Julie Bart
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
MeeGo tablets could reportedly be on the market as soon as the second-quarter of 2011. Intel is said to be shipping reference tablets to developers and the target date for final hardware is June. Note that Taiwan's giant electronics trade show, Computex, is May 31-June 4. Putting it all together, an educated guess would have this first crop...
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Sprint continuously brags about its flagship 4G Android phone the HTC Evo. It is a great piece of hardware, but it is also a relatively large device with a premium price tag. Enter the HTC Evo Shift, currently Sprint's least expensive Android 4G phone. The Shift runs Android 2.2, includes a slide-out keyboard and is noticeably smaller than...
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The Dark Forces Team is misnamed, in our opinion. They should be called the Light Way Team. They have once again posted a hack on the XDA Developers forum that will earn cheers. They've made Windows Phone 7 run on the HTC HD2 smartphone. Their instructions will even let HD2 users get access to their Windows Live service. However the hack won't...
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Cisco's weekly Cyber Risk Report slipped in an interesting statistic: over the past two years, the number of security holes in software has declined. This is inspite of (or maybe because of?) the increased level of noise we in the media have made over security. A constant barrage of news reports makes it seem like computers are growing less...
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Automakers such as Audi wowed CES attendees last week with their gadgetry. Problem is, said gadgetry is proving to be a boon to car thieves, too. Last week, university researchers demonstrated how they could use antennas to hack into 10 models of cars that use keyless entry and start systems. A keyless entry requires the key to be within a...
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Yesterday, a sharply divided FCC voted to 3 to 2 to approve new Net Neutrality rules. The vote went down as expected with Democrats voting in favor of rules intended to prevent broadband service providers from blocking content, and Republicans opposed, claiming that such rules are an unjustifiable (and potentially illegal) power grab by the...
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TRENDnet has an insatiable need for wireless speed and so has brought forth the first 450Mbps wireless access point. Earlier this year, it released a 450Mbps wireless router. The new, super-fast WAP, dubbed the 690AP, can work as a repeater for the 450Mbps router, extending its range to 100 meters indoors (328ft.) and 300 meters outdoors (948ft.)....
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Colorado has two new reasons to celebrate. On Sunday, it witnessed a spectacular first start by rookie quarterback Tim Tebow. The next day, Sprint announced it is rolling out 4G service to cities statewide. Sprint also launched 4G in Bridgeport, Conn. With these two additions, Sprint 4G is available in 70 markets. While the Broncos didn't...
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SoftKinetic developed a 3D gesture recognition platform long before Microsoft released Kinect -- and it supports Linux as well as Windows. Despite the head start, the promised consumer gaming and television controllers have yet to appear. That should change in 2011, a company spokesperson says, thanks to an influx of...
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With the help of wireless sensors, Stanford researchers confirmed what most of us suspected. When it comes to infectious viruses, human beings are toast. The researchers outfitted an entire high school population with IEEE 802.15.4 sensors for one day to model what they call a "human contact network." The devices tracked how often people came...
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Data centers are notorious energy pigs. Can cloud computing be the cure? Yes, according to a growing body of research. A new study released by Pike Research shows that if businesses were to adopt cloud computing instead of building out their own data centers, by 2020 they could cut data center energy consumption worldwide by one-third over...
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Peel is about to turn your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch into a souped-up universal remote. With Peel's new Wi-Fi "fruit", your iOS device will be capable of finding your favorite TV shows, recommending programs to you, operating your home theater system and posting your review to Facebook and Twitter. Peel is the maker of a free iPhone app launched...
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Greenpeace on Tuesday updated its Cool IT Leaderboard in conjunction with the climate negotiations in Cancun occurring this week at the COP16 conference. Cisco retained its top spot at the greenest IT company, earning 70 out of 100 points from the ecology watchdog organization. Oracle was a new entry on the list and...
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If you have an iPhone or iPod, a large collection of MP3s and a great home theater system, Ubuntu has an app for you. The Linux distro maker has introduced a way to stream the music from its cloud to your home system using Apple's AirPlay. You'll also need an audio/video component that supports AirPlay such as an Apple TV, or one of the...
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A big battle is happening over Internet service so, naturally, people have added large dollops of fear and misinformation and are shouting about it on Facebook. On December 21, the FCC will finally vote on adopting net neutrality rules. This may (or may not) have been caused by Comcast's spat with Level 3 now that Level 3 won a big contract...
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A recent study by the University of Colorado has found that video games create better employees. There's also new research that shows games work as well as aspirin on pain. Both projects came to light through the Entertainment Software Association -- an organization dedicated to proving that gaming is very, very good...
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly condemned "those responsible" and warned that retribution was coming over Wikileak's publication of a quarter of a million leaked documents from United States embassies around the world. She also said that the State Department was increasing its security measures to safeguard its documents. "The...
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Billions of everyday objects are being reborn as “smart” devices with IP addresses and Internet access, from coffee makers to ski passes. Such intelligence could produce amazing advances to modern living, but it has a privacy downside: digital tracks.
Tech companies are creating tools that mine these digital tracks (also called digital
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Mind Technologies thinks big. It has declared it will bring "thought-controlled applications" to the Android market. It also plans to build an alternative to the strange-but-true Emotiv headset that allows thought to operate machines. Mind Technologies currently makes a trifecta of "thought-controlled" devices and...
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One of the most active spam bots, Asprox, has a new gimmick for a Trojan it's been e-mailing around for the past six months: Facebook. Its botmasters are trying to cash in on last week's blocked accounts and unfriending frenzy. Wednesday, November 17, was National Facebook Unfriend day, the brainchild of late night talk show comedian Jimmy...
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Just when we thought every device capable of a touch interface already had one, Jabra came out with its newest wireless headsets. Jabra proclaims them to be the first to have touchscreens and we don't doubt it. There is a catch, however. These headsets don't work with any old phone. They are designed for use with business class IP PBX...
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Two separate consumer surveys came to the same conclusion: the iPad is on top of everyone's gift wish list. But 3D TVs? Not so much. Fortunately, your chances of getting an iPad are pretty good -- as both of those studies also said that people plan to spend more this holiday season, mostly on consumer gadgets...
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