Designers of robot pets are fighting a never-ending battle with consumers to provide entertaining and realistic gadgets that respond to human interaction in ever more nuanced ways, mimicking the behavior of real pet animals or even people. Researchers in Taiwan are now looking at a new design paradigm that could see the development of a [...]

Just over a year ago, Mac users began to feel a bit more Windows-like after a major Mac trojan horse was discovered in the wild. Of course, you’d get it only if you obtained copies of pirated software. While there had been a few scattered OS X virus reports, this trojan had the most destructive [...]

Hardware firewalls are important because they provide a strong degree of protection from most forms of attack coming from the outside world. Additionally, in most cases, they can be effective with little or no configuration, and they can protect every machine on a local network. A hardware firewall in a typical broadband router employs a [...]

As you may know already, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) security is not secure. This first wireless LAN security standard, developed by the IEEE, has been vulnerable to cracking by Wi-Fi hackers for nearly a decade now. In 2003, the Wi-Fi Alliance released a security standard called Wi-Fi Protected Access. Although the first version (WPA), which [...]

It’s easy to think of the Internet as something that’s just “out there” in cyberspace, that doesn’t effect the physical world in any tangible way. In 2009, however, it was estimated that Internet data centers worldwide consumed about 2% of global electricity production. Not only did most of that electricity undoubtedly come from non-green sources, [...]

The release date will likely be around June or July of 2010, and there has been a great deal of speculation about the new iPhone 4g… in HD!! Verizon Wireless is currently testing a CDMA version of the iPhone 4G and Verizon confirms they are making network changes to bring the iphone to their network. [...]

This is a much debated topic and a fun one. When choosing between plasma and LCD TVs, you’re actually selecting between two competing technologies, both of which achieve similar features (i.e., ,bright crystal-clear images, super color-filled pictures) and come in similar packages (i.e., 1.5 to 4 inch depth flat screen casing). To complicate the decision-making [...]

Features and Design Unlike the arch-backed gaming mice from companies like Microsoft and Logitech, Apple’s Magic Mouse takes a decidedly slim approach to hand support. It’s short. The stubby aluminum base of the mouse arches up like a Pringle on either side to meet a smooth, glass-like top plate, which depresses on the finger end [...]

3D television technology is becoming increasingly popular with each passing day. Due to the rise of popular 3D feature films (namely Pixar’s Up and James Cameron’s Avatar), major television manufacturers began developing three dimensional home television technology in 2009. There are several methods that these manufacturers use to create 3D images on an LCD television; [...]

Apple must be patting themselves on the back, as the Hewlett-Packard (HP) tablet unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Wednesday night failed to wow those expecting a true competitor to the mythical Apple tablet. At Microsoft’s opening keynote for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the tech world braced itself for Ballmer unveiling [...]