Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University have unveiled a new project that uses Kinect and a projector to turn any surface into an interactive touch screen. The project, dubbed OmniTouch, will track surfaces such as the palm of a hand, and lets users use taps and multitouch gestures to interact with them[......]
StarTech specializes in hard-to-find connectivity parts and the occasional gee-whiz device, the latter of which is what the company's new USB 3.0/eSATA to SATA Standalone 1:3 Hard Drive Duplicator Dock falls under. In case it's not obvious from the product title, this is a device that performs 1:3 sector-by-sector duplication from a single SATA drive onto three others all at the same time, and you don't need to plug it into a PC. "IT professionals are always looking for ways to make their jobs more efficient and this new multi-drive duplicator allows them to accomplish just that," commented StarTech.com Senior Product Manager, Carey Cline . [......]
StarTech specializes in hard-to-find connectivity parts and the occasional gee-whiz device, the latter of which is what the company's new USB 3.0/eSATA to SATA Standalone 1:3 Hard Drive Duplicator Dock falls under. In case it's not obvious from the product title, this is a device that performs 1:3 sector-by-sector duplication from a single SATA drive onto three others all at the same time, and you don't need to plug it into a PC. "IT professionals are always looking for ways to make their jobs more efficient and this new multi-drive duplicator allows them to accomplish just that," commented StarTech.com Senior Product Manager, Carey Cline . [......]
PC shipments have been downright glum over the last couple quarters, with tablets (c`mon, friggin' iPad) sucking away consumer dollars. But that hasn't stopped Windows 7's advance, which is getting a boost from the huge corporate Windows XP install base moving onward. Today, Gartner predicted -- and, frankly, it's no shocking palm reading -- that Windows 7 will become the "leading operating system" this year[......]
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction against video streaming service Zediva. The MPAA's Dan Robbins called the ruling "a great victory for the more than two million American men and women whose livelihoods depend on a thriving film and television industry." Zediva argues that it is an ordinary DVD rental service that happens to allow customers to view their rented movies via the World Wide Web—imagine a tremendously long cord stretching from your home to the Zediva office[......]
Microsoft on Monday rolled out R2 of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2011, the company's client-side management suite for Software Assurance subscribers which includes Asset Inventory Service (AIS) 2.0, Diagnostic and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) 7.0 and Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM). The last major update to MDOP was in mid-March , and it included Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.6 SP1, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) 2.0, Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) 4.0, AIS 1.5, DaRT 6.5, and Microsoft Desktop Error Monitoring (DEM) 3.5. [......]
Apple may have thought an update released Monday to fix issues with security certificates wasn't a big deal, but security researchers disagree. The flaw is easy to exploit thanks to an update to a publicly available application that can snoop on the data stream of iOS devices. That application is called SSLSniff. [......]
Pando Networks has published the results of a study evaluating the Internet download performance of 4 million users across the country. The data offers some insight into regional bandwidth trends, highlighting significant disparity between US states in the average quality of Internet connectivity. [......]
Not content with announcing one genuinely cool tech story this week, Japanese car manufacturer Toyota has unveiled a new augmented reality car window and a thought-controlled bicycle. Toyota's new " Window to the World" project is all about developing new interactive touchscreen car windows, which will let children (and bored adult passengers) draw doodles on the picture of the world outside the back seat[......]
ZocDoc , a web-based service for finding doctors and booking appointments without making a single phone call, launched its official Android app on Monday, and it is freely available for download in the Android Market . ZocDoc is frequently compared to restaurant reservation service OpenTable because, well, it's really the same thing, but instead of booking dinners, the user is booking medical or dental appointments[......]
Mathias Svensson has released version 1.10 of his Windows file management tool, Multi Commander . It's a notable release for being the first build to be made publicly available as freeware, and also features a number of notable new tools and improvements[......]
It's no secret that Windows records many details about how your PC is being used. A quick look at the Start menu will probably uncover the programs you've launched recently, and the documents you've opened, for instance, while histories in WordPad, Paint, the Run box and so on reveal even more about your recent activities[......]
The Windows Home Server team on Friday announced the final release of Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector, an add-in utility that lets users turn their Windows phone into a remote Windows Home Server 2011 management terminal or media streamer. With the server-side add-in and the appropriate mobile application, the user's Windows Phone gets a hub specifically for "My Home Server" where he can view alerts, initiate backups, manage user access, or view and access content located on the server. The Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector can be downloaded here , and the "My Home Server" Windows Phone 7 application can be downloaded through the Zune Marketplace on the phone or PC. [......]
Mozilla has started the Firefox development merry-go-round again, updating its Beta , Aurora and Nightly 32-bit and 64-bit builds to versions 6, 7, and 8, respectively. Unlike the recent Firefox 5 release, version 6 introduces some visible new features, including a Permissions Manager for better privacy, while version 7 sees Firefox taking long overdue steps to address its memory consumption issues. Once again, the question arises: Which version should you install, and what sets each release apart? [......]
When a homeowner runs an open, unencrypted wireless network and Google sniffs the packets from that network, has wiretapping taken place? Or did the openness of the network remove the user's reasonable expectation of privacy? Google's Street View project has enmeshed the company in litigation around the world, most notably over the company's data collection from WiFi networks its camera cars passed while doing their work[......]
