Pirating software you don't own is always illegal. But there are times when you do own software that you can't access without pirating it. The cruel irony is that in those times, you're probably more at risk of getting slapped with a lawsuit than real, actual pirates. Here's a guide to pirating like a pro to get back what's rightfully yours. More »

Encroaching into the semiconductor business might not seem the most obvious move for a phone manufacturer that's trying to unify its efforts. Nevertheless, China Times reports that HTC has signed a "memorandum of cooperation" with ST-Ericsson to co-develop a new dedicated chip for low-end handsets coming out next year. Since ST-Ericsson is a fabless chip designer, HTC won't risk getting silicon between its fingernails. Instead, if this agreement is what it seems, the Taiwanese manufacturer may simply want more direct control over its supply chains and to reduce its current reliance on ready-made designs from Qualcomm or NVIDIA. After all, it can't be easy for HTC's new CFO, looking on while others gobbles up those margins.

China Times: HTC wants to develop its own processors for low-end phones originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Plenty of people take vitamin supplements every morning, in many cases to make up for a poor diet. But a new study suggests that taking those morning tablets might not be quite as sensible as you think—and might evn increase your risk of death. More »

DIY'er makes his own conductive ink, teaches you how to do the same originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DIY'er makes his own conductive ink, teaches you how to do the same originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Internet fraud and theft are major problems, there seems to be little doubt about that -- according to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, some 8.4 million credit card numbers are stolen every year. The question, then, is who should be addressing the issue. Genachowski this week called for "smart, practical, voluntary solutions," asking internet service providers to put more effort into helping prevent data theft, hacks and other issues, or risk having "consumers lose trust in the internet," thereby "suppress[ing] broadband adoption and online commerce and communication." The chairman asked ISPs to help avoid hijacking through more efficient traffic routes and to instate DNSSEC to help weed out fraudulent sites.

FCC thinks ISPs should do a better job preventing fraud, theft originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T’s questionable policy with regard to unlimited smartphone data plan holders recently found its way back into the limelight following a new wave of subscriber complaints. The nation’s No.2 carrier no longer offers an unlimited data plan to smartphone users, though many subscribers on its network still have grandfathered plans that provide an unlimited amount of smartphone data each month. Subscribers who approach the top 5% of unlimited data users in a single billing period see their data speeds throttled, however, and countless users have found that AT&T is now beginning to throttle users after less than 2GB of data usage in a billing period. According to a new study, subscribers are right to be furious at AT&T because throttling does nothing to alleviate network bandwidth issues. Read on for more.

Wireless bill analysis firm Validas extracted data from more than 55,000 cell phone bills belonging to AT&T and Verizon Wireless subscribers from 2011, and the firm sought to determine whether or not data throttling is necessary. According to Validas’s findings, throttling may indeed simply be a ploy to push unlimited users into newer tiered plans.

“When we look at the top 5% of data users, there is virtually no difference in data consumption between those on unlimited and those on tiered plans—and yet the unlimited consumers are the ones at risk of getting their service turned off,” Validas wrote in its report. “So it’s curious that anyone would think the throttling here represents a serious effort at alleviating network bandwidth issues. After all, Sprint does seemingly fine maintaining non-throttled unlimited data for its customers.”

Verizon Wireless subscribers on unlimited smartphone data plans actually used less data on average than those with tiered plans according to Validas’s data. The opposite was the case at AT&T, however the difference was 0.78GB on average and median data usage varied by 0.53GB.

AT&T is not the only wireless carrier in the U.S. that throttles smartphone data speeds for unlimited data plan holders, of course. Verizon throttles the top 5% of unlimited data users and T-Mobile throttles its smartphone subscribers after 5GB of data usage in a single billing period. AT&T has drawn the most attention of late because it has been throttling unlimited data plan holders after less than 2GB of usage in many cases. AT&T offers a 3GB tiered plan for the same $30 per month that unlimited plan holders pay for 2GB of full-speed data or less, however the tiered plan offers 3GB of full-speed data.

You don't expect the inflatable couch you bought for your dorm room to last longer than a semester. But Oskar Zieta's inflatable furniture will. It's actually made of steel you inflate yourself, making it impervious to thumbtacks and other abuse. More »

Pegatron Technology has reportedly received a small volume of orders for the upcoming iPad 3, which is set to launch in March, according to Digitimes. Apple has reportedly revamped the company’s outsourcing strategy and will have Pegatron focus on production of the iPad series, with Foxconn serving serving as an auxiliary in 2013. Foxconn‘s primary focus will be the iPhone, with Pegatron only producing a small number of smartphones. The new strategy is meant to decrease risk and increase the quality of products, according to the report. The Cupertino-based company has already visited Pegatron‘s plants in China several times. The publication also claimed that Pegatron is expected to see a “significant increase” in orders for an iPad 4 launch reportedly scheduled for October with an initial volume of 7-10 million units. However, last week John Gruber of Daring Fireball called the March launch of the iPad 3 “completely accurate,” but claimed an iPad 4 report was “completely made-up nonsense.”

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XDA dev provides means to block Nook Tablet OTA updates originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review enough Ultrabooks and you'll start to wrestle with this idea of value. We've seen cheap ones that don't perform well and expensive ones that do. Things get really dicey when you throw in machines that cost a bit less, look good and perform well, but are nonetheless flawed in some key way -- like having a sticky keyboard or a trackpad with a mind of its own.

For more than a week now we've been testing the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s and, at the risk of spoiling this review altogether, it's made it even tougher for us to stack up one imperfect Ultrabook against another. What to do with a well-made, speed demon of a machine that boots in less than 20 seconds but starts at $1,095 without an SD slot, high-res display or backlit keyboard? Are the U300s' stately looks, brisk performance and sound ergonomics enough to make up for a handful of absent features? Find the answers to that and more in our full review after the break.

Continue reading Lenovo IdeaPad U300s review

Lenovo IdeaPad U300s review originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We've seen a lot of game-changing devices this year, haven't we? 2011 has already witnessed the first Honeycomb tablets, the influx of LTE and the introduction of a boatload of smartphones with dual-core processors. One of those groundbreaking devices was the Motorola Atrix 4G, which we called the best smartphone at CES 2011 because of its powerful Tegra 2 SoC and simply innovative Webtop operating system with an accompanying Lapdock. It was new, and it was powerful.

Not even ten months after the Atrix's February 22nd launch, we're already seeing its successor, aptly named the Atrix 2. At the risk of sounding blunt, it's not a groundbreaking device -- aside from a few bumps in specs, larger display and a fresh redesign, it doesn't offer the same level of showmanship or innovation so eagerly demonstrated in the first iteration. But does the sequel compensate for the lack of sizzle? How much does this improve over the original? Does the newest version of the Lapdock satisfy? We'll answer these questions and so much more after the break.

Continue reading Motorola Atrix 2 review

Motorola Atrix 2 review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That awesome beach volleyball scene aside, Goose's death in Top Gun still makes that film too difficult for me to watch. And I can only assume that avoiding such tragedies through adequate training is what inspired Barco to create this domed simulator that provides pilots with a 360 degree, unobstructed view of their virtual surroundings. More »

Following a period of peace after weeks of cyberattacks launched against various Sony-run online networks, Sony has confirmed that hackers are once again targeting the company’s digital properties. The electronics giant said on Wednesday that it discovered a “large number” of sign-in attempts on its PlayStation Network, Sony Online Entertainment and Sony Entertainment Network between October 7th and the 10th. According to Sony, approximately 93,000 accounts were compromised when valid log-in details were verified during what appears to have been a brute force attack. The company says it has locked the affected accounts and that credit card data tied to the compromised accounts was not at risk.

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You've got broadband, right? Are you sure you do? Well, it turns out that the US might well be slipping further down the international 'what speed can you get' tables as UK telecom giant BT Openreach has just fessed up that it will be rolling out a 300Mbps wholesale network as soon as spring 2012. As the network is FTTP, there shouldn't be any more of the old 'up to' claims that have plagued the UK market until now. Also, since it's wholesale, we've got our fingers crossed there won't be any nasty price hiking either, so no need for other providers to start bumping their gums about how unfair it is. So it might not be a gigabit network, but with the UK joining the broad-band-super-speed-party, the US needs to up it's gross point average of 5.3Mbps soon, or risk being left at the children's table. If you're prepared to pine mournfully for what your UK friends have in store, hit the PR past the break.

Continue reading BT Openreach launching 300Mbps broadband in the UK - high in fibre, low in fat

BT Openreach launching 300Mbps broadband in the UK - high in fibre, low in fat originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Ecosystems take years to build and depend on other companies. Really, who has the time these days? Plus, they kick in only if a product reaches critical mass. Microsoft and SanDisk demonstrated the risk a few years back with their digital media players in seeding the market with third-party cases and docks using their own proprietary and now abandoned connectors. Over the past year, though, we've seen a number of tech companies take a new approach to mobile product development -- the corporate showcase -- where they convincingly shun any notion of silos by throwing just about everything they've got into a product.

Continue reading Switched On: Assets in gear

Switched On: Assets in gear originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This whole thing is starting to play out like a giant game of patent Risk. As it did in Australia, Samsung is hitting back against Apple in the Netherlands, asking for a preliminary injunction aimed at Apple's mobile line, including the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad and iPad 2, claiming that the products infringe on 3G patents held by the Korean electronics giant. The proposed ban would prohibit importing the products into the country and would recall them from Dutch retail stores.

Samsung asks Netherlands courts to block iPad, iPhone sales originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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