Rob Williams
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
When the Oculus Rift Kickstarter project dropped last fall, I admit that I was a little slow to buy into it. Maybe it's just the old fuddy duddy in me, or maybe it's the fact that VR products have been done before, and none to my...
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Cue those "hand quotes", because Boeing's got the freakin' lasers. Called the 'Thin Disk Laser', Boeing's managed to deliver a product that's 30% more effective than what the US' Department of Defense required, and if used in combat, I'm...
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There's never a dull moment in the smartphone market, with the latest pique of interest owing its thanks to Google and LG. Rumor has it that Google's next smartphone, the Nexus 5, will be produced by LG (which designed the Nexus 4), and be based on LG's own G2 (announced a couple of weeks...
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Look out, PayPal: Here comes Facebook. In what seems like a rather common-sense move for the company to make, Facebook will be launching its own payments service next month, with flash-sales site JackThreads becoming the pilot partner. The...
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It seems that with Kinect on the Xbox One, there's more than meets the camera's eye. According to Bloomberg, Microsoft for the first time has built its own processor in-house, and it's destined for Kinect. Oddly, there's been no mention of...
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When working in a team environment, especially when many people are remote, communication can be tough, and sometimes downright frustrating. One problem that arises is being unable to keep in tune with everyone else easily, made worse if...
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If you've been patiently waiting for an Android 4.3-based CyanogenMod to arrive, prepare to get excited. Well, as long as you're the type that doesn't mind playing around with entirely experimental software, that is. On its official G+ page, the developers behind CyanogenMod say that not all...
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Anyone who has tried to host their own website from home likely knows all-too-well the hassles that ISPs can cause. Simply put, ISPs generally don't want you to do that, preferring you to move up to a business package (aka: more expensive). Not surprisingly, the EFF doesn't like these rules...
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It appears that Google's latest Nexus 7 (one we highly recommend) has some GPS issues that are plaguing those who'd like to take advantage of the feature. Hundreds of posts were made both to the XDA Developers site and also Google Groups, and at least one Google employee has come forward to...
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One of the worst things about Web security - and perhaps security in general - is that many people don't pay any attention to it. When Chrome, or another Web browser, asks you to store a password, do you happen to think about how it's...
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One of the most frustrating things on earth is being censored, and if there's one group that likes to be vocal in battling such things, it's The Pirate Bay. Censorship can come in many forms, however, such as restricting what you can say...
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If you're planning to jump on the Google Glass bandwagon once the product ships to consumers, you're likely to be pleased to know that it's not going to be setting you back a cool $1,000+ like the developer kits would have. According to a researcher based in Taipei, the same city Glass'...
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Microsoft might be struggling to make a good impression with its Windows RT platform, but thankfully for the company, its Office 365 service is much easier to brag about. Office 365 has now been available for 2 years, and given the...
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Following a crash of his small plane into a house in a Connecticut neighborhood earlier today, former Microsoft executive Bill Henningsgaard, his 17-year-old son, and two young children inside the impacted house are all believed to be...
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It's no secret that caffeine can be addictive... we've known it for years. But have you ever wondered why your body may feel an urge to make another pot of joe or grab a soda? Believe it or not, the science behind it is rather simple, and definitely interesting. An addiction to something...
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A mere week after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' acquisition of Washington Post comes one of the tastier rumors that has surrounded the company. According to a source close to Game Informer, Amazon is currently knees-deep in the production of...
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Linux users have long been able to claim that their platform of choice is about as safe as an OS can get, but that sentiment is getting a little harder to side with thanks to the recent discovery of the 'Hand of Thief' trojan - it's a bad...
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A couple of weeks ago, we reported on some comments made by ASUS' CEO Jonney Shih about Windows RT. Simply put, "The result is not very promising". It's no surprise, then, to learn today that the company has officially decided to pull out...
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During a speech to the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC on cybersecurity, former NSA and CIA chief Michael Hayden confessed that if whistleblower Edward Snowden is captured by the US and brought back for trial, cyber-attacks by...
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If you've been in the market for a new Android smartphone but haven't yet bitten the bullet, then you might be happy to know that LG has just made your decision-making process a lot more interesting - that is, if you don't mind having the...
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It's been quite the week for memory. Last Friday, we learned that Micron absorbed Elpida, and just earlier today, Samsung showed off its "3D" vertical NAND flash memory. Now, we have potentially the most interesting story of them all...
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When Google announced back in March that it'd be shutting down its popular Reader aggregation service, I freaked out. I had been a Reader user for a number of years, clinging to it thanks to its simplicity and reliability; I knew that...
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