News

Verizon CEO on rising competition: Bring it on

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam isn't afraid of his competitors' efforts to raise their game; he welcomes the moves.

"My view is, bring that stuff on," he said during an investor conference today. "I mean, we have got a great network, and I think it will be good for consumers and so it is good for the industry."

McAdam touted the large lead Verizon enjoys when it comes to its 4G LTE deployment, which he credits for the wireless business scooping up market share when it comes to lucrative contract customers. He believes the other national … Read more

New Mac malware uses OS X launch services

Security company Intego is reporting the discovery of a new malware package for OS X. The package is a Trojan horse called OSX/Dockster.A, that appears to have keylogging features to record what is being typed on an infected system in addition to remote-access features for backdoor access into the system. When installed, the Trojan attempts to contact the server "itsec.eicp.net," likely to receive instructions for allowing remote access to the system.

As with other recent malware for OS X, Dockster is a Java-based threat that will not run unless you have Java installed on … Read more

Digital-storage basics, Part 3: Backup vs. redundancy

Editors' note: This post is Part 3 of an ongoing series that aims to explain digital storage in layman's terms, based on questions and inquires from readers. See Part 1 and Part 2.

One of a storage device's most important roles, if not the most important, is to keep the information stored on it safe, especially from hardware failure. Redundancy and backup are the two popular types of data protection. They are not the same, however, and it's important to understand the differences between the two.

Redundancy

In a nutshell, redundancy in consumer-grade digital storage means using … Read more

News Corp. cans The Daily

News Corp. axes The Daily.

The Daily, which was an ambitious tablet-only news publication backed by News Corp., is shutting its doors December 15. Launched back in February 2011, The Daily was an interactive newspaper stylized for consumption on the iPad. Best of all, a year's subscription went for only $40 and offered a wide variety of sections. While there will be no more issues of The Daily, its brand will live on other channels within News Corp.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the first text message. On December 3, 1992, SMS pioneer Matti Makkonen successfully sent … Read more

Audiobooks HQ for iOS: 5,000+ audiobooks for under $2

I love audiobooks. Nothing makes a car ride faster or more pleasant than a good spoken-word book piping through the speakers.

That's why I've routinely championed smartphone-powered services like Audible, Audiobooks.com, Simply Audiobooks, and Tales2Go.

Now there's another app worth adding to your audiobook arsenal: Audiobooks HQ, which gives you access to more than 5,000 public-domain titles -- all for a measly $1.99.

The app connects you with two catalogs: the Globe Radio Repertory and Librivox. The former contains just four works (including "Don Quixote" and "Madame Bovary"), while the … Read more

AT&T adds 6 LTE markets, now reaches 150M people

AT&T has expanded its LTE network to six more markets.

The company announced today that three U.S. markets -- Albuquerque, N.M., Reading, Penn., and Salt Lake City -- are now able to access its LTE network. Three markets in Puerto Rico -- Guayama, San German-Cabo Rojo, and Yauco -- also now have AT&T's LTE network.

With the new addition, AT&T's network now spans 109 markets and reaches more than 150 million people, the company told CNET in an e-mailed statement.

AT&T has been rapidly rolling out its LTE … Read more

iTunes gets ready for Russia debut, report says

Apple's iTunes platform could make its debut in Russia tomorrow.

An Apple PR person in Russia has sent out an event invite to a small number of people in the country for a music event the company plans to host tomorrow night, TechCrunch, which obtained a copy of the invite, is reporting. The invite did not say that iTunes will be launching, but did acknowledge that the iTunes team will be holding the event.

Russia is one of the more difficult digital-music markets to crack. The country has several legitimate download services, including one from search firm Yandex, but … Read more

Apple re-posts 10.8.2 update for Mac Mini and MacBook users

Apple has re-issued its 10.8.2 update for specific Mac systems after having pulled it over a week ago.

OS X 10.8.2 has been available for Mac systems since mid-September, but in mid-November Apple pulled a specific version of the updater for the 2012 Mac Mini, iMac, and 13-inch MacBook Pro models, resulting in the inability for those with these systems to be updated to the latest version of OS X.

The reasons for the pulled update were not made public. When users attempted to install the Combo updater for OS X 10.8.2 on their … Read more

New Xbox this time next year?

Microsoft might have a new Xbox for the 2013 holiday season.

A new report from Bloomberg suggests that Microsoft might be readying the successor to the Xbox 360 for the 2013 holiday season. We here at CNET have been speculating the company might do the big unveiling at E3 2013 next summer and then set up a release shortly after. Some of the rumored features of the next Xbox -- aside from an obvious bump in performance -- are a Blu-ray drive and a more precise version of Kinect.

Industry site Telecoms.com has discovered some information about the iPhone 5'… Read more

A 'Star Trek: TNG'-style communicator for your shirt

Joke all you want, but Siri is pretty cool. And Google Search? Even cooler. Just one problem: These voice-powered assistants require you to take your phone out of your pocket, purse, briefcase, or whatever. You can't just talk to the air and have your commands recognized.

What you need is one of those "Star Trek: The Next Generation"-style communicators, the kind Captain Jean-Luc Picard wore on his chest. One little tap and he's all, "Commander Data, meet me in Engineering."

Indiegogo project CommBadge may not look Starfleet-issue, but it accomplishes much the same … Read more