2013

LG's 2013 televisions promise natural voice search and all-LED backlights

LG has unveiled its 2013 television range in advance of CES 2013. It builds on the superslim design ethos of the previous year, with LED backlights now standard across its entire LCD range. The company will no longer make TVs with fluorescent (CCFL) backlights

The range comprises just under 20 different series, not including the possibly newly announced 55EM9700 OLED. Just three series are plasma, and more than two-thirds of models now feature Internet connectivity.

Smart TV add-ons LG's big features for 2013 are an upgraded Magic Motion remote with "natural" voice recognition; dual-core processors; a camera … Read more

Predicting the most unlikely tech events that will happen in 2013

The other day I was lying on the beach when an older, bronzed man came and lay down next to me.

He made some groaning noises and chatted on his flip phone. He was Iggy Pop.

This, in itself was unusual. However, at the very moment he was there I was reading a book called "Paris, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down," by Rosencrans Baldwin. It's the story of an American writer who moves to Paris with his wife to write silly ads for Louis Vuitton.

I happened to be on page 167, where … Read more

Twitter: Five predictions for 2013

If there was one thing you could say about Twitter's 2012, it was that it wasn't boring. Over the course of the year, the service became bigger than ever, hosted major events like a Q&A with President Obama and another with Pope Benedict XVI, and became an essential tool for those looking for information about everything from Hurricane Sandy to the civil war in Syria.

But 2012 was also contentious for Twitter. The microblogging service put new restrictions on what it would allow third-party developers to do, and then had to deal with a rebellion by … Read more

New Corvette teased and leaked ahead of January unveil

At the Detroit auto show next month, Chevrolet will unveil the 2014 Corvette, the seventh generation of the legendary American supercar. GM's own media releases ahead of the launch reveal a modern, high-tech car that should compete with the best from Europe. At the same time, it appears Chevy addressed a long-time Corvette issue: cabin quality.

To date, the most reliable information available concerns the new Corvette's engine. GM released a presentation detailing construction, testing, and specifications for this new powerplant. The engine, designated LT1, replaces the outgoing LS3.

Although it retains the 6.2-liter displacement of the … Read more

LG's 2013 home theater line doubles down on sound bars, Bluetooth speakers

CES 2013 is still weeks away, but LG is getting a jump on the show by announcing its full line of home theater products on Christmas Day.

Its home audio offerings are anchored by four new sound bar models, with all but the entry-level NB2030A featuring built-in Bluetooth and a wireless subwoofer. The top two models come in a new, larger size, designed to match 47-inch TVs, which reflects the rising popularity of larger screen HDTVs.

The strangest model may be the NB3730A, which includes built-in Wi-Fi and a basic streaming-media suite including including Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Hulu Plus, Vudu, … Read more

Five things Microsoft must do for Windows 8 in 2013

Microsoft's ambitious Windows 8 gamble may have launched this past October, but it's 2013 that will make or break the new operating system. I have five recommendations that Microsoft should implement sooner rather than later to keep Windows 8 from going the way of Vista.

Make the case for Windows RT "That's right, it filets, it chops, it dices, slices, never stops, lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn, and it mows your lawn and it picks up the kids from school..." --Tom Waits, "Step Right Up"

Waits wasn't talking about Windows RT … Read more

Smartphones at CES 2013: Gotta have more quad-core

Note: This article originally posted December 5, 2012 and updated on December 21, 2012.

The gigantic CES trade show in Las Vegas is a few weeks off, promising previews of new handsets you may consider for your own pocket.

I expect that all the usual suspects will have something to announce in one capacity or another, save perhaps for Nokia, which just launched its Lumia 920 and Lumia 820-series phones.

Less bang, more buck-conscious Nokia is a perfect example of handset-makers' relatively new trend of saving flagship smartphone launches for their own events in New York, San Francisco, and London. … Read more

Four security trends defined 2012, will impact 2013

The Internet is slowly changing, and security experts say that today's security issues will continue to be major players in driving that change. Here are four trends that dominated headlines in 2012, and will continue to play a major role in 2013.

The Internet as governmental tool The collective realization by governments around the world that the Internet is an excellent network for conducting surveillance, monitoring, espionage, and war, says Finnish computer security firm F-Secure's Chief Technical Officer Mikko Hypponen, may not come to full fruition in 2013. But the foundation for that change is already underway.

"… Read more

CES 2013: 139 startups, and one that stinks

Among the throng of startups heading to the 2013 International CES next month will be one that's trying to crack through all the noise by stinking up the joint. Literally.

This is the goal of Charlene Coleman, the founder and CEO of Sensory Acumen, a bootstrapped venture from Orinda, Calif., that's spent the last three years working on a device, called GameSkunk, that spews all sorts of scents at people as they play video games. At least that's the hope.

"We thought this would take games to another level," said Coleman, who's now working … Read more