DealRadar: TechRadar Deals: Panasonic camera bargain, headphones, games and more

We're back with more deals and today we've found a fantastic deal on a brilliant Panasonic compact camera, so let's drive straight in with that...

Compact camera: The brilliant Panasonic TZ60 is a versatile camera that's ideal for taking on trips either for business or pleasure, and its huge zoom and focal range will appeal to both beginners and more experienced photographers. With a 30x optical zoom, built-in EVF and an 18.1MP sensor, it's Panasonic's flagship compact camera and TechRadar gave it a near perfect review score last year.
So what's the deal? Normally it goes for £329.99 but it's available for just £194 on Amazon.co.uk - but only for the rest of the day! That's a saving of £135.99.

Headphones: Next up today we've found a super deal on the Klipsch Image ONE on-ear headphones. The original price was £129.99 but today you can get them for just £34.99 at Amazon.co.uk.

Wireless speaker: And how about this wireless Bluetooth speaker from the audio gurus at Altec Lansing? It's a rugged speaker as home outside as inside, it's shockprood and waterproof, has NFC and it's currently down to just £59.99 on Amazon.co.uk - down from £129.99.

Action cam: If you're after a new action cam to capture your skateboarding. skiiing, driving or cycling antics, how about the Garmin Virb Elite? With a built-in display, it's wifi-equipped and has a large battery! It was £350, but it's now £139 at Amazon.co.uk

Earphones: And finally, if you're after some new in-ear headphones, check out the SoundMAGIC E10. Down to just £26.99 at Amazon.co.uk, they're available in several different colours!
Gaming headset: Turtle Beach DPX11 PS4 Wired Headset - For as little as £39.99 at argos.co.uk
Fitness: Fitbit Charge HR Large Heart Rate Monitor Wristband - Reduced down to £95.99 (With code FIT20) at Argos.co.uk
Home wi-fi: NETGEAR EX6200-100UKS Dual Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Range Extender - Now only £67.99 at Amazon.co.uk
Soundbar: Philips HTL2101A 40W 2.0 Channel Soundbar (Black) - Now only £49.99 at ebay.co.uk (Co-operative electrical)
Headphones: Parrot Zik 2.0 Philippe Starck Wireless Headphones - Reduced down to £199.99
Mouse: Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse - Down to £22.99 at Amazon.co.uk
Gaming: Nintendo Handheld Console 3DS - For as little as £69 at Amazon.co.uk
Bluetooth headset: Jabra Rox Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Headset - Black - Reduced down to £63.95 at Amazon.co.uk
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD - PS4 - Pre-Order for as little as £35 from gameseek.co.uk
MASS EFFECT 3 - SPECIAL EDITION (WII U) - Reduced down to £4.95 at thegamecollection.net
Far Cry 4 Xbox One - Now only £27.98 at Zaavi.com
inFAMOUS: Second Son - Now only £18 at Amazon.co.uk
Murdered: Soul Suspect - For as little as £9 at Amazon.co.uk
Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed - Reduced down to £9.99 at Amazon.co.uk
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Full Game Download Xbox Live - Now only £3.99 at simplycdkeys.com

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Neptune Duo gives the smartwatch all the power and makes your mobile dumb

The Neptune Duo is an intriguing new product from the start up firm which brought us the phone-in-a-watch Neptune Pine last year.

Where as the Pine got rid of your smartphone completely, the Neptune Duo wants you to keep hold of a larger screen, but it gives all the power to the smartwatch - aka the Neptune Hub.

The quad-core processor and other components are housed in the bracelet style band which includes a speaker and microphone plus 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and NFC connectivity.

You'll have access to all your core smartphone functions on the Hub's curved 2.4-inch display, but if you need more space you can whip out the Pocket Screen (or the Neptune Pocket, to give it its official title) for a full Android Lollipop experience.

The Neptune Hub and Netpune Pocket

The Pocket Screen is thinner, lighter and cheaper than a traditional smartphone, sporting a 5-inch 720p display, front and rear (8MP) cameras and a 2800mAh battery.

The Neptune Duo won't ship until towards the end of the year, but you'll can reserve yours from February 17, with a variety of payment options available to you.

A screen (and camera, and battery) that looks like a phone

If you don't fancy putting any money down up front the Neptune Duo will set you back $798 at time of shipping. Put down $49 and the price at shipping drops to $649, saving you $100.

You can save $200 by paying $199 upfront and then $399 when it's ready to ship, or if you're feeling flush (and confident in Neptune's claims) put down $498 now and pay nothing more - a saving of $300.

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Industry voice: Don't Backoff: nail down your remote access policy or face the music

Remote access and security worries go hand in hand, and last year, we saw the likes of the Backoff malware targeting point-of-sale terminals, and updated Citadel malware, both leveraging unsecured remote access systems to gain access to networks.

For security professionals, the temptation to switch off remote access must be high. However, remote access technology is an essential tool for IT departments and third-party service providers to manage, update and troubleshoot remote systems. The issue isn't remote access technology itself, it's that these technologies are often not managed closely, if at all.

When implemented and managed properly, remote access can be secure. However, as IT professionals, it's important to look at how to govern it. Are the right policies in place when it comes to remote access by IT or third-party providers?

To start with, let's review some best practices. These apply whether the person accessing your network is an internal employee, an outsourced service provider, or third-party vendor.

First, consolidate remote access tools so you can centrally manage and monitor all insider and external remote access. Once you have everyone using a single, sanctioned remote access solution you can categorically block all unsanctioned tools so they can't be used on your network.

Multi-factor authentication is a must. But in order to implement MFA, each individual must be using unique login credentials. Often IT teams or vendors share generic logins to save money on licenses, making it easy for attackers to use brute force methods to successfully guess the password. Not only does sharing passwords undermine access security, it makes it impossible to audit who is doing what on your systems.

Speaking of weak passwords – complexity of passwords, password length and enforcing regular changes in credentials can all help to decrease the potential of an attack.

Finally, limit access to only the specific systems and timeframes required while capturing full audit trails of all remote access activity. This way you can review what occurs during each remote session, and what actions were taken by the technician. This allows you to know exactly who accessed what systems and what they did.

Last year, we all saw the impact that unsecured remote access implementations can have on businesses. One of the reasons that attacks are successful is that there are rules in place for employees using remote access technologies, yet these same rules may not be applied to external parties providing IT services.

For many companies, outsourcing and third party access to their network is a given. 88% of companies have at least one third party with access to their IT networks, according to research by Ovum. One of the respondents had more than 100 service providers using remote access to enter the corporate IT network.

Whether you have one outside supplier or 100, how do you monitor and manage their access? If they are using old or legacy remote support tools, they may be leaving unnecessary vulnerabilities or backdoors on your network that are easy for attackers to compromise. Alongside centralising and prescribing remote access tools, shutting these backdoors should be a given.

Over and above the physical remote access connection, it's also important to consider the rules and policies that people have to follow. This may include setting up a separate set of rules for outside providers that they have to follow as part of working with the organisation. For example, an IT outsourcer should be allowed to access your systems from his computer on his company network, but not from his iPad at home or outside standard business hours.

Security has many layers, and no one solution is going to fully protect you from a data breach. But if you can lock down the initial entry pathway just a bit more, you can significantly up your chances of keeping hackers out and your sensitive data in. With the right mix of tools and processes, threats and malware targeting your company network can be kept at bay.

Boatner Blankenstein is Senior Director of Solutions Engineering for Bomgar

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Hands-on review: Toshiba Satellite Click Mini

The Satellite Click Mini could've turned out very differently. Toshiba lifted the lid on its titular convertible tablet at CES 2015, but instead of emerging as a miniature version of the - quite frankly, ugly - Click 2 it's a surprisingly attractive and portable budget package.

Toshiba's £250 (around US$384, or AUS$492) device arrives in the form of a Windows 8.1 tablet that turns into a laptop when docked into the keyboard. At a fairly uncommon 8.9 inches it straddles the empty space between 8-inch tablets such as the Toshiba Encore 2 and larger 10-inch convertibles with keyboards like the Asus Transformer Book T100.

The Click Mini is a great size for a companion device to use when away from a larger laptop or PC, providing more than enough screen real-estate to get most tasks done while keeping the device plenty portable. It weighs just 999 grams with the keyboard dock attached, and a featherlight 470 grams without.

The Click Mini is one of the few small-to-medium-sized Windows tablets on the market with a 1900 x 1200 pixel-resolution display (toting a healthy 254ppi), which for a long time was exclusive the impressive but costly Lenovo ThinkPad 8.

The display is housed behind a vibrant IPS panel with superb viewing angles and colours that reminded me of the first time I laid eyes on the HP Chromebook 11's punchy pixels. It's just a shame that the thick, almost off-putting black bezel surrounding it is so chunky.

Connectivity-wise, the Satellite Click Mini packs a passable selection of ports into the keyboard, including microSD, full-size SD, micro-HDMI and micro-USB (for charging). Unfortunately Toshiba only managed to cram one full-size USB 2.0 port into the chassis, something you may have to get used to in the impeding one-port future that awaits.

Communication is provided via onboard 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, and the device is WiDi ready. On its front is a 2-megapixel camera which is complimented by a 5-megapixel snapper around the back.

Powering the Click Mini is an Intel AtomTM Z3735F CPU backed up by 2GB of DDR3 RAM. Storage is provided in the form of 32GB eMMC flash memory, which can be expanded by a further 256GB if each of the SD card slots are used to their full 128GB capacity.

The tablet felt nippy enough during our brief time with the device, opening Windows 8.1 apps and menus without experiencing slowdown.

The most noteworthy spec on the Click Mini's sheet is its touted 16-hour battery life supposedly achievable with the battery-equipped keyboard dock connected (or eight without), something we'll be testing in our full review.

The keyboard clearly isn't going to be as comfortable to type on as tablets for devices 10-inches and above, but it's serviceable enough to carry out light productivity work. It suffers from noticeable flex in the middle region of the keyboard which only adds to its unsuitability for heavier tasks.

Plumping the components into the tablet part of the Click Mini has made it top heavy as you would expect, but it's by no means a problem and doesn't come close to tipping over when you're typing. It's suitable for holding in tablet mode for reading sessions thanks to its lightweight nature and the display's wide viewing angles.

It clicks into the keyboard using a row of mechanical teeth, which proved a little awkward to insert and ironically didn't produce much of a click to signal when attached. Our sample was an engineering work-in-progress according to the Toshiba representative demoing it, so that could have been to blame.

If you're in the game for a keyboard-equipped Windows 8.1 tablet that doubles up a laptop, the Toshiba Click Mini could prove fantastic value for money.

It bears the hallmarks of a great companion device thanks to its portable nature, clear IPS display and potentially excellent battery life. It's less suitable as a main machine due to to its low internal storage and middling keyboard, and those seeking a more durable multimedia system probably won't find what they're looking for here.

The Click Mini undoubtedly resides at a level of quality above the dearth of low-cost tablets flooding the market, and the question will be how it goes up against competing tablets in its price bracket - including the Asus Transformer Book T200 and the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2.

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Sony's SmartEyeGlass specs up for pre-order, despite Google Glass woes

Just a few weeks after Google Glass shut its doors, Sony has pulled the covers off the SmartEyeglass Developer Edition SED-E1. It's available for preorder today and will be available in 10 countries when it launches officially on March 10, for £520 (without tax) in the UK and $840 in the US.

Like Glass, SmartEyeGlass uses augmented reality to super-impose an image over your field of view, but rather than supporting colour optics, Sony's smart glasses will display everything in bright green, at a resolution of 419 x 138 pixels.

There is a significant difference between Google and Sony's efforts. Whereas Glass used a projection unit, SmartEyeGlass projects overlays onto the full-frame transparent lenses, filling your field of vision.

The 3mm lenses themselves still have 85% transparency so you can easily read the projected information, but still see the world around you clearly.

Sony claims that the monochrome display allows for extended battery life, but only quotes numbers of around 150 minutes without using the camera, and 80 minutes of full camera use.

Again, perhaps this is a product of this being a development kit, and the final version will include a larger battery.

As you might expect, the glasses themselves come loaded with sensors including accelerometer, gyroscope, brightness sensor and an electronic compass to track your orientation. That's not forgetting the 3MP CMOS image sensor, capable of 3MP stills and QVGA video at 15 frames per second.

It also comes with a wired controller that packs battery, speaker, microphone, NFC chip and touch-sensitive controls.

You'll need Android 4.4 as a minimum if you're interested in picking up a pair, with a number of apps to access Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and others slated to hit Google Play on March 10th.

While better looking than Glass, Sony's eyewear still isn't what we'd call subtle, but bear in mind this is still just a development version - the final version will likely be very different aesthetically. Let's hope so anyway.

YouTube : www.youtube.com/embed/Bx7O_h09HKA

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Industry voice: How to price up an agile project without dooming it to failure

We're all used to quoting and procuring waterfall development contracts, where a defined set of requirements is delivered for a defined price. Because the outcome is clearly set out at the start, it is relatively straightforward to estimate and validate the effort and cost. But how do you price when you don't know exactly what it is that you'll be delivering? This has become one of the biggest challenges around agile projects, and one that doesn't have a simple answer.

The flexible and changeable nature of agile means it doesn't lend itself well to fixed price, yet many procuring organisations still want the certainty of knowing what they'll get and how much they'll pay. This is closely linked to the fact that many organisations want the benefits of agile, without fully understanding what's needed to achieve them.

A prime example of where this went wrong last year is the UK government's Universal Credit programme, which attempted to use agile, but wasn't supported by the right structures, processes and contracts that would have helped make it a success.

The reality is that while agile has matured over the last decade, these processes, structures and contract types have lagged behind. Organisations that understand the requirements for successful agile projects will also understand that agile and fixed price contracts don't go well together, but until this sentiment is shared across an entire organisation, businesses bidding for agile contracts must be flexible in their pricing method. At the same time, all involved – in procurement and delivery – must understand the implications of each approach.

Time and materials (T&M) is ideally suited to agile projects, because it acknowledges the complexities of software development, in that you can't always easily foresee how much time something will take.

The drawback, from a procuring organisation's point of view, is that they, rather than the supplier, shoulder the overall risk in terms of budget, time, effort and scope. However, because agile projects deliver working software that provides real business value at the end of every iteration, the procuring organisation can halt a project at any time and still enjoy tangible benefits. And, of course, the procuring organisation has full control over which benefits these are, because it is their Product Owner who selects what is delivered in each iteration.

In this respect, agile is less risky than waterfall, where an aborted project (of which there have been numerous high-profile examples) may deliver no obvious benefit.

Having said this, the key challenge with T&M contracts remains that the procurer doesn't have a clear view of the costs being incurred by development. To overcome this, there are some alternatives to pure T&M that can be used in agile projects.

Time-boxed time and materials, sometimes called 'fixed price, fixed effort', is compatible with agile insofar as it enables a project to evolve, while giving the procurer the peace of mind they require over cost control. What it doesn't necessarily provide, however, is a clear idea of the outcome that will be delivered in that fixed time period.

Agile projects can be delivered for a fixed price, thereby shifting the risk from the procurer onto the supplier. However, this approach, while it may appear attractive to procurement departments, will limit the benefits agile can deliver. For example, a fixed price contract is likely to specify requirements up front, which limits the scope for changes during development – one of the key factors that helps make agile a success.

Having said that, there are examples of successful compromise projects, where requirements have been specified up front, and the customer has paid a fixed price for a fixed set of requirements, alongside a pool of funds for additional features, which could be added or removed as the project evolved and business needs changed. The entire project is then delivered in a series of agile iterations.

It's not unheard of to run parts of a nominally fixed price waterfall contract in an iterative, agile-esque way. This may bring certain benefits of agile development, such as test-driven development and continuous integration.

However, a fixed price/waterfall project is unlikely to offer very much scope for ongoing feedback, nor for iterative changes to the requirements along the way – the two things that are central to an agile project. Indeed, some would argue that this is not agile at all, but is merely borrowing some techniques that are used in agile.

Every pricing model has advantages and drawbacks, but the most important thing to consider is the outcome: which model will give the best chance of the project delivering the desired result? If organisations really want the benefits that agile can provide – notably that they ultimately get the system that genuinely addresses the underlying need, rather than the system they think they need at the start – then the best pricing model is time and materials.

If, for whatever reason, an organisation is required to deliver an agile project as part of a fixed price arrangement, this needn't be a deal-breaker, but it's important that both the provider and the procuring organisation understand and accept the limitations that a fixed price contract can place on agile.

Sue Purdin is Sales Director at IPL

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Blu-ray gets huge 4K quality boost, possibly kills 3D

The official body that sets the specifications for Blu-ray has finally agreed on a standard that will allow 4K material, or ultra HD, to be stored on Blu-ray disks - after previously announcing that we'll have 4K Blu-rays by Christmas time.

So why has all of this taken so long when there is really no surprise about what 4K is? Well, thanks for asking. It has a lot to do with a new approach to how we see images.

Rather than just increasing the resolution, which is easy, the BDA has also taken the option of giving us better colour reproduction, and the potential for three different types of HDR video.

Physically, there will be a change in the Blu-ray discs. A 66GB dual-layer and a 100GB triple-layer Blu-ray disc will be the medium for Ultra HD Blu-ray.

Video will be encoded with the super-efficient h.265, or HEVC (High Efficiency Video Codec) as it's more often known. Audio, it seems, won't be seeing much change but that's not a massive issue as Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-MA are both lossless and studio quality anyway.

Colour is important, but has been ignored for a long time but modern TVs have an enormous amount of potential that is wasted on most formats. Blu-ray uses something called a 4:2:0 colour while UHD Blu-ray can mange 4:4:4.

The only problem with this is that most TVs and most AV receivers don't yet do 4:4:4 so seeing any benefit from it will require new equipment from end-to-end. We've covered some of these issues before, and it's worth having a look to understand what's going on here.

Also included in the Blu-ray ultra HD spec is support for 10-bit sampling. This makes a difference to the quality, but Blu-ray is currently tweaked so it's not obvious it uses 8-bit sampling. This will improve the quality, but there's only a small chance you'll actually notice.

High Dynamic Range, or HDR is also important because it will allow TVs to show much more detail in both areas that are bright, and areas which are dark. The human eye has a great range, around 1000:1 and the same is true of modern digital video cameras. Flat panel TVs also have a theoretically great dynamic range, but are hampered by other factors.

So the idea here is for Ultra HD Blu-ray to enable HDR formats, and for modern TVs to remove the bits that can't handle an improved dynamic range.

At CES this year Netflix and LG announced that they would be collaborating to bring HDR via streaming video. Adding it to Blu-ray makes a lot of sense, and may well be more significant than the resolution increase. Yes - it's really that important.

Oh, and one more thing: 3D is dead. It's not included in the spec. Presumably 1080p 3D is fine, but there's no mention of 4K 3D. Will it be added in the future? Who cares.

Copy protection isn't really mentioned in any of the news about this. Given Hollywood's paranoia about such matters, you can bet that Blu-ray players will require HDCP 2.2. This means that to see 4K you'll need a TV that supports that system.

The options for TVs that don't have HDCP 2.2 might include fallback to 1080p, but that's really just a guess. Only time will tell what horrors of copy protection await us on this new format.

Source: 4K

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