If your trial version of the antivirus software that came preloaded on your computer has expired, has become out-of-date, or you were hoping to do without the protection (and cost) – think again. According to Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report, “computers without antivirus software are 5.5 times more likely to be infected.”
Leap Motion, the company making extremely accurate gesture detection hardware, has signed a deal to bundle and then integrate its motion-based controller into select HP products. This is a big win for Leap, which already has a deal with ASUS that will bundle the Leap Motion device in with its all in one computers as well as select ASUS notebooks this year.
Bundling is good, but integration is always better in the consumer world, since most consumers may not have any idea that they want gesture-based controls or even why. Leap’s system works like a Kinect with an exterior piece of hardware attached to the computer that detects hand motions with a high degree of accuracy — within 1/100th of a millimeter. As for why someone might want this on their machine, it’s an enabler for new types of computing experiences.
Sales of personal computers were very nearly twice as bad as previously expected and experienced their worst year-on-year decline ever in the first quarter of 2013, according to the market research firm IDC, in a report released this afternoon.
Worldwide PC shipments came in at 76.3 million units in the first quarter of the year, amounting to a decline of nearly 14 percent. That’s much worse than the firm’s forecast, which called for a decline of 7.7 percent.
The findings also amount to the fourth consecutive quarter in which sales declined compared to the previous quarter. Neither new versions of Windows from Microsoft nor faster chips from Intel spurred new interest among consumers or businesses. Meanwhile, mini-notebook sales hurt the low end of the market.
Our computers rarely run as fast as we want or expect them to. Whether you're a Mac or Windows user, it's maddening to sit in front of a taunting hourglass or spinning circle of death, especially when you have work to do.
In the spirit of spring cleaning, we invite you to clean the dust bunnies out of your PC (literally and digitally). Here are five easy ways to get started.
Leap Motion, the flash drive-sized controller that lets you manipulate your computer's interface with a multitude of precise hand gestures, will begin shipping to customers who pre-ordered the device on May 13. In a partnership with Best Buy, the Leap Motion controller will also hit physical store shelves in the U.S. starting May 19.
Since the company's founding last year, Leap Motion has advertised its product as a life-changing technological jump toward intuitive 3D software, while drawing in developers who will shortly offer a impressive suite of apps with functionality ranging from gaming and art to web browsing and 3D modeling. All these apps will be available in Leap Motion's new app store, Airspace, says Leap Motion VP of Product Marketing Mike Zagorsek.
Starting with the sci-fi-influenced idea that computing of the future will be done seamlessly with hand gestures alone (think Minority Report), CEO Mike Buckwald and CTO David Holz co-founded Leap Motion with the aim of delivering a truly futuristic product. They predict that this kind of interface could change the way we interact with technology forever, from kitchen screens at McDonald's to electronic music-creation tools for DJs, as ReadWrite editor in chief Dan Lyons wrote last December.
NVIDIA's GTX Titan is rumor no more, as the American computer hardware company unveiled the superpowerful graphics card this morning. With 2,688 CUDA cores, 6GB of GDDR5 RAM, and 7.1 billion transistors packed into the 10.5-inch frame, Titan's capable of pushing 4,500 Gigaflops of raw power -- NVIDIA's pitching Titan as the means to "power the world's first gaming supercomputers." The company even showed off the Titan in its mightiest form, bootstrapped to two others running together (three-way SLI), which powers graphics showcase Crysis 3 running at its highest settings: a whopping 5760x1080 resolution across three monitors. Of course, a setup like that would cost you quite a pretty penny; just one GTX Titan costs $1,000, not to mention three (nor all the other hardware required to support it).
Should you prefer your gaming PCs to not be of the neon-lit, triple GPU, above-$10,000 variety, NVIDIA was also showing off the Titan in a Falcon Northwest boutique PC. The company's working with a variety of boutique PC makers to incorporate the Titan (see: Maingear), making NVIDIA's top of the line a teensy bit more accessible to your average joe.
We all know that, generally speaking, buying the newest top-end part gets you the most performance. But in most cases, the premium you pay for that part covers a whole lot of other stuff as well that has no bearing on frame rates or video encoding times. We're talking about the added cost of covering research and development, product marketing, lower production yields, etc. That high price also includes a vanity tax, if you will-the extra charge incurred by folks who simply want to have the latest hardware, hot off the fab, for bragging rights.
Splashing out on the very latest gear is all well and good, if you're rolling in cabbage. But for most of us, the job of choosing what part to buy is much more nuanced. The object is to find the hardware that offers the greatest value-the best price-to-performance ratio.
So, you want to head to bed… time to power down the PC and call it a night. But wait… that download hasn’t finished yet. You could stay up and wait for it to finish, but then you will miss out on sleep. You could leave it running, but that’s a waste of electricity. Or you could do is turn to Shutter, which gives you a couple of alternative options.
This is a free tool that may not look like anything special, but it has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it well worth checking out. Used at its most basic Shutter could be configured to automatically shut down your computer in an hour’s time, or however long you think it’s going to take for your download to complete.
Every year IBM predicts five technology innovations that it believes will change the way we live in the next five years. Past "5 In 5" predictions include voice-controlled interfaces like Siri, mobile wallets, smarter buildings, and many others that are on their way to becoming real.
This year IBM scientists explore how computers will begin to emulate and augment human senses, each in their own way. See all IBM 5 in 5 predictions here.
Engadget points out that Google has applied for a patent on a system to project images from its Google Glass computerized glasses to a number of surfaces.
Intellectual property geeks can read the full application here.
The patent explains a system that would allow for projecting a QWERTY keyboard and other buttons anywhere you might want to press them.
If this patent is realized, you might soon be dialing your next phone number by touching your forearm.
Microsoft has an IllumiRoom project that projects images onto the entire wall of your room. It's pretty crazy, when you're playing video games, the IllumiRoom will show you what's happening around you on the screen too. Basically, you get what giant wall TV for playing video games.
One new SoC per year? That's what NVIDIA pledged back in the fall of 2010 and today at its CES 2013 presser, it delivered with the Tegra 4's official unveiling. The chip, which retains the same 4-plus-1 arrangement of its predecessor, arrives with a whopping 72 GeForce GPU cores -- effectively offering 6x the Tegra 3's visual output and is based on the 28nm process. It also is the first quad-core processor with Cortex A15 cores on-board, and offers compatibility with LTE networks through an optional chip. NVIDIA claims this piece of silicon is the world's fastest mobile processor, and showed a demonstration in which a Tegra 4 went head-to-head against a Nexus 10 in loading websites (you can guess which one won).
The start of a new year is always a good time to reflect and make new resolutions. While most people vow to exercise more often, quit smoking, and make other self-improvements, few people actually make computer-related resolutions. So why not make 2013 the year you make the effort to improve your computer habits? We listed a few resolutions below that, if carried out, will make you and your computer happier in the new year.
Unlike emails which are stored on the cloud, SMS’s are saved on your phone and if anything were to happen to your phone, you’ll never see your precious SMS’s ever again. Because the iOS is such a closed system, you won’t be able to find an app that can backup and restore deleted SMS’s for you.
Want to pause a Netflix stream from the comfort of your sofa? Email a forgotten file from your home to your office? Gain full remote access to your PC from halfway across the world?
No matter what OS your smartphone is on, there's a mobile app that can make it happen. Here's a look at some of the best tools for every major platform.
As we were expecting to happen today, Apple has officially listed the new iMac computers for sale. The new iMac is available in a 21.5-inch and 27-inch model. Both are available for order as of today November 30, however the 27-inch model will not be shipping for another few weeks. The 21.5-inch model, this one has an available to ship date of 1 to 3 business days.
That being said, the 21.5-inch iMac is available in available in two configurations, as well as being available to customize a bit. The default configurations are as follows;
$1,299 — 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor with NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M graphics
$1,499 — 2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor with NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics
More and more, we can get computers to do things for us by talking to them. A computer can call your mother when you tell it to, find you a pizza place when you ask for one, or write out an email that you dictate. Sometimes the computer gets it wrong, but a lot of the time it gets it right, which is amazing when you think about what a computer has to do to turn human speech into written words: turn tiny changes in air pressure into language.
Computer speech recognition is very complicated and has a long history of development, but here, condensed for you, are the seven basic things a computer has to do to understand speech.
If you thought Siri had an easy gig, think again. Mental Floss breaks down just how hard it is for computers to understand what we say—and to turn that into written words.
Computer graphics have come a long way since a T-Rex ate that lawyer in Jurassic Park. But if these glimpses of what the next generation of CG has in store, we ain't seen nothing yet. Cloth simulations with hyper-realistic wrinkling, modelling complex human hair using thermal imaging, and new approaches to smoke rendering will make our future blockbusters even more blockbustery.
The world's oldest working digital computer, often referred to as "The Witch", has been given a new lease of life. A team of computer scientists has restored it to its former glory—and now it's on display for all to see.
The computer was originally designed and developed all the way back in 1949 at the UK's Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in Oxfordshire. Weighing in at 2.5 tonnes, the behemoth was designed to crunch calculations for nuclear scientists, so they didn't have to use mechanical adding machines.
