PCWorldの Mar-12 の目次

AS I WRITE this, 2012 International CES—the Las Vegas–based tech mega-showcase—is winding down. For journalists and civilians alike, CES offers a great way to monitor the state of technology. Piles of product introductions, interesting ideas, and out-of-left-field innovations indicate a healthy tech ecosystem, with plenty for consumers to be jazzed about. A lackluster CES foretells a dreary upcoming year in tech. Fortunately, CES 2012—which put roughly 20,000 new products out on display—was chockablock with great stuff. The big themes were smart HDTVs, Ultrabooks (supermodel-thin laptops built around Intel’s latest chips), and, perhaps inevitably, Android tablets. And that means 2012 will be the year of brainy televisions, MacBook Air look-alikes, and tablets that don’t start with a lowercase i, right? Not so fast, pardner. CES may be a terrific barometer for…

DOCS 2 GO Ion Audio’s scanner is designed for use with an iPad, which sits on its 30-pin dock. You operate the scanner via an app that displays the results of the scan in real time on the iPad screen. This one is due by midyear, price to be determined. CUBE This tiny rectangular mouse from Logitech is about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide—and it becomes a PowerPoint presenter the second you pick it up (no flipping through modes). It costs $70 and could be very handy for business travelers. MOBILE PROJECTOR MP225a 3M’s mobile projector is made for use with iOS devices; an included cable hooks up to Apple’s 30-pin dock connector. About 6 by 2.5 by 1.2 inches, the LED-based unit projects images of up…

INTEL MAY UNVEIL its next generation of processors—code-named “Ivy Bridge”—in April. Designed for desktops and laptops, the chips promise a performance increase of 37 percent over current Sandy Bridge processors. The new Ivy Bridge CPUs use a 22-nanometer architecture, making them almost 30 percent smaller than the current chips, which use a 32nm architecture. Smaller chips consume less power (great for battery life) and leave more room for an integrated graphics chip. Ivy Bridge will support DirectX 11, Thunderbolt, and USB 3.0. Reportedly, the first Ivy Bridge processors to arrive will be quad-core desktop chips: the Core i7-3370 series and the Core i5-3570, -3550, and -3450. Ivy Bridge is backward-compatible with existing Sandy Bridge motherboards, which means that desktop users should have an upgrade path available.…

LOGMEIN, INC., MAKER of LogMeIn Ignition, an iOS application that lets you remotely control PC or Mac computers, has dropped the original $30 price tag for its basic iPhone and iPad remote-access app and is making what amounts to a “lite” version of the full app available for free under the simple product name LogMeIn. Like the $30 LogMeIn Ignition, the free version of the software lets you connect to any number of Windows or Mac computers that have the app installed on them. Remote-controlling a computer from your tablet is like sitting in front of the system’s screen. Because of the significant difference in size between an iPad’s screen and a computer’s display, navigating the remote computer takes some getting used to. I found myself often pinching to zoom…

FACEBOOK SPAMMERS HAVE started using rogue browser extensions to prolong the life of their scams, researchers at Web security vendor Websense say. Attacks using social engineering techniques have plagued Facebook for years, and despite the company’s best efforts to block them, scammers always find alternative ways to trick users. In a new type of scam detected by Websense researchers, attackers encourage users to install rogue browser extensions to view certain videos or receive free vouchers. The add-ons—advertised as DivX plug-ins or coupon generators—use the Facebook API (application programming interface) to post unauthorized messages on behalf of Facebook users who log in from the affected browsers. So far, Websense has found scams that can determine a user’s browser and distribute rogue extensions for Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. The scams are…

ANDROID IS ALL the rage on phones and tablets, but the mobile operating system is taking over media players, too. Samsung’s Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0, as well as Philips’s GoGear Connect 3, are the latest examples of this: All three run a version of An droid, and all aim to do more than play music and videos, just as Apple’s iOS-based iPod Touch does. The Samsung Galaxy Players do a reasonable job of de livering the mixed-purpose versatility of an Android phone, without the phone service; but the Philips GoGear’s poky performance keeps it from being a viable competitor to Apple’s long-dominant iPod Touch. Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 Samsung’s Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 are Android alternatives to Apple’s iPod Touch. Of the two options, the Galaxy…

SKYPE VIDEO CHAT is very popular, but unfortunately PC webcams don’t lend themselves to group chat. Tely Labs’ TelyHD, a Skype-enabled, Android-based network de vice, doesn’t use a PC at all. Instead, it works with your HDTV’s big screen and bundles a webcam with a microphone and speaker for capturing high-definition images of several people seated on a living-room sofa. The TelyHD is a black cylinder roughly the size of a skinny paper towel roll, with an adjustable folding bracket for mounting on top of a flat-screen TV. The webcam lens faces front; on the back are an HDMI port for connecting to the HDTV with an included cable; an ethernet port for connecting to the network; a port for the AC adapter; and a USB port and SD Card…

SAMSUNG’S GALAXY Nexus ($300 with a two-year Verizon contract), the first phone to run android Ice cream sandwich, offers Lightning-fast performance, strong data speeds, and a thin de - sign. Though the camera isn’t outstanding, and the handset has no expandable memory slot, the Galaxy nexus is the best android phone currently available. Design The phone’s glossy display, piano-black bezel, and textured back are standard for a Samsung handset, but the Galaxy Nexus seems higher-quality than previous Galaxy models. At 5.1 ounces, its weight is substantial without being too heavy. A subtle curve nicely contours to the hand, though for people with small hands the phone may be a bit large (it measures 5.33 by 2.67 by 0.37 inches). The phone has no physical hardware keys on its face; touch-sensitive…

There’s the printer you want and the printer you can afford. Where do your budget and your needs meet? To help you decide, we’ve selected the best models at or around four major price thresholds: $150, $300, $500, and $750. A $150 printer is in most shoppers’ reach, and is almost always an inkjet unit that’s designed for low-volume use in home offices, homes, or dorm rooms. At about $300, you get a choice of faster, more capable inkjets, and a few very basic laser or LED models. Many color laser and LED products come into view at the $500 price point, and at $750 or more, you can begin to enjoy the speed, features, and cheaper consumables of serious office printers. Know Your Printing Needs The best printer…

QR (QUICK-RESPONSE) codes are everywhere. They can store Web links, text, phone numbers, email addresses, or calendar events, and they can send SMS messages. To read them, you need a QR-code app for your camera-equipped phone or tablet. Try RedLaser for iOS (find.pcworld.com/72555) or Android (find.pcworld.com/72556); QR Droid (find.pcworld.com/72557) is another Android option. BlackBerry users will like QR Code Scanner Pro (find.pcworld.com/72558). All of these apps are free. When you launch your app, it will activate your phone’s camera. Simply line up the app’s framing guide with the QR code, and hold the device steady. Try to minimize glare. Most QR-code apps can read bar codes, too, such as for price checks. And QR Droid lets you make your own codes.…

DRIVERS ACT AS the intermediary between your PC’s hardware and its operating system. Although they install with ease, they integrate deeply into the OS. And when things go wrong with your drivers, they can go really wrong, even crashing your PC. Thankfully, you can easily remove a driver, creating a clean slate to try again or install a different version. The best and safest method of uninstalling a driver is to use the associated device’s uninstaller (if it has one). Click Start, type Uninstall Program, and press <Enter>. In the Uninstall window that appears, go through the list and find your device or driver. Double-click the entry to begin the uninstallation. Sometimes, however, devices lack an uninstaller, or the uninstaller doesn’t appear in the list. In those instances, click Start,…

Android Phones, Sleazy Ads Regarding January’s “Alert: Sleazy Ads on Android Devices” [Forward]: As a rule of thumb, I never answer ads that show up on my cell phone. If unsolicited, they are illegal; the rest are suspect. 0004673968, PCWorld.com forums I do not see any ads at all on my phone. Ads have to be downloaded, and if you turn off the data link and Wi-Fi features of your phone while playing a game, you will see zero ads. guitarest, PCWorld.com forums When will people realize that a smartphone is just a miniature computer? The Internet has been filled with viruses since day one. It’s just a fact of life. The people who get fooled by these ads are the same people who click the ‘Your computer is infected!’…

A 50MM LENS—part of every photographer’s camera kit—is compact, sharp, and versatile, and possibly the least expensive lens you will ever buy. But did you know that you can also transform it into two additional lenses for less than $100? That’s right—for the DSLR equivalent of chump change, you can turn a prime lens into a macro lens for extreme close-ups or into a telephoto lens to see farther away, with just a few attachments. It’s a great way to have a little fun with your camera, and a perfect way to pack light when you’ll be doing some traveling. The rig I used included a Nikon D7000 DSLR camera (with a 1.5X crop sensor) and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens. Macro Lens Turning your 50mm lens into a macro…

YOU MAY ALREADY know that it’s important to protect your financial information when you shop online. But a high-tech threat can steal your ATM or credit card information when you’re out shopping around town. Scammers can steal your card data without your even noticing, and the technology behind the scams is getting more and more sophisticated. Credit card “skimming” has become increasingly common in the past few years. Authorities recently uncovered a large, well-run operation where scammers attached their devices to the self-checkout machines at 24 Lucky Supermarkets outlets in Northern California. The scam affected hundreds of customers who used the self-checkout machines last October and November and had their account information stolen. Skimmers clearly are a serious security threat. But how do these devices work, and how can you…

A NEW SERVICE, PwnedList (pwnedlist.com), seeks to aggregate leaked account data on the Net and allow users to see whether they’re on the list. The brainchild of Alan Puzic, a professional security intelligence researcher, PwnedList is designed to be a “white hat” (good-guy) public service to help privacy-minded people find out if their online accounts have been breached. “Our goal was to design a simple-to-use online portal where an average user could check to see if his or her account credentials were leaked,” said Puzic in an interview with PCWorld. Collecting hacked accounts from websites such as The Pirate Bay and PasteBin, social networks, and even hacker forums and chat-rooms, PwnedList approached 10 million entries after six months of operation. How the PwnedList Service Works The compromised usernames, email addresses,…

AMONG SMALL MP3 players, the iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano are tough acts to follow. The SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip isn’t as petite or as stylish, but it does have features in spades, including a voice recorder, an FM radio, a workout timer, a MicroSD card slot for adding more storage—and a very modest price. The Clip Zip has two configurations: 4GB, available in seven colors (red, orange, purple, blue, black, white, or gray) for $50; and 8GB (comes only in black or gray) for $70. By comparison, the iPod Shuffle offers 2GB for $50; the Nano goes for either $130 (with 8GB of memory) or $150 (16GB). In short, the Clip Zip is an appealing value alternative. (For a full review, browse to find.pcworld.com/72609.)…

WHY SPEND $500 for a TiVo Premiere Elite, plus $20 a month for the TiVo service? Well, it’s the only DVR with four tuners—it can record up to four high-def programs at once—and with 2TB of storage, it has plenty of room for that content (up to 300 hours of HD video, TiVo says). Even so, the high price should give pause, especially since TiVo still can’t support cable providers’ on-demand video services—and programs you might have had to record in the past are increasingly available online. Well-organized and intuitive, the interface takes you not only to shows you’ve recorded, but also to related material such as episode guides. The device supports several streaming and download media services, including Amazon, Blockbuster, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora, and YouTube. TiVo’s search engine…

WITH CLIENTS FOR every mobile and desktop operating system, and tons of useful functionality, Dropbox lets you share files from almost any device easily. However, using Dropbox as a mobile collaboration tool has one major drawback: Since the service is primarily meant as a way to store files, editing text in an uploaded file can be less than convenient on a phone. Luckily, several apps work within Dropbox to let you edit a file on the go and then return it to Dropbox so that any of your colleagues accessing that folder can use it. Dropbox’s Android app has a simple text editor, but the iOS app has no native text-editing capabilities, so you’ll have to turn to a third-party app. Here’s a look at what you can and can’t…

ONE COMMON METHOD of protecting software from unauthorized copying and installation involves asking the user to type in a product key or serial number. Since many companies also use the product key to verify your eligibility for support, it’s important to know how to access it. For instance, you have a couple of ways to find your product key for Windows or Microsoft Office. If you bought a retail copy of Windows or Office, look for a sticker inside the jewel case, or on its back. The key consists of 25 alphanumeric characters, usually split into groups of five. If your PC came with Windows, the key is usually on a Microsoft-branded sticker on the case. For Office, the sticker should be on the installation disc. If you can’t find…

A Touchy Interface ALERT READER FRED Liewehr of Mechanicsville, Virginia, acknowledges that software “can be difficult to use, causing frustration or worse.” But Xmcd, a freeware CD player and ripper utility, might be an exception. Since it’s “curses-based,” Liewehr notes, you may “avoid the next step of physically booting the computer with your size 10’s.” Too bad the program isn’t “scream-oriented,” too. When Ringtones Go Wrong ALAN SOLOMON OF Indianapolis recently downloaded an app called “Ringtones” to his iPhone. The first time he ran it, though, the inscrutable message at left popped up. We wonder: Does pressing OK mean you agree with the message? And if you do agree, how the heck do you know? A High-Tech Koan WHEN J. M. “Shag” Graetz of Acton, Massachusetts, logged out of popular…

Smaller Carriers Rank Higher in Customer Satisfaction According to survey results released by Consumer Reports, customers of small wireless carriers are, overall, more satisfied with their service than those of the Big Four carriers. Industry titan AT&T finished last, while two smaller carriers, Consumer Cellular and U.S. Cellular, ranked at the top. The survey, which polled 66,000 cell phone customers, found that Verizon and Sprint ranked highest for customer service among the four largest carriers, with T-Mobile finishing behind them. Dell Abandons Netbooks for Ultrabooks Dell has confirmed that it will no longer make consumer netbooks. Instead, the company will focus on developing higher-end, premium “thin and powerful” laptops, following the industry’s shift to Ultrabooks. If you really want a Dell netbook regardless of price, Latitude netbooks for business…

I BOUGHT AN audio editor called WavePad from software maker NCH in February 2010. It worked fine until a month ago, when I received messages saying that the “14-day trial was about to expire,” though I’d purchased the software already. I contacted customer service at NCH and spoke to someone who restored my software, but then the crossfade feature (which I use often) didn’t work. At this point I broke down and bought an NCH priority-support package. For reinstalling my version of WavePad, the company sent me a .dmg file for a Mac, which wouldn’t open on my Windows computer. After a number of unfruitful calls, I still can’t get the help I need. So I’m asking you for help. —Michael Rocco, Ann Arbor, Michigan OYS responds: An NCH rep…

BUSINESS CARDS are so 20th century. (Actually, early versions of business cards appeared at least several hundred years ago.) Someone hands you a business card, and it ends up stuffed in your pocket, crumpled, forgotten. Even if you fish it out at some later date, will you remember the person who gave it to you? Making a lasting impression with a little rectangle of paper is difficult. Enter Eyejot Video Mail (find.pcworld.com/72542), a new iOS app that allows you to create and send video messages. Even better, the app gives you the tools to make and distribute vCards—video business cards. This concept is better shown than explained, so check out an example vCard from Eyejot founder and CEO David Geller at find.pcworld.com/72543. Cool, right? Instead of passing out small, static,…

ADOBE RECENTLY RELEASED fixes for holes in ColdFusion, Reader X, and Acrobat X that hackers have been attacking. Mozilla eliminated a number of bugs including one that could let hackers log your keystrokes. Google Chrome 16 has security fixes. Adobe’s Security Updates Adobe has released security updates for ColdFusion 9.0.1 (ColdFusion is a software development tool) and versions for Windows, Macintosh, and Unix, and for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows. The corrected vulnerabilities could have let attackers gain access to, or control of, your system, or caused crashes. Adobe also found and fixed vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader X (10.1.1) and earlier for Windows and Mac; Reader 9.4.6 and earlier for Unix; and Adobe Acrobat X (10.1.1) and earlier for Windows and Mac—vulnerabilities reportedly used by hackers in targeted…

WE’VE BEEN TALKING people’s ears off—colleagues, relatives, friends, and even complete strangers around town (to make reservations, for instance)—all for a good cause. We wanted to find the best Bluetooth headsets and car speakerphone kits currently available. Equipped with Bluetooth-enabled cell phones, we tested three product types: monaural (or “mono”) headsets, which typically consist of a single base unit that you place in one ear; stereo headsets, which come packaged as a pair of earbuds or headphones that you wear on both ears for music and calls; and speakerphones for your car, which are usually designed to attach to the vehicle’s sun visor or elsewhere inside (the dash or windshield, for example). Good Calls, Bad Calls Following hours and hours of blathering (and some complaints about our ears feeling sore…

ONLINE APPS MAKE sense for a lot of people these days, but sometimes desktop software is essential. Here are five advantages of such apps. 1 SECURITY Even a seemingly stable company may fold, or change its privacy standards. For important documents, family photos, and business presentations, you may want to use desktop software to ensure that the preservation and confidentiality of that content don’t depend on an outside company’s good behavior. 2 GUARANTEED CONNECTION If your Internet connection goes down, or if you can’t pick up a wireless signal on the road, you need on-board software to stay productive. Conveniently, many tools offer a sync button so your online database can catch up with your offline database when you reconnect. 3 SPEED Web services are sometimes agonizingly slow. Though offline…

IF A PC shuts down before it tries to boot off the hard drive (or off a CD or flash drive), you have a hardware problem. You’ll need to decide whether to repair or to replace the PC. But first you must rescue your files—especially if you don’t have a recent backup. Since you can’t boot off a CD or a flash drive, and thus can’t use a live Linux variant, you’ll have to remove the hard drive from the PC and attach it to another computer. I can’t tell you how to remove the hard drive for your particular model, but you’ll probably be able to find removal instructions online; the process isn’t difficult. If the working PC is a desktop, you can open it and install the broken…

Follow us on Twitter @PCWPluggedIn. → LG announces 84-inch 3D TV. Bonus: Once you’re done paying for it, you can use the box as a home to live in, provided you’re really skinny. → Study: Religious Americans are just as geeky as the rest of the population. And that doesn’t even count Church of Apple adherents. → MIT’s light-speed camera snaps a trillion frames per second. Those instant replays are gonna take forever. → Experimental touchscreen vending machine can remember a user’s face and choice of drink. We anticipate trouble when the guy who kicked it last week returns. → One Laptop per Child shows prototype tablet. Work continues on prototype child.…