Super-fast ‘beamforming’ technology is on the horizon, and it could revolutionise the way we use wifi.

Buffalo have introduced a new router which runs to a new standard in wifi – 802.11ac. This brand new standard is so new that it’s yet to have been certified, but reports are that we’ll be able to transmit data wirelessly at up to 1.3 Gbps. That speed will soon become widely known as ‘5G WiFi’; it’s roughly the same speed as a gigabit ethernet cable, and it’s three times faster than 802.11n according to industry experts.

Beamforming funnels network traffic in a particular physical direction, rather than spreading it evenly around the router antenna. This blasts data directly at the receiving device instead of scattering it around the room.

What does that mean for day-to-day use?

● HD movies and music will stream effortlessly over your home wifi network without the need for running ethernet cables.
● The speed you’ll get from your wireless router to your mobile devices will be blazingly fast – far faster than 3G.
● The range and reliability of wireless signals should also improve once 5G WiFi becomes commonplace, meaning better coverage in the home without buying additional hardware.
● And if you consume and stream media around the house on different devices, you’ll see a difference thanks to increased bandwidth – ideal for services like iTunes Match, Netflix and Hulu.

Don’t panic! There’s no need to chuck that New iPad in the bin. The new 802.11ac standard will be backwards compatible with 802.11n, the fastest speed currently on the market, as well as older devices connecting via 802.11a/g.

The Buffalo AirStation WZR-D1800H can be ordered online in the US right now, costing around $180, and a wireless 802.11ac media bridge is available for around the same price. Netgear will be bringing out their own 802.11ac router in the US later this month.

But it’s not just about mobile devices: companies are making leaps in the world of computing too, and the biggest company of all looks set to be raising the bar yet again.

Lately, Apple have been all about smartphones and tablet PCs, with the iPhone 4S and The New iPad reinforcing their position at the forefront of the market. But their ‘bread and butter’ products – Macbooks and iMacs – have been a little neglected. New Ultrabooks running Windows operating systems could soon overtake the Macbook Air, offering sleek looks and phenomenal power to rival Apple’s flagship futuristic laptop.

Up step the users of Mac benchmarking site Geekbench with a rumour about a new Macbook Pro which has never been seen before. Leaked stats seem to suggest the mystery Mac is running a completely unique hardware configuration, at least compared to commercially available Macs, and a build of Mountain Lion (aka Mac OS X version 10.8) which has never been released to developers.

Another Mac rumours website, 9to5Mac, reported yesterday that a new-look Macbook Pro has been put into production. According to ‘trusted sources’, the new Macbook Pro isn’t quite as razor thin as the Macbook Air, but it’s substantially trimmer than the version currently in stores. It’s reported to have an Intel Ivy Bridge chip on board and could even be made from Liquidmetal according to SlashGear.

Both sites agree that the new Macbook Pro – if it exists – seems to have some kind of super high definition screen, bringing it in line with the retina displays on the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and The New iPad. It also seems unlikely that a DVD drive is included; if that’s true, it could be the final death knell for optical media.

What do you think: buy a new Mac tomorrow or wait for news of the new Mystery Mac?

Virgin Atlantic will soon be offering in-flight internet access via wifi, giving passengers the opportunity to stay in touch in the air. Smartphone addicts will also be able to send texts and make phone calls on their own phones – handy if your flight has been delayed, or you forgot to book a transfer before take-off. Using the internet on a plane isn’t entirely new, but this is the first time a British airline will offer it on a large scale.

The service won’t be free, of course: you’ll have to pay for the credits you use, and like most in-flight services and products, it’s unlikely to be affordable for anything other than emergency calls. Business users will probably get some benefit, but don’t expect to stream your iTunes Match content or watch YouTube: the wifi speed will be about the same as the ancient GPRS access we used to use on our mobile phones.

Virgin Atlantic are installing the new system, run by AeroMobile, into the first class cabins in a brand new fleet of Airbus A330 planes which are expected to go into service at the end of this year. Another plane, the super-swish Boeing Dreamliner, will offer wifi throughout, although passengers who want to be the first to experience the super-plane will need to wait a couple more years. Both planes are also likely to offer USB charging ports so you can hook up your iPad and iPhone while tucking into your airline meal.

With added convenience comes added problems for holiday travel. Those cramped-up seats will be even less appealing when you’re sitting next to someone who won’t get off the phone. Perhaps some airlines will even start to charge more for ‘mobile free zones’.

Would you pay to use your gadgets on the plane?

My new iPad case arrived today from @TheSnugg, ordered Friday afternoon. 1st class service & a great product. #veryhappywiththis

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Snugg iPad 2 Case Cover and Flip Stand it keeps my ipad as new, well made, sturdy, quality leather, its a must have. @TheSnugg

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@TheSnugg @UKcompetitions have as sis in law loves her kindle case it is first class

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@TheSnugg hey! I received the iPad case this morning! Thank you so much! I put it straight on my iPad! It’s fab thank you xx

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I want this for my iPad, us.thesnugg.com/ipad-2-cases/s…

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@TheBoyandMe highly recommend @thesnugg we have a case and an attachment that fits on the headrest of our car

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If you’d like to enter for your chance to win this prize then tag us in a post or include us in a tweet letting us know how we’ve made your day/week/month/year! In return we’ll get you entered!

The new Samsung Galaxy SIII was announced last week, and it gained more press attention than any other smartphone launch in recent months. There are obvious similarities between the new Samsung handset and the HTC One X, another premium Android handset that’s brand new to the UK. Could Apple’s reluctance to change a winning formula cost them customers?

The new Samsung Galaxy SIII and HTC One X phones are priced at a similar level as Apple’s flagship smartphone, but the numbers speak for themselves. The SIII has a gigantic 4.8 inch HD AMOLED screen, putting the 3.5 inch iPhone 4S screen to shame. Both the HTC and Samsung Galaxy SIII phones have quad core processors, whereas the iPhone only has a dual core A5 chip. The Android contenders weigh in at 130g and 133g respectively, compared to the iPhone 4S which weighs 140g.

Both new Android phones come with free two-year Dropbox accounts, although the SIII have doubled capacity compared to HTC: they’re offering a huge 50GB storage allowance.

There are also a number of genuine innovations which already make the iPhone 4S look a little dated. The Samsung Galaxy SIII can be unlocked using face recognition software, and the phone can transfer files using NFC – that’s a similar type of technology as used in Oyster cards (to put things in perspective, it allows transfers three times faster than a standard (i.e. non-gigabit) ethernet cables). The new Samsung phone also uses a brand new Gorilla Glass 2 screen which is even thinner than the original but just as resistant to breakage. Find out more here

It’s rumoured that Samsung are treading very carefully to avoid being taken to court over the design of their new handsets. They’ve apparently moved away from square silhouettes towards curvy lines to make the product look different from the iPhone and avoid any more legal battles that could cost them money.

Are you tempted to ditch your iPhone 4S for the Samsung Galaxy SIII?

The massive social networking site has been valued at between $85 billion and $96 billion, dwarfing the $1 billion Mark Zuckerberg paid for Instagram last month but coming in short of the $100 billion estimated value.

Eight years ago, Google was floated for $24 billion, so the valuation shows just how far things have come in the world of social networking and search. There’s still room for the Facebook valuation to rise further before the sale actually takes place.

The valuation would set it alongside Amazon on the Nasdaq, and Mark Zuckerberg would hold shares worth $17.6 billion. The company will be selling off some of its stock to raise money, and the team say they will be moving more towards app and mobile development once the company goes public. Mark Zuckerberg has kept hold of more than 57% of the voting power when it comes to shareholder decisions, meaning he is likely to steer the company for a few years yet.

The site made $1 billion in profit last year, but some people think Facebook will struggle to keep up momentum as users get bored of the network, in the same way that Myspace’s valuation rapidly slipped once users moved elsewhere.

Mark Zuckerberg has had to justify his expensive decision to purchase Instagram after powering ahead with the purchase almost single-handedly. He said he leapt in once the service gained a critical mass of users, aiming to beat Twitter who were rumoured to be interested in buying the company.

Mark Zuckerberg also says he would be willing to launch Facebook in China. This comes as another service, Evernote, open their own Chinese data centre to try to tap into a lucrative market of Chinese internet users.

Oracle are accusing Google of ripping off Java in the production of Android without paying a licence fee. Java was technically free at the time, but a license was needed to make massive changes, which is what Google’s development team did.

The jury decided that Google have broken copyright in Android, and emails between Google staff seem to confirm that they knew a licence was needed at the time. But the jury couldn’t decide whether the copyright infringement should be considered ‘fair use’ in legal terms.

‘Fair use’ is the same clause that allows school children to photocopy a handful of pages from books for their studies, and allows a certain amount of flexibility when it comes to copyrighted works.

The Oracle team are looking for $1 billion in damages from Google, but it now seems like they’ll fall a long way short of their target. Java is now their product because they purchased Sun, the original owner, in 2010. It looks like they may only receive $150,000 for just nine lines of ripped off code.

Android is now used by 300 million people worldwide, and the company is just about to break another record: through Android Market, and the Google Play Store, it has now sold almost 15 billion apps. If Google continue to sell apps at this phenomenal pace, they will soon overtake Apple in the app sales stakes and beat them at their own game. Android is now the fastest moving OS for smartphones which makes it a lucrative target for companies like Oracle.

For now, at least, it seems Google are safe from Oracle’s lawsuits, but round two begins this week.

RIM have lost around half the market share they held in 2011, and the company has lurched from crisis to crisis as revenues fall.

The BlackBerry 10 was released early to app developers in the hope that RIM can pick up some pace ahead of its launch. The company are offering app developers $10,000 (about £6,000) if their apps are ready to download when the phone is launched, and there’s a Development Kit already in circulation to make it happen.

The BlackBerry 10 prototype looks like an iPhone at first glance; it is a sleek, flat rectangle with a 4.2 inch screen. But it has no physical buttons on the front – not even a home button. The traditional BlackBerry keyboard has been replaced by a smart on-screen keyboard that predicts different possibilities for your next word as you type, allowing you to build sentences quickly. The launch video also shows the BlackBerry 10 streaming video to a TV.

BlackBerry’s new operating system should bring it into line with Android and iOS in some ways: users will be able to switch between open apps, and the camera has been improved. But the phones that will run the new software aren’t due to be released for three or four months, and by then, RIM could find themselves playing catch-up yet again.

BlackBerry were the subject of another news story this week as a flashmob PR stunt against Apple was credited to the wrong smartphone company. When people piled off a black bus and began holding up ‘Wake Up!’ signs outside the Apple Store in Sydney, everyone assumed that Samsung were behind the stunt. RIM had to issue a statement in the press to confirm it was actually their campaign.

The Pirate Bay hosts torrent files – tiny files which trigger peer-to-peer downloads of content such as movies and software. Often this content is illegally shared between users, but as the actual pirated data is not hosted on the website itself, it can be difficult to prevent files being shared.

Authorities in Sweden, where the Pirate Bay is run, have already found the owners in breach of copyright twice but the site has not been shut down. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) asked ISPs to block the site last year, but all of them refused to do so.

Now the BPI has obtained a High Court order, which will force ISPs to comply with their demands. Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and O2 will now have to block access to the website. BT is not included in the preliminary ruling, but is likely to follow in time.

When Megaupload was taken offline, tens of clone sites popped up in its place, and some users will undoubtedly figure out ways of getting around the block using proxies. They may also simply move on to another site which offers the same content, or launch their own torrent server to get around the ban. Virgin Media have warned that blocking access is not the solution to piracy, but well-priced, legal sources of music and movies need to be offered before piracy can be wiped out.

Internet experts have warned that blocking just one website could open the floodgates for other websites to be blocked over time. The executive director of the Open Rights Group, Jim Killock, called the ruling “pointless and dangerous”.

In your opinion, why do people use torrent websites instead of buying films legally?