Paul Lilly
Paul is a seasoned geek who was first seduced into the world of computers and technology by the Commodore 64, and through the years he’s courted a number of OSes and platforms from DOS on up to the latest version of Windows. Having joined the HotHardware team in 2011, Paul is now a mainstay of the site covering the news beat and reviews, and resident wiseguy who keeps the mood light. He’s also an experienced freelance technology writer whose work has appeared in a number of online and print publications.
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
We've sure come a long way since the days of 1.44MB floppy disks and the like. Beginning July 30, 2010, Sharp will beginning selling its VR-100BR1 triple-layer Blu-ray disc media, a write-once disc capable of storing up to 100GB of data. "This disc media product conforms to the new BDXL format...
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Forget about the heat, noise, or cost. For those who have to have the fastest single-GPU videocard on the planet, Nvidia's GTX 480 takes the crown. The discussion gets a little more interesting, however, when you start talking about the fastest videocard around, a distinction that belongs to...
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Good news for iPhone and iPod Touch users who are fans of Mozilla's Firefox browser. In a blog post this week, Mozilla announced that its Firefox Home application is now available for download for both platforms. The free app gives iPhone and iPod Touch owners the ability to access their Firefox desktop history, bookmarks, and open tabs from...
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Everyone and their uncle has promised to release an Android-based tablet by the end of 2010, and at this point, it's probably easier to take a head count of which companies aren't planning to release one. We can start with Hewlett-Packard, who according to reports will no longer be pushing out...
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So what if Intel is taking its sweet little time adopting the USB 3.0 spec, let the transition begin. Sure, it sucks that the world's largest chip maker isn't on board yet, but when Intel finally comes around, at least we won't be...
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Go ahead T-Mobile customers, toss that slow-as-molasses HTC Dream (G1) phone into the river, the same one that enticed you get locked into a 2-year agreement back before all the cool Android phones made their way to other wireless carriers. You won't be needing it anymore, not with the Samsung...
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When the first Service Pack shipped for Windows Vista, it was a pretty big deal. After all, it took several performance and reliability updates to turn what debuted as a buggy OS into a serviceable platform, all of which were rolled into...
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Don't let it ever be said that Toshiba doesn't love its PC and Mac brethren equally, lest how would you explain the Canvio, Toshiba's latest portable backup solution for Macs? The thing comes in 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB capacities, each one pre-loaded with Mac specific backup software. "Toshiba...
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Apple and AT&T can't seem to catch a break in the court of public opinion lately, and now the two will have to defend themselves in a real court. That's because a federal judge has ruled that a monopoly lawsuit against Apple and...
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It's never pretty watching two nerds duke it out, and as is often the case, a would-be battle turns into a lot of awkward posturing. That's currently what's going on between Fring, who last week released an updated iPhone app allowing iPhone 4 owners to make 2-way video calling over Wi-Fi or...
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It's a dog-eat-dog world in the mobile phone space, and had T-Mobile remained staunch in trying to sell the GarminFone to its customers for $200, it would have been quickly gobbled up by Samsung's Galaxy S (known as the Samsung Vibrant on T-Mobile) when it's released later this week. Not...
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Decide for yourself whether this is a good thing or not, but according to Intel, reports of the Celeron's death have been greatly exaggerated. Responding to Internet rumblings that Intel would phase out the Celeron brand in 2011, the world's largest chip maker said the rumors are false, plain and simple. "The rumor is not true, Intel has no...
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Dell's Studio line has always been about both form and function, and now an even greater emphasis is being placed on the aesthetic design. In a joint collaboration with Threadless, Dell is sprucing up its Studio laptop line with "11 inspired designs," each one created and submitted by members...
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Chris Ball, the Lead Software Engineer for the OLPC project, made a series of announcements this week about the direction the low-cost laptop is taking, not the least of which is the addition of a multitouch display. That's right folks, the next iteration of the XO laptop -- XO-1.75 -- will...
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Half the fun in putting together your ultimate home theater setup is piecing together parts you hand selected after auditioning each one (you don't just buy audio components based on paper specs and price, do you?). It's similar to rolling...
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Just because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck doesn't mean it's a duck at all. And by that same token, Motorola's newest smartphone sure looks like a BlackBerry and has a physical keyboard like a BlackBerry, but this ain't not BlackBerry, folks. It's Motorola's Charm, and it's...
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There's a new beta browser in town, and its name is Firefox 4. Previously available in "Candidate" form, this latest release is a bit more polished and ready for anyone comfortable playing with beta software, which may or may not prove stable (been running fine for us so far). If Firefox 4 looks eerily familiar, then you must have logged some...
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You have to hand it to HTC, the handset maker who has found a way to be profitable by bombarding mobile phone market with a near-endless stream of smartphone models. The strategy is paying off, and quite handsomely -- HTC on Tuesday said its second quarter net profit jumped by 33 percent, The...
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For compatibility reasons, many corporations still insist on deploying Internet Explorer across their workforce, no matter how much the end-user complains. It's not that IE is more standards compliant than other browsers -- in most cases, the opposite is true -- but Microsoft's longstanding...
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Comedians often make cracks at banks for including Braille on drive-through ATMs (there are number of valid reasons why they do this), but given the progress made by researchers at The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech, don't assume that the driver in front of you isn't...
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We're going to be up to our eyeballs in tablets this holiday shopping season if every company who promises to release a slate in 2010 comes through. That's potentially bad news for Apple, and maybe great news for LG, the latest electronics maker to announce plans to release a tablet before the...
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PC gamers are a lucky bunch, particularly those who have only recently begun their journey into the awesome world of computers. Never before has this hobby been so affordable, and there was a time not that long ago when building a cheap gaming rig resulted in a second-rate gaming experience, one devoid of copious amounts of eye candy and buttery...
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