All Handheld & accessories Feeds

The Creative way to give your PC better audio

Marc Chacksfield — 1210693260

Creative’s new addition to its X-Fi range, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1, is the first of its type that allows you to upgrade your PCs basic, built-in audio system to 5.1 surround sound.

The device comes in black and simply plugs into a USB2.0 port to give your computer advanced audio capabilities - ideal for those who are afraid to open up your PCs to see what lurks inside.

Located on the Sound Blaster are gold-plated RCA ports and mini-jack outputs, while there’s also an optical-out for connecting to surround sound systems. A rather stylish remote control is also supplied.

Let the games begin

The X-Fi Surround 5.1 is not only geared towards those who want to immerse themselves in their DVD collection, it’s ideal for gamers too.

Put a game on and Creative’s EAX Advanced HD effects kick in, giving – in theory – a fantastic 5.1 gaming experience.

The Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 is out now, priced at around £30.

Nintendo: DS sales have peaked

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Nintendo’s latest financial results show that the phenomenal sales of DS hardware and software have now peaked.

That is, according to the latest analysis from Pocket Gamer’s Jon Jordan.

Despite Nintendo selling "probably the largest number of games consoles ever sold in a 12 month period" with the DS, the recent financial figures clearly show that DS sales in Japan have already peaked, having fallen from 9.1 million to 6.4 million over the last financial year.

Software sales slowdown

Nintendo predicts another 28 million DSs will be sold in FY08-09 – which equates to a fall of 7.5 per cent year-on-year.

Additionally, Pocket Gamer notes that "game sales are only predicted to rise by 0.7 per cent to 187 million – ie game sales per DS will fall sharply" and concludes that:

"There are only so many versions of Brain Training and Nintendogs that the old and the young are prepared to buy (despite all the good work being done by the likes of Nintendo and Ubisoft)."

Too many crosswords

"In FY06-07, 591 new DS games were released (the majority in Japan)," continues Jordan's analysis.

"Yet over the past 12 months, 1,095 new games were shipped with almost every territory, doubling the number of new titles released; a completely ridiculous and unsustainable situation that's seen far too many cat, dog, pony, donkey, horse, fish, vet, fashion, lifestyle, language and crossword games released."

TechRadar has contacted Nintendo in the UK for further comment.

Go!View PSP video download service unveiled

Adam Hartley — 1209041177

PlayStation and Sky have just sent over the first details on the rather exciting-sounding Go!View, a partnership between the two gaming and entertainment giants set up to deliver the first official PSP video download service in Europe later in the summer.

"Go!View will provide a wealth of programming from the worlds of entertainment, comedy, sport and movies for PSP owners to enjoy in addition to their usual gaming experience," Sony’s press release informs us.

PSP users will be able to create their own individual TV schedule on their handheld, with Sky and PlayStation claiming that the joint venture provides "a service that makes portable, video-on-demand a reality".

Ultimate portable TV

Users will pay a monthly subscription (with the cost still ‘to be confirmed’) and then be able to download content to the PSP via their PC.

"Go!View allows PSP users to take advantage of a unique service, adding another dimension to PSP’s offering," said Owen Jenkinson, Go!View marketing manager.

Jenkinson added: "The opportunity to watch top TV and movies on-the-go and on-demand will allow PSP owners to enjoy their favourite entertainment on their own terms, enhancing the PSP’s offering as a portable gaming console."

PlayTV versus Go!View

The Go!View service is not to be confused with Sony’s own PlayTV, which essentially turns your PS3 into a freeview tuner digital video recorder from which you can stream TV content and movies over the internet to your PSP on the go.

More info on the imminent launch of that service is due from a Sony press event scheduled in for early May.

"Go!View is a perfect marriage of great content and leading on-demand technology from Sky and the best portable device to watch it on from PlayStation," said Alison Turner, managing director of Go!View.

The Go! portfolio

Go!View is the latest addition to the PSP’s Go! portfolio of products, which already includes Go!Messenger, a wireless communication package for PSP and theGo!Cam camera attachment.

For further information of the Go! range you can check out the cutesy (and Flash-heavy) gopspgo site.

Nintendo DS emulates classic KORG synthesiser

J Mark Lytle — 1208934496

Japanese game producer AQ interactive must have some extra-geeky nerds on its programming staff, judging by the bang-up job they’ve done of implementing a classic synthesiser on the Nintendo DS.

AQI’s KORG DS-10 is, you may have guessed, a handheld virtual implementation of KORG’s MS-10 synth from the 1970s. Best of all for fans of retro tech, it’s currently being polished off for a Japan release in July at just ¥4,800 (£23).

You’re my best pal, you are

The developers, who claim to have come up with the DS-10 as a result of a barroom challenge among themselves, have loaded the DS with real synth samples from KORG and combined them with screens that replicate the look of the original hardware.

Musicians reading this will want to know that the touchscreen gives access to two analogue synthesizers, a drum machine, a six-track sequencer and a mixer. If that all sounds mysterious, AQI assures us even a novice can get to grips with the DS-10.

Lastly, this isn’t the solo, bedroom-bound pursuit we expected – the wireless link on the DS means like-minded musos can get together in a room and twiddle each other’s knobs until the early hours.

Reviewed: Nintendo Wii Balance Board

James Rivington — 1208343254

Nintendo has completely reinvented itself over the last two years. It's gone from playing third-fiddle in the gaming market to being arguably the major player. Innovation was at the heart of its new drive to success. And innovation is a key part of the Wii Fit Balance Board too.

It’s been a long time coming. But we’ve finally managed to get our hands on one. And we found that it was every bit as fun as we’d hoped.

That said, like the Wii itself, the Balance Board has a novelty factor which will definitely decay over time. So it’s hard to say how long it will hold people’s interest.

It’s also not as fun to play with on your own, meaning you need someone else to play with to make it worth your time.

But still, this is a very, very cool gaming accessory. And one that most Nintendo Wii owners will be eyeing up this summer.

Read our full review

Who to believe? New DS this year or not?

Don Reisinger — 1208308191

We know one thing for sure - there's plenty of cheap talk suggesting Nintendo will unveil a new version of its blockbusting DS Lite at this year's E3 event. But the only people who really know have said nada.

The rumour originated at Bloomberg Japan, but quickly gained steam across the globe. According to the report, Nintendo is poised to release an upgraded DS in July and gamers should expect a number of improvements.

Just a possibility?

The report covered a Tokyo press conference given by Enterbrain president Hirokazu Hamamura, who said that he believes "there is the possibility" of a new DS being unveiled at Nintendo's press conference at the E3 Media & Business Summit.

In the past, Nintendo has held its press conference on the morning before the start of the expo, which will begin on 15 July.

Nintendo declined to comment on the rumour, but those that are close to the situation say that the new DS could sport a larger screen, a smaller case and even better multi-touch support. It's gotta happen sometime, right?

The future of technology is 'hacked'

PC Plus magazine — 1206100095

Pretty much everything in the world of tech these days is being hacked, either unofficially - in the case of iPhones - or with the manufacturers' blessing, as in the case of Intel and AMD.

Intel's 'Bad Axe' motherboards, for example, make it easy to overclock your CPU, and AMD-owned ATI provides an overclocking tool called OverDrive with its Radeon graphics cards.

Meanwhile Apple admits that 1.45 million of its iPhones are 'missing in action', which means they've almost certainly been hacked to run on other phone networks or to run unapproved applications.

The company has tried to fight the trend by 'bricking' iPhones - issuing software updates that disable hacked phones altogether - but it can't hold back the hacking tide. As soon as Apple has disabled a hack on the iPhone, the race is on to hack the firmware again.

It seems that if you can't beat 'em, you need to join 'em. Apple has already demoed its iPhone/iPod Software Development Kit (SDK), which will enable developers to supplement or replace the iPhone's standard applications. The hacking community has already unlocked it.

Meanwhile Google and Intel are offering eminently customisable, Linux-based platforms for phones and PCs in the form of Google's Android OS for phones and Intel's Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform for small portable PCs. Things are getting interesting.

Personal computing gets more personal

The open source Google Android platform brings the DIY/customisation ethic to mobile phones, a platform previously famed for the networks' strict rules on what applications handsets could run. Personal technology, it seems, is about to get even more personal.

Don't like your PC's performance? Hack the CPU. Wish your phone was a better games machine? Hack it and install an emulator. Don't like the way the web works? Install Firefox's Greasemonkey add-on and bend the entire Internet to your will. Reckon Half-Life 2 would be better if it featured a virtual Eamonn Holmes doing handstands? Build your own mod.

In many cases hacking can make an existing product even more attractive and boost sales. Some products have even been improved. TiVo devotees, for example, added Wi-Fi to the company's first-gen DVRs; while coders added applications such as My Movies and MCE Customiser to Microsoft's early Media Center software builds.

On a very basic level, how many of you hacked your DVD players to unlock its region coding? Sites like DVDexploder exist for precisely this reason.

Hardware firms now know that if they don't support the very lucrative modding market, their rivals will. Software developers know that community-created add-ons and extensions can make their programs more compelling.

And websites and services know that the more goodies they can offer, the more people will use their services - which is why Google and Yahoo! encourage developers to build 'mashups' from their various online services, Facebook offers an application development platform to annoy users more efficiently and publishing platforms such as Wordpress use 'widgets' to integrate popular services such as Flickr or Google AdSense.

There goes your data

When you install a widget built by Google or Microsoft you can be confident that it's not up to anything dodgy, but can you say the same for a third-party website add-on from a developer you've never heard of?

The risk from malicious online applications is fairly small - the very nature of the Internet means any dodgy deeds would be quickly exposed and widely publicised - but there are real concerns over data privacy and security.

For example, if you install a third-party Facebook application you'll be warned that Facebook doesn't screen or approve application developers and cannot control what they do with your data. As application developers are global, it's safe to assume that they neither know nor care about the Data Protection Act or other UK-specific legislation.

Website mashups - such as combining mapping services with other sources of data - are a particular concern, because by aggregating multiple data sources they can create worrying new applications.

As Tom Owad describes on AppleFritter, it's relatively easy to combine mapping data with Amazon wish lists. As he demonstrates, once you've done that you can see where, say, people who want to read 1984 live - and zoom right in to have a look at their house.

Add in someone's Flickr photos, the classified ads they've posted online, their Facebook news feed and the electoral roll data used by sites such as 192.com and you've got an extremely comprehensive picture of someone's life.

Middling security

Another concern about mashups and third-party applications is what's known as a man-in-the-middle attack. As IBM Research's Paul Karger told the 2007 IEEE Web 2.0 Security and Privacy Workshop, "With mashups, the presence of a man-in-the-middle is totally legitimised. The operator of the mashup might be trustworthy, or the operator might be an evil attacker, and the end user has no way of knowing the difference."

Even if the middleman is legitimate, that doesn't mean your data is secure. No matter how well various websites and services protect your data, if the site that combines them doesn't take security equally seriously then it's a very weak link in the chain - and a potential goldmine for the various villains that infest the Internet.

For most of us, though, the risks of open platforms and online data are massively outweighed by the benefits. After all, if it weren't for openness the Internet as we know it wouldn't exist. Would you trade today's Internet for the walled garden days of CompuServe and AOL? No, neither would we.

Pimp My Nintendo DS

Adam Hartley — 1205860045

TechRadar's favourite PC and Mac colour customisation company Colorware has added the Nintendo DS to its list of gadgets it can offer a pimped-up paint job on, as you can see pictured right here.

Choose to pimp the DS to your heart’s content with Colorware’s proprietary hybrid coating process.

Choose a main colour, frame colour and bottom colour via Colorware’s online design studio interface or, if console colour design is not your forte, simply hit the 'Brainstorm' button in the design studio window for inspiration.

You can pimp your DS right now for a mere $129 (£65) and, if you are US-based, you can even buy a brand new, fully pimped DS Lite from the site from only $259 (£130).

Or you could attempt to do it yourself for almost free with a bit of Araldite (hint - don't!).

PSP - Skype responds to BT's Go!Messenger

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Following the recent release of BT's Go!Messenger for Sony’s PSP handheld, TechRadar spoke with BT and Skype this week to find out a little more about the advantages of each service.

We first contacted Skype for a response to the recent launch of BT’s new service, which to some observers seems like it might have stolen Skype’s PSP thunder.

Sue Powell, Skype's director of product management, devices and mobile told us: "The availability of BT’s Go!Messenger on the PSP has not stolen the value of Skype also being available to PSP uses. Skype is available for Sony slim and lite PSP not just in Europe but across the globe."

Powell added: "With over 276 million people registered with Skype, many PSP users are already making free voice calls to other people using Skype. Skype also lets PSP users talk not only to other Skype users, but to call landlines and mobile phones anywhere in the world at very cheap rates using SkypeOut. This gives our users greater flexibility to communicate."

BT responds

In response to Mrs Powell’s comments above, we sought further clarification on what Go!Messenger might offer PSP users that Skype doesn’t. Here's what BT’s group director of Mobility and Convergence, Warren Buckley, told us:

“BT does not see Go!Messenger as directly competitive with the Skype PSP proposition and fully believes in offering choice to all customers. Go!Messenger is targeted at those PSP users who want a full and rich communication experience that takes advantage of the video entertainment strengths of the PSP.

“Go!Messenger offers 11m PSP Users, both slim and lite and the original PSP, video, voice and instant messaging facilities to all other PSP users and to PCs via a free downloaded client. Go!Messenger also includes free video and voice messaging and Yahoo search options.”

There we go then. The upshot is that you might want to use both services to see which one suits you most. If you have lots of contacts already on Skype, we suspect you will plump for that service. If not, Go!Messenger is likely to be your PSP communication tool of choice.

Nintendo and developer respond to 'DS game ban' news

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‘Nintendo bans DS holocaust game!’ read the scurrilous (and totally unsubstantiated) ‘news’ on numerous websites, blogs and fan sites yesterday, relating to a 'work in progress' game project from British developer Alten8.

Imagination is the Only Escape is the working title of 21-year-old Luc Bernard’s DS game, set during the Holocaust, in which you play a French Jewish boy trying to escape the horrors of Nazi occupied France. Bernard describes as "Schindler's List meets Alice in Wonderland"

The game has already generated a considerable amount of pre-publicity, with Bernard telling the New York Times, that his concept for the game was non-violent and educational.

Nintendo scared?

In another interview, Bernard was quoted as saying: "From what I was told, Nintendo Europe is also scared of it,” which seems to be the source of the rumours that Nintendo was somehow planning to ‘ban’ Imagination is the Only Escape.

Taking into consideration the obvious facts that Nintendo has no direct power to ‘ban’ a game and that the game is in the very early stages of development, TechRadar decided to contact Alten8 and Nintendo directly to find out more.

Paul Andrews, CEO of Alten8 Limited told us that: “It is at this point a concept , which was originally planned for DS , but may move to another Nintendo format yet.”

So it seems that it could be planned to develop the game for Wii, but as Andrews himself reminded us, “it is still at early pre-production / concept stage.”

"Yesterday’s non-story about the supposed ‘Nintendo ban’ “was picked up from artwork on Luc's blog and press interest snowballed from that.”

When asked further about the background to the concept behind Imagination is the Only Escape Andrews avoided a direct answer, telling us: “Luc's work / concepts are under contract with Alten8, Luc does not work directly for Alten8, hence his views are his own.”

Who controls Wii Ware?

So is there a publisher deal already in place for the game?

“We intend to either self publish, dependent on our status at that point, or work with other publishing partners, or if it were to be changed to [distribution via] Wii Ware, this would of course go out via Nintendo directly from ourselves,” adds Andrews.

This raises an interesting point. If Imagination is the Only Escape is distributed online via Wii Ware, will Nintendo have the final say on green-lighting the project? TechRadar has contacted Nintendo UK today to get clarification on this issue.

Andrews confirms that yesterday’s media feeding frenzy “came about as reporters started contacting Nintendo asking when it was coming out, to which they replied 'it is not coming out', as correctly it had not been discussed with them at that point in time, and they did know nothing of the potential game. Nintendo will only confirm on games registered / schedule to come out at that point in time with them , not on concepts / proposals etc.

All PR is good PR.

“The positive thing to come out of this recent media frenzy, is that it has opened an interesting debate on how people perceive games," Andrews adds. "Are they just simple moments of killing time? Are they art? Are they and can they be more educational?

“Things like Brain Training and Wii Fit, have started to change perceptions of people on games and maybe we have opened another debate with Imagination, even if it was by accident.”

Stay tuned for more from Nintendo UK on Wii Ware and Imagination is the Only Escape as we get it.

[Update: just in from Nintendo UK - "Nintendo Of Europe can confirm that they have not yet been contacted by developer Luc Bernard regarding the release of Imagination is the only Escape DS and have no further comment to add at this stage."]