bug

Tap to kill bugs in Bug Smasher for Android

Were you that kid who fried ants under a magnifying glass to watch them burn? Bug Smasher has a whole new way to quench your sadistic desires. You can smash bug after bug as they wiggle across your screen. The game is silly fun, but getting a high score is more a test of endurance than it is skill.

To say this game is simple is a massive understatement. Though it sends multiple crudely colored bugs at you at once, you'd have to be trying to not clear the screen quickly. You're even less likely to miss on … Read more

OkCupid app sets singles up on 'Crazy Blind Dates'

Think that going on a blind date is weird enough, how about one set up by a mathematical algorithm?

That's exactly what online dating site OkCupid is doing with the launch of its new app called "Crazy Blind Date." This app for both iPhone and Android uses mobile technology to set singles up in near real time.

"People will say that Crazy Blind Date is too crazy," OkCupid co-founder Sam Yagan said in a statement e-mailed to CNET. "But for a whole generation of young singles, it's going to be a great adventure, … Read more

Artist creates stunning insects from old watch parts

Despite my small fear of bugs, there's just something creepily cute about these mechanical insects by Justin Gershenson-Gates.

Gates, a self-taught tinkerer, usually sells jewelry accented with watch gears on his Web site A Mechanical Mind, but people can't seem to get enough of his occasional arthropods made from watch parts, tiny lightbulbs, and other bits and bobs.

In an e-mail interview with Crave, Gates revealed the inspiration behind these creepy designs: a recent trip featuring a freak spider encounter -- "with a leg span of about 3 inches," he says -- prompted the idea. After returning from vacation, Gates created a set of spider legs with watch-winding stems and tacked on other watch parts to create his first spider. … Read more

Some find problems with Wii U update

You don't have to wait long for Monday's CNET Update:

Sales of the Nintendo Wii U system began Sunday, following a midnight launch event at the Nintendo World store in New York. But anyone getting a Wii U will need some patience before getting started. A required 5GB firmware update can take an hour or two to download, but be sure to not turn it off once the update has begun! Some users that turned off the console before the download was complete have "bricked" the machine and need to exchange it for a new one. … Read more

Google app bug cancels Christmas, December

Is Google the new Grinch who stole Christmas?

Sure, the month of December can be expensive and stressful, but Google apparently has an app for avoiding it. Users of Google's recently released Android 4.2 Jelly Bean are finding that the Web giant left the last month of year out of the operating system's People app.

Users attempting to add a friend's birthday using the "date picker" feature will scroll right from November to January.

The bug appears contained to the People app and does not affect Android's Calendar app. And on a Nexus … Read more

Microsoft's SkyDrive accidently freezes out Opera users

After a SkyDrive debacle over the weekend, which caused Opera users to be blocked from the cloud storage service, Microsoft has said it's working quickly to fix the problem.

The problem began when Opera, which is a Web browser, received a bug report showing that Microsoft's cloud storage service froze out all users when it was being loaded. Instead of being able to see their saved files and photos, users could only see millions of characters of code.

After some poking around, Opera's Hallvord Steen realized that the problem was "some strange bug in the Microsoft … Read more

Apple issues Aperture bug fix update

If you use Apple's Aperture professional photo management program for OS X, then a new update is available that addresses a number of bugs with the previous release.

The update focuses around managing content from shared photo streams, including detecting faces, managing where streams are shared, and incorporating more cross-stream content management.

In addition to stream focus, the update fixes a number of problems with metadata management, resolution and use of secondary displays, and color profile management. The full list of addressed features is the following:

Photos received via My Photo Stream or shared streams can now be added … Read more

iPad Mini launches with mini lines

While CNET's New York office waits for power to come back after the storm, we're bringing you the Update show from our San Francisco office. Friday's top tech stories include:

- iPad Mini launch day: Lines were smaller compared to a typical iPhone or iPad launch, but there were still some crowds. New York saw a long lines at the 5th Avenue store, which was sold out of iPad Minis two hours after it opened. One analyst estimates Apple might sell as many as 1.5 million iPad Minis over the weekend.

- Apple released its first … Read more

Apple releases iOS 6.0.1 with over-the-air update tool

Apple has rolled out the first bug fix update to iOS 6 since the software's release in mid-September.

Version 6.0.1, which went out as a free update this morning, fixes a handful of bugs, including one that Apple says kept iPhone 5 users from installing over-the-air software updates. Apple's fix includes installing a special "iOS updater" app to help the process along, which is removed from the device after 6.0.1 is installed.

Also included in the update is a fix for a nasty Exchange bug that could delete a meeting for all … Read more

Mozilla rereleases Firefox 16 after fixing critical flaw

Mozilla released a new version of Firefox (Windows, Mac) today, one day after yanking the Web browser to address security flaws.

Firefox 16 was pulled off Mozilla's installer page yesterday, just one day after its release, to fix a vulnerability that could have allowed a malicious site to identify which Web sites a user had visited, said Michael Coates, Mozilla's director of Security Assurance. The flaw was publicly disclosed yesterday by security researcher Gareth Heyes, who published proof-of-concept code to demonstrate the vulnerability.

Though Mozilla said it had no evidence that the vulnerability was being exploited in the … Read more