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Setting up a Wi-Fi network at home has gotten much easier, yet the process can still be daunting. Or the wireless signal won't reach everywhere. A good alternative that has gotten little attention involves your electric sockets.
When a free Web service called WolframAlpha launches in the coming days, the general public will get to try a "computational knowledge engine" that has had technology insiders buzzing because of its oracle-like ability to spit out answers and make calculations.
Q. My computer has gotten slower and slower at doing basic things like booting up and running multiple programs at once. How do I improve its performance without spending any money?
MoneyAisle is a free new Web service that makes a bold claim: It says it will maximize the interest rates consumers can get on savings accounts, by running online auctions in which banks bid for consumers' business.
An old name in retail was hit by a modern scourge — a hack of its customers' credit card numbers — but didn't inform the consumers, revealing how data breaches might be heavily undercounted even with new notification laws.
Since a computer microprocessor is veined with electric circuitry, it might seem like a bad place to put water. But IBM Corp. researchers believe that sloshing water through hair-thin pipes inside chips will solve a vexing problem facing next-generation computers.
John LeSieur is in the software business, so he took particular interest when computers seemed mostly useless to his 6-year-old grandson, Zackary. The boy has autism, and the whirlwind of options presented by PCs so confounded him that he threw the mouse in frustration.
If you're traveling overseas, try to leave your computer at home. If you must have it, put only a few files on it and leave as many as possible behind. Encrypt the files you do bring.
Strong, versatile little "nanotubes" made out of carbon are considered future stars in nanotechnology research in medicine and industry. Now a study finds that longer threads of the stuff mimic the toxic qualities of asbestos, renewing questions about how carbon nanotubes can be used safely.
The One Laptop Per Child project is about to find out whether Microsoft Corp., a rival the nonprofit group once derided, is the solution to its problems in spreading inexpensive portable computers to schoolchildren.
After privacy complaints, Google Inc. is beginning to automatically blur faces of people captured in the street photos taken for its Internet map program. Rolling it out will take several months, however.
A new service named Foneshow offers a quick and easy way to access the downloadable radio shows known as podcasts. Instead of synching your music player to a PC to get audio clips that interest you, Foneshow lets you listen to podcasts on demand from your cell phone.
What do you want your cell phone to be able to do?
Once upon a time, people bonded with their co-workers on office softball teams and traded gossip at the watercooler.
Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes. Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003.
Trying to boost the output of its research labs, Hewlett-Packard Co. wants to get more help from scientists in universities.
Sure, things look rough for Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. after they couldn't agree on a deal. Yahoo's stock has cratered, and its would-be suitor has to figure out another way to catch up in the online ad market, a flaw so big Microsoft was willing to pay $47.5 billion to fix it.
As Yahoo continued to resist Microsoft's $42 billion takeover offer, a key question was just how far Microsoft's excitable CEO, Steve Ballmer, was willing to go in hopes of defeating online advertising and search leader Google.
The glowing amber dot on a light switch in the entryway of George Tsapoitis' house offers a clue about the future of electricity.
A key person behind the "$100 laptop" for schoolchildren has left the project as the organization overhauls its operations and prepares to tweak its open-source approach by welcoming Microsoft Corp.'s Windows.
As Phorm Inc. built a system that watches consumers' Web surfing in order to deliver targeted advertising, CEO Kent Ertugrul believed the British company was doing everything possible to respect, and actually enhance, Internet privacy.
A new computer center in Switzerland is making novel use of the hot air thrown off by its servers and communications equipment: The heat is being funneled next door to warm the local swimming pool.
The Sleeptracker Pro is a bulky wristwatch designed to detect its wearer's sleep cycles, so it can help determine the optimal time and conditions for a great night's rest. Nice. Now I know I don't sleep so well when I get nudged all night by a bulky wristwatch.
The free Linux operating system handles big tasks like running supercomputers and ATMs. Now Linux has a chance to finally crack Microsoft Corp.'s hold on computing's most visible domain — mainstream PCs — because of the rise of innovative, inexpensive machines.
In her spare time, away from her duties as a chemicals specialist in the Army, Angie Papple fires up her computer and writes an article about something close to her, like life in the military. Other times she'll analyze a piece of software. Or she'll churn out advice for travelers to Hawaii, where she lives, or Puerto Rico, where she's never been.
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