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
Remember those awful Genius ads Apple began airing during the Olympics? Reactions to the ads were overwhelmingly negative and were somewhat surprising for a multi-billion dollar company known for more creative ad spots that typically focused on the product. These new ads did not, and instead cast Apple users in an idiotic light. Or at least...
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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg isn't about to go stand in a soup line or hover on a street corner with a cardboard sign that reads, "Will write code for food," but among an elite class of tech billionaires, he now finds himself on the outside looking in. Well, sort of. As shares of Facebook continue to fall, so too...
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Ouya's developers started off with a relatively simple concept: build an inexpensive Android console for the living room funded by $950,000 in pledges on Kickstarter. Well, here are with less than 40 hours to go before Ouya's Kickstarter campaign comes to a close, and the project has generated more than $7 million...
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Microsoft might be super stoked about launching itself in the tablet space with its upcoming Surface device, but the company's hardware partners aren't as thrilled with the idea. Some are more outspoken than others, like Acer chairman and chief executive JT Wang, who said Microsoft's move would negatively affect the...
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There's no love lost between Apple and Google in the mobile space, each of which is vying for platform dominance with iOS and Android, respectively. As such, neither company is all that interested in helping out the other unless it's a mutually beneficial relationship, which is what they had by bundling Google's...
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After months of waiting, Samsung today announced that it's Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet will be available globally starting this month. The first batch of shipments will include Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi + 3G HSPA+ models, with a Wi-Fi + 4G LTE slated for availability sometime "later this year," Samsung said. The Galaxy Tab...
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While Apple tries to sue Samsung out of existence for various patent infringement claims, Samsung is busy trying to steal some of its rival's competitors away. Not just Apple, but anyone who's willing to switch to a Galaxy device (Galaxy S II, S III or Note). Samsung wants your business so bad that it's willing to pay...
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One advantage brick-and-mortar stores have over ordering online is the ability to serve up instant gratification. You walk into a store, grab what you need, plunk down your credit card, and the item is yours to take home. Online sellers haven't found a way to trump brick-and-mortar outfits in that regard, but Maingear has certainly lessened...
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How do you land a car-sized rover on the planet Mars? NASA answered that question with eight years of careful planning and around nine months of space travel culminating in the most advanced rover ever touching down on the Red Planet last night at 10:32 p.m. PDT. Score one of the home team. The one-ton rover called...
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In a matter of months, Microsoft's Surface tablet with integrated keyboard will be available, and who knows what other innovations the company's hardware partners will bring to the table. Perhaps in an attempt to stay ahead of the curve, Apple is looking into embedding a touchscreen display into a new generation of...
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Game developer Zynga has made a fortune in part by altering existing game concepts into their own creations, such as Words With Friends (an obvious take on Scrabble, with a social twist and other elements that are Zynga's own). As far as Electronic Arts is concerned, however, Zynga went too far with The Ville, which...
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When he was alive, Steve Jobs was very outspoken about his disdain for smaller sized tablets. He referred to 7-inch tablets as "tweeners" noting that they're "too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad." Sure, you could bump up the resolution in a 7-inch device, but that too would be...
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The world is filled with surprises. Some good, like flipping the light switch and finding a gathering of friends wishing you Happy Birthday, and some up for debate ('Hey Bill, I had fun on our first date last week, though why haven't you called? By the way, I'm pregnant'). The fact that Windows 8 RTM (Release to...
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We're plenty familiar with Futuremark's assortment of benchmarks, as we should be since we feature 3DMark and PCMark in several of our reviews. They're great tools for assessing performance on the Windows platform, but what about the growing number of Android devices? Well, Futuremark's going to cover those, too. The...
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Activision Blizzard's mega popular MMORPG isn't called World of Warcrack for no reason, folks. The correct title, of course, is World of Warcraft (WoW), and it's been the leading cause for neglected hygiene for going on eight years. At last count, WoW was home to 9.1 million subscribers, Activision Blizzard revealed...
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Amazon threw down the gauntlet when it launched its affordable Kindle Fire tablet (or glorified eBook reader, if you prefer), and ironically enough, it was Google who answered the challenge by just recently releasing its equally price-friendly Nexus 7 device built by Asus. But both of those -- along with Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet --...
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Believe it or not, Microsoft is taking a shovel to Metro, with plans to whack it over the head and then then bury it in the desert. How can that be with just a two months to go before Windows 8 reaches general availability, and with the RTM (Release to Manufacturers) now out in the wild? It's simple -- Microsoft is...
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One of the prevailing theories as to why Linux isn't more widely adopted is because of games support. Sure, you can play games on Linux systems, and a good many of them when you factor in WINE and the such, but Windows is still more widely supported. Regardless of that being the case, Valve says it's able to get Left 4 Dead 2 to run faster...
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Archos has been teasing the impending launch of its upcoming Gen 10 xs tablet for some time now, and today the company posted its first press photo on Facebook. The thin and light G10 xs is said to be a Google-certified device with unfettered access to everything in Google Play. From the press photo along with previously released information,...
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The thing about trying to stop a runaway freight train is you have to have something big and strong enough to stop the momentum. That's the challenge tablet makers face in trying to compete with the iPad's market dominance, and apparently the recent trend towards 7-inch slates isn't going to cut it. To wit, rather...
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In what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one who has ever used Facebook or is even slightly familiar with the Internet, there are a lot of liars on the world's most popular social playground. Millions, in fact. According to the company's 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Facebook...
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If Apple wanted to, it could silence the rumor mill in a New York minute simply by announcing the iPhone 5, or next iPhone (or whatever it will be called), and at some point, the company will. But not today, not tomorrow, and probably not next week either. In the meantime, more information continues to trickle out...
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