Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 review: Not a sell-out show

What are budget tablets about these days? Should they be the sort of devices you can slip into a small bag and carry around with you 24/7; light enough so you can hold them in one hand; cheap enough so you won’t fall into a month-long depression when you crack the screen? These are what most budget tablets aim to achieve. But the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 doesn’t.

Nope, the Venue 10 Pro is big and chunky. And starting at £349 it’s not the sort of device you’ll buy on a whim. It’s meant more as laptop-replacement than something you’ll use to read-up on soap gossip or iPhone 7 rumours while on the sofa – hence the “Pro” namesake.

But the Windows-based Dell Venue 10 Pro does have a few appeals of its own, even if it’s not your all-purpose, for-everyone device. Here’s what we have to make of it.

Dell Venue Pro 10 review: Design

If you’re just looking for a 10-inch tablet, the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 might not be the best device – which becomes obvious as soon as you get your hands on it. It’s big, heavy and thick – at 10mm – a bit like the Android tablets we used to get excited about back in 2011. This is a Windows 10 tablet, though, so don’t write it off just yet.

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It’s quite obviously heavier than the screen parts of some of the recent affordable keyboard-combo machines too, like the Asus Transformer Book and the HP Pavilion X2. It honestly doesn’t make all that much sense as a lone lifestyle tablet, which is why there’s an optional keyboard.

However, Dell could make it easier to source a keyboard. There’s no obvious bundle option on the company’s website: you just add it as an accessory, on about the fifth page of spec customisation, below a half-dozen Bluetooth keyboard alternatives. Bit odd, right? The keyboard also costs £112, making the whole package dangerously close to £500.

Dell didn’t send us a keyboard to test with this tablet either. But we can safely assume it, well, has keys and slots into the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056’s bottom edge. It doesn’t have any extra connections, though.

So this tablet may feel too heavy to use in one hand comfortably – 662g makes it around twice that of an iPad Air 2 – but the Venue 10 Pro 5056’s weight does make it feel sturdy for an all-plastic tablet. There’s a soft-touch panel on its back for a bit of bonus tactility and in a desperate situation you could probably use it to break a particularly poorly-made window.

The real benefit of the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 over its Android brothers is connectivity. It’s laptop-like, with a full-size USB, microHDMI and a USB-C port (which doubles-up as the charging port). There’s also a flap on one side that covers a microSD slot and, in our version, a hole for a SIM card. The 4G model costs £430, again without the keyboard. It could really do with an extra USB port, though, as right now you can only plug in one conventional USB device.

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Dell Venue Pro 10 review: Screen

Some parts of the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 make you end up comparing it to much cheaper hybrids. After all, its size and fairly humble power mean it’s probably going to be used for light duties anyway. The £229 (with keyboard) HP Pavilion X2 will be a valid alternative for some of you.

However, the screen is a cut above the real affordable stuff. The Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 has a 10.1-inch Full HD IPS screen. That means its 1920 x 1080 resolution looks plenty sharp and that it appears just fine from an angle. The blacks just appear a touch blue in certain light though. But overall it’s a decent upper-entry-level tablet screen.

Contrast isn’t perfect, colour is a little undersaturated, but both are a bit better than what you’d get from a hybrid that costs less than £300 (including the keyboard). And there are a few of those about.

This isn’t close to what a Surface tablet offers, though. Those are sharper, punchier and even more expensive. There’s also no stylus involved with the Dell, although an active stylus accessory is available. Straight out of the box the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 relies on a plain old touchscreen.

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Dell Venue Pro 10 review: Software

Here’s where we stumble upon the crux of whether the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 is any good or not. How does Windows 10 feel when it’s controlled just through a touchscreen?

Where Windows 10 on a regular laptop feels closer to Windows 7’s old-school style that Windows 8 did, the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 (without a keyboard) reverts to something closer to the old Windows Metro UI. This is where you get screens of big icon blocks, but no traditional desktop – which is hidden away.

There are also touch-friendly additional shortcut soft keys that will disappear when the Venue Pro keyboard is connected. They’re roughly the same conceptually as the soft keys of an Android device.

If anything, though, Windows 10 has sidelined this tablet side in favour of a core interface that works better with a laptop or desktop. For example, the keyboard doesn’t always pop-up when you want it to if you’re running a “desktop” app, and the apps tray takes that bit longer to pop-up than it would on a mobile-focused OS.

Without the keyboard attached, the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 highlights our differing expectations of budget computers and budget mobile devices. It feels awkward and clumsy.

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Dell Venue Pro 10 review: Performance

The Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 is not all that powerful given its price either, although it is totally up-to-date. It uses the Intel Atom X5 Z8500 CPU, a low-end dual-core 2.4GHz CPU. That and 4GB RAM get you slightly better than the £250 all-in hybrid alternatives from Asus and HP, but this is still a low-power tablet/sort-of-2-in-1.

General performance when you’re just browsing and writing up some documents is fine. However, apps tend to take a while to load compared with an entry-level Ultrabook like the ZenBook UX305CA.

Why? As well as having a fairly slow CPU, the storage is pretty slow too. It uses solid state memory, 64GB or 128GB, but its performance is much closer to a hard drive or fast memory card than a proper SSD. It reads at 150MB/sec and writes at 90MB/sec; even entry-level SSDs read and write at 400MB-plus these days.

We had a crack at running Skyrim, the open-world game. It runs, but we didn’t get a great result. We had to lower the resolution output to 1280 x 800 and turn down the graphics to minimum settings – and while it was just about playable like this, it’s not really how the game should be played. This is not a gaming machine.

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The Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 also has fairly poor speakers. They fire outwards from each side of the tablet, getting you a bit of stereo juice, but they’re also fairly thin-sounding and don’t go particularly loud. Now that even some super-skinny phones have decent (for a phone) speakers, this is real tech water-treading. Of course, you could argue that’d be a mis-allocation of funds, but then the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 isn’t exactly budget.

There are a lot of patchy elements to the Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056, but its battery life is very solid. It’ll last for just under 10 hours of video: good for a tablet, even better for a laptop if you splash out on the keyboard base. You could get a full day’s work off this machine with the keyboard in tow.

Verdict

The Dell Venue 10 Pro 5056 doesn’t really seem like a tablet of 2016. A conservative design, non-aggressive price and entry-level power mean it struggles to ignite much gadgety lust when there are much cheaper hybrids available that include the keyboard.

If you can stomach the extra £112 for the keyboard module – and you really should if you’re thinking about buying this machine – it’ll make a decent little portable laptop. Good battery life is its major plus point, and once you start thinking about this Dell as a laptop rather than a tablet, its weight and size issues melt away to a degree.

Apple fixing iMessage flaw that lets hackers steal photos

Apple has put a lot of work into making its phones hard to crack, much to the consternation of US law enforcement officials. It’s still not perfect, however, as researchers from John Hopkins University have discovered a flaw that lets attackers intercept and decrypt video and images sent on iMessage. The exploit only works on versions prior to iOS 9, because Apple partially fixed the problem in that version. However, John Hopkins professor Matthew D. Green told the Washington Post that a modified exploit could possibly be developed for iOS 9 versions, provided hackers have skills of a “nation state.”

The hack is pretty simple. The team first created software that emulates an Apple server in order to intercept files. iMessage photos and video only use 64-bit encryption and don’t lock out invaders after multiple attempts to decrypt. That allowed the researchers to “brute force” video and image files and eventually decrypt them.

The iMessage flaw has nothing to do with the current dispute between the FBI and Apple, because the feds want to decrypt the San Bernardino shooter’s entire phone, not just the messages.

The iMessage flaw has nothing to do with the current dispute between the FBI and Apple, because the feds want to decrypt the San Bernardino shooter’s entire phone, not just the messages. However, last year Baltimore prosecutors asked Apple to decrypt iMessages from a suspect’s phone. At the time, the company said that cracking them would be expensive and harmful to security, so prosecutors eventually dropped the request. However, Green told the Post that government experts could have easily found the flaw, too. “If you put resources into it, you will come across something like this.”

Luckily, a fix is coming very soon. Apple has completely closed the hole in iOS 9.3, which is due to be released as part of Apple’s big “loop you in” event later today. In a statement, Apple said “we appreciate the team of researchers that identified this bug and brought it to our attention … security requires constant dedication and we’re grateful to have a community of developers and researchers who help us stay ahead.” Suffice to say, iOS users should update as soon as possible, especially if you use iMessage a lot.

Source: Washington Post

Sainsbury’s is stocking vinyl records in 171 supermarkets

Vinyl is back, and it seems like it’s here to stay. More than two million LPs were sold in the UK during 2015, up from 1.3 million the year prior. The steady growth since 2007 — when the medium faced near extinction with 205,000 sales — has encouraged retailers like Tesco to restock the old format in some of their stores. Sainsbury’s is the latest to join the movement, putting 18 different records in 171 supermarkets across the country. The analog collection is mostly classics like The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, although there’s also one contemporary release — the overwhelmingly popular 25 by Adele.

If you’re new to the vinyl revival, Sainsbury’s is also selling a Crosley Cruiser turntable for £80. It comes in a briefcase-style shell, which should appeal to hipster listeners that prioritize looks over sound quality.

Sainsbury’s says it’s serious about the nostalgic format. Pete Selby, head of music and books for the company, said: “We don’t see this as a novelty gifting fad but a complimentary part of our existing music offer with a long term future in our stores. Vinyl is definitely experiencing a revival with demand growing stronger year-on-year. It is our aim to make the vinyl experience easy and pleasurable for our customers who are ready to re-engage with a format that resonates with them on an emotional level.”

Today’s launch means that Sainsbury’s is now one of the largest vinyl retailers in the UK. Few companies can match 171 stores on the high street — Tesco, for comparison, is only stocking the format in 40 locations. Sainsbury’s, however, operates over 1,200 supermarkets, so while this is a grand gesture, you might be hard pushed to find a local stockist.

Here’s a breakdown of everything Sainsbury’s is now selling:

Via: Music Week

Animation software used by Studio Ghibli will soon be free

You may not have heard of Toonz animation software, but you’ve no doubt seen work it was used in: Studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away and Tale of the Princess Kaguya (above), or the animated series Futurama. Now, the Toonz Ghibli Edition used by legendary Japanese filmmakers like Hayao Miyazaki is going open-source, making it free to use by studios and novice animators alike. The deal came after Japanese publisher Dwango acquired the software from Italian developer Digital Video. It’s now focusing on customization and training, but will still sell a premium version to companies “at a very competitive price.”

Studio Ghibli’s imaging director Atsushi Okui says, “we are happy to hear that this open-source version contains the Ghibli Edition. We hope that many people inside and outside of the animation industry will utilize this software for their work.” Toonz, which debuted way back in 1993, is used to convert hand-drawn and rasterized art into vector graphics. From there, it can be animated in 2D by creating “skeletons” for characters, providing a similar animation workflow to 3D projects.

The open-source announcement means that a production-ready version of the software, which used to run thousands of dollars, is now free for aspiring editors. Studio Ghibli says it first chose the app in 1995 for Princess Mononoke “to combine hand-drawn animation with the digitally painted ones seamlessly … in order to continue producing theater-quality animation without addition stress.” It takes considerable effort to learn software as deep as Toonz, but now that it’s free, it’ll be easier for aspiring animators to become the next Miyazaki or Takahata. It will be presented officially at Anime Japan in Tokyo, which starts on March 26th.

Via: Cartoon Brew

Source: Toonz

Engadget UK giveaway: win a smart heating system courtesy of Heat Genius

Of all the ways to educate your boiler, Heat Genius offers some of the most comprehensive smart heating systems around. From remote temperature and hot water control to radiator and underfloor heating zones, the options go far beyond the simple connected thermostat. And this week, it’s thanks to Heat Genius we’re giving away a complete smart heating system, including boiler controller, up to four radiator and four underfloor controllers, a hub to get the whole system online and, of course, installation. That’s over £1000 of smart heating kit, depending on your configuration at home, so whether you’re more interested in seeing out this winter or preparing for the next, you can enter our giveaway up to three times via the widget below. Give the rules a quick scan first, though, if you would.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

• Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
• Contest is open to all residents of the UK, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
• Winners will be chosen randomly. One (1) winner will receive one (1) Heat Genius smart heating system plus installation, including up to four (4) radiator and up to four (4) underfloor zones, depending on home heating configuration.
• If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email or Facebook login. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
• This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Heat Genius and Engadget / AOL are not held liable to honour warranties, exchanges or customer service.
• The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here.
• Entries can be submitted until March 25th at 11:59PM GMT. Good luck!

Source: Heat Genius

iMessage Security Flaw Allows Researchers to Decrypt Images

A flaw in Apple’s encryption systems has been found that enables an attacker to decrypt photos and videos sent over its iMessage instant messenger service.

According to The Washington Post, the security hole in Apple’s code was exploited by a group of Johns Hopkins University researchers, led by computer science professor Matthew D. Green.

Green reportedly alerted Apple to the problem last year after he read an Apple security guide describing an encryption process that struck him as weak. When a few months passed and the flaw remained, Green and his graduate students decided to mount an attack to show that they could break the encryption of photos and videos sent over iMessage.

The team succeeded by writing software that mimicked an Apple server and hijacked the encrypted transmission of the targeted phone. The transmission contained a link to a photo stored in Apple’s iCloud server as well as a 64-digit key to decrypt the photo.

While the students could not see the key’s digits, they guessed them by a repetitive process of changing a digit or a letter in the key and sending it back to the target phone. Each time they guessed a digit correctly, the phone accepted it. The phone was probed in this way thousands of times until the team guessed the correct key and was able to retrieve the photo from Apple’s server.

Apple said that it partially fixed the problem last fall when it released iOS 9, and will fully address the issue through security improvements in iOS 9.3, which is expected to be released this week. The company’s statement read:

Apple works hard to make our software more secure with every release. We appreciate the team of researchers that identified this bug and brought it to our attention so we could patch the vulnerability. Security requires constant dedication and we’re grateful to have a community of developers and researchers who help us stay ahead.

The news comes amid Apple’s ongoing legal battle with the FBI in connection with the iPhone at the center of the San Bernadino shooter investigation. The FBI has requested help from Apple to unlock the phone, but the company has so far refused.

The FBI wants to access data stored on the iPhone in question, whereas the Johns Hopkins research focused on the interception of data transmitted between devices. However, Green believes that his team’s work highlights the inherent security risks of the FBI’s demands in the California case.

“Even Apple, with all their skills — and they have terrific cryptographers — wasn’t able to quite get this right,” Green told the newspaper. “So it scares me that we’re having this conversation about adding backdoors to encryption when we can’t even get basic encryption right.”

Apple will face off against the FBI in court on Tuesday, one day after the company’s March 21 event that will see the debut of the 4-inch iPhone SE and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro. MacRumors will post a direct link to Apple’s media event once it becomes available.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: iMessage, Encryption
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Apple Store Goes Down Ahead of Today’s ‘Let Us Loop You In’ Event

Apple’s online storefront has been taken offline this morning, less than six hours prior to the company’s upcoming “Let Us Loop You In” media event at its Cupertino campus, where Tim Cook’s executive team is expected to announce the new 4-inch iPhone SE, 9.7-inch iPad Pro, and Apple Watch updates.

Apple’s special event starts at 10 a.m. Pacific with a live stream (spoiler free) available on Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Apple TV. MacRumors will also have full coverage of the event, with a live blog on our front page and updates in 140 characters or less through our @MacRumorsLive account on Twitter.

We’ll also have specific coverage of today’s announcements in separate news stories, and our community forums are a great place for readers to discuss the announcements before, during, and after the event. Be sure to keep tabs on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch sections for the latest discussions.
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MacBook Charger Teardown Highlights Counterfeit Dangers

Manufacturers of counterfeit Apple products often go to great lengths to make their knock-offs look genuine, which brings the added risk of concealing potentially dangerous flaws in substituted electrical components.

We’ve covered efforts to lure consumers to purchase cheaper counterfeit iPhone and iPad chargers before, courtesy of Ken Shirrif’s technology blog. Now, a new post on Shirrif’s site offers a detailed teardown and analysis of the differences between a counterfeit MacBook charger and a genuine unit, providing a great example of how cosmetic similarities can hide major safety defects.

A counterfeit MagSafe 45W charger (left) and a genuine 60W charger (right).
Shirrif notes that counterfeit chargers he’s examined in the past have usually had external flaws that give them away, but that this latest MacBook charger knock-off almost had even him fooled.

The exterior text on this charger was correct, no “Designed by Abble” or “Designed by California”. It had a metal ground pin, which fakes often exclude. It had the embossed Apple logo on the case. The charger isn’t suspiciously lightweight. Since I’ve written about these errors in fake chargers before, I half wonder if the builders learned from my previous articles.

Only when Shirrif cracks open the charger are the differences laid bare. A real Apple charger is packed full of complex circuitry, but the counterfeit contains a fairly low density board that uses a simpler power supply with a dangerously small isolation gap between the AC input and the low-voltage output.

Shirrif also identifies a distinct lack of insulation tape between the two voltages on the circuit board, a metal grounding pin not connected to anything, and a fluctuating power output. See his post for the full comparison.

Three years ago, a Chinese woman was electrocuted by a counterfeit charger while charging her iPhone, highlighting the significant dangers these products pose to consumers. Users who suspect they have a counterfeit charger can take part in Apple’s third-party charger takeback program to safely dispose of the adapters.
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Panasonic shows how its robotic suits ease your burden

If you ask Panasonic, the future is full of wearable robotic assistants… lots of them. The Japanese tech giant has posted a video highlighting all the exoskeletons and service robots it’s working on, and it’s clear that the company wants to bring bionics to just about every facet of life. The Assist Suit (shown above) and Ninja respectively boost your lower back and legs, helping you lift heavy warehouse boxes or climb steep mountains. The Power Loader (directly inspired by Aliens), meanwhile, should help during construction work and disasters.

Some of what’s in the video is more about restoring lost mobility than improving what you already have. The Self-Reliance Support Robot helps the elderly move from bed to other tasks, like going to the restroom. Resyone, meanwhile, transforms from a bed into a reclining wheelchair.

Is Panasonic’s clip optimistic? Probably. These machines still tend to be expensive and limited (Assist Suit lasts for a maximum 8 hours, for example), so you probably won’t see them very often in warehouses or retirement homes. Having said this, the sheer range of devices suggests that they could be widespread before too long.

Source: Panasonic (YouTube), (BusinessWire)

Dara O Briain to host gaming show ‘Go 8 Bit’ on Dave

British broadcasters have always struggled to create high quality TV shows about video games. Aside from Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe, few programmes have done the medium justice. Just look at the response to GTA docudrama The Gamechangers. Still, every so often a production company will take another crack at the idea. The latest attempt is Go 8 Bit, a game show presented by comedian Dara Ó Briain (who is also doing the Robot Wars reboot) and video game journalist Ellie Gibson. The first series will air on Dave this Autumn and consist of six 60-minute episodes.

Go 8 Bit is based on a live show that shares the same name in Edinburgh. It’s a simple format, challenging two teams to five rounds of “increasingly competitive, hilarious gaming contests.” These will range from nostalgic arcade classics (think Pong, Pac-Man and Street Fighter II) to modern masterpieces like Grand Theft Auto V. In addition, Dave is teasing “larger-than-life game-inspired physical challenges,” no doubt imitating game shows like A Question of Sport in the UK. A Splatoon-style paintball match, perhaps? How about a race with Mario Kart-themed power-ups?

The team captains will be Steve McNeil and Sam Pamphilon, a pair of comedians with a genuine passion for video games. They created and performed the original concept in Scotland, and will be partnered with a celebrity guest in each of the new episodes. Combined, they should create a healthy mix of star power and video game authenticity. That will be crucial in order to build a show that feels both genuine for gamers and interesting enough to pull in a broad, mainstream TV audience.

The commission follows a renewed interest in video games from mainstream broadcasters. Both Sky and the BBC are dabbling in eSports coverage, while Radio 1 preps a new gaming show hosted by presenter and YouTuber Julia Hardy. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a show this year that feels true to the culture of gaming? We’ve got our fingers crossed.

Via: MCV

Source: UKTV