The latest firmware from Hikvision is 5.1.2. USA office lags a bit behind domestic and global production. If you go to Hikvision Europe site, it had 5.1.2 for a while now. Does not fix much that I noticed over 5.1. The only thing I noticed is you can take snapshots using from an URL that does not work in 5.1. Frankly, much happier with 5.0.2 as it works with Mac's.
What I'm assuming you mean by canonical is domain names and it's likely you didn't setup the IP configuration property for the DNS servers, so it can't find domain names but finds IP addresses. You can do an ipconfig /all in a command window in Windows (or ifconfig -a in a terminal window in OSX or in Linux) to see what your PC uses for DNS, typically the gateway address, sometimes the ISP's DNS servers. As for heat, yes, all these cameras give off heat, heck my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone gives off even more heat but I use it as a hand warmer in the winter.