Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/samsung-syncmaster-p2770hd-has-built-in-tv-tuner-sex-appeal/
Filed under: Displays
Samsung SyncMaster P2770HD has built-in TV tuner, sex appeal originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/project-natal-launching-in-november-2010-priced-for-impulse-bu/
Filed under: Gaming
Project Natal launching in November 2010, priced for 'impulse buy'? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/concept-enterprises-reveals-first-mobile-dtv-car-tuner/
The Advanced Television System Committee just approved the Mobile DTV standard last month, and already Concept Enterprises is dishing out what looks to be the planet's first in-car tuner to support that very format. 'Course, only time will tell if this thing will actually be loved in the market; we've already seen AT&T halt its CruiseCast installations after only a few months of being ignored. At any rate, the minuscule box is engineered to work with any after-market / OEM monitor with conventional RCA outputs, and it only requires a 1-inch roof-mount antenna base along with a 6-inch antenna wire. There's no word on when the $499 box is expected to hit the market, but until your DMA becomes one of the markets where testing is going on, you're probably better off just not thinking about it.Concept Enterprises reveals first Mobile DTV car tuner originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/imation-pro-wx-wireless-usb-hard-drive-reviewed/
Continue reading Imation Pro WX Wireless USB hard drive reviewed
Filed under: Storage
Imation Pro WX Wireless USB hard drive reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/asus-ul80vt-review/
Continue reading ASUS UL80Vt review
Filed under: Laptops
ASUS UL80Vt review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/boeye-mid700-unveiled-with-android-os-vaguely-familiar-form-fac/
Continue reading BoEye MID700 unveiled with Android OS, vaguely familiar form factor
Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs
BoEye MID700 unveiled with Android OS, vaguely familiar form factor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/10/hey-google-failing-to-spellcheck-android-2-0-can-have-undesir/
Filed under: Cellphones
Hey, Google: failing to spellcheck Android 2.0 can have 'undesireable consequences' originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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From time to time we like to go on long, opinionated rants about subjects that bug us. This is one of those times. So let's have a frank and honest discussion about Windows security, and leave the scare tactics and FUD for money-grubbing corporate marketers.
You don't have to take my word for it, however. Not only did AV-Test.org find that it detects 98% of their enormous malware database, but AV-Comparatives (a widely known anti-malware testing group) found that MSE was one of only three products that did well at both finding and removing malware, including the leftovers. It was also the only free product to grab their "Advanced+" rating—the top honor for an anti-malware solution.
The more tech-oriented readers will probably note that MSE does not do any fancy heuristics to detect viruses that aren't in the database already, which is a feature offered by some paid solutions. In my opinion, this feature is usually unnecessary and a massive system drag if combined with a healthy dose of not installing questionable nonsense.
Every time I read an article about the built-in Windows Firewall, I see comments complaining that they use Zone Alarm or some other software because they handle "Outbound" connections. Let's put it on the table—the Windows Firewall has plenty of capability for handling outbound connections if you really need that level of paranoia. In fact, if you just look through your start menu you'll find a link for Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. You can head into there and pretty much configure any setting that you can possibly imagine, getting right down to the port level if you want.
The fact of the matter, however, is that outbound firewalls on a desktop PC are Completely Pointless. If the malware has made its way onto your computer, you have already lost the war. Your PC now belongs to whoever is running the botnet, and your outbound firewall isn't going to stop it—after all, the malware can simply add a rule to the firewall to allow access. It's better to focus on keeping malware off your PC in the first place.
Let's not forget that most of us are using a router with a firewall built right into it, and as long as you aren't using easily-cracked WEP encryption, you should be perfectly safe behind your firewall.
The fact of the matter is that unless you've pushed the UAC slider all the way to the top, it's not meant to be a security feature. The original intent was to change the way Windows works so that you can more easily run software as a standard user account, instead of running as administrator all the time. So there you have it—if you aren't going to run as a standard user or turn the slider all the way to the top, you may as well disable UAC.
If everybody would simply keep their systems patched, we wouldn't have to worry so much about these problems. If the constant rebooting action of Windows Update has you frustrated, you can always temporarily delay Windows Update's forced reboot, or just make it not restart your PC automatically—but you should always have Windows Update running at all times.
Even though we're complaining about people not keeping Windows updated, the fact of the matter is that the most likely cause of drive-by malware infection these days is through your browser plugins. Adobe Flash is notoriously full of security holes, and the latest attacks have been using vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat to infect your PC without installing a thing—just go to the wrong site that redirects you in a hidden frame to a PDF file containing the exploit, and your system can be exploited.
Keeping your applications updated is critically important to protecting your security. Your firewall won't protect you, and an antivirus software is unlikely to help if you're using an old, vulnerable version of Flash in your browser—what you need is a piece of software that scans your PC and makes sure that you are using the latest, patched versions. We've got you covered with the five best software update tools for any OS, but my personal recomme! ndation for Windows is for Secunia PSI.
There's a little-known fact that I don't usually tell anybody, but I'm going to share with you today: I haven't used real-time antivirus software on my PC in 10 years, and I've never been infected with a virus. About once a year, I run through an online virus scanner to make sure that my claim still holds true, and it's never happened.
How have I managed that, while being a geek and testing software all the time? There's a couple of simple rules that will protect you:
The How-To Geek thinks a little common sense and system patches goes a long, long way towards a secure system. His geeky articles can be found daily here on Lifehacker, How-To Geek, and Twitter.
(Click the image above for a closer look.)
If you use Microsoft Project or various other project scheduling tools, Tom's Planner covers the same basic territory: You can use it to schedule out how your team will tackle a project over any given period using Gantt charts. Tom's Planner is an easy-to-use, intuitive tool for handling your project scheduling, sharing your schedule with your team, and more. The app's been built to look and feel just like a desktop application, so you can right-click, Shift+Click, drag and drop, and do pretty much everything you'd expect to get from a desktop application. You can also export it to Microsoft Project, export to an image, or publish the schedule online for your team.
Tom's Planner is free during its beta period; after the beta, the application may go premium, but according to their signup page, anyone who joined during the app's beta will get at least a full year of free service, so it seems worth a try.
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/p1cPIQP5pdo/best-antivirus-application-avg
In the end AVG came out on top as the most popular antivirus app with 23 percent of the vote, barely beating out Microsoft Security Essentials (22 percent), which in turn beat out ESET NOD32 (19 percent).
If you're unfamiliar with Microsoft Security Essentials, the newest kid on the antivirus block, check out our feature on Microsoft's security tools for a little more on why we think most users should stop paying for their Windows security applications. For more information on the winner and runners up, check out the full Hive Five.
So say you're at the airport. You want to rent, I dunno, some movie that wasn't good enough to see in the theater. You just format a spare SD card filled with vacation photos you'd forgotten to back up (it doesn't appear they give you a card, but I could be mistaken), pop it in the machine, select a movie, pay $4 or so, and then have the film loaded on your card, a la ticking time bomb, with DRM.
And what can't you do with an SD card? I mean, it plays in my iPhone...wait...I mean my Blackberry...wait...
Mini SD and Micro SD—those are the cards that most of our mobile devices will take (if they take any at all)! In case no one told you, Blockbuster, we can't play this shit back on our digital cameras.
(Granted, netbook owners and some laptop owners will be able to utilize the standard.)
Ah Blockbuster, you've arrived just in time to ignore the growing popularity of iTunes/Zune Marketplace syncing, 3G streaming and in-flight Wi-Fi all while offering your service on a medium less convenient than DVD. But don't worry, I'm not angry. You're just hurting yourself. [Fast Company]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/_UM1lO7b2l8/google-search-is-about-to-get-a-lot-better
For the last couple of months, Google's been testing a new search architecture called Caffeine—a back-end upgrade, but one that changes the results in virtually any search. Today, Lifehacker gets word that Caffeine is ready to go live in Google proper.
So what does this mean, exactly? Well, if you believe roughly 75% of Lifehacker's polled readers, it means that Google search is about to get more accurate, relevant and useful. Or that we're about to feel like Google search has gotten more accurate, relevant and useful, because we read an article about it somewhere. Win/win! [Lifehacker]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/XNWyeUTwZ7M/droid-eris-review
Eris is Verizon's other Droid phone. It really is a remodeled Hero, running Android 1.5 and HTC's vaunted Sense candy coating—documented CSI style here—a $200 phone stuffed inside a thinner $100 body, like a Corvette engine shoved inside a Saturn. It's admittedly less exciting than the titular Droid, an industrial beast running Android 2.0. But I have the feeling Verizon is gonna sell a lot more of these things, because, again, it's $100.
The four main Android buttons are ! touch se nsitive, bleeding into the black bezel, hovering over the dead-center trackball and hard chrome buttons for phone and end. I'd like a dedicated camera button, but a volume rocker is all we get. The camera lens stares out the back, disturbingly more reminiscent of an eye than most cameras sticking out the backs of phones, probably because of how stark the rest of the phone is.
I've already covered HTC's Sense UI in depth, and it is the exact same on the Eris. It runs just as fast as the Sprint Hero, if not a teeny bit quicker. I will say that after using Android 2.0, it does feel like a step backward in some ways, mostly because of the single Google account limitation. But HTC's confirmed Androi! d 2.0 is coming, so it won't be an issue for every long.
And really, the fact that Android 2.0—half the reason the Droid is excellent—is coming to the Droid Eris is why, in the end, it's such a steal. It's running on Verizon, it's going to have Android 2.0, and it's $100. It's a great phone now, and will be better still soon, making it kind of a perfect storm for people on Verizon looking to ditch their dumbphones—but not Verizon—for something more capable, but who are put off by the Droid, whether it's the steroids or the higher sticker price.
It's last month's darling. But it'll run this month's software. For cheap. And that's pretty spiffy, actually.
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