2010

HANOVER, Germany--IBM showed off technology today designed to let people use their smartphones to take command of their real-world shopping.

Big Blue showed an app idea from IBM Research in Haifa, Israel, that uses image recognition to identify products on store shelves, then lets people sort those products by attributes such as price and nutrition information. A customer could select only gluten-free products, pick food that's from nearby, or filter electronic gadgets by operating system.

"The same experience people expect online is available in the store," said Amnon Rebak, a research staff member on the project, at … Read more

HANNOVER, Germany--In today's James Bond world, smartphones get you instant access to top-secret information. In the real world, security constraints mean mobile phones generally aren't nearly so clever or convenient.

BlackBerry and Secusmart hope to change that through a partnership that at least has won over the German federal government. It has authorized purchases of phones with the BlackBerry 10 operating system augmented with Secusmart's SD card-mounted security chips for classified communications, said Hans-Christoph Quelle, Secusmart managing director, speaking here at the CeBit technology show.

The approach uses a feature in BlackBerry 10 called Balance, which partitions … Read more

Your nephew might have awesome Web skills, or maybe you can do it yourself, but chances are you'll pay a lot to have a Web designer build a Web site, or pay a lot for the software you need to build, publish, and maintain your own site. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for, but it's definitely better to be able to try before you buy, especially when the software costs 5 bills. So we were pleased with the terms of Sitoo Web's 31-day trial period, which basically lets you try the software's full range … Read more

Similar to other Internet-based communication apps, with Nimbuzz you don't have to directly deal with additional costs when it comes to phone communication. Even though features offered by Nimbuzz are not all that unique, it is still a quite useful app to have and use.

The primary interface of Nimbuzz doesn't differ much from other messaging apps that you might have already seen or used. The standard contacts lists are still displayed by default, and basic options such as chat, calls, and messages are shown at the top menu. Messages are free as always, and calls to other … Read more

While the primary function of Microsoft Outlook 2010 is to send and receive e-mail, it offers a host of useful tools to manage tasks, meetings, contacts, and more.

The interface of Microsoft Outlook 2010 is nicely designed, but it is packed with options. Users new to Outlook should expect to spend some time with the Help file to take advantage of all it has to offer. For the basics, including e-mail, the calendar, and tasks, one-click access minimizes the learning curve. While it continues to allow users to receive e-mail from multiple accounts and easily switch from one to the … Read more

Following my post earlier this month on "Ten simple, common-sense security tips," reader John B. asked whether it was safe to store his passwords in a Word DOC file and then copy and paste them into sign-in screens to thwart keystroke loggers. John just has to remember to type in one password: the one he uses to encrypt and password-protect his Word password document.

Of course, John's passwords are vulnerable to clipboard loggers that capture the contents of the clipboard just as key loggers grab your keystrokes. That's why John has to add extra characters to … Read more

Buy Office 2010 or 2011 now, and you'll get a free copy of Office 2013 later.

Unveiled on Friday, Microsoft's Office Pre-Launch Offer is good for anyone who buys the current version of Office between October 19, 2012, and April 30, 2013. That includes Windows users who purchase Office 2010 and Mac users who pick up Office 2011.

The steps are relatively simple. After you install and activate Office, just pop an e-mail to Microsoft to receive a reminder. Microsoft will alert you once Office 2013 is available, giving you the ability to download and install it for … Read more

In the annals of computer history, no two keystroke combinations have done more to boost worker productivity than Ctrl-C to copy to the clipboard whatever you've selected on the screen, and Ctrl-V to paste the contents of the clipboard to wherever you've placed the cursor.

What often follows the paste is the laborious process of reformatting the pasted material to match the look of the destination document. Microsoft Word lets you apply the formatting of the destination document when you paste, but by default Ctrl-V retains the original formatting of the pasted text.

Back in 2007 I described … Read more