expect, is slapping its own Sense user interface on top of Android (KitKat), which I find to be quite attractive on One (M8). That means the usual software add-ons are included in the mix.

Sadly, unless you live in Japan, you cannot buy J butterfly. But, if the past is of any indication, HTC may launch an international version of the smartphone, which moniker will most likely start with "Butterfly" (the last one in the series is called Butterfly S). The only thing that I have a problem with is the design, which is clearly not optimized for the (small) 5-inch display without the BoomSound speakers on the top and bottom.