General Gaming Article |
- Report: Desktop Vendors "Pessimistic" About Chrome OS
- Opera 11.60 (Tunny) Beta Now Available
- Amazon Taking A Loss On Each $79 Kindle
- Rumor: Nokia Working With AT&T On 4G LTE Lumia 800
- Zynga Threatened Employees With Firing To Reclaim Stock
- Asus, Acer Cut Ultrabook Orders, is the Form Factor Doomed?
- How To Erase Your Digital Footprint
- Gross Stat of the Day: 16 Percent of Cell Phones Have Poop on Them
- Browser Extension of the Week: Send to Kindle
- Netgear WNDR4500 Wi-Fi Router Review
| Report: Desktop Vendors "Pessimistic" About Chrome OS Posted: 10 Nov 2011 08:41 PM PST
According to Digitimes, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt encouraged PC vendors to use Chrome OS for desktop PCs in a recent speech in Taiwan. However, PC vendors don't seem too keen on the whole idea due to the disappointing demand for Chromebooks. The report, which does not name any of the PC vendors involved, says vendors are demanding greater "resources and support" from Google. Digitimes sources claim that Acer Cromia 700 Chromebook sales stood at just 5,000 units at the end of July - a month after Chromebooks made their debut. It further claims that Samsung experienced "even lower sales than Acer." |
| Opera 11.60 (Tunny) Beta Now Available Posted: 10 Nov 2011 08:14 PM PST
The Opera 11.60 beta features some new HTML5 functionality, including a new HTML5 parser (Ragnarök), support for HTML5 custom scheme and content handlers, improved HTML5 video capabilities, and support for HTML5 microdata (first browser to do so). Where the interface is concerned, the browser now features a star to the right of the address bar, allowing the user to easily bookmark web pages. There are also "fixes and tweaks to the Featherweight skin, including a new Featherweight address field." The browser vendor has also added CSS3 radial gradients, "so front-end designers can create hypnotic ellipses or awesome double rainbows." |
| Amazon Taking A Loss On Each $79 Kindle Posted: 10 Nov 2011 02:55 PM PST
According to iSupplyi, the e-ink screen was the most expensive component at $30.50. The curcuit board was next at $30.37. That only leaves a few bucks for other parts, and $5.66 in assembly costs. Amazon likely makes up the loss, and a hefty profit from the ads shown on this version of the Kindle, as well as from book purchases. The industry also suspects that Amazon is taking a loss on the upcoming Kindle Fire tablet. Amazon has realized that it's not the devices that make it successful, it's the services that make the money. Selling these devices for a small loss is the best way to build market share. |
| Rumor: Nokia Working With AT&T On 4G LTE Lumia 800 Posted: 10 Nov 2011 02:41 PM PST
The current Lumia runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, but the AT&T version might wait on the next iteration, called Tango which should include LTE support. The alternative is to add in the code to support the faster data standard on Mango. If true, this would be the first LTE Windows Phone device. AT&T's data network has just gotten off the ground and there are only two phones that support it. As this is still in the rumor stage, we can't know if Verizon's LTE network is also a target. The cheaper Lumia 710 has been rumored to hit T-Mobile in an HSPA+ flavor. While the devices are better than Nokia's recent efforts, this uncertainty isn't helping them. |
| Zynga Threatened Employees With Firing To Reclaim Stock Posted: 10 Nov 2011 02:26 PM PST
Along with his executive team, Pincus began demanding that many employees return their non-vested stock to the company. This understandably upset workers, who had foregone higher pay in exchange for stock that could potentially make them super-wealthy when the company goes public. The threats were apparently not idle, either. Employees that did not comply would be terminated. According to the report, only two Zynga workers stood up to Pincus. One left the company, and the other still works there. Both retained lawyers and worked out a settlement allowing them to return only a part of non-vested shares. There might be a business justification for this behavior, but we can't help but find it contemptible. |
| Asus, Acer Cut Ultrabook Orders, is the Form Factor Doomed? Posted: 10 Nov 2011 02:09 PM PST
According to DigiTimes, the two companies had ordered as many as 300,000 Ultrabook units from upstream ODMs, but after being met with a lukewarm reception, those orders were slashed to 150,000 to 180,000 units only. That doesn't bode well for Intel's Ultrabook concept, though it's still early in the game and prices are still higher than where Intel would like them to be. And make no mistake, this is largely an issue of price. Depending on the specific model, you're not likely to score a Zenbook by Asus for under $1,050, and that's with only a 128GB SSD and 4GB of memory. It's a little easier to find an Aspire S3 by Acer for under $1,000, which is where Intel envisions Ultrabooks sitting on the price scale. Image Credit: Asus |
| How To Erase Your Digital Footprint Posted: 10 Nov 2011 01:42 PM PST
Like stepping in wet concrete, these trails we unwittingly leave behind can be tough to erase. With the rise of identity theft, corporate tracking, and the ability of "Big Brother" to access our private data, it is more important than ever for Internet users to be aware of how past and future data can be erased and controlled more effectively. How Big is My Footprint?To truly understand just how big your digital footprint is, there are several tools available that can be easily accessed and added to your computer for constant monitoring and control. Google is one of the most commonly accused mediums for collecting our data, and rightfully so. That ad that just popped up on your GMail page for cookbooks does indeed have something to do with your search for a killer Spam recipe for last Sunday's tailgate party.
On a daily basis Google pings your browser for information about browsing history, allowing the search giant to improve their search algorithms and target advertising. Interested in seeing just how often this is happening? Download the free software offering Google Alarm, created by F.A.T. Labs, which is available for both Firefox and Chrome browsers. This add-on will notify you each time you are sending data to Google. Just make sure you disable the sound option for this. I jumped out of my chair the first time the (very loud) alarm went off, and kept going off almost every time I visited a new site. Unless you have a serious love for air horns or are trying to induce a heart attack don't forget to do this!
Another way to measure your digital footprint is to see how much advertising companies have been allowed to track your browsing habits. "But I never gave any companies permission to know about sites I visit" you insist. The sad reality is that simply visiting certain sites allows advertising companies to place what are known as "tracking cookies" on your computer. Cookies are small chunks of data created by web servers that are delivered through a web browser and stored on your computer. They allow websites that you often frequent to keep track of your online patterns and preferences, creating a personalized experience. Leading the fight to raise awareness and provide solutions to this issue is the Network Advertising Initiative, a coalition of cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to "building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards." According to the NAI, "Most of the advertising online today is provided by 3rd party ad networks. These networks use tools such as cookies to track your Web preferences and usage patterns in order to tailor advertising content to your interests. What you may not realize is that information gathered at one website may be used to direct ad content at another site." To combat this, the NAI has created a service that scans your computer to identify those member companies that have placed an advertising cookie file on your computer. The results from running this simple diagnostic can be eye-opening about how much your internet habits are being monitored.
Another method of obtaining a simple estimate about your digital footprint is by using the Digital Footprint Calculator, provided as a service from the EMC Corporation. The software download, which is available for both Windows and Mac, measures user input about the frequency of emails, photo and video uploads, phone usage, web browsing, and where in the world you live. After submitting your estimates, the calculator will provide you with an actual file size of your presence on the Internet. The software also ironically provides an option of creating a ticker widget to share your results on a web page, thus expanding your footprint in the process. Looking for a quick way to determining digital shoe size? Write down every site on the Internet you have created a user account for. Sound impossible? For most of us, we have cast such a wide personal net across the web, that it is insurmountable to go back and accurately pinpoint where we've left information about ourselves. Attempting to complete this exercise may bring on the realization that caging the Internet beast that is your personal information is next to impossible, and for the most part, it is. Fortunately, there are organizations and free software offerings that can help you bring your data monster into submission. Erasing Your Digital FootprintNow that you've had the chance to measure just how big your footprint is, what steps can be taken to try and erase it? Let's start with cookies. A simple way to ensure safe browsing without a trail is to make sure you are cleaning out your cache of cookies on your computer. Accessing the preferences option in any browser and clicking the "delete cookies" option can easily do this. A word of warning though: those users who enjoy auto-login and personal customization and personalization of sites you frequent will be deleted.
If you would like a more thorough method of cleaning up cookies, as well as Internet history and other tracking tools, there are free options available. A popular software offering (and a MaximumPC favorite) for Windows users is CCleaner. CCleaner, which is available as a free download or pay version (if you want technical support included), cleans all Internet history, cookies, auto-complete forms, and index files from your computer. Supported browsers include IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. Another option to clean cookies on your computer, particularly flash cookies, is a freeware program called Flash Cookie Cleaner. Flash cookies are simply cookies created by Adobe Flash plug-ins on websites that perform the same snooping tasks as regular cookies. Flash Cookie Cleaner works to eliminate these files, but also contains options to save cookies to sites you trust and wish to keep information on. Another easy way to erase your digital footprint is to make sure you are deleting accounts to websites you no longer frequent. Sites can often employ difficult account cancellation practices, which can discourage users from going through the trouble. Smashing Magazine writer Cameron Chapman has compiled an excellent article on how to delete your account from popular websites. This can be one of the quickest ways to erase your personal data, making it unavailable to be used by one company or sold to another. Still have your Friendster, MySpace, or Bebo account active? That data is still available for others to see!
Erasing personal information that has already been made public on the web should be the next step in your clean-out process. Do a basic search of your name on sites such as Spoke, Intelius and WhitePages to pull up what the rest of the world sees about you. From there, it becomes a tedious (but worthwhile) process of filling out online forms and making phone calls with these services to limit or remove your personal information from company databases. For more information on public data companies to check and how to remove your information from them, check out this article from Gizmodo writer Kelly Hodgkins. If drastic measures are needed to erase your information, companies are ready and waiting to "wash out" your digital footprint: for a price. Reputation.com offers a suite of paid services to protect, promote, and defend their customers' personal data online. Their tagline? "Scammers, stalkers and identity thieves prey on private data. Equally harmful are things we call negative content — a bad review of your business, a nasty comment on Facebook, an article about something from your past that's simply irrelevant now — that could damage your personal life or your livelihood. We can help." If an absolute face lift or dramatic reduction of your online information is needed, pay services such as this may be your quickest way to a smaller digital shoe size. Controlling the Size of Your Footprint
Now that you've taken the red pill and realized the realities of living a life connected to the Internet, how can you better protect yourself in the future? There are several basic tools available for the privacy-conscious; most of them free. Let's start with the biggest data hog of them all: Facebook. A recent report by Nielsen found that in August 2011, the average U.S. user spent an average of seven hours and 46 minutes on Facebook, which is up from five hours and 46 minutes just a year ago. With all of the news feeds, friend requests, photo tags, and application requests, not to mention the amount of sites that can be accessed through your Facebook account, it is easy to see how the shoe making the digital footprint is increasingly coming from Mr. Zuckerberg's creation.
If you would like to keep Facebook in check and minimize its invasion into your online life, check out Disconnect, a browser extension available for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. The purpose of this extension is to "help people understand and control the data they share online." Disconnect will disable third-party tracking, depersonalize searches, identify and block information requests from websites, and allows the user to easily unblock these requests if so chosen. If you are a Chrome browser user, another tool available is Facebook Disconnect, created by former Google engineer Brian Kennish. Facebook Disconnect works in the background of your browser to block all traffic from third-party sites to Facebook servers, but still allowing users to access their Facebook normally.
Continuously staying on top of your online presence should become a regular routine. Again, Google (I swear they are not paying me) is the easiest avenue to accomplishing this task. Simply doing a search of your name and popular aliases on a regular basis is one easy method.
The service Google Alerts will actually send regular email updates every time your name is queried. Both of these simple steps can help you monitor the information other people are looking at pertaining to you and where they are accessing it from. Now that you have this handy guide to walk you through how to purge that data, channel your inner-Jason Bourne every so often and control your data like the secret agent you always wanted to be! Be sure to check out a related article by online privacy expert Dan Tynan for more information. To help further minimize your digital footprint, privacy advocate Moxie Marlinspike created a service called GoogleSharing, which allows users to search through Google without being tracked. The technology scrambles search requests that are sent to Google, making it impossible to tell where or from whom the request is coming from.
Facebook is not the only site where your information is vulnerable. Virtually every site on the Internet leaves your information open to ad peddlers. Barring these companies from accessing your personal information can greatly reduce the size of your digital footprint. In addition to their tracker cookie scanning feature, The aforementioned National Advertising Initiative has created an opt-out program for web users, which requires their more than 70 member companies to no longer deliver web ads tailored to from your usage patterns. This does not mean you will no longer see web ads on the sites you visit, but it will reduce the amount of organizations that will mine your data and generate personalized advertisements as you browse the web. Another organization committed to protecting your personal information and reducing your footprint is PrivacyChoice, which allows users to add a bookmark to your browser that scans your history and automatically sends opt-out requests to over 100 ad networks. No longer will your browsing habits be analyzed for profit thanks to organizations such as these.
Even with these precautions there is no absolute way to make your information available only to you. Once something is done online, expect it to be there forever. Don't bother thinking you can hide anything online because there is nowhere to hide. The best strategy for reducing your footprint is to remember to step back every once in awhile, and not rely on the Internet to service every facet of your life. Every picture doesn't need to be geo-tagged; every new social media site does not have to be joined permanently. Every detail of your personal life does not have to be put on display for others to see. Just like you take steps to protect your physical information, remember to take steps to monitor and protect your digital information as well. |
| Gross Stat of the Day: 16 Percent of Cell Phones Have Poop on Them Posted: 10 Nov 2011 12:19 PM PST
One of them is already ingrained into your noggin thanks to the title above, but your cell phone isn't the only thing that might be nasty. According to Keeping It Kleen, keyboards are five times dirtier than a toilet seat and are 150 times over the acceptable limit for bacteria levels. A can of compressed air will knock those Pizza Pocket crumbs out from the crevices, but the real solution is to wipe your keyboard with a disinfectant cloth or use a cloth with dish soap diluted with water, Keeping It Kleen says. If you sneeze on your electronics, be aware that resulting cold and flu germs can stay on a surface for up to 48 hours. Oh, and don't lick a remote control, Keeping It Kleen says (seriously). Check out the nasty infographic here (don't worry, it's safe for work, it's just icky to read). Image Credit: KeepingItKleen.com |
| Browser Extension of the Week: Send to Kindle Posted: 10 Nov 2011 11:36 AM PST
Send to Kindle allows Kindle owners to push the webpage they're viewing to read later on their Kindle Device. Available for use with Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer 9, Send to Kindle is easy to install and use. Simply download the extension, install it set your usage preferences, and you'll be up in running in minutes. When you click the Send to Kindle icon located in your browser's navigation bar the extension automatically identifies the main content of the page you're currently browsing, packages it up for Kindle and fires it off into cyberspace to download and read on your device later.
The extension even offers users the ability to send content to their Evernote or Instapaper accounts. With that kind of versatility, you'll never be short of something to read or the means to send it. Be sure to check in every Thursday for another edition of Maximum PC's Browser Extension of the Week.
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| Netgear WNDR4500 Wi-Fi Router Review Posted: 10 Nov 2011 11:12 AM PST At long last, a router to get excited aboutIt's easy to become jaded when you review as much cutting-edge hardware as we do. We try not to be curmudgeons, but we do get grumpy when next-gen hardware fails to make a leap in performance—or worse, when it falls behind the gear it's intended to supplant. So we're happy to report that benchmarking Netgear's new WNDR4500 left us grinning from ear to ear. This is the fastest router we've ever tested, and it's packed with new features. Netgear continues to brand its wireless routers with two different model numbers. The WNDR4500, for example, is also marketed as the N900, presumably because this is a dual-band model that's capable of supporting three 150Mb/s spatial streams on both its 2.4- and 5GHz radios: Three times 150 equals 450, and 450 times two equal 900. That's nonsense, of course, because the two radios can't be bonded to serve a single client. It's also unfortunate, because this router is so fabulous it doesn't need to be hyped.
The WNDR4500 is dramatically faster than the older WNDR3700, which supports only two spatial streams on each of its frequency bands. At close range, the WNDR4500 achieved TCP throughput of 151Mb/s on its 2.4GHz radio, and a staggering 251Mb/s on its 5GHz radio. Compare that to the WNDR3700's 84.3Mb/s and 175Mb/s performance, respectively. The new router beat the old by a wide margin at every test location with the notable exception of our media room, where the WNDR3700's 5GHz radio beat the WNDR4500's by 27 percent. Interestingly enough, the WNDR3700's hardwired switch also proved to be slightly faster than the one on the WNDR4500, with the old router outperforming the new by 11Mb/s (887Mb/s versus 876Mb/s). The WNDR4500 is the first router we've seen to boast USB 3.0 ports (two, to support both a storage device and a multifunction printer). This is a long overdue development, but we encountered a curious anomaly when we performed our NAS benchmark test, using a 500GB Western Digital My Passport USB 3.0 drive: The WNDR4500 was more than twice as fast as the WNDR3700 when writing files to the portable drive, but the WNDR3700 was significantly faster when reading files from it. Netgear has completely revamped the router's browser-based user interface, although you won't need to access it right away: The default SSID for the 2.4GHz radio and a unique, but easy-to-remember password for both radios (ours was "magicalfire673") are printed right on the side of the device. Simply add "-5G" to access the 5GHz network. You're free to change any of the SSIDs or passwords, of course. You can also operate password-optional guest networks on both radios, with the ability to restrict guests to Internet access only, access to the Internet and other clients on the same SSID, or access to your entire network. Netgear has come up with a free newb-friendly client app called Netgear Genie that's very similar in functionality to Cisco's Network Magic. You can control most aspects of the router's settings with this tool, display network maps, establish parental controls (administered via OpenDNS), monitor your bandwidth consumption, and more. Aside from the oddly slow USB read performance—and the absurd "900" branding—we can't find a single flaw in the WNDR4500. If you have the budget, this is the router to buy. $180, www.netgear.com |
Google's cloud-based Chrome OS was seen as a threat to Windows by some (highly excitable) people when the search giant first talked about it in 2009. This was especially thought to be a possibility where the limited computing needs of the less tech savvy were concerned. That threat, however, never materialized. But Google isn't ready to give up yet. It's now trying to convince PC vendors to begin selling desktops with the cloud-based OS.
Opera today released a new beta version of its eponymous browser. The 
Those with even a passing familiarity with tech news sat up and took notice when Amazon announced a $79 Kindle a few weeks ago. While the e-ink devices are certainly cheaper to make than they once were, iSupplyi has done a breakdown analysis of the device and found that Amazon is 
Nokia's recently announced Lumia 800 seems like a competent smartphone, the only problem is that it's not available in the US. 
A new report details some 
Asus and Acer, the same two companies largely responsible for the success of the netbook form factor and, by association, Intel's Atom platform, are having a hard time selling Intel's Ultrabook concept to the masses. To wit, both companies recently reduced their Ultrabook orders by as much as 40 percent simply because initial sales numbers weren't looking all that hot.
Think about all the things you've used your Internet for in the past 24 hours. You've probably checked your email, updated your Facebook status, paid some bills through online banking, read up on the latest news, and took the time before bed to video chat with a far-flung childhood friend. Even after logging out and turning off your computer, the information you've just accessed or created continues to wander the great plains of the World Wide Web. This information that we leave behind about ourselves on a daily basis is known as our digital footprint.
Fair warning: If you're a hypochondriac, germaphobe, or just hate gross things, stop reading right now and go wash your hands, your cell phone, your keyboard, and your light switches. Don't ask why, just do it, and when you're finished, go ahead and scrub your Wii Fit Balance Board, computer printer, and remote controls. Whatever you do, don't take a peek at KeepingItKleen.com's latest Tech Germs infographics, some of those stats you won't be able to flush from your mind.
Surfing the web from your desktop rig or laptop is a brilliant way to enjoy scads of free reading material from around the globe. That said, it's not ideally suited for those of us who prefer to peruse our words on the go. One could argue that sending content to a smartphone or tablet would be the way to go, but for individuals with a freakishly low data cap, or worse, no mobile device to speak of, doing so isn't a viable option. For owners of an 
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