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
While Apple works feverishly to squash bugs in its 6-month-old iOS 6 software, rumors are already starting to spread about iOS 7, including talk of a delay. Take that with a grain of salt since Apple hasn't announced development of iOS 7 or provided a release date of any kind, but nevertheless it appears development...
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Staunch Chrome and Firefox users aren't going to like this statement, but Internet Explorer has won the browser war, or so it seems. It wasn't always a foregone conclusion that IE would win. After the demise of Netscape, Firefox emerged as the first legitimate threat to IE's throne, and then Chrome came along and...
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Pirates flocked to BitTorrent in record numbers to download the season premiere of HBO's Game of Thrones. Within an hour of the first torrent being uploaded, there were 163,088 people sharing the single file, breaking the record for the largest BitTorrent swarm ever. That's according to TorrentFreak, which notes that...
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Dan Porter, former CEO of OMGPOP, never has to work another day in his life if he doesn't want to. Nor is obligated to work at Zynga, the casual game company that purchased OMGPOP last year for $183 million after "Draw Something" became a virtual overnight sensation. Unlike Midas, not everything Zynga touches turns to...
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It has been quite a while since we last put an mSATA solid state drive (SSD) under the microscope. It's actually only been about two years, and if you care to jump into our time machine, you can see what we had to say about Intel's 310 Series mSATA SSD in 80GB form. The idea then was the same as it is now -- to offer full-size SSD features...
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Recent data released by Flurry Analytics reveals there are now around 1 billion smartphones and tablets in use around the world every month, and as the device base grows, so too does the diversity of screen sizes. That's largely thanks to Android, the most prolific mobile platform on the planet. With so many screen sizes to choose from, which...
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When Steve Jobs fell ill and began medical leave in January 2011, Tim Cook took over as acting CEO of Apple, a position that became permanent seven months later following Jobs' resignation. We all know what happened after that -- Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in October 2011, leaving Tim Cook without a mentor. At...
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When highways get clogged, one solution is to build more lanes, and by that same token IEEE has put together a study group to explore the development of a 400Gbps Ethernet standard to support the exponential growth in network demand. "Traffic is growing everywhere—more Internet users, more ways to access the...
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AT&T today announced that it will begin offering Amazon's Kindle Fire HD 8.9" tablet on April 5 "at an affordable price." It's the 32GB model with 4G LTE connectivity, but just how affordable is it? Well, for a limited time, AT&T says customers who purchase the $399 tablet with a two-year data agreement will receive up to $150 off,...
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If you snooze you lose, and so it goes with the $25 Model A version of the Raspberry Pi, a credit card sized Linux PC that became available to purchase in the U.S. on Easter Sunday. Despite the holiday being a time to relax, plenty of people in the U.S. saw fit to fork over their financial information and order the...
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Let us preface the rest of this article by saying Android is top mobile platform in the world with a monstrous share of the market, followed by iOS, the two of which combine to account for around 80-90 percent of the world's smartphones (depending on the source data). That leaves all the other mobile players fighting for scraps, and it looks...
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Proctor & Gamble's gone and done it now, and the company should think long and hard about how it proceeds. We're talking about P&G's aggressive social media campaign promoting Scope Bacon, supposedly a new mouthwash that tastes like bacon but leaves mouths feeling minty fresh. It's "for breath that sizzles," the tagline reads, and...
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The durable HTC One is making its anticipated debut to retail this month and will come in two storage configurations, including 32GB and 64GB. However, AT&T posted a promotional video to YouTube that suggests the 64GB SKU is an exclusive, meaning every other carrier will only be able to offer the 32GB model, at least at the outset. Here's...
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Lenovo has a really good thing going with its computer business as it wrestles with Hewlett-Packard for the shipment crown, and though the company continues to experience better growth in the PC market than its rivals, it also recognizes there's a mobile movement taking place. Perhaps for that reason, Lenovo is reportedly looking to acquire...
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Just as it's been for Facebook, mobile's proving a game changer for Twitter, the microblogging service that's home to over 200 million active users. In light of this, research firm eMarketer bumped its forecast for Twitter's ad revenue to $582.8 in 2013 before nearing $1 billion next year. That's up from $288.3 million in 2012 and $139.5 million...
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Ouya yesterday began shipping its $100 Android console to early backers of the project that took Kickstarter by storm, blowing past the initial $950,000 goal and raising nearly $8.6 million by the time it was all said and done. Everyone else has to wait until June 4, which is when it will be on store shelves, real and...
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If the world came to end tomorrow because of a nuclear war, all that would remain are cockroaches and Facebook phone rumors. Lighting up more speculation on the latter, Facebook has started inviting members of the press to an event at its headquarters on April 4. It's headlined, "Come See Our New Home On Android." That doesn't necessarily...
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We hardly need a study to tell us that mobile users are addicted to Facebook, but lest there be any doubt, a survey by International Data Corporation (IDC) puts the issue to rest. The survey, which was commissioned by Facebook, focuses on how smartphones and social keep us engaged, and there are some interesting findings. One in particular...
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Don't look now, but in the near future, it's possible we'll see a smaller size Windows 8 tablet designed to compete with Apple's iPad mini and all those 7-inch slates, like the Nexus 7 (Google) and Kindle Fire HD (Amazon). Maybe Microsoft will take the reins and build a smaller Surface. As Kevin Garnett famously said...
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Have you ever dropped a smartphone and had the rear cover pop off when it hit the ground? Well, that's not something you'll have to worry about with the HTC One, a durable handset that's incredibly hard to crack open even if you're specifically trying to do so. The wonderfully sadistic tech surgeons at iFixIt put the HTC One on its operating...
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You'd have to live in the middle of the earth not to notice the trend towards thinner mobile devices, and even that's not a guarantee you'd miss it. Ultrabooks, ultrathins, tablets, and hybrid PCs are all sporting slimmer designs that emphasize portability, and while there are tangible benefits to building thinner...
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One social site that doesn't receive nearly as much recognition as it perhaps deserves is Tumblr. Facebook, Google+, and Twitter dominate the headlines at times, while Tumblr quietly grows its userbase and post count to new heights. The latest milestone Tumblr crossed is that of 100 million blogs, up 100 percent from April of last year. Tumblr...
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