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
While we spent Sunday watching the Patriots beat up on the Bills, Linus Torvalds was busy putting the final touches on the Linux 3.6 kernel, which he released in final form to the public yesterday afternoon. He had previously contemplated building one more Release Candidate, which would have been the eighth, but after a week since announcing...
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Think your week was rough? Trying running security for a U.S. bank, many of which were hammered with non-stop cyberattacks for more than seven days. According to reports, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and around half a dozen banks in all saw significant traffic surges and suffered disruptions in service...
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Rovio's wildly successful Angry Birds franchise needs no introduction. But Bad Piggies? That one needs some explaining. Looking to, um, piggyback on the success of Angry Birds, Bad Piggies is what Rovio hopes will be the company's next mega hit. While the main characters look familiar, don't expect the same type of...
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As any parent will attest, it's usually your kids that make you feel old, as all their little (and big) milestones are constant reminders of how quickly time truly does fly. In this business of covering all things technology, where things move at a feverish pace, iconic websites that stand the test of time have the same effect. So it goes...
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Well here's a bit of promising news. According to a survey conducted by IDC Manufacturing Insights for the United Parcel Service (UPS), around 85 percent of technology executives polled in the U.S. believe President Obama will successfully achieve his goal of doubling exports within the the next three years. Going...
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While gamers move and gyrate in front of Microsoft's Kinect motion sensor for the Xbox 360, the Redmond outfit will have to do some maneuvering of its own...in court. A company called Intelligent Verification Systems claims in federal court that the Kinect infringes on a 2006 patent for an "Animated Toy Utilizing...
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Apple iPhone 4 and 4S owners haven't much time to celebrate the release of iOS 6, which introduces a bazillion new features, along with a nifty panoramic picture mode. Unfortunately, for some users, all the goodness of iOS 6 has come at the expense of battery life. Yep, here we go again. It seems like shortened...
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Just because you're the largest, most dominant chip maker in the world doesn't mean you can't cut loose and have a little fun in every once awhile. And hey, nobody ever accused Intel of not having a sense of humor. The Santa Clara chip maker also isn't immune to the occasional Internet craze, the latest being the "Gangnam Style" video that's...
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Apple and PC doomsayers like to talk an awful lot about the so-called post-PC era, but you know what? Desktops are far from dead, "they've just been boring," claims the developers of the Xi3 Modular Computer project. They want to change the way computers are built, serviced, and upgraded, but first they need to raise...
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It would appear that North Korea wants a piece of the Android tablet action and has developed an open-source slate of its own. Based on pictures floating around in the press, North Korea's Android tablet is well beyond the early stages and, if not a finished product, looks to be a very advanced prototype. A picture was taken of the country's...
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Tim Cook is coming into his own as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Apple. After a little more than a year at the helm, he's managed to differentiate himself in a subtle, yet meaningful way from Steve Jobs, and he did it simply by apologizing for the situation with Maps in iOS 6. We'll give you a moment to pick your jaw up off the floor....
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Sony and Olympus are kicking off the weekend by entering into a "business alliance agreement" and a "capital alliance agreement," which are essentially fancy ways of announcing a big time investment of one into the other. In this case, Sony is tossing about $645 million at Olympus in order to become the company's largest shareholder. After...
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It's nigh impossible to stay one step ahead in the smartphone race, because just as soon as you pick up a handset, a successor inevitably pokes its head into view. That's the case for HTC One X owners, who should probably stop reading right now. For everyone else, be advised that HTC's faster clocked One X+ isn't too...
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Tread carefully on the Internet, surf ninja. That's always sound advice, but it's especially important now to be extra cautious, particularly if you use Java. Researchers at Security Explorations discovered a zero-day exploit in multiple versions of Java that could affect over a billion PCs around the globe. Technical details of the exploit...
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In a roundabout sort of way, Facebook tattled on itself earlier in the summer when, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it fessed up to the fact that nearly 9 percent of the social networking site's accounts are fake, bogus, the unreal McCoy. Or, as Facebook labeled them, "undesirable" or "false" accounts, which...
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The neat thing about the fast pace of technology is that yesterday's high-end hardware eventually (and usually pretty quickly) trickles down into budget territory, a point Qualcomm's new Snapdragon S4 Play processors underscore. New to the Snapdragon S4 Play lineup are a pair of quad-core chips for entry-level...
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One of the problems with being a multi-platform gamer that enjoys gaming on a PC just as much as on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 console is that it gets mighty expensive stocking up on separate peripherals for each one. Can't we all just get along? Sennheiser thinks so, and to prove it, the company released its first pair of multi-platform...
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Assuming no more delays, you don't have long to wait until Ubisoft releases Far Cry 3 to PC, which is slated to ship December 4 in North America and November 29 in Europe. That gives you plenty of time to spruce up your system and make sure it meets the minimum or recommended hardware requirements that Ubisoft...
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Do you think that Intel, the world's largest chip maker, might have somewhat of a vested interest in Windows? You better believe it, and so it's pretty scary that Intel's Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Paul Otellini, isn't feeling the vibe from Windows 8. As far as Otellini is reportedly concerned, Windows 8 is not a...
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For a company that's worth over $650 billion, you would think Apple would learn how to better communicate with its customers. Perhaps that's the luxury of being in Apple's position -- as long as people keep buying the company's products, it needn't make excuses for design flaws. Remember the antenna issue that plagued...
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Ever since Amazon launched its Kindle Fire line, Barnes & Noble's Nook devices have been almost an afterthought, at least in terms of media coverage. Not anymore. Barnes & Noble today gave its Nook line a much needed update, and may have rendered the upcoming Kindle Fire HD obsolete in the process. Let's have...
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It's no secret there's no love lost between Apple and Samsung. The former sued the latter for patent infringement and recently won a billion dollar verdict, and Samsung, which will undoubtedly appeal, has been lobbing humor grenades at its foe, making fun of Apple customers in an ad spot for the Galaxy S III. And yet...
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