PC Magazine - 2009 04.pdf - Libertad Zero - Blog

More documents

Recommendations

Info

home showed up on Street View. The photographs in question were taken at the foot of the Borings’ driveway and show the couple’s house, a pool area, and a detached garage. Despite the Borings’ claims, Judge Amy Reynolds Hay of the U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania dismissed the suit, saying that in order to prove invasion of privacy, the Borings must demonstrate “mental suffering, shame, or humiliation.” Along with privacy concerns, there are those who believe virtual mapping is a security risk. Republican California Assemblyman Joel Anderson recently crafted a bill mandating that virtual mapping programs blur out schools, places of worship, government buildings, and medical facilities or face hefty fines and possible jail time. Anderson wrote the bill after it was revealed that PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION APRIL 2009 frontside terrorists in Israel and Mumbai used mapping programs to help plot terror attacks. “All I’m trying to do is stop terrorists,” Anderson told the Associated Press. “I don’t want California to be helping map out future targets for terrorists.” Looking into the Future An inside report on this year’s DEMO show. sTreeT visioN Anonymous cars specially outfitted with multilens cameras capture images for virtual maps. For the past 18 years, the annual DEMO show has been dedicated to start-up companies and brand-new products. Forward Thinking blogger and former PCMag editor-in-chief Michael J. Miller was on the ground at the spring DEMO ’09 show, last month in California. Here’s his roundup of the show’s highlights. Reflecting the changes in the economy, there are fewer new products here than in any year in recent memory, but I’m still expecting to see a variety of new things, ranging from gadgets to consumer Web services to enterprise software. I’m struck, however, by the number of products designed for personal productivity, an area that has been overshadowed in recent years. For example, I saw Symantec’s Project Guru, an online tool that includes remote diagnostics, network monitoring, and online remote access for tech-savvy users—you know, people like us—to offer tech support to friends and family. This will be a closed pilot initially, and the company hasn’t announced pricing, but it’s a very interesting concept. Also at the show was Gwabbit, an inexpensive add-on for Microsoft Outlook that finds and captures contacts from anywhere within an e-mail message, and then turns them into contact records in your address book. There are a number of other e-mail–based tools slated to be introduced, including the Asurion Mobile AddressBook and Cc: Betty, which is touted as a “personal email assistant.” Xandros Presto ($19.95), from the Xandros Linux folks, promises to cut any Windows machine’s start-up time by offering an “instant on” feature. AppZero is another interesting product that By all indications, Google has cooperated with requests to take down or blur Street View photographs that others object to. But the company has no intention of removing Street View. In the past year, it has added more than 40 cities as well as national parks and recreation centers. Google has also rolled out a crowdsourcing feature in which users can post their own street photos. Believing the service’s benefits far outweigh any potential risks or privacy infringements, Google included its own reality check in its motion to dismiss the Borings’ suit. “Complete privacy does not exist in this world except in a desert,” the statement read, “and anyone who is not a hermit must expect and endure the ordinary incidents of the community life of which he (or she) is a part.” —Chloe Albanesius and Erik Rhey sNeAk Peek Among the products displayed at this year’s DEMO show were the Always Innovating Touch Book with detachable screen (left), Coveroos customizable cell phone covers (center), and the Avaak Vue personal video system (right). claims to turn server-based applications into cloud-based applications. Three products at DEMO that are designed to improve Web searching are ensembli, Primal Fusion, and Xmarks. On the hardware side, there were a few products that looked particularly interesting, including the Touch Book, a portable device that works as both a netbook and a touch-screen tablet, and Qualcomm’s mirasol Display, which claims to use significantly less energy than competing display screens. Another compelling display technology was the Avaak vue Personal video system, which the company describes as “a revolutionary wire-free video system that allows remote viewing of anything from anywhere.” And it may not be a big technical advance, but Coveroos may entice people to customize their cell-phone covers.—Michael J. Miller
Best of our Blogs geArlog isimple Tranzit Connects iPods to FM Car stereos iSimple has unveiled the TranzIt, a universal interface that allows iPod and iPhone owners to connect their devices to their car stereos via an antenna bypass. This device claims to offer static-free listening through any FM car stereo. You set the radio preset as an iPod channel (such as 87.9 or 88.3 FM), plug in the iPod, and turn on the Tranzit. Once connected, you can browse and select tracks using the iPod directly. An iPhone owner could conceivably stream Internet radio via Pandora Mobile, AOL Radio, or Last.fm as well. The connection also offers battery charging while the iPod or iPhone is docked.—Jamie Lendino seCuritY WAtCH Worm Targets Facebookers A new variant of the Koobface worm is making the rounds. Facebook users need to be aware of this and other attempts to use clever social engineering related to Facebook to trick them into installing malware. Like the earlier versions of Koobface, this one starts out as a Facebook message from a friend that includes a link to a Web site with something enticing like “a video of you.” As with the old ones, in order to view the video you have to apply what purports to be an update to your Adobe Flash player but is in fact the malware. —Larry Seltzer goodCleAnteCH Green Gadget for Hackers At the Greener Gadgets 2009 conference in New York, there was a competition to find the best green gadget—and it’s not at all what you’d expect. In fact, it’s not even really a gadget. Heck, it’s an anti-gadget. Tweetawatt uses a modified Kill A Watt device to monitor and update your power usage, automatically and wirelessly, for all of your friends and followers to view on Twitter. The theory goes, if everyone knows your power consumption, you’ll behave better. That’s all well and good, but I like the side benefit: It makes Twitter useful. The device was designed by Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries and Philip Torrone of MAKE Magazine.—Jeremy Kaplan @WorK New Business switches Netgear announced a new line of Prosafe FSM Layer 2 Fast Ethernet switches for small and midsize companies. The FSM72 E, FSM722 RS, and FSM72 0RS are stackable switches that are designed for edge-of-network connectivity in small IT shops. The SMB switches come with many enterprise features, including support for 802.1x port-based authentication, ACL (access control lists), QoS with VoIP prioritization with Layer 2 through Layer 4 support, and IGMP feature for video surveillance. The FSM72 E is priced at $299.99, the FSM722 RS at $399.99, and the FSM72 0RS at $ 79.99.—Mario Morejon extremeteCH The Best Free PC Games The crew at ExtremeTech uncover some of the best gratis games. Puzzle Pirates One of the more popular free games on the Net, Puzzle Pirates is a persistent MMO with a very casual bent. You create a cute pirate that looks like a Playmobil figure and sail the seas in search of pieces of eight. The catch is, each activity (and there are many, like manning the guns, repairing the ship, and bailing out bilgewater) is performed with a simple puzzle game. Click here for more. Freeciv It’s Civilization, and it’s free! Okay, so maybe this free and open-source strategy game “inspired by” the beloved Civ doesn’t have all the nice UI features or pretty graphics of Civilization IV. But once you get the hang of the keyboard commands, it’s really addictive. Click here for more. Chalk Joakim Sandberg’s Chalk is good for a couple hours of free fun. The premise is simple—you guide your character around a chalkboard by right-clicking, and draw chalk lines with a left-click. Use your chalk lines to deflect bullets from enemies, remove obstacles, etc. The catchy tunes and sound effects help bring it all together into a nice, polished, scrolling “draw-er” of sorts. Click here for more. F.E.A.R. Combat As you get ready for the PC release of F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, why not brush up on your skills with the free multiplayer component of the original F.E.A.R.? The graphics hold up great—F.E.A.R. Combat is one of the best-looking free games on the Net.—Jason Cross Click here for more. APRIL 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 7
Page 2 and 3: To order your space saving iOne- GX
Page 4 and 5: Editor-in-ChiEf, pC magazinE nEtwor
Page 6 and 7: Feed Debate Over Digital Edition I
Page 10 and 11: Best of the Internet yourFoNTs This
Page 12 and 13: Pacific Image Electronics Memor-eas
Page 14 and 15: DESKTOPS LAPTOPS DISPLAYS first loo
Page 16 and 17: 14 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION APRI
Page 18 and 19: Samsung LN46A850 $2,599.99 list l l
Page 20 and 21: first looks Consumer eleCtroniCs Qu
Page 22 and 23: Quicken Home & Business 2009 Easier
Page 24 and 25: Apple iLife ’09 $79 direct L l l
Page 26 and 27: Skype 4.0 Video Chat Keeps Getting
Page 28 and 29: Every business has its share of buz
Page 30 and 31: The biggest flaw in Apple’s near-
Page 32 and 33: 30 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION APRI
Page 34 and 35: New Wireless Routers Add Speed, Dro
Page 36 and 37: The Best Network Media Devices Bloc
Page 38 and 39: them scan for the SSID (BobsWireles
Page 40 and 41: 802.11-based products for interoper
Page 42 and 43: Solutions problems solved this issu
Page 44 and 45: Last month we tackled the question,
Page 46 and 47: OpenOffice.org 3.0 costs absolutely
Page 48 and 49: Mobile Device Security Measures Eve
Page 50 and 51: SOluTIONS Tips Useful tidbits from
Page 52: Desktops mainstream Hp pavilion eli

PC Magazine - 2009 04.pdf - Libertad Zero - Blog

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?