Items tagged with Misc
The U.S. Supreme Court put to rest any discussion of whether or not law enforcement needs to get a warrant to stick a GPS tracking device on your car. The answer is a unanimous “yep”. All nine court justices agreed that placing a GPS tracking device on someone’s vehicle without a warrant constitutes...
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After the arrest in New Zealand of MegaUploads founder Kim Dotcom and shutdown of the site over allegations of digital piracy, any and all sites that facilitate file sharing should take notice. At least one, FileSonic.com, is taking steps to distance itself from that kind of negative attention from law enforcement. It...
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If you’re a DIY electronics geek, Adafruit should be one of your favorite playgrounds. The open source hardware maker’s site offers a plethora of kits, parts, plans, and other electronic miscellany, and it recently announced FLORA, a wearable electronics platform. FLORA is a tiny board that measures just 1.75 inches in diameter,...
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Zoho, a provider of online business, productivity, and collaboration applications, experienced a brief power outage Friday, taking its products and services offline for several hours. According to Zoho’s blog, the outage began at 8:25am PST, and even when power was restored by 9:15am, the company had a lot of work to do to get its service...
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Months after unveiling its TWC TV app for iPad and weeks hence from bringing a non-streaming version of it (“My TWC”) to Android smartphones and tablets, Time Warner Cable announced that TWC TV is now available on the iPhone, as well. iPhone users who also have broadband Internet in the home can use the app to stream live TV to...
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Apple announced its new foray into education today with a presentation that included details on iBooks 2 (and the digital textbooks available therein), iBooks Author (an app for the creation of digital textbooks), and the latest on iTunes U. iBooks 2 Apple wants to reinvent textbooks, and it’s starting with...
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For all the computing power and innovation built into today’s devices, connectivity is always a bottleneck. Even as streaming, video chats and meetings, and mobile connectivity becomes a normal part of computing life, the limitations of network speeds are constantly there, reminding us how far the technology and associated rollouts still...
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The cost of textbooks has driven every college student crazy. They’re pricey, new editions flow from the textbook pipeline with great frequency, and schlepping a backpack full of them across campus every day is exhausting. Printing textbooks (or anything, for that matter) is expensive, so it makes lots of sense...
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First, the good news: the Zappos server that holds its customers sensitive financial information (such as credit card numbers) was not hacked this weekend. The bad news, however, is that hackers made off with just about every other type of customer information they could want, including names; email, billing, and shipping addresses; phone...
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For a company that makes its bones off of making its own products seem outdated every six months or so, Apple seems committed to recycling used electronics. Apple expanded its recycling program in the UK, France, and Germany; now, the company has (or at least participates in) such programs all over the world...
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Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) is a big step for the platform, and Google is clearly interested in maintaining some level of uniformity across the ICS-based products created by developers. In a blog post, the Android User Experience Team announced a new site called Android Design, which is chock full of practical...
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Mark Zuckerberg has every reason to smile; according to analyst Gregory Lyons of iCrossing, Facebook will reach 1 billion users in a matter of months. Facebook has already cruised past 800 million users worldwide, a mark it just hit about 10 seconds ago, and membership continues to increase as users in nations such as India and Brazil join...
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Just in case you were looking a buzzkill after the chaotic euphoria wrought by CES, here it is: According to the Guardian, dozens of Foxconn workers in the city of Wuhan protested the company’s plan to close the Xbox 360 production line they worked on by threatening to jump from one of the six-story factory...
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As expected, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, with partner Marvell, unveiled the XO-3 tablet for CES 2012. The 8-inch tablet features a 1024x768 PixelQi display; 512MB of memory; the Marvell Armada PXA618 SoC; a memory card slot; and USB and audio ports. The operating system will be either be Android or OLPC’s homegrown Linux-based...
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TRENDnet is already announcing its next-gen networking products, even though you won’t get to play with them until late this year (unless you’re at CES in a few days). The company’s 1300 Mbps Dual Band Wireless AC Router (TEW-811D), and 1300 Mbps Dual Band Wireless AC Media Bridge (TEW-800MB) utilize...
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In a post on pastebin (which has been removed, though it is cached here), a hacker group called the Lords of Dharmaraja claimed that it hacked an Indian Military Intelligence server and snagged source codes from a dozen different companies, most notably (apparently) the source code to Symantec’s Norton...
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As CES draws a day closer, Logitech has let fly with news about a couple of new peripherals it will be showing off in Vegas, one a webcam and the other a mouse. The Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 has some impressive features, but its primary claim to fame is its capability to conduct video calls in 1080p. The 1080p HD only works with Skype--Skype...
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Much is made of “developing markets” in nations like India, where the population dwarfs that of the U.S. and tech companies work to develop products that average consumers can afford. Sometimes, those developing nations take matters into their own hands. The long-awaited, Indian-homegrown tablet that...
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On the first day of a new year, many of us reflect on the recent past and hope we do better in the future. Jony Ive, renown Apple designer, probably doesn’t have any angst about his achievements in 2011; he was named a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE). Although Steve Jobs garners the lion’s share of the credit for much...
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Not to pile onto Verizon, but this is a little grating: Verizon is planning to start charging its customers a $2 fee for any payments made online or by phone, according to a leaked memo posted by Droid Life. In order to dodge the fee, customers will have to use an electronic check (aka “ACH”) or via...
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If the website and slogan (“We are different”) that are clear Apple rip-offs are any indication, JXD’s new S7100 MID borrows heavily from other companies...and presumably doesn’t have the rights to anything the device does. The S7100 is an Android-based tablet designed to play arcade and older ROMs, or as the site says:...
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According to a report in the Register, China’s Beidou satellite navigational system is up and running, with 10 satellites in orbit. In 2012, another 6 will be launched, and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation plans to have more than 30 satellites in the network by 2020. More exciting for those living in the Asia-Pacific...
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