News Category
January 11th, 2012 | 
Are Ultrabooks tablet killers? We pose that very question on the cover of this month’s print issue. The debate rages on, but Lenovo is looking to skirt the issue with a newly unveiled offering. Rather than going the Eee Pad Transformer/Slider route and sticking a keyboard on a tablet, Lenovo instead got all bendy and twisty with the IdeaPad YOGA, a touchscreen Ultrabook with a 360 degree hinge on its lid. That little design tweak lets you use the YOGA as a tablet or a notebook. Heck, you can even give it a V-shape, stand it on its end and … [Read More...]
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Tags: You won’t find too many people beating down virtual or brick and mortar doors to get their hands on an Acer Iconia Tab. The demand just isn’t there, not when there are sexier, slimmer, more capable, and less expensive alternatives available (some of which are a combination of more than one of those), and the Iconia Tab line hasn’t sold particularly well as a result. Be that as it may, Acer isn’t waving the white flag.
Amid rumors that Acer would withdraw from the tablet PC and smartphone markets, company founder Stan Shih set the record straight by explaining this … [Read More...]
As promised, Amazon has begun rolling out a new update for Kindle Fire owners, but there are some things you should know before you dive in. If you’re a modder, be aware that the Kindle Fire 6.2.1 update removes root privileges on tablets that have already been rooted, and once it does that, you’re unable to re-root it using the SuperOneClick utility with the new firmware installed.
Users over on XDA’s forums have been taking the news pretty hard and aren’t at all happy about the root-killing update.
“Yep, just got an updated pushed bo my device, and OneClick no … [Read More...]
Google has let loose with a torrent of updates to its Google+ social network in advance of the new year. Among the improvements are changes to notifications, Pages, and the stream. Some of these are minor, and some are things people have been begging for.
A change to the stream aims to make it easier to find the content that is most important to the user. When viewing posts from a single Circle, users can use a slider to set the relative importance of that Circle. This changes the prominence of posts from the Circle in the main timeline. If … [Read More...]
AMD and Nvidia driver teams have been putting in some pretty serious overtime trying to keep up with the flood of new titles hitting the market just before the holidays, and a third profile update just went live for AMD’s less than one month old Catalyst 11.11. Just in-case you’d lost count, in addition to the three profile updates, AMD has also released three separate beta drivers to fix various other issues with specific titles. If you like to be on the bleeding edge, make sure you have Catalyst 11.11C, along with the just released CAP3.
CAP3 includes the following … [Read More...]
Get your tinfoil hats on, folks. In the documentation released earlier this week by Microsoft on its upcoming Windows 8 Store, the software giant said that apps purchased from the App Store will come with a “kill switch.” Redmond can use this to disable or remove the app from Windows 8 machines. Even if its intentions are good, users are likely to be suspicious of Microsoft on this one.
Microsoft claims it will use the capability in cases of security or, more troubling, if they are “required to do so for legal reasons.” This is a common capability on mobile … [Read More...]
Mozilla is in the middle of a difficult phase. Chrome is said to have overtaken Mozilla Firefox in terms of market share and there is ongoing suspense over the open-source outfit’s lucrative search referral deal with Google. The latter in particular is being seen as a major concern, with almost 80 percent of Mozilla’s annual revenue at stake. All said, It’s just about the best time for a non-profit to remind everyone about its selfless goals and make a pitch for donations.
Mozilla on Sunday posted a new video titled “The Mozilla Story.” The video tells the story of how … [Read More...]
Are you rocking a preview build of Windows 8? If so, you don’t need to go without CPU-Z. There’s a new update available, the first one in about five months, that brings CPU-Z up to version 1.59. Among the short list of changes is official support for Windows 8. The new build also recognizes Intel’s Core i7 2960X, 3930K, and 3820 Sandy Bride-E processors.
Along with support for Sandy Bridge-E chips, CPU-Z v1.59 reads and recognizes Intel’s X79 chipset. The update isn’t all about Intel and Microsoft, however.
Other additions to CPU-Z’s database include AMD Opteron and Valencia (Bulldozer), AMD … [Read More...]
Dolphin Browser HD is one of the most popular alternative browsers on Android, which is why the latest news on that front is so disconcerting. According to an exhaustive investigation by Android Police, Dolphin HD is sending all user URLs in plain text to a Dolphin webserver. The goal is to match URLs to a webzine whitelist service that Dolphin then provides to users, but as Android Police said, this is “an amateur solution.”
It appears that any URL, be it secured or not is sent with no security whatsoever. For its part, Dolphin says that the data is not … [Read More...]
In Washington today, someone got something done. If that was not shocking enough, it was the FCC. We can wait while you compose yourself. The FCC voted unanimously today to re-purpose the universal service program, which was used to get phone service to rural Americans. The fun will now be used to deliver broadband internet access to the most remote areas of the nation.
The new rules will expand broadband by shifting the $4.5 billion dollar fund from subsidizing phone service to pay for the deployment and service costs associated with rural broadband. The FCC has also mandated changes to … [Read More...]
Google announced last May that it intended to begin adding business interiors to Google Maps Street View. Now the first test images are rolling out. Users browsing maps will be invited into shops and offices that make use of the same 360-degree panning view that we’re used to with street view. Considering the very different nature of the content, Google has changed the way they acquire these images.
If a business owner is interested in having their interior added to Google Maps, they have to fill out an application online. Google will then contact the applicant to set up a … [Read More...]
Yes, yes, this was inevitable, but usually there’s rhyme or reason to these things. Or somebody starts a nice little leak in the rumor mill’s engines, and it’s all old news by the time it’s actually “official.” Or there’s a convention (think E3 or GDC) coming up. Or something! Rockstar, though, merely plastered its website the GTA V logo, promised that a trailer’s going for a nice little rampage on November 2, and then quietly strode away while everybody scratched their heads. Meanwhile, Kotaku’s now rumoring that it’ll be set in LA. Which sounds nice enough, but why not try … [Read More...]
Intel’s Core i7 2700K processor is new in town and boy does she get around. We mean that in a good way, and it’s totally with the blessing of her folks from Santa Clara who told her, “Hey, you’re unlocked, go have a good time.” The 2700K took those words to heart and, among other places, found herself hanging around Maingear where she’s running laps at 5GHz and beyond.
Maingear tells us they’ve added the 2700K to its Shift and F131 desktop systems. The less expensive F131 starts out at $1,104, or $1,339 with the 2700K option, and includes an … [Read More...]
Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, there’s no denying that WikiLeaks posts stuff that lots of folks would rather remain hidden in the shadows. Those people have (kind of) gotten their wish: WikiLeaks has said that it will temporarily halt its publishing operation to focus instead on raising cash. The reason for the dire financial straits? Many of the major global financial institutions in the world, including banks, credit card companies and even PayPal, have refused to process donations for the controversial site, causing a precipitous drop in funding.
Assange considers the refusal to process funds an “arbitrary and … [Read More...]
NVidia’s founder and president Jen-Hsun Huang was on hand at this years AsiaD conference, and as usual, he put on quite the show. In addition to reconfirming the companies future plans for the Tegra platform, he offered up sage advice for Microsoft on how to manage Intel during the transition to arm, how much his company is spending on R&D, and even openly fantasized about getting his chips in future versions of the iPad.
When asked about his feelings towards Windows on ARM, Huang was quite specific, don’t call it a PC.
“It’s important for [Microsoft] not to position these … [Read More...]
A day after the world’s most popular desktop Linux distro turned seven, Canonical announced a new support policy for its LTS (long-term support) releases, which are released every two years. Beginning with the release of Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) in April, 2012, Canonical will support LTS releases for desktops users for five years instead of the current three years.
In a statement issued yesterday, Canonical said that the decision to extend support for LTS releases for desktop users was taken in face of Ubuntu’s growing popularity among enterprise users used to longer maintenance periods. Previously, only server LTS releases were … [Read More...]
Amazon has made small tweaks to its Kindle e-book format over the years, but now the retailer has surprised the industry again by announcing a new HTML5 version of the Kindle format called Format 8. This approach leverages a toolset that already has wide support and allows a richer experience — perfect for magazines and comics.
The new HTML5 Kindle format will essentially make books into webpages, with robust handling of images, fonts, and other adaptable content. Amazon has a full list of supported HTML tags, but video and audio tags are not among them, for now at least. So … [Read More...]
