PC Magazine November 2010

We’ve talked about Twitter tips before. Everyone knows not to use all caps (really, you shouldn’t do that anywhere), but there are worse Twitter sins. Seven, to be exact. These are things you should never do or, if you have, stop doing them immediately on Twitter. 1. Location Bulletins I’m on Foursquare but barely use it because, surprise, I don’t like having everyone know where I am all the time. With Twitter, I used to have to announce my location, but now I can turn on the geo-location feature or use the Foursquare integration and have Twitter do the work for me. Why would I ever want to do this? We’ve all seen the stories about people whose homes have been robbed because, ostensibly, they announced on Twitter that they were going…

Google is developing—and has extensively tested—technology to build an autonomously self-driving car. Moreover, Google engineers have already driven a fleet of them around the San Francisco Bay Area, to the tune of over 140,000 miles, Google said in a blog post. The cars “just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard,” Sebastian Thrun, a distinguished Google software engineer, said in the blog post. “They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe.” Described as being in the “experimental stage,” Google said it hoped that its technology would be used to develop the self-driving cars of tomorrow, cutting the number of lives lost in auto accidents—1.2 million annually, according…

GEARLOG One Tiny Drive Los Angeles recently hosted the Cleantech Corridor and Green District Competition, in which entrants came up with new ideas to add a touch of green to the city. The winner of the competition was a giant mushroom, called a solar evaporator, which can tap into the city’s sewage to collect and clean the black water. “The clear water is distributed and released into the streets through a process of evaporation and condensation triggering a transformation into a network of lush, cultivated landscapes,” explained the Norwegian creators of the project, which has been dubbed UMBRELLA. “The central urban plazas become focal points for a gradual process of transformation that will affect the way people will see, use, and experience their city.” — Andrew Webster APP SCOUT Barcode Behavior Barcodes and QR codes are all…

Online gaming is huge. It’s also dangerous. According to a June 2010 Nielsen NetView survey on Internet usage, online gaming has overtaken e-mail in terms of the total percentage of time Americans spend online (10.2 percent versus 8.3 percent). Only social networking scores higher, with a whopping 22.7 percent. Online gaming now consumes a staggering 407 million hours of U.S. citizens’ time per year, according to Nielsen. “As the gaming industry continues to grow, hackers will inevitably develop more ways to target this massive group,” said Ondrej Vlcek, chief technical officer of Czech security company Avast, makers of avast! Internet Security 5.0 and avast! Free Antivirus. Avast continually gathers data about infected sites, publishing a monthly Most Wanted List to highlight the worst sites in a given portion of the Web.…

Apple TV (2010) $99 direct 4.0/5.0 CONS No hard drive. Can’t purchase content-streaming only. Can’t rent a show on Apple TV and watch it on other devices or your computer. Limited rental content available. Connects via HDMI—not compatible with older televisions without purchasing an adapter. Doesn’t ship with an HDMI cable. After two years of radio silence, Apple has completely redesigned its “hobby” product; the result is a more feature-driven, streamlined Apple TV. It costs only $99, offers 99-cent TV-show rentals, and streams content from your computer, your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The latest Apple TV lacks a hard drive, so it is 75 percent than its predecessor. Measuring 0.9 by 3.9 by 3.9 inches (HWD) and weighing less-than 10 ounces, it’s basically a tiny black box that can stream over any 802.11b, g,…

Samsung PN58C8000 $2,999.99 list 4.5/5.0 CONS Not very energy efficient when compared with LCD-based HDTVs. Uncomfortable 3D glasses. Samsung’s PN58C8000 is one of three plasma HDTV models representing the company’s top-tier, 3D-ready 8000 series. With its ultra-thin profile and brushed-metal finish, this 58-inch TV is beautiful. And its top-notch performance and broad feature set justify its price tag. With its 1.4-inch-deep cabinet, the 8000 is the thinnest plasma set we’ve seen. The two down-firing, 10-watt speakers under the bottom bezel are loud and provide good mid-and high-range output, but could use a bit more bass response. The PN58C8000’s most frequently used connections are easily accessible on the left side of the cabinet, and include four HDMI ports, two USB ports, two audio outputs, and a PC audio input. Additional ports are located in the rear. The…