Tag: INTERNET

So long, 'Dexter.' We hardly knew thee. Just days after Netflix announced its first foray into the content business (a political drama starring Kevin Spacey), Showtime said it would not be renewing streaming rights come summer for its shows that are currently on-air, such as 'Dexter' and 'Californication.' It's a little tit-for-tat; Showtime will be offering these shows on its own online service. ...

It ain't a nice time to be a female star. The FBI is investigating a hacking ring it believes is responsible for swiping "sensitive" material from the e-mail accounts and phones of dozens of stars. According to TMZ, 50 celebrities (including Selena Gomez, Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson) have been targeted, with nude photos and embarrassing videos allegedly stolen. Supposedly, all the ...

If it takes hours to download files on your Wi-Fi network, you might want to try clearing out some of your furniture and turning off your radios. According to a new study from Bristol University in the U.K., wireless connections can be "significantly slowed" by interference from electronic devices, or by physical barriers, like walls, doors, and other household items. The study, led by Prof. ...

For our second annual spotlight on cyber-security, Switched turned to a renowned expert in the field: Eugene H. Spafford, Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. Among his many professional associations and corporate and governmental advisory roles, Spafford is the Executive Director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), which supports ...

Internet TV means plenty of things in the U.S., and usually bears a strange sounding name, like Boxee, Roku or FyreTV. But in developing countries, where the Web hasn't made much headway but households are equipped with televisions, Web-enabled television could be an entirely new browser experience. Vodaphone in South Africa has just announced its Webbox (a name which reminds us of "flummox" or ...

Part of being a smart consumer is understanding how technology works, why we use it the way we do, and what that barrage of acronyms and PR jargon means. We're here to help you make sense of it all, and to give you a better appreciation of how those transistors, pixels, and antennae come together to deliver the conveniences of the modern world to you. If you thought our guide to 3G tech was ...

The majority of Americans still rely on television as their primary news source, but, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the Internet is gaining ground. In a Pew national survey, 66-percent of all Americans cited TV as their main source for national and international news, down from 74-percent three years ago, and 82-percent in 2002. The Internet, ...

If your home network of computers is anything like ours, it's a comically mixed bag of laptops and desktops of vintages spanning almost a decade. Without going into too much tech talk, this means that our busted ol' laptop rocking an 802.11B Wi-Fi card prevents our potentially rocket-fast 802.11n-equipped laptop from ever reaching those wireless speeds. (That's just how Wi-Fi routers work -- ...

At a press conference today, Verizon officially unveiled plans for its new 4G LTE (long term evolution) network. On December 5th, the new, speedier network will go live in 38 metropolitan areas, including New York, Chicago, Seattle and, perhaps in time for CES, Las Vegas. The first two devices to take advantage of the new data network will be a pair of 4G USB modems: the LG VL600 and the Pantech ...

Alright, guys, this is it. You've got your contacts combined, synced, Facebook-free, and cleaned out. You're feeling good, and your address book is looking pretty. Or, so you think. But, Padawan, why stop now? We've already come so far, so why not really whip your contacts into shape, and treat yourself to some serious organization in the form of labels and groups. Practically any ...

With your Facebook contact data freed from the evil clutches of the mighty Zuck, we're halfway done with consolidating your address books. While getting your info from Facebook is the trickiest part, we all know that the disaster of an address book on your cell phone is the worst offender when it comes to disorganization. Today, we're going to combine your Gmail contacts with those on your ...

Networks, bandwidth and capabilities are varied enough within any given country (as will be confirmed by anyone who's tried to get an iPhone on Verizon), but they're an entirely new mess when you start crossing borders. So, if you plan on staying connected without bankrupting yourself, you might want to see if your phone can handle the trip -- and make sure you aren't signing away your first-born ...

Make up your mind, Pope Benedict XVI. First, you roll out your own YouTube channel and Pope2you online initiative, and call upon your priestly underlings to colonize the blogosphere. Then, you turn around and declare that the Internet's poisoning our feeble, sin-prone minds. And now, you've taken the wind out of our Web-surfing sails, once again. On Saturday, during a Vatican conference on ...

So you want to master your RSS feeds, eh? (If you don't know RSS, read our thorough breakdown.) Google Reader is our go-to feed aggregator, and -- if you're a Gmail user -- we're willing to bet that it's yours, too. You can access Reader through Gmail, Google, or even directly at reader.google.com, but you probably know that already. After all, you're no novice Reader(-er); you're just horribly, ...

As many of us have discovered the hard way, backing up your data is not only a smart practice, but a necessity. No matter how careful you are with them, hard drives will eventually fail -- and losing all your personal files is about as fun as getting punched in the ear. While an external drive is great, it doesn't account for all scenarios: What if your home is robbed and the thieves take both ...