testing

Test your sound card and audio devices with RightMark Audio Analyzer

RightMark AudioAnalyzer is a free audio testing tool that takes the place of a bench-top full of equipment, including spectrum analyzers, tone generators, and test records. It can test the analog and digital signal paths of most any audio device, especially sound cards but also CD and DVD players, MP3 players, and recording devices. Using your sound card as a reference, it can evaluate other sound cards as well as audio devices connected to your sound card's inputs and outputs. It can even self-test audio cards that can handle separate inputs and outputs simultaneously. Several of its modes require … Read more

Amazon brings Appstore Test Drive to the handset

If you're not sure if you want to buy an application, you can now try it out before you drop your cash.

Amazon announced yesterday that Android device owners will now be able to test drive applications, in its Appstore before they buy. The new Test Drive feature is currently available in beta, and only supports apps that use the touch screen and accelerometer features. Apps that require using the keyboard, multitouch, or the camera, among other components, are not currently supported.

According to Amazon, Test Drive is available on more than 5,000 applications offered through its Appstore, … Read more

Google's self-driving cars win big in Nevada

Nevada is known as being one of the most lenient states when it comes to gambling, fireworks, and getting married; and now it's extending that easygoingness to driverless cars.

As of today, Nevada is the first state to let Google's self-driving cars on the roads. The state's Department of Motor Vehicles issued the tech giant the first license to see just how these cars act and react on busy streets and highways, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

"We're excited to receive the first testing license for self-driving vehicles in Nevada," a Google spokesperson … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions on how to tackle an IP address conflict error, an issue with Apple's Hardware Test suite not loading, and whether or not Time Machine backups need to be started from scratch when attaching the local Time Machine disk to an Airport Extreme router. We welcome alternative approaches and views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, post them in the comments!

Question: Tackling a duplicate IP address error MacFixIt reader … Read more

Tracking diseases using Google Maps and cell phones

Many of us have relied on rapid diagnostic tests at one time or another, whether it's testing for pregnancy, blood glucose levels, or strep throat.

But while dropping fluid samples on a small strip for near-instantaneous results is affordable and convenient, reading results using the human eye means there is the potential for, well, human error.

So researchers at UCLA have taken the human out of the equation as much as possible and developed a digital "universal" reader for all rapid diagnostic tests, or RDTs, that requires no translation of results.

In the journal Lab on a … Read more

How DxO Labs tests hot cameras like Canon's latest SLR

BOULOGNE BILLANCOURT, France -- So you think you're a camera expert? Well, when was the last time you evaluated a camera by spending days analyzing hundreds of test photos?

That's what DxO Labs does, over and over, publishing results so far for 185 cameras on its DxOMark Web site. To see what lies behind those performance scores, CNET visited the company as it put one hotly anticipated camera through its paces: Canon's hot new video-capable SLR, the EOS 5D Mark III.

The results might not surprise close watchers of the camera business: Canon's score of 81 … Read more

Trinity Site: First atomic bomb detonation still resonates

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE -- I recently watched footage of the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Trinity Site in 1945. A black and white mushroom cloud built up in slow motion. Chills and prickles crawled up my spine.

Visiting Trinity Site One week later, I visit ground zero, where a device called "The Gadget" was strapped into a 100-foot-tall steel tower and set off. Two more nuclear explosions took place over Japan after that successful test, harbingers of the end of World War II.

This all happened a long time before I was born, but I feel a strange sadness as I stand here on a hazy spring day in the middle of the Jornada del Muerto, a desert basin full of scrub and pronghorn antelope. That name translates to "day's journey of the dead." … Read more

CNET Labscast 23: When to buy a laptop, greatest gadgets ever, and a big goodbye

Well, it's been fun, but along with the rest of the weekly CNET Live lineup, the CNET Labscast (formerly known as Digital City) is being sent to the great podcast studio in the sky. For this final episode, the whole gang shows up, as we debate the right time to buy a laptop, and list our picks for the most influential gadgets of the modern era. … Read more

CNET Labscast 22: Too-big ultrabooks and best iPad 3 cases

Joining us this week is David Carnoy, who brings a collection of his favorite iPad 3 cases to show off. We also get hands-on with a too-big ultrabook, and debate the future of this once-promising new category.

Best iPad 3 cases and covers. Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook.

iPad testing goes global

We tested the cellular speed of Apple's new iPad in four different cities: San Francisco, London, Singapore, and Sydney.

The first test used the Speedtest.net app to test theoretical download speeds measured in megabits per second. The country whose iPad achieves the highest number wins the test. OK, I guess you can't really "win" a test, unless it's a con-test!! Yeah, so this wasn't just a test, but also became a friendly competition between countries.… Read more