The new state media treaty with rules for online platforms is facing the last hurdle and is expected to come into force shortly. With the exception of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, all the other state parliaments have already agreed, as the State Chancellery of Rhineland-Palatinate announced on dpa request. In the next week (28. October) the state treaty will be on the agenda for ratification in the Schwerin state parliament. Consent is considered certain. There is criticism from the digital industry.
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“Media companies are not waiting for day X” The Rhineland-Palatinate Media State Secretary Heike Raab (SPD) told the German Press Agency about the State Treaty: “If everyone 16 ratifications are available, it can enter into force immediately. ” Media policy is the responsibility of the federal states, Rhineland-Palatinate coordinates broadcasting matters. Raab also said: “The broad public debates on the State Media Treaty have already brought about changes: We are noticing that the media companies are not waiting for day X. They have already changed things in the course of the parliamentary deliberations.”
The Interstate Media Treaty is intended to replace the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty in force since 1991, which defines the rules for broadcasting in Germany. What’s new: It also applies to online platforms such as smart TVs, i.e. TV sets with internet access and user interfaces, as well as to social media and platforms such as search engines that provide media content but do not produce it themselves.
Handling of media content The set of rules includes, for example: Media content on the Internet should be available in a non-discriminatory manner – platforms must therefore not push certain content into the background without a justified reason. They are also not allowed to be changed technically without your consent. And advertising must not overlay the media content without the consent of the user. The state chiefs had already signed the state treaty in April, now the votes in the state parliaments followed gradually. Unanimity is required for the State Treaty to come into force.
Raab emphasized: “Many of the changes are also immediately noticeable and visible to citizens, for example the requirements for easy findability in user interfaces . ”
Ambiguity and great legal uncertainty The digital association Bitkom sees ambiguities for the industry. Susanne Dehmel as a member of the Bitkom management emphasized: “The companies are preparing for the entry into force of the State Treaty – as best it is currently possible. It is still simply unclear which services the new requirements are to be applied to.” Platform providers find it difficult to assess whether they fall under the provisions of the State Media Treaty at all and, if so, with which part of their service.
About the State Treaty, Dehmel also said: “For the companies concerned, it primarily generates great legal uncertainty. ” A Facebook spokesman said: “We already meet many of the specified requirements. With the statutes of the State Treaty that are currently being drawn up, we expect further details that we will examine.”
Concern about a supervision of the state media authorities The independent state media authorities, which in Germany the private radio and also supervise media content on the Internet, had already
AGCOM has imposed a fine on Google for violating the rules on gaming and betting advertising Affected Google Ireland Limited thanks to the application of a European regulation. The amount of the fine is currently unknown.
by Manolo De Agostini published 23 October 2020 , at 11: 33 in the web channel Google
AGCOM , the Italian Communications Authority, has raised a a fine administrative pecuniary sanction against Google Ireland Limited “for the violation of the legislation on prohibition of advertising relating to games or bets with cash winnings, as well as gambling “.
The Authority found that Google Ireland, owner of the service Google Ads (website indexing and promotion service), has allowed , through the online advertising positioning service, “the diffusion, upon payment, of links that direct to certain sites (landing page), in violation of the rules to combat gambling disturbance “. In particular, the company, through its search engine www.google.com, has published the paid ad of the sublimecasino.com site which carries out gaming and betting activities with cash winnings.
According to AGCOM, “ the activity carried out by Google Ads, beyond the cost of the service rendered, it cannot in any case be qualified as a hosting service , given that the characterizing element of the service does not consist of “hosting “the advertising message, but rather in allowing it to be disseminated through various internet sites receiving the message. The storage activity is, in fact, entirely ancillary and technically necessary for the provision of the main service which is instead aimed at the direct promotion of bets and paid games, an activity expressly prohibited by national law “.
For these reasons i, and in light of the (EU) Regulation 2019 / 1150 which also deems the indexing service providers established in foreign countries offering services for the Italian public, the Authority sanctioned the violation. The exact amount of the fine is not known , but it is an unprecedented action – thanks to the implementation of the European regulation – against a reality that is not based in Italy.
Leakage images of an unknown AIB manufacturer’s circuit board ensure that at least one of the RX 6000 series graphics cards is equipped with a 256 bit memory bus.
AMD will introduce the RDNA2 architecture and the new Radeon graphics cards based on it in less than a week 28. October. As the release approaches, leaks around the new Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards have also accelerated.
The first images of the unrecognized RX 6000 series graphics card circuit board have now appeared on the Internet. The photos originally appeared on Twitter, but that tweet was quickly removed. However, Beyond3D user Krteq had time to better capture tweet images. Based on the pictures, this is a model from an AIB manufacturer, as the circuit board extends beyond the two 8-pin auxiliary power connectors. In teasing images published by AMD, the power connectors are flush with the edge of the circuit board.
Larger images show almost the entire graphics card circuit board, but a black square has been struck on the graphics circuit itself. The I / O connector selection on the circuit board includes one USB Type-C connector, two DisplayPort connectors, and one HDMI connector, as shown. A total of eight GDDR6 memories can be found alongside the graphics circuit
It will take some time before the fiber optic network is further expanded along the railway lines. “The DB is preparing the tender for the expansion of the fiber optic network,” said a spokesman for Deutsche Bahn (DB) on request. However, the award process has not yet started. Accordingly, not a single fiber optic kilometer has been built this year. As before, 18. 500 kilometers of around 33. 000 Kilometers of railway network equipped with fiber optics.
That meets with criticism from the opposition in the Bundestag. “The railway could have used the existing route network much earlier to lay fiber-optic connections and thus supply millions of households and companies,” said Victor Perli, a member of the Left Bundestag. “There is a risk of years of delays if there are legal proceedings due to the award procedure.”
Fiber optics for more security Deutsche Bahn currently only uses a small part of the fiber optic network along its routes itself. After all, the group wants to have all signal boxes digitally converted by 2035. Many of them currently have to be operated by hand. In addition, train stations and routes are to be increasingly equipped with the digital guidance and control technology ETCS (European Train Control System). This requires fast internet, also along the routes. In the end, passengers also benefit from a well-developed fiber-optic network, as trains with the new technology can be on the way more punctually to earn. Last year the group created the broadband company, which among other things leases unused fiber optic capacities – the dark fiber – to third-party customers. 18 Customers could already have been won for this, according to a response from the federal government to a request from Linke-A
In contrast to Blazor Server, the WebAssembly variant of ASP.NET Core Blazor executes the C # program code in the web browser as a true single-page web application. In contrast to the Blazor server variant, a Blazor WebAssembly can also work offline – it only needs to contact the server to load and persist data. Figure 1 shows the comparison of the two architectures. Details on the architectural differences were given in the article “Alternatives to JavaScript?”.
Part 1: Web API Calls and Data Rendering Part 2: Input controls and JavaScript interoperability Part 3: Authentication and authorization Part 4: State management and reloading of modules Part 5: Bidirectional communication and notifications Architecture alternatives: Comparison of Blazor Server with Blazor Webassembly (Fig. 1)
(Image: Holger Schwichtenberg)
Requirements The first version of Blazor WebAssembly is under version number 3.2 on 19. May 2020 published. The tutorial already covers the improved successor, version number 5.0. The following software is required for this:
. NET 5.0 Software Development Kit (SDK), at least version “Release Candidate 2” (after installation for checking on the command line dotnet –version (enter . Visual Studio 2019, at least version 16.8th. The tutorial is based on Release Candidate 2 of .NET 5.0. Even if Microsoft has issued a “go-live” license for productive use for this, it is possible that APIs will still change and that the program code shown here with subsequent versions will not run without modifications.
While the .NET 5.0 SDK is permanently free of charge, only the preview versions of Visual Studio are completely free of charge. Of the stable version, only the community version is free. This is technically sufficient for the tutorial articles, but is subject to legal restrictions. The creation of open source applications as well as the use for online or face-to-face training or for academic research purposes are also permitted in larger companies. The tutorial could be understood as “research”. If you do not want to install preview versions, you can also use the stable version 16. 7 using Visual Studio with .NET Core 3.1 SDK. The tutorial will point out a few functions that are then not available. In terms of content, it assumes that developers are familiar with .NET Core, C #, Web APIs or REST services, HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
betterCode () presents: .NET 5.0 – The online event on December 3rd 2020 You can learn that:
From .NET Framework via .NET Core to .NET 5.0: What does this mean for the migration, and how big is the effort? What’s new in .NET 5.0? New features: Get to know ASP.NET Core 5.0 and Blazor 5.0 The most important language innovations in C # 9 Mobile development with .NET 5 OR mapping with Entity Framework Core 5.0 WinUI 3 as an alternative to WPF and UWP Outlook on .NET 6.0 Case study “MiracleList” As part of a three-part iX – tutorials (see , [2] and is 2017 the single-page web application “MiracleList” for task management with TypeScript, Angular and Twitter Bootstrap as well as various freely available controls was created. “MiracleList” is based on the web application and app “WunderList”, which the company Microsoft 2015 for over 100 Bought million dollars and then 2020 in favor of “Microsoft ToDo” buried.
This tutorial will now reprogram the same web application with ASP.NET Core Blazor WebAssembly. The result is shown in Figure 2, which can be viewed live on the Internet. Readers can find the source code (initial status, intermediate status and final status in branches) on GitHub.
MiracleList has task categories (see left in Fig. 2), a list of tasks in each category (middle) and a task processing area on the right, which is only displayed on a case-by-case basis.
MiracleList with Blazor WebAssembly (Fig. 2)
The tutorial will access the backend available in the cloud. In order to be able to use this, users have to apply for a “Client ID” there.
Microsoft supplies a project template in the .NET SDK for Blazor Server and Blazor WebAssembly with. These templates can be accessed via the command line ( dotnet new ) or use Visual Studio. The tutorial should not start with this project template, but with a specially created one that readers can download from GitHub. The advantage is that the necessary design elements (CSS, graphics) are already included and all unnecessary examples are removed from the standard project template. Otherwise there would be many individual, error-prone steps.
Users open the file MiracleList.sln via File | Open | Project / Solution in Visual Studio and then see a “MiracleList” project folder with three projects in the Solution Explorer (see Fig. 3 on the right):
“MiracleListBW” (Target Framework: .NET 5.0): the Blazor WebAssembly-based frontend ” MiracleListAPI_Proxy “(.NET Standard 2.0): Proxy classes for the MiracleList backend, generated from the Open API Specification (OAS) with NSwagStudio. “BO” (.NET Standard 2.0): common business objects that are used in the backend and in the frontend Who is not .NET 5.0, but the old Blazor WebAssembly 3.2 use, the project file MiracleListBW 32. csproj instead of MiracleListBW.csproj in the project folder.
Now it is recommended to use the application for Test to translate ( Build / Build Solution ) and then to start, either with Debug / Start Debugging [/cpas] (F5 key) or [caps] View in browser in the context menu of the project. If everything works correctly on the PC, you can see the web application with two menu items (Fig. 3).
Starting point for the tutorial (Fig. 3)
It should be noted that WebAssembly is generally only implemented in modern web browsers – i.e. not in Internet Explorer. For software developers, debugging from Visual Studio currently requires a Chromium-based web browser, i.e. the latest generation of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge. Developers select the browser for debugging in the menu shown in Figure 4 in the Visual Studio toolbar.
Choice of the web browser to start debugging (Fig. 4)
The template project supplied is structured as follows:
There is a folder wwwroot with CSS and graphic files (including Bootstrap u
If you never used Sony’s now-shuttered PlayStation Vue internet TV service, you’re probably unaware of one of its best features: multiview. PS Vue allowed you to watch multiple channels on-screen at once, which is something most of the bigger TV apps — Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu, etc. — don’t currently offer. But now, FuboTV is putting a bigger focus on multiview. You could already stream two channels simultaneously with the FuboTV app on Apple TV, and starting today, that’s expanding to four.
FuboTV says the feature is particularly popular with sports fans since it lets them keep an eye on multiple games at the same time. But you can use it with other networks as well. Want to stress yourself out with election coverage in all four slots? Nothing’s stopping you.
“We believe Multiview 2.0 sets the foundation to build upon better experiences on Apple TV and, of course, we will work to bring it to our other apps and supported devices,” the FuboTV team wrote in a blog post.
Pricing for FuboTV starts at $59.99 per month for the standard plan, with step-up “family” and “elite” plans adding more streaming flexibility and content. And though FuboTV puts an em
A look back at the early years of the WWW including the first online newspaper, the forerunners of Facebook and the first attempts at censorship.
(Image: Rudolf A. Blaha)
History of the Internet: As before 30 years ago the World Wide Web came into being A hypertext system for everyone Opening for commercial worlds Early Giants Beginnings in Germany Article in c’t 27 / 2020 read The Geneva headquarters of the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN in the eighties: a coming and going. Only the 10. 000 scientists listed in the internal phone book belonged to CERN itself, Tim Berners-Lee describes the situation in his essay “A Brief History of the Web”; the rest were scientists from all over the world. If you want to understand why and how the World Wide Web came into the world, you have to understand this bustle.
The computer and network infrastructure at CERN: a pretty wild patchwork of different systems. Berners-Lee had written a hypertext application with which he could record the relationships between people, programs and hardware. One day he realized that something like his program should be available for everyone to share information. In March he proposed to his boss, Mike Sendall, that such a system be implemented. He gave the green light.
Tim Berners-Lee’s first project proposal included the requirement that web documents must be readable by everyone, regardless of the computer and operating system. In October 1990 Berners-Lee had three essential elements for it formulated, which still form the technical cornerstones of web architecture today: a first draft of the markup language HTML, Uniform Resource Identifiers, with which resources in the network can be addressed, and HTTP as the transmission protocol for WWW content.
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A lot of relevant information is in unstructured texts: e-mails from customers, contracts with partners, social media postings and product reviews on the Internet. With Natural Language Processing (NLP), clustering, topic modeling, classifications and universal embeddings, numerous methods are now available for the automated analysis of large amounts of text. This allows mails to be pre-sorted, sentiments in social networks to be tracked, contract texts to be classified and much more.
In the automated text analysis course, developers learn how to Architects and data scientists using practical examples of how to prepare texts for analysis and statistically analyze them, how to model different subject areas in texts using methods of unsupervised learning and how to analyze and classify texts using methods of supervised learning.
The workshop will take place from 17. to 20.11. as an online course. You can comfortably participate from your desk with a browser and headset. It is limited to 15 participants to leave enough space for individual support, questions and discussions. The speaker Dr. Christian Winkler is a data scientist and machine learning architect and has been working in the field of
As part of the amendment to the Cybercrime Convention, the Council of Europe in Strasbourg is also advising an additional clause that could regulate cross-border access to domain owner data. Alexander Seger, head of the Cybercrime Convention Contract Office, reported on the plans on 69. ICANN meeting that was moved from the originally planned venue Hamburg to the current “online conference capital” Zoom. Because the Whois data is no longer public since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is still raging a bitter dispute over future access by law enforcement officers, trademark lawyers and security researchers .
Since 2017 the Council of Europe in Strasbourg has adopted an additional protocol on the 2004 negotiated the Cybercrime Convention that came into force. The declared aim is in particular to accelerate cross-border access to cloud data by the prosecutors of the meanwhile 65 signatory states of the convention.
Direct access for law enforcement officers to domain owner data In these negotiations, the negotiators of the member states of the Cybercrime Convention also took up the subject of Whois. “It is discussed to include an article in the second additional protocol,” confirmed Seger to heise online. As soon as the corresponding article is available, this, like the other articles, will be published for a discussion with the affected groups such as ICANN, he assured.
The cross-border access to the domain owner data is available From the point of view of the Council of Europe experts, this is in line with the cross-border access provided by the Council of Europe to the data of Internet users by law enforcement officers. At the same time, Seger admitted that this access to the names and addresses of domain owners via the cybercrime convention could only be a supplement to the Whois access system that has been hotly debated in ICANN since the old Whois was switched off.
Apart from the scope of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, the Cybercrime Convention is still not a global agreement. Above all, over 70 percent of requests for domain owner data come from trademark lawyers according to a study by ICANN registrars. However, the Cybercrime Convention would only provide criminal prosecutors with access rights.
US representative for central data access The Trademark lawyers are dissatisfied with the recently jointly developed semi-centralized “System for Standardized Access / Disclosure” (SSAD). At the current ICANN meeting, they again expressed their displeasure that the decision on the disclosure of the domain owner data is made locally, usually by the registrar of the user concerned.
For a more centralized system again recruited an employee of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and representatives of the US Federal Police FBI. After all, it’s not just about identifying phishers and other DNA criminals based on names and patterns. It is also a concern of the authorities to warn the victims, said FBI agent Gabriel Andrews. Even Mickey Mouse entries, i.e. incorrect domain owner data, are still easier to find than no data at all.
A clear statement from the EU Commission is required A current letter from ICANN Managing Director Göran Marby to the EU Commission illustrates how desperate the ICANN leaders are over the dispute over the access solution. In it he asks the Commission to make a clear statement as to whether the registrars and registries of their responsibility
If you are annoyed by advertising while surfing and want to cheat the trackers from Google and Co., the free software is just right for you.
Ad blocker Pi-hole: Use Raspi as a DNS server with integrated ad blocker What is DNS? Block advertising with DNS Installation Privacy Modes The web interface Final remark Article in Make Magazine 5 / 2020 read I get annoyed by online advertising very quickly. They – and especially the countless scripts that come with it – make websites load more slowly. But the fact that blinking and attention-seeking advertisements bothers me is only one side of the problem. The other: I don’t even want to know how many tracking databases of global advertising networks my data is ending up in at this moment.
Now everyone can install an ad blocker in their browser, as most Solves problems. But what about the smartphone? With the intelligent refrigerator, the work laptop, the IoT device? Advertising networks are also called not only from the web browser, but also from other programs: driver suites, chat programs, even Windows itself integrates advertising. At this point, I would like a central solution: My network at home should simply no longer talk to advertising networks. So if I can get my router, through which all data traffic flows into the Internet, to prevent communication with unwanted servers, I have achieved my goal.
The free software helps the data-saving maker here Pi-hole . I will guide you through the concrete installation of Pi-hole below, beforehand I will explain the functional principle.
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Sign in and read Register now and read the article immediately More information about heise + Ad blocker Pi-hole: Use Raspi as a DNS server with integrated ad blocker What is DNS? Block advertising with DNS Installation Privacy Modes The web interface Final remark Article in Make Magazine 5 / 2020 read
Rocket launches have long been nothing special for SpaceX: The US space company launched its own satellites into space last Sunday 60 on Wednesday the next one 60. But this routine and this speed are also necessary, because Elon Musk’s company wants to build a previously unprecedented satellite network. Several thousand and later tens of thousands of satellites are supposed to set up Starlink and provide the most remote places in the world with Internet access.
That didn’t sound very realistic just a few years ago, but it looks different now. SpaceX has almost 900 launched satellites, imitators like OneWeb and Amazon want to follow suit with their own offers. Meanwhile, astronomers and stargazers are waking up, expressing their concerns that the night sky will soon be too full. We’ll talk about this in a new #heiseshow.
What exactly are SpaceX & Co. planning and for whom? What is the schedule, what is the state of affairs? How useful is the satellite internet and does it really need several networks? What is the criticism of the astronomers? What do the quantities of satellites mean for astronomy, which disciplines are affected? How did SpaceX react to the contradiction, what can the company change? What are the dangers in orbit due to the rapidly growing number of satellites? What is SpaceX doing against space debris?
Martin Holland (@fingolas) from heise online will answer these and many other questions – including the audience – live with c’t editor Michael Link (@ ksmichel2) in one discuss new episode of #heiseshow.
Thursdays. 12 Clock. Live. heise online speaks to guests about current technical developments and network policy. Using tweets with the hashtag #heiseshow you can join the discussion before, during and after the broadcast. The #heiseshow is there …
Alternatively, the Stream also sent on Twitch.tv/heiseonline.
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The world may still be facing social gathering restrictions, but a new Disney Plus feature will at least let us watch together virtually instead.
Disney Plus GroupWatch lets up to seven subscribers watch the streaming service together over the internet in their respective homes. A GroupWatch icon appears on the show or film’s title page, letting you start you own mini viewing party. Synchronised playback means that each subscriber can pause, play, rewind or pause for the whole group, and emoji reactions can be shared in the mobile app.
GroupWatch was first tested in Canada in September, according to The Verge, but it’s now rolling out to other regions – including the UK.
Amazon Prime Video already allows up to 100 subscribers to watch the same content together, while the Netflix Party add-on gives Netflix a similar feature. This kind of feature has enormous potential, especially given the current pandemic is making it difficult, impossible or undesirable to meet up in person. You’ll just have to provide your own popcorn.
MORE:
Disney Plus: price, films, shows and how to get a free trial
12 of the best Disney Plus shows and movies to watch right now
17 Disney Plus tips and tricks: stream Mulan and Marvel movies like a pro
An excellent 4K projector that delivers an exciting and vivid picture
For
Fantastic 4K detail
Excellent motion processing
Solid contrast control
Against
Image can lack subtlety
The Sony VPL-VW590ES is Sony’s top lamp-based, native 4K projector. There are more premium models in the family, but they feature laser light sources instead. This more traditional approach keeps the VW590ES relatively affordable, as native 4K projectors go, while still offering plenty of contrast and, according to Sony, stunning detail and rich, faithful colour.
Key to the experience is Sony’s SXRD projector panel technology. It’s a liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) solution engineered by Sony to produce deep blacks, clear motion and a smooth picture with enough heat and light resistance to ensure a stable image. Sony has stiff competition at this end of the market, so will need a superb performance to hold off the likes of JVC.
Build
(Image credit: Sony)
The Sony VPL-VW590ES is an update to the VPL-VW550ES, a projector we gave five stars when we reviewed it back in 2017. The new model is much the same in terms of size and core spec.
At 50cm wide and weighing 14kg, it takes up the kind of space one would expect of a native 4K projector and is suitable for either ceiling- or rack-mounting. There are two HDMI 2.0 ports and a single USB 2.0 for your source material. The internet connectivity is for firmware and service only.
Sony VPL-VW590ES tech specs
(Image credit: Sony)
Resolution Native 4K (4096 x 2160)
Brightness 1800 lumens
Dynamic contrast 350,000:1
Throw ratio 1.38:1 to 2.83:1
Lamp life 6,000 hours (Low mode)
HDR formats HDR10, HLG
Dimensions (hwd) 20.5 x 49.6 x 46.4cm
Weight 14kg
The 280W high-pressure mercury lamp offers a picture at up to 1800 lumens of brightness, which is best used in a room with the lights off. Sony predicts that it will last 6000 hours in ‘Low’ mode before you need to change it, but if you watch in ‘High’, expect that number to be lower. Watching in High also causes the fan noise to be louder than the 26dB stated, but the sound is steady and smooth and won’t spoil your big screen experience.
On the front sits the x2.06 zoom lens. It can throw a picture of between 60-300in, with a 100in image possible at distances between 3.1m and 6.4m. It also allows plenty of positioning flexibility with the ability to move the image up to 85 percent in each direction vertically and 31 percent horizontally. Naturally, the lens is fully motorised with the shift, zoom and focus functions all easily managed from the fully-featured Sony remote control.
That remote offers handy, direct switching between the picture presets as well as shortcuts to almost all of the picture processors and settings you’ll want to use. The remote does have a backlight but, sadly, the button to toggle it on and off does not glow in the dark, so finding it can be tricky. A motorised lens cap would also be of benefit. It’s currently a removable plastic cap, which can upset the lens settings if care is not taken.
Features
(Image credit: Sony)
The key upgrade of the Sony VPL-VW590ES over the older model is the ‘X1 for Projector’ chip. It’s the same picture processor as used in Sony’s Bravia TVs, but optimised for projectors.
It’s not quite as premium as the X1 Ultimate processor found in Sony’s more expensive laser models but it brings what Sony describes as ‘high-precision frame analysis’ for features such as Dynamic HDR Enhancer, Super Resolution and, of course, Sony’s excellent 4K Motionflow motion processing.
The HDR Enhancer works on a frame-by-frame basis to analyse each scene and, with the help of the dynamic iris, adjust contrast on-the-fly. The Super Resolution uses algorithms to match the patterns it sees in each image and reinforce them. Combined, the idea is for a sharper, better-exposed picture than its predecessor.
Those who still want to watch in 3D should note that, unlike the rival JVC DLA-N5, the Sony VPL-VW590ES has a 3D emitter built-in. You’ll still have to buy your 3D glasses separately, though.
Picture
(Image credit: Sony)
There are seven Sony-calibrated picture presets to flick through with the best of the bunch being the two Film modes, Reference and Bright Cinema. Thecolour temperature of all of them is worth a little tweaking, depending on the source, but the Clear White filter in the Expert Settings will solve most issues.
Once set, the colour performance from this projector is breathtaking and the 4K detail superb. Watching the North American episode of Seven Worlds, One Planet, we get some stunning views of wildflowers on the Canadian mountain pastures and a vivid palette of greens from the lichen, seaweed and foliage of the pine trees at the country’s coastal forests.
Using the Reality Creation menus, it’s possible to add an intense and granular level of 4K detail that’s outstanding for a projector at this price. The fur of the Black Bears that roam this habitat is picked up beautifully as are the crusty barnacles and gritty edges to the rocks that these creatures clamber over in search for food.
As ever, Sony’s Motionflow tech does a superb job of keeping the picture looking both smooth and natural as the camera zooms over the earth below. True Cinema rubs off the big judders while maintaining the action’s 24fps appearance. The more processed Smooth Low option works well too.
The Sony VPL-VW590ES also does some excellent work with HDR. As day turns to night, the levels of darkness in the forest are adjusted to deliver the maximum amount of tonal detail. Light from the firefly abdomens is intense, while the details of their heads and limbs are clear to see. The water droplets sitting on the threads made by the orb-weaving spiders hang like silver jewels in the moonlit woodland, each one under pinpoint contrast control with nothing lost to the shadows.
(Image credit: Sony)
Stepping down to The Book Thief on Blu-ray, without the benefits of HDR, is a more difficult test. Between light touches on the Dynamic Iris and Contrast Enhancer settings, though, we still get a workable balance between black depth and dark detail.
The Sony’s character is more binary, in terms of contrast, rather than smooth and subtle in its shading, and that results in an appearance that’s dynamic but less truly natural than some. It makes for an engaging watch that never fails to capture the sense of place throughout the film, though.
In the candle-lit scenes in the Hubermann’s basement, for example, we can still make out the wooden boxes and glass jars, even in the thick of the shadows, with enough care on textures to pick out details such as the worn leather on Liesel’s oxblood boots.
In scenes with more mixed lighting, such as the train station, there’s enough differentiation in the whites of the steam and cloud in the sky even while the projector has to produce the heavy blacks of the train and the dark platform in the foreground.
Down at standard definition, the picture isn’t too bad either. Turn the Reality Creation settings right down to avoid noise at this resolution. You may also need to set your disc player to output 480p and alter the aspect ratio on the projector remote control to get it upscaling properly.
No projector or TV is going to make much of a treat of detail when a DVD of Die Hard 2 is upscaled to more than 25 times the size of the source material. Nonetheless, we’re happy to get stuck into the action as John McClane races around Dulles International Airport trying to take down a terrorist plot, armed with a handgun and a clip full of wry one-liners.
Verdict
This is an exceptionally good projector and a marked upgrade on both its predecessor and the step-down native 4K projector from Sony, the VPL-VW270ES.
If you’re looking for a projector at this level it would be wrong to ignore the VPL-VW590ES, but you should be sure to check out the Award-winning JVC DLA-N5 as well.
If you’ve got an Amazon Fire TV box, hate picking up a voice remote, and have a separate Alexa-enabled device like an Echo smart speaker, then I have some great news. A new update rolling out this week is adding a host of new hands-free features to the Fire TV like being able to use it to view calendars or the weather, control menus, and play music.
Although many of these smart display-like features have been available on the Fire TV before thanks to Amazon’s voice remote, what’s new is being able to access them hands-free. You’ll need to pair an external Alexa-enabled device like an Amazon Echo to get the functionality to work, however. The Fire TV Cube is the only one of Amazon’s streaming boxes to have the far-field mics to handle hands-free voice controls built into the device itself.
Although you’ve been able to pair Alexa-enabled devices with Fire TVs for hands-free control for years, its functionality has been more limited until now. It’s mainly consisted of opening apps, playing movies or TV shows, searching for content, and controlling playback.
The biggest new features will be able to turn a TV into something more akin to an Echo Show smart speaker. You can ask it to show a calendar, the weather, or a feed from a compatible internet-connected camera. There are also new navigation controls, allowing you to ask Alexa to “scroll right/left” or “go back.” Finally, Amazon is also adding more music playback features, effectively letting a smart speaker play music from a TV’s speakers.
Amazon says the new features are rolling out to all Alexa-
The Acer TravelMate P4 is a high-performance notebook that is available as a commercially available clamshell version and as a spin offshoot with ) Degree hinge as well as touch and pen input will hit the market. From December onwards, the devices will be available from 879 or 999 euros in Germany and will then mainly find themselves in classic business use.
Under the hood of the 14 – Zöllers is an Intel Tiger Lake processor of the eleventh core generation, which goes up to the fast Core i7 processor is sufficient and is equipped with the integrated Iris-Xe graphics. Optionally, model variants with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX 350 are also planned. There is also up to 32 GB DDR4 memory and a fast PCIe SSD with 1 TB of storage space. Thanks to the Tiger Lake platform, modern connections such as Thunderbolt 4 or WiFi 6 are supported. A 4G LTE modem is integrated for permanent Internet use at an additional cost.
The Spin version of the Acer TravelMate P4 has a 360 degree hinge, which enables different screen positions and the 14 – makes Zöller a real convertible, because the ultrabook can be used not only as a normal notebook, but also as a tablet with a folded keyboard or as a presentation screen with a keyboard as a stand . The active stylus is also integrated, which can be hidden and charged directly in the slim 18 – mm housing.
Depending on the model variant, the housing weighs 1.3 to 1. 53 kg and is particularly robust thanks to its high-quality choice of materials, which includes expensive magnesium. Acer has certified the notebook according to the military standard MIL-STD – 810 G. In a real business offshoot, the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 should not be missing, which the notebook for signs of unauthorized persons
every time the system is started.
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