NVIDIA co-founders Jen-Hsun Huang and Chris Malachowsky last night received the annual Citizen Leadership Award from City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley, in a gala charity dinner that raised nearly $400,000 for the education-focused nonprofit.

Decked out in their rarely-seen black tuxedos, Jen-Hsun, our CEO, and Chris, a senior vice president and NVIDIA Fellow, were honored for their and NVIDIA’s philanthropic leadership. They announced that their families, the company and a group of NVIDIA partners contributed $100,000 to fund City Year’s work with at-risk students at a local grade school.

Flanked by volunteers, Jen-Hsun (center) and Chris (right) were given commemorative jackets by City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley Executive Director Toni Burke (left) for their leadership.

City Year partners with public schools and teachers in under-served communities to help keep kids in school and on track to graduation. It draws on teams of “corps members”—young people dedicated to a year of full-time service—that provide individual support to at-risk students, focusing on their attendance, behavior and academic performance.

This year marks the fifth year that NVIDIA will partner with City Year for Project Inspire, and our third year of funding the A.J. Dorsa Elementary School, which supports the work of more than 10 corps members directly engaged in helping poor-performing students.

I’ve had the opportunity to contribute to the development of multibillion dollar GPUs in my various engineering and management roles at NVIDIA. Helping to bring these complex chips to market is incredibly rewarding. And seeing what scientists do with them is awe inspiring.

Yet, when I had the chance to work on a far smaller project – restoring a historic aircraft with which I had a personal history – I just couldn’t pass it up.

The Meyers/Aero Commander 200 is the kind of plane that delights seasoned aviation buffs. Only about 120 of the single-engine, prop-driven airplanes were built. Originally designed by pioneering aviator Al Meyers in the ‘60s, it was renowned for its clean lines and ability to match up against the fastest four-seat, single-engine planes of its day.

While it’s an amazing plane by any measure, this specific plane is special to me because it had been my father’s for more than 30 years.

On our yearly trips flying from New Mexico to Washington state to visit my grandparents, I would serve as both navigator and relief pilot. Long before I had my pilot’s license, I discovered the joy of flight sitting atop a phone book so I could see over the instrument panel. The last time I flew with my dad, nearly three decades ago, was in the Meyers.

Opening the Hangar

Built for speed, the plane was once owned by Indy 500-winning race car driver Johnny Rutherford III — the plane’s number, N111JR, reflects his ownership. My father, a former Air Force pilot who’d flown F-105 fighter jets during the Vietnam War, purchased it in the mid-1970s and tuned it for even more performance. He was winning air races in the plane until medical issues forced him to mothball it in 1997.

After my father passed away in 2010, I traveled back to New Mexico to help my sister organize his estate. When visiting the airport to sort out what had become of the plane, I had no idea what to expect.

The Meyers sees its first daylight in years.

Opening the hangar, we found the plane covered by a thick layer of dust, surrounded by half a lifetime’s worth of my father’s projects. The plane looked pretty good, though closer inspection revealed the effect of years spent languishing in the darkness.

Some of the restoration challenges were obvious: rubber in the hydraulic system hoses and vacuum-based autopilot was dried and cracked, the vinyl interior was brittle and the radios were conspicuously missing. Even the jacks the plane was resting on had failed, damaging a component of the landing gear.

Other problems were hidden, although not entirely unexpected. Airplanes need to be flown regularly to keep the engine well lubricated. With the Meyers sitting for more than a decade, rust had formed inside the engine, which would need to be completely rebuilt or replaced.

The Restoration

Planes are trickier than tinkering with cars, where there are few regulations to consider. Strict U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations apply to almost all changes. Guidelines have to be followed and documentation recorded before a mothballed plane is allowed to fly again.

Early on, I’d asked my mechanics if it would be possible to observe some of the restoration. “If you’re here, we’ll put a wrench in one hand and a rag in the other,” they replied. Admittedly, the “wrench” was sometimes a shop broom, but they understood my enthusiasm and let me participate in some of the work while under their supervision.

The first stage involved removing all inspection plates and panels, the interior and the engine. Because the plane is rare, and documentation sparse, the work was akin to archaeology. Every component was photographed before being removed to streamline reassembly. All cables, wires and hoses were tagged with descriptive labels. It was an amazing education that allowed me to deepen my understanding of every inch of the plane.

Rebuild or Replace?

One major decision was whether to rebuild or replace the engine. Flying with a brand new engine was attractive, though more expensive. Rebuilding would save some money and reuse some components that were now “seasoned” by previous heat cycling in the engine. In the end, I decided for the rebuild, and only later discovered that several major components could not be overhauled and would require replacement, overwhelming the price of a new engine.

This costly decision points to a paradox of restoration: sometimes there is no way to discern the most efficient way forward before actually making the decision. Any regret I have is tempered by knowing that rebuilding the engine was truer to the spirit of the project.

Despite setbacks and surprises, the work made great progress over the months. The engine was reinstalled, the entire hydraulic system, autopilot and control cables were replaced, and the landing gear was completely overhauled.

Ready for Takeoff

Whenever I’ve been asked when the plane would fly again, my answer has always been the same: “When it’s ready.” Each week brought the plane closer to the flight testing that would sign it off for the trip to California. But some weeks I wondered if it’s easier to schedule chip programs than an aircraft restoration.

The 200 in the air over Arizona.

Someone once asked me if I could have simply bought another plane that had already been restored for less time, effort and money than it is taking to restore the Meyers. The answer – absolutely, positively, without a doubt – is yes.

However, my goal wasn’t just to own a plane. My goal was to restore my father’s Meyers and a piece of aviation history. It’s about having the passion and commitment to bring a classic airplane, and a piece of my own personal history, back to life.

On April 11, 2013, over the high desert of New Mexico, the Meyers again took to the skies.

For the thousands around the world who watched Microsoft’s Xbox One reveal event over the Internet and on their Xbox 360 consoles earlier this week, it was about an hour filled with some fresh information on the company’s forthcoming console, though it also left them with a lot of questions.

However, while the press attending the event – held in a tent on Microsoft’s rainy Redmond, Wash., campus – got the same info and left with many of the same questions, we were also treated to brief tours of some of the Xbox facilities.

Among the rooms we saw were a fabrication shop where engineers 3D-printed dozens of controller models to enable a better ergonomic design for the Xbox One gamepad; a test chamber where dozens of robotic fingers pressed controller buttons repeatedly to measure the peripheral’s endurance; and a severely sound-dampened audio room that puts the new Kinect’s voice-command recognition through its paces.

Perhaps the most interesting and illuminating – in some ways, literally – section of the tour was a room consisting of a large display, a couch and one of the new Kinect sensors. Here we were able to see for ourselves how much better this new sensor will be over the current model and how it’ll improve game play, video chats and overall interaction with the system’s interface.

On the face of it

The engineers told us that the new sensor will be able to scan a larger room area, enabling tracking within a virtual box that’s nearly twice what the current Kinect can view.

Not only will this provide quality reading of people closer and farther away from the sensor – so those with small living rooms will be able to use it – but also those farther apart laterally, so you don’t have to pack everyone into a tight group directly in front of the Kinect.

It will also track up to six people (or “skeletons,” as the engineer told us) as opposed to the two the current sensor can monitor.

The Kinect’s resolution has also been radically improved. You not only get a 1080p color camera that enables high-quality Skype video chats, but it’s a 3D scanning device that is strong enough to discern buttons and folds on a shirt, as well as whether you’re moving your fingers, if you’re facing the sensor or not, and even your facial expression.

The ability to better track faces means it’ll be better at determining each player’s identity for signing in the proper profile and offering other personalization.

Raising your IR

Microsoft has even boosted the Kinect’s infrared vision, which results in a number of dramatic improvements.

No longer will you have to play in a well and evenly lit room for the sensor to recognize your gestures, and conversely you won’t end up with sunshine blooms interfering with the Kinect.

We were shown how it could still track a person’s movements in a totally dark room as well as how a bright flashlight beam shone on the person wasn’t even viewable by the sensor’s IR mode.

On what sounded like a science-fiction-esque promise, we were also told that the new Kinect’s IR capabilities would be able to track your heart beat, by detecting the flow of blood under the surface of your face.

While my first thought was the inevitable tabloid headline (“Xbox Console Spots Owner’s Heart Attack, Skypes 911″), the engineer stated that it would be extremely useful with exercise software to monitor the user’s heartbeat, so it could offer a better workout and keep the person from under or over exertion.

Though the proof will fully come from using the new Kinect in real-world software tests – which we’re expecting to try out more at next month’s E3 trade show in Los Angeles – we’re hopeful that the changes will enable smoother use with the Xbox One, but also enable more people to take advantage of the voice and gesture command functionality.

More importantly, though, we’re praying that the Kinect’s necessity in the hardware daisy chain won’t result in the console raising too many Big Brother concerns.

Most portable hard drives lack glamour. They’re tiny workhorses, useful for doing backups and transporting large files and little else. Patriot’s Aero goes way beyond those basics, offering WiFi connectivity, tablet compatibility via custom apps and a rechargeable battery.

This versatility may not seem useful at first, but we think that’s more due to lack of imagination than lack of utility. A product like this, with the ability to do so much, opens up possibilities you hadn’t really thought of before. Its limitations, like limited documentation and a somewhat confusing user interface, though, make it suitable only for those willing to work around the rough edges.

Form Factor and Function

The Patriot Aero is 8.6cm (D) x 13.9cm (W) x 2.44cm (H) and weighs 295 g. That’s a bit larger and heavier than some portable drives, but most portable drives don’t include a rechargeable battery. The Patriot Aero’s lithium-ion battery can deliver up to six hours of continuous streaming. The unit charges with a standard cell phone charger, reducing the number of things you need to bring on a road trip.

What’s a rechargeable hard drive good for? For one thing, if you’re using it as an external hard drive for your laptop, hard drive access won’t drain your laptop’s battery. There are a lot of other uses, though, which might not immediately come to mind. For instance, you could use it as a portable media server on a bus or car trip or while camping.

PC Connectivity

Like we said, what sets the Patriot Aero apart is its versatility. As you’d expect, it offers the basic functionality of a portable hard drive. You can connect it to a PC using the standard USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 interface. This USB connectivity, though, is mutually exclusive with its most impressive feature: WiFi connectivity. Unfortunately you can’t use these two features simultaneously; enabling one disables the other.

In WiFi mode, it can function as a network file server or as the WiFI hub of a mini network. It’s easy to imagine where that might come in handy. For instance, if you have a group of laptops in a hotel room and need to share large files, the Aero would be a perfect impromptu file server.

The Patriot Aero also functions as a bridge to the wider Internet. Acting as a WiFI access point; you connect your computer or tablet to the Patriot’s WiFi network. The Aero can connect up to eight devices at the same time. You then connect the Patriot to your WiFi router which is connected to the Internet. The Patriot Aero passes through your Internet traffic to the Internet-connected router. This has some upsides; you can use the patriot to extend your WiFi range, for instance. There are some downsides too, however. We noticed some performance degradation in download speeds using this setup.

There are some serious limitations, though, if you are trying to use this as a network drive. The main one is the lack of Ethernet connectivity. The only way to link it to your network is via WiFi. That’s inherently less secure and less fast than an Ethernet connection. But the Patriot Aero is designed mainly for use with mobile devices; that’s where it really shines.

Tablet and Mobile Connectivity

What really sets the Aero apart is its ability to connect with tablets and other mobile devices. The company has apps available for iOS, Android, and the Amazon Kindle Fire which let you use the Aero as a file server. This lets you get beyond the tight storage limitations of a portable device. Though this is most useful for streaming high quality video or storing large music collections, but there are many other possible uses. For instance, if you had a large archive of digital books in PDF format, large PowerPoint presentations, or even of photos.

The setup for this is reasonably straightforward if you’re used to configuring something like a WiFi router. However, the app interface is spartan and potentially confusing, and the documentation is extremely sparse. Someone unfamiliar with setting up this kind of device is likely to be quite dumbfounded, especially since

The basic process is that the Patriot Aero becomes your WiFi access point. You connect your mobile device to the Patriot and then use the Patriot Connect app (or a web interface if you are connecting via a PC) to configure the Patriot to use your WiFi router to connect to the Internet. This second step isn’t necessary, though. You can use the Patriot as a local file server without also connecting to the Internet.

Once connected, we found the file serving functionality to work quite well. The easiest way to watch videos or listen to music from within the Patriot Connect app. However, with a little configuration, you can also use any SAMBA-compatible app to access the files on the hard drive. You can also copy files back and forth from the mobile device to the hard drive.

As we mentioned previously, the requirement that you connect your mobile device to the Patriot and then access the Internet via pass-through causes some degradation in speed. It’s also an inelegant solution, since you need to switch your WiFi connections to the Patriot when you want to access files and away from it when you don’t, since you won’t want to take the performance hit.

We liked

The flexibility of this portable hard drive with WiFi connectivity and a rechargeable battery. We also liked native app support iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire.

We disliked

Confusing user interface and very limited documentation. The WiFi pass-through also causes a sacrifice in speed when connecting to the Internet.

Verdict

As mobile devices start replacing traditional laptops and desktops, it’s natural for people to chafe at the limitations on storage. The Patriot Aero provides an excellent, if not quite elegant, solution to this problem. It takes some time to configure and to determine how best to use its many capabilities, but once mastered it opens up a lot of possibilities.

GeForce Experience is moving out of beta and into its first production release.

Download GeForce Experience here. Or, install it as part of our latest GeForce 320.18 Game Ready driver, also released today. GeForce experience arrives just in time for the release of our flagship GPU, GeForce GTX 780.

We designed GeForce Experience to help you maximize your PC’s performance in your favorite games so that they look and play better. GeForce Experience delivers on this promise by always keeping you up to date with the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers and by delivering optimal game settings tuned to your PC, instantly and automatically, so that you can spend more time playing games.

Since January’s beta release, GeForce Experience has been embraced by the gaming community. PC Gamer called it “…an incredible bit of software and important for PC gaming moving forward.” In beta, GeForce Experience has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times. More than 30,000 feedback submissions were received from around the world.

Coming to a PC Near You: ShadowPlay
Much of this feedback is incorporated in today’s release, and we now support optimized settings for over 80 games. Plus we have much more planned for GeForce Experience in upcoming releases.

For example, a very cool new feature called ShadowPlay is coming this summer. It lets you capture and share all your greatest gaming moments with friends. ShadowPlay takes advantage of dedicated hardware in Kepler-based GPUs to enable ‘always on’ game capture, shadowing your gameplay without the significant performance impact and large file sizes of today’s capture methods. If you pull off an outrageous mid-air maneuver in “Battlefield 3,” you simply hit a hotkey and your moment of glory is instantly saved and ready to share with your friends.

Your feedback has been enormously valuable in helping us to deliver a great experience. Enjoy GeForce Experience and keep the feedback coming.

The last five years or so for AMD CPUs have been sub-spectacular to say the least. But things are looking up and one of the good news stories very much revolves around the new AMD A4-5000 APU, codenamed Kabini.

More precisely, it’s the new Jaguar cores inside this APU that are making waves. That’s because they’re found in both Microsoft’s new Xbox One console and the PlayStation 4 from Sony. Yup, AMD’s Jaguar architecture is a very big deal.

So what exactly is it? Our first taste of Jaguar comes in the form of the quad-core AMD A4-5000 APU. It’s fitted to what’s known as a whitebook laptop. That’s basically a non-branded system that exists primarily for the likes of us to assess the new chip and its associated platform (chipset etc) and tell you all about it. So, you can’t buy this laptop off the shelf.

As for the A4-5000, it’s a variant of what’s known as the Kabini APU or Accelerated Processing unit. Thus it has four Jaguar cores and an AMD Radeon HD 8330 integrated graphics core.

The main thing to appreciate about this chip – and one of the things that makes for an intriguing thought in the context of those new games consoles – is that it’s very much a mobile processor. In fact, it’s pretty much an ultra-mobile processor.

Those Jaguar cores are a replacement for AMD’s earlier Bobcat cores and that makes them more a competitor for Intel’s ultra-mobile Atom processors than any full-power desktop or laptop CPU. The main difference with Jaguar and thus Kabini being that it’s not designed to squeeze into devices as small as smartphones, as the latest low-power Atoms are.

Instead, super thin-and-light laptops and tablets are essentially the limit for Kabini. That’s fine by us. There are plenty of alternatives in the smartphone CPU market. What we want from AMD is something to keep Intel honest in its core market and also provide an alternative in the burgeoning market for tablet PCs running the x86 version of Windows 8, including Microsoft’s Surface Pro.

It would also be nice if Kabini could help provide a cut price alternative to Intel’s sexy but pricey Ultrabooks – you know, systems like the Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A or Acer Aspire S7. And that’s exactly what it promises. Time to find out more.

Specifications

Let’s get the specs of AMD’s reference whitebook sorted and then we can concentrate on that fascinating AMD A4-5000 APU, eh?

It’s a thin-an’-slim 13-inch laptop with a 1080p display. Storage-wise, we’re talking 320GB of old school magnetic hard drive sadly, so we’ll do our best to exclude that from our performance assessments. This chip really wants an SSD.

There’s 4GB of RAM, 512MB of it reserved for the A4-5000′s integrated graphics, more on which in a moment. As for the battery pack, it’s a 3,000mAh unit.

And so to the A4-5000 itself. The fun starts with four AMD Jaguar cores running at 1.5GHz. Jaguar is the follow up to AMD’s Bobcat low-power CPU architecture. It’s in roughly the same ballpark as Intel’s Atom CPU core, but isn’t intended for smartphones. The limit in terms of mobile devices is tablets and super slim laptops.

Anywho, AMD has targetted a range of improvements with the transition from Bobcat to Jaguar. Highlights include increased IPC or instructions per clock, increased frequency at any given voltage and more finely grained power management.

As for the graphics part of the equation, AMD is calling the A4-5000′s 3D core the AMD Radeon HD 8330. It runs at 496MHz and sports AMD’s latest GCN graphics architecture. All told, it packs 128 of AMD’s latest graphics shaders.

At this stage, two pressing comparisons hove into view. Firstly, we have the next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony, both of which sport precisely the same CPU core and graphics arhcitecture. Then there’s Brazos, AMD’s Bobcat-based APU and the A4-5000′s progenitor.

Intriguingly, both the Xbox One and the PS4 have Jaguar cores running at 1.6GHz, so pretty much the same speed as the AMD A4-5000. Of course, they have twice as many cores, but there’s a good chance some of those console cores may be reserved for non-gaming functionality. So in gaming terms, this chip might be almost level pegging with the latest consoles. Quite a thought.

Things aren’t nearly as evenly matched on the graphics side where the PS4 has 1,152 graphics shaders, the Xbox One is thought to have 768 shaders and the A4-5000 has just 128 shaders.

As for the match up with Brazos, well, you get double the number of CPU cores and around a 50 per cent up tick in graphics cores plus an upgrade from AMD’s older VLIW graphics architecture to the latest GCN graphics spec.

Performance

Cinebench 11: 1.45pts
Battery Eater 05: 235 minutes
3D Mark Ice Storm: 23,718
3D Mark Cloud Gate: 2,226
3D Mark Fire Strike: 231

Much of the subjective experience with this new AMD A4-5000 APU was spoiled by the use of a super sluggish magnetic hard drive in the test whitebook laptop provided by AMD. That’s a pity, because it makes it very hard to get a proper feel for what it has to offer as a full-on Windows 8 chip.

But it’s not a complete write off. Once applications and benchmarks have loaded, disk performance becomes much less of an issue, so what have we discovered?

Cinebench 11 is a good starting point. A score of 1.45pts is not hugely impressive. That makes the A4-5000 less than half as grunt as a quad-core AMD FX CPU. As for the match up with something like a quad-core Intel Core i7 chip, it’s gruesome. The i7 is about six times faster.

It’s not an even remotely fair comparison, we grant you, but it puts the A4-5000 in context. A fairer contest is with Intel’s Atom. The Intel Atom D2700 dual core model typically scores around 0.75pts, so the AMD A4-5000 has it pretty much licked.

In the graphics department, well, there’s really only so much you can do with 128 AMD GCN shaders. Remember, AMD’s hottest desktop graphics chip, as found in the AMD Radeon 7970 board, packs 2,048 shaders clocked roughly twice as fast, which works out to a raw performance advantage of 32 times. Yikes.

For the most part, our testing reflects that modest graphics firepower. The more demanding passages in 3DMark are a genuine slide show, with frames taking multiple seconds to update.

This is not a true gaming chip. However, it does have just enough grunt for casual 3D gaming, especially with older titles. Just Don’t expect to fire up Crysis 3 and experience free-flowing and fluid fragging. It ain’t gonna happen.

More of an unambiguous upside is the A4-5000′s battery life. We have to be careful to draw too many conclusions as this is not a retail notebook. But in the context of the modest 3,000mAh battery pack, the AMD A4-5000 looks like it should make for some impressively long lasting systems.

HD video playback is another strong point. CPU decoding of really high bitrate 1080p flash video is executed smoothly, albeit with the CPU cores dangerously close to maximum load. Normal bitrate 1080p video has the cores loaded to about 60 per cent, leaving a healthy amount of headroom.

Verdict

AMD’s new A4-5000 is an intriguingly little chip in its own right. But the knowledge that it shares much of its architecture with the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony Playstation 4 really ramps up the intrigue. So what have we learned?

We liked

2D HD video playback is strong. That’s a critical metric for a modern mobile chip and arguably more important than gaming, even if the latter is what marketing suits prefer to talk about.

We’re encouraged by the A4-5000′s battery performance too. Whitebook’s such as these are rarely the last work in finely honed power management, so our good experience with this laptop will likely only get even better with final retail systems based on AMD’s new APU.

We disliked

Perhaps unsurprisingly, AMD hasn’t worked miracles with the new Jaguar CPU core design. Clocked here at 1.5GHz, you’re looking at cores with less than one fifth the performance of the best current desktop CPU cores.

For the A4-5000 itself, that’s not a major issue. It’s not a full-one desktop chip and with four cores, it makes up for modest single-threaded throughput with a decent amount of multi-threading. But make no mistake, this is a low-power processor architecture. It’s a long way off the pace of AMD’s own full-power laptop processors, much less Intel’s.

More generally, the fact that AMD specified this test whitebook with a 5,200rpm magnetic drive rather than a solid state drive obscured the APU’s ability as a proper Windows 8 chip. Put another way, we’re not completely sure how responsive it will feel configured with an SSD. Our guess is that it will make for a pretty nice Windows 8 chip. It’s just a shame AMD didn’t see fit to show it in its best light.

The graphics performance of the A4-5000 is similarly non-whelming. Based on AMD’s successful and familiar GCN architecture, the limitations are down to the number of functional units AMD has squeezed in.

By today’s standards, 128 graphics shaders is a modest count in a gaming context and there’s no getting round that.

Final verdict

Despite those limitations, we’re generally upbeat about the prospects of the AMD A4-5000 as a laptop and tablet processor. Battery life looks good, 2D video is strong and the CPU cores are likely just good enough.

What this chip reveals about the new games consoles, which share much of its technology, is much more worrying.

Put simply, games developers will desperately need to get to grips with multi-threading if they’re to have any hope of getting good performance out of these new Jaguar cores. And even with threading fully optimised, we guestimate based on this chip that the PS4 and Xbox will have roughly half the CPU performance of a good Intel desktop processor. And that’s assuming all cores are available to a given application or game. Yikes.

As it doesn’t have the essential telecommunication features the Canon PowerShot N clearly isn’t going to take the place of a phone, but the manufacturer hopes that we will use it in conjunction with one.

Thanks to its manufacturer’s camera making know-how and its 1/2.3-inch 12.1MP back-illuminated CMOS sensor and DIGIC 5 processor, the N should be capable of taking better images than the average smartphone.

Furthermore, because its lens has a focal length range equivalent to 28-224mm, it should also prove to be much more versatile than a phone when composing shots. And, if the 8x optical zoom isn’t enough for you this can be extended digitally to 16x to produce the equivalent of a 448mm lens.

Although it’s not app enabled, the PowerShot N has Wi-Fi technology built-in so that it can be connected to a computer or a smartphone to enable you to share images quickly. There’s even a dedicated button that, after initial set-up, can be used to connect to a smartphone or tablet with one touch.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to test this aspect of the camera yet. But judging by the options in the Wi-Fi section of the menu, it should be pretty straightforward to set up.

For those who want to let the world know where they’ve been taking photographs, Canon has a free smartphone app that enables location data to be added to images from a smart device.

The PowerShot N is all about creating images quickly and easily, so naturally all the exposure modes are automatic. Program mode provided the most control, with aspects such as exposure compensation and white balance being adjustable. Alternatively, there are some creative shooting options with filter effect such as Fish-eye Effect, Miniature Effect, Soft Focus, Toy Camera Effect and Monochrome.

There’s also Creative Shot mode, in which the Canon N produces six versions of an image, one untreated and the rest adjusted in a variety of ways depending upon what the camera makes of the image. The camera looks at aspects such as composition, focus, white balance, gradation and contrast and generates five alternative versions automatically.

It produces a variety of fun effects, with some dramatic crops, extreme colour and brightness and contrast shifts that replicate old film, cross-processed and black and white images. While it’s a hit and miss process, it’s fun, and it sometimes produces interesting images that will be a hit on Facebook and the like. We noticed that when shooting a couple of people, the camera often produces shots of both people by themselves as well as one with them together.

We have seen the Hybrid Auto mode before, but Canon has made it more easily accessible via the shooting mode menu screen. When this option is selected, the Canon N records four seconds of 720p footage before each shot. The camera uses the information from the clip to determine the best settings to use for the still image.

But the fun part is that the camera merges all the four second clips captured during the day to create a short movie. It should make for amusing viewing when the Canon N is used at parties.

Build and handling

Perhaps the most noticeable thing about Canon N is that it’s almost square rather than rectangular. It also has a 2.7-inch tilting LCD screen that is touch sensitive. This capacitive device enables you to take control over key features such as the focus point and trip the shutter with a touch of the screen, and we found that it’s nice and responsive.

With the lens collapsed, the Canon N is fairly compact and can be slipped into a jacket pocket, or in some cases a jeans pocket, so it’s easy to transport and can be carried everywhere. It’s also fairly light yet feels solid and well built, so you’ll be happy to take it everywhere that you’d normally take your phone.

There are two rings around the lens. The first is used to zoom from one focal length to another – no great surprises there – but the other is the shutter release, and pushing it up or down trips the shutter. It takes a few moments to get used to it, but it means that the camera can be fired from a range of angles because you can always reach the shutter release.

As most setting selections are made via the touchscreen, there are only three buttons and one switch on the Canon N. One button turns the camera on and off, another switches to playback mode, while the third is the One Touch Wi-Fi button mentioned earlier.

The switch is used to select either the normal shooting mode with access to Program, Auto, Hybrid Auto and the filter effect options or Creative Shot mode. When Creative Shot mode is selected, touching the shutter release or using touch-shutter mode triggers the camera to take a sequence of shots that are then processed to create the six variations mentioned earlier.

Although it has flat sides and will stand upright on a tabletop or similar when the screen is folded home, when this is flipped out for easier viewing from above, the camera becomes unbalanced. This means that you need to hold the camera up to get a shot, so it’s not quite as stable.

The Canon N’s small size, smooth sides and flip-up screen mean it takes a few moments to work out how to hold it. It can be held up level with the eye or down at waist level. Some may find it easy to hold and use one-handed as the fingers of the right hand curl around the body and onto the lens rings (one of which is the shutter release). But it feels a bit strange with no real grip, and you may find your fingers slipping up behind the screen when it is tilted.

One disappointment with the screen is that it can’t be flipped right up above the camera for viewing from in front to help you take self-portraits. Canon UK’s David Parry tells us that making screens that flip through 180 degrees or more as strong as Canon wants them to be is difficult – and that means expensive.

Canon has also put large lugs on the left and right of the camera to attach the strap. As a result, the N cannot rest level on a flat surface when shooting portrait orientation images. This is a shame as it seems a logical way of shooting in some low light conditions. The problem could have been avoided if the strap was more like a lanyard and only attached on one side of the camera.

However, we are told that the company is planning on making a feature of the strap, with the possibility of users customising their straps or choosing decorative versions.

Performance

The technology inside the Canon N, including the sensor, has all been used elsewhere in Canon’s compact camera range.

This means that the image quality should be respectable and on a par with the results from the manufacturer’s other 12MP compact cameras such as the impressive Canon SX50 HS and Canon SX260 HS. These two cameras performed well when we tested them, and this bodes well for the PowerShot N’s image quality.

Check out our Image quality and resolution charts, sample images and sensitivity and noise images on the following pages to see how the camera performed.

Early verdict

The Canon N will be available from early April, and is set to retail for around £269 in the UK (around AU$412) and $299.99 in the US.

It isn’t intended to take the place of a DSLR or even a phone, but to complement them as a ‘take-everywhere’ type camera. And features such as the back-illuminated 1/2.3-inch sensor, tilting touchscreen and the ring shutter release should mean that it helps you get better shots than you’d normally get on your phone.

Despite the simplicity of the touchscreen interface and the high build quality, some may find its size and shape makes it a little awkward to hold. This could be a deciding factor for some, but we think there will be others that love it, and for these people it may help put some fun and spontaneity into their photography.

Image quality and resolution

As part of our image quality testing for the Canon N, we’ve shot our resolution chart.

If you view our crops of the resolution chart’s central section at 100% (or Actual Pixels) you will see that, for example, at ISO 80 the Canon N is capable of resolving up to around 22 (line widths per picture height x100) in its highest quality JPEG files.

For a full explanation of what our resolution charts mean, and how to read them, check out our full explanation of our camera testing resolution charts.

Examining images of the chart taken at each sensitivity setting reveals the following resolution scores in line widths per picture height x100:

Full ISO 80 image, see the cropped (100%) versions below.

ISO 80, score: 22 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 100, score: 20 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 200, score: 20 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 400, score: 20 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 800, score: 14 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 1600, score: 12 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 3200, score: 14 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 6400, score: n/a (Click here to see the full resolution image)

Sample images

Click here to see the full resolution image

The Canon N had no problem focusing on this relatively uniform subject, and it captured plenty of detail across the frame. The colours are also natural.

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

In Creative shot mode the camera takes a sequence of shots in quick succession and generates six different images of the scene – as shown above. The first image is a ‘straight’ version while the others have a variety of effects or crops applied.

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Click here to see the full resolution image

Another Creative shot mode sequence. The photographer has no control over the effects or crops that are applied.

Sensitivity and noise images

Full ISO 80 image, see the cropped (100%) versions below.

ISO 80 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 100 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 200 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 400 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 800 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 1600 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 3200 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

ISO 6400 (Click here to see the full resolution image)

Running on Windows 8 64-bit OS, the LB-F315E from Mouse computer sports a 15.6-inch 1366 x 768 LED-backlight display, a 1.80GHz Intel Celeron 1000M processor, an Intel HM76 Express Chipset, an Intel HD Graphics, a 4GB DDR3 RAM, a 320GB hard drive, a DVD Super Multi Drive, WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 + LE. The LB-F315E sells for 46,830 Yen (about $452). [Product Page]

Following a full day of presentations, interviews, tours, tech demos, and teases of the Xbox One’s game-changing potential, the powers that be at Microsoft finally let us get our mitts on the new hardware’s controller.

While our time behind the gamepad doesn’t allow us to tear up the blacktop in Forza 5 or command a SEAL Team canine in Call of Duty: Ghosts, it does provide a peek at a few of the 40-plus improvements that have been made over its predecessor.

Before diving into six separate demos tailored to show off the controller’s enhanced rumble tech, Microsoft senior product marketing manager, Navin Kumar, states “precision, comfort, and making gaming more realistic than ever” were the driving forces behind designing the new gamepad.

In terms of precision, Kumar points out that the analog sticks respond to inputs with 25 percent less force, delivering a far more accurate experience. He also claims its d-pad allows for “crisper inputs,” perfect for “sweeping movements in fighting and sports games.”

Feeling the full effect of ‘impulse triggers’

While our hands-on time affords little opportunity to test this improved precision and accuracy, it does allow our thumbs and fingers to feel the full effect of what Kumar refers to as “impulse triggers.” Like the 360′s controller, the Xbox One gamepad features left and right triggers, used for everything from scoring headshots to flooring gas pedals.

However, the One’s controller significantly ups the immersion of these interactive experiences thanks to the addition of motors housed in its triggers; in addition to the pair of rumblers located in the hand-grips – as they are in a 360 controller – the One’s peripheral adds one each to both triggers.

It tickles…seriously

As demonstrated during our hands-on time, the tech’s being leveraged in a number of ways to really ratchet the immersion factor. With a press of the Y button, we’re able to fire up a helicopter’s propeller and a sports car’s engine. While these interactions would yield near-identical vibrations with a 360 controller, they feel entirely unique from behind the One’s triggers and sticks. By programming four separate motors, two of which now tickle the sensitive finger tips, the peripheral is able to convey astounding nuance and variety in its vibrations.

On top of differentiating between an engine’s powerful roar and a chopper’s spinning rotors, the quartet of motors allows us to experience how it feels to pop off a few rounds from a hand-cannon and summon a fireball in the palm of our hand. While the former feels much like it does in any contemporary shooter, the latter – thanks to a slow rumbling build-up, leading into a more intense vibration – yields a sense of empowerment we can’t wait to unleash the next time we barbeque baddies in an RPG.

Our final two demos, simulating a ticking heart and braking car, are the most impressive. The pumping brakes deliver a realistic halting sensation the likes of which we’ve never before experienced in a racer, while the heartbeat – delivered by alternating pulse-like vibrations in the two triggers – feels scary-real. In fact, we’re guessing the latter effect will significantly up the fright factor in survival horror games; imagine navigating a dark corridor or derelict space station in complete silence, all while the protagonist’s racing pulse thumps beneath your fingertips.

Early Verdict

Based on our brief time behind the Xbox One’s controller – whose ergonomic design will feel comfortably familiar to 360 owners – the impulse triggers seem to possess the most promise and potential for putting players that much closer to rearranging zombies’ ribcages with melee weapons, roasting trolls with fire balls, and racing across finish lines.

That said, a number of subtler features, such as magnetic sensor-equipped triggers and a battery case that no longer protrudes from the back of the controller, hint at the many ways the next-gen peripheral will provide more precision in your games and comfort in your hands.

Our hands-on time barely scratches the surface of its promised 40-plus improvements, but our satisfied fingers and thumbs are already anticipating what other surprises the Xbox One’s gamepad has got hidden beneath its buttons, sticks, and triggers.

To understand the future of virtualization, check out what Citrix and NVIDIA are up to.

Huang and Templeton announce NVIDIA GRID vGPU on Citrix XenDesktop 7 at Citrix Synergy.

Unveiled this morning by NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and Citrix CEO Mark Templeton in a keynote address at Citrix Synergy, Citrix XenDesktop 7 can remotely access physical GPU resources using NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology.

They told the more than 6,000 conference attendees that tens of millions of knowledge workers can now benefit from graphics acceleration on any platform (Windows, Mac or Android), using any device (desktops, laptops, tablets, even phones), on any application (OpenGL, Direct X, GPGPU or others).

Whether it’s a photo-editing application or one for medical imaging or architectural design, as long as the device has a display and a Citrix receiver, “it now just works,” said Huang, thanks to the NVIDIA GRID vGPU.

In the video below, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and Citrix CEO Mark Templeton demonstrate the incredible high interactivity and low latency of working with virtual applications using NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology integrated into XenDesktop 7.

While the technology combination won’t be generally available until later this year, interest is already sharp among an alphabet soup of OEMs, ISVs and VARs, as well as a slew of customers.

But businesses don’t need to wait to take advantage of GPU sharing. The launch of XenDesktop 7 enables a new class of rich graphics for hosted-shared environments with NVIDIA GRID technology. Offering unmatched application compatibility, this is the only shared, direct GPU acceleration available on the market with Citrix HDX 3D Pro technology.

The world’s leading hardware-makers are building NVIDIA GRID K1 or K2 boards into their servers.

OEMs and ISVs can validate and certify their wares through our certification program and testing center. And we’ve made it easy: Our reciprocal agreement with Citrix gives apps simultaneous NVIDIA GRID and Citrix Ready certification.

With NVIDIA GRID, virtualized devices and applications “just work.”

The most demanding applications like Autodesk AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit and Bunkspeed SHOT, PRO and DRIVE are already certified. We’ll be announcing more certifications of popular apps soon.

The channel is ready to engage customers as well. M7 Global Partners, a consortium of the top nine Citrix platinum-level IT providers in the U.S., announced its strong endorsement of NVIDIA GRID. They’ve got customers around the world looking to deploy visually rich applications across a wide range of industries. M7 plans to deploy GRID technology on servers from all the major OEMs.

In fact, we revealed last week that 175 customer trials with NVIDIA GRID are already underway. The future of virtualization is looking very bright indeed.

Read more about the news from Citrix and NVIDIA in our press release. If you’re at Citrix Synergy, stop our booth, as well as those for Cisco, Dell and IBM, where demonstrations of GRID technology are taking place. And follow us on Twitter at @NVIDIAGRID.

Update: Post updated to include video from keynote address at Citrix Synergy.