TV prices rise, TV ownership falls

Reports tell us that fewer TVs are expected to be sold this year than last, and that fewer homes in the U.S. have sets at all. But that doesn't mean that TVs are getting cheaper. In fact, recent research from IHS iSuppli indicates that LCD and plasma TV prices have risen by 11.4 percent since this past December. And if you had your eye on those big-screen OLED TVs previewed...

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Symbian Carla cancelled according to Nokia official

All Symbian fans and users might want to sit down while reading this. According to the Product Marketing Manager for Nokia South Europe Mathias Fiorin, Symbian Carla has been cancelled. Nokialino, an Italian Nokia fan site, claims to have spoken with Mathias Fiorin, so the infomation should be pretty accurate. He says Carla is now known as FP1. But it is not just a name change...

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Vertu announces the new Constellation Candy phones

As things go with Vertu, when they announce a new collection of phones, it usually means they are only releasing a new trim or, as is the case this time around, new colors. Today Vertu is introducing some fresh new colors to liven up the established line-up. The collection comprises of three colors, all combined under the Candy moniker. There's the Candy Raspberry, the Candy...

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Samsung Galaxy S III hits Dubai a week early, costs $680

The Samsung Galaxy S III has arrived in Dubai a week earlier than expected and is already on sale for $666. This has been confirmed by a vigilant Reddit user who noticed an "Available Today" sign under the S III name in a mall store in Dubai. Speaking to an employee he gathered that the store has plenty of Galaxy S III units in stock and all being white variants (no word...

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Samsung Focus 2 review: Feeling no pressure

The Samsung I667 Focus 2 for AT&T is the third LTE addition to the carrier's impressive Windows Phone lineup. However, in order to avoid clashing with the platform heavyweights - the Nokia Lumia 900 and the HTC Titan II - the Korean offering undercuts both in terms of specifications and price. As you can probably guess, Samsung's approach towards its latest product to...

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New OmniVision camera sensor shoots 16MP stills, 4K video

If you haven't heard of OmniVision, you should know make some pretty good camera sensors (the one in the iPhone 4, for example). Today they outed the OV16820, a 16MP sensor intended for use in digital cameras and the high-end smartphones The sensor measures 1/2.3" and uses OmniVision's OmniBSI-2 technology with 1.34 micro pixel pitch. It's capable of outputting 16MP (4608...

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Leaked iPod Touch parts indicate a 4.1 inch screen

An electronics manufacturer released a set of pictures showing the front panel of what is supposedly the next generation iPod Touch. And as you know, the iPod Touches and the iPhone of the same generation usually share the same screen size and resolution, so it's an easy guess the next iPhone would have the same sort of screen. Alleged iPhone 5 front panels This roughly...

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'Battleship' Movie Review (2012)

EDITOR'S NOTE: After a four year hiatus, Laremy makes a return guest appearance on RopeofSilicon. Treat him kindly, after all, his first review back is Battleship. Battleship, as you would probably guess, is a complete nightmare. Devoid of all logic, the film feels exactly like a mash-up composite of every alien invasion movie you've ever watched — only that's too kind. A mash-up has its own art to it (see Girl Talk) whereas Battleship most clearly does not. This is what happens when "product" is made, with the goal of commerce coming far before...

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Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free

Malwarebytes Antimalware Free 1.61 is a supplemental free product that can help bolster your existing security software. The makers of Malwarebytes Antimalware pitch it as a tool for detecting and removing brand-new "zero-day" malware, and it uses a number of different technologies to accomplish this task.The software did perform decently compared with other freebies in PCWorld's 2012 free antivirus roundup when it came to stopping new malware. In our real-world tests, Malwarebytes fully blocked 78.6 percent of samples--slightly better than average--and...

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Weekend Box-Office: ;Avengers; Crosses $1 Billion Worldwide and Continues to Crush Records

Guess what ended up in first place. Guess what film is already over $1 billion in just its second weekend. Guess what film dropped only 50.2% after becoming the first film to ever crack $200 million on opening weekend and managed to follow that up by becoming the first film to crack $100 million in its second weekend. You know the answer, so let's not delay any further… Laremy...

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Generic &;Sin City ; and ;Machete Kills Posters

Sidebar Archives I saw these over the weekend but thought they might be fakes so I held off, but it would appear this pair of teaser posters for Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (aka Sin City 2) are legit. As for production starts, Machete Kills is set to get underway soon with Danny Trejo back in the title role as Machete, this time recruited...

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The Grey;John Malkovich,; and ;Chronicle; Hit DVD and Blu-ray This Week

Being John Malkovich (Criterion Collection)I have seen this movie only once and I can't say I entirely warmed to it, but I'd also say it isn't necessarily a film that deserves too harsh a critique upon a one time viewing, there is a lot to swallow here and a Criterion edition may be exactly what it needs to help viewers explore the deeper corners of the film. Then again,...

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Cannes 2012: Poster for Tom Cruise&One Shot

One Shot banner from the Cannes Film FestivalClearly I'm giving a couple of banners a higher priority as I still have many more to share including an amazing set-up involving The Dictator over at the Carlton. But first there was the Django Unchained banner (see that here) and the other is the above banner for One Shot starring Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, based on the...

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The Amazing Spider-Man' Four Minute Trailer and Poster from Cannes

A new four-minute trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man aired during "America’s Got Talent" on Monday night giving fans an extended look at what the new Spider-Man feature has to offer and now it's available online for all to watch (though, admittedly, I DVR'd "America’s Got Talent" so I can watch Howard Stern's debut appearance when I get back from Cannes). Additionally,...

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Hotspot Shield

Hotspot Shield is a private VPN service that will secure your wireless communications--for free. The fact that it's free is a major boon; however, you'll have to put up with some rather blatant advertising in your Web browser as non-monetary compensation. There's a pay version costing a mere $30 a year that foregoes the advertising--I recommend that one over the free version....

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Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus

Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Antivirus is a reliable free antivirus solution, that constantly and rapidly scans your computer for malicious programs such as viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers etc. Monitoring every action executed by the user or by the operating system and being able to react promptly when a malicious program is detected. Actions include repair, delete, block, rename and quarantine programs or files.View the original article h...

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AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition was PCWorld's top pick in April 2012's Free Antivirus You Can Trust. It performed well in virtually all of the tests we ran.In our real-world malware detection tests, which evaluate how well an antivirus package will block brand-new threats, AVG's freebie blocked 85.7 percent of the samples, tying for the best result among the programs we tested. It detected 98.7 percent of the more than 129,000 samples of malware from the past four months in our malware "zoo" test. That's a good score, although a bit short of the best...

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Prime95 (64-bit version)

Prime95 is a small and easy to use application that allows you to find Mersenne Prime numbers. Mersenne numbers can be proved composite (not prime) by either finding a factor or by running a Lucas-Lehmer primality test. Prime numbers have long fascinated amateur and professional mathematicians. An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only divisors are one and itself. The first prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, etc. For example, the number 10 is not prime because it is divisible by 2 and 5. A Mersenne prime is a prime of...

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SlimCleaner

SlimCleaner 3.0 (free) is by far one of the more useful multi-utility tools I've run across. Aimed primarily at cleaning the junk out of your system, it has the capabilities of several popular programs, including Piriform's CCleaner and Trend Micro's HijackThis. Colorful, but logical, the SlimCleaner interface is easy to use.SlimCleaner neatly divides its functionality...

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Review: HTC Legend

Premier partnerSamsung Excellent UINice battery input mechanismSpeedy browserResponsive keyboardStellar designAverage battery lifeFriendstream and Peep slow to updatePage 1 of 14HTC Legend: Overview, design and feel pt 1After the success of the HTC Hero, the Taiwanese firm is back again with the first of its duo of Android 2.1 phones, the HTC Legend. Featuring a full aluminium...

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Review: LG Chocolate BL20

LG has introduced a more sweetly priced slider phone – the Chocolate BL20 – to try and tempt style-savvy phone buyers not interested in the more feature packed (but higher-priced) Chocolate BL40. Sporting a similarly sleek design, the LG Chocolate BL20 is the latest update of the original LG Chocolate phone (KG800) that first appeared in mid-2006. Central to the chic look...

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Review: Acer Liquid S100

Fast processorSlim chassisVisual home screen bookmarksSpeedy internet browsingAwful battery lifeBuggy messaging systemConfusing contacts sortingConstantly crashing Android systemPage 1 of 13Acer Liquid S100: Overview, design and feel By bringing the fastest Android phone on the planet to market, Acer has good reason to be proud of the Liquid S100. Packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon...

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Review: Samsung Galaxy Portal i5700

Samsung, the famed Korean jack-of-all-technologies, is having another go at mastering the Android phone scene, after making a bit of a mess of it with last year's original Galaxy.The i7500 Galaxy was a brave first attempt, but Samsung threw it away, alienating early adopters by not bothering to update the phone past its basic Android 1.5 operating system. Seriously, there...

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Review: Sony Ericsson Vivaz

Premier partnerSamsung Nice feel and ergonomic designCrisp LCD screenCamera easy to useHD video recordingEasy to set upComfortable level of customisationCan be slow and glitchyResistive screenPoor app selectionInternet settings never rememberedExtremely unintuitive screen lockPage 1 of 11Sony Ericsson Vivaz: OverviewThe Sony Ericsson Vivaz is the HD-video-shooting successor...

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