Category: Computers

Walmart, America's largest retailer and the world's largest corporation, will be placing radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on the jeans and underwear sold in its 3,750-plus U.S. stores beginning next month. The removable tags will be used to monitor inventory losses and shelf stock, but some people are less than happy about the prospect of carrying around a tracking device in their ...

Facing rising crime rates, the Memphis Police Department turned to a predictive crime analytics program developed by IBM back in 2006, thus making the threat of 'Minority Report' one step closer to reality. According to GovTech, the CRUSH (Criminal Reduction Utilizing Statistical History) software, which puts crime data on a digital map of the city, has helped the MPD reduce crime by 31-percent ...

The violent conflict between governmental and rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may not make the front pages of many Western news outlets, but it has definitely caught the attention of U.S. lawmakers. As the AP reports, a newly passed American law, which was signed into effect in conjunction with Obama's economic overhaul, will now require all gadget manufacturers to disclose ...

Here's hoping you're still full of BP outrage: Maybe 50 million barrels of crude destroying the ecosystem and the lives of Gulf locals hasn't been enough or the backfired PR photoshoppery and the revelation that the company had known the blowout prevention system was leaking don't sufficiently rouse your ire. Perhaps, then, you'll be moved to know that the emergency alarm system on the Deepwater ...

Despite a great level of ingenuity on some companies' parts, finding a useful accessory for your iPad these days is akin to sifting through junk at a garage sale. Syte Shirt, a recent startup, has just entered the peripheral field with an accessory it feels will finally provide a useful casing for the iPad. By placing the tablet inside a T-shirt, with the screen turned outward, the Pad becomes ...

In today's new world economic order, China's supposed to be the one providing us with cheap products, and India's supposed to be the guy we call when said cheap products break down. Now, though, the mighty subcontinent has decided to throw its hat into the low-cost manufacturing ring with the release of a new $35 tablet. According to Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, the ...

These are dark times for Dell. As we reported last month, the computer manufacturer has been under fire for knowingly selling over 11.8 million faulty computers, and is currently embroiled in yet another lawsuit. Now it comes to light that some of the motherboards it recently sent out were filled with malware. The company has admitted as much, saying that the problems have only affected a "small ...

If you're using Apple's Safari browser, your personal information may be at risk. According to security researcher Jeremiah Grossman, Safari users could be unknowingly revealing personal data to third party sites, thanks to a flaw in the browser's security framework. As the New York Times reports, the bug exploits Safari's auto-fill function, and can allow sites to access a user's name, address, ...

The big brains at MIT aren't just interested in solar cells, robot desk lamps and gesture interfaces; they're also applying their evolved understanding of tech to decipher ancient languages. The team of Regina Barzilay, an associate professor in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, have created a computer program that successfully deciphered a chunk of Ugaritic, a dead Semitic ...

If other dieting solutions just haven't worked, why not try a personalized, robotic weight-loss coach? It may sound odd, but according to The Wall Street Journal, Intuitive Automata, Inc. hopes that its talking robot, Autom, can help people lose weight and lead healthier lives. Autom -- which will launch in the U.S. next year as a trial, and later for $500 plus a monthly subscription fee -- will ...

We can't help but admire at a distance when robot technology advances in any measure. Call it habit, fear or just pent-up animosity from watching way too many sci-fi films, but the truth of the matter is robots are frightening. Take, for instance, Cornell University's Ranger robot, which just set the world record for untethered robotic walking, going strong for 14.3 miles in only 11 hours. Yikes, ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/07/21/indian-phone-scammers-pose-as-microsoft-technicians-plant-malwa/'; Kolkata may be the land of elaborate Durga Pujas, cinematic legend Satyajit Ray and coronary-inducing kati rolls, but the Eastern Indian metropolis is also the land of a virulent phone scam that's been quietly making its way around the world for the past two years. As the ...

It seems like Choire Sicha over at The Awl may have had a feline-facilitated, coffee-on-the-keyboard calamity this morning when he decided to declare July 20th Be Conscientious With Beverages Around Your Laptop Day. He writes, "How many laptops have we seen destroyed by a forgotten cup of coffee or a dripping bottle of Vitamin Water?" Well, Choire, this writer can personally vouch for a $250 bill ...

In 1999, Professor Sugata Mitra was working for a software company in Delhi, at an office building surrounded by one of India's infamous slums. The children populating the slum, needless to say, were mired in poverty, and hardly spent any time in school, much less in front of a computer. That didn't stop Mitra, though, from embedding computers on the walls of his office building, and exposing ...

The Kindle may be facing stiff e-reader competition from Apple's iPad, but, when it comes to printed books, at least, Amazon's reader seems to be dominating the market pretty handily. The company says it sold approximately 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books sold over the past three months, and that gap is continuing to widen. Last month alone, for example, Amazon sold 180 Kindle books ...