Flutter review

Anyone who grew up watching the Star Wars movies knows how cool it looked to be a Jedi and control things with a simple movement of the hand. For a long time, it seemed as if this would remain firmly in the realm of science fiction along with lightsabers. Now a new app that relies on hand gestures is available for controlling your music. Called Flutter, this free Windows software lets you start and stop your music simply by showing the flat palm of your hand to your webcam. See all software downloads.

You need to use either iTunes, Spotify, Winamp, or Windows Media Player for your music playing. Anything else, such as Miro or Zune, is not currently supported.

Starting and stopping the music is at present the only thing Flutter can do, so look upon this as simply proof that the concept works. Apparently, according to the company website, next up in the pipeline is a beta version (currently for Mac OS X only) that allows you to change music tracks, simply by swiping your hand in front of the webcam. I'm sure they are also working on a version that increases and decreases the volume (at least, I hope so).

The pros to Flutter are ones that will appeal to efficiency freaks. If you're sitting in front of your computer typing away, and you want to change the track on iTunes, then you would have to stop typing, look for the mouse, find iTunes, then the track…that all takes time. But with Flutter, when you want to change tracks, you just stop typing, hold up a hand in front of the webcam, then go back to typing as the Rolling Stones track flips from not getting any satisfaction to singing about Angie. There's no need to click the mouse or to search for tracks. Your webcam and Flutter do it all for you.

Flutter has cons, though. Throughout the few weeks I tested this app, sudden hand movements at times started my Spotify desktop app. Supposedly Flutter should start Spotify only when I show my flat palm to the webcam, but I've had Spotify starting when I scratched my ear or swatted a fly away from my head. In subsequent tests, I failed to recreate this problem, so maybe it was just a temporary glitch. Nevertheless, when you have Flutter on, you should be cautious with your movements in front of the webcam. Plus, until the next version comes out, Flutter has only one function.

Bad Piggies review

Bad Piggies is the latest hit mobile game from Rovio, developer of the hugely successful Angry Birds franchise. It's not a carbon copy of Rovio's original blueprint, but we expect it to be every bit as successful. Here's our Bad Piggies for Android review, also available for iOS, PC, Mac and, soon, Windows 8 and Windows Phone. 

First released for iOS in December 2009, Angry Birds remains one of the most popular mobile games of all time, with millions of downloads from Apple's App Store and Google Play. Rovio has been milking its cash cow ever since, with Seasons, Rio and Space sequels, and an online store that offers a range of merchandise from plush toys, clothing and iPhone and iPad cases to bedding, books and stationery. See Best Android Apps.

We've all bought into Rovio's loveable characters. There's Yellow Bird the dive-bomber, Black Bird who explodes on impact, Big Brother Bird who demolishes everything in his way, and White Bird who drops bombs, for example. And then there are the macaws, bulldogs, toucans, parrots, marmosets and more, introduced in later episodes. But arguably the most important character is the one who features in every level: the egg-stealing Bad Piggy, without whom the Angry Birds would have no purpose; they'd be weapons with no target. It's high time the evil green swines swapped stealing eggs for their own spin-off series.

Unlike Angry Birds, in which you must fire avian missiles to take out Bad Piggies, there is no such violence in this sequel. A cute showreel of the type we've come to expect from Rovio aids your understanding of this new mission. It appears that having found a map telling them exactly where to find the Angry Birds' eggs, the Bad Piggies have managed to lose said map in Piggy Island. King Pig has ordered his minions to recover the map, and you will collect a single scrap of this vital information with each level you complete. 

Bad Piggies is more of a cross with Rovio's Amazing Alex than it is a carbon copy of Angry Birds. In the former, you must interact with various toys and other items to create a chain reaction that allows a football to land in a basket, or pop a balloon let off in the direction of a pair of scissors. In Bad Piggies, a hand-made contraption comprised of propellant devices, wheels, springs, TNT, balloons, umbrellas, engines, sand bags, fizzy pop and more enables you to manoeuvre obstacles, getting your Bad Piggy to the finishing line and a step closer to victory in Rovio's mobile war.

Bad Piggies operates on the same three-star rating system that's become synonymous with Angry Birds, and which has since been incorporated into a plethora of games by developers hoping to build on Rovio's success (read our Bunny Shooter for Android review for an example of just one). There is no baffling scoring system here, though; zoom out of a level to see exactly what is required of you to achieve full-marks, whether that's to complete a level within a certain amount of time, collect all the stars, build a contraption without using a specific part or get to the finishing line unscathed.  

 

You can choose to play in either Ground Hog Day or When Pigs Fly chapters, both of which include 36 free levels, plus nine bonus levels. You'll need to complete a level to move on to the next, and a bonus level is accessible only after you score a given number of stars in the four levels preceding it. Extremely challenging but very fun Sandbox levels can also be unlocked, in essence the equivalent of boss levels, in which you can select any of the tools available throughout the chapter to build a vehicle capable of enduring one mega-challenge. A fourth chapter is simply labelled Coming Soon, welcome evidence of Rovio's promise to continually add free updates. 

There is no single right way to build your cart: several combinations might get you to the end of a level, although not all will allow you to do so with no damage and within a certain amount of time. The game is made more difficult in the sense that you need not only create a winning vehicle, but you must monitor it throughout the level, toggling on and off the engine, opening an umbrella or popping a balloon with precise timing. Even with the correct combination of parts, it can take several goes to win all three stars.

A hint book can be useful in helping you to build a workable contraption for each level, without you needing to visit YouTube for a walkthrough (of which there are many). Alternatively, if you're stuck, you can hire a mechanic to build your vehicle. You get three free mechanic tokens for liking the game on Facebook; thereafter, it costs $1.99 for 10, $5.99 for 35 and $9.99 for 65.

join.me for Windows 8 review

You may already be aware of join.me - a simple tool from the makers of LogMeIn that allows you to share your desktop in real-time with other connected PC or laptop users. join.me for Windows 8 brings to Windows 8 PC, laptop and tablet the functionality of viewing join.me sessions via a Metro-style Windows 8 app. See all: Windows app reviews.

You can read more about join.me's great functionality in our Join.me review, but in essence the meeting instigator has to download and install a tiny software program. They then browse to join.me, and click 'Share'. This generates a nine-digit code, which they send to any intended viewers of their screen. They in turn simply browse to join.me/xxx-xxx-xxx, and can immediately see the host's PC desktop in their browser Window. Screen sharers can then IM or chat. With the pro version of join.me the host can even give control of their PC to the viewer. (See also: Windows 8: the complete guide.)

It's a really useful tool for when you want to explain how to do something by showing it rather than trying to explain. You can even use join.me show photos to a relative. Best of all it is free, in its simplest form.

join.me is fantastically simple to use, and it works well. With the join.me viewer for Windows 8 you can join real-time online meetings wherever you can get online witha Windows 8 device. The person who instigates the meeting generates a nine-digit code as normal, and you simply pop it into the Metro-style app and away you go.

The app is simplicity itself, but in our tests over Wi-Fi join.me for Windows 8 worked beautifully. It is nicely zippy and stable: as we typed on our host desktop PC, we could watch the copy appear in real time on our Windows 8 Samsung Series 7 Slate PC. There was only minimal lag.

The join.me viewer for Windows 8 is a free Metro-style app available from the Windows Store.

Quick Note for Windows 8 review

Quick Note covers one of the app gaps that Windows 8 is going to have to fill in order to become a proper portable OS for PC, laptop and tablet - that of lightweight note taker and clipboard. You can use it as a simple notepad, to record your to-do lists, and as a place in which to clip interesting web tidbits. See all: Windows app reviews.

The ability to jot down simple notes is one of the principle benefits of tablet PCs. The ability to organise and search such notes can be a killer app - it certainly beats paper and pen. Even on a static desktop PC, a digital to-do list is a lot more useful (and less ugly) than a scrap of paper. Windows 8 has no native note-taker, and although Word 2013 can be used for this task, that's very much in sledgehammer and nut territory. Made by Diigo Quick Note is a simple, free app that fulfils an important purpose, you can find it in the Windows Store. (See also: Windows 8: the complete guide.)

Open up Quick Note and it looks exactly like the native Notes app for iOS - like a brown and yellow jotting pad. You can create and edit notes from within the app, or take advantage of Windows 8's universal navigatory 'contract' and right-click to take notes.

Quick Note lets you attach notes to your home screen, which will be useful. A single click could take you from booting to to-do list, for example. And bearing in mind that Windows ultraportable laptops and tablets are designed to remain always on and in sleep mode, this could be a quick action.

You can also simply click to add web content to notes. And if your device allows it, you can jot down notes with a stylus or pen, and the Quick Note app will recognise them. To an extent (editing your notes is at least straightforward).

As with all Windows 8 apps, there is a Share menu in the Charms. This allows you to mail notes or 'share' them via Quick Note (in essence, this simply duplicates the note). We can't imagine too many occasions wherein you would need to share a note via social media, but it would be nice to have the option.

Windows 9 on ARM could kill the desktop, merge Windows Phone and Windows RT

Surface 2 buyers and other Windows RT tablet owners may be left out of the fun when Microsoft reveals Windows Threshold (a.k.a. Windows 9) , as the tipped release is said to be for PCs and tablets built around traditional x86 processors alone, according to a recent report. But when the next generation of Windows does make its way to ARM processor-powered devices, it could provide a startling—and welcome—glimpse at a post-desktop future for Microsoft's "Universal Windows" concept.

While the x86 version of Windows 9 is reported to dial back Windows 8's sweeping changes, introducing PC-friendly tweaks like  and the , the ARM-based version will abandon the desktop entirely, according to separate reports from , , and .

If true, the move makes sense, as Windows devices with ARM processors are limited to touchscreen-capable tablets and phones, not proper PCs. Microsoft began duplicating desktop functionality in the Metro interface en masse with released in October 2013.

What's more, both sites report that Windows Threshold for ARM devices will run on tablets and Windows Phones alike, unifying Microsoft's mobile interfaces. Rumors about a potential merger for Windows RT and Windows Phone have been , stoked by Microsoft actions such as the and a declaration that by former Windows chief Julie Larsen-Green.

Nokia's Lumia 2520 and Microsoft's Surface 2 are the only Windows RT tablets currently available. Other hardware makers have abandoned the platform in favor of Windows 8 tablets with x86 process.

Late last year, Microsoft was also tipped to be working to —an important step if the two operating systems are indeed going to merge.

According to WinBeta's anonymous sources, the ARM version of Threshold will also include the and a notification center, which are two of the . Both were recently introduced to smartphones in . Fingers crossed!

Two Windows, two paths

Assuming the reports prove accurate, the changes Microsoft appear poised to introduce in Windows 9 are heartening indeed. Windows 8's greatest flaw was its attempt to force a single interface across a wide range of devices with varied use cases; its successor appears well poised to let a PC be a PC and a tablet be a tablet, a process that was already kicked off by the recent (and superb) . The spread-out Start screen is a burden when you're using a mouse and keyboard, while the desktop is a vestigial, difficult-to-use mess on touchscreen tablets.

A Microsoft-supplied screenshot showing the Start menu and Metro apps running on the desktop.

Of course, Microsoft isn't ditching the apps on the desktop entirely. The reborn Start menu will include Metro apps, and those apps will be able to run in desktop windows, as Microsoft revealed at its Build conference this past spring. Again, that falls right in to Windows 9 letting —an ideal .

Another bonus to these rumors: If Windows 9 truly ditches the desktop on ARM-powered devices, that indicates that we may see sooner rather than later. Because there's no way Microsoft would yank the desktop without making a touch-friendly version of Office available for Surface users, right? Of course, Microsoft launched touchy-feely Windows 8 two full years ago and there's still no Metro Office available.

The future of Windows on ARM should be revealed before long. the Windows Threshold preview for ARM devices is scheduled for next January or February, ahead of an anticipated general release for Windows 9 in the spring.