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
The Start button in Windows has changed in form over the years, but we could always count on it to function as a convenient launch pad for all our programs, applications, and tasks. So what does Microsoft do now that we're all addicted to using the Start menu? It removes the item in Windows 8, of course, hoping to nudge users into sticking...
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It's a little bit ironic that Zynga is having a tough time adjusting to mobile. Or perhaps it's fitting. Like Facebook, the social platform that was so pivotal in fueling its success, Zynga hasn't been doing so hot as a publicly trade company. Just a few days ago, Zynga warned that it expects to post a net loss of...
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Today kicks off another work week, and that inevitably means another round of iPad Mini rumors, a common occurrence the past month or so. The latest unofficial chatter relates to the iPad Mini's production and launch date, which is expected to be available to purchase in early November. Indications up to this point suggest Apple will hold...
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It wouldn't be an iPhone launch without some kind of controversy, it just wouldn't. (Un)luckily for Apple, the iPhone 5 is no exception. It has a tendency to scratch way too easily, and is also prone to mucking up brightly lit photos with a purple haze. In a private email exchange with one of its iPhone 5 customers...
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It's official, folks -- I will not be running for President or any other political office. I don't have a grand desire to enter a life of politics anyhow, but if I did, my past (and present) would come back to haunt me. You see, I'm a thief and a damn good pickpocket. Probably one of the best in all of Tamriel. I've...
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It's no secret the biggest downside to Android is fragmentation, the dirty F-word that comes with the territory of playing in Google's open source playground. Fortunately for Android fans, Google's mobile platform has tremendous upside, but it doesn't help when handset makers highlight the negatives, as Motorola recently did by reneging on...
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It's been a nice, long ride for the conventional PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) slot, but with the introduction of Intel's game-changing Haswell platform, the Santa Clara chip maker is reportedly doing away with support for the legacy ports. If you've been holding onto an earlier model Sound Blaster card or...
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There's big trouble brewing at Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory in China. According to local reports, as of yesterday afternoon, between three thousand and four thousand workers went on strike at the plant, which produces iPhone 5 devices for Apple. Foxconn is often the topic of unfair working conditions, and that's what this work stoppage is all...
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Well that was fast. For those of you who purchased (or are considering the purchase of) a Kindle Paperwhite ebook reader from Amazon, you can already jailbreak the device. The modded code is "heavily based" on a previously known hack for the Kindle 4/Touch, updated with a handful of tweaks and a new delivery method. It's a fairly simple process,...
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Talk about ending the work week on a high note. Microsoft and 343 Industries today posted the first episode of the Halo 4 live-action webseries designed to introduce the Halo franchise to people new or otherwise unfamiliar with the game. Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is a 20-minute clip, which we've embedded below, available in Full HD 1080p on...
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Rovio may have learned how to wield the Force. According to the company's Angry Birds Tumblr page, a Star Wars tie-in to the highly popular game is in the works and will be unveiled on Monday in Times Square, New York. Whether that entails a new game remains to be seen, but whatever it is, it appears those PO'd birds...
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Samsung owes Apple in the neighborhood of a billion dollars after a jury found the company guilty of copying the look and feel of Apple devices and running afoul of several design patents. The high profile trial was rarely without drama, often times at the dismay at Judge Lucy Koh, who warned both companies on...
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Less than a month after it launched, Sony has reportedly stopped selling Xperia Tablet S devices due to a design defect that could let water into what's supposed to be a water resistant device. It was discovered that some units being sold had a tiny gap just wide enough between the display and chassis to let water inside, which might not have...
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Steve Jobs is gone, but certainly not forgotten. As hard as it is to fathom, he's been dead for exactly one year, having lost a hard fought bout with pancreatic cancer on October 5, 2011. He passed away in his home in California, though he left behind a consumer culture for Apple products that doesn't exist for any...
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Navigating from Point A to Point B can be tricky, especially these days when you never know if you're going to run into an Apple user wandering aimlessly using the broken Maps program in iOS 6. Fortunately for them, they have options, including the TomTom Navigation app. As luck would have it, the same app is now...
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Do you know who's cooler than the girl with the dragon tattoo? Megan Orsi, a former student at the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts who's currently a wife and mother to an 18-month-old son. Orsi's also a Photoshop user and is so passionate about the program that she had a Photoshop toolbar tattooed on her arm. She's...
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Former Ebay CEO and current chief of Hewlett-Packard, Meg Whitman, inherited a company that was (and remains) on top of the PC pile, but also one that was struggling to find direction. She replaced Léo Apotheker, a software guy who wanted to exit HP from the PC business and focus on software and printing, a...
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For those of your rocking a PlayBook tablet, be advised that Research In Motion (RIM) has now made available a new version of its mobile operating system, PlayBook OS 2.1. There are three main things RIM has chosen to highlight in this latest update, not the least of which is improved Android application support. On that front, PlayBook OS...
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Most economists will agree that you have to spend money to make money, but the trick is not to go overboard with the former. It's a balancing act Sony finds itself in at this very moment, having spent $1.8 billion in just the last three months acquiring companies and assets, such as buying a 51 percent stake in Olympus for $645 million just...
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HTC finally saw fit to formally introduce its One X+ smartphone, which is the successor to the popular One X. The refreshed version looks pretty much identical to the original, but on the inside, it sports upgraded hardware, including a 1.7GHz Tegra 3 processor from NVIDIA and a faster clocked GPU that runs at 520MHz...
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It appears as though Samsung is prepping a smaller size Galaxy S III device to launch a little over a week from now. The company's German division has been sending out press invites, and while it doesn't come right out and confirm the existence of a Galaxy S III Mini, it strongly hints at it. Translated via Google, the text reads: "As large...
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We had the absolute pleasure of attending Maker Faire 2012 in New York last weekend, where we got to see first hand the hubbub surrounding 3D printing, a promising technology that's been receiving so much attention lately, and rightfully so. It's clear to us and to many others that 3D printing isn't a passing fad, but...
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