Amy Vernon
Amy Vernon
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
Everyone's been kvelling over Siri since the iPhone 4GS was released a month ago. But Apple's "virtual personal assistant" is just the natural evolution of technology being built around our needs, wants and desires. That's exactly why so much popular science fiction has been written around the idea that one day robots...
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In Silicon Valley, one of the favorite tools of recruiters is the staff list at other tech companies. No wonder when the number of job openings in the tech sector continue to climb, but the number of graduates with the proper skills does not. Poaching talent has become an art form and it's expected to become even more aggressive in the coming...
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The federal government has released a slew of mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, in an effort to close the customer service gap between the public and private sectors. Getting the most attention is the Product Recalls app, which is available only on Android, and collates recall and safety information from the Consumer Product...
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Palm just gave its application developers a little present: It killed its app submission fee and is going to refund those fees paid previously. Previously, app developers had to pay $50 to have the honor of seeing if Palm wanted to accept their apps. Neither the iPhone nor Android platforms have such fees. As Palm's share in the smartphone...
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The retail sales of electronics and appliances this summer should have a modest increase over last year, according to IBM's analytics-based forecast. The sales are predicted to increase 4 percent - $953 million - in June, July and August. June July August 3-month total 2009 (actual) $7.791 $7.740 $8.131 $23.662 2010 (forecast) $8.034 $8.069...
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IBM scientists have created a realllllly small 3D map of the world. (How small IS it?) Well, it's so small that 1,000 could fit on one grain of salt (if you take for granted that the diameter of a grain of salt is three-tenths of a millimeter). Of course, this begs the question: how would one measure the distance between New York and Los Angeles?...
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If you live in San Francisco, Boston, San Diego, New York and D.C.: You have the greatest chance of being the proud owner or user of an iPod, iPhone or Mac computer in the entire continental United States.Bluefield/Beckley, W.Va.; Greenwood/Greenville, Miss.; Meridian, Miss.; Presque Island, Maine; Clarksburg/Weston, W.Va.? Not so much.Experian...
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Want to call overseas cheaply? There's an app for that.Almost counterintuitively, AT&T and T-Mobile already allows iPhone and Blackberry apps for Vonage, the VOIP provider, which just rolled one out for Android phones.For $24.99 a month, a customer gets unlimited calling to more than 60 countries (in some places it depends on the type...
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Total mobile data traffic topped mobile voice traffic in the United States last year, for the first time.In fact, globally, data traffic (that includes SMS text messaging) topped voice traffic on a monthly basis last year and the total traffic across the world exceeded an exabyte for the first time in 2009, according to a report just released...
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Fully a third of the top dogs on Barron's 30 Most Respected CEOs list released in this week's print edition hail from the tech world.Given how virtually all anyone talks about these days (other than healthcare, but don't expect a discussion of that here) is social media, gadgets and the interwebz, it should be no...
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Wii owners who are Netflix subscribers should begin finding a little extra something in their mailbox soon.The mail-order and online movie rental service is sending discs out to its subscribers who own the Nintendo game systems that will allow them to access any movies or TV shows that Netflix streams online. The videos will be accessible...
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Bicyclists will now be able to figure out the best route to take to work or on recreational rides using Google Maps in the United States. Google announced the addition of biking directions to the maps this morning, unveiling it at the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. Bicyclists will be able to get step-by-stepbike-specific route suggestions,...
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Energizer has discontinued the sale of its Duo Charger/USB Charger due to a vulnerability in the Windows-based software that was supposed to be downloaded to support it.The devices allowed users to charge nickel metal hydride batteries from either a wall socket or a USB connection. The documentation with the charger...
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A collective shudder likely went up the spines of Netflix and Gamefly customers around the nation when they heard the U.S. Postal Service is looking to eliminate Saturday delivery.Both services — Netflix for DVDs of movies and television shows, Gamefly for video games — rely on snail mail to get their goods into...
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It seems, sometimes, that a new phishing scam crops up every day, no matter how much security is improved.That's not just your imagination.IBM today released its annual IBM X-Force 2009 Trend and Risk Report, which showed threats that include phishing and document format vulnerabilities, among others, are on the...
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CBS is prepared to sell some of its shows through iTunes for 99 cents, though which shows and how many episodes of each is yet to be determined, according to reports. The Financial Times quoted CBS CEO Les Moonves as confirming the price, though another CBS source said no deal was imminent.The move is a continuing progression of television...
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Comcast Corp. is launching a cloud."Secure Backup & Share" is the cable/Internet/entertainment giant's latest service.It's for customers of Comcast's high-speed Internet service, who will be able to "retrieve and share their personal digital media from any Web-enabled or wireless device." I.e., it's a big ol' cloud.Some might find it creepy...
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While netbooks have become more popular and helped set new pricing standards for portable computers, they're unlikely to replace laptops anytime soon, according to a new survey. The study was done by PriceGrabber.com, a division of Experian, which is perhaps best known for its credit reporting arm.One of the key findings was that even...
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If you've ever wondered what caused massive hard drive failure or what a pretty much destroyed hard drive looked like, there's an app for you.Drive Savers has created the DriveSaver app for the iPhone, calling it the "first online hard disk drive simulator," which it is, in all likelihood. The app is free. Of course...
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The best thing about USB drives is their portability. The worst thing can be the lack of security for your data on there.EncryptStick comes either pre-loaded on a USB flash drive or as software you can download onto the drive yourself and the new Version 4.1 has dual support for Macintosh and Windows operating systems.It's touted as a digital...
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Michael Jackson fans in Europe who find their online film collections are taking up a bit too much space on their hard drives are in luck.Samsung Electronics Co. announced today that the new Samsung S2 Portable, a transportable external hard drive, will come pre-loaded with Jackson's swan song, the movie "Michael Jackson's This Is It."The...
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While many in the newspaper industry hold out hope that the sudden onset of e-readers will be their savior, a study out of the University of Georgia cautions, well, caution. Professors of advertising Dean Krugman and Tom Reichert, and Barry Hollander, an associate professor of journalism in the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass...
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