Rob Williams
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
As we covered just yesterday, a leaked build of Microsoft's upcoming Windows Blue (aka: Windows "8.1") is floating around the net "somewhere", and as it appears, there's quite a bit that has changed. No, we didn't get rid of the Start screen, but many further enhancements have been added, along with other niceties...
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If there's one thing that goes hand-in-hand with technology, it's security flaws. Rarely, though, are such flaws actual features, such as one Apple just had to rush to patch up. Late last week, the company rolled-out two-step verification, where a pin code sent to your mobile phone could be used in conjunction with a...
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It's doubtful that anyone needs another reminder that even the largest companies out there can still make fatal mistakes, but eBay has given us one anyway. Late last week, a bug caused at least 10,000 sellers to have their account information disappear - sales history, current listings... poof. For someone who might just list the...
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I don't know how much money you have in your bank account, but I'm willing to bet that if you logged into your banking's website and saw $0.00 across the board, you might be a little concerned. Some Chase customers earlier this week found themselves in this exact situation, leading many, as you might expect, to believe that they could have...
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As a long-time Google Reader user (six years), it saddened me earlier this week when Google announced that it was going to shutter the service on July 1. For me, I didn't only use Reader because I was too lazy to look at alternatives - I used it because of its simplicity, speed and ability to give me an actual list of...
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When THQ went bankrupt a couple of months ago, the first series that popped into my head was Saints Row. Anyone who's played it likely agrees that it's a classic - it takes the traditional FPS formula, puts it in a blender, adds a dash of humor, and becomes a ridiculously fun series. Fortunately, Deep Silver acquired Volition, the series'...
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We hear about "open" software all the time, but what about "open" hardware? Not so much. The organization behind the Software Freedom Day, Digital Freedom International, would like to change that, and it's starting by launching - you guessed it - "Hardware Freedom Day. If you love open hardware or belong to a hackerspace, this is definitely...
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You know what I hate? What I really hate? Not being able to "Dislike" something on Facebook. If a "friend" on Facebook splashes Haterade all over my favorite sports team, I want to be able to "Dislike" it. In fact, I should be able to. If a relative just lost their job of 20 years, I couldn't think of a better time to...
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Well, it's good to see the ball rolling on this one already. In January, the US government deemed it illegal to unlock your cell phone without explicit carrier permission - and obviously, that didn't go down too well with consumers. Almost immediately, a petition was started that garnered over 115,000 signatures. President Obama took notice,...
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We talked earlier this week about all of the software that lost their battles against the hackers at the Pwn2Own competition in Vancouver, Canada, but lest we forget about the sister competition, Pwnium 3. This particular competition was heavily sponsored by Google, with the company paying well more than $100,000 per...
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You've got to love hacker conferences. Software vulnerabilities are never going away, that much is obvious, but it's with competitions at hacker conferences where we can really see just how vulnerable the software we use every single day is. Putting this into perspective, prior to the Pwn2Own conference in Canada...
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When is a music-streaming service not officially a music-streaming service? When it's YouTube. Even though the service has had the primary goal of allowing people to upload their own videos, YouTube quickly became a haven for music - music either uploaded by fans, or the record labels themselves. Music is...
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Since their rise to fame a couple of years ago, we've seen QR codes used in a variety of different ways. One of the most popular uses has been to quickly link someone to a website, either from within a website itself, or via a magazine or newspaper. Some download sites have even begun implementing them to allow people to download a file to their...
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At last week's MWC, Nokia showed-off four brand-new phones, two of which fall into the Lumia line (720 and 520). It was a little striking that the company wasn't showing off a new flagship, but on account of the fact that the Lumia 920 released only four months ago, the omission was understandable. However, as we see...
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It might not come as much of a surprise, but according to a recent survey conducted by EE Times, Linux continues to tear up the charts in the embedded market (embedded refers to special-purpose PCs found in things like TVs, media players, cars, machinery and so forth). Between 2012 and 2013, companies began to shift...
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It was revealed earlier this week that Google has a current cash stockpile of $45 billion, and it's led some to wonder what the company might want to do with it. The same questions have surrounded Apple for quite a while as well, and with its hoarding of an enormous $137 billion, it's no wonder. As far as Google is concerned, though,...
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In 2010, a game came along that should have put to rest the popular meme, "Can it run Crysis?" Despite being graphically superior - it was the first major title to include DirectX 11's tessellation feature - Metro 2033 didn't get the respect it deserved on the graphics front. On the gameplay front, things were different. It was immersive,...
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A lot of things happen at the start of each month, and one of those that I look most forward to is being able to check out the updated hardware survey at Steam. It's especially interesting right now, because Windows 8 is only four months old, and the platform became official for Linux only a couple of weeks ago. Given it happened so recently,...
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I doubt it needs to be said, but curing cancer is far from easy. Today, gathering required data isn't so much the problem, but rather having enough people to analyze it is. Wouldn't it be great, then, if there were a way for ordinary people to chip in? It might seem a little outlandish, given we're not all scientists...
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Is there a world record for number of software vulnerabilities exposed within the span of a single month? If so, I'm willing to bet that Oracle's Java is the clear winner. We've reported on many Java happenings over the past couple of months, and it doesn't look like the fun is going to end anytime soon. Security firm...
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From the "About Time" files comes a new bill that's aimed at protecting companies from one of their biggest fears: patent trolls. Called the "SHIELD Act of 2013" (no, not this SHIELD, but rather "Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes"), this bill would require those accusing of patent infringement...
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While the verdict remains out on which CPU will find itself inside of Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S4, a result posted to Browsermark's database today leads us to believe that it's going to become the market-leader - at least where raw CPU performance is concerned. The result references "GT-I9500", which is widely...
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