wifi

Buzz Out Loud 1280: New Kindle undercuts iPad by $360 (podcast)

Why buy a $499 device to read books when Amazon's new Kindle will do it for $139? We debate. Also, Facebook building a font of all knowledge with Questions. Plus: How to hack ATMs.

TigerDirect.com has the Samsung BD-C6500 Wi-Fi Blu-Ray Player for $224, after $25.99 Instant savings.

Save $25.99 on the Samsung BD-C6500 Wi-Fi Blu-Ray Player from TigerDirect.com >> Regular price is $249.99 >> Sale price is $224 >> Savings $25.99 (10.40%) >> Click here for deal

Microsoft Hohm connects to home power monitor

If you're cranking the air conditioner a lot this summer, a product bundle using Microsoft Hohm will tell you a lot about your upcoming energy bills--maybe even more than you want to know.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it has tied its Hohm Web home energy-efficiency application to an electricity monitor called PowerCost Monitor. The combination, which uses a home broadband connection, lets people view home electricity from the Web or from the tabletop electricity monitor.

Whole-home electricity monitors show you how much electricity a house is using at a given moment and how much it's costing you--sort … Read more

On Facebook, don't panic!

In 2008, the Loaded crew took a road trip to interview Janis Wolak at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research Center. Wolak, a UNH professor, co-authored a study about "Internet predators," which showed that they do not fit the stereotype of thuggish basement-dweller using force, abduction, or deception to lure young teens into sexual relationships.

On the contrary, research shows that Internet sex offenders coax teens into relationships slowly, gaining their trust over time. Once the relationships become obviously inappropriate, teens feel that they have been complicit and are therefore less likely to report … Read more

Starbucks' winning combo: Caffeine and Web

NEW YORK--Grabbing a little pick-me-up for those late-night code-writing sessions or World of Warcraft marathons might be about to get a little easier.

The ubiquitous coffee house chain Starbucks started offering free Wi-Fi on Thursday, so I went to go check out the new service. A few people here, at the Starbucks located at the intersection of East 96th Street and Madison Avenue, were trying to log on to the Web with mixed results.

When Web access was actually up and running, pages sometimes took minutes to download. And it's not as if the network appeared overwhelmed. This is … Read more

Why Hulu Plus is a nifty addition

I am excited about Hulu Plus. I have already requested my invite in earnest!

I've heard some belly-aching about the fact that the service costs $9.99 per month, yet there will still be ads. My take on this: get over it!

We pay a lot of money for cable TV and cable TV does not filter out ads. Why would we expect that $9.99 should buy us commercial-free content? This is expensive premium content that we will be getting with Hulu Plus, and a lot of it. Also consider that you have to pay an extra $9.… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1253: Google has an honesty problem (podcast)

Here's the thing: Google keeps insisting that the data it snared from open WiFi hotspots isn't a big deal, it's useless, it was an accident, and so on. But now, some French investigators discovered that the "useless data" contains obvious passwords and recognizable snippets of email. Which isn't as "useless" as Google suggested, you know? Also, Apple iOS 4 is here; the Nook is, hopefully, resetting e-book reader prices to somewhere they should be; and you decide: Toshiba folding tablet, awesome or DOA? Or both?

Buzz Out Loud 1246: Stick it to the FCC (podcast)

On today's episode, we discover that frenemies make for great collusion, everyone at the White House is suddenly sorry they bought all those iPads, the iPhone 4 doesn't actually have an eyeball, and only birds are now allowed to "tweet."Oh, and everything's better if you're naked.

Even Steve Jobs has demo hiccups

SAN FRANCISCO--For a short time Monday morning the demo gods were not smiling on Steve Jobs.

About 40 minutes into the Apple CEO's keynote speech in which he was introducing his company's latest gadget, the iPhone 4, his demo came to an abrupt halt. He was attempting to show the difference in how Web site text was displayed between the new retina display feature on the iPhone 4 versus the iPhone 3GS, but the conference hall Wi-Fi set up at Moscone West was not cooperating. Only one of the phone's browser windows was loading. The other was … Read more