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SXSWi 2010: Digg design director talks up crowdsourcing

Paul Douglas — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:41:00 +0000

Jeffrey Kalmikoff, director of design and user experience at Digg, was on a panel today at South by South West where he and Scott Belsky from crowdsourced design organisation Behance talked about how businesses could understand and utilise crowdsourcing.

Before Digg, Kalmikoff worked at one of the most high-profile crowdsourced businesses - threadless.com - where user-submitted designs are turned into T-shirts.

"The majority of my career has been based on crowdsourcing," says Kalmikoff. "My interest is that I love ideas and I love sharing ideas – I love the notion that you can have an idea and work with a group of like-minded people to make the idea better."

Crowdsourcing – a term coined in June 2006, is really an umbrella term, describing multiple ways that you can source ideas, explains Kalmikoff, and despite a common misconception that crowdsourcing simply means free labour, this isn't necessarily the case.

Wisdom and labour

Belsky and Kalmikoff went on to explain how there are to avenues a business can use for crowdsourcing – wisdom and labour. The wisdom avenue – used by Wikipedia, for example - takes the view that what any single person thinks isn't as important as the collective, consensual view of a group of people.

Labour includes services such as Mechanical Turk, which Kalmikoff describes as "a spectacular use of crowdsourced labour". In talking about labour, "we are really defining it as an open call to complete or fulfil a specific task or need," he adds.

"When it comes to crowdsourcing, what excites me the most are businesses that harness both sides of crowdsourcing – wisdom and labour," says Kalmikoff, citing Digg and Threadless as examples.

On Digg, explains Kalmikoff, "the labour side would be 'I want to get a story promoted to the home page of Digg, so I'm going to scour the internet for something that is cool, hope that it hasn't been submitted before and I'm going to make the effort to submit it'. From that point on, crowdsourced wisdom decides whether or not it should be promoted [to the front page]."

Crowdsourcing on Digg doesn't stop there, though. "Going further into Digg it's not just those particular things," says Kalmikoff. "We use crowdsourcing in different ways all over the site – you can digg up and digg down comments… It really is fully involving the community, and leveraging the crowdsourcing in a way that keeps the community active."

One of the most exciting things about crowdsourcing is the idea of the level playing field, says Kalmikoff. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from – what matters is whether you produce the best work.

Kalmikoff goes on to give an example of "an incredibly famous graphic designer" who submitted a design to Threadless. "And his design, not only did it not get printed, but it was declined for poor design."

The crowdsourced nature of the way Threadless designs are chosen showed that this designer "didn't have his finger on the pulse of what people were looking for," says Kalmikoff.

"And that's the beauty of it, that's the beauty of Digg… it's a level playing field and everyone has an equal chance of hitting the front page."

Opinion: Why HTML5 isn't a Flash killer

Dan Oliver — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

HTML5 is a Flash killer. Hmmmmm. Say it over in your head a few times. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

In fact, if I wrote a blog post with such a snappy, eye-catching title as that, it might even get a few Diggs. Heck, it might even make the front-flipping-page! (Front page of the Programming section, maybe – let's not go nuts.)

Unfortunately, there's a little problem with my initial statement. OK – I admit it – it's a big problem. It's the kind of hulking problem that, if it asked to borrow a quid from you, would end up with your wallet, any loose change in your pockets and the keys to your car. And that problem?

Well, you may have guessed by now, but the whole premise that HTML5 will kill Flash is utter bunkum. Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped the idea gaining some serious traction in recent months – among people and groups that should really know better.

A few days ago I was listening to one of my favourite technology podcasts, This Week in Tech. (For those of you who aren't familiar with the show, as the name suggests, it's an insightful look at the biggest tech stories of the week.) But, in that most august of podcasts, I heard the 'HTML5 is a Flash killer' argument put forward by a guest on the show – with not one dissenting voice to be heard. Not one.

I've also seen it pop up on various web design forums, and it's even made its way onto my Twitter feed on more than one occasion (I'm @danoliver if you're interested, and aren't offended by the kind of language that would make a miner blush).

Behind the theory

There are a number of reasons why so many people believe HTML5 will be the technology that finally consigns Flash to the recycle bin.

Firstly – and it has nothing to do with the merits of HTML5 – there's a deep-seated loathing of Flash, primarily brought about by a decade of annoying intro sequences on websites.

The case for the prosecution: Flash intros, in the main, are a complete waste of time and bandwidth, and should, in any self-respecting society, result in the public flogging of anyone who considers introducing them to a site. You'll get no argument from me on that front.

Next up, and this is where I start to seriously waiver, some maintain that there's never a need to use Flash and that you can achieve the requirements of a Flash project in other ways – in this instance using HTML5. This just isn't true.

ActionScript 3 can do things that have had web developers scratching their heads for years, and even Google has had to fall back on Flash programming because there's simply no other way to successfully achieve certain functions within their web apps, such as elegantly attaching files in Gmail (thanks to Olivier Gambier over at Zoomorama for that one). HTML5 is no ActionScript 3, and was never intended to be.

And then there's video. In the past few years a number of huge websites – including YouTube – have used Flash to deliver video online. Why? Well, the Flash Player is – according to Adobe – on 99 per cent of connected PCs, and authoring video content and components using Flash is a piece of cake.

"But wait!" I hear you cry. "HTML5 has a video codec, right? And this could replace Flash as the primary way of delivering video content – with no plug-in needed at all. Yeah, baby! Go HTML5!"

The codec that could

Unfortunately, the key word there is 'could'. As things stand, the HTML5 element has no default codec and, despite some support from browsers such as Firefox and Chrome, Internet Explorer still won't play ball and isn't likely to while Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in is still pushing for penetration as a Flash Player alternative.

What you're left with is the following: an HTML5 working group, lacking consensus and pushing an element that won't be adopted by all browsers any time soon; versus a proprietary plug-in, with a passionate developer community, which is used by millions. I know where my money's going in the short term.

I'm not a Flash fanboy, far from it, but I hope we can put an end to talk of HTML5 killing Flash. Despite the fact that most people agree the internet would be a better place without plug-ins, while browsers continue to support different standards, and the people pushing said standards are unable to come to a consensus, then a plug-in is often the only way to achieve a uniform user experience across multiple browsers.

Some of the internet's most successful websites and apps simply wouldn't exist without a little help from Flash and for this reason we should at least give this oft-maligned plug-in some credit. And please, please stop these misinformed proclamations of its imminent demise.

Guide: How to power up your Apple Magic Mouse

Ian Osborne — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Apple's Magic Mouse can recognise four points of contact on its touch-sensitive surface, but only two-fingered gestures are catered for by default.

Don't take this personally though, because there's a great application that helps you get the most out of your Magic Mouse by adding new gestures, three-and four-fingered taps and clicks.

MagicPrefs is a free download, which can be found here. Once you've run it for the first time, it appears as a System Preferences pane or you can manage it through an optional menu bar icon too.

From the new preferences window, your Magic Mouse can be configured to do far more than is possible using the standard System Preferences pane for mouse input.

At the top of the MagicPrefs window sits two slider bars. The Tracking Speed slider performs the same task as the Tracking slider in System Preferences, but increases the maximum available speed by 200%.

According to the program's website, the Tap Sensitivity bar 'implements an advanced algorithm that impacts a number of factors used to determine taps.' The Clicks & Taps panel offers pulldown options that you can activate using your single-or multiple fingered gestures.

A click involves pressing the mouse button with the required number of fingers touching the surface of the device. A tap has you touching the device without pressing the button.

You don't have to enable them all, of course – if a specific gesture is getting in the way by being activated accidentally, simply uncheck it.

The really exciting news is that the very latest version of MagicPrefs adds support for swipe gestures, as well as two-and three fingered pinches, both inwards and outwards. It's incredibly comprehensive, and easy to set up.

When you've configured the mouse to your requirements, you can save your settings as a preset, enabling you to store different custom settings for different tasks.

How to configure your Magic Mouse using MagicPrefs

01. The slider bars

The slider bars control Tracking Speed and Touch Sensitivity. Using MagicPrefs' realtime graphical display as a guide, find the settings you feel most comfortable with.

If you wish, you can save multiple presets, matching your mouse configuration to specific tasks.

02. Clicks and taps

The Clicks & Taps window lets you configure your gestures to perform tasks such as Middle Click, Hold Both Buttons (useful for gamers), Exposé functions and launching the Dashboard or Terminal. These tasks are set up using pull-down menus.

03. Swipes, drags & pinches

The latest release of MagicPrefs adds support for swipes with up to four fingers, drag gestures and pinches, both inwards and outwards.

They can be potentially hard to use, so only activate what you need. You can always add more later, as you improve with practice.

Catch up: this week's most popular posts

Jamie Middleton — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

This week on TechRadar we reported on a slip from Play.com which possibly revealed the Apple iPad's UK price. We also got confirmation of when the HTC legend will be appearing in the shops and heard rumours about the Xbox 360's planned makeover.

Google Street View was also in the headlines with news that its camera cars and bikes have now mapped over 95% of the UK's streets, but worries on privacy weren't far behind.

We also revealed the 10 fastest graphics cards in the world today, looked at some of the oddest arguments that have raged on Wikipedia's pages, and argued the case for and against DRM in games.

Read on for this week's most popular stories on TechRadar…

Top five news stories

Has the iPad UK price been revealed by Play.com?

Apple has decided to keep the UK pricing of the iPad under lock and key but that hasn't stopped one third-party retailer from possibly blurting out a price for the company's tablet computer.

Play.com has been listed on Google Products as selling the Apple iPad for the UK price of £499 for the 16GB version and a whopping £699 for the bigger 64GB version.

Google Street View rolled out to 95% of UK

Google has expanded its Street View universe in the UK, photographing around 95 per cent of the country.

You can now virtually go and take a gander at deepest, darkest Somerset, the sunny docks of Arbroath, Scotland and even the lovely seaside village of Exmouth, Devon if you so wish.

HTC Legend gets UK release date

The HTC Legend has been given a UK release date for later this month - despite not having any confirmed operator support.

Clove Technology is offering the HTC Legend for just £320 SIM-free (£376 including VAT), and the phone will be shipped on 23 March.

Microsoft cracks down on Xbox Live homophobia

If you have ever played against strangers on Xbox Live then you have most likely been exposed to a whole array of homophobic insults, regularly blasted out by frustrated teens on the gaming service.

And while it is difficult for Microsoft – and its millions of gaming customers on Live – to effectively police the service to weed out this widespread homophobia, the fact that the company has now announced a change to its Code of Conduct for the service, whereby you can describe your sexual orientation as gay, straight, bi, lesbian or transgender - is a major step in the right direction towards trying to inform and educate the many ignorant gamers out there.

Xbox 360 to get a different look?

The Xbox 360 may well be in line for a makeover, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

The games console has stayed pretty much the same since its launch, a few colour changes aside, but Ballmer has hinted that this may all be about to change.

Top five in-depth articles

10 unusual but cool iPhone apps

It's criminal how utterly dependent you can become on your iPhone or iPod touch.

But it's not enough to simply rely on it for communication, entertainment and locating a decent pub... Oh no, now fiendish app developers have found even more ways to tie you to Apple's addictive device.

12 things to expect from Virgin Media's next-gen box

Although Virgin Media are remaining coy on the details of its forthcoming next-generation TiVo-enabled boxes, there are plenty of assumptions that can be made.

With the partnership signed and sealed and development well underway on an interface that brings the Virgin Media hardware and the TiVo user experience together, what can you expect to find on the next-generation cable set-top boxes?

Top 10 fastest graphics cards in the world today

For much of the last 10 years, the graphics card market has been a bit of a dull place to be.
Similarly to how Intel has been completely dominating the CPU market, Nvidia has led the way with GPUs. However, the last couple of years have been a lot more interesting.

ATI's 4000-series cards at the end of 2008 offered up almost the same power as the Nvidia GeForce's of the time, but for almost half the price. This put ATI back in contention.Since then, of course, ATI products supporting Windows 7's DirectX 11 have emerged as the fastest and best graphics cards the world has ever seen.

And that's where we are now – with ATI's Radeon HD 5970 sitting firmly on top.

10 of Wikipedia's wackiest arguments
The premise of Wikipedia is laudable. A knowledge depository written and edited by the people, for the people.

The glue that keeps the site together is an evolving set of policies and guidelines, but, these guidelines are open to much interpretation and debate.

For and against DRM in games

The first game containing Ubisoft's massively controversial new digital rights system, which kicks players out of the game if they lose their internet connection for any reason, shipped last week.

Silent Hunter V is just the first of many planned titles to include this 'feature', though a recent revelation that it's already been cracked may throw a spanner in the works. Nonetheless, gamers hate it with righteous passion, while the publisher thinks it's safeguarding PC gaming. So who's right? Well, everyone.

Top five reviews

Samsung Galaxy Portal

Samsung, the famed Korean jack-of-all-technologies, is having another go at mastering the Android phone scene, after making a bit of a mess of it with last year's original Galaxy.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz

Sony Ericsson has come out with another Symbian-based smartphone - but is still a case of headline specs and very little substance?

HTC Legend

After the success of the HTC Hero, the Taiwanese firm is back again with the first of its duo of Android 2.1 phones, the HTC Legend. It's a fantastic handset, and may well be the best ever.

Canon PowerShot A3100

At just £150 (at launch), there's plenty to like about the A3100. It doesn't lack resolution, or image quality, and while the features list might not be a mile long, nothing important is missing.

Philips 47PFL9664H

The 47PFL9664H's excellent picture performance, fine array of features and stylish, high-end design make it a very impressive LCD TV. Perfect if you're looking for a top-notch large screen and have the money

SXSWi 2010: Weak passwords and lack of AV a major issue in social network security

Paul Douglas — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:12:00 +0000

Even after many high-profile hacking and phishing attacks on social networking accounts, and constant messages urging people to be vigilant, the biggest problem with web security is still weak passwords.

Speaking at South by South West Interactive, an industry panel of security engineering managers from Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft discussed the approaches they use to secure their web services.

Del Harvey is Director of Trust and Safety at Twitter. "I have a team of 20 folks, which given that the team at Twitter is about 160, is a very large team and we deal with ensuring the user expectations for privacy are there, and when bad things happen we work to fix them."

Harvey says education is an on-going problem: "The current biggest thing that is crucial to our security programme is trying to get users educated about security. Everyone knows at least one person who says 'I use the same password on every site – but it's a really good one', or 'I use different passwords on every site – I take the first letter of the site and the last letter of the site and then I put my birth year in the middle.'

"It's this big wave right now of almost identity theft-based attempts at hacking, not just on Twitter but also on Facebook and on email sites and messenger sites. There's a big push towards not necessarily brute force [attacks] but more specialised. Obviously we still have brute force issues where we deal with, OK they've tried to log into x number of accounts in y amount of time with z combinations of passwords. And then we have rounds of phishing, straight out 'haha this you?' links."

Ryan McGeehan, Security Manager for Incident Response at Facebook, says: "Awareness is a major thing for us, too. The number of individuals who use the same password across multiple sites is astounding.

"So, for instance, if some obscure web forum that you are a part of gets compromised and the database gets leaked, and the passwords are stored in clear text, then the person who stole that database decides to try all of those usernames and passwords on other sites the success rate is astounding.

"It's an awareness issue; it's a security issue for any site that is dealing with usernames and passwords."

AWARENESS ISSUE: Facebook's Ryan McGeehan

Deepak Manohar looks after security on Windows Live products, which include Hotmail, Live Messenger and Windows Live Photo Gallery. "It's my job to work with our developers to ensure we don't have security and privacy issues with our products and to protect your identity from being stolen," he explains.

User awareness is a major concern and a major part of the Windows Live security program, says Manohar.

"The way we break up our security programme is into proactive and reactive security. Proactive security is what we do up front in the developer lifecycle, and we break that up into training – every developer at Microsoft goes through at least an hour of security training every year.

"We try to cover the most important security threats in that hour of training. So developers learn how these threats are exploited, how these methods are used by attackers to spread malware and perform phishing attacks."

"For our reactive process, we have an incident monitoring team who scour the internet and search for potential issues that people are talking about regarding our sites, so even if they don't properly disclose it to us, we become aware of it and we take reactive steps to mitigate this."

That many people simply don't run anti-virus software is another major headache, adds Manohar.

"Many people don't have anti-virus software on their computer - that is the biggest vector, that's affecting us quite a bit. About 60% of legitimate websites have had some security vulnerability in the last year. And these vulnerabilities are used to spread malware to your computer.

"So my first suggestion is: get anti-virus on your computer and that will help solve the problem. Because once they get malware on your computer, they can log every keystroke; they can change the websites that you visit; they can change the DNS entry in your computer and they send all this data to arbitrary people and there's an underground market which buys and sells this information.

ACCOUNTS FOR SALE: Microsoft's Deepak Manohar

"You can buy Facebook accounts, you can buy Twitter accounts, and you can buy Windows Live accounts, and this is the vector that they use. It is more because of a lack of anti-virus on computers which is leading to people being affected rather than vulnerabilities in the website itself."

Getting your phished account back

So how do you restore access to a compromised account? That's difficult, says Harvey. "If you reset a password and your users don't have a login other than their username and password with no email address connected to it, what are they going to do?"

McGeehan continues: "If you have a single webmail account and it gets phished, usually a good response would be to block out anyone from accessing that account. But then how do you notify that person that they need to reset their password? Because you've just locked out their email.

"And if the user has malware that is attacking your website – if you terminate the session of the attacker there is a piece of malware on that user's machine that is going to bring it right back so you have to communicate to that user and say 'hey, you have to manually remove malware from your machine and then we'll do the rest of the process, which will include resetting your password."

"And that's really hard," adds Harvey. "Telling someone 'hey, your computer is infected - trust us, we are a site on the internet!' It's not very convincing to a lot of people.

"We have a lot of users who will write in and say 'you suspended my account, what's up?' and we say 'you're super-infected, actually' and they will say 'no, I downloaded five torrents last week, and they were .EXEs, but I am not infected.'

"Telling a user in a non-aggressive but factual way is really hard. This is their Facebook account, their Twitter account, their email account, their online identity of some form and you are telling them that it is jacked up and they cannot touch it right now. Nobody wants to hear that.

"So telling them that in a way that doesn't come across as us being aggressive or over-protective or 'we just made an error on our end'… We get a lot of 'no, you must be wrong'. And we're like, 'actually you posted malware. Seven times. In 18 seconds. You are."

China warns Google to obey or 'pay the consequences'

Marc Chacksfield — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Google has been warned by China that it must follow the country's censorship rules or "pay the consequences".

The chilling message was given by Li Yizhong, Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology, who was speaking at China's legislation session.

Giving the reasons why China needs strict censoring laws, he explained: "We need to preserve our nation's interest, our people's interest, we cannot be relaxed with any information that will cause harm to the stability of our society, to our system, and to the health of our under-age young people."

Abide and respect

When it comes to Google, Yizhong said that whether the company disband from China was "up to them" but if it did continue, then the country's laws must be obeyed.

"I hope that Google will abide and respect the Chinese government's laws and regulations," he noted.

"But, if you betray Chinese laws and regulations... it means that you are unfriendly, irresponsible, and you will have to pay the consequences."

It was back in January that Google announced its unease with China's censorship laws and that it was considering pulling out of the country all together.

Since then, companies like Microsoft have come out saying that they will continue to work in China under its rules, regardless of the outcome between the company and Google.

Vodafone UK confirms HTC Legend and Desire

Gareth Beavis — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:24:00 +0000

Vodafone UK has finally confirmed that it will be bringing the HTC Legend and HTC Desire to the UK.

The two phones will be offered on Vodafone's network, with the Legend an exclusive handset for the carrier.

Vodafone was on stage at the launch of the HTC duo at Mobile World Congress and stated that it was bringing the phones to Europe, but inexplicably Vodafone UK refused to admit it was bringing either to our shores.

The truth is out there

But now the truth is out, as we revealed earlier this week, and customers can start getting excited about getting the two hottest handsets of the year.

In our HTC Legend review, we saw a phone that we consider a real contender for phone of the year. And for our hands on HTC Desire review it also became clear that the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered phone is also going to be a real winner.

Both have been given a UK release date for April on Vodafone, and users can register their interest in the phones on the red network's site.

Sky adds ITV HD, Hallmark HD and Sky Sports 4 HD

Patrick Goss — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:55:00 +0000

Sky has announced another raft of new HD channels – with the announcement of ITV1 HD, Hallmark Channel HD and Sky Sports 4 HD pushing the tally to 40.

The Sky platform has the edge over its rivals in sheer volume of HD channels, and it appears this gap will not be reduced any time soon, with the satellite broadcaster aiming for another 10 by the end of 2010.

Sky News HD is poised to arrive in the coming months, and the addition of ITV 1 HD on April 2 means that Sky subscribers will be able to get all World Cup matches in HD.

Virgin Media has also announced the addition of ITV1 HD to its channel line-up.

Hallmark and Sky Sports 4 HD

Hallmark Channel HD will join the Sky platform on June 28 and April 29 will see the addition of Sky Sports 4 HD.

Hilary Perchard, Sky's Director of Product Management, comments: "It's great news for customers that we are making our HD channel pack even better value with more high quality channels.

"We're seeing record demand for HD, both in terms of the number of customers signing up for Sky+HD and the amount of HD programmes they are watching.

"While other TV platforms are only now recognising the growing demand for HD, we're excited to extend our leadership even further by offering more choice to our customers. We look forward to reaching our next milestone, of 50 HD channels, by Christmas."

So UK HD fans are having a really great day.

Apple iPad pre-ordering for US goes live

Marc Chacksfield — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:42:00 +0000

Apple is now taking pre-orders for the Apple iPad, with the gadget now available from $499 in the US.

The announcement was made after Apple posted its usual We'll Be Back Shortly message on its website – which is always a thinly veiled hint that some new release is coming to the store.

While the message was also posted on the UK version of the store, there is still no iPad pre-ordering facility available. And, what's worse, we are still no closer to finding out the price.

April UK release

The Apple iPad was announced by Steve Jobs back in January. The tablet device should be winging its way to the UK late April, but there is still no confirmation on who will be the data carriers for the 3G version.

In fact, there are already a trickle of sites who are offering the iPad, with BundleBox claiming it will bring the iPad to the UK £30 cheaper than whatever the official price is and it will ship it to arrive within three days of the 3 April US release date.

Currently, Orange, Vodafone and O2 are the three being hotly tipped to bring the device to the UK.

There are also some strong suggestions that the Apple iPad will be coming to the UK with a pricing structure that seems to directly swap dollars for pound – so $499 in the States will be £499 in the UK.

For now, though, we'll have to keep waiting till the company come 'back soon' with official confirmation.

This week in music-making tech

Jamie Middleton — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:30:00 +0000

Our colleagues over on MusicRadar publish in-depth music-making hardware and software reviews, tutorials and features powered by industry expert magazines Computer Music and Future Music.

From DAWs, virtual instruments and plug-in FX to hardware synths, grooveboxes and controllers, here are MusicRadar's top music-making tech picks this week…

The 11 best DAW software apps

Based on the results of a poll voted for by the MusicRadar community, these are the most-popular Digital Audio Workstations on the market today. Read the 11 best DAW software apps to find out which one reigns supreme, or scroll down for an in-depth review of each product.

Ableton Live 8 review

It's not without its faults, but this is by far the most powerful Live yet - stunning Groove Engine, enhanced workflow, improved warping and an awesome Looper.

Apple GarageBand '09 review

Easily the best version of GarageBand yet - slicker interface, fantastic artist lessons and very decent guitar amps and effects.

Apple Logic Pro 9 review

The well-conceived audio features, amp and pedal plug-ins, time-saving tricks and massive content library make Logic Pro 9 one of the best all-round DAWs your money can buy.

Avid Pro Tools 8 review

Existing users will still have a few gripes with this DAW (LE and M-Powered versions still slightly hampered and we'd like the full AIR plug-ins to be included), but this update is definitely the most musician-friendly version yet.

Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer review

Don't be fooled by the name: Sonar 8.5 is essentially a full new version in disguise and a must-have upgrade. In particular, the Percussion and Vocal Strips rock!

Cockos Reaper 3 review

Lack of audio editor aside, major DAW manufacturers have good reason to fear the Reaper: it's a viable alternative with some distinct advantages. Quick to load, extremely reasonably priced, very portable and light on resources.

Image-Line FL Studio 9 review

It's perhaps not as immediately impressive an update as FL8 was, but this is another solid step up for the fabulously fruity DAW. The new vocoder plug-in is particularly impressive.

Magix Samplitude 11 Pro review

It doesn't feel as focused as some of the DAWs here, but Samplitude remains strong in terms of power, flexibility and sound quality.

Propellerhead Software Record review

When Propellerhead launched Record in 2009, it was keen to point out that it wasn't a DAW. Yes, it can't host plug-ins, but it does enable you to produce complete audio/MIDI productions (and very easily, too) – so run it with Propellerhead Reason 4 installed for a formidable combination.

Sony Creative Software Acid Pro 7 review

Balancing ease of use and power, this is a great update (a proper mixer, at last!) to a solid app, though it's not likely to convert users of other DAWs.

Steinberg Cubase 5 review

Cubase remains a front-runner in the great DAW race thanks to its integrated VariAudio pitch editing, great virtual MIDI keyboard and time-saving VST Expression feature. Just a shame there's still no sampler included…

Steinberg Nuendo 4 review

It's expensive, but Nuendo is now a fully-functional, flexible audio and post-production system, and a genuine alternative to Pro Tools HD.