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
Microsoft is planning to keep things relatively low-key on March 13th, otherwise known as Patch Tuesday, which will contain only six security bulletins. Only one of those is deemed Critical; the other five consist of four that are labeled Important and one that is rated Moderate. The critical fix applies to all...
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Between low-cost tablets like Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet, and the recent unveiling of Apple's new iPad model, it's quickly becoming apparent that we're living in a tablet PC world. But don't despair, traditional PCs aren't about to go the way of the dodo. On the contrary, PC shipments...
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Microsoft isn't too keen on discussing the Xbox 720 or whatever it plans to call its next generation game console, and apparently the Redmond outfit isn't all that keen on optical drives, either. We've heard reports that the next Xbox iteration might ditch optical storage hardware entirely, and now at least one...
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Don't you just hate it when you're trying to update your Facebook status on your all-in-one (AIO) PC when suddenly it burst into flames? You've never had that happen, you say? And you don't know anyone else who has experienced that either? Fair enough, though Lenovo isn't taking any chances and has decided to...
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Show of hands, how many of you remember the name Chaintech (or Walton Chaintech, if you prefer)? Don't beat yourself up if you've forgotten all about Chaintech, a once popular player in the motherboard and graphics business. The last time we featured a Chaintech product was in 2004, back when we reviewed the company's...
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Trying to a pre-order Apple's new iPad model yesterday was a recipe for carpal tunnel syndrome. Predictably, potential iPad customers hammered Apple's website yesterday afternoon and on into the evening, which meant repeatedly mashing your mouse button (or F5 key) to refresh timed out webpages throughout the ordering process. It was a pain...
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Drobo made a couple of announcements today, the first one being that it plans to deploy OCZ's Talos Series SAS solid state drives (SSDs) in its business-class storage systems. Specifically, OCZ's Talos drives will be integrated into Drobo's B1200i iSCSI SAN solutions aimed at small-and-medium businesses (SMBs). "Drobo...
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Thermaltake and BMW Group subsidiary DesignworksUSA are no strangers to each other. They've been working on concept projects for the past several years, and the two have teamed up once again to unveil a line of Level 10 gaming peripherals starting with the 'Level 10 M Mouse' for gamers. It's as funky looking as Thermaltake's Level 10 case...
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If you're in the market for a new gaming notebook, Toshiba hopes you'll consider it's Qosmio X870, a 17-inch laptop with a Full HD 3D display and plenty of pixel pushing power to do the latest games justice, or at least we imagine that will be the case. Detailed specs are sparse at this point, though Toshiba did reveal a handful of general...
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Redbox has been on a roll lately. The DVD rental service recently knocked out its competition in the kiosk market by buying out Blockbuster's kiosks, it's renewed its agreement with Universal (while flipping the finger at Warner Bros., which tried to double the new release rental window from 28 days to 56 days), and...
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Canon today announced its PIXMA MX892 Wireless Office All-In-One (AIO) printer, the new flagship model that purports to do everything under the sun, including spitting out documents and images it receives from the cloud and other compatible portable devices. It does this through Google Cloud Print and Canon's own PIXMA Cloud Link. "With users...
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Is there any company more invested in the mini PC market than Zotac? Maybe there is and maybe there isn't, but either way, no one would argue that Zotac is one of the busiest bodies in the industry when it comes to Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs destined to find a place in your living room, whether its displayed prominently in your A/V rack or...
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Corsair has an interesting proposition for power users on a budget or anyone looking to squeeze more performance out of their system with little to no hassle and a modest investment. It goes like this: trade a little bit of cash for a little bit of cache and everybody wins. More specifically, Corsair is pimping its...
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To celebrate its third anniversary as a chip manufacturing foundry, Globalfoundries over the weekend announced an agreement with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to buy out all remaining shares to achieve full independence. Under the amended agreement, AMD will continue to be one of Globalfoundries' "primary and strategic...
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Take from this what you will, but for the very first time ever, mobile PC shipments outnumbered desktop shipments in China, according to the latest NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly China PC Shipment and Forecast Report. There's a bit of a caveat that goes with the claim. The mobile PC segment, as DisplaySearch calculates...
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Are you still wielding a USB 2.0-based NAND flash memory drive? If so, maybe it's time to think about stepping up to a SuperSpeed USB 3.0-based thumb drive, especially now that USB 3.0 ports are fast becoming ubiquitous with just about every new motherboard and system being released these days. One of your options is...
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The world needs another game console like it needs, well, another game console. They say 'three's a crowd' and there's already the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, so is there really room for another player to make a stand in the living room? Valve apparently thinks so and is reportedly working on a "Steam Box" console that just might have...
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Overall iPad sales will shoot up to 55 million units by the end of 2012, according to an analyst with a crystal ball. The spike in sales will be driven by "significant" hardware upgrades that will find their way into the iPad 3, including a Retina display, 4G LTE radio, and Siri voice recognition, plus whatever other surprises Apple may have...
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If you own a PlayStation 3 and are addicted to online gaming, it's time to fall in love with the PC all over again. Or read a book or do whatever it is you do when you're not tapping into the PlayStation Network (PSN). Sony is planning to perform some heavy duty maintenance on the PlayStation Network later today that will take the service...
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Go ahead and pat yourself on the back if you've ever downloaded an application from Apple's App Store. If you have, then you've contributed to Apple's crazy achievement of serving up 25 billion App Store downloads (and to Cupertino's ongoing cash cow). Apple doled out its 25 billionth App Store download sometime today and hasn't had time to...
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There's been a lot of talk about Intel's Ivy Bridge platform lately, and specifically whether or not the Santa Clara chip maker's new CPUs are being delayed until summer. Conflicting reports abound, but one thing we do know is that Ivy Bridge is right around the corner. Thanks to a leaked slide that's made its way to the Web, we're also privy...
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When Windows 8 goes gold and ships to the masses, there may be as many as nine different editions, and that's not including OEM vs Retail boxed copies and/or 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. So much for simplification. It was reported earlier in the week that Windows 8 may be reduced to just three main editions based on information found in a pair...
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