Joel Hruska
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
We've covered the NSA revelations and subsequent government petitions at some length, but here's a new twist to the story of the government's pervasive monitoring program -- a view of the activity from an ISP's perspective. According to...
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You've got to hand it to Microsoft -- the company is willing to find novel ways of promoting its products. The company is now offering anyone who buys a year of Office 365 ($99.95 annual rate) a free year of Xbox Live Gold. That's worth...
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According to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft is now one of just a handful of companies with a seven-digit server deployment. Speaking at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference, Ballmer claimed that Microsoft had entered rare territory and...
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Edward Snowden's leaks have shaken something loose in the IT industry. For years, companies have been afraid to talk about the requests and data sharing procedures the NSA and FBI have forced upon them as a result of the Patriot Act...
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Microsoft is smarting in the wake of the Guardian's discussion of how chummy it's gotten with the NSA over the past few years, and the company wants permission to clarify its relationship with the federal government. To that end, the...
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Every now and then, someone has a fabulous idea in gaming. Sometimes that involves hordes of undead zombies, or a rocket launcher and the literal forces of Hell. Sometimes it means spending hours thinking "Just one more turn" as you craft...
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Late last month, the Wall Street Journal leaked news of a partnership with TSMC, in an agreement that put a formal signature on what sources have previously implied was years of behind-the-scenes collaboration. Apple has explored its...
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Just yesterday, we addressed the dubious claim that Intel's Clover Trail+ low power mobile processors had somehow seized a massive lead over ARM's products and we noted some of the suspicious discrepancies in the popular AnTuTu benchmark...
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Interest around Google Glass has revived the idea of wearable computing in many circles and inspired research into areas that might, at first glance, seem a bit far-fetched. One such program is FIDO -- Facilitating Interactions for Dogs...
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A new chapter in the Deus Ex universe dropped yesterday and all reviews indicate that it's actually a pretty good mobile game, relative to the limits of that platform. Unfortunately, there's a substantial hidden caveat. If you own a jailbroken device, Deus Ex: The Fall won't let you pull the...
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For months, there've been questions regarding just how secure Skype's encryption was. After Microsoft bought the VOIP company it began moving to a more centralized node structure that made it easier to scale the product but at the cost of...
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A few weeks ago, the analyst company ABI Research published a report claiming that Intel's new CloverTrail+ platform (dual-core Medfield) for smartphones was significantly faster and more power efficient than anything ARM's various...
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When Microsoft announced that it was canceling the much-hated always-on Xbox One requirements, a collective cheer went up from the Internet -- and also, a collective grumble. A number of players were ready to get rid of physical discs...
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In Part I of this series, we discussed ARM's business model and how it works with its various partners as compared to Intel. Today, we're diving into a specific technology that ARM believes will allow it to differentiate its products and offer superior performance to Santa Clara and the...
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GameStop executives and spokespeople never said much about Microsoft's original plan for the Xbox One, but the company must surely have breathed a sigh of relief when Microsoft unexpectedly canceled its original plans a few weeks later. Had the company pushed ahead with the goal of leaving...
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When Microsoft reversed its Xbox One policies a few weeks back, there was momentary hope that the company has listened to its customers and understood the features they were asking for. Granted, this was brief -- the company promptly...
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Boston University is a prestigous, research-oriented university that can claim a number of famous alumni. Unfortunately, one of the classes it's added in recent months is aimed at a demographic that's been under increasing fire in the...
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When news broke earlier this week that Apple had finally inked a deal with TSMC to produce processors with the company beginning in 2014, the first round of chatter was on what this might mean for Samsung. Apple, after all, has been by far...
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Last week, we paid a visit to ARM's headquarters in Cambridge, England and sat down with the company for multiple deep dives into its structure, processor architecture, and the future of its product design. The semiconductor market for mobile and hand-held devices has changed dramatically in...
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There are certain headlines you don't expect to see on a regular basis. "BMW Executives Prefer Driving Kia." "Ryan Gosling Weds Dowdy, Middle-Aged Housewife." "Game Industry Leaders Agree: Industry Peaked With Colecovision." Or, in...
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Ever since Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One in May, the user community has raised holy hell about the 24-hour mandatory online check in, the loss of used game sales, and the onerous online requirements that prohibited game or console...
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For the last 20 years, NVIDIA has developed and used its own graphics IP in-house. While the company engaged in several prominent cross-licensing deals with companies like Intel, those deals never resulted in an Intel-branded graphics card...
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