Australian T3 - May 2018

A

GaGu’s honest advice is to

tryonefirst.Andnotjust

for five minutes. Strap

yourself in for half an hour, weave

and wobble your head around in

that virtual world, and see just

how quickly your brain tells your

stomachthatlunchisentirely

optional. Higher-end headsets with

better refresh rates and tighter

screen doors tend to make the

problem less prominent, but it’s

there nonetheless.

The other question is just what

sort of an investment it’s going to

be, and what you’ll get out of it.

You’ll need a hefty computer to run

goodPCVRsetups–isyoursup to

scratch? Headsets aren’t cheap,

especially if you go for the full bells

andwhistlesoptionoftheVivePro

(p74). The PS VR is much more

affordable, but we’re still talking

over $800 all-in. And when you’ve

got one, what’s the justification?

There are some very cool and cute

‘experiences’ and games out there,

butthere’snotalotwe’dcall

essential.Atleastnotyet...

GADGET GURU’S MAGIC BOX

A

GaGu’s policy of ‘don’t ask,
don’t tell your Mum’ doesn’t
work for everyone – well, it
works for the progressively more
twistedmindofyoungGaGuJr,but
it might not suit you. Luckily there
areplentyofthingsthatcanbe
done,atleasttoacertainextent.
You could go all heavy-handed and
force their computer into lockdown
mode, giving them a restricted
user account. This is reasonably
straightforwardonbothmacOS
and Windows, but it’s also an
almighty pain in the rear end if
you’re the one who has to
administer the thing.
Whileyou’reputtingyour
offspringincyber-jail,whynotgo
one further and install draconic
webfilteringsoftwareoneach
machine?Theseaddalittlesystem
overhead, slightly knocking
performance, so you could instead
addafiltermachinebetweenyour
router and the rest of the network:
this is either prohibitively expensive,

absurdly complex, or both, so

Guru probably wouldn’t bother.

Luckily, the march of funspoiling

technology has reached the ever

more powerful domain of routers

and mesh networks. Installing

something like Asus’ cute hole-

drilled-through-it Blue Cave router

($369) gives you access to an app

inwhichyoucanadministerthe

router’s own web filter, and adds

theabilitytoputtimelimitsand

even speed restrictions on your

kids.LittleJimmydownloadinga

few too many of them memes?

Show him what it was like to use

dial-up back in the day.

Fundamentally, though, kids are

clever. There’s no real way to stop

them–they’llfindloopholes,they’ll

shoulder-surf your password, they’ll

go to Feral Cousin Hubert’s house.

They’llgetin.Don’tletthatstop

you from implementing security

measures, but make sure that

talking to your kids about the

internet cesspool is a solution.

HowdoIcontrolwhatmy

kids see online?

PETER W, BUSSELTON

Is it worth

buying a VR

headset?

ANDREA R,

PORT AUGUSTA

GaGu just had to take time out of his day

and use up precious self-promotion space

from the Magic Box to tell you about the

GoBone. It’s the world’s first SmartBone.

Isn’t that just fantastic? $180 worth of

rubbery electronics that you control with

your smartphone to befuddle your hound.

You don’t even have to be there – you can

set it to annoy your dog on a schedule. But

that doesn’t matter, because the fun will

only last until your dog destroys it. Judging

by the Amazon comments, this will happen

within minutes of the Kickstarted nonsense-

machine entering its enthusiastic jaws.

You may have noticed that Ol’ Lovable

Uncle Guru is a tad angry this issue. It’s not

you, reader (well, it probably is a bit) but a

combination of tech-related hangups. The

Man took back GaGu’s long-on-loan and

absolutely tremendous Linksys Velop

($649) mesh networking setup, forcing your

favourite curmudgeon to either cough up

and buy one for himself or put up with

internet black spots. He has chosen the

latter option, mainly because his trusty

Android handset has fallen victim to an

obviously completely unrelated accident

whereby it is now in two distinct pieces.

But what to get? Guru’s cash allowance

is relatively small given the circumstances,

so he’s leaning towards China for his

next Android – the Huawei Nova Nova 2 lite

($299) is unbelievably cheap and, it seems,

reasonable in terms of specs. With the

camera muscle of the Huawei P20 Pro

(p80) out of financial reach, do we look

at the Honor 10 (price unknown as press

time)? Perhaps the Nova 3e, to take

advantage of about as much power as

GaGu’s likely to get for $400? Who knows.

You’ll know, when Guru makes his mind up.

Discover more at techradar.com/au WINTER 2018 T3 19

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