personalize

As consumers begin to own more and more devices, the risks of increased security threats and a greater need for cross-platform protection have emerged, according to McAfee. In a joint partnership with Intel, McAfee announced on Tuesday the all-encompassing security suite LiveSafe.

LiveSafe is a comprehensive set of security measures that protect the files and digital assets that users value most. According to Mike DeCesare, president of McAfee, "Our digital lives have become more complex as we connect, share, and store data through multiple devices."

McAfee addresses the rising need for security across the fragmented landscape of gadgets … Read more

A new entrant in the long-loved, first-person shooter series, Wolfenstein, is coming, Bethesda Softworks announced Tuesday.

Dubbed Wolfenstein: The New Order, the game will follow series protagonist B.J. Blazkowicz after World War II. But there's one problem. In the new game, the Germans have won the war, and Blazkowicz is charged with taking on the Nazi regime.

CNET sister site Gamespot was first to announce the new Wolfenstein, confirming rumors that a new chapter of the famed franchise will unfold in the fourth quarter.

According to Bethesda, The New Order will be available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation … Read more

Video service Vudu began warning users today that it has instituted a systemwide password reset following an office break-in last month.

A burglary March 24 resulted in the loss of hard drives that contained users' sensitive personal information, including names, e-mail addresses, postal addresses, phone numbers, account activity, dates of birth, and the last four digits of some credit card numbers, Vudu Chief Technology Officer Prasanna Ganesan informed customers in an e-mail. He said no complete credit card numbers were stolen because the company does not store that information.

The stolen hard drives also contained encrypted passwords, and while Ganesan … Read more

Hitachi today unveiled a robot vehicle that can pick up and drop off passengers autonomously. Take that, all you old-fashioned driver-dependent personal mobility devices.

The tiny, single-seat Ropits (Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System) is meant to travel on sidewalks, or even be used indoors for getting in and out of elevators.

It's equipped with GPS to find its way and relies on cameras and 2D and 3D laser distance sensors to avoid obstacles (sometimes also known as pedestrians) and slow down in narrow spaces. Gyro sensors help it stay upright on uneven surfaces. … Read more

Facebook users' Likes on the social network may be unintentionally revealing their personality traits, sexual orientation, and intelligence, according to a study published today.

By studying the Likes of 58,000 Facebook users on the social network, researchers at the University of Cambridge say they were able to determine users' IQ, gender, sexual orientation, political and religious beliefs, and even substance use, with an accuracy rate of more than 80 percent

Expressions of approval on the social network for things such as photos, friends' status updates, as well as pages for sports, musicians, and books, were analyzed by researchers employing … Read more

Now that I've spent the past week using Able Planet's newly released behind-the-ear "personal sound amplifier," I've learned that I don't hear as well as I like to think. Everything sounds crisper and perkier with the device.

Of course, that isn't necessarily what I want in every environment. I'll spare you the details, but you don't really need to amplify sound when you're going to the bathroom. Nor should crossing your legs in corduroys or pulling a slice of bread out of the plastic bread bag feel so... tingly. With the rather clumsily named PS1600BTE, sometimes the smallest background noises become so bright that it's downright distracting.

In the intended noisier environments, however, these amplifiers feel like magic, even to someone who likes to think she's got stellar hearing. What's interesting is that it wasn't until I removed the device from each ear that I realized how much duller and more jumbled the sounds in noisy environments were. The PS1600BTE is like icing on a cake I didn't know existed.… Read more

If you were to cross Mario with Resident Evil, what would you get? Probably something that looks a lot like Brandon Laatsch's YouTube video of Mario as a first-person game.

This vision of Mario follows the final level. It's moody. Rain pours down. Rocky Wrenches pop up and throw dangerous tools. I half expect zombies to shuffle out of the shadows. It culminates with an impressive fight scene with Bowser. The only thing we're missing is a rendering of Mario meeting up with his princess.… Read more

The wave of high-level cyberattacks continues as the Federal Reserve confirmed that one of its internal Web sites was hacked into today, according to Reuters.

"The Federal Reserve system is aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product," a Fed spokeswoman told Reuters. "Exposure was fixed shortly after discovery and is no longer an issue. This incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve system."

Apparently the hackers accessed data associated with specific individuals, according to Reuters.

This attack comes on the heels of the hacking group … Read more

The cloud may be the future of all things storage, but the present is more complicated: it can be expensive, potentially insecure, and you're left trusting a third party with all your data.

That's what inspired The Transporter, a Kickstarter project started by former employees of Drobo. Transporter aims for something more secure and distributed, while still being sharable. The concept largely works like Dropbox, with a Transporter folder that lives on your desktop and syncs with files stored on the physical Transporter drive (which resides someplace you designate). You can easily give others access to specific folders, … Read more