At first glance, the Razer Edge Pro is indistinguishable from other Windows 8 tablets: it’s 2.2 pounds of matte black metal with a 10.1-inch screen and a single Windows button. It feels heavy in your hands, a little bulkier than the and much, much hotter. That heat flows from the powerful components nestled inside, including an Nvidia GPU and an Intel Core i7 CPU that render Razer's tablet capable of competing with similarly-priced ultrabooks in terms of performance. I haven't spent enough time with the tablet yet to know whether or not it delivers on that potential—look for our full review next week—but Razer's latest leaves a strong first impression the moment you pull it out of the packaging. The most important thing you need to know about the Razer Edge Pro is that it works—you can use it to play contemporary PC games at decent settings, and the battery lasts long enough to let you play for at least 2-3 hours at a stretch before you need to recharge. You can augment that with the extended battery pack in the Edge gamepad chassis—which Razer sells separately or as part of a bundle with the Edge Pro— but there’s a better reason to accessorize: most PC games suck if you can’t use either a mouse and keyboard or a gamepad. I’ve spent a few hours playing PC games with the Edge Pro, and I’ve had a blast playing 3D games like Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider and XCOM while curled up on the couch with the gamepad chassis resting on my lap. Being able to play complex PC games from the comfort of my couch is amazing, but it wouldn’t work without the gamepad accessory.
Legal experts are stepping in to help hacker Andrew Auernheimer appeal his 41 month prison sentence for illegally accessing emails and other data belonging to about 120,000 iPad subscribers of AT&T's networks. has filed an appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In a blog post Thursday, Orin Kerr, a professor from the George Washington University Law School, said he is stepping in to help Auernheimer due to concerns over the length of his sentence and the manner in which the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was applied in the case. "I think the case against Auernheimer is deeply flawed, and that the principles the case raises are critically important for civil liberties online," Kerr wrote.
, Oko International, the maker of a wide range of watches and timepieces sold under the brand name 'Android,' is suing the company for trademark infringement. Oko, established in 1991, sells more than 400 watches and clocks that have been trademarked as "Android" products since 1994. Its pieces, which are marketed across North America, Japan and Western Europe, generate between $1 million and $5 million in annual sales. The company, however, does not seem intimidated by Google. "It does not matter how big the company is. We did not give Google the right to use that name," said Oko chief designer and CEO Wing Liang. to be in the midst of developing its own smartwatch.
Wizardry I, on the Apple II, consumed a significant portion of my freshman year in college. Each game in the series has been painfully addictive, deep, and compelling. The earliest games had a well-deserved reputation for sadistic brutality towards players, with it being quite easy to lose weeks of work and start over, not due to bugs or crashes, but due to deliberately limited save features. If you died in the dungeon, you couldn't load a saved game. You had to begin anew.
It's understandable that a CIO would be worried that a new "Bring Your Own Device" policy could lead to a spike in technical support calls, swamping an already resource-strapped help desk. Even worse, the help desk wouldn't be able to provide a high level of support anyway, because it's impossible for a small staff to be experts on so many new-fangled mobile devices. But the flood of help desk calls never materialized, claims Gartner analyst Jarod Green. In fact, BYOD and other factors have led to a decrease in help desk calls and further shrinking of help desk staff. The trend is so clear that the help desk-the traditional face of IT-risks becoming irrelevant in three years. "It's time to blow up your service desk," Greene says.
Consumers and PC makers might be turned off by Windows RT. Microsoft doesn’t share their ambivalence. The company is sticking with the ARM-based version of Windows for the long haul. Michael Angiulo, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows planning, told CNet that that will get stronger over time. “If you look forward a year or two and you look at the performance output of ARM chips, those are some really capable chips,” Angiulo said. “I think it has a very bright future.”
U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Friday he will soon step down, following months of rumors that he would resign early this year. Genachowski will leave his post in the coming weeks, he said during an FCC staff meeting. He praised the FCC's staff for advancing an aggressive agenda during his "Thanks to you, the commission's employees, we've taken big steps to build a future where broadband is ubiquitous and bandwidth is abundant, where innovation and investment are flourishing," he said. "Thanks to your outstanding work, America's broadband economy is thriving." During a 22-minute speech, Genachowski read a laundry list of accomplishments by the FCC during his years as chairman. Less than a year after he took office, the FCC published a 360-page which laid out a vision for faster and more available broadband across the country.
Last month's release of —the most powerful consumer GPU ever announced—may have inspired uncontrollable drooling among the enthusiast crowd, but at a cool $1000, the card simply isn't priced to move. AMD's latest release takes a different tack. Today, the company announced the Radeon HD 7790 series graphics card, a $150 mid-range GPU designed to bring better 1080p gaming to the masses. The Radeon HD 7790 fills a hole between the Radeon 7770 GHz Edition, which is typically priced between $100 and $110, and the $180 and up Radeon 7850. At $150, the Radeon HD 7790 directly competes against Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti, which has thus far been sitting uncontested at that particular price point. Most of AMD's press materials for the Radeon HD 7790 unsurprisingly compare its 1080p gaming performance against Nvidia's counterpart, with AMD's card claiming frame rate victories to the tune of 8 to 32 percent across a slew of games—and a whopping 67 percent frame rate lead over the Nvidia GTX 650 Ti in DiRT Showdown. (That game heavily favors AMD graphics cards, to be fair.) AMD claims the Radeon HD 7790 performs delivers "an average performance advantage of up to 20 percent over the GTX 650 Ti." The Radeon HD 7790 offers full DirectX 11.1 support and works just fine with EyeFinity multi-monitor setups, though frame rates will obviously drop if you're rocking several displays. Fortunately, AMD loaded the Radeon HD 7790 with CrossfireX support just in case you want a graphical boost down the line. The GTX 650 Ti, on the other hand, doesn't support multi-card solutions.
Buried within Windows 8 are little-known features that can give your website a prominent presence alongside the apps on any user's desktop. Exploiting these options can enhance your site's visitor experience and give your business a competitive advantage. For example, people can pin your website to Windows 8's new Start Screen, share your site with others via its Charms bar, and access shortcuts to your content. Although Windows 8 remains controversial, it counts millions of early adopters, and Windows will likely remain the most popular operating system for the foreseeable future. That's why it matters to optimize your website now for Microsoft's newest OS. Luckily, all it takes is adding add some custom code to your website, and it doesn't take heavy-duty developer skills. Read on to get started. . This creates a "live tile" icon in Windows, serving as a shortcut to your site. —the Favorite or Bookmark icon that appears in your browser's address bar or tab—since that icon appears in Windows 8's tile. Otherwise, you'll see the IE icon by default. Windows 8 extracts the dominant color from your favicon, if available, and uses it as the live tile’s background color. It uses your site’s HTML title tag for the name of the tile.
HBO's Game of Thrones has a strange relationship with the Internet, with a rabid online who have no legal way to stream the episodes. But recent comments by HBO CEO Richard Plepler may indicate a chance on the horizon.
Two comprehensive bills introduced Thursday in the House and Senate would compel law enforcement agents to obtain a warrant before affixing a GPS tracker to a vehicle, using a cell site simulator to locate someone or obtaining geolocation data from third-party service providers.
First, two guys at a programming conference made some jokes about big dongles and wanting to fork some other guy's repo, and the woman sitting in front them took offensive. Then she snapped their photo, shuttled it onto Twitter, and told her 11,000 followers what the two coders had said. Then one of the coders was fired by his company. Then someone launched an online attack against the website run by the woman's company. And then the company fired her. The incident shined a harsh light on just about everyone involved: the coders, the woman with the camera, the companies who fired them, and the larger programming community -- a traditionally male-dominated culture that's still struggling to provide women with the same level of comfort as men. In the end, no one came out looking too good. Well, no one but GitHub.
There's luxury and then there's Luxury. The next flagship from Mercedes-Benz falls into the latter camp, with hand-stitched leather, acres of wood trim, heated and massaging seats and "active perfuming" technology. Yes, that's a bottle of eau de toilette in the glovebox.
The British Linux company Canonical is teaming with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to create Ubuntu Kylin, a Linux distribution specifically for China.
When Wired Science blogger Erik Klemetti got near an active lava flow on Kilauea, he shot some videos of the flow's pahoehoe toes, lava ropes, and lava falls.
Do you like Android? You should, it?s amazing. iOS? Wow, what a great platform, no wonder it started a revolution. Windows Phone? Seriously, it?s got a remarkable and beautiful interface. BlackBerry? There are plenty of great reasons people love it. And no matter which platform you adore, it?s shockingly possible to both have a preference and respect that
Lantos Technologies, a small startup spun out of MIT, has created the first FDA-cleared digital ear-canal scanner. While that may seem wildly specific, and maybe a little gross, it could dramatically improve your grandfather's hearing aid, Lady Gaga's in-ear monitor, and mission-critical communication devices used by the military.
Large numbers of manatees are dying, on both of Florida?s coasts, at the same time. In the southwest, a persistent red tide in the Gulf has killed nearly 200 manatees this year. In the east, something mysterious is quickly killing manatees -- so quickly that scientists haven't found any suffering animals still alive.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop thinks that Apple's iPhone is embarrassing. So much so that he threw Finnish talk show host Hjallis Harkimo's iPhone to the ground on live TV.
According to a nonprofit that argues in favor of red light cameras, one way to catch criminals is by giving police departments access to red light camera footage even when a traffic violation isn't involved.
If you picked up the latest and greatest from the smartphone maker of the north, it may take a little while to figure out all the features hidden in the OS's nooks and crannies. We dug up 10 helpful tips to get you started on your way to BlackBerry nirvana. Or at least get your Nirvana singles on your phone.
Wired Science blogger Jeffrey Marlow is in southern Mexico, on the flanks of the continent?s third-tallest mountain, preparing for a summit attempt. Here, he offers the journey in photographs.
The HTC One finally has a release window -- no, not a firm release date, but a window. And that window, in the United States, is sometime in April.
When Google announced Reader would shutdown, nearly all its competitors saw a massive traffic spike. Most were well-funded startups with resources to scale, but NewsBlur, a one-man operation, managed to more than double its user base in a few short days without all the startup trappings. Developer Samuel Clay writes about what went wrong, what went right and how NewsBlur not only survived, but is thriving.
Signs indicate the Southern Ocean's capacity to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide has been decreasing over the past few decades.
Doug Aitken's newest art?installation?is as big as the building on which it suitably resides.
Windows Blue is coming, and we already know some of what you'll see in Microsoft's looming upgrade. We've also got our own wish list for must-have features.
The zippy new smartphone won't dethrone Android or put a major dent in Apple's iPhone dominance, but it will make current BlackBerry users happy enough to lay down some cash.
Take a 7-inch Android tablet, slap on PSP-style game controls, and price the thing at $170. What could possibly go wrong? Less than you might think.
What makes a better chess boxer, a boxer who can think strategically or a chess player who can throw a punch?
George R. R. Martin will probably have a cameo on Season 4 of
The year is 1974, and Arthur C. Clarke is standing inside one of those cavernous computer centers that held the massive machines of the day.
?Cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive.? Yet that is the false choice being presented by CISPA?s sponsors. Well I?m not buying what they?re selling -- I say we can have both security and privacy. Because let?s face it: We do need better cybersecurity to protect Americans and our economy from harm. In fact, compared to major natural disasters, cyber attacks by a capable adversary could actually affect basic infrastructure like power and water supply for a much more prolonged period and across a much wider geographic area.
The look and feel of iOS has remained largely unchanged since its unveiling in June 2007, which has led some to decry that the platform is stale, or worse, that Apple isn't innovating as quickly as its competitors. While that's not entirely true, it's clear that iOS does need some facelifting to bring it up to expectations in 2013.
Janet Hamlin's charcoal portraits provide nearly all the imagery from Gitmo military trials the public has seen since 2006. Here's a selection from her sketchbook.
Facebook Events now include an embedded weather forecast based on event location. That sounds like a small change, but it's part of a big shift toward context-sensitive computing.
It's time once again for Penny Arcade Expo. Each spring, nerds from all over New England (and everywhere else) swamp the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for a three-day weekend of all things dorky.
This week, the Gadget Lab team is taking a look at new products from HTC, Google and Amazon. Phones, apps and the (potential) destiny of your long-reading future. What more can you ask for?
In the social media era, when reputation and buzz are everything, networks, advertisers, and new players like Netflix are taking bigger gambles on smaller shows and rising stars. Inside the new data-driven, hyper-social, actor-friendly rules of great television