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While individual countries grapple with their own laws over limitations on the Internet, the United Nations is also looking at possible amendments to a telecommunications treaty that could amount to worldwide Internet censorship.

The World Conference on International Telecommunications is to be held in Dubai this December and more than 190 countries are expected to attend. One of the matters to be discussed at the conference is changes to a 24-year-old telecommunications treaty called the International Telecommunications Regulations, according to the Associated Press.

In preparation for the meeting, dozens of countries have been debating possible changes behind closed doors, according … Read more

I wrote about Zoom's nifty $99 H1 pocket recorder last year, and really loved its sound, so I was curious to see how the H2n recorder measured up. It's a bit shorter, just 4.5 inches high, but fatter and a little heavier. The H2n's body is shiny black plastic, but it feels more solidly built than the H1.

It has four recording modes: Mid-Side (MS) stereo, 90 degree X/Y stereo, two-channel, and four-channel surround modes. The H2n can record MP3 files (48 to 320 Kbps) or WAV files (44.1-kHz/16-bit to 96-kHz/24-bit). The &… Read more

Now that you can actually buy the first wireless networking products that use 802.11ac, Buffalo's router and media bridge, it's time you learned about the this new wireless standard. While the "ac" designation definitely does not mean "air conditioning," I can say for sure that 802.11ac is cool.

And by cool, I mean fast. That's the biggest difference about 802.11ac compared with previous wireless standards. But first let's see how similar it is.

802.11ac supplements 802.11n

802.11ac (aka 5G Wi-Fi) is the next step after 802.… Read more

N.O.V.A. 3 Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance ($6.99 -- iOS universal) is the third installment of Gameloft's first-person shooter franchise that, many have argued, bears a strong resemblance to Microsoft's Halo. Whether that's true, the game is mostly a gun-shooting good time with all the perks you'd expect in an FPS, but it does have a couple of problems.

With that said, N.O.V.A. is arguably the best sci-fi shooter franchise on iOS, and with the third installment there's plenty more bad guys to blow away in new and interesting … Read more

The influenza A virus ranks among our planet's least-controlled pathogens, resulting in seasonal epidemics and even global pandemics. The H1N1 virus of 2009 -- a new type of influenza A virus -- caused the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But despite the fast and furious spread of H1N1 that year, it turned out to affect the lungs much in the way the seasonal flu does. Using a new type of test developed at the University of Leeds "might have been a way to identify how lethal … Read more

Intel's latest CPUs will be rolling out in various waves over the next few months, but the first wave of higher-end, quad-core processors is finally here.

So far, the biggest impact has been on gaming without a dedicated graphics GPU, with other differences remaining subtle at best.

Of course, this may not reflect future laptops and desktops in the coming months, but it clearly tells the story of Ivy Bridge at launch: this is evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.

Check out our review roundup below. For more questions on Ivy Bridge, read our FAQ.… Read more

Laptops updated with Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors are finally here, but is there as much to be excited about compared with last year's Sandy Bridge CPUs?

Intel hasn't made such dramatic claims this time around as far as pure processor speed, but there are plenty of other improvements including eight-way Hyper-Threading, Turbo Boost 2.0, integrated USB 3.0, and native Thunderbolt support. The only two parts any mainstream consumer's likely to care about are the CPU gains and new Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics, which promise to greatly boost gaming performance without dedicated graphics.

Soon enough our CNET Labs will be flooded with Ivy Bridge laptops, and we'll have more real-life examples of Ivy Bridge products than you can shake a stick at. Until then, we've tested two early examples of high-end quad-core Ivy Bridge Core i7 processors that Origin and Intel have sent us.… Read more

The iPhone is branching out from its major U.S. carrier roots to grab even more customers.

Five regional carriers have made good on their promise to offer local subscribers the iPhone as of today.

Customers of the five regional carriers will actually enjoy at least one advantage over those on Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint.

A peek at the iPhone 4S pages for Alaska Communications, Appalachian Wireless, Cellcom, GCI, and nTelos show the phone selling for $50 less than the price tag offered by the three nationwide carriers.

The iPhone 4 is also available among the five, selling … Read more

If you are one of those who want to have a workspace dedicated to specific types of activities, then nSpaces from Bytesignals is definitely the app for you. It helps you set up virtual desktops tailor-made for whatever purpose you choose.

The free virtual desktop application, once installed, requires a little bit of work configuring the different desktops you want to add. However, once this step is done, using the app is quite easy. You can switch desktops by assigning hot keys or launching the Switcher and choosing the desktop you want to use from there. There is also the … Read more