| 15 Back-to-School Tech Gifts Posted: 26 Aug 2013 03:04 PM PDT  Make the upcoming school year a little easier
There's a chill in the air that wasn't there a few weeks ago, the leaves are starting to change color, and old man Jenkins has already called the cops three times because those pesky kids keep crossing over his lawn in the wee hours of the morning. Yep, it's the end of summer and the beginning of the back-to-school shopping season. Are you prepared? Do you have all the electronics and gadgets you need to survive another semester of classes? What about your offspring? Don't worry if you answered "no" to any or all of the above questions, you've come to the right place. We live and breathe technology, and no matter what the season, it's our job to keep up with the latest trends and hottest electronics gear. With that in mind, we've put together a gallery of over a dozen tech gift ideas and recommendations. It's not essential to own every item on the list, though each and every pick is designed to make the school season a little easier to bear in some way. Have a recommendation of your own? Be sure to share it with us and your fellow readers in the comments section below! |
| Feedly RSS Reader Goes Pro with $45 Yearly Subscription Posted: 26 Aug 2013 11:57 AM PDT  Feedly Pro introduces a search function to RSS feeds
Feedly quickly emerged as the front runner to replace Google's now defunct Reader service, giving RSS users a serviceable alternative to keep on trucking with. For those of you who made the jump to Feedly but perhaps wanted a few more features to play with, Feedly Pro is now available for everyone. It costs $5 per month or $45 for an annual subscription, the latter of which saves you $15, equivalent to three free months. The first batch of Pro level features include search, one-click Evernote integration, one-click Pocket integration, and premium customer support. Feedly's developers promise to add new Pro features on a regular basis. "The goal is to offer our most passionate users more productivity and make Feedly sustainable in the long run," Feedly said. Feedly Pro first became available earlier this month to the first 5,000 early adopters who were willing to pay $99 for a lifetime subscription. Those 5,000 subscriptions sold out rather quickly and gave Feedly the funds it needed to flesh out its infrastructure for a public launch. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Steve Ballmer's Biggest Regret is Windows Vista, not Surface RT Posted: 26 Aug 2013 10:09 AM PDT  We initially regretted Vista, too
Windows ME and Windows Vista are arguably the two most forgettable versions of Windows ever to be released. That's not just public opinion, at least as it pertains to the latter, which happens to be Steve Ballmer's biggest regret during his time served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft. Now that he's announced his impending retirement, he can talk a bit more candidly about his track record. Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet got the rare opportunity to interview Ballmer after announcing his retirement, noting that it's been 20 years since she's been allowed by Microsoft to talk to him. She doesn't know why that is, but if there's an upside, it's that two decades gives you plenty of time to think up questions you'd like to ask. Among them was inquiring about Ballmer's biggest regret. "I would say probably the thing I regret most is the, what shall I call it, the loopedy-lo that we did that was sort of Longhorn to Vista," Ballmer said. "I would say that's probably the thing I regret the most. And, you know, there are side effects of that when you tie up a big team to do something that doesn't prove out to be as valuable." 
Vista was a mess from the beginning, both in terms of compatibility with certain products, and also performance issues that reared their ugly heads. Things improved substantially following Vista's first Service Pack, but by then, the OS's reputation was pretty badly tarnished. Ballmer touched on a number of other topics as well. He revealed that Bill Gates didn't ask him to stay or go, calling it a personal decision and one that Gates respected, Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Researchers Discover Brains Benefit From Playing 40 Hours of StarCraft Posted: 26 Aug 2013 09:22 AM PDT  Another excuse to play video games
Authors of a new study claim that playing complex scenarios in StarCraft, a popular real-time strategy (RTS) game, can enhance cognitive flexibility. The reason the study focused on StarCraft specifically is because to be successful, the player must cope with simultaneous and rapidly evolving game situations and sub-situations occurring in real-time while managing funds, resources, and information about the opponent. It's a lot to juggle and requires fast thinking. To test their theory, researchers Brian D. Glass of the University of London, W. Todd Maddox of the University of Texas at Austin, and Bradley C. Love of University College London rounded up non-gaming undergraduate students from the University of Austin. All of the participants ended up being female due to the small number of non-gaming males. Each participant logged 40 hours of game time, playing roughly one hour per day. They were put into groups consisting of people who played The Sims, StarCraft, and StarCraft with certain settings disabled to make it more difficult to play. 
"The present study finds that cognitive flexibility is a trainable skill. Forty hours of training within an RTS game that stresses rapid and simultaneous maintenance, assessment, and coordination between multiple information and action sources was sufficient to affect change," the authors concluded. "As a result of RTS game experience, an underlying dimension of cognitive flexibility emerged and characterized individual differences in performance on a variety of laboratory tasks." The study didn't focus on other factors, such as the effect that 40 hours or more of gaming per week might have on a person's overall health, nor did it touch the topic of violence in video games. While those debates rage on, teens at least have another excuse to toss at their parents when asked why they spend so much time playing games. "I'm exercising my brain, pops!" Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| AV-Comparatives Compares Mobile Security Software, Finds Only Minor Impact on Battery Life Posted: 26 Aug 2013 08:34 AM PDT  Sixteen mobile AV software suites duke it out
It always feels a little sketchy when an antivirus vendor presents malware statistics and outlines all the growing threats you need to be aware of. While their data might be spot on, the fact that they each have a vested interest in the numbers they're presenting can give skeptics pause. Well, AV-Comparatives doesn't make AV software; it's an independent testing lab and one of the resources we use in our own AV reviews. In its latest report, AV-Comparatives analyzes 16 different mobile security applications to see which ones root out the most malware on smartphones and tablets running Android, as well as their impact on battery life. The 16 products tested (PDF) include AhnLab V3 Mobile, Avast Mobile Security, Baidu Mobile Manager, Bitdefender Mobile Security Premium, ESET Mobile Security, F-Secure Mobile Security, IKARUS Mobile Security, Kaspersky Mobile Security, Kingsoft Mobile Security, Lookout Premium, Sophos Security and Antivirus, Tencent Mobile Manager, Trend Micro Mobile Security, Qihoo 360 MobileSafe, Quick Heal Total Security, and Webroot SecureAnywhere Mobile. Surprisingly, there wasn't a whole lot that separated one product from another. Starting with a look at battery usage, AV-Comparatives found that most of the products only had a minor impact on battery life. The worst offenders in this category were Qihoo and Webroot, the former because it uses "fancy animations" and the latter due to its real-time protection component. Though they came in last, the battery drain still only amounted to around 3 percent. 
When it came to testing malware protection, AhnLab and Kingsoft both detected 99.9 percent of the nearly 3,000 malware applications that were collected in the four weeks prior to the start of the test. Kaspersky came in a close second at 99.7 percent, followed by Baidu and ESET (both detected 99.6 percent), Bitdefender (99.4 percent), and Avast (99 percent). Several others scored in the 98 percentile, while Ikarus took last place with a 91 percent detection rate. "Mobile security software protects the user against the great majority of threats, and should not, in our opinion, be regarded as merely optional," AV-Comparatives concluded. Nonetheless, many users do not employ such protection, and are at risk. We find this hard to understand, as there is a wide range of software, including free products, that provide a high level of security. The argument that security products affect the performance or battery life of smartphones has very largely been disproved in our test." Do you run AV software on your mobile products? Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: CM Storm Stryker Case, ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Professional Mobo, and More! Posted: 26 Aug 2013 07:50 AM PDT |
