SA’s LARGEST TECH MAGAZINE FREE! smart ® Acer Iconia Dual-screen, double the fun Nintendo 3DS Portable gaming goes 3D Homefront Home is where the war is THE MOBILITY ISSUE WWW.TECHSMART.CO.ZA ISSUE 91 April 2011 ISSN 1726–3358 EDITORIAL & HIGHLIGHTS The Mobility Issue ›› April 2011 9 11 13 19 32 BBC or BAC? y grandpa told me the other day that he is tired of being a MBBC. “A BBC?” I asked. “Yes, a Born Before Computer,” » Reviews came the reply. So, one notebook and a wireless modem later, he’s not only working on his new PC but also connecting to the Toshiba Portégé R700 web. Helping him through the process it struck me how Can a notebook be both small and powerful? Yes, if it’s daunting it can be to learn to use a PC if you have no experience Toshiba’s R700 thin-and-light. 9 of it before. Simple things PC users take for granted, like moving the cursor on screen, when to double click and how to expand Motorola Defy and minimise a program, are not as straight forward as one Motorola’s Android powered Defy looks set to live a might think. But luckily it’s easy to master with a bit of practice, hard-knock life. 11 and from what I can gather from emails received from a number pertoire, and proprietor. of our older readers, once these Silver Surfers are connected to the web there’s no turning back. Nintendo 3DS In this issue we’re introducing QR codes with many of our Portable gaming goes 3D with the highly anticipated reviews. These make it easy to quickly link to the relevant 3DS. Is it worth the hype? 13 review on techsmart.co.za via your smartphone. We give a full explanation of what QR codes are and how they work on p27. Norton 360 V 5.0 Try it out, it might just change the way you browse the web. Is this the anti-virus package that has it all? We delve through Norton 360’s vast functionality. 19 Enjoy the issue, Mike ([email protected]) » Interviews Homefront interview We talk to David Votypka, general manager at Kaos Studios and Frank DeLise, executive producer at THQ, 32 about their new title. TechSmart exclusively uses the LG W2794V monitor for all reviews. Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved. No material, text or photo graphs may be reproduced, copied or in any other way transmitted without the written consent of the publisher. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher or of the editor. We recognise all trademarks and logos as the sole property of their respective owners. TechSmart shall not be liable for any errors or for any actions in reliance thereon. All prices were correct at time of going to print. Editor TechSmart & TechSmart.co.za 97 902 Mike Joubert > 083-290-2889 copies per month [email protected] Consumer: SciTech Business manager [Oct – Des 2010] George Grobler [email protected] Print media manager Published by Suzanne Rall [email protected] Advertising manager (Agencies) Carmel Anne Singh > 079-515-8708 [email protected] Sales administrator Marlien vd Westhuizen > 012-362-2732 SMARTPUBLISHING [email protected] MASS MEDIA SPECIALISTS Designer Brett Wilson Tel: 012-362-2732 Contributors Mike Joubert [MJ], 1218 Arcadia St, Hatfield, Pta Hanleigh Daniels [HD], Johan Keyter [JK], www.smartpublishing.co.za Linda Pretorius [LP] Accounts & subscriptions Distributed by Ronel Keet > 012-362-2732 [email protected] Distribution Renier van Vuuren > 073-166-1515 smart distribution [email protected] Ten letters. The longest length of a word you can type using only letters from one row of your keyboard, such as typewriter, re such as typewriter, keyboard, can type using only letters from one row of your letters. The longest length of a word you Ten techsmart.co.za l April 2011 3 NEWS TOP TECH TITBITS Google starts local tech IE9, Firefox 4, Chrome 11 Beta MWEB now targets hosting incubator launches oogle has launched Umbono, its t’s been an extremely busy month on ust as local service provider MWEB Gnew technology incubator based in Ithe browser scene, with all and sundry Jdid when it introduced the first Cape Town. This initiative brings releasing new versions. Microsoft’s IE9 affordable uncapped ADSL offerings in together seed capital, Google has seen the light of day, sporting a sleek the country last year, it is now seeking mentorship, angel investors, local tech new look and improved performance, but to revolutionise the hosting market stars, entrepreneurs and business strangely no support for Windows XP. In with its new Uncapped Hosting offering, leaders, in an effort to assist selected the meantime the company is charged at only R19 per month. MWEB start-up teams to transform their ideas desperately trying to get rid of their old has bundled all the elements needed into companies. For six months, teams IE6 browser, even coming up with a for website hosting into one easy-to- will enjoy free office space and campaign to help drop its market share use fixed rate package that includes no bandwidth, in addition to the $25 000 below 1%. Mozilla’s new speedy Firefox 4 limit on the amount of traffic to your s about an initial public offering worth five times as much. s about an initial public offering worth five to $50 000 in funding that they’ll has done extremely well with 7.1 million website, as well as uncapped storage receive from Umbono’s panel of angel downloads in its first 24 hours (IE9 did space. Websites will be hosted locally investors as well as Google itself. 2.35 million), while not wanting to be left on MWEB’s data centres, meaning local Applications are available on the out of the action, Google released their visitors will experience a faster Umbono website Chrome 11 Beta. All of these have sup- browsing experience on your site. (http://bit.ly/umbono) and the port for HTML5, a new language for de- MWEB provisions the website, registers programme is open to all South African veloping webpages that provides better it for you and will renew the domain on residents. multimedia integration. an annual basis. HOT NEW PRODUCTS 1 2 3 1. Porsche 918 Spyder luxurious design emulates that of a 4. SingStar Afrikaans Treffers s global resource levels continues to modern football stadium, whilst the on- outh Africa is one of only five Aplummet, who knows when it’ll be field action boast stunning looks with S territories world-wide to be granted time to wave goodbye to the iconic atmospheric lighting as well as chrome the right to have a local SingStar supercar? That however hasn’t stopped metal “players”. Pricing thought is release. This in the form of SingStar Porsche from developing the monstrous strictly in the realm of Russian Afrikaans Treffers, a competitive karaoke new 918 Spyder, a 373 kW V8 supercar billionaires, since it kicks off at €48 500 title that has players mated to two electric motors producing (almost R480 000) for the classic Black singing along to 163 kW, making it slightly more and White version. 26 Afrikaans 4 efficient. Porsche estimates the Spyder artists, the likes will consume three litres per 100 km, 3. TomTom’s online live traffic of Jack Parow, but as soon as the electrical charge has ondering how the traffic will look like Karen Zoid and been depleted it’ll go into full slung fuel Wwhen you head home today? Steve Hofmeyr. downing mode again. The Spyder goes Wonder no more, with TomTom’s launch Gamers score from 0-100 km/h in around 3.1 of live traffic maps, available for free at points if they hit seconds, which is awesome if you have www.tomtom.com/livetraffic (click on the right notes, around R5.9 million to spare. the SA flag at the bottom). Powered by with the player TomTom HD Traffic, the same system that closest to the 2. 11 the beautiful game provides live traffic updates on certain pitch of the song utch company GRO Design has TomTom GPS models, the new live traffic is eventually Dcome up with certainly the most map enables anyone online to view the crowned champ, striking foosball table ever. Dubbed “11 up-to-the-minute traffic situation in their or Liefling, or Up to $25 billion. After rejecting a $5-6 billion buy-out offer from Google last year, Groupon is reportedly in talks with bank offer from Google last year, Up to $25 billion. After rejecting a $5-6 billion buy-out the beautiful game”, this table’s local area. Baby Tjoklits. techsmart.co.za l April 2011 5 INTERVIEWS SCI NEWS Chris Botha, group MD of The MediaShop At 33 Chris Botha is group MD of The MediaShop, one of the biggest media agencies in SA. e talks to communications approach and not accounts and Twitter feeds. If you use it H TechSmart about limited to advertising. only to promote and sell, you will never online advertising, make a success of it. Marketers need to marketing your brand TS: Is the cellular market attracting use their accounts in a much smarter via social media and advertising spend in SA? How long way that rewards consumers and users “consumer touch- before smartphones become viable for visiting their FB page or following point strategies”. advertising platforms here? them on Twitter. It is a conversational CB: Not at the moment. I do however tool, not an advertising medium.