SURE, you can turn your iPhone into a Star Wars-like light saber, a virtual pet or an interactive mug of beer. But did you know that those newfangled applications can also tell you the nearest sushi bar in London, the wait time at La Guardia's security checkpoints or how to say "Where's the toi
O.K., first of all, what's up with the name Chumby?It seems deliberately calculated to make this $180 appliance sound endearing, as though it's the spiritual descendant of the Gumby and the Furby. The Chumby looks endearing, too: it's small, cute and - to use the technical term - squishy. Except for
May 8, 2009 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. on Thursday released the beta of a free app that helps users determine whether their PC is powerful enough to run the upcoming Windows 7 operating system. The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor gives a user's PC a pass/fail grade in four areas and checks to see whe
Microsoft plans to test Windows 7's update mechanism by feeding users of the just-issued Release Candidate as many as 10 fake updates in the coming week, the company said Friday.It will be the second time that Microsoft has released phony updates for Windows 7; in February, it tested the beta by del
If Microsoft and Intel can shell out the big bucks for TV ad spots, why not Google?The search engine giant announced Friday that it will be running TV ads this weekend that advertise its Google Chrome browser.The new ad was initially developed by the Google Japan team as an instructional video to de
Apple is a forward-thinking company, sometimes at the risk of those companies that support it. A day after releasing OS 3.0 beta 5, the company has stopped accepting application submissions that aren't compatible with the new software. Apple sent an e-mail to its developers yesterday, stating:Beginn
It's not unheard of for bot software to include commands to incapacitate the system, although it's unlikely that a botmaster would use the command. After all, the botnet is valuable. But Brian Krebs of the Washington Post tells a story of a recent episode in which the "nuclear option" was
Friday's premiere of the new Star Trek move has piqued the curiosity of plenty of moviegoers whose interest in the Star Trek realm was heretofore contentedly dormant (if even existent). Not that we want to come right out and say it, but maybe some of us thought it was called "Star Track" f
Alltel Wireless announced that the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230, originally announced a few weeks ago, is now available in Alltel retail stores and online at www.shopalltel.com. The Flip 8230 remains BlackBerry's only flip smartphone, and one of the few released in the U.S. altogether.The Flip 8230 fe
TOKYO, May 8 (Reuters) - Japan's Panasonic Corp said it was developing advanced display panels based on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology with Sumitomo Chemical Co, in a bid to stay in the race in the next-generation TV market. OLED panels consume less energy than other panels and make