Mouse Gestures for Windows 8

Apple in 2008 started the gesture craze for traditional point-and-click PCs, but gestures will be more important than ever for PC users when Microsoft rolls out the touch-centric Windows 8 in October. Sculpt Touch MouseWedge Mouse To prepare its customers for the touch-based revolution, Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new set of gesture commands and associated hardware designed to make it easier to get around Windows 8 with a mouse. The navigation...

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Project Meshnet

Imagine an Internet without censorship, an Internet built out of like-minded peers and secure connections. Born out of the r/darknetplan Reddit community's dream of developing a truly free Internet, Project Meshnet may sound like something straight out of a science-fiction novel but it's actually an idea that is slowly coalescing into reality. The idea behind Project Meshnet is almost unexpectedly simple. In fact, there's an introductory video that explains the concept in just a few short minutes. For those interested in a slightly more...

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Google Unveils Superfast Internet

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Encouraging residents here to rally each other, Google on Thursday unveiled the highly anticipated details of its new ultrahigh-speed Internet network, which is supposed to run 100 times faster than typical broadband connections. The service, known as Google Fiber, will offer residents in selected parts of the metropolitan area in both Kansas and Missouri the option of purchasing the gigabit Internet service for $70 a month or both the Internet and a television service for $120 a month. The TV service, Google said, comes...

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Malware Invades Apple's App Store for iOS

Windows users can't catch a break with viruses, even when they're getting software for their Apple device. An app called "Instaquotes Quotes Cards for Instagram" was found to contain a worm called "Worm.VB-900," which isn't a threat to iOS itself or any other MacOS platform. However, users who tend to their apps with a Windows machine are susceptible to the baddie -- also known affectionately as Mal/CoiDung-A. Any antimalware should detect it since it's been up to no good since 2009, but Cupertino has already pulled the app and the vendor...

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Lenovo IdeaTab S2110

Lenovo's 10-inch IdeaTab S2 was one of the belles of its CES ball in offering a distinctly Transformer Pad-like experience for those not beholden to ASUS' view of the world. While there wasn't much attention given to the Android 4.0 tablet outside of the FCC filing we saw last month, it's getting its time to shine at last: the device is now sitting on Lenovo's virtual shelves as the S2110. The 10.1-inch slate's selling point remains its (strictly optional) keyboard dock, which supplies a trackpad, an SD slot, USB and 10 extra hours of battery ...

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Mega Spam-Spewing Grum Botnet Finally KO'd

Security researchers have dealt a knockout blow to Grum, one of the most prolific spam-distribution botnets. Command-and-control servers in the Netherlands were taken out on Monday, but that still left zombie control nodes in Russia and Panama up and running. According to security researchers, pressure was applied on a Panamanian ISP hosting a botnet-linked server to clean up its act or risk losing upstream connectivity. The tactic worked by Tuesday, apparently, but that still left the Russian motherlode as well as secondary command ...

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Microsoft Launching Windows 8 on October 26th

The title says it all, folks -- Microsoft's newest operating system will hit the masses starting on October 26th, nearly three years to the day after the launch of Windows 7. Just days after the company previewed Office 2013, we're now told that Steven Sinofsky has affirmed the date at MS's annual sales meeting, but it's not clear if that's a global date or one reserved for the US market. Customers will be able to grab Win8 as an upgrade or in new, unmolested form on that date, and you can bet we'll have a review out to coincide. For now,...

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Microsoft Office 2013 Customer Preview

Microsoft provided PCWorld with two Windows 8 tablets (no, not the Surface) and access to the customer preview versions of both Office 2013 and the cloud-based Office 365 ahead of the formal announcement. We'll be publishing our first impressions of the software this week, kicking off the series with this look at how the software suite runs on laptop, desktop touchscreen, and tablet platforms. In this story, PCWorld...

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NBC Goes for the Gold

Olympics aficionados, rejoice. NBC Olympics—the broadcast network’s sports division handling coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Summer Games—rolled out two free mobile apps on Thursday aimed at helping you enjoy the Games, either independently or on a second screen. Of the two apps, NBC Olympics Live Extra is the more compelling and noteworthy release: It’s your passport to bringing the Games right to your mobile device. You’ll be able to...

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Yahoo Confirms Server Breach

Online account security breaches are seemingly commonplace these days -- just ask LinkedIn or Sony -- and now we can add Yahoo's name to the list of hacking victims. The company's confirmed that it had the usernames and passwords of over 400,000 accounts stolen from its servers earlier this week and the data was briefly posted online. The credentials have since been pulled from the web, but it turns out they weren't just for Yahoo accounts,...

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Ouya's $99 Android-Based Gaming Console

The gaming public at large has spoken. In less than 12 hours, Yves Behar's Android-based Ouya gaming console has reached its lofty funding goal of $950,000 on Kickstarter. To refresh your memory, the $99 system (which was only $95 for 1,000 swift early adopters) packs a Tegra 3 CPU, 8GB of storage, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, a USB 2.0 port and an SD card slot -- that price also grants you a single controller with a touch sensor. Most notably, the system is aimed at being extremely developer-friendly, having open hardware and software with...

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Alt-Week

Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. This week we swing by some superhero news, look at how solar panels might shape up in the future, explore a Lego forest and see how to grab dark matter just using some household gold and strands of DNA. Not only that, we discover how the sun likes to celebrate the fourth of July with its own firework display. This is alt / week While...

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DNSChanger Malware

Thousands of PCs worldwide may be unable to access the Internet beginning July 9 unless those machines are rid of the pernicious DNSChanger malware that first surfaced in 2007. The Federal Bureau of Investigation helped shut down the criminal ring responsible for DNSChanger in late 2011. The federal agency then briefly handled the Internet Domain Name System routing for all infected Mac and Windows systems. Since early 2012, the Internet Systems...

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Windows 8 Upgrade Push

Microsoft is offering users running Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 an offer to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99. Microsoft officials shared details about the latest promotion on July 2 on the Windows Team blog. That's substantially cheaper than Microsoft traditionally charges for "upgrade" versions of Windows. With Windows 7, Microsoft charged users roughly $119 to $219 (estimated retail prices) to upgrde from comparable versions of Vista to 7. The coming offer, available through Windows.com, is good in 131 markets, according to...

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Sony S-Series XQD Memory Cards Hit Speed Record at 168MB/s

Sony's new S-Series XQD memory cards will be the fastest you can buy when they arrive on the Japanese market July 11th, with a transfer speed of 168MB/s -- a boon if you're shooting continuous raw photos or high data rate HD video. The company claims that you'll need a Thunderbolt connection on your computer to take advantage of all that speed, which comes via the PCI Express Gen interface used for the memory cards. The 32GB and 64GB models will also have plenty of space to put all that media, but you'll need to pay for the privilege, to...

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