Rob Williams
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
By this point, everyone and their dog knows that driving while pecking away on a smartphone dramatically increases the chance of accidents, yet many remain defiant, and sometimes even proud about their foolish deeds. Apparently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has had enough of that, and has decided...
Read more...
While some fail to reach their goal of creating something truly amazing, a team of researchers at UC Irvine seems to have done the impossible. While working to create better batteries for our electronics, these researchers managed to develop a makeshift battery with a life so long, it'd always outlive the device it's...
Read more...
For what we're sure are obvious reasons, most game console makers are not fans of emulation. With an emulator in hand, you have the ability to download game ROMs ripped from the original source, which means you are playing a game you (might not have) paid for, potentially taking away profits from the original...
Read more...
There are myriad reasons why a game like Fallout 4 is so good, from its sheer depth to its flexibility. That latter point ties into modding, which Bethesda is happy to not just let fans dive into, but is proud to support. As one reddit user has discovered, though, there is one major caveat to be aware of if you want...
Read more...
When mechanical keyboards hit the PC gaming scene a number of years ago, it became clear very quickly that there was a preferred choice for switches: CHERRY. While CHERRY existed long before its switches found their way into gaming keyboards, the company has really skyrocketed in popularity in recent years as many...
Read more...
At the risk of not wanting to count chickens before they hatch, it's pretty hard to not be excited for AMD right now. For so many years, the company has struggled to increase its share value due to a lack of truly competitive products. However, this week, we've heard of two examples of how AMD could turn itself...
Read more...
It's not too often that we see a game developer release a new title at the same time it's announced, but we're seeing that this week with Mojang's Crown & Council. On its blog, the Minecraft creator tells us that C&C was developed by a single member of the team, Henrik Pettersson, and as it's completely free.
In...
Read more...
It used to feel like Microsoft did whatever it could to not bring its technologies and software solutions to Android, but today, there are literally dozens of Microsoft apps available for the platform. Thankfully, many of them continue to get better and better.
The latest improvement comes to Microsoft Translator...
Read more...
In case it hasn't proven obvious enough up to this point, Facebook cares a lot about its Messenger platform. When the company decided to force migrate people over to its standalone Messenger service two summers ago, it was a hint of what was to come. Over the past couple of years, it's become increasingly clear that...
Read more...
The threat has been looming for a while, and now it's official. The EU has fired off its second set of antitrust charges at Google. Both antitrust accusations happened in under two years, and revolve around how Google handles its Android OS and the power it wields over OEMs.
Part of this accusation implies that...
Read more...
There's been a ridiculous amount of hype surrounding NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce series, which is based on the Pascal architecture. At the company's recent GPU Technology Conference, we learned that the first shipping Pascal card is the ultra-powerful Tesla P100. While that card is designed strictly for compute purposes...
Read more...
There are few games out there today that enjoy as faithful a fanbase as Counter-Strike. With each new iteration that comes along, it's almost implied that most people will move on over. Today, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive regularly ranks #2 on Steam, with an incredible 590,000 players currently in-game as of the...
Read more...
The Internet can make it sound like GameStop is one of the worst things to ever happen to gaming, but with the company's latest move, that mindset could very well be reversed. That's because with its new "GameTrust" venture, GameStop is looking to help make the process of publishing games a lot easier for indie...
Read more...
If you're an Outlook user on Android and also happen to own an Android Wear device, you're in luck -- Microsoft has just released a new update that adds support for smartwatches. At the moment, the update can be snagged from the Google Play store in some areas, but in the event your device isn't pulling down the...
Read more...
Microsoft has been at the forefront of the machine-learning craze, having developed demos that are both neat and useful. About a year ago, the company released a tool that took a guess at your age, and just this past fall, it created a tool to help identify your emotions. The company has even developed a solution that...
Read more...
It's hard to be impressed in 2016 at the concept of a 64-bit processor. After all, 64-bit processors have graced our desktops for over a decade, and in recent years, our mobile devices. Currently, both Android and iOS natively support 64-bit processors, enabling faster performance (in some cases) and the ability to...
Read more...
How can you tell if a cellular carrier is invested in Android Pay? When it decides to give you 2GB of free data simply by using it. That's a perk that Verizon subscribers are able to opt-in for right now, as long as they're able to find a store that accepts the payment service, of course.
According to a message...
Read more...
When Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA's comprehensive spying efforts a few years ago, some might have thought that the agency (along with others) would cool their jets. After all, they were caught red-handed prying into our lives without our knowledge. As recent months have shown, however, the government...
Read more...
If you've ever tried to link someone to a Google Maps URL, you'll undoubtedly understand the benefit of URL shorteners. With them, we can take grossly long URLs and shorten them to a mere fraction of their original length, allowing your Facebook status update to retain a clean look and actually put a few words...
Read more...
When Google released the first version of its Chrome Web browser way back in 2008, it was hard to guess whether or not it'd become a success. Naturally, many pieces of software come out that don't really "click" with people, but with Chrome, the promise of speed and lack of bloat lured many in without...
Read more...
Google is keen on making the lives of those living with disabilities less arduous, and it's willing to put its money where its mouth is. The company's philanthropic arm, Google.org, has just announced that it has provided over $20 million to 30 different nonprofits dedicated to improving the lives of those living with...
Read more...
We learned a couple of weeks ago that Microsoft and Canonical would be teaming up to bring some Linux goodness to Windows 10, and a mere week later, we saw the functionality hit the 14316 Insider Preview build. With that build now in the hands of tinkerers, some neat features are now being discovered.
After...
Read more...
