Category: Computers

On Friday, Mark Hurd resigned from his position as CEO and President of HP, amid accusations of sexual harassment. Now, the woman behind the accusations has revealed her identity to the world, and has offered her condolences to her former boss. Jodie Fisher, a 50-year-old former actress and reality TV star, knew Hurd while working as a marketing consultant for HP. From 2007 to 2009, she ...

The next time the police think about slapping a GPS tracking device on your car, they may be required to have a search warrant in their hands beforehand. In an opinion issued Friday, a D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals determined that unwarranted and prolonged GPS surveillance violates constitutionally mandated protections against unreasonable searches. Federal prosecutors used evidence ...

CAPTCHA: the most irritating and unfortunate necessity of the Web. Spam bots have gotten smart enough to outwit most of the hoops put in place to keep them from flooding various sites with fake accounts. To stem the tide, CAPTCHAs have gotten increasingly difficult for the bots to decipher, which has the unfortunate side effect of leaving humans just as puzzled. While we're forced to pause, ...

In a recent study at Northwestern University, researchers used electrodes to examine the brain activity of 29 "fake" terrorists. As FOX reports, each student was given a fake terrorist plan of attack on a given U.S. city, and about 30 minutes to educate themselves. They were also asked to flesh out the attacks in greater detail, based on information concerning weapons and methods. The ...

Aside from Quentin Tarantino and Ludacris, most people take toes for granted. Unless we stub one or see one sticking out of our socks, our phalanges tend to spend their entire lives mired in obscurity at the bottom of our anatomical basements. Every now and then, though, our little piggies rise to the occasion, and prove that they're good for a lot more than performing daily duties like going to ...

Reuters Canada reports that the NFL has spoken with a German manufacturer about placing microchips inside footballs in order to prevent blown calls by officials. The tight-lipped NFL, naturally, would not confirm or deny these reports, but Cairos Technologies sales director Mario Hanus told Reuters, "Yes, we are talking. There is a demand in American Football." The demand is getting touchdown, ...

Share Today, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy report revealing the behind-the-scenes debates that shaped the creation of Internet Explorer 8, and derailed the development team's plan to make the much-maligned browser the poster boy for privacy protection. As it turns out, the InPrivate filter, which is sometimes charmingly called "porn mode," was almost made the default behavior for ...

As CBS reports, Ronald Reagan's son Michael has launched his very own @Reagan e-mail service in an attempt to provide a safe haven for "people who believe in true Reagan Conservative Values." Why, what ever do you mean, Michael Reagan? "What do I mean? Well, every time you use your e-mail from companies like Google, AOL, Yahoo!, Hotmail, Apple and others, you are helping the liberals," he ...

Folks, we hate to keep repeating ourselves, but all those old sci-fi scenarios are really, truly coming to pass. Take the Acroban robot, for example. Child-like, doe-eyed robot? Yes. From a futuristic manufacturer with a creepily sunny name? Yup: the bot's developers refer to themselves as Inria Flowers. Super-creepy, lo-fi video of real human children playing alongside said robot? Check. (After ...

Dell is apparently eager to compete with Best Buy and Walmart for the title of most despised retailer in the country. A few months back, a tech support rep got in trouble for turning on a woman's webcam without her permission. Then, last month, the company got nabbed knowingly shipping faulty PCs. And, just this week, the Texas-based manufacturer was caught shipping motherboards infected with ...

For quite some time, rumor had it that RIM has been wanting to get into the tablet game, and who can blame it? Microsoft has had a long history in the market, Apple's iPad has proven popular, and it seems that just about every other manufacturer is trying to cram Android into the form-factor. A couple of days ago, we heard that RIM had acquired Blackpad.com, and the world collectively cringed at ...

The ubiquitous ATM has quickly become a favorite, and often easy, target for hackers looking to make a quick buck. At the Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas, security researcher Barnaby Jack recently demonstrated a pair of hacks that allowed him to force an ATM to literally spit cash at him like he'd hit the jackpot on a slot machine. In the demonstration, Jack attacked ATMs from Triton and Tranax, ...

This evening, Amazon unveiled an updated Kindle, the newest member of company's Kindle family of e-readers. The device, simply titled Kindle, lands on August 27th for $139 (Wi-Fi only) and $189 (AT&T 3G). The new Kindle is 21-percent smaller than its predecessor, and is available in graphite and the traditional Amazon white. Although 15-percent lighter, the screen size is still the same ...

Apple went a little retail happy this morning, updating its iMac, Mac Pro and Cinema Display lines, all while introducing the new Magic Trackpad (for those who want to experience all the frustration of using a laptop while sitting at their desktop). While there was no hyped-up event this morning to announce the news, none of it came as a particularly big surprise; the aforementioned products ...

We're still waiting for flying cars, laser guns and teleportation devices, but it looks like we can scratch one childhood dream off the list: touchable holograms. According to the NTDTV report posted after the jump, researchers at Japan's Tokyo University have managed to concoct holograms that not only react to touch, but that also create the sensation of touch, itself. Apparently, and not ...