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Windows 10's October update is rolling out with a refreshed Start menu
Expect a new-look Start menu and Edge tabs to appear in the alt-tab window list.
PSA: Real LCD HDTV refresh rates are getting harder to find behind marketing fluff
Electronics makers love a spec they can get behind and make the center point of their marketing efforts -- no matter how useless it is as a comparison. The undisputed be all arms race HDTV metric for the past few years, LCD refresh rates, has recently become even muddier according to HD Guru. Terms like Clear Motion Rate (Samsung) and Scenes Per Second (Vizio) are meant to confuse the customer while resembling the somewhat useful (and, as of late, unmentioned on the box) refresh rate. Our advice? Ignore this spec completely and instead find a TV that can accurately display your favorite content at its native frame rate (24, 30 or 60) -- leave all that soap-opera looking frame interpolation technology to the modern day twelve o'clock flasher.
E Ink dashes hopes of a next gen display in 2011, but pencils in full-motion video for 2012
E Ink Holdings is brazenly making us wait until 2012 before producing a successor to its popular Pearl electronic paper display. One of the company's VPs dropped into CNET's offices to spill the bad news: developing and testing a next-generation display "takes some time", apparently, and it is sticking to a two year product cycle. Perhaps E Ink has shifted its focus to the LCD screen in Amazon's rumoured tablet. Or maybe it's still working on the Triton color e-ink display that left us so underwhelmed at CES. Either way, the monochrome Pearl has been knocking around in the Kindle and other e-readers for a while now and although it has better contrast than earlier iterations, it is still ripe for a revamp -- especially a faster refresh rate. But the E Ink VP did hint at some brighter news: the next-gen display, when it does finally arrive, could sport full-motion video. So far e-ink video has failed to go beyond a slightly jittery 10-15fps, so full-motion 24fps or 30fps could definitely be worth the wait.
HDTV tests pit fantasy land specs against real world performance -- guess what happens
Good luck keeping up with the ever changing specs on the latest HDTVs, but as the numbers get more impressive, are the displays actually improving in any noticeable way? Dr. Raymond Soneira , president of DisplayMate, goes about breaking down many of the more often misused and misleading technical buzzwords in an article on MaximumPC. If you're wondering how manufacturers have advanced contrast ratios from thousands, to millions, to unlimited over the space of just a few years, there's a breakdown of what "dynamic contrast ratio" actually measures and why it's worth ignoring -- unless you watch your TV when it's only displaying one color at a time. When it comes to colors, some of the most scathing words were pointed towards Sharp's Quattron quad-pixel technology, which "can only decrease picture quality and accuracy!" Whether you believe the good Dr., a glistening review or Cmdr. Sulu, the factual heat burned hottest during a test of motion blur compared on LCDs, LED LCDs, plasmas and even a pro CRT. While additional motion processing and upgraded internals on newer HDTVs can help in many other ways, viewers couldn't detect any blur caused by a display even on an old 60Hz set, despite newer and faster 120Hz, 240Hz and 600Hz (plasma) sets claiming their technology helped them eliminate it. You'll need a minute to read through for the full details but it's a good, and unfortunately necessary, reminder to keep your eyes on the display and not just the spec sheet (just make sure you're getting a proper look that represents the way you watch TV at home first).
JVC unveils 120Hz Clear Motion Drive for 1080p LCDs
Not to be outdone by Samsung or LG, JVC has announced its own implementation of 120Hz refresh rate on 1080p LCDs just prior to CES 2007. JVC's 120Hz Clear Motion Drive utilizes frame doubling and motion interpolation in a way that they claim is at least theoretically superior to a traditional 60Hz LCD with a 0ms refresh rate. The company has decided it is time to create a new way to measure the rate of image blurring, in order to show the difference between newer motion drive-equipped HDTVs and traditional panels. Called Motion Picture Response Time, these LCDs will rate 10.5ms, while previous models could not possibly rate higher than 13.3ms. However you count it, it will be interesting to see how much of a difference this new technology makes, and if people who already own conventional 1080p LCDs will consider upgrading for it when they become available in the second half of this year.
Samsung's 19-inch CX919B boasts 2000:1 contrast ratio
With so much focus on response time these days, it's nice to see Samsung play up another aspect of its newest 19-inch LCD, namely the display's impressive 2000:1 contrast ratio. That's not to say the SyncMastermagic CX919B has a slow refresh rate -- to the contrary, it seems to employ the CX917B's "Response Time Accelerator" to go from gray to gray in a zippy 2-milliseconds -- rather, the highlight here just happens to be that "Dynamic Contrast" technology which promises to deliver truer blacks. Besides these two key details, however, not much else is known on the specs tip -- including our old favorites, pricing and availability.
