harmony

I love my Harmony 650 universal remote, but it has one major flaw. As the first line of The Bad from our review says, it can only control up to five different devices.

I hit that limit last year when I wanted to add a Roku to my system to access HBO Go. I already had five devices -- a TV, an AV receiver, a Fios DVR, a PS3 (via an IR-to-BT controller), and a Moxi Mate -- so I figured I'd have to "go manual" and use the Roku's remote in conjunction with my beloved … Read more

Logitech today announced its intention to sell its Harmony remotes division after a "disappointing" third quarter.

The electronics company posted an operating loss of $180 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2013 on sales of $615 million, a 14 percent decline over the same period last year.

"As we articulated when we started the third quarter, continued weakness in the global PC market was the primary factor in our disappointing Q3 results," Logitech CEO Bracken P. Darrell said in a statement. "These results are unacceptable and we are taking decisive action as an outcome … Read more

This is an update of a post from way back in January.

Tired of juggling two, three, even five remotes? There's salvation to be found in the form of Logitech's Harmony series of universal clickers, which not only take the place of multiple 'remotes but also let you set up crazy-handy macro functions.

One of the color-LCD models, the 650, usually sells for around $80. But if you don't mind going the refurbished route, you can get one for a lot less. While supplies last, TigerDirect has open-box Logitech Harmony 650 remotes for $29.99 shipped. That'… Read more

Thanks to all the live listeners for bearing with our first day broadcasting video on Livestream. Be sure to check us out every weekday at 12 p.m ET/9 a.m. PT on the Livestream homepage.

Leaked from today's 404 show:

- Jeff gives a spoiler-free review of "The Dark Knight Rises."

- 46 Things You Probably Don't Know About the Batman films.

- eHarmony has some tips to bail you out of a horrible online date.

- How bars use music to get you drunk faster.… Read more

An analysis of passwords stolen from eHarmony and leaked to the Web recently reveals several problems with the way the dating site handled password encryption and policies, according to a security expert.

The biggest problem clearly was that the passwords, although encrypted and obscured with a hashing algorithm, were not "salted," which would have increased the amount of work password crackers would need to do, writes Mike Kelly, a security analyst at Trustwave SpiderLabs, in a blog post today.

But there were two other less obvious problems. First, the lowercase characters in passwords were converted to uppercase before … Read more

Three companies have warned users in the last 24 hours that their customers' passwords appear to be floating around on the Internet, including on a Russian forum where hackers boasted about cracking them. I suspect more companies will follow suit.

Curious about what this all means to you? Read on.

What exactly happened? Earlier this week a file containing what looked like 6.5 million passwords and another with 1.5 million passwords was discovered on a Russian hacker forum on InsidePro.com, which offers password-cracking tools. Someone using the handle "dwdm" had posted the original list and … Read more

It's time to pony up for prepaid iPhones, avoid password scams and drop that mayor obsession:

The iPhone is coming to Virgin Mobile at the end of June. But you'll have to drop a hefty $650 to get the iPhone 4S, since there's no two-year contract. Plans start at $30 a month. It's cheaper in the long run to go prepaid with this plan instead of spending $200 upfront and paying for a more expensive monthly bill for two years (but you'll be limited with talk minutes). Virgin is on the Sprint network.

If Android … Read more

The dating Web site eHarmony got hit by the same group that released a list of LinkedIn member passwords yesterday, so be sure to change your passwords for both if you have accounts.

Buzzfeed also parsed through the list of leaked passwords to reveal some pretty depressing sentiments from employees. While many accounts used overly simplistic passwords like "LinkedIn" or "password1," some of the more disturbing pass phrases include things like "suicide," "solonely," "iwishiwasdead," and "divorce." They're still not very strong in terms of security, so be sure to add a special character or a number during the bleak changeover.… Read more