filter

Digital camera owners, music lovers, and those who have lots of files they'd like to organize will like Flash Renamer, a batch file renaming utility that makes it easy to rename large numbers of files at once but that also does much more, such as adding or subtracting spaces, dates, characters, and other identifiers. You can even use it to alter and manage file names as you save them.

A cleanly formatted interface features a prominent preview window that displays the chosen files and folders. You can browse, search, or free select files. Optional thumbnails make it easy to … Read more

The Chinese government may be waving a white flag in response to all the criticism of its Green Dam filtering software.

Beijing won't force the widespread installation of the Internet filtering program on PCs and other consumer products, China's industry minister, Li Yizhong, said Thursday, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

In June, China said it would require that the Green Dam software be installed on all computers sold in the country by both domestic and foreign manufacturers. Since later that month, China has been delaying a permanent decision … Read more

I am not a big fan of parental controls, but that might be just because I'm not a parent.

If you are not like me and have been wondering if paying a yearly fee for the comprehensive parental control feature that accompanies the lackluster iBoss router is worth it, Netgear may have just made your life a lot easier.

Netgear announced Tuesday the release of Live Parental Controls, a comprehensive Web-filtering feature it has developed in collaboration with OpenDNS.

The new feature enables parents and small businesses to restrict Internet access to all the devices that connect via the … Read more

There are lots of Internet filtering products on the market that enable parents to block certain types of websites such as pornography, hate sites, or sites that promote alcohol or drug use. Most of these products run on PCs or Macs by sitting between the operating system and the browser and checking any requested sites to make sure they're not blocked. The products generally do a good job blocking requests from protected PCs, but most don't work with game consoles, Wi-Fi-equipped iPhones or iPod Touches, or any other device that isn't running the software.

Netgear is about to ship routers designed to simplify the process by allowing parents to block content on any device using the home's wired or wireless network.… Read more

PowerPlayer for Pick 3/4 2008 helps users select lottery numbers for pick-three and pick-four lotteries based on the results of previous drawings. Or at least, that's what it's supposed to do. We found the whole thing so confusing that we're not sure what, if anything, the program actually does.

The interface is a disaster, a jumble of columns, numbers, and check boxes. It was easy enough to select our local pick-three from the list of available lotteries, but after that, we were stumped. A visit to the built-in Help file was practically worthless. Even the sections … Read more

On today's episode, we invent a new word that we hope will show up on a show like "The Hills" sometime soon. Plus, we get fired up, make terrible jokes about monkeys controlling computers with their brains, and actually work in a tiny bit of news. For example, Apple's doing a tablet and music labels are trying to sell some new weird digital album thing. You might like the "fired up" part better.

Apple partners with music labels for interactive content for new netbook -- Sept

Microsoft in new EU browser offer

Confusion at Best Buy over rumors of a $99 Palm Pre

Installing Pre homebrew apps: now even easier

Netflix Prize: And the $1 Million Winner Is...?

ATandT blocks 4chan

AT&T said to block 4chan; pranksters fight back

Wi-Fi on ordinary cell phones

Aussie Net filtering trial deemed a success despite problems

Nissan's Forest AC blows wild scents through your ride, keeps you alert

Monkeys and scientists develop persistent "plug and play" control over brain-to-computer interface… Read more

Bill Gates is part of a team that has patented a new beer keg. Sure it could be used for other things. But the point was we're pretty sure he came up with the idea when drinking warm beer in Africa. We also talk about porn on the iPhone and new Windows pricing.

Microsoft Windows 7 pricing revealed: pre-orders kick off June 26th http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-windows-7-pricing-revealed-pre-orders-kick-off-june-26th-2547957/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10272703-56.html

AT&T’s 3G upgrades to … Read more

Dr. Kiki from This Week in Science joins us to talk tech and science, and we realize that we will all soon wear solar-powered Gundam suits and travel the Earth. That is until they become self-aware and eject us and kill us all. We also take NASA to task and tell you when to get a new Windows PC.

HTC Hero running Android and Sense UI http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/24/htc-hero-details-begin-leaking-from-htcs-own-website/

China not backing off despite filter code post … Read more

Natali got a little flustered when we learned that AT&T is changing the subsidy so that folks who thought they would have to pay more might not have to. But it's OK: if you preordered, the company will refund the difference. So she calmed down eventually. We also discuss China backpedaling on the filter software, and the need to encrypt.

iPhone OS 3.0 wide release coming Wednesday http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10265918-37.html http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/17/stop-hitting-f5-iphone-os-3-0-release-still-hours-away/… Read more