Titulares de Motos - elsemanaldigital.com

SYM Symphony, una compra inteligente

N.F.B — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

La firma taiwanesa de motocicletas SYM ha puesto a la venta en España su nuevo scooter de rueda alta Symphony, un modelo de 125 que aporta facilidad de conducción y confort sin renunciar a cierto dinamismo inherente a su condición.

Nueva Aprilia Caponord 1200

Borja Fadón de la Pedraja — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

La casa italiana presenta la última interpretación del concepto de moto de enduro para carretera con la nueva Caponord 1200 una trail de dos cilindros en V con mucha tecnología que facilitará su conducción.

Kymco K-XCT, ciñéndose a la deportividad

N.F.B — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Kymco lanzará durante el próximo mes de marzo su nuevo scooter K-XCT, en versiones de 125 y de 300 centímetros cúbicos. Este modelo tiene un carácter más deportivo y dinámico que la Super Dink.

Zero Motorcycles S y DS, el poder de la electricidad

Borja Fadón de la Pedraja — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Las motos eléctricas llevan ventaja sobre los coches por su menor peso, menores periodos de carga y mayores posibilidades de utilización ciudadana. La empresa americana Zero Motorcycles demuestra que además no tienen por qué ser productos aburridos.

Honda MSX125, diversión y funcionalidad

Borja Fadón de la Pedraja — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Honda pondrá a la venta en el segundo trimestre del año la nueva Mini Street X-treme 125 (MSX125), una moto compacta inspirada en la emblemática Monkey de 1963 que se caracterizaba por sus pequeñas ruedas y su capacidad de ser llevada a todas partes fácilmente.

MX Motor C5 125, funcionalidad en estado puro.

N.F.B — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

El fabricante español de motocicletas MX Motor ya tiene listo su nuevo scooter de rueda alta y 125 centímetros cúbicos, el C5, un arma afinada para uso urbano que destaca por su eficiencia en todos los frentes.

BMW K 1300 S ´30 Jahre K-Modelle

N.F.B — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

BMW Motorrad ha presentado en el Salón de Milán la nueva serie especial K 1300 S ´30 Jahre K-Modelle´, una montura que conmemora el 30 aniversario del lanzamiento de la incombustible e inimitable Serie K.

Nuevo SYM Joymax, camaleón urbano

Motor ESD (Héctor Santín) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

El nuevo scooter de la marca asiática es la continuación de la saga GTS que desembarcó en España en 2010 como una alternativa fiable y económica a los GT que reinan en este segmento, y el nuevo SYM Joymax supone un salto de calidad enorme.

Triumph Trophy, el retorno al mundo GT

N.F.B — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT

La marca inglesa ya tiene a punto la tercera generación de la Triumph Trophy, una montura ideal para devorar kilómetros que va equipada al máximo y que puede llevar suspensión electrónica o un nuevo sistema de basculación de maletas.

SYM Joymax 125 y 300, scooters urbanitas

N.F.B — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

La firma de motocicletas SYM lanzará durante el próximo mes de junio en el mercado español su nuevo modelo Joymax, que estará disponible en versiones de 125 y de 300 centímetros cúbicos.

La nueva Honda Wave llega a España

N.F.B — Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

La división de motos de Honda ha iniciado la comercialización en España de su nuevo modelo Wave, que deriva del Innova y de la Super Cub y pretende ser ese vehículo asequible, divertido y fácil de usar que arrasa en Asia.

Aprilia SRV 850, la redefinición del Maxi Scooter

N.F.B — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

La casa de Noale no quiere perderse la guerra de los scooters de alta cilindrada y presenta un modelo muy deportivo que combina el motor más potente del segmento con una estética heredada de la Aprilia RSV4. La SRV 850 es el nuevo referente de estos vehículos para ejecutivos que pueden con todo.

Ducati Monster Diesel, estilo urbano

N.F.B — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Cuando dos firmas italianas de renombre se juntan para crear un producto lleno de personalidad y estilo el éxito parece asegurado. Ducati pone la tecnología y Diesel el diseño, y la unión ofrece una moto híper exclusiva con calidad por los cuatro costados.

MV Agusta Brutale 675, distinción más accesible

N.F.B — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

MV Agusta, una de las marcas de motos italianas más deseadas, presenta un nuevo modelo de naked que pretende acercar su exclusividad a más clientes gracias a la reducción de su cilindrada. Y todo ello sin perder un ápice de su despliegue tecnológico.

BMW C650 GT y Sport, revolución alemana en dos ruedas

N.F.B — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Ante el auge de los scooter de gran cilindrada BMW reaparece en el segmento con una propuesta doble que quiere ser el nuevo punto de referencia. El C650 GT hará las delicias del público ejecutivo, y el C650 Sport colmará a los pilotos consumados.

Yamaha T-Max 2012, mejorando lo muy bueno

N.F.B — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

El maxiscooter más Premium y más deportivo del mercado, la Yamaha T-Max, se actualiza para seguir ahondando en un concepto que ha hecho furor entre los ejecutivos moteros, el de combinar en un vehículo lo mejor de dos mundos: motos y scooters.

Ossa Explorer 2012, la reedición de un icono

N.F.B — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

La marca de motos afincada en Gerona lanzará el año que viene una reedición de la Ossa Explorer que comercializaron entre 1972 y 1976. Económica, fiable y fácil de conducir, quiere ser una moto para todo.

Buying Guide: Best FM transmitter for iPhone & iPod: 5 on test

Graham Barlow — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Best FM transmitters: Contenders and features

There are various in-car solutions for listening to your iPod while you drive, but by far the most convenient is the humble FM transmitter.

These handy little devices plug into the dock connector of your iPhone or iPod and create their own mini radio station, transmitting whatever's playing on your iPod app on an FM radio frequency that your car radio can then tune to, just as it does with normal radio stations.

This way, you get a convenient solution to in-car audio that doesn't need wires trailing all over your car, or require a new stereo system.

These FM transmitters can send your music over a range of about 10 metres, which is more than enough for in-car use. The only thing you need to make sure of is that you find an empty band on the spectrum, as otherwise you'll clash with broadcasts from commercial radio stations. This can be a pain when travelling long distances and moving in and out of the range of different local radio stations.

FM transmitters come in all shapes and sizes at different price points and with different features. Some have charging cables and even their own apps to help you select a clear frequency, while others are so simple they only have three buttons.

To help you choose the perfect FM transmitter, we've been on the road with five different devices from five different manufacturers, and put them all through the wringer.

1. Belkin TuneBase FM LIVE - £30

2. Griffin iTrip Auto - £32

3. KitSound MY FM - £16

4. Logic 3 FM Transmitter Charger - £24

5. Monster iCarPlay Wireless 300 - £25

Test one: Features

The basic things you want from an in-car FM transmitter are the ability to autoscan for a free frequency, the ability to manually change frequency without too much fuss, the ability to charge your iPhone, and the ability to add preset stations so you can save time. Not all the devices here have all these basic functions, while some exceed them by a long way.

Starting at the bottom end of the pricing scale, there's the KitSound MY FM, which has only an autoscan button and plus and minus buttons, but no preset ability. In contrast, the Monster iCarPlay Wireless 300 has three preset stations, but no ability to autoscan for a clear frequency, which makes it frustrating to use.

Both the Monster and the KitSound can charge, but don't come with cigarette lighter adapters for getting power. The Monster does come with a USB lead, just nothing to plug it into.

The Monster iCarPlay Wireless 300 is also particularly poor at changing frequency. In fact, it feels positively archaic to use compared to the other models.

The Logic 3 transmitter is interesting because it includes an in-car charger, but lacks autoscan and is compatible only with iPods. That's fine for people with an iPod touch, nano or classic, but if you've got an iPhone you'll hear a nasty background noise on the radio. If you're an iPhone owner, make sure the transmitter you go for is definitely compatible with iPhones as well as iPods to avoid this.

Next up is the Griffin iTrip Auto, which is positively dripping in features. The in-line controller has a little display and a menu button so you can cycle through different settings screens, such as preset stations and autoscan, and if that's not enough there's also a dedicated app you can download on your phone to do the autoscan and tweak sound options. There are also track controls on the in-line clicker and display unit.

Finally the Belkin TuneBase FM is the only transmitter here that comes with a stand. It plugs into your cigarette lighter, and a flexible arm positions your iPhone or iPod exactly as you'd like it. The Belkin also has its own app, but unlike the Griffin you have a few basic iPod track controls within the app as well, so you don't have to mess about switching apps to change frequency and control your music.

Like the Griffin, there are also physical buttons to control things like autoscan and presets, so you don't need to use the app if you'd rather just stick with controlling the unit directly.

Test results

Test two: Ease of use

By far the easiest of all the FM transmitters to use is the Belkin, purely because its stand puts your iPhone at eye level, so you only need to glance across at the dock and tap the screen when it's running the Belkin ClearScan LIVE app to change things. You don't even need to change to your iPod app to skip a track, which is a real blessing.

Having a convenient stand really does make a huge difference to how easy these devices are to use, especially when you're driving.

The Griffin takes second place thanks to having track controls and its own iPhone app, while the Monster comes last because of its old-fashioned display and frustrating control system. The KitSound lacks features, but it's pretty easy to use, as is the Logic 3 device.

Test results

Best FM transmitters: Performance and verdict

Test three: Performance

When testing the transmitters on the road, there didn't seem to be anything to choose between all the models we tested when it came to the quality of the sound they produced. Perhaps the Belkin sounded a fraction louder than the others, but it was too close to call.

Obviously, the Logic 3 didn't perform well when plugged into an iPhone rather than an iPod, but it does say it's meant for iPod only on the packaging, so won't judge it harshly. We didn't experience any signal drop with any unit, and none of them lost its station more frequently than any others, so in this respect we can't fault any of them.

The overall quality of sound has more to do with your car's stereo system than it does with which type of FM transmitter you use.

Test results

And the winner is… Belkin TuneBase FM LIVE - £30

Top quality for a great price. This has everything you'd want from an FM transmitter

We have to give this to the Belkin. It's got all the features we could ask for from an FM transmitter, and at a superb price, but most important is the convenience of having a stand for your iPhone or iPod when using it. Without a cradle to sit in, we can guarantee that at some point your precious iPhone will end up taking a hard knock on the floor as you brake sharply or take a tight corner and it flies off the passenger seat.

Inevitably, as you drive along you'll move into the range of new local radio stations, which can interfere with the frequency you've chosen, so you'll need to change frequency, and without a stand you'll have to hold your iPhone or mess about with buttons on the transmitter to do this, which isn't exactly safe driving. With the Belkin, you only need to give its app a little glance and tap the screen to change frequency, minimising distractions.

The only downside is that your iPhone being so accessible tempts you to do more with it while you're driving, such as texting, which is not only stupid and dangerous, but also illegal. We're sure you'll use it responsibly, though.

The Griffin iTrip Auto is a strong second place in our group test. It's a nice product, and we should note that Griffin also do a RoadTrip HandsFree that has the same benefits of the Belkin model on test here and costs £65, although at time of writing Amazon were doing it half price.

If you're after a budget FM transmitter, the cheeky little KitSound MY FM gets our vote. Sure, it's a strictly no-frills product that lacks the option for having any preset stations, but it's got a very readable display, autoscans for frequencies and it just works. In contrast, it makes the Monster iCarPlay Wireless (which does have presets, but no autoscan), with its '80s clock radio style LED display and fiddly control system, look very long in the tooth.

We should note that the Logic 3 is the only transmitter at the lower end of the price scale that includes all the bits you need to actually charge your device in your car; it's just a shame they don't do a charging version that supports the iPhone.

Note that Logic 3 also sells an FM transmitter that looks exactly the same as the KitSound MY FM, just with different logos on it; we'd imagine this performs exactly like the KitSound, since it's essentially identical.

Buying Guide: If you liked Micro Machines, you'll love these iOS games

Craig Grannell — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:00:00 GMT

Top-down iOS racing games

Although Micro Machines is our chosen jumping-off point this month, the origins of the top-down racing genre are much, much older than Codemasters' classic, even pre-dating microprocessor arcade games.

As far back as 1974, Atari worked on arcade cabinets such as Gran Trak 10, which pitted gamers against each other as they wrestled primitive glowing cars around 2D tracks, the edges of which were simply dozens of white dots. Back then, this was like having the most exciting race ever beamed directly into your eyes; today, it looks about as advanced as a teasmade.

A decade later, Atari decided to dust off and remake some of its old properties, giving rise to the masterful Super Sprint, which was a top-down racer that eschewed realism and gave gamers head-to-head thrills.

When Micro Machines arrived a few years later, Codemasters infused an extra dollop of fun into the top-down racing genre. The game featured tiny toy vehicles in fierce rivalries, competing on makeshift tracks comprising in part baths, tables and bits of garden; and it proved that a link with real-life racing wasn't really necessary to make a great racing videogame.

As long as you could drive fast and get an adrenaline rush by shaving past an opponent only fractions of a second from the finishing line, it didn't really matter if you were supposed to be a Formula 1 driver speeding to glory at the Monaco Grand Prix or a tiny piece of plastic zooming along on a breakfast table. The environments didn't detract from the racing; in fact, they even made it more enjoyable, ensuring the game stood out among its gravel-circuit-obsessed contemporaries.

Neither Super Sprint nor Micro Machines has made it to iOS, but there are a number of topdown racing games for your devices that provide similar arcade-oriented thrills – and usually for a fraction of the cost that the aforementioned titles cost on home consoles two decades ago.

Nano and Doodle

If you're looking for something pretty close to Micro Machines, with its tiny cars and oddball environments, Nano Rally (69p, iPhone; 69p, iPad) is the closest option from a visual standpoint. It has little vehicles racing in gardens, on tables and in a shed, although we think the game's a bit clunky and the cars feel too sticky – a far cry from Micro Machines and its rather looser handling.

Doodle Kart (69p, iPhone) is quite a bit better, offering a very similar top-down view to Nano Rally, but in 'doodle' style (the graphics look like someone sketched them with a pen) and with some basic weapons that you can collect and fire at your rivals.

PAPER RACER: Mum's going to be annoyed you've driven through that paint in Paper Racer. This is why you can't have nice things

The driving's still a bit sluggish and awkward, though, and so the first game we truly recommend in this area is Paper Racer (69p, iPhone). Superficially, Paper Racer resembles a mix of Nano Rally and Doodle Kart, in that you race little paper vehicles on tables, and you can even photograph your own sketch and load it into the game.

But where Paper Rally speeds past its rivals is in the way the cars handle: the controls and physics in the game are both just about perfect, and the races are fast. It's also flexible; not only can you drift, but the environments are interactive – in Nano Rally and Doodle Kart, you stop dead when you collide with something, but in Paper Racer, you can hit a bolt and send it flying, or drive through paint splats to make tiny tyre trails across the screen.

No other iOS games come quite so close to matching Paper Racer for Micro Machines-style thrills, but two further games are worth a look.

PLAY ROOM RACING: This is one of the closest games to the Micro Machines of old

Playroom Racer HD (£1.49, Universal) has you racing inside children's bedrooms, in a 3D world that could be right out of the PlayStation version of Micro Machines. The handling is a bit floaty, and it's all too easy for your car to get overturned, after which it takes some time to right itself.

But the tracks look good (at least on the iPad – on smaller iOS devices, the visuals aren't quite so appealing) and the various difficulty levels add plenty of lasting challenge, even if the unlock mechanism requires a bit too much grinding.

Touch or Danger?

Touch Racing (£2.49, Universal) is another game that works much better on the iPad. It has you racing remote-control cars around increasingly tough tracks that appear to have been designed by sadists; some of them even include the kind of half-pipes that would make a skateboarder from the '80s yell 'Gnarly, dude!', before blinding you with his fluorescent socks.

The controls are a bit strange – you just use one finger to define speed and direction – but they work well on the iPad. On the iPhone and iPod, everything's far more fiddly and it's too easy to obscure the track with your finger, making collisions far more probable.

DANGER SPOTS: We're not sure Danger Derby's skulls on the track put racers in the right frame of mind

For more racing thrills, you must leave behind the world of toys and head back towards full-size vehicles. However, games like VS Racing (69p, iPhone) and Danger Derby (£2.99, iPad) retain the old-school arcade-racing feel of Micro Machines.

VS Racing is the simplest of the pair, with dinky cars racing around six varied tracks. Its rubber-banding – which is designed to make sure races are always competitive – is annoying, and makes winning a bit of a lottery.

Danger Derby has similarly tiny cars, but its tracks are purely single-screen and they often include giant crushers and deadly drops. Even in its desire to make motorsport more exciting, we suspect Formula 1's FIA would heed the warnings of health and safety on these tracks. On the iPad, Danger Derby's a blast, even if the virtual controls appear to be designed for aesthetics over comfort.

Finally, a pair of Tap!-reviewed, somewhat-3D titles. Death Rally (£1.99, Universal) didn't entirely set our world on fire first-time round, but it has plenty of fans; and while the game's visuals are grimy and post-apocalyptic, the arcade handling, weapons and regular race-leader changes place it spiritually in the same space as Micro Machines.

STILL THE BEST: Reckless Racing is still the best racing game on iOS, with varied environments and pretty graphics

Mind you, for larger-than-life, top-down arcade racing of the finest calibre, we argued that Reckless Racing (69p, iPhone; £2.99, iPad) was a must-buy six months ago, and that hasn't changed. The game's mix of beautiful graphics, varied environments (dirt tracks, cliff-tops, frozen lakes) and superb handling makes it the finest topdown racer on iOS, and also a worthy successor to the classics of the genre. 2D sprites it ain't, but the spirit's the same.

Tutorial: Hack virtual 1980s networks with Telehack

Jon Thompson — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Using Telehack: learning the ropes

Long before social media, online shopping and cloud computing came something that was far more magical and engaging.

The ARPAnet was the forerunner of the internet – a place where security was an afterthought and people roamed the expanses of the developing digital world looking for new systems to explore.

Those days were long gone until a developer going by the username Forbin decided to recreate as much of the ARPANet as possible for people to explore by hacking.

Currently standing at around 24,000 simulated computers, Telehack is a stylised simulation of the ARPANet as it was around 1985-1990.

Getting into Telehack

ENABLE TELNET: For security reasons, Microsoft has disabled the Windows 7 telnet client and buried the switch to turn it on deep inside the Control Panel

Telehack is a massively multiplayer environment for would-be hackers to legally hone their skills. You can enter it on any computer that has a telnet client.

Entering Telehack is as simple as surfing to telehack.com, but you can also open up a command line and type telnet telehack.com. If you've never used telnet in Windows 7 before, you'll need to enable it before this command will work.

To enable telnet, click the 'Start' button and select 'Control Panel'. Click the 'Programs' section and then click 'Programs and features'. Next click 'Turn Windows features on and off'. A sub-window appears and populates a list of Windows features. Scroll down to the entry 'Telnet client' and make sure its tick box is selected. Click 'OK' and dismiss the Control Panel. You should now be able to telnet into Telehack.com.

To log out of any computer in the Telehack universe, you can type exit, quit or logout. However, a hacker would simply press [Ctrl]+[D].

When you connect, you should be met by the Message of the Day (MOTD). This is a piece of text that used to appear whenever people logged into a computer terminal and told them important things such as who owned the machine, who to ask for help and any restrictions there were on behaviour. Nowadays, it's considered dangerous to reveal anything about the system, but those were different times.

Until we create an account on the Telehack server, we're limited to just the commands displayed in the MOTD. Enter the command newuser to set up an account. You're asked for an account name and a password. The prompt at the start of the command line changes from a full stop to an @ symbol, showing that we're logged in.

Every time you telnet into the Telehack server, you'll begin in the guest account again. To log in, enter the command login, then your username and password.

Telehack is a kind of game, and there are levels to attain. When you learn a new hacking skill, a system message from an account called Operator will inform you of your progress. You'll also gain access to more commands and system resources.

The Unix command finger is usually used to look up useful information such as a user's phone number or office address. In Telehack it's also used to view your score information by entering the finger command followed by your username on any host. If you use finger without a username it will give a list of all the users currently logged in. Enter with another user's name and you'll see their progress.

To see the users on another server (correctly called a host), use finger @<hostname>. You'll see a mix of historical accounts that are available for you to guess passwords, and other players. The players appear at the end of the list and don't have an IP address. So how do you find other hosts?

Making connections

NEW USER: Use the newuser command to create an account and you're ready to hack. It's a simple as that, somewhat worryingly

Computers on the ARPANet each had a local table of other hosts they could connect with. This table is accessed using the netstat command. Enter this and a list of computers appears. These belong to corporations and universities, just like they did back in the day.

Let's now telnet into one of these hosts to look around. Pick one and enter the command telnet <hostname>, replacing <hostname> with your choice of host. Hit return and you'll see the MOTD of the remote host and a request for a username.

These days, the guest account is disabled by default in Windows and other operating systems, but in times gone by, it was considered a courtesy to grant such access to anyone who may need temporary use of your computer.

To help remote guests log in, the account usually had no password. Enter the username guest and press 'enter', and you'll log straight into the remote host's guest account. The guest account is limited in what it can do, and the aim in hacking is always to gain the best system privileges possible because this gives the best access and control. Press Ctrl-D to log out of the remote host and you'll be returned to the Telehack server.

Just like today's command lines, the account you're logged into has an associated directory. Enter ls to list the content of the directory. The command can take a wildcard (*.exe, for example). There are a couple of executable files among the others: wardial.exe and porthack.exe.

It's time to cross the line into the world of real hacking by 'illegally' gaining a privileged account on a host.

Using Telehack: The First Hack

The First Hack

ARPANET: A diagram of the ARPAnet as it stood in 1977. By the mid-1980s it had tens of thousands of hosts. Things were so much simpler back then

Enter the command run porthack.exe. A banner appears and you're asked if you want to continue. Press y and enter.

Porthack scans a remote host for ports that can be exploited. If you know the name of the host you want to scan, enter it, otherwise enter ? to view the output. Enter a name and porthack gets to work.

First, it scans the remote host for open ports and returns a numbered list, just like a modern portscanner scanner Nmap. Enter a port number and porthack attempts to run an exploit called a buffer overrun against the service listening for connections on that port.

Porthack installs and runs a program on the remote host that creates a user account with your Telehack username and password. If it fails, run it again and choose another port until you find one that works.

All you have to do to log into the compromised system is to enter the command rlogin tandem. This will send your username and password to the remote host and log you in.

Once logged into a new computer, you should enter the help /all command to see what commands are on offer. The /all argument means that help will display a full list of all command options.

Among the commands is rootkit. This has the same meaning as a modern rootkit, giving you admin level access to the operating system. Once the rootkit command is completed, your command line prompt changes to a , showing that you're now logged in as a user called root, which is the Unix administrator account.

In tandem's root account the help command is no longer available, but a shorter form is. Type ? and hit [Enter].

One of the commands is 'setmotd'. This is our chance to leave our mark by changing the MOTD in a process called 'capturing the flag'. Enter the setmotd command then type in a suitably pithy victory message. Enter a blank line to finish.

If you now enter the motd command, you'll see what others will see. That is, until someone else works out how to do it. When this happens, you'll be sent a message to say that you've lost the flag.

Going to war

PORTHACK: Running porthack against a host will set up an unauthorised account for
you to log into. It's just like the old days

War dialling is an often-misused term. It simply means calling all the numbers in an area code to see which are answered by a modem. Although many will be fax machines, some will be computers we can then dial into.

In the directory on the Telehack server is another executable called wardial.exe. Run this by entering the command run wardial.exe and either enter an area code or ? for a list. Enter a likely code (a California area code is a good one) and wardial.exe begins calling a random block of numbers in that area. If you're lucky, it'll find a modem that is connected to a computer accepting logins.

As hackers develop their skills, they also collect a toolkit of utilities to help them. Porthack and Wardial are two such programs, but Telehack has many more spread across its hosts. Whenever you run an EXE file, it's loaded into your static core, making it available wherever you are. To run it again, type list to get its number, then type run <n> where <n> is its number.

Note, however, that you're initially limited to just five programs, thereby making mapping the Telehack universe a vital skill. To load a sixth program, you must use the unload command to unload a previous one.

Hackers' quest

Moving between machines can be dull, but there's more to Telehack than that. On the Telehack server, enter the command quest. You're given the task of finding a host out of the 24,000 that exist within the Telehack universe.

The target host will contain a file giving you further instructions. These include entering secret commands and system calls that will increase your status and control over the Telehack universe.

Along the way, you'll pass through computers with more executables to map, files full of information and other stuff you can use. Completing quests also gives you bragging rights over other users.

Week in camera news

Amy Davies — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 13:00:00 GMT

It's been a busy old week in camera land, what with Canon announcing its new professional flagship EOS 1DX camera and the continuing saga of Olympus sacking its CEO after just two weeks in the job.

Elsewhere, Nikon and Sony have both been affected by the recent floods in Thailand, the world's first "shoot first, focus later" camera has been revealed and Google+ has had a staggering 3.4billion photos uploaded to it in the past 100 days.

Not only that, but we've also launched our very own TechRadar Cameras Facebook page - I think we need a lie down now. Have a look at all the latest news, complete with links to the full story.

Canon news

The world had been waiting with baited breath to see what Canon would unveil as the replacement for the 1Ds Mark III and the 1D Mark IV, and finally, this week, the Canon EOS 1DX was unveiled.

Featuring an 18 million pixel full frame sensor, sensitivity ranging from ISO 100-51200 (expandable up to a crazy 204,800) and a new Digic 5 processor, you'll have to wait until March to get your hands on the £5,300 beast.

If you're thinking of putting your pre-order in now, have a read of the first impressions of Angela Nicholson, our Head of Testing.

Olympus news

One of the biggest stories this week has been the strange tale of Michael Woodford, ex Olympus CEO, who was ousted from his job after just two weeks.

The Japanese camera giant claimed it was down to a "culture clash", but Woodford has suggested it was due to him trying to get to the bottom of excessive advisory fees paid to mysterious firms in the Cayman Islands.

Stock in Olympus has taken a nosedive, falling by 42% on Tuesday, and major shareholders have demanded to know answers.

Meanwhile Woodford has visited the Serious Fraud Office in London in a bid to launch official enquiries. Watch this space.

Nikon/Sony news

Nikon's Thailand factory ceased operation on 6 October after devastating floods spread across the area. Nikon is yet to recover from the damages, its most recent statement saying that the factory was submerged under 2 metres of water.

Other technology giants are in a similar position, with Sony officially delaying the launch of the NEX-7 compact system camera and A65 SLT camera due to factory problems. Nikon is also likely to be impacted by Sony's factory closure, as Sony makes sensors for Nikon.

Panasonic news

Earlier in the year, Panasonic confirmed that it would be splitting the GF line in two, creating a professional version of the popular compact system camera.

This week, reports are suggesting that the new camera will be called the Panasonic Lumix GX1 - that X is proving a popular addition to many camera names these days it would seem.

Lytro news

This week saw the release of a world first. Lytro announced it was working on a camera to capitalise on light field technology earlier in the year and this week we finally got to see them in the flesh.

The cameras are capable of shooting "living pictures", which allow you to change the focus point after the image has been shot. We'll have to remember that when looking through our blurry pub pictures.

Prices start from $399, but alas, the cameras won't be here before Christmas.

New debuts

And finally, to round off this week's news, we're pleased to announced two exciting launches from us. First of all, we've started our own Cameras Facebook page, please like us to keep up to date with all the latest camera news, reviews, photographic industry news and more - including cat pictures. Now we know you won't be able to resist that.

Not only that, but we're also pleased to announce that the publisher of TechRadar, Future, is also launching a brand new photography magazine, N-Photo, (yes, printed on old fashioned paper) aimed specifically at Nikon users.

Phew - and that's it for now, next week we'll be visiting Canon Pro Solutions where we'll be hoping to get our grubby mitts all over the new Canon 1DX. Watch this space for a hands on review.

In Depth: 10 apps for expanding your mind

Tim Hardwick — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:00:00 GMT

Best apps for expanding your mind: 1-5

At what point in life did learning become a chore? Perhaps the school classroom is to blame – because let's face it, some of our dullest days were spent there.

Remember the sun-bleached course books full of snooze-worthy text, the learn-by-rote lesson notes and the vapid drone of tiresome teachers?

If this scene sounds disturbingly familiar, you'd be forgiven for running a mile at the mention of anything remotely 'educational', but don't bolt just yet.

Armed with an iOS device and the handful of apps covered over the next few pages, learning something new is about to get not only fun, but also pretty mind-blowing.

Granted, there's no magic formula for making something interesting, but with mixed media, interaction and instant feedback at your fingertips, you'll find that topics take on a whole new dimension.

Above all, these apps will remind you that the world isn't bound by static lines of print, but is excitingly open-ended – an active universe to be explored, experienced and touched. So come with us for a virtual tour of time and space, history and evolution, spanning micro to macro.

You'll spiral down into the human genome and discover the secrets of DNA, and go on to encounter chemical elements in exciting ways you never thought possible. You'll travel through the corridors of history and western art, before skipping round the globe to take in the wildlife and culture of exotic lands. You could turn back the clock to a time before man, when dinosaurs walked the earth – and you can even get to feed them.

Or you could simply leave the planet behind, part the clouds and explore the galaxy, without ever leaving the ground.

With these apps installed, you'll find answers to questions you never thought to ask, but wish you had. So forget that dusty, drab classroom and think back to an age when curiosity wasn't the exception, but the rule. Time to reclaim that childlike wonder. Your adventure starts here.

1. Star Walk

Price: £2.99
Works with: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad

Perfect for armchair astronomers

Imagine if you could hold a window into deep space in your hands; a window granting instant knowledge of the whereabouts of every planet, every star, every system. Now add a wellspring of stellar wisdom founded on the toils of countless men down the annals of human history. Would you pay the price of a pint for that privilege?

This is Star Walk, an app sporting spectacular presentation to match its subject matter. Launch it and you open into an ambient soundscape, then up pops a summary box on the state of the solar system, detailing the current lunar phase, day length and the exact angles of the visible planets in relation to you. Tap back the date or dial it forward and the measurements alter accordingly, offering a chronology of the skies.

That's some introduction, but this app's just warming up. Tap through to the Star Spotter for a landscape-oriented overview of the sky with control buttons at the screen corners. Here Star Walk drops a database of 8,000 stars onto a photorealistic background of fainter stars and distant nebulae.

By triangulating your location it positions the star field to fit your perspective. And thanks to one of the most inspired uses of the gyroscope in the iPad 2, it then tracks the stars above you in real time, adjusting to your every move. Star names glide in and out of sight as you physically pan around. Draw down and you can even see star systems below the horizon, marked by a red line.

Stunning artistic renditions of the major constellations fade in and out of view as you pinch/unpinch the screen to activate Star Walk's adaptive zoom. All the while satellite tracking unveils space stations as they fly by.

Tap on any object and an i button appears; hit it to get in close and peruse a sidebar of astronomical data, along with an explanation (and perhaps even celestial history) of the object in question.

The Star Spotter's clock-face button works as an extension of the time machine function seen in the opening summary, enabling you to manipulate time and sky orientation to fit. A tap of the search button plugs you directly into the database for you to explore space by name or label, while the Spotter's menu button offers further fantastic tools.

Search a list of significant events in the astronomical calendar (conjunctions, meteor showers, eclipses and so on) and check out the bookmark facility, which lets you take a snapshot of the visible star field to print, save, email or share over Facebook and Twitter.

Tap the Home Location option to be shot high above the Earth and look down on your position, then swipe the globe with your finger to switch to anywhere on the planet for an alternative view of the sky.

Don't miss your deep-space picture of the day, the infrared night mode, augmented reality view (on latest-gen devices only) and the option to output to a second display.

If Vito's app isn't on your iOS device, app-savvy people will ask why. Superbly designed, masterfully executed and visually stunning, Star Walk is an armchair astronomer's dream. And even if you're not an astronomer yet, you soon will be.

2. TED

Price: Free
Works with: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad

Get inspired with a titillating TED talk

There's nothing like a good speaker. No, not the type you might see in our kit section, but the kind you're most likely to see at TED.

For those still wondering, TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a series of global conferences curated by British entrepreneur Chris Anderson to disseminate 'ideas worth spreading'. The topics range far and wide – anything within the broad remit of tech, science and culture is fair game – and make for hugely rewarding viewing experiences.

Unlike the $6,000 sum you'd need to cough up to attend the conference, all online TED talks are free to watch, and this similarly free app acts as a portal to all of them. Swipe through pages of tiles (arranged by most recent or most popular) to pick out a talk, or choose a theme or tag from the access list on the menu bar.

Create playlists, save top tags to return to, save videos on your device for offline viewing, or take up suggestions made by the app based on previous viewings. If you don't have time to go browsing for something to watch, hit the Inspire Me button, where you can easily choose talks to fit your mood ('courageous', 'funny', 'jawdropping' and so on) and select a maximum duration.

The iPhone app offers AirPlay playback plus TEDRadio for streaming audio talks. Packed with content and regularly updated, TED is a truly inspiring app that your Home screen shouldn't be without.

3. The Elements

Price: £9.99
Works with: iPad

Reclaim wide-eyed wonder with this stunning periodic table app

Cast your mind back to chemistry class and those oddly labelled tiles printed on paper and pinned to the lab wall. Back then the elements were drab abstractions met with a comparable level of enthusiasm to multiplication tables and hypothermic mornings in assembly hall. But no more.

Fire up this app and you're greeted with a searchable periodic table that never looked so exciting. Stunning 360-degree animated objects act as entry points to each element: tap one for a close-up and instinctively you'll want to reach out and touch it.

Accompanying this dazzling show is a breakdown of the element's atomic radius and structure, along with a vertical strip describing its melting and boiling points. Further information on each element is available at the tap of a button, piped in by way of the WolframAlpha computational knowledge engine. How deep would you like to explore each element?

Basic thermodynamic and electromagnetic properties are all present and correct, as well as more nuanced mathematical identifiers and reactivity readings. But the standout feature is just another tap away.

Switch to screen two of your chosen element for an intriguing narrative on the circumstances surrounding its discovery, notes on its volatility, as well as further objects depicting its material formations, scientific and everyday uses – from Victorian tinctures to chewing gum.

Packed with over 500 directly manipulatable 3D rotations, The Elements still delivers the most tangible portal into the constituents that make up our universe, and is a fascinating way to explore what makes up our world.

4. NASA Visualization Explorer

Price: Free
Works with: iPad

The coolest way to get stories about advanced space-based research

Many of us will have recently watched NASA's space shuttle program gracefully power down to its historic conclusion. Add to that the threat of dwindling investment and you might well think the famous agency is ready to shut up shop. Think again.

This impressive new iPad app enables you to follow NASA's broad range of ongoing research activities from week to week. Much like a visually arresting take on a news app, NASA Visualization Explorer delivers the latest news on cutting-edge projects, packaged in a variety of immersive formats.

You'll be treated to high-resolution imagery from sources both above and below the skies, as well as video from intrepid explorers of distant lands, all wrapped up with insightful commentary on the subject at hand.

Backed up by the power of NASA satellites, you'll expand your understanding of Earth's climate, the solar system and the universe at large. Peruse powerful climatic computer models – once the sole preserve of experts – or check in with polar scientists at base camp Antarctica to monitor one of the world's fastest-moving glaciers. This is a truly spectacular app.

5. Geo Walk HD

Price: £1.99
Works with: iPad

Travel the virtual globe with this nature-packed encyclopaedia app

Encyclopaedias: not the most exciting of books. And that's a real shame. What if you could take the most interesting bits of knowledge and browse through them in a more visual, engaging way?

As luck would have it, Geo Walk HD is a fun little app that does just that. Spin the globe interface and tap a hovering object to zoom into its image card; tap again to reverse the card for a brief commentary on the subject. Use the dock to switch to the carousel card mode or turn on a category filter (architecture, for example).

With only 500 objects to discover, Geo Walk certainly won't replace your bookshelf encyclopaedia, but it will make you more likely to casually browse its entries.

Best apps for expanding your mind: 6-10

6. Art Authority

Price: £6.99
Works with: iPad

Like art? Then £7 is a steal for lifetime entry to this virtual art museum

Brick-and-mortar museums often compete for famous artworks, making complete collections hard to come by. But this is Art Authority, and by dispensing with the legwork it can boast a collection of works by over 1,000 of the western world's major artists.

Organised by period, the main room displays a key painting from each – Ancient, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary. Tap paintings to enter rooms and view a breakdown of the major styles of the period. Check the timeline, get an overview, or search for an artist in the list.

Works can be viewed framed or fullscreen, singularly or as a slideshow, played to music, favourited, saved to your Photos, and even checked on Wikipedia – all from the helpful overlay. You can consult the Directory to search by artist, title, subject or location. And there's no closing time!

7. Dinosaur Zoo

Price: £1.49
Works with: iPad

Who needs security fences when the dinosaurs are this well behaved?

Kids love dinosaurs, and, given a chance, most adults will admit a fascination with these extinct vertebrates that never truly fades. But put down the superglue and clear out those old balsa models, because this is Dinosaur Zoo, and you just got a life-long pass.

Your private tour will feature sumptuously rendered animation the likes of which would have Spielberg drooling, not to mention brilliant sound effects that bring to life the habitats you will visit. You could swim with a carcharodon, feed fish to an ornithocheirus, or meet an argentinosaurus with an atrocious case of wind.

Each dino comes with a field guide of fascinating facts, including palaeontologist notes, fossil discoveries and a rundown of basic anatomy. A map indicates your dino's place of origin, but swipe between geologic periods and you'll also see the continents shift over millions of years. A starter pack of eight animals is included, with free dino packs released regularly. Worth every penny.

8. Nature Human Genome

Price: Free
Works with: iPad

Delve into the tantalising complexity of the draft genome sequence

In the distant past (well, the year 2000), several leading scientists announced to great fanfare how they'd finally drafted the entire human genome sequence, heralding a breakthrough in our understanding of DNA and ushering in a new era of medicine. Since then, things have gone quiet on the genome front; have you ever wondered why?

Designed by the folks at Nature, Nature Human Genome squarely aims to answer that question. Featuring landmark research, interactive graphics, video commentary, editorial and opinion, this is a one-stop app for understanding what scientists discovered about genes, and how much remains so thoroughly unexplained.

Learn how your DNA is like a fractal pattern in complexity, and about the challenges molecular biologists face in charting the dynamic interplay of genes in protein synthesis.

9. HowStuffWorks

Price: Free
Works with: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad

Peel back the surface of everyday things to understand their workings

Ever wondered how spam email works? Or if a car can run on nuclear power? Do fish feel pain? And can blood be used to power batteries? These are just a few of the offbeat, intriguing questions that you can find answers for using the companion app to Discovery's popular edutainment website HowStuffWorks.com.

Boasting a database of over 30,000 articles on everything from how engines operate to the world's most endangered species, HowStuffWorks is the perfect app for real-world reference or just plain curiosity.

Articles are categorised by popularity, adventure and animals, while sub-categories and a search facility offer more refined exploration. The app also acts as a streaming portal to an online archive of interesting blogs, podcasts and videos, organised under titles like Stuff You Missed in History Class, and Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

A raft of facts and quotes are also on hand at the tap of a button, altogether making this a knowledge freak's dream.

10. Science360

Price: Free
Works with: iPad

Become an intrepid explorer of science with this globe-spanning app

Keeping abreast of scientific progress is a struggle at the best of times. Science360 aims to lessen the strain by acting as a doorway into global developments. The 360 in the title refers to the interface – a panning 3D bubble of content viewed from within and navigated by swipes and pinches.

Tap tiles in the sphere and you're treated to fantastic annotated images and video focusing on a range of cuttingedge scientific topics you can share over Twitter, Facebook or email.

Despite the odd stutter, the 3D presentation is engaging, adding character to the app and a sense of depth to browsing. It also keeps you up to date with breaking news from institutions across the US.

In Depth: HDR explained: better results from multiple exposures

Julian Bucknall — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:00:00 GMT

HDR explained: what is it?

The sensor in a modern digital camera has less dynamic range than the human eye. That's why we're often disappointed with photographs we take: we don't see the sky as washed out, or the shadows as dark as they appear in our photos.

Naturally, there are now ways to circumvent this using the power of the PC: enter the high dynamic range image processing algorithms.

When we purchase a digital camera, we're often concerned with the resolution of the sensor (the number of megapixels), whether it produces images in JPG or RAW format, and whether we can use different lenses to get images from close up or far away. We're not generally concerned with the dynamic range of the sensor in the camera – in other words, the range of light levels that the sensor can capture.

It turns out that old-style film has less dynamic range than a CCD (charge-coupled device) – the sensor that registers light information that's built into modern digital cameras. If you like, we've moved forward in terms of dynamic range and also, incidentally, in terms of noise: film is noisier at low light intensities than digital.

EYE VS SENSOR: How the eye perceives light intensity (blue line) compared to the way the camera does (red line)

Both types of camera perceive a narrower range of light levels than the human eye. That's why when we take a photograph of a landscape, for example, we get an image that doesn't register the cloud formations in the sky (the sky becomes washed out) and the shadows become undifferentiated black.

If you're anything like me, you tend to get a little frustrated and disappointed that the camera isn't recording what you're seeing exactly, but I dare say we've all become rather used to the problem.

What is HDR?

There is, however, a way around this called HDR image processing (high dynamic range). This is a set of algorithms that process images to increase their dynamic range.

With HDR, it's possible to produce an image that has a much greater range of light levels to approximate what the human eye can see, or even to make fantasy images that look nothing like real life.

However, I'll also note that you will run into some issues. For example, the monitors we use to view images also have a smaller dynamic range than the human eye.

Back in the days of film cameras, it was possible to increase the dynamic range of a photo when you printed the image after developing the film. Photographers like Ansel Adams were experts at using this kind of image manipulation – known as dodging and burning – to produce the dramatic photos we've all seen and perhaps bought as posters.

Dodging decreases the exposure of the print making the area lighter in tone, whereas burning increases it making the area darker in tone. Recall that in film photography, the film is a negative version of the photo. Dark areas on the negative will show up as lighter areas on the print paper because the light-sensitive silver salts in the paper will be less exposed, and therefore appear lighter once the print is fixed. Light areas will show up darker on the print, because more light hits the silver salts.

To apply dodging to the print, the photographer would cut out a shape from some opaque material like card to block off part of the scene, and then expose the print paper with that card between the projector and the paper. Because less light hit that part of the scene, it would appear lighter.

Burning was done in a similar way, but this time the photographer wanted to expose part of the scene longer than the rest. They would cut out a shape that would block off the rest of the scene, letting the part to be brightened receive more light.

There are other techniques and materials that can be used, but as you can imagine, dodging and burning this way was a labour-intensive process and was usually only done for art photos and the like.

Another issue is that dodging and burning are physical manipulations that happen in real time, and it's hard to replicate the same effects across a set of prints so that the resulting images are all the same. With digital photographs and programmatic image manipulation, it's a lot easier to create images with a higher dynamic range.

The process goes like this. First you take at least three photographs of a scene. Ideally, these photos are taken with your camera on a tripod so that they all register exactly the same scene. I've tried using a hand-held camera and it just doesn't work as well during the HDR processing – there's always some obvious scene shake that can be seen.

Similarly, the scene itself should be as static as possible: any moving parts (like leaves fluttering in the wind, waves crashing on the beach, or cars or people passing by, for example) won't be the same in each image, causing scene shake in the processed HDR file.

Although the photos are of the same scene and have the same focus and aperture settings, you take them using different exposure times. For best results, you should shoot one photo as normal, and the others two stops either side. Increasing exposure by a single stop doubles your exposure time, and decreasing by a stop halves it.

The dynamic range in photography is the number of stops between the darkest part of an image where you can still resolve detail and the lightest part. DSLRs generally have about 11 stops of dynamic range at low ISO values, and point-and-shoot cameras a stop or so less.

The external Viewsonic monitor I'm using with my MacBook Pro has almost 10 stops, which means that the photos I take with my camera already have twice the dynamic range that my screen can show.

Some cameras, especially DSLRs, have a mode whereby you can shoot three photos as a set, the other two bracketing the first in terms of exposure. The different exposures are regulated by the camera automatically.

On my Canon Rebel XTi (also known as the 400D), this is AEB mode (auto-exposure bracketing) and I can set the required +/- 2 stops there. If your camera shoots RAW instead of JPG and your HDR image processing application supports it, it's possible to just use one photo. The results won't be nearly as good though.

Once you have your three differently exposed photos, it's time to process them. The first stage is to analyse all three photographs in order to merge them as a single HDR image.

HDR explained: encoding photos

Encoding photos

NORMAL EXPOSURE: Our scene normally exposed

Without getting bogged down in compression details, image formats and so on, traditional images (like an individual photo from our set of three) encodes colour information for each pixel as a set of three bytes, one for red, one for green and one for blue. Each colour channel for each pixel can therefore represent 256 different levels, and the pixel itself can be defined as a single 24-bit value.

An HDR image is different. In a simple sense, it encodes more bits per colour channel per pixel than a standard image, but that's not the entire story. To understand why, we need to understand what's meant by 'gamma correction'.

OVER-EXPOSED: Our scene over exposed. Notice the difference in colour tones to the normal exposure

Gamma defines the difference between a pixel's colour values and how bright it is actually perceived (its luminance). For a camera, if you double the amount of light on a sensor's pixel, a value twice the original is detected – the relationship between a pixel's value and its luminance is linear.

This linear relationship doesn't apply for our eyes. When we increase luminance at low light levels, we perceive a larger increase in light. At higher light levels, we don't perceive increases in luminance as well. Our eyes are more sensitive to changes in dark tones than changes in light tones.

Accounting for this difference is known as gamma correction. A camera will apply gamma correction to an image before it saves it as a JPG file. It's the same with image processing applications that work with RAW image files, when you save an image as a JPG. In other words, instead of encoding the values of the pixels reported by the sensor, it will apply a gamma correction (the industry standard value is 1/2.2) first.

Instead of recording the real values of the pixel colours, it will encode them as colour tones that we perceive as varying uniformly. In effect, the code that saves an image as a JPG file uses more bits to encode darker colours than lighter ones.

When you view such a gamma-encoded JPG on your screen, the screen software will apply the reverse gamma correction (a gamma of 2.2 usually) so that the image you see is roughly the same as the original scene. Lighter shades will have less variation than darker shades, though.

UNDER-EXPOSED: Again, notice the differences in colour between this and the first two shots

Notice also that merging three JPGs to produce an HDR image would necessitate that the gamma correction be reversed before the merge. JPG is already a lossy compression algorithm (we're losing image information when the camera creates a JPG, smearing out high-variation regions of the image), which means that our three differently-exposed photos should all be in RAW format.

Now back to the HDR image. It converts colours as tones using the gamma correction just discussed (so darker tones have more shades) and encodes them as a floating point number, using either single precision (32-bit) or double precision (64-bit). All three standard images are used in this conversion/encoding process, since each will have a different complementary set of tone information.

There's a lot of redundant information, so the most popular HDR format compresses the RGB tone data as three fixed point values, with an extra byte holding a common exponent.

Viewing the image

TONE-MAPPED HDR: And like magic, the final result shows more dynamic colours and contrast to the original photos

So now we have an HDR image whose tones are encoded in high fidelity using a special encoding scheme. To view it, however, we have to export it as a JPG again.

Because of the +/- 2 stops bracketing, the HDR image has a dynamic range of roughly 14 stops, which happens to be about as much as the eye can perceive, but we have to convert that wide dynamic range into the 10 stops of the screens we use.

We have to map the HDR tones into the range that can be displayed on a monitor. Since we're going to be removing information (or reducing the amount of data) in order to do this, tone mapping is a lossy one-way process. It also tends to be an interpretive process, much as dodging and burning was to the film photographers, requiring a good eye and attention to detail and lots of time tweaking and experimenting.

In any HDR image-processing application, there will be several knobs or sliders you can adjust to change the tone mapping, and thereby the look and feel of the finished low dynamic range image (sometimes known as LDR).

Some examples include exposure or brightness, gamma or contrast – sharpening tools that alter the local appearance of parts of the image. Some may come with presets that generate an LDR image according to the image style you want to show (Photomatix, the application I use, has a preset called Grunge and yes, the results are pretty grungy).

There are several tone-mapping algorithms that can process an HDR image to produce an LDR version (a hands-off algorithm), but it's a field that is being actively researched and is changing rapidly.

The biggest issue that automated algorithms have to solve is that tone mapping, by its very nature, reduces contrast (contrast is a difference in luminance: the higher the contrast, the greater the difference in luminance or tone). The earliest hands-off algorithms were global algorithms that acted on the image as a whole.

An example of global tone mapping is to take the tone (or luminance) information and scale it linearly to the required range. Luminance is a value on an exponential scale (each increase of one stop doubles the brightness), so the linear scaling is usually done on the logarithm of the tone values. The problem with this was that it paid no attention to areas within the image with local high contrast.

Other algorithms attempt to take into consideration regions of the image that have wide variations in contrast. The algorithms use a range of methods to generate an LDR image as a multi-pass process. Some, for example, tone map most of the image one way, then map the localised high-variation regions using another method to maintain contrast.

As you can see, the problem of HDR image processing hasn't been completely solved yet. Nevertheless, it's fast becoming an accepted way to process images with high contrast, and can produce some stunning photographs.

Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar

Dan Grabham — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:00:00 GMT

This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar

This week our most-read reviews have been dominated two much-anticipated pieces of hardware.

First up is the iPhone 4S - we've got the definitive lowdown on Apple's new handset. Then there's Amazon's new Kindle - can it keep pace alongside its more expensive brothers?

We've also got a full review of the new Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet plus plenty more besides.

iPhone 4S review

The iPhone 4S is one of the best phones on the market at the moment, and the best thing Apple has ever created. It's got all the right bits right: good camera, slick web browser, quality screen - and made it all work together in the way we've come to expect. Some people might be disappointed not to have seen the iPhone 5, with the larger screen and new design, but the iPhone 4S is more than enough to keep Apple fans happy.

Simply put: if you've got an iPhone 4, you don't need to upgrade (as long as you update to iOS 5) but for anyone else on an older device, you should run down to the shops and pick one up now - you won't regret it.

Amazon Kindle review

The new Amazon Kindle may lack the sparkle of the US-only-for-the-time-being Kindle Fire and the physical keyboard of the Kindle 3 (renamed Kindle Keyboard) but it's still an excellent ebook reader.

What's more, it comes with an amazing price of £89. The amazing thing is that Amazon has managed to cut the price in half without negatively affecting the user experience. And with Kindle books now outselling their paper counterparts, it's easy to see why Amazon has chosen to subsidise it so heavily. So if you've been putting off buying an ebook reader – it may well be time to bite the bullet, because there's no longer any excuse.

Nikon Coolpix P7100 review

The Nikon Coolpix P7100 is the brand's new replacement for its flagship advanced compact camera - the Coolpix P7000 - and comes with a number of new and upgraded features over its predecessor, including some fresh controls, a high-resolution tilting LCD display and a revised user interface, to name a few.

The number of upgraded features in comparison to the older model it replaces may not be numerous, but the changes that have been made are very significant. The combination of superb image quality and total manual control, along with a much-improved - dare we say - snappy performance, leaves a lasting impression.

In short: the Nikon Coolpix P7100 is the camera that the P7000 should have been.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet review

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet is a smart option for those who need to use a tablet at work. It has an understated but somewhat bulky design that fits well with a full-size laptop. Movies and other media are hit and miss, but mostly miss because of the less than colourful screen and choppy playback. Our final conclusion is that this tablet is better than many other Android models, mostly because of the extra ports and the business apps, but the larger size and weight make it a runner-up to Apple and Samsung models.

Samsung RV520 review

The Samsung RV520 is a fantastic budget laptop that can handle home computing and business tasks with ease. The Sandy Bridge processor provides enough power to enjoy media, pictures and music and the keyboard and build quality are good enough to work comfortably on. It's not brilliant for movies, and anyone looking to get creative will come up short against the low-end Intel Core i3 processor, but for most consumers, this is a highly recommended purchase.

This week's other reviews

AV accessories

HDFury HDFury3 review

Compact cameras

Nikon Coolpix S8200 review

Nikon Coolpix P7100 review

Digital TV recorders

Humax PVR-9150T review

Toshiba HDR5010 review

Sagemcom DTR67320Tx review

Home cinema systems

Sony BDV-E880 review

Laptops

Acer Aspire 5830T review

Samsung RV520 review

Dell Latitude XFR E6420 review

MSI GT680 review

Rock Xtreme 768 review

Asus N73SV review

Toshiba NB520-10U review

Asus U46 SV review

Mobile phones

iPhone 4S review

Portable Media Players

Amazon Kindle 4 review

Speakers

Acoustic Energy Neo Compact 6.1 review

Velodyne SPL-800 Ultra review

Jamo S426 HCS3 5.0 speaker package review

Tablets

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet review

TVs

Toshiba 47VL863B review

Toshiba 32UL863B review

Hands ons

Mobile phones

Hands on: Motorola Razr review

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Nikon launches iOS app

Amy Davies — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:23:00 GMT

Nikon has announced a new, free, app for iPhone and iPad which allows users to access My Picturetown, Nikon's online sharing and storage service.

The app, Picturetown Pad, which can support the new Motion Snapshot function built into the newly launched Nikon V1 and J1, can also display pictures in "book view" and "map view", utilising data that has been captured with GPS enabled.

Using the app, users can create albums and customise the way photos are displayed. Photos can be displayed in a book-style layout, with shooting information displayed under each photo. Layout is random, with photos being displayed differently each time.

Map layout

For those using GPS integrated models, such as the recently announced Coolpix AW100, Nikon's first rugged camera, a map view can shown.

Photos uploaded to Picturetown can be sent to Facebook and Twitter accounts, along with photos from the iPhone or iPad camera itself. Photos can also be sent as email attachments.

The Nikon Picturetown Pad app is compatible with iPad, iPad 2, iPhone and iPod touch and requires iOS 4.2 or later.