Practical Technology

It used to be so easy. You either connected with Wi-Fi, or you looked for a place to plug in an Ethernet cable. That was then. This is now. Today, your laptop, netbook, smartphone, or tablet may give you as many as four different wireless choices. What’s a user to do? Let’s take a look [...]

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In the wake of the revelation that there’s a huge security hole in Android’s Wi-Fi communications with Google applications, Google told me and other journalists on May 18th that, “Today we’re starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third party access to data [...]

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In some ways, all the uproar about Apple saving location data on its iOS device users is old news. Guess what? Big Brother, or Big Google, also collects geo-location information from its mobile, Android-powered devices. It’s like anything else in computing: geo-location can provide great services and resources, but it can also be abused. Take, [...]

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My ZDNet comrade James Kendrick argues that if you tether–use your 3G or 4G phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot without permission–that you’re a thief. Please. No. Just no. When AT&T can charge users who have jail-broken their phones, such as an iPhone, to use them as mobile potshots, with a tethering fee, I don’t see [...]

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I think Intel’s Thunderbolt technology with its 10Gbps (Gigabit per second) speeds and support for both for data transfer and displays sounds wonderful. And, yes, I like the idea of cutting down the number of wires coming out of my entertainment center and computers with Thunderbolt. But, really wouldn’t you rather have no wires at [...]

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