News Archive

How much trouble is Research in Motion (RIM) in? Enough that the company is reportedly considering previously unacceptable options like spinning off the handset business, or partnering with Microsoft. The company's quarterly results, reported yesterday, were disastrous. Revenue tumbled by a third from Q4 2012 levels and the company's gross...

That didn't take long. HP has publicly confirmed that it has cancelled plans to bring a Windows RT (aka Windows on ARM) tablet to market in time for the Windows 8 debut. The company has decided to focus on its x86 customer base instead. HP spokesperson Marlene Somsak has said that "The decision was influenced by input from our customers. The...

In the competitive wireless provider market, it’s tough for the major players to gain an edge over one another, but one way to do that is by offering compelling service plans. Verizon is taking a swing at offering the type of plan consumers have been clamoring for—one that lets users on the same account share a pool of minutes,...

Google is continuing to take advantage of its I/O conference to announce new features for many of its products. One of the most requested features for Google Docs is finally here: offline editing. With this new feature, you can now create and edit Google documents and leave comments even if you don't have an Internet connection. When you get...

Last November, Adobe announced plans to discontinue development of the Flash Player for mobile devices. Now, Adobe is letting users know a little bit more about what they can expect moving forward. For starters, Adobe will not be offering any certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1. In addition, starting August 15th, Adobe...

In this action-packed episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks webcast, Dave, Marco and Iyaz discuss the hot new Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, the powerful Samsung Galaxy S III, Microsoft's Surface and Windows Phone 8 announcements, and AMD's Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition! Also, tell us what you want to win for the next contest; desktop system,...

It didn't take long for Google's Chrome browser to become the Top Free app in Apple's App Store for both iPad and iPhone/iPod touch devices. Chrome was officially released to iOS on Tuesday but only made available to download yesterday, and figures to give Safari and its alternative a serious run for browser domination. Chrome brings to the...

In the beginning, some questioned whether or not Intel's Ultrabook initiative would catch on. And now? There's little doubt that Ultrabooks are the wave of the future. Market research firm NPD Group says "Ultrabook sales are off to a fast start" so far in 2012, snagging 11 percent of all $700+ Windows-based notebook sales in the U.S. "Ultrabooks...

If you're the type of photographer who likes to get up and close with your subjects, you'll be interested to know Samsung just unveiled its WB100 digital camera. The WB100 is the latest addition to Samsung's WB Series and it boasts a generous 26X Optical High Zoom lens, along with a 22.3mm ultra-wide angle to help squeeze more detail into...

Big news out of Apple this week: Bob Mansfield, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, is retiring. It's a big decision due to Apple's dominance on hardware in the past few years. Even those who don't approve of Apple's approaches would have a tough time saying that their design aspects are poor. Bob clearly had a lot to do...

Guess what? Google's assault on Amazon doesn't stop with the mere introduction of the Nexus 7. It's also going to places where the Internet can't quite take the Fire: real stores. GameStop has just announced that it'll be taking pre-orders of the new Google Nexus 7 tablet, expanding on an effort already underway to transform the video game...

For the most part, users waiting patiently to upgrade to Windows 8 when it becomes available are expecting a smooth upgrade path, particularly those running Windows 7. Those with Vista or XP may be more concerned that a straight upgrade will be impossible. Details have emerged about the specifics of the Windows 8 upgrade possibilities. Here’s...

As you’re strolling down memory lane (or for younger folks, marveling at the artifacts of the stone ages of gaming) in the wake of Atari’s 40th anniversary, the company has a little present for you: 100 of its classic games, free. The Atari’s Greatest Hits app is normally $9.99, but the latest update--1.5.2., the 40th Anniversary...

There's a great deal of buzz surrounding the Google Nexus 7 tablet announced at Google I/O yesterday. At $199, the 7" tablet is a steal, given that it packs a quad-core CPU, 8GB of storage, a  1200x800 screen, and a front-facing camera. In a clear shot across Apple's bow, Google is prominently highlighting the fact that the tablet is...

The tech world just isn't the same without Bill Gates being actively involved like he was pre-retirement, but the Microsoft founder still makes time, on occasion, to chat about today's technology trends, even if just in passing. Such was the case when Gates sat down for a conversation with The Chronicle on the topic of higher education. Naturally,...

Sharkoon announced a new mouse for gamers in the form of the Sharkoon Drakonia Gaming Laser Mouse. The Drakonia features bright green dragon scales and an illuminating tribal dragon logo as well as an ergonomic design and rubberized sides. To ensure a precise response, the Drakonia uses an AVAGO-ADNS-9500 laser sensor which provides up 5,000...

We recently stepped you through the details of Asus' lower cost Transformer Pad 300 and felt that it was a fine alternative for users looking to save a few pesos. But let's be honest, somebody has to compete with Apple's new iPad and its ultra-high resolution Retina display. Though the Transformer Prime's Super IPS+ display certainly competes...

Remember Gateway? The bulk OEM is a bit of an obscure name these days, having been scooped up by Acer several years ago and no longer serving direct-to-consumer sales via its website or by telephone. Nevertheless, Gateway is still plugging away, its systems found at places like TigerDirect, and today we were given a heads up of new SX and...

Sprint customers who have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the carrier's 4G LTE network won't have to wait much longer. On July 15, Sprint will flip the switch and turn on its 4G LTE network in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio. Sprint plans to launch LTE service in other parts of the country in 2012 as well, though...

When it comes to graphics cards, proper drivers can make all the difference in the world. For those of you rocking a GeForce brand videocard installed in a system running Microsoft's Windows 8 Release Preview, brand new WHQL-certified drivers are now available to download. NVIDIA's 302.82 release isn't for everyone. It only applies to gamers...

Android on OS X? Can it be? It can, now. BlueStacks is known for taking software to places it can't usually go, and its newest release continues that trend. The company has just opened up the Apple ecosystem to Android developers in a major way. There's now a Mac version of its "App Player," which brings 400k Android apps to Macs for the first...

More Wi-Fi is rarely a bad thing -- scratch that, it's never a bad thing. And now, a consortium of higher education associations, public interest groups and high-tech companies are working to bring even more Internet to more places. The new partnership is called AIR.U (Advanced Internet Regions), which is being created to deploy Super Wi-...

Enticing new hardware isn’t all that Google unveiled today at its Google I/O conference; the company also announced the latest version of Android as well as updates to the Google Play Store and Google+. Although it’s not Android 5.0 (which is fine, since plenty of users still haven’t sniffed Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich),...

Project Glass has been the intriguing pet project of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and although we’ve seen teases of the prototype here and there, Brin and company dropped some more details and showed off the specs’ potential with a presentation for the ages at Google's I/O. Here’s video of a live Google+ Hangout being streamed...

Confirming one of the worst-kept industry secrets of late, Google announced at its Google I/O conference that it will indeed be selling a 7-inch tablet co-branded called the Nexus 7. The tablet features a 1280x800 display and runs on a Tegra 3 quad-core processor and a 12-core GPU with 1GB of RAM, WiFi, NFC capabilities, and Bluetooth on board....

When machine finally decides to rise against man, the human race is going to have its hands full. For one, it's a well known fact that robots have super human strength and pose a particular problem for senior citizens (we're not making this up, but Old Glory Insurance might be). They're also cheaters, so don't go hoping for a fair fight. Maybe...

Apple, now the largest company on the planet in terms of market capitalization, has been lining its pockets with revenue from highly popular devices like the iPhone, but have you ever wondered just how much money is at stake? The bean counters at Strategy Analytics did a bit of number crunching and determined that Apple has shipped 250 million...

Cooler Master introduced the successor to its Silent Pro M power supply, the Silent Pro M2 Series. The Silent Pro M2 Series will be available in the following models: 620W, 720W as 80 Plus Bronze, and 1500W as 80 Plus Silver. The Silent Pro M2 Series features a single 12V rail which increases the available amperage per power supply model over...

Kids today complaining of the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy, bug patches, and game delays should take a moment to appreciate how good they really have it, and where some of us old fogies (by young pup standards) first cut our teeth. For me, it was the Atari 2600 with games like Pitfall (totally rad for its day) and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial...

T-Mobile announced two new suites of mobile broadband data plans that are designed with businesses in mind. The new plans offer the choice of predictable monthly billing with no overage fees or high-speed access plans with pre-determined rates. The predictable monthly billing plans will slow data transmission speeds when the monthly data allotment...

A recent study has found that more and more mobile phone users are tapping into their cell phones to not only surf the Internet, but to do the majority of their online Web browsing. Folks who use their cell phone to go online were once the exception to the rule. In April 2009, Pew Internet found that slightly less than a third -- 31 percent...

The ongoing patent wars are a bit ridiculous and somewhat tedious, even though one of the highest-profile tech patent cases is between giants Apple and Samsung and the stakes are high. Late Tuesday, however, things got interesting. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh (pictured), acting on a federal appeals court’s instructions to revisit her...

These days, it's all about filters. And Instagram. But earlier generations might remember another name: Polaroid. Believe it or not, that name still means something in the world of photography, and the company's new Z2300 is out to prove that this isn't a comeback. It's billed as an "Instant Digital Camera," and also as "the ultimate social...

Who says Microsoft's too giant a corporation to be flexible when it comes to acquiring new firms? While even the massive Skype acquisition feels fresh in the minds of technology enthusiasts, Microsoft is now spending on yet another: Yammer. You may not have heard of Yammer in the consumer space, but businesses have been using it increasingly....

Dell kept in mind that everyone has different preferences for the size, angle, and feel of their monitors when creating its six new displays. The eco-conscious P-series and E-series displays come in 19- and 22-inch models with a variety of formats, including 1440x900 (16:10), 1280x1024 (5:4), and 1680x1050 (16:10). The displays are backlit...

Google TV hasn’t exactly achieved the adoption Google hoped, but after the initial spate of Google TV products failed to capture the hearts and minds of consumers, it looks now as though a new wave of Google TV products is mounting a charge. Yesterday, Sony announced the NSZ-GS7 Internet Player with Google TV and NSZ-GP9 Blu-ray player...

The Wi-Fi Alliance is back at it again, delivering a new milestone in tech's "evolution as an operator-grade network." What's it all mean? Well, the entity has started to test hardware on a new Passpoint roaming program. It's testing both mobile devices and infrastructure equipment for the upcoming Wi-Fi Certified Passpoint program; Passpoint...

Ever heard of Schooner Information Technology? Now you have. That company was just acquired by SanDisk, a company you're surely familiar with. Schooner is a Silicon Valley-based company that develops flash-optimized database and data store solutions. The release states that "Schooner's products complement SanDisk's growing portfolio of enterprise...

Dell is rounding out its XPS lineup with the introduction of the XPS 14 and XPS 15 laptops. The XPS 14 and XPS 15 laptops now support third-generation i5 and i7 Ivy Bridge processors from Intel. They also offer USB 3.0 ports, mini DisplayPort, and HDMI Out ports, Waves MAXX Audio 4, backlit chiclet keyboards, responsive multi-gesture trackpads,...

Could you imagine Zeus sitting atop Mount Olympus plugging away on a MacBook Air (as if!) or a bulk OEM machine loaded with trialware? Pffft. That's absurd, but the concept of packing "godlike power" into a diminutive micro tower form factor isn't, at least not as far as Falcon Northwest is concerned. The boutique builder just unveiled its...

We've already covered all of the juicy details of Intel’s Z77 chipset and put a few motherboards through their paces, but there are so many manufacturers with killer boards available based on the chipset, that it’d be a crime if we didn’t round up another stack of them for you. This round of Z77 mainboards consists of entries...

There's no such thing as a geek who has everything, but that doesn't always make it easy to shop for the geek who has most things. If you keep your eyes peeled, however, you'll find it's possible to score a gem every now and then. One example is the batch of retired World of Warcraft servers Blizzard auctioned off earlier this year, one of...

It's no secret that Samsung's Galaxy S III has been a huge hit among Android fans. As a result, the company is already predicting impressive sales numbers. In July, Samsung expects sales of the latest Galaxy smartphone to surpass 10 million. Of course this is on a global scale, not just in the United States. What's remarkable is that the Galaxy...

You've heard of the so-called 'Apple Tax' in which Apple branded computers carry a premium for the same or similar parts compared to their Windows-based brethren (we took a detailed examination of whether or not the Apple Tax is real in late 2010), but since when do Apple users have to pay more for unrelated services like hotel lodging? Since...

Do you enjoy the sound of your own voice? Don't worry, we're not here to judge, and truth be sold, we sometimes feel the same way. The exception to our vanity is when we're playing a game and yelling at our teammates through a headset. That became a problem when Sony rolled out its v4.10 for the PlayStation 3, which enabled you to hear your...

We often ask, why can't the world just hug it out and get along. Just look at Apple vs. Samsung, if you need an example. Today, however, there's a story about just that. Seagate and DensBits have just announced a new strategic agreement for development of SSDs, for both the consumer and enterprise spaces. DensBits, if you haven't heard, is...

Windows Phone 8 may not be coming to Nokia's Lumia 900, but Windows Phone 7.8 will be. The company had to make the tough decision to cut-and-run in order to make WP8 the best that it could be, but the good news for early adopters is that WP7.8 brings a lot of the same visual elements to older devices. The new Start Screen is arguably the star...

For years, Apple has propogated the myth that its computers were inherently secure thanks to its BSD roots, inherently better security management, or because Steve Jobs sacrificed puppies under the new moon to keep your platform safe. This created a dangerous perception that Macs were immune to viruses, trojans, or man-in-the-middle attacks....

Last month, Microsoft dropped a bombshell on advertisers -- its Internet Explorer 10 that ships with Windows 8 would ship with its "Do Not Track" setting enabled. Users would have to opt out of DNT by manually changing this setting if they wanted websites to track them. The DNT standard is still being debated, and compliance with it is voluntary,...

After Microsoft introduced its own Windows 8-based Surface tablet last week, riling its hardware partners, and shortly thereafter unveiled Windows Phone 8, the obvious next question is whether or not the company would make its own phone, too. Information Week confirmed in an interview with Greg Sullivan, senior marketing manager for Windows...

In case you couldn't guess, contract-free wireless is making a huge impact here in the United States. Cricket just put the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S on sale for as low as $399 without any contract attached, and now, one of America's largest wireless operators is teaming with a major company on the sales front in order to launch yet another prepaid...

Who says GPS units need to stay married to the road? With Nokia Drive and Google Maps Navigation, it's clear that guidance is shifting into offline and mass transit, even on mobile, and Garmin thinks it can go even more places. The new Garmin Swim is a simply titled GPS watch, which is described as the company's "first training watch designed...

One of the products MSI was busy showing off at Computex earlier this month was the company's upcoming Slider S20, which is an 11.6-inch Ultrabook with a slide-out physical keyboard that doubles as a stand. MSI disclosed only a handful of details, saying it would pack an new generation Intel Chief River CULV platform processor, Windows 8,...

AMD has added to its family of G-Series embedded APUs with the introduction of the AMD Embedded G-T16R APU, a low-power SFF affair that features 4.5W TDP (2.3W consumption on average), legacy I/O card upgrade support, and x86 compatibility. Together, the APU and its controller hub leave a footprint of just 890mm square (roughly a square inch)...

Rivals T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless have inked a deal to exchange spectrum in the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band in 218 markets across the U.S. The mutually beneficial deal will improve T-Mobile's spectrum position in 15 of the top 25 markets throughout the country as it looks to launch 4G LTE service next year, in exchange for spectrum...

Two of Verizon Wireless' hot phones have officially been cleared to receive an update to Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich. The update is currently rolling out to DROID RAZR and the DROID RAZR MAXX phones. As a result of the update, the DROID RAZR and the DROID RAZR MAXX will be the first 4G LTE smartphones on Verizon Wireless' network to...

New research suggests that higher ups holding positions in senior management either don't know where their company's data resides, or aren't sure. That might not be surprising to folks who find themselves continually frustrated trying to communicate with decision makers who seem disconnected from day-to-day operations, but it's alarming nonetheless....

Although relatively few details have been announced, Mozilla is promising something "BIG" is coming next week. The company recently published the following on its official Twitter account: "Something BIG is coming your way next week." Hashtags for Firefox and Android are included, so it's likely the announcement will pertain to the company's...

Considering a career change? You may want to see if Dunder Mifflin is hiring. A piece of malware first discovered in 2010 is making the rounds, and it's wreaking havoc on thousands of office printers, resulting in pages of "garbled printouts" and reams of wasted paper. It's a "paper saleman's dream come true," Symantec says. Trojan.Milicenso,...

Need a few extra gigabytes for... well, whatever? G-Technology has you covered. The company has today announced a new line of portable and desktop USB 3.0 storage solutions, and considering that USB 3.0 is now a reality on some of Apple's newer machines, it's a match made in designer heaven. G-Tech's drives have always jibed with Apple's design...

Is it time for Google TV to make a comeback? With Google I/O starting this week, why not? Sony is choosing an opportune time to rekindle that fire, announcing today that its new NSZ-GS7 Internet Player with Google TV -- which was initially launched at CES -- will be shipping on July 16. Pre-orders start today, with a $199 price tag at the...

Nintendo took the wraps off its new, super-sized 3DS XL handheld on Friday, but reactions have been anything but enthusiastic. The new DS offers a larger set of screens (4.88 inches top / 4.18" bottom), better battery life, and will ship with a copy of New Super Marios 2 for $199.99, but it's launching into a very different market than what...

Ready for yet another Android superphone? It's here, and it's on AT&T. Sony's first 4G LTE smartphone is the Xperia Ion, and it's in stores and available to order online today for $99.99 on a two-year contract. That's actually on the low end of the pricing scale for LTE phones, and the Ion is certainly one of the more handsome devices...

Amazon founder and chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, once held a job flipping burgers at McDonald's. Today his net worth is estimated at $20.2 billion, making him the richest Internet entrepreneur in the entire world. He's far from the only one to have made billions on the Internet, however, as there are at least 30 people who leveraged...

Tablets and smartphones and Windows 8, oh my! In case you haven't noticed, touchscreen computing is a big deal, and it's only getting bigger. Unfortunately, gaming on a tablet pales in comparison to fragging your friends on a PC with a mouse and keyboard, or even on a console using a controller. Tapping and dragging is about all you can do....

We don't know what the going rate is for venturing off to infinity and beyond, but if you'd like to boldly go where man has gone a few times before, a company called Excalibur Almaz will take you there... for a price. The commercial aerospace company said it's ready to start selling tourists trips to the moon, tickets of which will reportedly...

Here's a crazy one, but yet, an awesome one. Steam, the online gaming portal that enables the digital downloading of titles far and wide, is moving into a new direction. And that direction is school. The very place where teachers generally would yell at students to stop gaming and start paying attention to their lessons. The newly announced...

Now things are really getting interesting in the smartphone arena. Just a few years ago, those who wanted an iPhone in the United States had one choice: AT&T. Today, it's available on three major postpaid carriers, and more importantly, it's joining the prepaid ranks as well. That's a huge move for Apple, and it promises to place the iPhone...

We suppose it was only a matter of time before Facebook started leveraging its massive database of user information and preferences to spread its advertising beyond the borders of the social network. The company noted quietly on its site that personalized ads and sponsored stories will now also appear on social gaming site Zynga. The “rules”...

Even as the world digitizes more and every day, paper products--receipts, business cards, bills, and so on--are still an ever-present reality, which is why Fujitsu has its handy family of portable ScanSnap scanners. The latest member is the ScanSnap S1300i, which boasts some new productivity features, the ability to scan to mobile devices,...

Solid state drives (SSDs) may well supplant mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs) as the storage of choice one day, but two things need to happen first. Capacity needs to increase, and the cost of flash-based storage needs to come down. Both of those things are happening right before our highs. Increasingly bigger SSDs are finding their way to...

Need a cloud? Then you need a router. But, do you need a cloud router? D-Link thinks you do. The networking giant has just introduced two new routers -- Cloud Routers -- the Cloud Router 1200 (DIR-636L) and Cloud Router 2000 (DIR-826L), supporting speeds of up to 300 Mbps and 600 Mbps, respectively. Both routers include mydlink Cloud Services...

Google Maps needs no introduction. It's a hugely powerful tool, and while Latitude never really took off, the underlying idea was also a useful one. But now, Google's taking that same sort of thought and applying it to business. The company has just launched Google Maps Coordinate, which is a new way for Maps users to organize teams on the...

Image sensors were important a decade ago. Today, their importance can't be stated enough. Every smartphone on the market is judged on its camera, and some phones (like the iPhone 4S and the Nokia 808 PureView) highlight the camera over most other features. This week, Sony announced that it plans to invest in Sony Semiconductor Corporation's...

For as often as Facebook tweaks (or completely overhauls) its look, features, and other details, you’d think the Zuckerberg army would have gotten around to this by now, but Facebook has finally enabled comment editing. That’s right friends, when you accidentally hit “Enter” too soon or realize that you made a stupid...

Killer gaming notebooks, sort of like over-the-top gaming PCs, make no apologies for being almost completely impractical but full of awesome.  Sure, you wouldn't expect to drag this boat anchor around airports at almost 12 lbs., unless you were looking for some moderate cardio work to compensate for those long, near motionless strategy...

Eurocom is now shipping its Monster notebook which features Intel Sandy Bridge (32nm) and Ivy Bridge (22nm) mobile processors, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics, up to 16GB memory, and up to 1 TB of storage. Users can select a glossy or matte 11.6-inch, 1366-by-768 pixel display. This small form factor ultraportable notebook can run up to eight...

The events that took place on Thursday were "Not how [Twitter] wanted today to go." Twitter went offline for all Web users yesterday morning, and mobile clients had stopped showing Tweets. Had Twitter been hacked? Was the microblogging world coming to an end!? Not exactly. "This wasn't due to a hack or our new office or Euro 2012 or GIF avatars,...

Listing likes and dislikes, favorite movies, and other similar traits is completely optional on Facebook. Disclaiming crimes of a sexual nature, however, is not for residents of Louisiana. A new law sponsored by Louisiana state rep. Jeff Thompson requires sex offenders and child predators to list their crimes on Facebook and other social networking...

Google may not have made any official announcements per say, but the company let it slip that the Galaxy Nexus will be the first smartphone to receive an update to Android 4.1 aka Jelly Bean. If you look closely at the Google Play product screenshot below, you'll notice it says, "soon the first phone with Android 4.1 Jell…" Image Credit:...

If you've been waiting for Acer to make its Iconia Tab A700 tablet available to order, your wait is over, provided you're interested in the silver model. Both the black and silver models are up for order on Acer's website, though the silver SKU is showing as "In Stock" while the black model appears to have sold out, at least for the time being....

Get ready to say your goodbyes to Office Starter 2010, because Microsoft is already starting to do so. The Redmond software maker has reportedly begun letting its OEM partners known that it's phasing out the feature-thin version of Office that they've been pre-loading on new PCs, which was originally designed to give users a taste of the Office...

Does the world need another set-top box? Depends on who you ask. Belkin thinks the answer is 'yes,' judging by the release of its new @TV. The curiously titled box brings live and recorded content to mobile devices. It operates over Wi-Fi, or a 3G/4G cellular data network, and allows users to access all content from their home theater on tablets,...

Looking to get your handheld game on? Here's another option, courtesy of.. Nintendo? Yep, the company responsible for the original Game Boy is hitting back with yet another 3DS system. And this time, it's super-sized. The 3DS XL will ship on August 19th, with a mondo 4.88" top screen that dwarfs the original 3DS. Furthermore, there's a 4.18"...

If your enthusiasm for nabbing the newly-announced Microsoft Surface tablet is building by the day, this may deflate you a bit: rumor has it that, at least initially, the tablet will be WiFi-only. Although a WiFi-only version of the Surface will likely mean that the devices will hit the market at a relatively low price point, potentially undercutting...

It was exactly 6 months ago to the minute that AMD officially took the wraps off its Tahiti GPU and the original Radeon HD 7970. The Radeon HD 7970 was the first graphics card to feature AMD’s “Graphics Core Next”, or GCN, architecture and when it hit the scene, the Radeon HD 7970 proved to be the fastest single-GPU based...

Microsoft's Surface isn't just an attempt to take on the iPad or an articulation of MS's independent design philosophy -- it's a fundamental threat against the OEMs who've spent decades as Microsoft's partners and collectively destroyed the industry's perception of the PC as a high-value product. The adversarial roots run deep. Microsoft didn't...

Now that Microsoft has much of the industry swooning (or in some cases, shrugging) over its Surface tablet and Windows Phone 8 announcements, the next slew of related and highly anticipated announcements will concern the devices that will run Windows Phone 8. Up first is leaked details of HTC’s upcoming trio of Windows Phone 8 handsets....

It’s not that hard to spend well over a hundred bucks on a killer gaming keyboard, and although we’d like to tickle the keys ourselves before endorsing anything, Sharkoon just announced a feature-rich gaming keyboard for the low, low price of just 14.99 euros (about $19 USD). The Sharkoon Skiller Gaming Keyboard features 18-key...

Toshiba's back to school line-up which features laptops, tablets, ultrabooks and AIOs will be available on June 24. This lineup includes Toshiba's latest tablets—the  Excite 7.7 and Excite 10—as well as the newly announced Satellite U845 and Portégé Z935 ultrabooks. Some of the laptops in the back to school line-up...

The Chevrolet Volt is unique among electric cars because it runs on two sources of energy. You have an electric source – a battery – that allows you to drive gas-free for an EPA–estimated 35 miles. And there's also an onboard gas generator that produces electricity so you can go farther. So if you want to drive using only...

Verizon Wireless is turning on 4G LTE service in 46 new markets today and expanding coverage in an addition 22 markets. With this announcement, Verizon Wireless will now offer 4G LTE coverage in more than 300 markets throughout the United States. Although Verizon Wireless already has a large 4G network, they're not stopping yet. By the end...

A leaked 56-page presentation spilled the details of Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 720 game console, but what's even more telling is how Redmond's legal team is handling the situation. The document first appeared on Scribd and sat there for all the world to flip through, right up until Covington & Burling LLP, a law firm that represents Microsoft...

Futuremark today released a sexy 3DMark tech demo, giving viewers a glimpse of the upcoming 3DMark benchmark that has yet to receive a formal name (perhaps 3DMark 12? "New" 3DMark? 3DMark for Windows 8?) The trailer provides a preview of the DirectX test and "is a work-in-progress," Futuremark says, and as such it doesn't represent the final...

People who work at Apple already get to refer to themselves as Geniuses ("What do I do for a living? I'm a Genius! How about you?"), and now they get the benefit of some sweet discounts on select Apple gear. It's part of an employee discount program Apple CEO Tim Cook promised back in January, and it's now in effect. According to various sources,...

Microsoft has a potentially awesome thing going with its newly unveiled Surface tablet. Could it be an iPad killer? And if not, could Surface reign supreme as the world's second most popular tablet, a rank currently held by Amazon's Kindle Fire device? The success of Surface will depend on a number of factors, one of them being price. Early...

If you're an Android user, and you haven't at least explored the possibilities of using a third-party keyboard -- why? Swype has gained lots of love over the years, but there's another dog in the fight that seems to be gaining a ton of steam: SwiftKey. The third iteration of the company's intelligent, keystroke-saving keyboard is out today,...

Remember Drobo? It's back! The company is hitting the market yet again with new intelligent storage drives, with the Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini being the latest and greatest. Today's announcement includes an array of gear aimed at both pro users and prosumers alike. Both the Drobo 5D and Drobo Mini include industry-first SSD acceleration –...

Like little components? Sure you do. And if so, Freescale Semiconductor has quite the treat on tap for you. The company is now offering alpha samples of its Kinetis L series, the industry's first microcontrollers (MCUs) built on the ARM Cortex-M0+ processor. The company claims that this little fellow provides he ideal opportunity for users...

Home automation sort of feels like a lost art. It's popular, yes, but only in high-end homes, generally speaking. Even Google tried to push it mainstream last year with the introduction of Android@Home, but alas, it was mostly a nonstarter. Now, Belkin is dipping its toes into the game with WeMo. It's a line of modular, Wi-Fi-based products...

Boy, Microsoft is on a roll this week. Shortly after shaking up the tablet market with its new Surface tablet, the company offered up a preview of its latest mobile OS, Windows Phone 8. Unifying desktop and mobile platforms is clearly the way forward in the computing world, and with the impending release of both Windows 8 and Windows Phone...

Nuance announced the newest generation of its popular Swype keyboard for mobile devices. The latest version of this keyboard combines touch and voice input with adaptive capabilities that adjust to a person's preferences over time. New features include the ability to predict the next word you intend to type, a personal dictionary for speech...

Social networking site LinkedIn reportedly faces a $5 million class action lawsuit over a recent security breach that compromised the passwords of millions of members. The suit was filed by Katie Szpyrka in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California. Szpyrka says LinkedIn "failed to properly safeguard its users' digitally...

LeapFrog announced the newest generation of its LeapPad tablet, the LeapPad2. This kid-friendly tablet now has higher resolution front-and-back cameras and video recorders, a faster LF 2000 processor, additional memory (4GB), and better battery life. The tablet still features a durable, kid-friendly design. The LeapPad2 will cost $99.99. It...

Surfing the Web unprotected is like running out into traffic and hoping you don't get hit. Chances are you'll end up a hood ornament. Google is doing its part to keep you safe from all the malicious Web traffic out there, and it's been five years since it announced its malware and phishing protection via the company's Safe Browsing effort,...

Oftentimes, we find ourselves wishing that Wi-Fi was everywhere. Kind of like oxygen. But given that it's not going to happen any time soon, this is actually getting us closer to the goal. TruConnect Mobile has announced a partnership with Walmart that'll bring Internet on the Go to customers. It's described as a "prepaid mobile broadband...

Three months ago, Gartner was predicting that worldwide PC shipments would reach 368 million units by the end of the year (not including tablet PCs), and more than 400 million in 2013. That projection worked out to a 4.4 percent growth rate in 2012. And now? According to GeekWire, Gartner is lowering its projected growth rate to just 0.9 percent...

There's iMessage for iOS and Mac users, and there's BBM for BlackBerry users. What about Android, you say? Well, for those users, there's MightyText. The company actually began as Texty, and has been in a Chrome beta state for the past few months. Now, however, they're launching to the world, and including support for pretty much all major...

If there's a universal truth among performance junkies, it's that records are meant to be broken. It doesn't matter if you're talking about the Olympics, racing the quarter-mile in a hotrod, or ripping through Futuremark's 3DMark Vantage benchmark at a breakneck pace, the latter of which overclocker J. Lin demonstrated using four HIS brand...

Acer is keeping the ultrabook train rolling with the introduction of the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 series, a family of ultrabooks that measure just .81 inches thick and weigh 4.3 pounds. The series will have 14- and 15.6-inch models that will feature an 8-hour battery, Ivy Bridge Intel processors, NVIDIA graphics, and Acer Green Instant...

One of the most highly anticipated Android phones of the year is the Samsung Galaxy S III. This smartphone comes with a number of new features we haven't seen on other phones including S Voice (improved voice control functionality), new sharing features, NFC features including Samsung's new TecTiles, and more. The hardware specifications for...

In the wake of Microsoft's Surface unveil last night, much of the buzz has been about Apple, and how Surface will (or won't) challenge Apple's domination of the mobile and tablet markets. This makes some sense, given Apple's recent high-profile unveil of the Macbook Pro with Retina Display, but Surface isn't really meant to go head-to-head...

HP is working hard at reducing the complexity and energy required to run servers via its Project Moonshot program, and the latest development on that front is the Gemini server, which will use Intel Atom-powered “Centerton” server cartridges, which is a format that allows for the use of a dense array of low-energy, efficient servers....

If you like gadgets and you travel a lot, D-Link has a shiny new toy for you. The D-Link DIR-505 is a “mobile companion” that functions as a router/access point, signal repeater, and WiFi hotspot triple threat, and it’s not even three inches square. The little bugger plugs into a wall outlet and features one-touch setup and...

Coughing up money ain't what it used to be. Square, the mobile payment upstart that has revolutionized the way small business owners with iPads and iPhones accept payments, has just announced a new feature that should bring merchants and customers even closer. It's interesting how Square has seemingly added a pinch of emotion to a typically...

Internet in the skies seemed like a pipe dream just a few years ago. But now, it's a reality in many ways. Airlines are stocking up on Gogo routers, and rival companies are spreading their wings as well. But one area that hasn't seen too many of those Wi-Fi waves are international routes. But, that's changing too. Gogo and global satellite...

Even though tablets are red hot right now, interest in that segment by LG Electronics has grown lukewarm. Going forward, LG will shift its focus away from tablets and concentrate on other mobile devices,perhaps taking another look at slates sometime down the line. LG told Bloomberg in an email that it has "decided to put all new tablet development...

SanDisk announced a fast new memory card designed for smartphones and tablets. The new SanDisk Extreme Pro microSDHC UHS-I card offers up to 95MB/sec read and up to 90MB/sec write speeds. SanDisk claims this is the world's fastest mobile memory card. The card has a UHS Speed Class 1 rating (Class 10 equivalent). The SanDisk Extreme Pro microSDHC...

At nearly $590 per share, you might be wondering how you can afford to purchase shares of Apple (AAPL), especially in this economy. But if you have money to invest, a better question to ask is how can you afford not to purchase Apple stock? That might sound absurd, but in a note to investors, Topeka Capital Market's Brian White reiterated...

Well here's an exciting bit of news for the modding community. Famed Android modder Steve "Cyanogen" Kondik has made available a build of his aftermarket CyanogenMod firmware for Samsung's Galaxy S III smartphone, which has yet to ship in the United States. How so? For starters, the Galaxy S III has been available in other parts of the world...

SanDisk announced a number of new flash drives including the new Extreme USB, Cruzer Glide USB, Cruzer Facet USB, and Cruzer Pop USB flash drives. The SanDisk Extreme USB drive features USB 3.0 connectivity which makes it possible to transfer files at speeds up to 190MB/s. With these speeds, SanDisk says you'll be able to transfer 3GB files...

Ouch. Want to know how badly RIM is doing? So badly that one of its production plants is straight-up bailing out of the BlackBerry production business. Celestica is a company widely know throughout supply chain organizations for production solutions, and as of now, it still helps RIM produce BlackBerry smartphones. But that's changing, and...

Intel has spent $375 million today. On a new chip factory? A new fabrication plant? R&D? Nope. Patents. Lots, and lots, of patents. With IP litigation in the technology realm reaching crazy new heights (just look at Samsung vs. Apple for instance), the one that tech companies suddenly crave are patents. The more you have, the less likely...

Most of the time, companies have extol their new devices, and explain why Product A is superior to Product B. But sometimes, you do things like this. Sharp has just introduced the "largest TV on the planet." And really, need we say more? Actually, we do. There are without question TV sets out there larger than this one, but you won't find...

How much would you be willing to pay for your next Nokia smartphone? Off contract, that is. With the Lumia 900 being practically given away for free on a 2-year deal at AT&T, it's hard to stomach much over $99, but somehow, Nokia thinks it has a shot at selling a few of its 808 PureView devices in the United States. At $699. The 808 PureView...

At this evening’s much-ballyhooed press event, Microsoft--yes, stodgy old Microsoft--just shook up the whole tablet market with the introduction of an innovative new tablet called the Microsoft Surface, which of course runs Windows 8. Aside from the fact that Microsoft delving into the hardware business on the tablet side of things is...

At the International Supercomputing Conference today, Intel announced that Knights corner, the company's first commercial Many Integrated Core (MIC) product will ship commercially in 2012. The Descendent of the Processor Formerly Known as Larrabee also gets a new brand name -- Xeon Phi. The idea behind Intel's new push is that the highly efficient...

iBuyPower is adding a line of gaming notebooks to its family of custom systems with the Valkyrie series; the first model up is the CZ-17, which comes in two flavors, each of which are further customizable. The lowest point of entry is the $1,299 version of the CZ-17, which sports a backlit keyboard, 17.3-inch full HD matte display, and touch...

Apple recently upgraded its MacBook Pro line with new models that boast a Retina Display, and while that's neat and all, woe is the user who's in need of an out-of-warranty repair. For one, as we recently reported, a teardown analysis by iFixIt revealed that the mid-2012 MacBook Pro models are a bear to service, but if that weren't enough,...

NVIDIA today has made available new beta drivers for GeForce graphics card owners, version 304.48. Playing with beta code comes with certain risks, of course (like potentially wonky behavior and instability issues), but there are also rewards to be had, like up to 60 percent better performance in Total War: Shogun 2 for GeForce GTX 680 card...

As was the case with every iOS release before it, Apple is promising some fairly major enhancements and new features with iOS 6. iOS 5 was a major release in its own right, but a year has past, and at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, the veil was removed from iOS 6. Apple apparently has a thing for...

Apple's iOS platform isn't without its selection of third party browsers, including ones that can handle Flash content (albeit not very well, in our experience). But one browser maker that has yet to join the iOS party is Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, and guess what? Mozilla has something brewing for the iPad. It's called "Junior,"...

Rarely do we hear the words "insane" and "internet" in the same headline, but that's what happening this evening. Verizon has just introduced "insane" new Internet speeds in FiOS service areas, and honestly, they're hard to read if you aren't in one of those locales. Verizon residential consumers can now order the company's fastest-ever FiOS...

Google TV. Remember that? It's still around, and evidently Sony isn't giving up on the support just yet. While the Google TV platform hasn't seen a huge deal of consumer uptake, it's still a promising idea; one that really needs pay-TV backing to truly be useful. However, the NSZ-GS7 is probably the most interesting Google TV product to date....

If you weren't aware, Microsoft is having a big shindig in Los Angeles tomorrow. The company is being extremely tight-lipped about what's to come, but not surprisingly, details are already starting to leak out. TechCrunch is reporting that the announcement may have two major players there, not just one. With Apple's iPad on the rise, and Amazon's...

NVIDIA is cringing this one out and there's really not much that can be said about it, beyond what the founder of Linux already has.  In a rather passionate response to a student developer's question about NVIDIA driver support for Linux on her notebook, at a talk at Finland's Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship,  Torvalds absolutely...

If you're considering buying a Kindle Fire tablet (or glorified eBook reader, if you prefer to call it that), you may want to hang tight to see if you can score a better deal. Amazon is reportedly getting ready to cut the price of the Kindle Fire to around $149 as it makes room for newer tablet PC devices. That tidbit comes from DigiTimes,...

A leaked presentation from circa 2010 has the tech world buzzing. The original document and mirrors have been pulled, but we saved a copy before that happened. While there's no confirmation from Microsoft on whether the document is accurate, it lines up extremely well with what we've seen Microsoft announce so far this year, as well as previous...

Still pissed at your parents for trashing your vintage baseball card or comic book collection when you were a teen? Hey, it could worse. Imagine if they would have tossed a barrel of old Apple gear into the garbage bin. Apple nostalgia is apparently commanding premium prices these days, as evidenced by an Apple I motherboard and an old handwritten...

Several astute observers noted that podcasts were missing from the iTunes app in iOS 6 (beta), which led many to wonder if Apple was splitting out podcasts from the rest of iTunes by giving it its own app. According to AllThingsD, sources close to Apple say that indeed, a podcast app is coming. Users will be able to use it to find and download...

Wondering what Windows RT -- that upcoming version of Windows designed to work on ARM processors -- looks like on forthcoming hardware? We figured the answer would be "yes." Toshiba recently unveiled a Windows 8 RT product of its own, a Transformer-styled device that was first seen at Computex. Inside, there's a Texas Instruments OMAP 4470,...

Wondering who all is winning the smartphone sprint right about now? There's a survey for that. ABI Research has just published its latest figures on the matter, showing that although smartphone shipments grew 41% year-over-year to 144.6 million as of the quarter ending March 2012, many smartphone OEMs are not enjoying the benefits of a rapidly...

A new security post at the Xen.org community blog warns Intel users to patch their operating systems or risk falling prey to a particular type of escalation vulnerability. What makes this warning unique is that it's not related to a software problem only effects Intel users running 64-bit operating systems. This is an issue that affects Windows...

For over 10 years, the desktop and mobile graphics space has been dominated by two players: Nvidia and AMD/ATI. After 3dfx collapsed, there was a brief period of time when it looked as though Imagination Technologies might establish itself as a third option. Ultimately, that didn't happen -- the company's tile-based rendering solution, Kyro,...

We like Dropbox because it's simple, effective, and up to this point, has been a reliable way to take advantage of cloud storage. If you're like us, you're a fan of Dropbox too. And if you've never used it, you should check it out, though your experience might be slightly different than those of us who are already using the service. "After...

Good news for the AMD faithful who are attracted to Samsung's Series 5 thin and light notebooks. It appears Samsung has decided to play both sides of the processor ball field, including not only Intel Ivy Bridge configurations, but also a couple of models that boast AMD's Trinity-based accelerated processing units (APUs) inside. The Samsung...

When Amazon launched its Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player music service without any licensing deals in place, it was an ask-forgiveness-not-permission sort of thing in regard to the major music labels. There was a sense that Amazon execs had a meeting where they looked at each other and said “Screw it, enough messing around, let’s...

Nothing like a little acquisition to get the juices flowing. Motorola Solutions has just snapped up Psion Plc., a company that has a hugely storied history in consumer electronics. The deal will involve around $200 million, and will see Psion make the move under Motorola Solutions' umbrella. Psion is perhaps best known for their ruggedized...

With Windows 8 on the horizon, Microsoft has done an excellent job of keeping the information flowing to potential consumers. After all, the OS will deliver a host of completely new looks, and we've largely grown used to the way that Windows works. So in order to keep yourself informed about what's to come, you might want to pay attention...

According to IHS iSuppli, the SSD market will continue to boom this year, thanks to the rapid rise of so-called cache drives. These drives -- we reviewed a 60GB example from Corsair last month -- are popular with OEMs because they pair a small amount of NAND flash with a traditional hard drive. We aren't surprised to see cache drives taking...

Did you know that the FCC hasn’t updated its guidelines regarding maximum radiation levels in mobile devices since 1996? FCC chairman Julius Genachowski is apparently aware of this, because he’s looking to launch a formal inquiry into the matter. In a statement that was circulated to news outlets, the FCC isn’t exactly concerned...

Microsoft is planning to make a big announcement on Monday, and all anyone seems to know for sure is that the subject will involved the company’s mobile products and/or strategy. Citing a source with knowledge of the company’s plans, The Wrap reported that Microsoft is indeed launching its own tablet to run Windows 8. Specifically,...

AOC announced the new Aire iPlay monitor with a built-in iPod/iPhone docking station. This 23-inch monitor is 12.9 mm-thin and features Full HD 1080p resolution, a 50,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio and 2 ms response time. With the built-in 30-pin docking station, iPhone and iPod users can play video, audio, and photos directly from their...

From the very moment Ultrabooks emerged, Intel always envisioned these lightweight, high-performance PCs striking a balance between cutting edge hardware, portability, and price. For the most part, Ultrabook makers have been able to juggle all three, but as far as Intel is concerned, these thin and light machines still need to come down in...

It's said that a fool and his money are soon parted (just ask Nokia), but is Microsoft being foolish spending over a billion dollars to acquire Yammer, essentially a private social network for the enterprise? Time will tell, and while nothing has been officially announced yet by either Microsoft or Yammer, The Wall Street Journal heard from...

If you're already a fan of Dropbox and own an iOS device, you're going to love the new version that's just been added to iTunes, which levels the playing field with the Android iteration. Among the handful of changes, Dropbox version 1.5 for iOS now automatically uploads photos and videos over Wi-Fi or your cellular data plan to the cloud....

We all knew 3G wasn't the end, and even 4G has been short lived; there's LTE to think about now! But as with all technology, progress will keep on pushing forward, and T-Mobile is already thinking ahead. The U.S. carrier has recently announced multi-year agreements with Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks to support its $4 billion 4G network...

Vizio, making computers? That's right, and pretty ones at that. The company best known for their skyrocketing success in the low-cost TV market has just formally unveiled two new all-in-one PCs and thin-and-light laptops. On the desktop side, there's a 24" and 27" AIO, with Ivy Bridge at the core, NVIDIA's Kepler GPU and 1080p HD displays....

In as roundabout a way as possible, Nokia announced that it will be cutting 10,000 jobs by the end of 2013 to reduce its operating expenses. The company also announced plans to cut some of its R&D efforts by closing facilities located in Germany and Canada, consolidating some manufacturing (and therefore closing a plant in Salo, Finland),...

During today's AMD Fusion Developer Summit keynote, the company discussed its plans for next-generation servers, APUs, and future GPUs. Bulldozer may not have hit AMD's launch targets last fall, but the company is committed to evolving the Interlagos core as well as the associated platform. Much of the server-side discussion focused on the...

The Internet is still something of a wild frontier, where everything is growing and evolving fast, but the rules are still being written and shootouts between companies are general practice. It’s grown so much that it’s gradually invading just about every other market sector, from phone service to retail and more. The TV industry...

Another Foxconn employee decided to take his own life, the latest being a 23-year-old who jumped off his company-rented apartment outside of a plant in Chengdu where he worked prior to this death, Reuters reports. Foxconn, which manufactures iPhones, iPads, and tech devices for a number of high profile companies like Apple and Dell, suffered...

Western Digital is entering the wireless home networking market with the introduction of My Net family of home networking products. All of the new products feature WD's FasTrack optimization technology that prioritizes entertainment traffic from Netflix, Hulu Plus, VUDU, YouTube and others to deliver a smooth streaming experience up to Full-HD...

The folks at Kingston Digital gave us a heads up that there's a new firmware update available for the 64GB and 128GB SSDNow V200 drives, one that increases performance and stomps out a few niggling bugs. On the performance front, Kingston claims the firmware update increases random write IOPS performance by up to 136 percent for the 64GB model...

Samsung's Galaxy Tab line continues to expand, with the latest additions coming in the form of the Galaxy Tab 2 Series. The Galaxy Tab 2 Series is available in 10.1-inch and 7.0-inch screen sizes. While these second-generation models clearly borrow some design cues and other specifications from their predecessors, we were a bit surprised to...

Acer introduced the "world's thinnest ultrabook" in the form of the Aspire S5. This ultrabook measures 0.44 inches at its thinnest and 0.59 inches at the thickest point. The Aspire S5 weights 2.65 pounds and features a black magnesium-alloy and brushed metal chassis. Key features of the Aspire S5 include a 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit...

Android tablets must be the new black. Or, something like that. The deluge continues, and while it was already hard enough to make heads or tails of the blooming Android slate market, this won't make things any easier. The newest on the block is one from Storage Options, which is introducing two new guys in the 2012 tablet line-up. Both, of...

Hey, Windows users -- seeing ads in your Skype calls? Fret not, it isn't an unathorized version of the software; it's just a new twist on "free" VoIP calling. Skype has today announced the launch of Conversation Ads, finally, a way to make cash off of free calls. These new display ad units will appear within the calling window of users who...

Nobody likes a cheater, and to keep a "small minority" of unscrupulous Max Payne 3 gamers from totally ruining the multiplayer experience, Rockstar said it will banish them to their own special area, one that's filled with other "miscreants" found to be using cheats, hacks, and other exploits. "Anyone found to have used hacked saves, modded...

Let's cut right to the chase. The first and most important thing you need to know about Max Payne 3 is this:  It's not a happy gamw, though its graphics engine sure is gorgeous. In the first Max Payne, you assumed the role of a deep undercover DEA agent tasked with breaking a massive drug ring. On the night of the worst snowstorm in New...

Good luck if you ever need to service a new MacBook Pro model that isn't under warranty. The fine people over at iFixIt did what they do best with one of Apple's newly refreshed laptops, promptly gutting the device with a detailed walkthrough. What did they discover along the way? That's it's not so easy to repair. In fact, iFixIt gave the...

A pair of Intel rivals are joining forces, though not to take on the chip giant and topple the leader. The technology partnership between Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and ARM is all about integrating the latter's TrustZone Security Technology found in mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, into the former's x86-based product offerings....

Several folks have spotted a Microsoft patent application for technology that would target advertisements based on a user’s emotions. In reading the first lines of the patent, it seems as though tracking a those emotions would be done through monitoring a user’s online activity--such as Web browsing, the content of visited websites,...

Acer announced the new Iconia Tab A700 tablet which features a 10.1-inch HD 1080p display with a 1920x1200 resolution. This display has a 16:10 aspect ratio, 800:1 contrast ratio and a very wide 178 degree viewing angle. The A700 is powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor and Android 4.0. Multimedia features include Dolby Mobile 3+...

Those hoping for a Mac Pro and/or an iMac refresh were no doubt eagerly anticipating the big announcements at WWDC, and those same hopeful faces were certainly downcast after it was over, because despite the many new Apple products unveiled at the show (which we covered here, here, here, and yes, even here), there was no mention of either....

Around here, we're always looking for more juice. More battery life. Another AC outlet. Wireless charging, for the masses. We aren't quite living in "the future," but Sanho has been providing portable power for a long, long while. Now, the company's introducing a new product, the HyperJuice Plug. It's a colorful battery pack that claims to...

Got range? Amped Wireless does. The networking company just introduced what it's calling the "industry's most powerful dual-band Wi-Fi Repeater," enabling users to have Wi-Fi waves extended in range up to 10,000 square feet. The SR20000G High Power Wireless-N Gigabit Dual Band Repeater is quite the mouthful, but it's also quite potent. This...

Samsung introduced TecTiles which are NFC tags you can program to launch an application, send a text message, change phone settings, share contact information, and more using an NFC-equipped Galaxy smartphone. These TecTiles are basically little stickers that you can place anywhere you want to automate tasks on your phone. For example, you...

Lisa Su, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Business Units, opened up this year’s AMD Fusion Developers Summit by reiterating AMD’s commitment to heterogeneous computing. She began her talk by saying that AMD is firmly committed to heterogeneous computing because the company has literally bet its future on the...

The same week that researchers discovered that cybercriminals collaborated on two of the nastiest malware operations ever, the good guys opened up a national cybersecurity lab to collaborate on cybersecurity research and testing. The Cybersecurity Technologies Research Laboratory (or “CTRL” for short--heh, clever) opened today...

Intel's Light Peak technology eventually matured into what now is known in the market as Thunderbolt, which debuted initially as an Apple I/O exclusive last year. As we mentioned in our IDF coverage a few years ago, Light Peak was being developed by Intel in collaboration with Apple. So it wasn't a huge surprise that Apple got an early exclusivity...

We've heard Sprint might be working on a new wallet app that could compete with or replace Google Wallet, and now some leaked slides from Sprint seem to back up these rumors. From what we can gather from the slides obtained by Android Central, you'll need to enter a four-digit code to access information in your mobile wallet. After entering...

Look, we're not out to foster any hard feelings or spark a war of words between users of two very distinctive camps, but facts are facts, and the fact is, while legions of Android users are waiting patiently for their wireless carrier to roll out Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the vast majority of iOS users are rocking the latest and greatest...

Sony is trying a new technique to drum up excitement and hype surrounding the upcoming announcement of its next Xperia smartphone: Instead of setting a date and teasing upcoming features, Sony is putting the actual announcement date in the hands of its fans. Initially, the revelation of the new handsets was planned for June 22, but Sony is...

It's said that good things come to those who wait, and if you've been waiting for Amazon to port its Cloud Player application over to Apple's App Store, you have a good thing waiting for you today. The Amazon Cloud Player app is now available in the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch users, which allows you to stream and download music stored...

After months of anticipation, Verizon today finally and officially lifted the wraps on its Share Everything data plans, which are set to go into effect starting June 28, 2012 (a little over two weeks from now). The new plans allow subscribers to share a single data cap with up to 10 devices, negating the need to purchase separate data plans...

Velocity Micro acquired Overdrive PC a few years ago, and today it relaunched the brand with the Overdrive BigBlock.GTX, a machine designed for high-end performance and looks; indeed, Velocity Micro bills it as an “extreme luxury” system. The BigBlock.GTX is built on an ASUS Rampage Extreme IV motherboard and runs a six-core Intel...

What does DISH Network and Qualcomm have in common? A lot, evidently. DISH today announced a fairly major collaboration with Qualcomm, which will enable support of satellite-based communications in Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 platform, the world's first dual-core solution with an integrated multi-mode 3G/LTE modem, for use in future DISH...

Seagate just issued a range of new hard drives, and perhaps not surprisingly, "backup" is at the forefront. The company's new Backup Plus storage devices brings one-click backup and the ability to save and share your content on Facebook and Flickr, as well as a variety of form factors and prices. The drives work with Mac and PC platforms,...

New SSDs, anyone? Sure, why not? Super Talent has just unveiled their newest solid state drive, the TeraNova SSD. It's also the company's fastest SSD to data, a SATA3 product designed for super-duper small computers. There's also a SandForce 2200 processor with "optimized firmware," and the company claims that you'll see transfer rates of...

With the final item in the deluge of Apple posts, the company debuted iOS 6 and many of its over 200 new features. Predictably, Siri got plenty of attention in this OS update. She is now available in the iPad as well as the iPhone, and she speaks English, French, German, and Japanese, with new support for Spanish, Italian, Korean, Mandarin,...

As many suspected, Apple today unveiled refreshed MacBook Air models built around Intel's 3rd Generation Core i5 and i7 dual-core processor options (Ivy Bridge), giving the thin and light platform a serious shot in the arm. Available in 11-inch and 13-inch designs, Apple also updated the flash storage, which the company claims is twice as...

It’s been a busy day on the Apple beat, with the company announcing updates to many of its products from the stage at WWDC. Much has been speculated about what Apple would do with its MacBook Pro line, but now we have the official word. There’s a new 15-inch MacBook Pro, and it’s quite an update. For starters, the machine...

The next version of Apple's Mac OS X operating system is going to hit the streets well before Microsoft's Windows 8 OS. In fact, it's just around the corner. It's called Mountain Lion, the ninth major version of Mac OS X (Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion are the other eight), and it will be available in...

After researchers identified the terrifying Flame malware recently, they called it the most sophisticated cyber weapon they’d ever seen, which is impressive, considering how powerful the Stuxnet and Duqu bugs that wrought havoc in the Middle East a couple of years ago were. As it turns out, Flame and Stuxnet and Duqu have quite a bit...

ThinkPad historians may recall Lenovo's X220 (laptop) and X220T (convertible tablet / notebook) from last year. Both were formidable machines, but Intel's 3rd-gen series of Core processors weren't out yet. Turns out, that kind of horsepower was missing in certain models. Now, however, the company's dual-core Ivy Bridge CPUs are out in full...

According to Andy Rubin, who heads up development of Android at Google, the mobile OS is continuing to grow at a rapid pace; In fact, Rubin says over 900,000 devices running on Android are now being activated every day. This isn't the first time Rubin has released growth numbers for the mobile OS. By the end of June last year, Google figured...

Move over Johnny, mom and pop want to use the Xbox, and they don't intend to play Call of Duty. In fact, they're not commandeering your console for any game in particular; they want to watch a movie on Netflix. Or maybe it's a Hulu Plus? It doesn't matter, the point is, your game console is much more capable than the Atari 2600 your parents...

Canon announced the latest addition to its popular EOS Rebel line of DSLRs. The new Canon EOS Rebel T4i Digital SLR features an 18-megapixel CMOS (APS-C) sensor, DIGIC 5 Image Processor with high-speed continuous shooting of up to five frames per second, and an extended ISO range of 100–12800 (expandable to 25600 in H mode). This camera...

No matter what your opinion of Steve Jobs is, as a businessman and a human being, there's no denying the impact he's had on technology and, in particular, his ability to mass market high-tech items and permeate the mainstream audience, creating a consumer culture like we've never seen before. But how will he be remembered 50 years from now?...

In the movie Gladiator, Proximo offers words of advice to Maximus, telling him "Win the crowd, and you will win your freedom." If Proximo was alive today and enjoyed a career as a market analyst, he'd tell tech firms, "Win the women, and you'll win profits for your investors." He might also be ignored and his advice dismissed, shrugged off...

Head units don't usually get a heck of a lot of love, but Sony's newest is quite the technophile. The XAV-601BT is a powerful, large unit that's engineered to be used with your smartphone at the helm. There are two USB ports for simultaneous connection of phone and MP3 player/flash memory, and it supports firmware updates for compatibility...

Looks like GameStop isn't the only oddball getting into the wireless service game. Lenovo, a company closely linked to pro-grade ThinkPad laptops and software suites, is the next in line. Yes, really. The company today announced Lenovo Mobile Access, a contract-free mobile broadband service that provides pre-connected, always-on, customizable...

A few months ago, a Kickstarter project by the name of "Pebble" made some huge waves by raking in over a million dollars in funding sales. Suddenly, intelligent watches seem to be all the rage again, despite being a product category that largely died years back due to flaky support and bad battery life. Is it time for the segment to make a...

This is pretty crazy. But it's so crazy, that it just might work. While Apple shirts from the opening of new Apple Stores are tough to come by (and in turn, nice to have for an eBay turnaround), Microsoft really hasn't gone down that same path. But why not now? Metro's user interface is just gorgeous, so why not showcase some of Windows' newness...

Want to try out the Windows 8 Metro interface on your Android tablet? Splashtop wants that for you as well. The company previously released a Windows 8 Metro testbed for the iPad back in April, and now it has one for Android devices, which is available in the Google Play Store. To try it out for yourself, you’ll need a PC with the Windows...

Job cuts in the tech industry has become an all too common theme in the past couple of years, and the latest round of redundancy reductions is set to take place at Logitech. The peripheral maker announced plans to restructure its operations and simplify its organization to "better align costs with its current business to and free up resources...

Congratulations to anyone who owns a 17-inch MacBook Pro, it may just be a collector's item in a few months. Apple apparently feels as though the era of 17-inch laptops has run its course, and in a research note shared with AppleInsider, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple is still planning to discontinue the 17-inch MacBook Pro sometime later...

Apple will be making plenty of announcements at its impending Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and thanks to 9to5mac, we know for sure that at least one of the new products unveiled at the show will be iOS 6. The site’s been collecting shots of the WWDC banners as workers have been putting them up, and one touts iOS 6 as “The...

With WWDC just days away, the rumors revolving around Apple are at a fever pitch. From new Retina Display-equipped hardware to details about iOS 6, Apple has the technology world's eye yet again. And given that it really is a developer conference at heart, it shouldn't come as any surprise to hear rumors about new dev-related announcements...

What's that? A bitter beer face? Sour grapes? No, just two of America's largest wireless carriers refusing to let customers have any fun whatsoever. Folks who follow this industry closely may remember that Samsung was going to give away 48GB of Dropbox space (in addition to the free 2GB that each new signup gets, bringing it to a total of...

Eurocom introduced a new small form factor notebook that features up to 3TB of storage, 3rd generation Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge processors, up to 16GB DDR3-1600 RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics with Optimus technology. The new EUROCOM Fox 4.0 also has a 15.6-inch full HD 1920x1080 display. Both matte and glossy display options are available....

Lawsuits, lawsuits, and a few more suits. That's staying in the news here lately, with loads of major technology companies ratcheting up the ammunition in court cases against one another. Now, however, we're finally getting a breather in one of the more public spats. Motorola and Apple have been at each other for months, even years now, but...

Slimmer, smaller, sleeker... better. That's the going mantra in consumer electronics, with storage always aiming to be smaller and yet bigger than in the past. The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) has just announced it has finalized a new version of its Universal Storage Module (USM) standard that enables consumers to simply...

According to sources cited in a Reuters report, Intel is getting into the TV business, because hey, so is everybody else these days. Despite television being a rather tough nut to crack, Intel is apparently hoping that its set-top box and subscription service will be its golden ticket to delivering more Intel processors to the living room....

38 Studios, the game developer behind Kingdoms of Amalur and the unfinished Project Copernicus MMO has filed for bankruptcy. The company is seeking to liquidate its assets in order to pay its debts in what's known as a Chapter 7 filing. 38 Studios claims $21.7M in assets, mostly personal property, and $150.7 million in liabilities to 1000...

Remember Hewlett-Packard's Envy Spectre XT, that sexy slab of Ultrabook that you could look at online but couldn't order? Now you can as HP starts taking orders on what looks to be a 13-inch beauty, provided you can cough up the requisite $1,000 asking price for a baseline configuration. Standard options include a 13.3-inch LED backlit display...

New data from Flurry Analytics highlights the disparity in developer support for Android and iOS, noting that developers pay more attention to the latter. Much more. In comparing developer support for the two mobile platforms, Flurry found that roughly 7 out of 10 (69 percent, to be exact) applications are developed for iOS, a trend the analytics...

The late Steve Jobs was never a fan of so-called tweener devices, otherwise known as 7-inch tablets, a category he felt strongly was dead in the water. He was wrong. Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire is the second best selling tablet in the world, behind only to the mighty iPad. That's pretty impressive when you consider the number of Android slates...

My, how these tiny PCs-on-a-stick are proliferating. The latest flash drive-sized mini computer is the Pocket TV from Infinitec, a dedicated HDMI dongle designed to convert any TV into a Smart TV with Android 4.0. The device fits neatly into the palm of the hand and features a 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, Mali-400MP HD 1080p graphics, 512MB...

People have long accused competitive notebook manufacturers for copying Apple's MacBook Air design in some way or another, oftentimes shamelessly so. HP's Envy line looks entirely too much like a MacBook Pro, for example. And with the swarm of Ultrabooks taking over, well, let's just say there's some design influence going on there, arguably....

Facebook may have been little more than a social network a year ago, but since the IPO, the company is really growing up and maturing before our eyes. It's quickly becoming a software powerhouse, launching Pages and Camera apps for iOS. And starting tonight, it'll be home to an app store, too. Everyone seems to have an app store these days,...

For awhile there, people wondered how in the heck Twitter would be able to monetize itself. And these days? It's a battle between web and mobile over which one can rake in the most revenue, and on many occasions, mobile wins out. We know this because Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said as much at a conference in San Francisco earlier this week....

We can’t remember how we got around before Google Maps; scratch that, actually we do, but we try to forget, because the present technology is so much better, easier to use, and more powerful. Not content to sit on its laurels, though, Google announced some significant upgrades to Google Maps at an event in San Francisco. First off, Street...

Apple's iPhone sure does get around these days, and on June 29, you can add Virgin Mobile USA to the list of carriers offering the popular iOS device. Virgin Mobile made the announcement today, saying it will carry both the iPhone 4 and 4S with its Beyond Talk unlimited data and messaging plans (carried out through Sprint's network) starting...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is apparently fed up with the growing number of patent disputes that could lead to import bans. So much, in fact, that the FTC felt compelled to ink a five-page letter to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) outlining its concerns with the way things are currently handled, which have "significant...

MSI unveiled its new Wind U180 and Wind U270 notebooks at Computex 2012. The Wind U180 netbook features Intel's latest generation Cedar Trail platform with the option of the new generation dual-core Intel Atom N2800 processor. The Wind U180 is available with a "minimalist black", "angel white," or a lavender chassis. You'll find AMD's new...

Acer announced the Aspire V5 series, a new range of thin and light notebooks. According to Acer, these notebooks are 30 percent slimmer than previous value-based notebooks. The Aspire V5 series comes in two display sizes. The 14-inch Aspire V5 measures 0.79 inches thick and weighs 4.6 pounds while the 15.6-inch version is 0.83 inches thick...

One of the things we like about AVADirect is the extensive catalog of off-the-shelf parts to choose from. In fact, a major advantage of shopping from a boutique system builder as opposed to a bulk OEM is the availability of name brand hardware you'd otherwise buy from Newegg, or wherever it is you purchase your components, when rolling your...

Yesterday, there were rumors aplenty that around 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords were stolen and posted on a Russian hacker forum, where the poster presumably was looking for some help decrypting them. LinkedIn, by way of a blog post by CEO Vicente Silveira, has confirmed that at least some of the leaked passwords belong to LinkedIn accounts....

It's been a while since we've seen SteelSeries make a major splash in the gaming mice space, but there's no better time to re-enter that fray than at E3. The accessories company has just launched a rechargeable, wireless MMO mouse that looks up to World of Warcraft, and features a docking station, wired option and in-game setup to bind all...

Talk about a bold move, and a bold statement. The International Olympic Committee announced today that it will live stream the London 2012 Olympic Games in 64 territories on the IOC's channel on YouTube. Wondering why that's a bit deal? Because it'll be free. Most developed nations will have to turn to television (or at least have a pay-TV...

There’s all sorts of tasty treats dropping at Computex 2012, and we’re rounding up several of them for you here from ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI in one convenient serving. ASUS We already detailed ASUS’ Windows 8 and RT tablets, Transformer Book, Transformer AIO, and TAICHI here, but that’s not all ASUS brought to Computex....

You've heard about it for years, and now it's real: IPv6. What is it? Well, to the average person, the shift doesn't mean much. You can certainly continue on with your day without fretting over this, and everything will be just fine. But for those who really want to know, you'll be interested in understanding how the new Internet Standard...

At Computex this week, AMD has launched a refresh of its popular Bobcat APU. The new Brazos 2.0 chips are slipping in at the top of the Bobcat product stack and offer marginal speed increases as well as an assortment of new features. On the performance side of things, virtually nothing changes. The new E2-1800 is 50MHz (three percent) faster...

The iPhone 5 rumor mill is in full swing as we inch closer to the device's release, which some have pegged for September or October. One of the persistent rumors is that the iPhone 5 will finally sport a bigger size screen, though it won't rival some of the larger smartphones and hybrids on the market, like the incredibly large Galaxy Note...

Analyst predictions are always entertaining, because they make statements about what will happen in the future, which are both impossible to prove without the passage of time (or, we suppose, a time machine) and fun to discuss. IDC’s latest mobile phone market predictions are no exception, as the analyst group drops some future-news...

E3 is well underway in Los Angeles, and Microsoft has already made a major splash with its "SmartGlass" technology, game demos, and its announcement that a Kinect-powered version of Internet Explorer will debut on the Xbox 360. This is a marked change from last year, when Kinect was the unquestioned centerpiece of Microsoft's display and the...

The Chevy Volt is unique among electric cars because it runs on two sources of energy. You have an electric source – a battery – that allows you to drive gas-free for an EPA–estimated 35 miles. And there's also an onboard gas generator that produces electricity so you can go farther. So if you want to drive using only electricity,...

Microsoft is getting ready to launch Windows 8, the company's next generation operating system that's been built from the ground up to play nice with today's touch-computing landscape, but what about Windows 7? In case anyone has forgotten, Windows 7 is a perfectly serviceable OS, just ask the millions of people using it. In a blog post today,...

AT&T and Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy Exhilarate. This smartphone is AT&T and Samsung's first LTE smartphone to obtain UL Platinum certification. The rear casing on the Exhilarate is made from 80 percent recycled (post-consumer waste) material. The phone features a 4-inch touchscreen Super AMOLED display, dual core 1.2 GHz...

System builders are plenty eager to cross Intel's Ivy Bridge platform en route to more performance on the other side, and that includes Samsung, which today unveiled a pair of new Series 5 notebooks sporting the Santa Clara chip maker's latest and greatest architecture. They include the 15.6-inch Series 5 and 14-inch Series 5 500. "Our latest...

Thanks to an ITC exclusion order, two of HTC's flagship smartphones—the One X for AT&T and the EVO 4G LTE for Sprint—were delayed at customs last month. After a short delay, the One X is now available online through AT&T. The phone is expected to hit AT&T stores this Sunday, June 10. Pricing for the phone remains at...

Windows 8 is the clear story at Computex, but outside of that, new storage solutions are taking the show by storm. Corsair has just unveiled its 4th-gen SSDs, with an exclusive new Link_A_Media device controller. The Neutron Series GTX SSDs are taking the consumer SSD world by storm, being the first in the industry to feature the LM87800 6Gb/s...

It's clearly the age of the mobile device. With tablets getting slimmer, Ultrabooks shrinking and our demand for storage on the rise, companies are being forced to squeeze even more into tight spaces. So, it's no surprise to see RunCore doing exactly that. The company has just debuted the new 2.5" 7mm Pro VI SSD at Computex, which is designed...

Another video chatting tool? Yep. As if Skype, Facetime and the other alternatives weren't enough, now one of the guys that had a hand in Facebook's development is launching a new video chatting platform that taps right into that network. Airtime is the project of Napster creator Shawn Fanning and tech overlord Sean Parker. On a simple level,...

Google’s Bouncer just made sense; unlike Apple’s heavily curated walled-garden app store, Google Play is a target for malicious (and/or downright crappy) apps, so having Bouncer in place to scan submitted apps for malicious software to protect Google Play customers was necessary. Google kept Bouncer’s intimate details under...

It looks like cloud gaming service OnLive was holding back on us, waiting for the E3 show to unleash some tasty new features and games. New games coming to the service include Aliens: Colonial Marines, The Cave, Darksiders II, Hell Yeah!, Hitman: Absolution, Inversion, London 2012 – The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games, Metro:...

When it comes to Star Wars, the gaming industry has a long history of cranking out titles of uncertain quality. For every brilliant title like Knights of the Old Republic, we've seen several clunkers (Kinect Star Wars anyone) and a few outright failures like Republic Heroes. LucasArts demonstrated a new Star Wars game at E3 this week -- Star...

It may feel like summer has only just begun, but Dell is already getting ready for back-to-school with the introduction of its newly redesigned Inspiron laptop family. All of the new Inspiron laptops will offer options with Intel’s new 3rd Generation Core i processors (Ivy Bridge), Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, and will be eligible...

Fujitsu decided to kick off the summer with a pair of Lifebok Ultrabook devices: the 13.3-inch Lifebook UH572 for home consumers, and 14-inch LifeBook U772 designed for dudes and dudettes donning a business suit. Both models are powered by Intel's 3rd Generation Core processor line, otherwise known as Ivy Bridge. The 14-inch model is distinguishable...

Hey, is that a C3PO in your pocket or are you just a huge Star Wars fan? You can answer 'both' thanks to PowerA, which just announced some of the coolest looking iPhone cases this side of Tatooine. PowerA's limited edition cases are fully licensed and compatible with both the iPhone 4 and 4S in a variety of characters and images. "These are...

A few months ago, CyberPowerPC unveiled a new line of custom gaming PCs under the “Zeus” moniker that promised impressive specs and features at a relatively low price. As it turns out, there are plenty of Zeus models available (nine at present, by our count), which provides a plethora of starting price points. For $1,125, you can...

Toshiba unveiled three new ultrabooks: the Satellite U845W, Satellite U845 and Portégé Z935 Series. According to Toshiba, the Satellite U845W is the world’s first ultrabook with a 21:9 cinematic display. This ultrabook features a 14.4-inch diagonal ultrawide-HD TruBrite display along with a 3rd generation Intel Core processor,...

Don't ever accuse Razer of being insensitive to the plights of left-handed gamers who don't have nearly as many options for gaming mice as right-handers do. Sympathetic to this fact, Razer just announced its Taipan mouse, an ambidextrous rodent that doesn't care which hand you use to move your line of sight. Hooray for equality. "Razer’s...

Windows 8 is all the rage at Computex this year, just as Windows 7 was in years prior. With Microsoft major OS overhaul pinned for an autumn release, most of its partners are choosing now to showcase what's just around the corner. Asus is obviously in that group, and it's showing off a load of new gear in Taiwan. For starters, there's the...

Gorilla Glass. Heard of it? Sure you have. It's on loads of smartphones these days, and it's widely regarded as one of the most significant mobile technologies in the past few years. Willow Glass is the company's next great product, an ultra-slim flexible glass designed for the next generation of consumer electronics. The thinness, strength,...

Samsung announced right around 24 hours ago that the Galaxy S III would come to the U.S. on five of its carriers, and slowly but surely, carriers are confirming their own models one by one. AT&T is joining that crowd, but there's a twist. Outside of offering the Pebble Blue and Marble White versions that everyone else will have access...

If you're a mobile gamer, today's announcement is pretty darn exciting. Ever since it unveiled its new Kepler architecture earlier this year, Nvidia has been talking up the GK104's improved performance/watt. It doesn't take much in the way of a clairvoyant talent to see how the new chip could kick mobile discrete GPU performance up a few notches,...

Computex is a major trade show where companies of all sorts show off their upcoming products and discuss manufacturing trends. It's a great place to get a feel for what's going to be hot in the second half of the year, but it also lends itself to a type of exuberant prediction. In this case, Simon Segars, head of ARM's processor division,...

While primo tablets still mostly run in the $400-plus range, it’s not as though low-cost tablets haven’t proliferated rapidly--it’s just that they’re often not very good. Hitting lower price points is not easy, although there have been a few solid tablets around the $200-$250 range. For consumers, that’s all well...

At its big press event at the E3 conference, Microsoft boasted a tricked-out stage ideal for demoing games and invited a gaggle of celebrity guests that included Joe Montana, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Usher. The company unveiled a slew of new games from a variety of developers, so let’s just list the lot of them, shall we? Halo...

If you always though Intel's Ultrabook form factor could use an injection of color, consider yourself on the same wavelength as Lenovo, which today announced the worldwide availability its apparently "coveted" IdeaPad U310 (13.3-inch) and U410 (14-inch) Ultrabook models powered by Intel's 3rd Generation Core processor line (Ivy Bridge). "Ultrabooks...

Plain and simple, typing on a tablet, be it an iPad device or any number of Android slates, isn't much fun. Virtual keyboards just don't lend themselves to productivity chores the way a physical plank does, which could end up being a big selling point in the hybrid tablet/notebook category once Windows 8 rolls into view. MSI certainly thinks...

If you've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy S III on US shores, you won't have to wait too much longer. According to a recent announcement from Samsung, five major carriers will be getting the highly-anticipated Galaxy S III smartphone yet this month. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular customers...

ViewSonic announced the ViewPad E100, a new tablet running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This tablet targets cost-conscious customers who are looking for a tablet with premium features. The ViewPad E100 features a 1GHz processor, 4GB storage, capacitive multi-touch screen, and a 1.3 MP front camera. For connectivity, the ViewPad E100 offers...

Hope you're ready for a swarm of new notebooks, because that's what's happening this week. Lenovo is joining Acer and Asus (amongst others) by revealed two new machines, the IdeaPad U310 and U410. These guys use Intel's new 3rd-gen Core processors, and the company's investing quite a bit in advertising to make sure people know about it. The...

Ah, the wide world of Windows 8 is opening up even further this week, and in a major way. Computex is the launching ground for quite a few new Win8-based devices, with Asus in particular introducing the Windows RT Tablet. It's a 10.1" convertible device with an optional keyboard dock, using NVIDIA's Tegra 3 quad-core mobile processor. There's...

New Windows 8-based machines aren't all that's new this week: Toshiba Storage Products has just announced a new lineup of solid state drives (SSDs) that provides both high performance and energy efficiency for the most data-intensive and energy-sensitive applications. These are geared for enterprise use, with the THNSNF drives being the world’s...

If you're a fan of Boxee, go ahead and say 'howdy' to Cloudee, the set-top box maker's first foray into the world of cloud computing. For the time being, Cloudee is an invite-only cloud party for iPhone and iPod touch users who don't mind playing with beta apps. That stinks if you're an Android user, but if Cloudee proves popular enough, perhaps...

In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and Half Geeks webcast, Dave, Marco and Iyaz discuss Dell's brand new XPS One 27 All-in-One Ivy Bridge Desktop, Intel's Core i5-3470 Ivy Bridge Quad-Core CPU (Desktops), Intel's Core i5-3427U Ivy Bridge CPU For Ultrabooks, our Quad-Channel DDR3 Memory Round-Up, and a little tease about some Thunderbolt-enabled...

If Acer's dishing out Windows 8-equipped desktops and Ultrabooks, might as well throw out a few tablets, too. That's the goal, right? Right! Over at Computex, Acer has just introduced the ICONIA W510 and ICONIA W700, two Win8 slates that are engineered to handle Metro. According to Acer, the most unique part of the W510 tablet is the tri-mode,...

Who would've known that Computex would be the official coming-out party for what's likely the final build of Windows 8? It sure looks that way, with Acer introducing new Windows 8 all-in-one PCs today. The new U Series is being announced alongside new Aspire S7 Ultrabooks by Acer, with the Aspire 7600U (27-inch) and the Aspire 5600U (23-inch)...

If you had any doubts about Windows 8 being en route, let this squash 'em. Acer has just introduced their latest Ultrabooks, and both of them sport touch panels. That's right: laptops with touchscreens. It's real, and while it never really made sense in the past, Windows 8 (and the Metro user interface) changes that paradigm. The new Aspire...

It’s a long-running joke that most of us use our phones to make phone calls rather rarely, opting instead to use them for texting, Web browser, games, productivity, and social media more often. Perhaps that’s partly why AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson suggested this week that data-only wireless plans are likely coming within two...

Do you see that over on the horizon? It's Windows 8 -- we'd recognize it anywhere with its luggage of tiles in tow. Some of you might even be playing with Windows 8 already, courtesy of an official Release Preview made available just a few days ago. If so, and if you're rocking discrete graphics from AMD or NVIDIA, we have some good news to...

Yesterday, AMD announced that it would cease offering monthly driver updates, and instead issue Catalyst versions only "when it makes sense." That statement would be a good deal more comforting if it didn't "make sense" to upgrade AMD's drivers nearly every single month. Before we go down that road, we want to acknowledge that AMD's announcement...

Just because you're in love with your iPad, doesn't mean you have to turn the cold shoulder on Microsoft's cloud offerings. The company's SkyDrive for iPad app has just been refreshed in a major way, bringing support for the new iPad's Retina display resolution. That's obviously a boon for those using their iPad for productivity, and considering...

Ultrabooks are indeed all the rage these days in the world of laptops, so it's no surprise that LG is adding one more to the heap. The company has just introduced the X Note Z350, a 13.3-inch machine that's mighty sleek, and definitely potent. The rig sports a highly typical "wedge" shape, with a matte silver finish, black chiclet-style keyboard...

There's no need to shed a tear over the discontinuation of Dell's Alienware M11x, the pint-sized gaming laptop that will never get to cross Intel's Ivy Bridge. If you're a fan of such small form factor gaming laptops, you'll be happy to know there are options at your disposable, one of those being Maingear's Pulse 11 with 3rd Generation Intel...

When it comes to complicated standards, a lot of work goes into making sure the right moves are made. It took a long, long time for the 802.11 standards to be finalized for use in Wi-Fi hotspots around the globe, and with 3DTV, Ultra HD TV and 4K/8K TV right around the bend, the ITU is now making recommendations that it hopes will make things...

With E3 coming up this week, it's obvious that gaming gear is going to be in the spotlight here soon. But we can't say we expected Sony to be one of the companies introducing new gaming headsets. Nevertheless, the Pulse Wireless Stereo Headset (Elite Edition) has been revealed, with a product name that's almost as long as the time you'll have...

Market research firm comScore shared its U.S. subscribers market share report heading into the weekend, and there weren't many surprises to be found. For example, Samsung is still the top maker of mobile devices in the U.S., in terms of market share, leading the way with a 25.9 percent share at the end of April 2012, up slightly from 25.4...

It would seem that there are only so many variations and improvements one can make on a three-button mouse, but ROCCAT is trying to reinvent the scroll wheel, as it were. The company is billing the Lua Tri-Button Gaming Mouse as “The Classic 3-Button Mouse: Re-Mastered”. The Lua is equipped with Omron switches and the Pro Optic...

Cover your eyes, Android fans, here comes that dirty F-word no one in the Google camp likes to see, hear, or acknowledge: Fragmentation. It's an F-bomb that resonates with any Android user waiting on their carrier to deliver that delicious Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) update long after Gingerbread (Android 2.3) started to taste stale....

There's been a lot of hoopla surrounding Windows 8, especially now that the Release Preview version has gone official (after being leaked to the Web in China a day prior). Receiving less attention is Internet Explorer 10 -- the default browser in Windows 8 -- at least until Friday, when Microsoft posted a pair of blog posts exploring its next...

Don't let the fact that Microsoft's getting ready to release Windows 8 stop you from purchasing a Windows 7 system. For one, there's no guarantee that the Metro-infused follow-up will be a worthy successor to Microsoft's finest OS to date. But if it does turn out that way, you'll be able to upgrade to the latest and greatest for $15, Microsoft...

There's a transformation taking place in the PC market, and despite what the doomsayers might tell you, it has nothing to do with tablets, smartphones, tweener devices like the Galaxy Note, or increasingly media-centric game consoles. No, the transformation we're observing is one where people are trading in their towers and monitors for space-saving...

We don't know if Electronics Arts' upcoming update for Battlefield 3 qualifies as the mother of all game patches, but it's certainly in contention for the update crown. EA said the update, which will roll out on June 4-5, is "a big one," an understatement of epic proportion, considering the multitude of tweaks, changes, enhancements, and fixes...

In technology, stuff gets smaller. Mobile phones are no exception--just look at the evolution from the Zach Morris brick to Will Ferrell’s tiny cell phone--but today, mobile phone technology took another tiny step forward with the approval of a new, smaller form factor SIM card. French standards body ETSI approved the fourth form factor...

It seems like Intel's Ivy Bridge is getting all the attention these days, but let's not forget about AMD, which is getting ready to roll out a new platform of its own. AMD's upcoming A10 and A18 Trinity Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) are scheduled to arrive in the second quarter of this year, and already we're seeing compatible socket...

It's not often that we can use LOL in a story without throwing integrity out of the window, but leave it to Google to enable such a luxury. The search giant has just announced that it will be "expanding the Internet domain space." In 2008, ICANN announced a program to expand the number of generic TLDs (think .com, .org, .edu), developed through...

There's fast, and then there's really, really fast. As lovers of the Internet, we love the latter. Kabel Deutschland agrees, as the cable operator has just announced an amazing achievement. Somehow, it has accomplished a new world record in transmission: 4.7Gbps. There has been a successful field test in cable network of the city of Schwerin,...

HP promised to open source webOS, its onetime mobile operating system, and the company has indeed been making good on that promise, with the fully open platform available in August. Of course, the looming question for any technology that gets turned loose into the open source universe is whether or not anyone will actually care enough to invest...

Remember WiDi? Intel's Wireless Display? It's still around, but honestly, it hasn't caught nearly the wind that Apple's AirPlay has, and even the "Ultrabook" terms seems to have caught on more than WiDi, despite enabling all new realms of wireless enjoyment in entertainment. But clearly, wireless is here to stay, and the Wi-Fi Alliance has...

International roaming has been, and continues to be, a huge ordeal. For the average consumer, the simple act of checking Facebook while abroad can lead to some pretty insane bill shock. In most nations outside of the U.S., the average carrier dings you for between $3 and $5 per megabyte. AT&T is changing up its international roaming packages...