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
A pair of Intel rivals are joining forces, though not to take on the chip giant and topple the leader. The technology partnership between Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and ARM is all about integrating the latter's TrustZone Security Technology found in mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, into the former's...
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Look, we're not out to foster any hard feelings or spark a war of words between users of two very distinctive camps, but facts are facts, and the fact is, while legions of Android users are waiting patiently for their wireless carrier to roll out Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the vast majority of iOS users are...
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It's said that good things come to those who wait, and if you've been waiting for Amazon to port its Cloud Player application over to Apple's App Store, you have a good thing waiting for you today. The Amazon Cloud Player app is now available in the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch users, which allows you to stream and download music stored...
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After months of anticipation, Verizon today finally and officially lifted the wraps on its Share Everything data plans, which are set to go into effect starting June 28, 2012 (a little over two weeks from now). The new plans allow subscribers to share a single data cap with up to 10 devices, negating the need to purchase separate data plans...
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As many suspected, Apple today unveiled refreshed MacBook Air models built around Intel's 3rd Generation Core i5 and i7 dual-core processor options (Ivy Bridge), giving the thin and light platform a serious shot in the arm. Available in 11-inch and 13-inch designs, Apple also updated the flash storage, which the...
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The next version of Apple's Mac OS X operating system is going to hit the streets well before Microsoft's Windows 8 OS. In fact, it's just around the corner. It's called Mountain Lion, the ninth major version of Mac OS X (Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion are the other eight), and it will be available in...
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Move over Johnny, mom and pop want to use the Xbox, and they don't intend to play Call of Duty. In fact, they're not commandeering your console for any game in particular; they want to watch a movie on Netflix. Or maybe it's a Hulu Plus? It doesn't matter, the point is, your game console is much more capable than the...
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No matter what your opinion of Steve Jobs is, as a businessman and a human being, there's no denying the impact he's had on technology and, in particular, his ability to mass market high-tech items and permeate the mainstream audience, creating a consumer culture like we've never seen before. But how will he be remembered 50 years from now?...
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In the movie Gladiator, Proximo offers words of advice to Maximus, telling him "Win the crowd, and you will win your freedom." If Proximo was alive today and enjoyed a career as a market analyst, he'd tell tech firms, "Win the women, and you'll win profits for your investors." He might also be ignored and his advice dismissed, shrugged off...
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Job cuts in the tech industry has become an all too common theme in the past couple of years, and the latest round of redundancy reductions is set to take place at Logitech. The peripheral maker announced plans to restructure its operations and simplify its organization to "better align costs with its current business...
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Congratulations to anyone who owns a 17-inch MacBook Pro, it may just be a collector's item in a few months. Apple apparently feels as though the era of 17-inch laptops has run its course, and in a research note shared with AppleInsider, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple is still planning to discontinue the 17-inch...
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Remember Hewlett-Packard's Envy Spectre XT, that sexy slab of Ultrabook that you could look at online but couldn't order? Now you can as HP starts taking orders on what looks to be a 13-inch beauty, provided you can cough up the requisite $1,000 asking price for a baseline configuration. Standard options include a...
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New data from Flurry Analytics highlights the disparity in developer support for Android and iOS, noting that developers pay more attention to the latter. Much more. In comparing developer support for the two mobile platforms, Flurry found that roughly 7 out of 10 (69 percent, to be exact) applications are developed for iOS, a trend the analytics...
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The late Steve Jobs was never a fan of so-called tweener devices, otherwise known as 7-inch tablets, a category he felt strongly was dead in the water. He was wrong. Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire is the second best selling tablet in the world, behind only to the mighty iPad. That's pretty impressive when you consider...
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For awhile there, people wondered how in the heck Twitter would be able to monetize itself. And these days? It's a battle between web and mobile over which one can rake in the most revenue, and on many occasions, mobile wins out. We know this because Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said as much at a conference in San Francisco earlier this week....
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Apple's iPhone sure does get around these days, and on June 29, you can add Virgin Mobile USA to the list of carriers offering the popular iOS device. Virgin Mobile made the announcement today, saying it will carry both the iPhone 4 and 4S with its Beyond Talk unlimited data and messaging plans (carried out through Sprint's network) starting...
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is apparently fed up with the growing number of patent disputes that could lead to import bans. So much, in fact, that the FTC felt compelled to ink a five-page letter to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) outlining its concerns with the way things are currently handled...
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One of the things we like about AVADirect is the extensive catalog of off-the-shelf parts to choose from. In fact, a major advantage of shopping from a boutique system builder as opposed to a bulk OEM is the availability of name brand hardware you'd otherwise buy from Newegg, or wherever it is you purchase your components, when rolling your...
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The iPhone 5 rumor mill is in full swing as we inch closer to the device's release, which some have pegged for September or October. One of the persistent rumors is that the iPhone 5 will finally sport a bigger size screen, though it won't rival some of the larger smartphones and hybrids on the market, like the...
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Microsoft is getting ready to launch Windows 8, the company's next generation operating system that's been built from the ground up to play nice with today's touch-computing landscape, but what about Windows 7? In case anyone has forgotten, Windows 7 is a perfectly serviceable OS, just ask the millions of people using it. In a blog post today,...
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System builders are plenty eager to cross Intel's Ivy Bridge platform en route to more performance on the other side, and that includes Samsung, which today unveiled a pair of new Series 5 notebooks sporting the Santa Clara chip maker's latest and greatest architecture. They include the 15.6-inch Series 5 and 14-inch Series 5 500. "Our latest...
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Fujitsu decided to kick off the summer with a pair of Lifebok Ultrabook devices: the 13.3-inch Lifebook UH572 for home consumers, and 14-inch LifeBook U772 designed for dudes and dudettes donning a business suit. Both models are powered by Intel's 3rd Generation Core processor line, otherwise known as Ivy Bridge. The...
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