Entertainment & Technology News

Apple faces €1.57 billion patent damages claim in Germany

2014-02-05T09:43:00.001-08:00

German patent licensing firm IPCom has accused Apple of infringing a patent on 3G technology and wants €1.57 billion (US$2.1 billion) in damages, the Mannheim Regional Court said Wednesday.

IPCom has declared the patent, EP 1 841 268, essential to the implementation of 3G mobile standards, and a narrowed version of the patent was upheld by the European Patent Office (EPO) last month following challenges from Apple, Nokia, HTC, Ericsson and Vodafone.

The patent relates to the way handsets are allowed to access networks of various mobile telecommunications providers. The technology can be used to give some users priority access to networks in emergencies, even if the networks are overloaded, according to IPCom.

After the EPO had upheld the patent IPCom announced it would continue a number of related cases in the coming months.

The case against Apple is scheduled to be heard on Feb. 11 at the Mannheim Regional Court. It will deal with two patents that IPCom alleges Apple has infringed, the court said ina news release.

In addition to the recently upheld European patent, it also involves a German patent, DE 199 10 239, which relates to a way to manage access to overloaded wireless communication channels, the court said. IPCom did not demand a specific amount of damages from Apple for the second patent, the court added.

Apple and IPCom both declined to comment on the case.

When the EPO upheld the first patent in suit, IPCom said that it wanted companies to license the patent, adding that “the industry should bear in mind that damages for patent infringement set by the courts can be significantly higher than a license” on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

A separate case against Nokia over the European patent recently upheld by the EPO is scheduled to take place on May 28 at the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe.

IPCom was founded in 2007 and has a portfolio of almost 1,200 patents in about 160 patent families in the field of mobile communications. It says that 35 of those families are essential to implementation of key mobile communications standards in 2G (GSM), 2.5G (GPRS), 3G (UMTS) and subsequent generations.

HTTPS Everywhere makes Firefox for Android more secure

2014-02-05T09:39:00.002-08:00

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to make web browsing on mobile as secure as it is on the desktop—at least for Android users. The digital rights group recently released a mobile version of its stellar HTTPS Everywhere add-on for Firefox for Android.

Even though many sites offer HTTPS encryption, most offer it only on request, not by default. HTTPS Everywhere solves this problem by forcing websites to connect to a device using HTTPS encryption whenever possible. In a nutshell, using HTTPS Everywhere offers a more secure web browsing experience, deterring—among other things—snoops on a public Wi-Fi connection.

The add-on will only work if the site supports HTTPS connections to begin with and if the site is listed in the add-on’s database. HTTPS Everywhere does cover thousands of sites, so chances are the major sites you visit every day will work with the EFF’s add-on.

How to install HTTPS Everywhere for mobile Firefox

Here’s how to get started with HTTPS Everywhere:

If you haven’t already downloaded it, you can grab Firefox for Android from Google Play. Mozilla’s browser works with Android 2.2 (Froyo) and up.

The EFF doesn’t offer its add-on via Mozilla’s add-on catalog, so you’ll have to visit the EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere page to install it.

The page should auto-detect that you’re visiting from Firefox for Android. Tap the green robot to install HTTPS Everywhere.

This will cause Firefox to throw up a drop-down warning message that says, “Firefox prevented this site (www.eff.org) from asking you to install software on your device.” Click the “Allow” button below the warning to install HTTPS Everywhere.

You'll see another pop-up asking you to confirm again by tapping “Install.” Do so. Once the add-on is installed, Firefox will prompt you to restart the browser.

When the browser starts up again, visit a site like Twitter or Google and you should see the HTTPS Everywhere symbol on the right side of URL bar, and a lock symbol on the far left, as shown below.

That’s it! You’re now browsing somewhat more securely on your Android device. For added security, you could also use a VPN when browsing the web on a public Wi-Fi connection—although VPNs on mobile aren’t always bullet proof.

Forget Haswell: Why tablet processors mean more to Intel at Computex

2013-06-09T20:07:00.003-07:00

Intel’s Haswell processor line may have gotten all the glory at Computex this weekend, but ten years down the line, we may just remember Computex 2013 as the year that Intel’s most portable CPUs were finally embraced by mobile manufacturers.

Intel’s portable technology has made waves before, of course—remember those x86 smartphone processors from 2012? But for the first time ever, it’s looking as though all of Intel’s pie-in-the-sky promises are truly turning into real-world hardware wins. The prospect already has ARM bristling to defend its turf.

“If Intel continues on its trajectory, we’re going to look back on [Computex 2013] and say not necessarily that it’s where Intel’s mobile push started, but that it’s where it started to gain traction,” says Patrick Moorhead, founder and principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy.

Let’s take a peek at that traction in action, starting with honest-to-goodness Android tablets with Intel Inside.

Android lands on Intel

While Intel has notched a few Android smartphone wins on its post, it was never able to convince a big manufacturer to take a stab at a proper Atom-powered Android tablet—until Computex, that is. And at Computex, it landed one of the biggest fish swimming around in the Android ocean: Samsung.

While the 8-inch Galaxy Tab unveiled Monday runs a standard ARM processor, the 10.1-inch flagship model sports a dual-core Intel chip of unspecified design. Since the tablet is due to launch in June, look for it to likely rock the “Clover Field+” Atom system-on-a-chip popular in today’s Windows tablets, rather than the next-gen,Silvermont-based “Bay Trail” processorsslated for release by the holidays.

Even so, it’s a humongous win for Intel.

“Intel has made some dramatic improvements in the mobile market, and I think what we’re starting to see now are the fruits of their hard work and labor,” Moorhead says. Intel has been laying the groundwork for its mobile chips for more than four years. “They deserve a lot of credit. This is only stage two or three of a ten-stage plan by Intel for mobile, but this is very positive for them.”

More impressively, Intel won over Samsung despite the fact that 32nm Clover Trail chips aren’t as slim as the 28nm ARM chips favored today, and that many Android apps have to be translated on-the-fly to ensure compatibility with Intel’s x86 architecture.

Don’t celebrate too much just yet, however. “Intel still has a lot of work to do and its market share in the mobile space, be it tablet or smartphone, is very, very small,” CCS Insight analyst Geoff Blaber told IDG News Service earlier today.

The Intel-powered Asus Fonepad Note phablet.

That’s very, very true—but Intel’s processors didn’t just pop up in the Galaxy Tab. Clover Trail could also be found in the bizarre Asus Transformer Book Trio laptop-desktop-tablet“frankenconvertible” (as Moorhead calls it) that runs both Android and Windows; the 10-inch Asus Memo Pad FHD; and even the 6-inch Asus Fonepad Note phablet. Asus, it seems, is at least partially won over.

Intel’s Clover Trail processor can also be found in the world’s first 8-inch Windows tablet, the Acer Iconia W3. That, in fact, brings up a whole ’nother problem for ARM, and a whole ’nother win for Intel.

Where is Windows RT?

It’s not at Computex.

At this year’s Computex there’s nary a Windows RT tablet to be seen, while last year manufacturers were showing off ARM-powered slates like the Asus VivoTab.

Windows RT’s absence from Asia’s biggest trade show is nothing short of glaring, especially when you consider how most manufacturers were tripping over themselves to show off Windows RT slates—which run on ARM processors and aren’t compatible with classic Windows desktop programs—at last year’s show. In the 12 months since, manufacturers, developers, and consumers alike have avoided Windows RT like the plague.

That’s bad news for Microsoft and ARM, but it’s wonderful news for Intel. Manufacturers are rolling out droves of Windows tablets, but virtually all of those tablets run the full-blown version of Windows 8 on top of Intel’s x86 silicon, rather than the crippled monstrosity that is Windows RT.

There’s a reason for that. The mere threat posed by Microsoft’s ARM adoption spurred Intel into action, prompting it to devote its near-endless resources on energy efficiency.

“The power and performance gap to ARM for Intel Atom is a myth now,” Blaber says. And when Intel’s Atom or one of AMD’s mobile processors offer a true Windows experience and last just as long as an ARM chip, settling for Windows RT’s sea of compromises just doesn’t make much sense. Manufacturers know that.

INTEL

Intel has rethought power efficiency from the ground up with its Haswell and Silvermont CPU architectures. (Click to enlarge.)

Bay Trail chips will be even more powerful and long-lasting than the Clover Trail processors winning the hearts and hardware of manufacturers today. Haswell’s mobile power efficiencies are paving the way for a future where tablets can offer full laptop power with none of the compromises found in the powerful slates like the Surface Pro and Razer Edge Pro.

Yes, it appears as though the old Wintel hegemony will carry over to Microsoft tablets.Hybrids may just be the future of Windows, and it’s hard to see where ARM fits in to the picture. On Monday, Acer honcho J.T. Wang told The Wall Street Journal that Windows RT won’t be “so influential anymore.”

“I think Microsoft wants to give some separation between Computex and what’s going on with Windows RT,” says Moorhead. “Because if you did a comparison today, no matter how you slice it, there will be a lot fewer Windows RT devices than Windows 8 tablets.”

Thinking smaller

Update: Tablets weren't the only mobile devices on Intel's mind at Computex. Just after this article was published, Intel introduced the first smartphone based on its "Merrifield" Atom processor, which Intel claims has 50 percent better performance and a "much improved" battery life over its predecessors. So that's where those x86-based smartphone processors went!

Intel expects the chip to wind up in high-end phones early next year.

To (Transformer Pad) Infinity, and beyond!

Intel’s sudden mobile threat has prompted ARM to rattle its saber. The company unveiled a new Cortex-A12 processor, and at a Computex news conference of its own, the company claimed that its mobile processors are superior to Intel’s much-ballyhooed Silvermont Atom technology.

AGAM SHAH

ARM touted its mobile superiority at Computex, though graphs tend to be more persuasive when they include hard values on their axes. Just sayin’. (Click to enlarge.)

Analysts feel that Intel and ARM are now fairly equal on the performance-per-watt front, however, and Moorhead thinks Intel’s refocusing on the mobile market—could—make things interesting going forward.

“If Intel executes on its 22nm and 14nm [processor architecture] roadmaps, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with,” Moorhead says. “Not just an ARM alternative, but in a position where you’d have to think that you may be putting your mobile product line at risk by not having Intel in it.”

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Intel’s future hinges on cracking the mobile market as the masses migrate to tablet technology. Cornering the moribund Windows slate market and achieving a handful of Android design wins isn’t anywhere near a resounding success, but Computex 2013 certainly shows that Intel isn’t just spinning its wheels. Chipzilla’s long-term plan for mobile is on the right track and gaining traction.

Five ways E3 2013 can surprise and delight us

2013-06-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hey, E3: It's time for a shake-up.

Last year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, the most important gaming convention of the year, was a letdown. There were plenty of good games, sure, but with console hardware running long in the tooth and an annoying focus on prosaic sequels to popular games, there just wasn’t a lot for hard-core gamers to get excited about.

This year is going to be different—the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are nigh. So, with Sony and Microsoft launching a new generation of living room consoles, we can expect a huge investment in new games and powerful new technology for developers to exploit.

We hope to be wowed by what we see in Los Angeles when the show opens June 11, but if game makers really want this to go down as one of the greatest E3 shows of all time, they’ll need to do more than give us the same old sequels with fancier graphics and sound.

I’m looking at you, Call of Duty and Killzone.

New franchises

Okay, we get it. Sequels to established blockbuster franchises aren’t going away—the general public looks forward to them. Activision is going to ram a new Call of Dutydown our throats every year until people stop buying it. (Can we get on that, gamers?) But new console launches are a time for change and growth. New hardware with new capabilities offers developers the opportunity to design new kinds of experiences, and is often a launching point for brand-new game franchises.

Watch Dogs looks like an intriguing new game, but we want more—much more.

Some, like Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs, Microsoft’s Quantum Break, and Sony’s Driveclubhave already been announced. We want more—much more. Microsoft has promised that it will publish 15 games for the Xbox One in its first year (a surprisingly large number), of which 8 will be new intellectual properties. That’s great news, and I hope we'll see all of them at this year’s show. Let’s hope Sony and Nintendo have similar commitments, and that big third-party publishers are driven to give us new games, not just sequels to popular series. Nintendo, in particular, could stand to deliver new games with new characters.

Nintendo gets its act together

The Wii U is in trouble. It’s a fine system, but it’s still in need of a firmware update or two to fix some nagging problems, and it doesn’t have that must-have aura yet. There’s no grand new 3D Mario game, no Smash Bros., no Animal Crossing, noMetroid, no Zelda; even Pikmin 3, once a launch title, still hasn’t seen the light of day. When E3 is over, gamers need to feel like they just gotta have a Wii U, and that’s going to be a tall order.

This year marks the first time Nintendo will not host a major E3 press conference. Instead it will rely on Nintendo Direct online streaming presentations to take its message to gamers. We expect Nintendo to announce a few new games during E3, and to showcase them during a special Wii U event on Tuesday morning. The next day, some 110 Best Buy stores across the U.S. and Canada will host the same demos so that you can try them yourself.

The Wii U has been on the market for seven months and Nintendo still hasn't given us a good reason to buy one. E3 is its last, best chance to make good.

It’s an intriguing approach, but it doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence. If Nintendo doesn’t show a handful of must-have new games alongside fresh entries in beloved Nintendo franchises, scheduled to hit the market before the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, it’s going to have a really hard time competing for living rooms this generation.

While we’re setting the bar for Nintendo, it’s worth bringing up its portable business. With the rise of smartphones and tablets as gaming devices, Nintendo needs a compelling list of reasons why someone should buy a dedicated portable game console—and presumably pay more for its games than gaming apps on smartphones and tablets.

Bottom line: The Wii U is not nearly as powerful as the Xbox One or PlayStation 4. Many of the multiplatform games destined for those systems either won’t make it to the Wii U or will offer a significantly downgraded experience. Nintendo’s path is clear: Beat Sony and Microsoft on price and deliver the games. The gaming market is better off with a thriving Nintendo, but the world has changed—and Nintendo hardware must evolve beyond “the system with Mario, Zelda and unique controls” if it hopes to survive.

The PC keeps shining on

You know what PC gaming doesn’t need? Another hyper-accurate mouse or super-customizable keyboard. Enough with the gimmicks and gadgets already. What PC gaming needs is to avoid playing second fiddle to home consoles. Show us the big, beautiful, quirky games that can exist only on the PC.

PC gaming is thriving because the barrier to entry for both developers and players is so low. Everyone owns a PC, and every PC is also its own development platform—meaning independent developers can create and publish their own games without having to worry about licensing fees, royalties, or restrictive legal agreements with Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

Indie games like Gunpoint thrive on the PC, and we'd be delighted to see more excellent independent PC games at E3 2013.

The PC is also years ahead of consoles in realizing a fully digital distribution platform with multiple competing vendors. You can already acquire the biggest PC gameswithout leaving your house. So why do consoles dominate E3? The answer—this year, at least—is shiny new hardware.

With all the attention on two new huge console launches, the PC might get lost in the shuffle. We’ve long since given up hope that Microsoft would use part of its E3 press event to talk about Windows gaming, but it would be nice if some of the other publishers did. Most of the really big new games launching with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will probably never see release on the PC (they’re meant to sell new console systems, after all), but we’d love to be wrong about that.

Indies get their due

Independent games are experiencing a renaissance. The abundance of cheap, powerful hardware, better tools, and easy digital distribution has helped independent game makers thrive. Today more than ever, a handful of developers with little funding can create a game that takes the world by storm and competes directly with super-size franchise games. Think I’m exaggerating? I have two words for you: Angry Birds.

Sony and Microsoft did the right thing by bringing indie darling Spelunky to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Vita. Let's hope they keep it up.

It’s time for the big console makers to embrace the independent games movement. They need to do more than make one-off deals with indie developers that are already established. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have to court indie developers by making their platforms easier and cheaper to develop for, and—perhaps most importantly—giving indies control over their own economics. Let them set the price, change it freely, and update their game as often as they want. Let them explore new economic models of their own devising. Make it simple for a small studio with a 5-person development staff can cheaply and easily add Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U to its list of supported platforms.

We hope E3 shows us not just a bunch of great new independent games, but delivers great news for independent game developers looking to break into the living room.

Make us believe in new control methods

On a purely technical level, Kinect is pretty cool. The new Kinect included with the Xbox One looks like it could be way cool. Sony’s PlayStation Eye and Move controllers held a lot of promise, and the new Eye for the PS4 is more promising still. But as much as we like these things for all their technical gee-whiz appeal, they just haven’t delivered for gamers.

The squat, boxy new Kinect camera will be included with every Xbox One. E3 is Microsoft's best opportunity to convince us that it's an addition worth paying for.

Maybe it’s simply a fact that the best way to experience most games is always going to be pressing buttons, wiggling sticks, and squeezing triggers. Maybe fancy cameras, microphones, touchpads, and accelerometers can’t really add that much for gaming enthusiasts. We hold out hope that the technology simply hasn’t been good enough to meet our demands yet. Maybe this is the year where the quality of the hardware and sophistication of the software is finally such that, no matter what kind of player you are and what kind of game you’re playing, there will be something useful and fun, truly fun, about these alternative inputs.

We want to believe in the Kinect, the PlayStation Eye, and their ilk. We want them to make all our games better. And there’s no better time to convince us than the dawn of a new generation of consoles. Let's hope Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo take this opportunity to knock our socks off.

Former CIA assistant Edward Snowden outs himself as NSA whistleblower

2013-06-09T20:03:00.001-07:00

You've seen the inflammatory NSA slides, and now you can attach a name to the paperwork: His name is Edward Snowden, he has a 10-year history in government defense and intelligence gathering, and now, he tells The Guardian, he's leaked classified documents because he thinks current NSA surveillance techniques pose "an existential threat to democracy."

"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them," he told Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald in an interview conducted in Hong Kong.

Snowden is a former CIA technical assistant, and a current employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, where he has worked for less than three months according to the company. For the last four years, Snowden has done contract work for the NSA as an employee of various outside firms. In 2003, Snowden enlisted in the U.S. Army to join the Special Forces, but broke both his legs during a training mission, and was discharged. From there, the Guardian reports, Snowden took a job as a security guard for the NSA, and then later joined the CIA to work in IT security before returning to the NSA as a contractor, including his current position as an infrastructure analyst.

In a 12-plus-minute video interview conducted June 6 with Greenwald, Snowden explains his motivations for leaking classified NSA information, though it's worth noting that the now infamous PRISM program is never mentioned on camera, nor does the specific program name appear in the accompanying Guardian article.

Nonetheless, Snowden's words on video seem to reaffirm the Post's and Guardian's initial reports that the NSA has deep hooks into Big Tech, including real-time access to the data of American citizens—an assertion that's now being vigorously disputed by Director of Intelligence James R. Clapper. CNET has also quoted an anonymous former government official who says "None of it is true," referring to original reporting by The Guardian andWashinginton Post.

The following three paragraphs contain the meat of Snowden's indictment.

"The NSA and the intelligence community in general is focused on getting intelligence wherever it can, by any means possible," says Snowden in the video. "It believes on the grounds of sort of a self-certification that they serve the national interest. Originally, we saw that focused very narrowly tailored as foreign intelligence gathered overseas. Now, increasingly, we see that it's happening domestically."

"And do to that, they, the NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in it system and it filters them, and analyzes them, and it measures and it stores them for periods of time, simply because that's the easiest, most efficient, and most invaluable way to achieve these ends.

"So, while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government, or someone they suspect of terrorism, they're collecting your communication to do so. An analyst at any time can target anyone. I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email."

So far, the Guardian has leaked five NSA slides, ostensibly supplied by Snowden. This one indicates when various tech companies joined the NSA PRISM program.

Snowden lived in Hawaii before he jumped into the whistleblower abyss. But three weeks ago he copied documents that were later disclosed, and on May 20 left behind a girlfriend and a salary of roughly $200,000, and flew to Hong Kong, where he remains.

He told the Guardian that he expects to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for revealing classified information. His words, in fact, took a particularly ominous turn: "Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets," he told The Guardian.

As of press time, there was no official word from the Obama administration on Snowden's revelation. But speaking on ABC News Sunday morning—just hours before Snowden came clean—House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) telegraphed at least one government position: "Taking a very sensitive classified program that targets foreign persons on foreign lands, and putting just enough out there to be dangerous, is dangerous to us. It's dangerous to our national security, and it violates the oath of which that person took. I absolutely think they should be prosecuted," Rogers said.

Intel buys satellite navigation chips business from ST-Ericsson

2013-05-29T01:02:00.000-07:00

Intel has confirmed that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire certain assets of the Global Navigation Satellite System business of ST-Ericsson, extending its investments in positioning technology.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ST-Ericsson, a 50-50 semiconductor joint venture by STMicroelectronics and Ericsson, announced earlier on Tuesday that it had sold the assets and intellectual property rights associated with its mobile connectivity GNSS business to an unnamed “leading semiconductor company.”

STMicroelectronics and Ericsson announced in March that they were winding down the operations of the joint venture, with each parent taking on parts of ST-Ericsson. The joint venture said it was pursuing external options for its connectivity business.

The deal, signed last week, extends Intel’s investments in positioning technology “with a team of industry veterans that has a successful track record of developing and commercializing GPS [global positioning system] silicon spanning more than 20 years and 11 generations of GPS/GNSS silicon,” Intel said in an emailed statement.

The GNSS team of about 130 people located in Daventry in the U.K., Bangalore and Singapore are expected to join Intel at closing of the transaction.

The staff will be integrated into the Mobile and Communications Group’s Wireless Platform R&D (WPRD) organization. Employees based in the UK and Singapore will remain at their current locations, while employees based in India will join WPRD employees at Intel’s existing Bangalore location, Intel said.

The proceeds from the sale, combined with the avoidance of employee restructuring charges and other related restructuring costs, will reduce ST-Ericsson’s cash needs by about US$90 million, the company said. The transaction is expected to be completed in August, and is subject to regulatory approvals and standard conditions.

Why small screens won't cure Microsoft's Windows tablet blues

2013-05-29T00:57:00.001-07:00

Now, with Windows tablets struggling to catch consumers’ attention, Microsoft is shifting gears. The company has already paved the way for smaller Windows tablets, and Windows co-chief Tami Reller promises that the impending Windows Blue update will pack even better support for 7- and 8-inch slates. Asus and Acer have hopped aboard the diminutive display bandwagon, where other manufacturers are bound to join them.

Prepare for the deluge!

But before the floodgates open, I have to ask: Are small screens really the cure for Microsoft’s Windows tablet woes? Ehhhh...

Small screens, small price tag

Before we discuss anything else, we have to talk about price. Android is freely available to manufacturers (though many OEMs pay “don’t sue me” royalties to Microsoft). On the other hand, Microsoft makes a big chunk of its money by selling Windows, and that includes selling Windows to manufacturers. Basically, Windows tablets will always cost more than a similarly spec'ed Android tablet.

Windows tablet enemy, thy name is Nexus.

That alone could be a killer for small-screen Windows tablets. Paying $380 for an 8-inch Windows tablet (the price of theleaked Acer Iconia W3) seems crazy when you can pick up a Nexus 7 for $200.

Microsoft may be willing to compromise on this issue, however. Several recent reports have claimed that Microsoft is offering manufacturers steep discounts on Windows licenses destined for use on touchscreen devices with screen sizes under 10.8 inches. Pricing for those specialized devices is said to be as low as $30 per license.

A Microsoft spokesperson told PCWorld that the company does not comment on OEM pricing, but some indications suggest that the discount is real. In early May, Asus CEO Jerry Shen went on record saying that his company plans to release a small Windows 8 tablet, and that he expects prices of sub-10-inch Windows tablets to drop below $300.

Carolina Milanesi, research VP of consumer devices at Gartner, says that a sub-$300 price is critical.

“I think 8-inch Windows RT tablets could be the right formula to appeal to consumers, but the price gap over Android cannot be too big,” she told PCWorld via email. “$299 would be as high as I would go if I were the vendors, unless there were some clever bundles offered for tablets and smartphones.”

Even at $300, Windows 8 tablets will have to offer genuine value to trump the $200 Nexus 7 and its ilk. How can it do that? One potential answer is to embrace the Windows 8 element that Microsoft seems most intent on forgetting.

Yes, I’m talking about the desktop.

Down on the desktop

That seemingly obvious answer carries some not-so-obvious caveats, however. While the energy-efficient features that Intel has been working into its chips—most notably its power-sipping Atom processors—make it technically possible to rock the Windows desktop in small-screen tablet form, would you really want to?

ACER

The misposting on Acer's Finnish website showed that the company plans to offer a keyboard accessory for its 8.1-inch Iconia W3.

“Windows participation in [the 7- to 8-inch tablet] space is interesting, but I only think the desktop plays a factor here if manufacturers make it easy to connect a mouse, keyboard, and large display to dock with,” says Patrick Moorhead, founder and principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy. “The desktop on a 7- to 8-inch form factor is the makings of a horrible experience.”

Remember how the first Asus Eee PC packed an itty-bitty 7-inch display? There’s a reason why netbooks quickly shifted to 10- to 12-inch displays: Trying to use the traditional desktop on such a small screen utterly sucks. Seriously. It’s wretched. The text is waaaaaay too tiny to be useful, and trying to click buttons or navigate menus accurately is a nightmare.

And that was with the Eee PC’s 800-by-480 pixel resolution. Today’s more pixelicious displays would only exacerbate the issue.

Windows 8 lets you scale the size of desktop text to create a more acceptable experience, but it has some hiccups. The trickery does make text more readable, but it tends to blur the visuals in non-Microsoft websites and programs. On the Surface Pro—which ships with its desktop text scaled to 150 percent by default—many menus and controls are still just a bit too tiny to be finger-friendly.

Shufflin' spreadsheets on the small screen

Microsoft may have yet another ace up its small-screen sleeve: Office.

MICROSOFT

Microsoft already offers a OneNote modern app, and its Office brethren may follow suit.

Some of the rumors about slashed license fees also included talk about reduced licensing costs for Microsoft Office on small touchscreen devices. Indeed, the leaked Iconia W3 appeared on Acer’s Finnish website soon after its brief Amazon debut, and it came with Office Home & Student bundled. That’s par for the course with Windows RT, but it has not been for Windows 8 proper.

Office, as it stands today—a desktop app—isn’t a magic charm for increasing the attractiveness of mobile devices. If it were, Windows RT tablets would be jumping off the shelves. (They’re not.) And Office’s appeal drops even further on small screens with their smaller interfaces.

“Although Office is a nice thing to have, it is not enough of a differentiator,” says Gartner’s Milanesi.

The arrival of finger-friendly modern Office apps might make this particular carrot more enticing. If nothing else, it would make Office much more usable on a pint-size tablet, which brings up an interesting point.

Windows 8 isn’t the perfect operating system for Microsoft’s small-screen tablets. Windows RT is.

The Windows RT conundrum

Unfortunately, Windows RT is sucking wind. People ain’t buying it and manufacturers ain’t making it, even though Windows Store apps and large Live Tiles were created with tablets in mind.

Even Microsoft's Surface RT, the one bright spot in the Windows RT lineup, has allegedly struggled at retail.

Why is Microsoft’s high-stakes throw of the dice coming up snake eyes? Possible causes include the ambitiousness of introducing a whole new interface, and some irritants that linger in the half-baked modern UI. But one problem is especially glaring: the severe dearth of apps.

Even though the Windows Store has more than 75,000 apps (according to MetroStore Scanner), its catalog has holes bigger than Ballmer’s love for developers. Several prominent apps have yet to debut on Microsoft’s new platform. Those woes, combined with the ready availability of the desktop, have apparently soured users on Windows apps. One recent study showed that most Windows 8 users rarely touch Microsoft’s finger-friendly software.

That weakness, not screen size, is the major issue for Windows tablets. And it goes double for Windows RT tablets, which aren’t compatible with desktop programs and thus depend entirely on the offerings in the Windows Store.

Windows 8's biggest focus is also its biggest weakness.

“The biggest thing holding back the Windows tablet market is a lack of premier and long-tail apps,” says Moorhead. “It’s almost been nine months since Windows 8 was launched and there is no Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Google+ app, and Windows 8 apps like Evernote are well below par. Small-form-factor Windows 8 tablets will help, but aren’t the fix.”

Gartner’s Milanesi agrees that Windows 8’s biggest problem is content.

“I think Microsoft needs to focus more on content—not Office—to appeal to consumers,” she says. “At the end of the day, smaller-size tablets are all about consumption, not so much about creation of content. Adding books from their Barnes and Nobles relationship, along with games, music, and video from Xbox would be much more appealing.”

Windows 8 on a small tablet? Meh. Windows RT, on the other hand, could shine on 7- to 8-inch slates—but only if Microsoft manages to fix the mistakes in the modern UI, enhance its app selection, and shake the death stench that’s beginning to emanate from all things RT-related.

Too many compromises

While diminutive displays are all the rage these days and Microsoft needs to be in that space to “stay” competitive, the shift to small screens doesn’t look like a panacea from where I’m standing. If anything, small Windows tablets will demand even more compromises than the other (already highly compromising) Windows 8 devices available today, because they’ll subject users to the double trouble of a frustrating desktop experience and the desert known as the Windows Store.

Small tablets aren’t the cure for Microsoft’s Windows tablet woes. The answer is apps, plain and simple. More apps. Better apps. Appealing, high-quality apps that distinguish themselves from the Android and Apple horde.

Microsoft is doing all it can to woo developers to its new-look Windows, but the effort hasn’t succeeded yet. Until it does—if it does—Windows tablets will never truly take off with consumers.

Review: HTC One is the Android phone to beat

2013-04-09T09:59:00.001-07:00

HTC knows how to make good-looking hardware. I loved the white ceramic body of the HTC One X and Nokia could learn a thing or two about making Windows phones by taking a closer look at the HTC Windows Phone 8X. The company’s latest offering, the HTC One, is a paragon of industrial design: Its chiseled chamfers, rounded edges, and chrome accents are sure to turn more than a few heads when you whip out the phone in public. But the One is more than just a pretty face: HTC packed a lot of power under the phone’s hood, and the handset’s camera benefits from numerous software and hardware tweaks that should excite fans of mobile photography.

A feast for the eyes

JASON CROSS

The HTC One is a well-crafted handset.

The first thing you’ll notice when holding the One is how well it sits in your hand. At 5.4 by 2.7 by 0.4 inches, the phone is larger than Apple’s iPhone 5 but smaller than HTC’s previous handset, the Droid DNA. Though the phone comes with a 4.7-inch display (shades of the Samsung Galaxy S III), the One’s aluminum unibody design and gentle curves compare favorably to the S III’s primarily plastic body. That slick exterior does come at a price, however: The One’s power and volume buttons sit flush with the phone’s chassis—which makes them difficult to press—and the 2300mAh battery is nonremovable. The phone also lacks a microSD card slot, meaning that you’re stuck using the supplied 32GB (or 64GB, if you buy the larger model) of on-board memory to store your photos, apps, music, and movies.

JASON CROSS

The One has two front-facing stereo speakers.

The absence of expandable storage is lamentable, especially since in other respects HTC designed the One to function as a multimedia powerhouse. The One’s 1920-by-1080-pixel display packs 468 pixels per inch, which makes viewing HD content a feast for the eyes. Bordering that gorgeous display are two large, front-facing stereo speakers, which pump out surprisingly loud, clear audio. One big advantage of positioning the speakers on the front of the device rather than on the back is that audio doesn’t get muffled when you set the phone down on a flat surface. I did notice an occasional pop at higher volumes, but the speakers’ sound quality was more than acceptable overall.

The TV app on the HTC One.

If you tend to mislay your TV remote, you’ll appreciate the One’s built-in IR blaster, which lets you use the phone as a universal remote control. The phone has a TV app with a setup wizard that simplifies the task of programming the One to work with your TV, cable box, and home theater. The app also pulls listing information from Peel, showing which TV shows and movies are currently playing. You can arrange for the phone to remind you when your favorite shows are on and to provide a brief synopsis of specific episodes. I tested the remote functionality of the phone with an LG TV and a Motorola cable box in our office and was surprised at how well the combination worked. Though I was 13 feet away from the cable box, I noticed little or no delay when I changed channels or browsed through the guide. The app is so well made that I almost wish I subscribed to cable...almost.

Built to be social

HTC’s BlinkFeed app.

Another cool bit of software that the One offers is BlinkFeed. HTC is marketing BlinkFeed—which resembles the Live Tiles on Windows Phone to some extent—as a “magical” way to stay up-to-date on your social networks and news feeds, but in reality it’s just a glorified RSS reader that lives on your home screen. You can tie BlinkFeed to your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts so that your friends’ updates show up there; however, clicking an update just kicks you into the corresponding app. You can also instruct BlinkFeed to display news headlines, but the news outlets you can subscribe to are limited to a handful of blogs—though you can subscribe to a catch-all news category like ‘lifestyle’.

Despite using the phone for several days, I never felt inclined to spend much time with BlinkFeed. Though I loaded all of my social accounts into it, I ended up using the stand-alone Twitter and Facebook apps to update my status and to see what my friends were up to. Being able to browse headlines quickly was convenient, but other dedicated apps such as Zite perform better in that regard. Most annoyingly, you can’t turn BlinkFeed off: It always appears as your leftmost home screen, and you can’t get rid of it without installing a different launcher.

UltraPixels make a difference

JASON CROSS

The HTC One has a 4-megapixel camera.

The other features that HTC played up when it announced the phone were the One’s camera and camera software. Rather than perpetuate the myth that the more numerous the megapixels, the better a camera’s image quality, HTC opted in favor of a 4-megapixel camera with larger pixels than those traditionally used in smartphones. These UltraPixels are designed to take in more light, making them better for capturing photos in low-light environments.

After taking the One’s camera out for a spin, I think HTC may be on to something with UltraPixels. The One handled everyday shots well enough, but it excelled at taking photos in areas with less-than-optimal lighting. Photos were less noisy than comparable shots taken with an iPhone 5 or a Nokia Lumia 920 under the same conditions, and the One’s flash didn’t completely wash out the subject. The iPhone 5’s outside shots looked better than the One’s, but the two were more evenly matched on indoor photos.

A sample photo taken with the HTC One.

The One’s biggest advantage over the iPhone, however, is in the number of features that HTC packs into the phone’s native camera app. The default Android camera has various extras built into it already, but HTC seems to have omitted only a kitchen sink app in assembling the One’s camera software: Among the available shooting modes are HDR and panorama; and you can apply filters to your photos without having to resort to third-party apps such as Instagram.

Another noteworthy shooting mode is Zoe. When you activate Zoe, the phone takes up to 20 photos and records about 3. seconds of 1080p video. The feature is designed for action shots, of course, where you’d expect a lot of movement; and you can select and pull additional stills from the 1080p video. Though Zoe mode is a neat extra, I didn’t find much use for it in my day-to-day life. Perhaps very creative people will find some cool uses for the feature.

The processor steps up the power

The One’s many features require a lot of processing power, which the One has in good supply. The One is the first handset to ship with Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, which is supposed to deliver superior graphics and battery life. The phone gracefully handled every app I threw at it, including games like Shadow Gun and Temple Run, though it did get noticeably warm when performing processor-intensive tasks (like gaming) or downloading 20+ apps at once.

The phone’s battery should survive an entire day of normal use (about 9 hours), so you don’t have to worry about the One dying on you in the middle of the day. If you like to play lots of movies or games on your phone, however, you’re well advised to bring along your charger: The One’s high-resolution screen can be a real drain on the battery if left on too long.

We received the Sprint version of the One for testing. (It will also be available on AT&T and T-Mobile.) Call quality over Sprint’s network was solid, with little or no static on either end of the call. Unfortunately, Sprint’s data speeds were somewhat underwhelming. In San Francisco, where we have access to Sprint’s LTE network, I often found myself using the One on Wi-Fi when streaming HD video or downloading large apps. Its performance might improve as Sprint fleshes out its LTE network, but for now don’t expect miracles if you’re a Sprint customer looking to upgrade to the One.

Microsoft warns the end is near for Windows XP

2013-04-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

In just one year, on April 8, 2014, Microsoft will stop delivering security updates forWindows XP, the second most popular operating system in the world. Microsoft issued several blog posts Monday urging businesses to get out before it was too late.

“You should take action to move off of Windows XP,” Microsoft said Monday. “After April 8, 2014, there will be no new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates.” Most XP support for regular consumers ended in 2009, although security updates continue to roll in. But not for long.

If you continue to run Windows XP on your PC, Microsoft says you’re on your own in just under a year. You can probably keep XP going with a good anti-virus package, but that will only protect you from known threats.

Should the worst happen and hackers uncover a particularly nasty zero day flaw that lets the bad guys take over your PC, don’t look to Microsoft for help because the company is moving on. And like it or not, you probably should too.

Windows XP was a great OS. Well, Windows XP after Service Pack 2 was a great OS, but it’s last call for Clippy and the search dog. So zip your folders and get that briefcase off your desktop, because it’s almost time to leave.

The XP Herd

Despite an initial debut nearly 12 years ago and three major iterations of Windows since then, Windows XP continues to be widely used.

NETMARKETSHARE

Market shares for major operating systems

Worldwide, XP is second only to Windows 7 in terms of usage with 38.73 percent of the worldwide operating system market share, according to metrics firm NetMarketShare.

Windows 7 claims 44.73 percent, while Vista and Windows 8 combined account for just over 8 percent of worldwide usage.

The staying power of XP has been remarkable for an industry where something that is three years old is considered out of date and five years ago is ancient history.

XP’s longevity can be traced back to Microsoft’s struggles with Windows Vista. Back when Vista was known by its codename Longhorn, Microsoft struggled to develop the OS and Longhorn’s official release kept getting pushed further and further back. When Longhorn finally did emerge as Vista in 2007, consumer and business reaction to the new OS was roundly negative. Microsoft then rushed Windows 7 out the door in 2009, and the Vista debacle was largely forgotten.

Even when Windows 7 emerged, however, many businesses stayed put on XP. Oft-cited reasons for the business world’s reluctance to move on include custom software that only runs on XP and the prohibitive hardware and software costs of migrating to a new OS.

Many home users also refuse to dump XP arguing that upgrading is unnecessary when they still have a perfectly good PC, not to mention personal preference for Microsoft’s aging OS. PCWorld readers staying true to XP can be summed up best by OmeCoatl8elr who said in late 2011, “You can pry my XP from my cold, dead hands.”

6 killer Mac features we'd love to see in Windows PCs

2013-04-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

Even if the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence, there's nothing wrong with tossing the occasional glance at your neighbor's fetching petunia patch. What, weak metaphorical analogies aren't your thing? Let's start again then.

Say, Macs have some enticing features, don't they?

Wait! Before you grab your pitchfork and start screaming for blood, remember that a deep-seated love for all things computing-related is literally a job requirement here at PCWorld. That said, Macs are PCs, too, and Apple's computers sport several stunning OS X specialties that have no native Windows analogue.

While these features aren't amazing enough to lure diehard Windows enthusiasts over to the fruity side, Microsoft would be well-served to steal these particular tricks from Apple's playbook.

1. Frequent operating system updates

OS X Mountain Lion followed swiftly on the heels of OS X Lion.

The world of technology blazes by at blink-and-you'll-miss-it speeds, and the pace has only become more blistering in the few short years that smartphones and tablets have been on the market. Microsoft's traditional three-year release cycle just doesn't cut it anymore. The iPad, Siri, Google Now, touchscreen everything, cloud syncing services, and tons of other revolutionary technologies hit the market in the gap between the releases of Windows 7 and Windows 8, causing Microsoft to remain a perpetual step behind the competition.

Apple releases OS X updates on an annual(ish) basis, and fortunately, Microsoft looks poised to follow. Microsoft recently announced its intentions to transition toward a "continuous development cycle," and the recently leaked Windows Blue update is said to be the first of many annual upgrades for Windows. Our fingers are crossed.

2. Retina displays on laptops

C'mon, you knew this was going to be on the list. Why hasn't the MacBook Pro's drool-worthy Retina display crossed the divide, yet? Indistinguishable pixels are the greatest thing since sliced bread, massage chairs arguably aside.

The MacBook Pro with Retina display: Gaze upon its beauty and weep, Windows enthusiasts.

Samsung showed off a Series 9 notebook with a 2560-by-1440-pixel display at the IFA trade show in Berlin last year, but when it came time to officially announce the model, it was saddled with an attractive yet pedestrian 1080p display. Now, a 1080p looks wonderful on a standard 13-to-15-inch laptop—it just doesn't look as wonderful as a silky-smooth Retina display.

Don't expect to see Retina-quality displays in Windows laptops any time soon, though. The high resolution gobbles up batteries in short order, which is nothing less than a kiss of death in a mobile device. Plus, their sky-high cost limits them to premium notebooks—a low-volume market for Windows PCs. Finally, even Apple can't sell these things. The first full quarter that the MacBook Pro with Retina was on the market saw only a 1 percent improvement in Mac sales compared with that period the previous year.

Sigh. For now, the future is pixelated.

3. Messages

APPLE

Of recent additions to OS X, one of the more handy is its Messages integration, which allows you to send texts to iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users right from your desktop using Apple's homebrew messaging service. The carriers don't like it, but users love it—and it would be a great feature to find in Windows.

A baked-in Windows communications solution would cut down the myriad headaches associated with simply setting up a computer-to-computer conversation with your pals. Gone would be the days of wrangling accounts on AIM, GTalk, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, straight-up SMS, or any other service your friends may or may not be using. Crucially, it would also serve to more deeply integrate Windows Phones and tablets into Microsoft's bourgeoning Windows family.

Microsoft already owns the backbone it needs to introduce just such a service in even better form: Skype. Skype-to-Skype calls and instant messages are completely free and work like a charm across a plethora of platforms, and you can already merge your Skype account with your Microsoft account. It wouldn't take much to preinstall Skype on Windows machines and bake access in with new Microsoft Accounts.

4. Notification Center

APPLE

OS X's Notification Center.

Yet another mobile invention that works wonderfully on the desktop, OS X's Notification Center gives you a list view of all your recent updates and notifications, making sure you never miss something important.

Windows 8 pops up a notification tile in the corner of the screen when new events occur, but it disappears within seconds, rendering it useless if you happen to be away from the computer at that exact time.

Live Tiles act as a lackluster pseudo-Notification Center, but to see the information, you have to take the initiative to jump back to the modern-style Start screen, and then stare at the shifty panels until you're certain that they don't include any more vital information. If you're away from the Start screen, no on-screen indicator other a disappearing notification tile (as mentioned above) warns you that you've missed an event—you just have to magically know to check your Live Tiles for an update.

Simply put, this cobbled-together system is far from ideal, and it's far less useful than OS X's Notification Center.

5. Universal power adapter design

Some people collect knick-knacks. I collect laptops. Not intentionally—it's just a side effect of writing about computers and computer-related things for a living. Sitting on the shelf next to me right now are several notebooks from Asus, HP, and Lenovo, and one thing about them makes me very angry.

None of their power adapters is interchangeable. I can't use my HP's adapter to power my Asus laptop, or do this with any other mix-and-match combination you can dream up.

While the use of different adapter connections makes sense from a business perspective—how else will manufacturers charge you for another one if you lose the original?—it's terribly frustrating on the consumer end of things. Every minute spent looking for a specific power adapter when there's another perfectly good one sitting five feet away is nothing short of a waste of your limited time on this earth. Give us ubiquity!

Apple has, with its MagSafe adapters.

APPLE

Apple's MagSafe adapter.

Sure, there are some technical limitations. An 85W MacBook Pro MagSafe adapter charges a MacBook Air a lot better than a 45W MacBook Air adapter does a beefy MacBook Pro, but hey, at least a MagSafe adapter will work with either type of notebook.

Apple tossed a slight kink into things with the introduction of the MagSafe 2 in its 2012 notebooks. A MagSafe 2 adapter works universally with Apple's 2012 MacBook Airs and Pros, however, and you can buy a converter to use your older MagSafe adapter with a newer MagSafe 2-equipped laptop. Why can't we get that kind of cooperation in the Windows world?

6. iCloud document syncing

If you sign in to Windows 8 with a Microsoft account, you already have the option to sync a ton of settings across multiple PCs, and the Windows Blue leak suggests that even more handy-dandy syncing features are on the way. Given that, it's mildly surprising that the hyper-connected Windows world is missing a key iCloud feature: Document and note syncing.

You can put a makeshift solution together, though it lacks the elegance of iCloud's automatic syncing of every document. Using Office 365 (or a mixture of a traditional word processor program and the SkyDrive desktop app, which doesn't come preinstalled with Windows) to save your files directly to SkyDrive mimics iCloud's functionality, albeit only after installing the appropriate software—and fiddling with said software's settings—on each PC you use.

Sure, the workaround gets the job done, but it's a lot more hassle than iCloud's seamless solution, and nonnerds would never think of it.

Review: Mophie's Juice Pack Helium is a solid battery case for iPhone 5

2013-02-21T07:09:00.001-08:00

Active iPhone owners—ones who work their iPhones hard all day—face a choice: They can use their phones with abandon, knowing they risk running out of power; they can recharge the phone at some point during the day; or they can opt for a battery of some sort. I don’t like the stress of battery-level watching, and I don’t want to carry a USB-to-Lightning-connector cable around with me (and be dependent on a USB port or charger), so I opt for a battery. Specifically, I prefer an iPhone case that includes a built-in battery.

I reviewed several Mophie battery cases for the iPhone 4 and 4S. I loved the Mophie Juice Pack Plus (4.5 out of 5 rating), liked the Juice Pack Air (3.5 out of 5), and liked the rugged Juice Pack Pro (3.5 out of 5). So I was eager to get my hands on Mophie’s first battery case for the iPhone 5, the $80 Juice Pack Helium. My friend and colleague Dan Frakes gave us a first look at the Helium; here's my full review.

A battery of tests

The Helium packs 1500 milliamp hours (mAh), which matches the capacity of the Juice Pack Air. In practical terms, this means that the Helium can’t fully charge an iPhone 5’s battery from empty, but in my testing the Helium can get awfully close: If my iPhone displays the (too-familiar) 10-percent battery warning, the Juice Pack Helium can push the phone’s battery back up to over 90 percent charged. Mophie says to expect an additional six hours of 3G or LTE use for calls and data, or up to seven hours of additional Wi-Fi usage. The company also says it takes two to three hours to fully charge the Helium’s battery, and that matched with my experience.

Mophie praises the case’s slimness: The case measures 2.49 inches wide, 5.49 inches tall, and 0.59 inches thick. Though the case is indeed thinner than previous Mophie battery cases, that advantage is mostly attributable to the iPhone 5’s own slimmer profile. The case of course adds heft and weight to the iPhone 5, but not uncomfortably so.

The Helium ships in two colors: dark metallic (a charcoal hue) and silver metallic (a light, not-quite-white color). I reviewed the dark metallic option, which looks sharp and has a smooth, comfortable-to-grip feel.

Like all of Mophie’s cases, the Helium is actually two separate pieces. But where Mophie’s cases in the 30-pin-dock-connector era consisted of a small cap and a long body, that’s changed in the brave new Lightning-connector world. In the Helium, the base—the part that actually plugs into the iPhone 5’s Lightning port—is the small part. It contains two tiny pins that fit easily into the larger remaining portion of the case; the two parts of the case must be connected to charge the Helium (and your iPhone).

Just like the Air, the Helium employs cutouts around the iPhone 5’s main controls: the volume buttons, the Ring/Silent switch, and the Sleep/Wake button. I continue to prefer cases (such as Mophie’s own Juice Pack Plus) that employ button overlays. As with other cases that employ cutouts like the Helium, I find that the necessary recessed positions of the actual controls makes them more difficult, and less comfortable, to use. That’s not to say it’s difficult or painful to access the controls on a Helium-clad iPhone 5; rather, it’s just less elegant than it could be.

Getting to the bottom of the case

The base of the Helium sports a Micro-USB port for charging. (A USB cable is included with the case.) You can charge your iPhone in the case, or charge the two devices separately.

The Helium’s base also sports the case’s controls: there’s a button, a series of four battery-status LEDs, and a slider switch. You push the button to see the Helium’s current charge level, with the lights indicating how much power is left in 25-percent increments. You slide the switch to start or stop charging your iPhone from the case’s battery. Mophie recommends not flipping on the Helium until your iPhone’s own battery is below 20 percent remaining, and the company actually recommends turning the case off again once you’ve charged your iPhone past 80 percent. (The company says that charging the final 20 percent of the iPhone’s battery requires more power than increasing the phone’s battery by 20 percent at lower starting levels.)

I found that when I charged my iPhone with the Helium, the case grew surprisingly warm. It wasn’t too hot, but it was warm enough to get a little bothersome in my pocket and warmer than with Mophie’s previous JuicePack models. A company representative told me that this is because the Helium charges the iPhone at 1A—compared to 500mA for older models—so it produces more heat.

As Dan noted in his first look at the Helium, the iPhone’s headphone jack is deeply recessed with the Helium on—much more than it is with the company’s prior cases. That half-inch depth means that only narrow headphone plugs—the one on Apple’s EarPods fortunately among them—will fit. Because of that, Mophie includes a three-inch headphone extender in the box. If you regularly use headphones that require the adapter, you’ll need to decide whether the tradeoff of needing to essentially keep that adapter attached to your headphone cord at all times is worth the benefits of using the case. I use headphones rarely enough that I instead just pop off the case as needed, rather than try to remember the adapter.

When you’re using the iPhone’s built-in speaker, front-facing openings in the Helium case provide the slightest of volume boosts; these openings effectively cup the speakers to direct the sound towards you.

Upgrades make Retina MacBook Pro a better bargain

2013-02-21T06:37:00.001-08:00

In the latest update to the Retina MacBook Pro, some models got price cuts, some received slightly faster processors, and some got a healthy bump in the amount of RAM. Anyone who purchased a Retina MacBook Pro prior to this refresh shouldn’t kick themselves for making the leap, but the reduced cost for the 13-inch models and faster performance for the 15-inch models make these thin, light, and fast laptops a better deal than ever.

Let’s be specific

From the outside, the 2013 Retina MacBook Pros look identical to the 2012 models. Our previous reviews of the original 13-inch and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros contain more details on the look and feel of these laptops. But here’s a short summary of the specifications.

All of the Retina MacBook Pros have two USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, a MagSafe 2 power connector, a headphone jack, and an SDXD card slot. As with last year’s Retina MacBook Pros, RAM is not user-upgradable; but luckily, the standard 8GB of memory is sufficient for all but the most demanding users. If you require more than 8GB of RAM, you will need to move to a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro which can be configured with 16GB of RAM.

The 13-inch models feature LED backlit screens with 2760-by-1600-pixel resolution and a pixel density of 227 pixels per square inch. This extremely high resolution—four times higher than that of the MacBook Pros with standard screens—makes the individual pixels in an image virtually undetectable. The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is just 0.75 inch thick and weighs 3.57 pounds. The non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro is 0.95 inch thick and weighs 4.5 pounds.

The 13-inch base model’s specifications remain unchanged, but its price has dropped from $1699 to $1499. It has a 2.5GHz dual-core Core i5 processor with Intel’s Turbo Boost technology, which allows the processor to reach speeds of up to 3.1GHz for short periods of high demand. The Core i5 processors in the 13-inch MacBook Pros do not support Hyper-Threading, an Intel technology that allows applications to access two virtual cores for each physical processor. The base model has 8GB of 1600MHz memory, 128GB of speedy flash storage, and integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000.

At $1699, the new high-end 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro costs $300 less than its predecessor. Even with the reduced price, the system comes with a slightly faster processor—a 2.6GHz Core i5, versus the 2.5GHz Core i5 in the previous model. Like the $1499 model, this system comes with 8GB of 1600MHz memory (not upgradable) and Intel’s integrated HD Graphics 4000. The $1699 model includes 256GB of flash storage, twice the capacity of the $1499 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

The new 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros have 2880-by-1800-pixel resolution, with a slightly lower pixel density—220 ppi—than the 13-inch Retina model. The 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro is actually 0.04 inch thinner than the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, and weighs in at 4.46 pounds, about the same as the non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro.

The new 15-inch models cost the same as their predecessors ($2199 and $2799), but the base model now has a faster, 2.4GHz Core i7 quad-core processor and supports both Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost. It also features the same 8GB of 1600MHz memory (upgradable to 16GB for $200 more, but only at the point of purchase) and 256GB of flash storage as before, as well as both integrated and discrete graphics in the form of Intel’s HD Graphics 4000 and Nvidia's GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. The high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has a faster 2.7GHz Core i7 quad-core processor, a whopping 16GB of 1600MHz memory, and the same 500GB of flash storage and dual integrated/discrete graphics as the previous high-end standard-configuration Retina MacBook Pro.

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Speedmark 8 Scores

	Speedmark 8 score
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	284
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	270
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	190
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	184
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	275
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	257
13-inch MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	153
13-inch MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	166
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	104
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	67

All results are scores. Higher scores are better. Best result in bold. Reference models in italics.—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith, Albert Filice, and Kean Bartelman.

All about performance

To see how these new updates affect performance, we ran our Speedmark 8 overall system performance benchmark suite, which helps us compare the new system’s results to those of previous systems and other Apple portables. The new 13-inch 2.6GHz Retina MacBook Pro earned a Speedmark 8 score of 190, about 3 percent faster than the 13-inch base model with its 2.5GHz Core i5 processor. With both systems sharing so many specifications (graphics, flash storage, RAM), its not surprising that most tests results were very close, and some were even identical.

The high-end 13-inch 2.6GHz Core i5 Retina MacBook Pro’s Speedmark 8 score was 24 percent higher than that of the high-end 13-inch 2.9GHz Core i7 standard MacBook Pro, due almost entirely to the Retina MacBook Pro’s faster flash storage. The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro was faster in seven tests, including a file duplication test that took five times longer to complete on the non-Retina MacBook Pro’s standard 5400-rpm hard drive. The standard MacBook Pro, with its discrete graphics and speedier Core i7 processor, was faster in seven tests, including MathematicaMark 8, Portal 2, and Cinebench’s OpenGL and CPU tests.

If you’re trying to decide between a MacBook Air and a Retina MacBook Pro, you’ll be interested to know that the Retina MacBook Pro was 14 percent faster overall, with processor-intensive tests showing the biggest differences. The Retina MacBook Pro was 40 percent faster than the MacBook Air in our Handbrake test, 17 percent faster in the Cinebench CPU test, and 7 percent faster in the MathematicaMark 8 test. The extra RAM in the MacBook Pro helped it earn a 34 percent higher productivity score in PCMark running on Windows 7 using VMWare Fusion.

Despite having twice the amount of RAM and slightly faster processor, the new high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro was just 3 percent faster than the previous high-end 15-inch model that had the same graphics and flash storage. The new high-end model was 5 percent faster overall than the new base 15-inch Retina model. When comparing the performance of the new low-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro and the new high-end 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, you see a very large difference between the two, with the 15-inch model being 47 percent faster overall. In both Portal 2 and Cinebench’s OpenGL tests, the discrete graphics in the 15-inch model displayed more than twice as many frames per second as the 13-inch model’s integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000.

Bottom line

The new Retina MacBook Pros represent a subtle refresh to the line of beautiful, ultra-high-resolution portables introduced last year. The price reductions for the 13-inch models make them a better bargain than before, while the 16GB of RAM in the high-end 15-inch MacBook Pro might help take the sting out of the $2799 price tag.

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Individual application scores

	Duplicate 2GB Folder	Compress 6GB Folder	Uncompress 6GB Folder
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	37.4	274.2	34.9
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	36.8	304.1	38.8
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	39.5	319.1	42.6
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	40.7	329.1	43.7
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	37.7	286.8	41.2
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	38.2	312.1	41.9
13-inch MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	189.9	312.6	187.2
13-inch MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	41.8	361.8	48.9
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	258.6	451.8	225.8
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	435.5	525.9	438.5

Results are in seconds. Lower results are better. Best result in bold. Reference models in italics.

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Individual application scores

	Import iMovie Archive	iMovie Share to iTunes	HandBrake Encode
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	42.7	55.4	79.7
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	47.2	57.6	80
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	81.7	66.6	107
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	85.1	70.3	108.7
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	45.1	59.3	81.3
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	48.8	66.9	84.3
13-inch MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	98.6	67.8	107.3
13-inch MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	95.1	74.9	177.7
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	88.1	104.3	117.7
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	210.9	160.7	161.3

Results are in seconds. Lower results are better. Best result in bold. Reference models in italics.

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Individual application scores

	iPhoto Import	Aperture Import	Photoshop CS5 Action
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	43.3	50.3	88.7
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	47	49.2	91.3
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	77	62.7	106.7
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	82.3	64.5	108.0
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	46.1	51.4	89.3
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	51.4	54.9	90.7
13-inch MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	121.9	85.3	104.3
13-inch MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	82	72.5	120.7
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	155.6	118.1	176.7
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	268.3	198.5	374

Results are in seconds. Lower results are better. Best result in bold. Reference models in italics.

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Individual application scores

	iTunes AAC to MP3 Encode	Cinebench CPU	VMware PCMark	Mathe- maticaMark 8
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	88	64	4061	2.01
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	93	67.3	3828.3	1.93
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	103.3	141	3286	1.07
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	108.7	147.0	3061.7	1.07
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	90.7	64.7	*4184*	2.0
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	96.3	73.7	3714.3	1.9
13-inch MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	105.7	121.7	3495	1.2
13-inch MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	115.7	170.3	2450	1.0
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	134	203	911.3	0.7
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	156.3	294	660	0.6

iTunes and Cinebench CPU results are in seconds (lower results are better). VMware PCMark and MathematicaMark 8 are scores (higher results are better). Best result in bold. Reference models in italics.

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Graphics tests

	Cinebench OpenGL	Portal 2
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	39.3	129.9
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	36.7	122.4
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	17.7	49.6
13-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	17.7	49.3
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	39.2	128.6
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	36.1	120.8
13-inch MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	21.8	61
13-inch MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	17.8	52.3
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	12.4	49.8
15-inch MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	9.8	28

Results are in frames per second. HIgher results are better. Best result in bold. Reference models in italics.

Survey: Identity fraud in US reaches highest level in three years

2013-02-21T06:35:00.002-08:00

U.S. consumers experienced the highest level of identity theft in three years in 2012, although much of the fraud losses were absorbed by banks and merchants, according to a new survey.

Incidents of identity fraud affected 5.26 percent of U.S. adults last year, according to a survey of 5,249 people by Javelin Strategy and Research. That’s up from 4.9 percent in 2011 and 4.35 percent in 2010. The company put the total number of identity victims in 2012 at 12.6 million.

At least half of those victims did not bear the cost of the fraud, Javelin said in its report. Of those who did, the mean cost rose to $365 in 2012, from $354 in 2011. The bulk of the fraud was absorbed by financial institutions, merchants and other businesses, Javelin said.

One of the largest spikes came in new account fraud, where criminals collect personal data and then open, for example, a new credit card account. New account fraud climbed to 1.22 percent of adults last year, from 0.82 percent in 2011.

More than half of the new account fraud involved applying for general-use and store-branded credit cards, Javelin said.

New account fraud “poses a growing threat to consumer identities and private industry’s bottom line—especially as the total fraud loss has doubled from 2011, to $9.8 billion,” Javelin said.

Data breaches were a likely source for Social Security numbers, issued to all U.S. citizens, and a key piece of information often required for opening new accounts. Consumers who knew their SSN had been breached were 14 times more likely to be a victim of new account fraud, Javelin said.

Javelin said it also found a large jump in account takeover incidents, which increased from 0.36 percent in 2011 to 0.60 percent in 2012. Fraudsters likely obtained account details through data breaches or through malicious software attacks.

“By changing consumer contact information, fraudsters can limit the consumer’s ability to be notified of fraud while redirecting any newly requested payment cards,” the report said. “The misuse of store-branded cards could allow fraud to go undetected longer, as these accounts are less likely to be reviewed or used than general-use credit cards.”

The most financially damaging fraud in the account takeover category was ACH (Automated Clearing House) and wire transfer fraud, which had the highest mean fraud figure at $5,138 per incident.

ACH is a widely used but aging system that is used by financial institutions for exchanging details of direct deposits, checks and cash transfers made by businesses and individuals. It is overseen by the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA), a nonprofit association.

Javelin’s survey was sponsored by CitiGroup, Intersections LLC and Visa, although those companies were not involved in the analysis in order to maintain the project’s independence and objectivity, Javelin said.

Ultimate Google toolbox: 20 tips, tricks, and hacks

2013-02-15T20:50:00.002-08:00

Google's search, mail, maps, and cloud services are practically de facto public utilities. Fire up your browser, and there Google is. But don't take Google for granted—there's much more to its core services than meets the eye.

With this toolbox of tips, usability tricks, and third-party services, you can rule the Google universe and bend it to your will. The following will help you keep your privacy, fix Google annoyances, and get the most out of automation (so you can waste your time doing other things online).

Search privately: Startpage (also known as Ixquick) is an alternative to Google's search page that lets you use Google's search engine but doesn't send Google your IP address or allow cookies to be placed on your computer. Startpage can also stop embarrassing ads based on previous searches from haunting you across the Web. If you want private results from multiple search engines, also try DuckDuckGo, which excludes Google results but has similar privacy-oriented features.

Block Google tracking beyond just search: The handy serviceDisconnect works across all websites you visit. Available as a browser extension, it disables tracking by parties such as Google, Facebook, and Digg.

Compared with the Do Not Track features currently built into browsers, Disconnect gives you more protection. Although Firefox, Internet Explorer (9 and 10), and Safari have Do Not Track privacy options that you can enable, website implementation of the feature is voluntary—which means there's no guarantee it will work for many sites. Disconnect, on the other hand, works on all sites no matter what.

Answer questions for lazy friends: The next time a relative or buddy emails a question that he or she could easily answer with a simple Google search, whip out Let Me Google That for You. Simply type the query in the box, and share the link from the text field underneath. Your friend will see how typing the query in Google can yield results without bothering you. It's a learning experience for the disconnected.

Start Chrome in Incognito mode every time you launch the browser:To start Chrome in its private-browsing Incognito mode, right-click the Chrome shortcut icon on your desktop, select Properties, and in the Target field add –incognito to the end of the program path. Make sure to put a space between the final quotation mark in the existing text string and the hyphen you insert, and you’re good to go. (See the screenshot for an example.)

Check multiple Google Mail accounts at once: Checker Plus for Gmail lets you monitor your inboxes from a single place, without even having a tab open. Once you install this Chrome extension, it automatically detects Google accounts to which you are signed in. From an icon next to the omnibar, you can then see new email messages at a glance across your accounts. Checker Plus includes sound notifications, and it can even run in the background when Chrome is closed, so you never miss incoming mail. You can read, delete, archive, or mark email as read; when you need to reply or to compose new messages, however, Checker Plus will open a new Gmail window.

Automatically save Gmail attachments to Google Drive: Thanks to the Mail to Driveservice, which automatically copies attachments from your Gmail messages to Google Drive, you don’t have to store files locally and then upload them to your drive. Once you've installed it, you set up a special label that you assign to messages with attachments you want to copy to Google Drive. The app runs in the Google Apps Cloud automatically every 5 minutes (so you don’t need to have your browser open to Gmail) and copies the attachments to a designated folder. You also receive an email message when the transfer is done.

Tame inbox overload: Ever feel like you're drowning in an endless ocean of email messages? Email Game attempts to rescue you. It's basically an alternative interface for Gmail that shows you only one message at a time and challenges you to reply in a timely fashion. You get 5 seconds to decide what to do with each message, earning points for performing each task promptly. For example, if you choose to reply to a message, the interface gives you 3 minutes to do so, though you can add more time if necessary. At the end of the session, you get a tally of how many points you racked up while plowing through your inbox.

Get a bird’s-eye view of your inbox: Sign up with your Gmail credentials, and Gmail Meter sends you a report at the beginning of each month with your top senders and recipients, plus charts for the time of the day and week when you receive and send the most email.

Eliminate YouTube annoyances: Watching a YouTube video is getting harder by the day with all the commercial distractions surrounding each video. You can make YouTube less annoying, however, with the YouTube Options for Google Chrome browser extension, which allows you to tweak every aspect of YouTube. Through this extension you can hide ads and annotations, disable autoplay, and hide comments.

Make YouTube videos easier on the eye: Compatible with most browsers, the simple extension Turn Off the Lights dims everything on the webpage around the video. Whenever you see a little lamp icon on your toolbar, you can click it to make the surroundings go dark, turning YouTube into more of a lean-back-and-enjoy experience.

Move quickly through YouTube videos: Keyboard shortcuts can save you a number of mouse clicks. Press the J key to rewind the video a few seconds, or press L to fast-forward a few seconds into the video. You can also use the K key, as well as the spacebar, to pause and resume videos.

Download YouTube videos to your computer: Although many apps and websites claim to help you do this, they can be hit and miss at best, especially since Google is trying to block various services from downloading copyrighted videos. One simple and effective option is the Download YouTube Videos add-on for Firefox, which inserts a download button underneath videos on YouTube and allows you to select the quality level at which to save the file.

Edit photos and videos directly from Google Drive: The Pixlr Express app spares you from having to download photos, make basic edits in a separate program, and then reupload them. Once you install the app, simply right-click an image on your Google Drive to see an option to open it in Pixlrs, where you can crop and adjust the image, as well as add effects overlays, borders, text, and stickers. Once your edit is done, you can save and replace your Google Drive file, or save the new version as a copy, without leaving your browser. You can also try Pixlr Editor for a more Photoshop-like interface with tools for red-eye reduction and drawing. If you’d like to apply the same concept to video, check outWeVideo.

Send and receive faxes from Google Drive for free: Fax machines are almost extinct, but on the odd occasion you need to send a fax or sign a document, turn to HelloFax, a nifty extension that does both. The service lets you send a fax straight from your Google Drive to a fax machine just by entering the number; inbound faxes come to you by email in the form of a PDF, and reside in a special Google Drive folder.

Sign documents and fill in forms from Google Drive: With HelloSign, you can store your signature to sign documents or fill out forms, which you can send via email. The app also lets you assign signature fields in documents and send signature requests straight from a folder on your Google Drive.

Automate mundane Google Drive tasks: Wappwolf connects to your Google Drive (or Dropbox account) and seeks out certain types of files for which you have specified actions. For example, you can ask Wappwolf to convert to PDF any document you drop into a particular folder on your drive. In addition, you can have the tool convert audio files to a new format, send files to your Kindle, or upload photos to multiple social networks at once, as well as resize images or add effects.

Encrypt and safeguard your Google Drive files: A good tool for this job is BoxCryptor, which encrypts files on the fly and syncs them with Google Drive immediately after you save them. Since the encrypting and decrypting happen locally, your password never transmits to third parties, making your file unreadable even if someone breaches your Google Drive. For more, see this tutorial on using BoxCryptor.

Turn Google Maps into a game: Map Cube is an experimental Google Chrome browser-based game made by Google Maps that turns New York, Tokyo, and many other cities into a 3D tilt-labyrinth game (see video below). To play, you tilt a ball through city streets and across bridges to reach landmarks of historic and cultural note.

Undelete events, including the details, in Google Calendar: Whenever you delete an event, that data sticks around for a while before it’s permanently gone. The tool Spanning Undelete fetches a list of recently deleted events and lets you choose which ones to bring back from a list of recoverable items.

Record calls with Google Voice: Although Google doesn’t allow you to record outgoing calls, you can record calls you receive. Once you enable the option under Settings > Calls > Call Options, you simply press the 4 key at any time to record incoming calls. A voice will note on the line that the call is being recorded, and it will issue another alert when you stop the process. You can access your recorded calls by clicking Recorded on the left side of the page. Different laws apply to call recording depending on location, so check your state's current laws as well as federal regulations before using this feature.

Skype launches limited video messaging trial

2013-02-15T20:47:00.004-08:00

Skype soft-launched a video messaging service on Friday that allows its subscribers to deliver recorded clips to Skype contacts for playback when they come online.

The service is initially available for users running Skype on Android, Apple’s iPhone, and Mac OS X computers and is part of the Skype Premium package that costs $10 per month. Nonsubscribers are being offered 20 free messages over the next three months to try the service.

Each message can be up to three minutes long and the feature is available through the “plus” button in Skype apps running on supported systems.

“We’re looking for feedback,” said Chaim Haas, a spokesman for Skype. He said users can connect with Skype through Twitter and its Facebook page.

Skype inadvertently disclosed the feature in December when it updated its terms of service to include a description of the video messaging service.

Office for Windows Phone 8: Your handy starter guide

2013-02-11T07:18:00.003-08:00

Microsoft’s Office suite has long been an industry mainstay, and whether you're a PC user or a Mac user, you've most likely relied on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to get stuff done. And as our lives shift off of desktops and onto mobile devices, software is following suit. To that end, the Office suite comes preinstalled as a simple app on every phone running Windows Phone 8.

While it's still a far cry from the full-fledged tools offered in the desktop version, Office for Windows Phone 8 lets you perform basic productivity tasks on your mobile handset.

The app itself is straightforward, and divided into two panes: Recent and Places. The Recent pane lists all of the files you’ve interacted with lately, while Places lists all of the locations that Office can search for your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. Office for Windows Phone 8 supports Office 365 and compatible email attachments, and SkyDrive integration makes the entire experience decidedly more pleasant. Files stored in your SkyDrive account update automatically, allowing you to work on items stored on the cloud across multiple machines.

The app treats all files equally, but to start I'll cover the three main file types: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Microsoft Word

Typing up a Word document

Although Word on Windows Phone 8 lacks most of the bells and whistles of its desk-bound counterpart, it still allows you to create and edit text documents with ease—provided that you don’t mind hammering out prose on your phone's keyboard.

Caveats abound, however. For starters, the mobile Word currently lacks support for tracking changes; in fact, you can't do any editing at all on documents for which changes are tracked. It is also unable to edit older Word file formats, so anything you want to work on must have the .docx extension (or be a file that you created on your Windows Phone).

To create a new Word document, first open the Office app, and then select the plus sign in the Recent tab.You can select from Word or Excel documents, and the Office app also offers a few commonly used templates for each type of document. For example, you'll find Word templates for agendas, outlines, and reports, as well as Excel templates for budgets, event schedules, and a mileage tracker.

Select Word (or a Word template), and the document will open. When you're done entering your text, tap the ellipsis (More) button to 'save' or 'save as'. The app will ask you to enter a filename and to choose whether to save the document to your phone or to your SkyDrive account.

Formatting text in a Word document

You can also add comments to a Word document. First, tap anywhere in the text to invoke the menu bar, and then tap to select a word. The word should be highlighted. Next, tap the Comment icon, which looks like a word bubble with a plus sign inside. A box for your comment will appear. Type it in, and then tap outside of the comment box to return to your document. The word will remain highlighted, and tapping it will display the comment as well as the name of the user who made the comment.

Ultimately, Word on Windows Phone 8 is fairly satisfying, despite the fact that formatting options are sparse. Tapping the brush icon that sits in the menu tray will let you “paint” formatting options onto text you’ve selected. You’ll find standard text options for bolding and italicizing, as well as for changing font size and colors. The tools aren’t quite as robust as Google’s Drive offerings are, and you get no support for collaborative editing—unless you're willing to shell out cash for Office 365. But despite the (admittedly frustrating) limitations, if you’re just trying to get some work done on the go, Word will certainly suffice.

Microsoft Excel

Working on an Excel spreadsheet

Though Excel is the world's most popular spreadsheet program hands down, its transition to mobile operating systems takes some getting used to. Even the roomiest Windows Phone handset doesn't provide much screen real estate for navigating spreadsheets, and the tool can't edit files that involve some of Excel’s more advanced features (such as XML maps). The mobile Excel is also a bit unintuitive: The undo and redo commands are nested behind a menu, while the phone’s back button is the only way to hide the keyboard once you’ve started typing.

Opening a new Excel workbook is fairly straightforward. You start by opening the Office app from either the Start menu or the app list, and then you tap the plus sign to create a new document. Once your new Excel document is open, you can add numbers and text by tapping a cell and then tapping in the formula bar to the right of the function command (tapping the function command itself here will display a lengthy list of common functions that you can use). Enter numbers and text in the cell, and tap the enter button—the bent left-facing arrow at the bottom right of the keyboard—to finish.

Entering data into cells

After you're finished entering data, selecting the back arrow button on the home menu removes the keyboard. You can delete data in cells by selecting the cell and then pressing the delete key (an arrow box with an X inside it) on the keyboard.

In general, the Excel portion of the Office app has an attractive albeit simple interface: A menu bar running along the bottom of the screen offers buttons for swapping between tabs on your worksheet, using the Auto Sum function, searching your spreadsheet, or sorting rows and columns. The bar is context-sensitive—highlight a few cells, and the search function becomes a charting option. You can also freeze panes to keep rows visible; add comments and format text; and add filters to your spreadsheet’s columns. Excel on Windows Phone 8 isn’t robust enough for exhaustive spreadsheet duties, but its support for basic files and SkyDrive makes it handy in a pinch.

Microsoft PowerPoint

Viewing all slides in a PowerPoint presentation

While the mobile incarnations of Excel and Word both make some effort to be functionality-focused, the mobile iteration of PowerPoint is, by contrast, useful strictly as a means of viewing PowerPoint files. Editing is possible only on modern PowerPoint files (those sporting a .pptx or .pptm extension), though “editing” is a bit of a misnomer—you can’t create new PowerPoint presentations on the device, and you're limited to altering text and changing the slide order.

However, viewing works like a charm: In our tests, older presentations tended to shed images, but files created with the latest desktop version of PowerPoint worked flawlessly, complete with robust, animated transitions. The app will prove useful for sharing presentations from your phone, but you’ll want to make sure to do the heavy lifting on a proper PC.

To open a PowerPoint document, open the Office app and then locate PowerPoint in the Places tab or on the Recent tab (if you want to work on a presentation that you have recently opened). Flick left to go to the next slide in the series; flick right to return to the previous slide. You can reach a specific slide in the series by tapping the Slides icon (four boxes in a square) and then selecting the slide you want to see. You can zoom in and out of a slide by pinching your fingers in and out on the screen.

Viewing a PowerPoint presentation

Although you can't fully edit (or create) a PowerPoint slide in this app, you can edit text within a PowerPoint document by going to the slide in question and tapping the edit icon (a box with a pen in it). Select the text by tapping it, make your changes, and tap the Done checkmark button once you're finished. You can also add notes by tapping anywhere in the notes area underneath a slide (if you're in landscape mode, you'll first need to flick up to see the notes area).

You can share PowerPoint presentations via email by tapping and holding the presentation from the menu and then selecting share...from the pop-up menu; you can pin presentations to the Start menu or delete them in a similar manner.

Security firm Bit9 says hackers attacked it and a few clients

2013-02-11T07:16:00.000-08:00

Security vendor Bit9 promised to release limited details of a hack caused by a failure of the company to install the same security software on its own network that it sells to a handful of Fortune 500 companies.

Bit9, which is based in Waltham, Massachusetts,provides a platform that aims, among other functions, to block the installation of malicious applications. Although its product was not compromised, hackers found a weakness in company servers that issue code-signing certificates.

Once compromised, the hackers issued certificates for their own malicious software, which was then found on the networks of three Bit9 customers.

Attacks were targeted

Bit9 doesn't list its customers by name on its website. But it says more than 1000 companies use its software, including Fortune 500 companies in banking, energy, aerospace and defense, and U.S. federal government agencies.

Bit9 CTO Harry Sverdlove wrote on Saturday: "We can only speculate, but we believe the attack on us was part of a larger campaign against a particular and narrow set of companies."

With Bit9's certificate, the malicious software looked at first glance as if it were legitimate and coming from the company. A valid certificate, however, isn't a free pass for malware since other kinds of security software may determine by its actions if an application is behaving in unusual ways and block it.

After news of the hack was broken by Krebs on Security, Bit9 CEO Patrick Morley disclosed the hack on Friday on a company blog. He wrote that "due to an operational oversight within Bit9, we failed to install our own product on a handful of computers within our network."

Limited information will be shared as the investigation continues, Sverdlove wrote. "For anyone who has ever been involved in an investigation of this type, you know that absolute or complete information is not always possible, so I can't promise that every puzzle piece will be revealed," he added.

Bit9 has shared cryptographic hashes, a kind of digital footprint of the files that were fraudulently signed with Bit9's certificate, Sverdlove wrote. The company plans to release more network information, tactics and files.

Hackers have proved adept at finding weaknesses in security vendors' systems with the intent to attack other targets further downstream.

In March 2011, RSA revealed hackers mounted an extremely sophisticated attack on its SecurID tokens, which generate one-time passcodes used to log into enterprise IT systems.

Make Office 2013 more powerful with 10 killer apps

2013-02-04T20:24:00.001-08:00

There's no dictionary, geographic mapping or flow chart tool baked into the core Microsoft Office 2013 software, but you can still get all these functions for free or a small fee. Developers from Microsoft and beyond have created a variety of apps that you can embed within Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook to work faster and more intelligently.

browse featured and new apps and find apps by Office program.

The new apps for Office are available only for the Office 365 subscription, Office 2013, and some of the Office Web Apps—not for earlier versions of Office. There are three types of apps:

Task pane apps typically provide reference information, such as a dictionary. They're supported by the 2013 editions of Excel, Word, Project Professional and PowerPoint. These apps open a task pane on the right side of the current program window, where you work them.
Content apps are supported by Excel 2013 and the Excel Web App only. They are embedded inside your worksheet and saved with it. Examples are a calendar date picker or additional charting designs.
Mail apps are supported by Outlook 2013 and the Outlook Web App, and they require you to be using Exchange Server 2013. Mail apps won't work with POP and IMAP email accounts, so they're effectively limited to business use. Mail apps display next to an item in Outlook, such as an email message or a meeting request. They access data from the Outlook object to provide additional content—for example, a map showing the location of a meeting.

Additional apps are compatible only with SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise edition.

Here's the Apps for Office button in Word's Insert tab.

How to install apps for Office

Click the Insert tab from within your Office application, then click Apps for Office, See All. A dialog will open, showing My Apps and Featured Apps. In Featured Apps, you can click More Apps to open a browser window leading to the Office store, where you can see the apps available for the program you’re using. Or, you can godirectly to the Office Store. Here are 10 apps to check out now.

Insert a date or the current time into a cell in one click.

1. Mini calendar and date picker

Need to enter dates into your Excel spreadsheet over and over again? This app embeds itself within a worksheet and pops up a calendar that you click on to insert a date or time into the currently selected cell. You can set your own week start date and color scheme, and enable or disable week numbers. You can do a free trial for this $1.99 app. The apps buying process needs work; after we purchased the app, it still described itself as a trial version. However, the developer was quick to assist when we reached out.

Get an instant layout for a range of Avery printable papers.

2. Avery templates

Not a paperless office? If you ever print address labels or name tags, then get this free app for Word 2013. This task pane app lets you search for printable Avery products and create a document based on each one. This spares you from having to search for a suitable template or creating one from scratch, for example, labels using the Mailing labels feature in Word.

Word 2013 doesn’t ship with a dictionary, so you'll need to add your own.

3. Bing dictionary

Surprise! Microsoft Word no longer ships with a dictionary, so you'll need to find one on your own. There are a few dictionary apps in the store, but the free Bing Dictionary for Word and Excel 2013 offers convenience detail. It provides a small amount of information in the task pane. You can click See Moreto view more information, including sample sentences for context.

4. LinkedIn for Outlook

This freebie installs into Outlook 2013 and the Outlook Web App. It provides details of your LinkedIn connections, groups, profile information, and recent activity. If you are using the Outlook Web App you will need also to be using Internet Explorer 9 or later, and Windows 7 or 8. If you can't access this app because your email isn't handled by an Exchange Server, don't despair; its functionality is similar to that of the Outlook Social Connector that's already built into Outlook 2013.

Simplify making calculations within a range of Excel data.

5. Range Applications

This free tool performs calculations, such as multiplying or dividing a range by a value, or adding a value to or subtracting a value from a range. It can also add percentages to or subtract percentages from a range. While you can do this using Excel Paste Special options, it's neither intuitive nor easy for beginner users. This app lets you select the range, the type of calculation, and the value to work with, and then it does all the work. When you click Calculate, it warns you that formulas in the range will be overwritten with values after processing. At that point, either click Yes to continue or Cancel to exit.

6. Bing Maps

This fast, free app embeds into your Excel 2013 worksheet, allowing you to plot location-based data on a map. You can zoom in and out of the map, and choose from either a road or a bird's eye map view. It can chart more than one series of data. However, because pie and circle charts are your only choices, you can only use a series of data with positive values. If your data meets these limitations, this is a useful tool.

Lucid Chart app takes you to a website to create a diagram, which you can then insert into your document.

7. Lucid Chart

This free app for Word lets you create a range of diagrams, such as flowcharts, mind maps, site maps, and organizational charts. The application installs as a task pane in Word, but to create a diagram you’ll be taken to the program's web site. There you can select from a range of shapes, including flowchart shapes and various text containers. You can color, resize and position these on the screen, and connect shapes to other shapes. The add-on is easy to use, and charts can be formatted to look neat and professional. When you’re done making tweaks, click Return to Office to return to Word. Your chart shows up in the task pane's list so you can insert it into your document.

You're a free thinker? MindMapper helps with brainstorming.

8. MindMapper

MindMapper is an app for PowerPoint, Excel, Word and Project Professional. You can try it free of charge and it costs $2.99 to buy. MindMapper shows you what an app can look like if it is intelligently designed. It has a getting started tutorial and is very easy to use. Designers have built the entire app in the task pane complete with Open, New and Save buttons, and with tabs that contain multiple tools for working on a map.

LegalZoom's app provides boilerplate legal forms within Word.

9. LegalZoom

Legal forms are missing from Microsoft Word's own document templates, but you can get boilerplate templates for things like a non-disclosure agreement or an apartment lease from LegalZoom. Once you download its free app, activate it by clicking Word's Insert toolbar, then Apps for Office, and Free legal forms. A menu of forms appears in the task pane. Pick a form, and download it. To make the form your own, make sure to select Enable Editing along the top of the open document. Naturally, LegalZoom invites you to register with its site for additional step-by-step help, but that's not required.

Get rid of pesky excess space in Excel cells.

10. Trim Spaces

If you spend a lot of time in Excel, there's no greater chore than making manual formatting changes. Data that's imported from another source is often riddled with errors, quirky characters, or plain old blank space that yawns from a column of text. The Trim Spaces app from Add-in Express will free you from deleting every blank space by hand. Plus, it's free. Its makers provide additional Excel add-ins, including a random number generator and duplicate data remover. Huzzah!

Run too many apps at once, and they eat up all your Office document space.

Use Office apps efficiently

Although we're spotlighting some of the most useful add-ins here, some Office apps aren't always integrated in the most elegant fashion—starting with installation that makes you go back and forth between the Office Store and Office software. Nor is launching an app from within Office always swift. If you have several task pane apps running at once, your document all but disappears in the clutter. And, unlike with a web browser, there's no tabbed organization, so multiple Office windows can clutter your desktop. To make these apps enhance rather than frustrate your Office experience, use them sparingly, one at a time.

What does HTC's shift in focus bode for its future phones?

2013-02-04T20:20:00.001-08:00

As the long fall of HTC continues, the phone maker says it's turning its focus to cheap smartphones in emerging markets.

The announcement came during an earnings call, in which HTC said to expect worse revenues than analysts expected, and either steady or shrinking profit margins,Reuters reports. It's unclear exactly how the shift in focus will affect HTC's roadmap for high-end phones in the United States and other developed markets. (HTC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Droid DNA

HTC enjoyed huge growth during the early smartphone boom in 2010 and 2011, thanks in large part to its popular high-end phones. Handsets like the Droid Incredible and the HTC Evo 4Gwere among the earliest decent alternatives to the iPhone, at a time when Apple's handset was still an AT&T exclusive.

Even after the iPhone launched on Verizon, HTC still came up with hits like the Thunderbolt, which was one of Verizon's first 4G LTE smartphone.

But in late 2011, everything changed. New iPhones and Samsung's Galaxy handsets (including the popular Galaxy S II) sent HTC's earnings downward, and the company's been in a freefall ever since.

In the United States, HTC has struggled to get broad availability for its flagship phones. In the United States, only AT&T carried the One X earlier this year, while Sprint opted for a variant, dubbed the Evo 4G LTE. T-Mobile sold a smaller variant called the One S, and Verizon sold the mid-range Droid Incredible 4G LTE. Only AT&T picked up the One X+, an updated version of the phone. Compared to Samsung, which is able to get both the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II on all four carriers and aggressively advertise them as anti-Apple alternatives, HTC doesn't stand much of a chance.

HTC's Windows 8 Phones

HTC has also placed some bets on Windows Phone, with handsets like theWindows Phone 8x. But Microsoft's mobile operating system hasn't gained much traction, so it's unlikely that HTC's efforts have paid off.

Although HTC seems to have soured on the high-end market, the company still has products in the pipeline. Its next flagship phone, the M7, is rumored to have a 4.7-inch 1080p display, a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor, a 12-megapixel camera and a new version of HTC's Sense user interface. The phone will likely be announced at a press event on February 19.

Despite its poor performance, HTC's phones have been reviewed favorably. The One X+, for instance, was a personal favorite last year, and the Droid DNA deserves praise as the first 1080p smartphone in the U.S. market. Let's hope HTC's new interest in emerging markets implies a sharper focus on a smaller number of high-end phones, rather than a complete abandonment of what the company used to do best.

New Linux distro will target disabled users

2013-02-04T20:18:00.005-08:00

There are more than a billion people around the globe living with some sort of disability today, yet software in general and operating systems in particular are just beginning to address their computing needs.

Microsoft's Windows 8 reportedly brought with it some accessibility improvements, and now a new project on the Linux side aims to take such efforts even further with a brand-new Linux distribution specifically targeting disabled users.

“I want to build a Linux operating system focused on accessibility,” explains developer Jonathan Nadeau in his Sonar Project campaign page on Indieogogo. “Not just for blind and low vision people, but for people who struggle with dyslexia and learning disabilities as well as accessibility for people with low motor skills and quadriplegics.”

'We are being left behind'

There are roughly 360 million blind and low vision people in the world, for example, but 90 percent of them live in developing countries. Eighty percent of those in the United States are unemployed. Meanwhile, the average cost of proprietary accessibility software is around $900, Nadeau explains.

“How are they supposed to afford this?” writes Nadeau, who is himself blind as a result of a 1992 car accident. ”The faster technology moves, the farther we are being left behind.”

There have been some advances in the Linux world over the years, to be sure. The GNOME Accessibility Project has already been under way for some time, for example; Fedora Linux has also published an accessibility guide.

Then, too, there have been offerings like Vinux, which is aimed at the blind and visually impaired. There have also been Linux screen readers such as Orca and text-to-speech readers such as eSpeak, Festival, and Emacspeak, as Linux.com's Carla Schroder noted last year.

'Anyone can modify it'

Meanwhile, the Ubuntu-based S onar Project hopes to go further with an accessible Linux distribution that's not only free in cost, but also has free source code.

“Free (as in source code) is the most important part of this,” Nadeau explains. “Since the source code will be Free, this means that once the operating system is built, anyone can modify it to improve and enhance what already exists. I want people that depend on assistive technology to use Free software so we can be in control of our own computing and accessibility needs.”

The Sonar Project seeks $20,000 in funding by Feb. 20; so far, it's garnered only $2,385.

Microsoft Surface Pro hands-on impressions from CES

2013-01-11T20:04:00.003-08:00

Perhaps you remember Surface RT. It was Microsoft’s bid to become a legitimate computer hardware manufacturer—a Windows-based tablet with a clever, snappy, magnetically attached keyboard cover. It looked great. It felt great. It had all the pluck and presence of Grade A industrial design.

Surface RT gave us the touch control of Microsoft’s modern U.I., but was also intended to serve as a solid, no-excuses PC productivity station. The tablet even came with a starter version of Microsoft Office to help fulfill that promise.

But Surface RT was also laden with a crappy OS—hobbled by Windows RT and its “desktop as barren wasteland” conceit. And this is why I now discuss Surface RT in the past-tense. It’s not a device that anyone can seriously consider. Not when there are so many worthy Windows 8 Ultrabooks and hybrid designs to choose from.

The good money has always been on Surface Pro. It was announced right alongside Surface RT, with a promised release date of sometime in the neighborhood of January 26. Surface Pro is a slightly thicker, much more powerful version of Microsoft’s original Surface tablet. In fact, it looks identical to Surface RT, save for being 0.53-inch thick instead of 0.37-inch thick. And even though it weighs 2 pounds to Surface RT’s 1.5 pounds, it really doesn’t feel all that much heavier.

But, most importantly, Surface Pro bids adieu to the nonsense of Windows RT, and delivers Windows 8 Pro instead. And that classy, molded magnesium chassis is now stuffed with a Core i5 processor—you know, just like a real PC.

Even though Microsoft all but ditched CES this year (simply delegating Steve Ballmer to class up Qualcomm’s absurd keynote), the Surface team did touch down in Las Vegas to show off its new Surface with Windows 8 Pro in a back-room, practically off-the-grid demo.

Screen: Yes, thanks for the extra pixels

IMAGE: MICROSOFT

Here's a great side shot of the upcoming Surface Pro. If you're familiar with Surface RT, you can immediately tell the Pro version is thicker.

Both Surface RT and Surface Pro feature 10.6-inch, optically bonded displays, but where the RT’s screen tops out at 1366x768, the Pro version of Surface delivers a true HD resolution of 1920x1080. This bump in pixel density helps address one of my main gripes with Surface RT: Its unmistakable lack of visual clarity compared to Apple’s Retina display products.

During my CES demo, I got a good half-hour with the Surface Pro, and every time I held it, I noticed and re-noticed its improved pixel density. It’s not anything that leaps forward when Surface is propped on a table in workstation mode, but when you’re grasping the device in your hands, tablet-style, the improved resolution is obvious, and in your face.

We also ran Surface RT with an external display, driving a behemoth, high-res monitor via the Pro’s Mini DisplayPort adapter. OK, that was a revelation. When attached to an external monitor, the Surface Pro really does become a full PC—and in this mode, the tablet itself can function as a drawing pad for full-fledged graphics applications, thanks to its included pen.

About that pen

IMAGE: MICROSOFT

The digitizer pen magnetically snaps into the tablet's power port when not in use.

The Surface Pro’s pen attaches to the tablet’s magnetic power adapter port when it’s not in use. The fit is snug enough, I guess, and it clamps down to the tablet chassis with all the grip of the power connector itself. But the storage system for the digitizer still worries me. I’m used to storing tablet styluses inside hardware, not having them hang off the side. How many weeks before these pens are lost en masse?

Regardless, the pen itself performed relatively well when drawing in digital ink. There was the slightest—slightest—bit of lag in drawing response, but while it was noticeable, it wasn’t consequential. Microsoft couldn’t tell me how many levels of pressure sensitivity are offered by the pen, but simply having a full-fledged Windows tablet that can get close to a Wacom pad is a nice bonus feature.

Performance: Smooth, like a PC should

IMAGE: MICROSOFT

Where Surface RT has a closed chasis, Surface Pro is vented—to let out the hot air generated by the Core i5 processor.

The new Surface will ship with an Intel Core i5 processor, integrated Intel graphics, and 4GB of RAM. Microsoft isn’t disclosing clock speeds. I only had a brief amount of time with the machine, and Microsoft didn’t demo any desktop applications—but let’s all take a moment to thank the more sensible architects in Redmond for letting us run full desktop applications in Microsoft’s latest tablet.

(A quick refresher for Windows RT know-nots: The so-called desktop in Windows RT only runs Microsoft Office and basic file system functions. You cannot install traditional Windows desktop applications, and as a result, the RT “desktop” feels like a functionless, pointless, vestigial artifact. Its lack of utility is actually distracting. But the Surface Pro tablet runs a full version of Windows 8, so its desktop is open for business—literally, metaphorically, magnificently.)

Surface Pro did feel a wee bit faster in the modern, live-tiled Windows interface, and that actually says something for the performance of Intel silicon, given that Surface RT’s ARM processor is more than capable of handling the new Windows U.I. Of course, the real test will come when we run full-fledged Windows apps and games in desktop mode. My expectation is that we’ll find performance perfectly commensurate to i5 machines running the same specs.

During the demo, we did fire up the first-person shooter Bulletstorm, and its frame rate at 1920x1080 was smooth enough to play, but didn’t look butter smooth in 60fps+ territory. Still, if nothing else, the game demo did prove that Surface Pro is a legitimate performer, and can deliver what one would expect from other Windows 8/Intel tablet combos running similar components.

Unlike the completely passively cooled Surface RT, the Surface Pro has two built-in fans. During the demo, the fans were perfectly quiet when I was using the Pro as a conventional tablet. I was warned the sound levels would increase during game play, but Bulletstorm was loud enough to drown out the fans (that is, if they were increasing in volume at all).

Waiting for pudding—and proof therein

When Surface Pro arrives at the end of this month, it won’t receive all the fresh, new-kid-in-town bonhomie that the world bestowed on Surface RT. When RT hit the scene in October, it wasn’t just one of the very few Windows tablet-ish devices available, it also piggybacked on top of Microsoft’s greater Windows launch PR effort.

But life is very different now for a Windows 8 tablet or tablet-PC hybrid. There are multiple Windows 8 machines to choose from, and consumers will be incredibly sensitive to pricing options. The 64GB version of Surface Pro will cost $900. The 128GB version, $1000. Touch-capable Ultrabooks are aiming to beat those numbers, and Microsoft will shortly find itself in a pricing war with its hardware partners. The “competitor” machines may not have the design panache of Surface, but will looks matter in an ultra-portable market that’s already considered to be priced too high?

Stay tuned. Get ready. The PC landscape is more interesting than it’s been in more than 10 years, and Surface Pro can tell us so, so much about what consumers want—and are willing to spend—in a new Windows 8 hybrid.

Magellan heads in a different direction with SmartGPS device

2013-01-11T20:02:00.002-08:00

Most GPS devices excel at getting you from Point A to Point B. Where they come up short is in telling you about all the stuff in between.

Magellan thinks it can change that with its forthcoming SmartGPS device. Slated for a spring release, the device aims to do a better job of identifying what's around you than the traditional points of interest.

Specifically, as you go about your route, Magellan's SmartGPS will present location-based information on its 5-inch LCD screen—with restaurant, hotel, and gas price data served up alongside weather and traffic. The data on the SmartGPS includes reviews from Yelp and special offers from Foursquare, adding what Magellan executives tout as a "social connective aspect" to the directional data at your fingertips.

"From a societal standpoint, you get a deeper level of knowledge of an area," said Stig Pedersen, as he gave me a walkthrough of the SmartGPS device at CES this week. "It makes you smarter about the neighborhood around you." Pedersen knows from personal experience. He's been driving the same commute in Southern California for around a decade, but it wasn't until he tested SmartGPS that he learned about a wine shop he'd been driving past for years.

"[SmartGPS] is constantly giving information that's relevant to who you are, where you are, and where you're going."

SmartGPS serves up all this info in square tiles on the right side of the screen. Granted I took the unit for a test drive in the safety of a CES booth and not behind the wheel of a car, but I found it pretty easy to flip through the tiles, just by flicking my finger.

Magellan has plenty of motivation to provide this kind of specific data. Standalone GPS units have fallen out of favor with some users who find they can get navigational data just as easy on the smartphones they're already carrying with them.

In what may be a case of if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em, SmartGPS boasts a cloud-based ecosystem that syncs your travel data between the GPS device as well as computers and mobile devices. (iOS and Android apps related to Magellan's SmartGPS offering will arrive at the same time as the device.) It's a good idea—I find that researching my trips is a task better suited to the comfort of my computer. And when I park my car, I still may not be at my final destination. SmartGPS would let me sync my trip between my GPS unit and my iPhone so that the mobile app can take me the rest of the way.

"We had to figure out to dom something complementary between the devices out there," said Juha Christensen, CEO of CloudMade which is supplying the back-end cloud support for SmartGPS.

Magellan executives told me the standalone device could arrive by April. When it does ship, it will cost $249. It will be compatible with Magellan's $150 Wireless Back-Up Camera, which allows the device to become a rear-view monitor when you're driving in reverse.

Trakdot helps track down lost luggage

2013-01-07T00:56:00.001-08:00

Stepping off a plane to discover that your luggage has gone missing is a major annoyance for travelers, and an all too common one. Even worse is the feeling of not knowing how long it will take the airline to locate it and return it safely to you.

GlobaTrac’s Trakdot luggage tracking system aims to eliminate that problem—or at least provide some peace of mind in case your luggage goes missing. The Trakdot is a palm-sized cellular-based tracking device that you pair with your cell phone and pack in your suitcase before you check your bag. Once you land at your destination, the Trakdot will send an SMS message or an e-mail to your phone, which notifies you of your bag’s location. The device can be paired with up to 20 mobile numbers.

So, if you land in Los Angeles and everything ran smoothly, Trakdot will send a message saying it (and your bag) is in Los Angeles, too. And if you have an Android or iOS device, you can use Trakdot’s free app to give you more information about your bag’s location, like where it is on the baggage carousel. (The apps aren’t live in the App Store or Google Play Store yet, but should be there when the device goes on sale this spring, according to a GlobaTrac representative.)

But let’s say you land in Los Angeles, and Trakdot tells you that your bag is in Denver instead—just tell the airline that your bag is missing and that your Trakdot notified you where it is. That should speed up the process of returning your bag to you.

The Trakdot uses its own GlobaTrac-owned slice of GSM spectrum. The company claims that the device is 100 percent FAA compliant—it automatically goes into sleep mode once it reaches a certain altitude, and wakes back up once it’s back in a cellular range.

The device runs on two AA batteries, and will be available for purchase at the end of March. The Trakdot unit costs $50, with a $9 one-time activation fee, and then a $13 annual service fee

HP highlights skinny monitors, media player, and budget Windows 8 laptops at CES

2013-01-07T00:51:00.002-08:00

Hewlett-Packard's top CES 2013 product announcement is about a display. That's right: Not a laptop, not a tablet, but a relatively pedestrian PC display. Now, perhaps, we can see why the company didn't rent any booth space in Las Vegas this year.

That HP considers its new Envy 27-inch IPS Monitor with Beats Audio (shown above) its marquee product for CES is likely a sign of the ongoing turmoil and uninspired product mix at the Palo Alto, California, tech giant.

The company also is announcing several new, low-cost laptops, portable media storage, and a streaming device called the HP Pocket Playlist.

It's not a portfolio designed to foster confidence in a company's innovation.

Eclectic mix or muddled mess?

HP's CES announcements seem like an odd mix for a company that desperately needs to position itself as an innovator in the PC space. Once you get beneath the admittedly elegant appearance, the monitors are all pretty standard fare.

HP isn't pushing resolution or pricing, although the broad support for better LCD panel technologies beyond TN LCD is welcome. The new laptops don't break new ground, either, other than price; although they are thinner and lighter than past low-end consumer laptops from HP.

HP Pocket Playlist

The Pocket Playlist is probably the most intriguing device. By allowing time-shifting for multiple devices simultaneously, the Playlist is positioned to take advantage of consumers' increasing reliance on mobile devices for their content consumption. Collecting your content via the DVR without impinging on the precious data caps inherent in most mobile phones and tablets could be a winner, but the PlayLater app may require ongoing fees, depending on whose content you're recording.

Monitors lead the way

The $499, 27-inch Envy IPS Monitor is super-thin, which adhers to the overall Envy aesthetic, but the resolution is a pretty stock 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels (FullHD.) Users expecting a touch display from HP to better support Windows 8 will be disappointed; the Envy 27-inch display and other HP monitors that will be shown at CES lack multitouch support.

In addition to the Envy display, HP is announcing a line of Pavilion monitors, including the 22xi, 23xi, 25xi, and 27 xi desktop monitors. The new Pavilion monitors also use IPS panel technology, with wide viewing angles and improved color fidelity. All support FullHD resolution with the exception of the 20xi, which offers 1600-pixel-by-900-pixel support. The new monitors include VGA, HDMI, and DVI connectivity. Prices range from $130 to $340.

The final product in HP's desktop monitor line is the 24-inch x2401, which is an extremely thin display—thinner than the Envy 27—which uses MVA (multi-domain vertical alignment) LCD technology. The $249 x2401 is tuned for accurate colors and contrast when playing video content.

Of all the monitors HP brought to CES 2013, perhaps the most intriguing display is the15.6-inch portable U160, which connects to laptops via USB. At just 3.4 pounds and barely thicker than an inch, the U160 allows laptop users to carry a second display.

In an era of 11- to 13-inch Ultrabooks, a lightweight secondary display can be useful, particularly if you're working with multiple documents on a regular basis. The $179 U160 is scheduled to be available later in January.

HP still sells PCs

HP also is rolling out a pair of AMD-equipped consumer laptops as part of its Sleekbook line. Both are 15.6-inch systems, offering 1366-pixel-by-768-pixel resolution.

HP Pavilion Touchsmart Sleekbook

The HP Pavilion TouchSmart Sleekbook integrates full 10-point multitouch support for better Windows 8 integration.

The TouchSmart Sleekbook is slated to ship February 3, 2013, includes an AMD A10 quad-core APU, and is priced at $649.

The $479 Pavilion Sleekbook pushes the price of a 15.6-inch Windows 8 laptop to under $500. The Pavilion Sleekbook ships with an AMD A8 APU, and supports Windows 8's touch interface through a multitouch trackpad. The Pavilion Sleekbook is scheduled to become available January 13, 2013.

The mobile DVR

HP's Pocket Playlist is a tiny, cell-phone-sized device with integrated flash memory that allows the unit to act as a DVR.

The Pocket Playlist can stream content to five mobile devices without a data plan or Internet connection. The Playlist supports Android, Windows, and iOS mobile devices. The Pocket Playlist relies on PlayOn's PlayLater app to manage DVR chores.

According to HP, the $129 Playlist can contain up to 16 full-length movies or 7600 songs. The Pocket Playlist is scheduled to ship in mid-February.

The 5 best Windows 8 tablets and laptops you can buy today

2012-12-18T07:29:00.002-08:00

The clamshell laptop is finally joining the beige desktop in the museum of computer artifacts. The basic hinged design made its first appearance in a device called the Grid Compass way back in 1982, so no one can scoff at the clamshell's longevity. Nonetheless, times are finally changing, which means it's time for the pure clamshell laptop to ride off into the sunset.

The traditional clamshell is being replaced by a wide variety of designs that merge tablets and laptops into a single physical package. These Windows 8 hybrid devices should directly appeal to PC users who might otherwise buy thin-and-light laptops. First-generation hybrids are already shipping, and most of them are flawed in some way, but they nonetheless bring new use-case scenarios to a mobile computing paradigm that hasn't changed much in 30 years.

Sure, there have been attempts to upend the clamshell. Take Microsoft's Tablet PC initiative during the Windows XP era. But those early efforts were hobbled by bolting touch control onto an operating system that was poorly suited for touch interfaces. Windows 8 and Windows RT, however, are designed from the ground up for the touch experience.

Now that we've reviewed a good number of Windows 8 portables, it's time to step back, name the best models, and put them all in context. Given their intrinsic design compromises, none of them is a clear winner as a do-it-all system. But we can still look at five innovative designs, walk you through why you'd want one, and suggest which usage models may best apply to you.

Primarily a PC: IdeaPad Yoga

The Yoga's screen rotates to a "tent" mode for easy presentations.

Sometimes you really need a full laptop keyboard, but you'd like to couple it with a Windows 8 touch experience. And, occasionally, you may need to use your system as a pure tablet—but you don't anticipate that being the machine's primary use. If any of this resonates with your personal needs, consider Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga. It's an excellent 13.3-inch Ultrabook that includes a multitouch, capacitive touchscreen for all the cool new gestures built into Windows 8.

The Yoga has what it takes to be a solid ultraportable laptop. The keyboard is excellent for touch typists. The battery life approaches 6 hours. The sound quality of the speakers is surprisingly good. And it weighs less than 3.5 pounds.

However, it's the display that really sets the Yoga apart. It's a full 1600 by 900 pixels, offering a good balance in pixel density between 1366 by 768 and 1080p (or 1920 by 1080, by any other name). The panel rotates 180 degrees, allowing the Yoga to be used as a full tablet (albeit with its keyboard exposed) or in the "tent mode," where you can use it to give presentations or easily share content.

The business traveler's hybrid: ThinkPad Twist

The ThinkPad Twist's display rotates around a single hinge.

Road warriors need work machines that are lightweight, rugged and reliable. Lenovo has long promised these qualities in the ThinkPad, a laptop line that was first conceived by IBM in 1992, and has been targeted at business users ever since. And now we have the ThinkPad Twist, which brings Windows 8 touch gestures and a clever hybrid design to a laptop legacy that's always been a bit buttoned-up and stodgy.

As with most ThinkPads, the Twist is a tad heavier than a consumer-grade laptop. And at 3.5 pounds, the Twist—even with its 12.5-inch, 1366 by 768 display—is a bit heavier than Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga, which has a larger, higher-resolution screen. But what's nifty about the Twist's display is its hinge design, which lets this hybrid engage a tablet mode while still keeping the machine's keyboard protected. This makes the Twist more robust in tablet mode than the Yoga, whose keyboard remains exposed.

The base-model Twist ships with a 500GB hard drive and a 24GB caching SSD. Working together, the two drives deliver speedy startup times and copius storage. Lenovo does offer one model with a traditional SSD intended for storage, but it's a fairly scant 128GB. This SSD option, however small, will likely play well in larger businesses, where IT departments tend to lock down which applications can be installed.

Overall, the Twist brings the ruggedness of the ThinkPad line with some of the most usable features of Windows 8 tablets. The only significant omission is a 3G/4G mobile broadband option, which would make the Twist a more attractive hybrid for frequent travelers. Nevertheless, the Lenovo Twist is compact and reasonably light, which should allow it to travel well.

Almost a tablet: Sony Duo 11

The Son Duo 11 is a tablet with slider keyboard built in.

The Sony Duo 11 looks like a tablet—most of the time. When you carry it around in its folded state, a seam conceals a sliding keyboard hidden underneath the bottom of the display. It's the laptop version of those old-school slider phones, complete with a compact, Chiclet-style keyboard.

Make no mistake: Touch typists will not like the keyboard on the Duo 11. Really, the most postiive thing I can say about the keyboard is that it's functional, offers tactile feedback, and is a little easier to use than an on-screen keyboard. For the most part, however, the keyboard is cramped and uncomfortable. Luckily, the sliding hinge seems durable enough. And given that that the Duo 11 will likely be used more in tablet mode than laptop mode, the slider bit works pretty well.

The entire affair weighs 2 pounds, 13 ounces—under 3 pounds, in other words. The 11.6-inch screen is an IPS display offering full HD (1080p) resolution. Sony also includes an N-trig stylus that supports 256 pressure levels, making it a useful adjunct for artistically inclined users. If what you need is a tablet for touch-sensitive art applications, the Duo 11 bears closer scrutiny.

PC performance in a tablet design: Acer Iconia W700

Acer's Iconia W700 is a high-performance Ultrabook in tablet guise.

In the Iconia W700, Acer crams an Ultrabook into a relatively thin tablet. No one will mistake this device for an iPad or Microsoft's Surface RT, but in weight and thickness, it's pretty close to what Microsoft's Surface Pro will be. It's also 2.1 pounds; while that's significantly lighter than the Sony Duo 11, it still means that lugging it around propped on your forearm (as many tablet users do) may get tiring.

The tradeoff for the weight is robust, PC-like performance and features, including USB 3.0 and mini-HDMI video output. As with most tablets, it's got both forward-facing and rear-facing cameras.

As with Sony's Duo 11, the Iconia includes a full HD, 1920-by-1080 display. This delivers gorgeous-looking images and text, but it's also problematic for touch use when running desktop applications. It's simply difficult to put one's finger on desktop buttons and window bars that render so small. While Acer bundles a Bluetooth keyboard, the only pointing device is the touch interface itself—no mouse is included, and the keyboard lacks a trackpad. The W700 is really the purest, most recent incarnation of Bill Gates' vision of the Tablet PC.

But the real problem lies with the overall size, bulk, and weight. An 11.6-inch tablet, particularly with a 16:9 aspect ratio, will always be a little awkward to hold and use in landscape mode. Portrait mode is a little more usable, but often won't accommodate documents at their full width.

Nonetheless, despite all these caveats, if you're looking for a pure tablet that offers PC-like performance, the W700 delivers. It's a nice product, but we expect the Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Pro to eclipse the W700 early next year.

The pure tablet: Microsoft Surface RT

Microsoft's Surface RT offers covers with built-in keyboards

The Surface RT is Microsoft's bid for the tablet space currently owned by Apple's iPad. Sure, Android tablets may cost a little less and aspire to the same market, but none have been able to come close to the iPad in terms of ease-of-use and user adoption.

While the aspect ratio is more widescreen than Apple's, the 10.6-inch display seems a little more usable than the slightly unbalanced, 11.6-inch displays that dominate the Windows 8 tablet market. Windows RT is fast and responsive on the ARM-based, Nvidia Tegra processor. The Surface's 1366-by-768 resolution doesn't match the beauty of Apple's iPad Retina display, but most users probably won't notice.

In the Surface RT, Microsoft has introduced some clever touches, such as a built-in kickstand and the optional Type Cover, which integrates a flat, tactile-free, but extremely thin keyboard. The company also bundles a reduced version of Microsoft Office, but using those Office apps kicks you into desktop mode, which feels very weird on a device that's really meant to be a pure tablet. On the Surface RT, the Windows Start Screen is the native interface, and seems capable and usable.