Items tagged with Misc
The White House wants to see more people connected to the Internet, and to that effect President Obama put forth the ConnectED initiative to bring broadband to more teachers, students, and schools last year. Sprint is plugging into the effort by pledging to connect up to 50,000 kids by providing Internet access...
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In case you hadn’t noticed, ISPs and Netflix aren’t exactly friendly right now. In addition to bowing to Comcast and paying extra fees (that surely stuck in Netflix’s craw), the video streaming provider passive-aggressively accused Verizon of delivering substandard network performance, and Verizon countered by blasting Netflix...
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The Internet is as wide and wonderful as it is dark and dangerous. So many individuals and groups use it as a powerful platform for advocacy, raising awareness, disseminating “dangerous” (to tyrants) ideas, and more, but all too often those entities face threats from actors looking to censor them, knocking...
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Remember how the old NES game Excitebike was amazingly cool because you could make your own courses? It took Nintendo 29 years to follow suit, but now you can actually design your own levels of Super Mario Bros. with the company’s upcoming “Mario Maker” on the Wii U. Nintendo is showing off...
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Privacy has become an incredibly hot topic in the tech world as cloud computing and online services of many kinds proliferate rapidly while concerns of snooping by the U.S. government escalate. To engender some good faith from its throngs of customers, Microsoft has revamped its service agreements to enact more...
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The EU does not fool around when it comes to handing out fines, and it also apparently does not second-guess itself. The European Commission levied a hefty fine of 1.06 billion euro (or roughly $1.44 billion USD) at Intel for anti-competitive practices back in 2009, and after years of legal supplication, the decision...
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Slowly but surely, Amazon is inserting itself into every part of our daily lives. The site is already a terrific place to buy products of every kind, and Amazon has also made forays into grocery home deliveries, delivery by robot helicopter, and local deals, but now a report indicates that Amazon is planning to roll...
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When it comes to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, opinions vary, with some people viewing him a traitor to the U.S. and others viewing him as a hero for shining a light on the shadowy practices of the government. Former vice president Al Gore is on record with his take on Snowden, and although he wouldn’t...
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“Doom” is one of those titles that is both legendary and also has been a frustrating tease. Back in 2012 “Doom 3” was remastered (we guess) for the Xbox and PS3, and earlier this year you could get access to a new Doom beta if you preordered “Wolfenstein” (what?). But now, in conjunction with QuakeCon 2014,...
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The 3D printing market is a growing yet nebulous one, populated by a many different types of printers of varying quality. There are lots of players already, but it’s still a wide open market as each manufacturer looks to find that special sauce that entices the most users. Formlabs is updating its offering, the...
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Netflix and Verizon are in a bit of a spat at present. The issue is that some Netflix users on Verizon networks started seeing an error message when experiencing a laggy connection that said “The Verizon network is crowded right now” followed by a note that said Netflix was “Adjusting video for...
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Back in March we posted an article about GTA V and said that one of these days we’d post a piece stating that the title is finally available for the PC. Well, today is that day. Rockstar posted the news that Grand Theft Auto V is indeed coming to the PC, this fall. It’s also going to be available on Microsoft’s and Sony’s...
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Among places to not feel safe, the foothills of the Himalayas, in a bus with a monkey, at a checkpoint manned by rifle-wielding militiamen, with a psycho in a helicopter coming in for a landing, would be close to the top of the list. Yet that is exactly where we find ourselves in the 5-minute trailer for Far Cry 4, a...
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Kids are great. Their optimism, unique view of the world, and relentless energy are refreshing, and Google tapped into that with its Doodle 4 Google contest, which was won this year by an 11-year-old. “For our 7th annual Doodle 4 Google competition, we asked kids, grades K-12, to draw an invention that would...
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Logitech Harmony Ultimate and Smart Control Remotes Add SONOS Speaker Support, Speech To Text Search
Logitech has added more functionality to some of its remote control products, and with them the company is aiming for a smarter home. The Logitech Harmony Ultimate and Logitech Harmony Smart Control now have the ability to control SONOS wireless HIFi System speakers and Philips Hue lights, and they offer...
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We’ve been getting used to billion-dollar-plus acquisitions lately, and thus a rumor that Google is in talks to buy streaming music service Songza for just $15 million doesn’t quite make ones eyes pop, but it’s still noteworthy that the search giant is working to enhance its product offerings. It...
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Apple CEO Tim Cook toured an Austin, TX facility that manufactures the new Mac Pro, and his crew predictably used the visit as a photo op, snapping an image of Cook peering over the shoulder of a worker soldering something and posting it on Twitter. “Watching the Mac Pro come together in Austin yesterday,thanks...
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Rideshare services Lyft and Uber (“hipster taxis”, a friend calls them) are facing some backlash over their business model of peer-to-peer ridesharing, particularly in the state of Virginia. The Virginia DMV has made it clear that this ridesharing paradigm is against current law. There’s a provision...
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We first got a glimpse of the second generation of Microsoft’s Kinect sensor for Windows back in March, and now the device is available for preorder for $199 in the U.S. (It’s also available in a number of other countries.) “The Kinect for Windows v2 sensor gives developers more of the precision...
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Facebook rolled out a new mobile feature that uses your device’s microphone to “hear” a song you’re listening to or a TV show you’re watching so you can append that item to a status post. Predictably, a lot of people believe that this is a feature designed for snooping and are not happy...
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The age-old question asks: If you replace every part of a ship, is it the same ship? Converted into 21st-century tech, the question becomes whether a 3D bioprinted ear created in part from Vincent van Gogh’s s great-great-great nephew’s DNA is actually the famous painter’s ear. The answer is that we...
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The U.S. government is somewhat like that older family member you have that understands the importance of social media but is rather baffled at how to actually use it effectively. Particularly, the Secret Service is trying to find a tool that analyzes social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and it includes a rather...
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