HotHardware.com News Rss Feed

Google "Conversational Search" Natural Speech Interface Now Available In Chrome Browser

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:51:41 PDT

Google’s original search engine is very old in terms of tech time, although of course the company has continuously upgraded and tweaked it over the years, improving this algorithm or adding that feature. It’s fitting, then, that Google would roll out a voice search feature that uses conversational dialogue to help you search for...

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Apologizes for Accidental Pro Photographer Diss

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:39:00 PDT

If we're being honest, we can all admit to at one time or another suffering from foot-in-mouth disease. Unintentionally saying the wrong thing can happen whether you have the gift of gab or not, and those in the public eye are especially prone to such incidents when every word is scrutinized. Hence Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is asking for forgiveness...

Apple Targets Samsung and Google For Patent Infringement of Siri Technology

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:17:28 PDT

Apple has made its bed, and now it’s lying it in. The bed in this case is the decision to compete in the marketplace through litigation, particularly as it pertains to patent violations. Since heading down that path, Apple has certainly won some major victories, but it has also spent a huge amount of resources in the courts instead of,...

HGST Launches Highest Density 2.5-inch Mobile Hard Drive with 1.5 Terabyte Capacity

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:29:39 PDT

HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital) claims that its latest mobile hard drive, the Travelstar 5K1500, offers the--and we quote--“highest storage density of any hard disk drive today”. Those are strong words, but HGST may have something there. They crammed 1.5TB...

Agent Smartwatch Breaks Out As Latest Kickstarter Craze

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:01:20 PDT

There’s just something about smartwatches and Kickstarter, isn’t there? The latest smartwatch to whip up crowdsourced funds fast is the Agent Smartwatch, which is designed for fashion as well as function. The device is compatible with Android 2.3 and up, the iPhone 4S and newer, and Windows Phone 8 devices. Inside, it has a dual-processor...

Early Adopter Loses $1,500 Google Glass at Airport

Wed, 22 May 2013 04:26:00 PDT

It's not always desirable to be first. Luke Wroblewski, a digital product design and strategy guy living in Silicon Valley knows this as well as anyone. Poor Luke managed to misplace his Google Glass, earning him the distinction of being the first to do so, according to Google. "So according to @googleglass support, I have the dubious honor...

Toshiba Begins Mass Producing World's Smallest 64-gigabit NAND Memory Chips

Wed, 22 May 2013 03:36:00 PDT

Continuing its advancements into smaller manufacturing processes, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) announced this week that it has developed second generation 19 nanometer process technology that will be used in the mass production of 2-bit-per-cell 64-gigabit NAND memory chips. Toshiba's already used the technology the develop...

GIF Creator Wins Webby Lifetime Achievement Award, Clarifies Pronunciation

Wed, 22 May 2013 03:05:00 PDT

If Louis Armstrong was still alive, he'd have another verse to add to "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," because as it turns out, some of us, and perhaps even most of us, have been pronouncing "GIF" wrong. Steve Wilhite, the inventor of the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), recently stated it should be pronounced with a soft G, and that's...

Most Teens Take Online Privacy Seriously, But Still Share Personal Info on Facebook

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:28:00 PDT

Are teens using social media responsibly? A new study conducted by the Pew Research Center sheds light on how teenagers are using sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as how they view their online privacy both in terms of managing their settings and the level of concern over third-party access to their data. As you might expect, the study...

Xbox One Used Games: Microsoft Searches For Someone To Screw [Editorial]

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:00:01 PDT

In a world in which its corporate communication team wasn't apparently being run by two monkeys and a sack of hammers, Microsoft executives would've taken the stage yesterday and delivered a concise, official explanation as to whether or not used games will run on the console. In point of fact, everyone thought they did. Wired's exclusive...

Nokia Adds Sight Recognition To HERE Maps

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:08:03 PDT

One could easily argue that the company who manages to perfect human-to-computer voice communications will have the future at their fingertips. While talking to a computer (or your car, or Siri) isn't new, it's not exactly ironed-out. Many folks won't even use Siri because the results are so spotty. Not even Google has managed to nail it;...

Pandora Premieres Lets You Listen In Before An Album Drops

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:57:21 PDT

If you're tired of waiting for an album to ship to actually hear what has already been mixed and mastered, you're in luck. If you're a Pandora user, that is. Pandora Premieres launched this week, giving listeners the chance to hear select albums up to seven days before those albums are destined to hit store shelves. With Internet radio, music...

Activision Teases Call of Duty Ghosts with Reveal Trailer

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:38:21 PDT

Microsoft's Xbox One is shaping up to be one of the highlights of the holiday season, assuming they do indeed get the system ready to ship by then. But, of course, consoles are made only in part by the hardware. The other part is the software, and Microsoft has seemingly lined up a pretty outstanding array of partners to ensure a star-studded...

Cheapest 1TB Hard Drive, HP ENVY 6t Core i5 Ultrabook and XPS 8500 Core i7 Desktop Bundle

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:12:42 PDT

Today's hot deals include Seagate Barracuda 1TB hard drive for a super low $50 with free shipping, HP Envy 6t-1200 Ultrabook for only $550 with free shipping, and a loaded Dell XPS 8500 Desktop bundled with 23" UltraSharp Monitor for only $850. Deals: 1TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 3.5" SATA III Internal Hard Drive for $49.99 with...

MSI Drops a Pair of AMD Richland A10-Powered Gaming Notebooks on the Market

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:54:06 PDT

MSI announced two new G-series gaming notebooks that it claims are the world’s first to run AMD’s A10 (Richland) chips--specifically the A10-5750M, with up to Radeon HD 8970M graphics. The company says that the GX70 and GX60 notebooks boast a 40% increase in visual performance over previous generations as well as a boost in battery...

Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile Both Stoked to Carry Samsung Galaxy S III

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:14:00 PDT

In Samsung's world, the talk of the Galaxy is all about the recently unveiled S4 with its plethora of fancy new features and hardware enhancements, but don't go hating on its predecessor. The Galaxy S III is still a capable smartphone, which is why Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile are so excited to announce that they're now carrying Samsung's...

Long-awaited Xbox One Makes Its Debut, Microsoft Aims for All-in-One Entertainment Center

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:52:34 PDT

Because “Xbox 720” was ultimately kind of a dumb name, Microsoft wisely went with something different for its new console: Xbox One. At Microsoft headquarters today, the Xbox crew debuted Xbox One, showed off its new features, and promised to give us more at E3 next month. The most impressive feature of the Xbox One, at least at...

Report Suggests Samsung Will Use Intel Processors In Next Galaxy Tab

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:13:38 PDT

Although Samsung’s Galaxy Tab devices are generally very fine products, the sheer number of SKUs in the line make individual Tabs less interesting. However, there’s a rumor that the upcoming Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 will be packing an Intel chip instead of a homegrown Samsung Exynos or other mobile processor. According to Android Authority,...

The Original Killer App Killed. Lotus 1-2-3 Goes EOL

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:25:00 PDT

Say your goodbyes, folks, Lotus 1-2-3 is being forced into retirement. For those of you old enough to remember Lotus 1-2-3, you might be shocked to learn that it was still on the market after all this time. Many people got their introduction to spreadsheets courtesy of IBM's legacy software, though Lotus 1-2-3 wasn't actually the first spreadsheet...

AMD Poaches Senior Marketing Manager From NVIDIA

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:11:00 PDT

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) continues to attract high-level talent from around the industry as it gears up to compete in a new era of computing. The latest person to jump into AMD's talent pool is an old friend of ours, Sean Pelletier, a former HotHardware editor and more recently NVIDIA's Senior Technical Marketing Manager for Windows, Windows...

Samsung’s Next Android Tablet To Have Intel Atom Inside

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:05:00 PDT

The mobile market is a bitter one for Intel at the moment, as up to this point, it's been unable to secure any major design wins using its Atom-based SoCs. There have been a couple of phone releases, but they've been far and few between, and mostly targeted at Europe. A couple of months ago, one win came in the form of ASUS' Fonepad, a 7-inch...

Apple to Begin Producing Significantly Lighter Fifth Generation iPad Model

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:08:00 PDT

Apple is said to be finalizing the design of its 5th generation 9.7-inch iPad tablet and will begin trial production within the coming weeks, if not days. Assuming all goes well with the trial run, Apple's manufacturing partners will kick things into high gear and begin volume production in July, according to chatter bugs within Taiwan's supply...

Survey Reflects Rising Satisfaction Among Samsung Device Owners

Tue, 21 May 2013 02:43:00 PDT

Survey results from the latest American Customer Satisfaction (ACSI) Index reveal a growing affinity towards Samsung handsets, as if that's any surprise. Samsung scored a 76 on ACSI's survey, which is an independent national benchmark of customer satisfaction that reports scores on a scale of 0 to 100, up 7 percent from last year. That represents...

Seagate's Video 3.5 HDD Built To Handle Stream After Stream

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:20:48 PDT

Sure, you love video. You love streaming it, and you love storing it. But have you ever stopped to wonder where all of that digital goodness is stored? Seagate is thinking about that, hence the introduction of the industry's first purpose-built 4TB Video HDD. The Seagate Video 3.5 HDD has been built specifically for use in video applications...

SanDisk Announces Sampling of 1Ynm Process Technology

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:19:40 PDT

When it comes to raw horsepower within the devices that make our lives tick, it can get pretty nerdy... real fast. Take process technology, for example. Everyone loves speed, but it's companies like SanDisk who care about the nuts and bolts that make our gizmos tick. The company has just announced the commencement of customer sampling of flash...