3.4

Your first order of business with Apple's third-generation iPad: fill up that stunning Retina Display with plenty of video. But hang on; if you're getting the 4G model, better watch that over-the-air video consumption. Lightning-fast as it is, over LTE, you'll be tempted to burn through your data plan in less time than you might think.

Here's a breakdown of what a 5GB data plan will get you on the 4G LTE iPad, for moments when you're not on Wi-Fi.

AT&T and Verizon both offer $50 5GB monthly data plans for LTE tablets like the iPad--the only plan in which they overlap, so let's start there.… Read more

These are the times that try men's souls.

Never has a tablet purchase so vexed the collective nerd consciousness of this great nation. And Apple doesn't make it easy, does it? Its "new" tablet looks a hell of a lot like the old one, only heavier! It's like Apple is toying with us.

But have no fear. Using a bracing mixture of logic and cheapskate wisdom, I'll walk you though this paralyzing first-world dilemma.

For the first-timers If you've never owned a tablet and you're considering the new iPad for your first … Read more

WSCC stands for Windows System Control Center. It's a free console program that integrates access to hundreds of free system utilities supplied by Microsoft and others. WSCC Portable Edition is a totally portable version of WSCC. It saves all its utilities to local folders, so there's nothing to uninstall: simply delete any program you don't want, or delete the whole folder.

WSCC opened with an automatic update finder. The utilities come from three sources: Microsoft Sysinternals, Microsoft Windows, and NirSoft. It listed all available downloads, more than 250 in total, each with a check box selected by … Read more

Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor will be making an appearance on a host of mobile devices this year, and when that happens, it will no longer come with its clumsy architecture branding.

The chipmaker announced yesterday that it has ditched "variable symmetric multiprocessing," "companion core," and even "ninja core," to describe Tegra 3's architecture. Nvidia will now describe it as the "4-Plus-1" architecture.

"The reason is that, the more popular this technology became, the more our customers wanted a name for it that's unique and descriptive," Nvidia wrote … Read more

If you don't mind a slab of a phone that really does resemble a king-size candy bar, then feast your eyes on the LG Spectrum.

If the clean lines and checkered back cover don't win you over, then perhaps the 4.5-inch screen, Verizon's LTE speeds, and 720p HD display will.

LG doesn't stop there, either. The 8-megapixel camera/camcorder can shoot video in 1080p HD, and LG and Verizon have preloaded a trio of HD apps that optimize high-definition video playback.

The Spectrum isn't immune to flaws, though, and the handset is seeing fierce … Read more

Boosted by the iPad 3, Apple's popular tablet could see sales of more than 48 million this year, Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu believes.

In an investor's note released yesterday, Wu attributed his forecast to recent speculation that the iPad 3 would be a "significant update" over the existing model and will reach customers in March.

Reports have also popped up that Apple's next tablet would be powered by a quad-core chip and support 4G LTE. Though Wu didn't weigh in on the likelihood of those features surfacing, he did say that such improvements … Read more

You're proud of your digital snapshots and want to share them without spreading them across the Internet. The solution is to watermark your pictures, just like Corbis, Life, and other big online archives do. Easy Watermark Studio Lite creates and places watermarks on single images or whole batches of pictures. It adds text and image watermarks, and it includes a variety of preconfigured watermarks that let you establish copyright, prohibit copying or unauthorized use, and other digital rights. It supports JPEG, BMP, and TIFF images. Easy Watermark Studio Lite is freeware, but it's also available in a Pro … Read more

Now that Apple has its full holiday lineup for this year, rumors of next-gen products should start heating up. One such rumor follows a press release from Qualcomm, which makes the 3G chips in iPhones, saying that it seems likely that its 4G LTE Gobi 4000 chip is destined to be included in the iPad 3.

"Embedded modules based on our new Gobi 4000 technology are designed to give consumers an uncompromised mobile connectivity experience, both in terms of download speeds and flexibility," said Cristiano Amon, senior vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies.

Though Apple was not specifically mentioned in the press release as a partner for the new chip, Qualcomm did list several of Apple's competitors in the mobile space including Windows and Android, and noted that the Gobi 4000 API is perfect for personal computing as well as tablet and e-reader operating systems.… Read more

Here's something interesting: an entire office productivity suite that can run from a USB drive. It's LibreOffice Portable, a portable-ized version of The Document Foundation's free open-source suite. It's compatible with most other productivity suites and tools, including Word, WordPerfect, and Lotus, and packs the tools you need, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation maker, drawing tool, and database.

At 412 MB, LibreOffice Portable is a substantial package, but who cares? With multigigabyte USB drives and memory cards, storage isn't an issue. The installer offered an experimental option to exclude Multilanguage support, which saves 150 … Read more