Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Streaming recorded TV to your hotel room. Grabbing files off your home computer from work. Checking on the dog walker. Your computer can do amazing things while you're nowhere near it, and these 10 killer remote access apps help you do them."

So not everything can exist in the cloud right now, and a lot of people still have a considerable amount of their digital life tucked away on their home. Just because you are not at home, or not right in from of the computer that stores what you need, does not mean that you cannot get access to it. There are a wide variety of tools that provide services like remote access, VPN and streaming. Of particular interest should be the Wake-on-LAN option that is available for most current generation computers. In the world of saving power and arguably faster boot times, you may not need to have your computer(s) on all the time. However, with Wake-on-LAN, you can rouse them from their slumber to do tasks only when needed. You might be surprised just how much power than can save over the course of a year. Now if only LCD monitors could get there. Yes, I know they're improving, but many still use way too much power for what they need when in stand-by mode.

Continue reading JVC ships Bluetooth-packin', geotagging Everio GZ-HM550 camcorder

JVC ships Bluetooth-packin', geotagging Everio GZ-HM550 camcorder originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Mar 2010 10:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"At homes and in offices, we’ve started to notice more than one display per desk. Ask the users of these multi-monitor desks whether they’d be willing to return to a single monitor system, and they’ll likely tell you they’ll give up the second display when you pry it from their cold, dead hands. So, what’s the appeal? Do multiple displays really make computer users more productive?"

I have seen people argue that widescreen displays are enough, and multiple monitors are not needed. While I find widescreen displays useful, the addition of extra monitors still seems to provide many more benefits. I have tried to quantify this, and I think a good portion of it comes down to the real estate in combination with the logical separation of two monitors. There are many tools that help you manage windows, especially with really high resolution screens, and I find a combination of both lets me have almost all the programs I need without overlap, but I would never give up multiple monitors. I would rather have smaller multiple monitors over one big monitor any day. Is multiple monitors as important to you? What would it take for you to give them up?

NetWorx helps collect bandwidth usage data and measure the speed of your Internet or any other network connection. NetWorx can help you identify possible sources of network problems, ensure that you do not exceed the bandwidth limits specified by your ISP, or track down suspicious network activity characteristic of Trojan horses and hacker attacks. It allows you to monitor all your network connections or a specific network connection (such as Ethernet or PPP) only. The incoming and outgoing traffic is represented on a line chart and logged to a file, so that you can always view statistics about your daily, weekly and monthly bandwidth usage and dialup duration. The reports can be exported to a variety of formats, such as HTML, MS Word and Excel, for further analysis.

Austin Heap, the programmer from California, explains how he created Haystack, the software that broke the grip of Iran's censors after the disputed 2009 election

If you imagined a computer hacker with the know-how to topple governments, you might well picture someone who looks a lot like Austin Heap. He's a 26-year-old programmer from San Francisco with long wavy hair, wearing jeans, T-shirt and aviator sunglasses the morning we meet. He is also the creator of a piece of software called Haystack, which was a key technology used by Iranians to disseminate information outside the country in the protests that followed the disputed election result in June 2009, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unconvincingly triumphed against three challengers.

The Iranian government already filtered its citizens' email and Skype conversations, but in the aftermath of the election, such censorship was increased in an attempt to identify dissidents who were using the web to organise and communicate with each other and with the outside world.

A tech wunderkind originally from Ohio, Heap developed Haystack to open up social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, giving voices on the streets a platform, and people in the west a window into a closed-down state. He's now the executive director of the Censorship Research Centre in San Francisco, a non-profit organisation founded with his colleague Daniel Colascione to provide anti-censorship education, outreach, and technology for free to those who need it most.

What is Haystack and how does it work?

Haystack is a piece of software that someone in Iran runs on his or her computer. It does two things: first, it encrypts all of the data; second it hides that data inside normal traffic so it looks like you're visiting innocuous sites. Daniel and I developed Haystack by looking at how the regime was using technology to filter the internet, and figured out the best strategy to get around it.

Why did you decide to take on the regime?

I remember the day of the election, sitting around watching Twitter, watching what was going on, reading the election results and thinking, that looks weird. Then I realised that the internet censorship had stepped up more than normal. I thought, hey, I can set up a few proxies and help a few people out. While I'm at it, why not post instructions online so other people could use their computers to get around the government filtering.

Imagine what you can do if you can watch someone's internet connection: you can watch them log into GMail, you can watch them log into Facebook, you can see who they're talking to, you can intercept messages. That's why the encryption part of Haystack was really important. It had to start on the user's side, on their computers. Then it makes its way through the government filters.

Were you politically motivated?

No. I just remember sitting there watching the election results thinking, why are they violently reacting to people who were voting? It's not like they were just jailing people; they were killing people in the streets – people who had a different opinion, people who wanted to share their stories and voice what they thought was right. It shocked me that someone would retaliate in such an inhumane way, and for someone to use the internet as a tool of oppression, as a tool to stop dialogue.

I gather that according to US law, it was illegal to export Haystack to Iran, simply because it would flout Iranian laws – but it did virally make its way onto Iranian computers...

I'll never forget the first person who got a copy of Haystack and sent me a screenshot of Twitter. All of a sudden, the internet was open again. Haystack also allowed people to make Skype calls back to their families securely. It allowed people to send GMail without worrying that someone would try to steal their password or monitor their communication. It gave them a layer of protection that allowed the random person to be a citizen journalist and to do so without the risk of persecution, jail or torture.

Is there content that shouldn't be spread around the web?

The internet is used for anything from drug trafficking to human trafficking. That's completely wrong. But when you decide that you're going to support an open internet, you have to open all of it. You can't go down this slippery slope of saying what's right and what's wrong. Who is this panel of people who's going to say this is OK, this is not OK? Outside the obvious things that are human rights violations, free speech is free speech.

Isn't that a very American point of view?

I don't think [Haystack] has anything to do with American ideology. I think that if you look at what the UN has listed as basic human rights, one of those is the ability to freely and openly communicate. No one should ever have to stop and say, "Can I be this? Can I think this? Can I say this?" It's what we as people deserve.

Who are your greatest critics?

I don't even know where to start. I have a whole fan club of people who hate me. There's clearly been opposition by the Iranian government. They recently passed a law that makes it illegal to use software or proxies that evade the censorship that they've imposed. They're detractor number one.

In my day-to-day life I meet people who don't support what I do. One of the most shocking examples was when someone came up to me and said, "Don't you get that Ahmadinejad is our Obama?" That took me back.

After Google announced it was leaving China, the Chinese government said that US-originated systems that opened up the governmental web blockades – such as Haystack - were acts of terrorism. Are you a terrorist?

It's interesting. There are a lot of things that they [China] do and pursue, a lot of laws that I don't feel anyone should observe. They have a long history of jailing dissidents and people who republish old cartoons. They pick and choose how to enforce laws and they come up with laws that frankly I would consider an act of terrorism of mankind. Maybe we should agree that we're both the same kind of threat, but to one another.

Hilary Clinton made a speech recently that outlined the US State Department's policy on web freedom. She argued that there was no place for censorship. What's the relationship now between the US government and Haystack?

I don't like the view that Haystack is a puppet of the US State Department, but I'm happy to see that the State Department is standing up for a free and open web. They have a long history of protecting human rights around the world and documenting abuses. This is the next step. We live in such an interconnected world. Policy makers, organisations that draft and enforce these policies need to catch up. And they are.

What's next for Austin Heap and for Haystack?

There are a lot of places around the world that are either severely censored now that could use people like me and tools such as Haystack, and they need to be addressed. That includes everywhere from Australia, which is currently dipping its toes in the censorship pool, to Egypt where there are more bloggers jailed than journalists: this is a global problem.

The way Haystack was developed was that we looked at how Iran specifically does its filtering and we came up with a method around it. If you look at what China does with their filtering, they use wildly different technology and have spent millions, hundreds of millions on their censorship. They're probably the best censors in the world. We hope to run down the list. Take on each country that has decided that it's going to try to use the internet against people.

• Iran
• Freedom of speech
• Human rights
• Software

If you’re a gadget-lover fed up of filling your home with ice white this and brushed aluminum that, then check out this selection of totally stylin’ items offering a design blast from the past.

Retro, vintage, old school or just classic, whatever your interpretation, we’ve dug out ten gadgets that boast classic good looks as well as bang-up-to-date functionality.

Olympus’ Pen E-P1 is chock full of digital goodness in a design that harks back to the SLR glory days and the original Pen’s release back in 1959, which made a big impact on the camera market with its small dimensions. With a 12-megapixel sensor and capable of capturing movies at 720p, the modern micro four thirds snapper offers digital SLR-standard pics in a more compact format with those vintage looks that are good enough to lick.

Cost: $799.99

Science and Sons’ Phonofone II is a wickedly old-fashioned iPod speaker, or in the words of its creator “audio console.” Using no power, the gramophone-styled device utilizes passive amplification and cunning acoustics to boost the audio output of standard earphones to around 55 decibels. With an entirely ceramic construction, it’s as much sculpture as it is speaker.

Cost:: Currently 240 euros – around $330

So far only released in Korea, LG thrilled fans of retro style when it revealed a classic CRT television, complete with bunny ears aerial and channel-changing knobs. The 14-inch set stands on chrome legs and if you’re doing the back-in-time trip all the way, can display in black and white or sepia. Despite its vintage appearance it offers a digital tuner and does come with a remote control for when you get bored of fiddling with the knobs.

Cost: Sadly N/A

A professional USB mic, the Snowball from Blue Microphones claims to offer plug’n'play ease of use with both Macs and PCs but the power to capture anything from the softest vocals to the loudest garage band. Angled as ideal for podcasting, the vintage appearance of this modern peripheral may serve to remind users of the rich heritage of broadcasting and inspire them to podcast about more than the hilarious antics of their cat. That, and it will look wicked-cool on your desk.

Cost: $99.95

Available in black, white, red and an outrageously retro avocado green, say goodbye to fiddly modern earbuds with these totally cool cans from Panasonic. The Panasonic Old School Monitor Stereo Headphones, to give them their full title, offer leather-cushioned listening comfort you can only dream of if you’re used to in-ear audio efforts and look so darn cool you’ll be tempted to wear them out — even when you’re not listening to music.

Cost:: $59.99

Sure, headsets are all well and good but there’s no romance in looking like a call center phone operator. The P*PHONE from Hulger will give you the satisfying feel of a proper chunky handset in your hot little paw and turn a VoIP call into a conversation. Available in white, black, red and green, the P*PHONE is offered on its own for $50 and with a cool desktop base for $99. As well as working with certain mobiles (and certain others with adaptors) the P*PHONE offers easy USB hook-up to a PC.

Cost:: From $50

Back in the olden days folks would create real-life music “tapes” with playlists recorded on to them to either share with a friend or loved one or enjoy themselves (“Best Driving Songs Ever”, “My Breaking Up With Dave Tape”, etc). Help make sure the art of the mixtape is not lost with this USB effort that takes on the form of an old analog blank audio cassette tape (complete with sleeve that you can scrawl the track list on) but with a brand spanking new USB flash drive nestled in the middle.

Cost:: $15.99

Mathletes with a penchant for the past will enjoy this retro calculator’s baby blue looks and oversize dimensions. Whether you’re totting up the cost of your new flared jeans, or calculating how much cheese you’ll need to melt to make the perfect fondue, your numerical queries will be solved in Seventies style.

Cost:: Approx $23

You’d be forgiven for mistaking this for a vintage deck, but in fact it offers more modern tech than many music systems. Sure, there’s the option to take your vinyl for a spin, but there’s also playback from SD memory cards and USB storage devices as well as from iPods and other MP3 players. In addition to normal playback this turntable can record your records to your computer, which means you won’t have to re-purchase all your vinyl to get it digitized, and it has an FM radio.

Cost:: $150

While the wider world gets hyped up about Sony’s Move and Microsoft’s Project Natal, sit back, relax and enjoy some 8-bit gaming with the Retro NES USB Controller from ThinkGeek, described as perfect for creating old school gaming nostalgia on your laptop. With a USB connection, it’s perfect for MAME and other emulators and is sooo much cooler than trying to save the princess using your keyboard.

Cost:: $29.99

Tags: gadgets, hulger, LG, Panasonic, retro

No, we’re not hiring the Hanson brothers to deal with RMT threats. As there is no one better at beating up targets than EVE pilots, we thought we'd enlist your talents in slapping EVE Gate into shape.

As CCP t0rfifrans outlined on his blog introducing Tyrannis, we will be delivering the very first iteration of EVE Gate in the upcoming expansion. It is my task to oversee the technical direction of the Web side of things with EVE Gate, and I wanted to take the opportunity to announce a public “Alpha” test we are planning for EVE Gate and the steps we are taking to make sure we have a very sound foundation to build upon. What we don't want to do is just turn all the traffic completely on the first day and pray it doesn’t break under load. Instead we plan a measured approach that will make sure we have a solid architecture and enough hardware in place.

The process we are following is as follows:

• Develop and prototype an N-Tier web application with scalability in mind from day one (See my first blog on "Cosmos" ) - DONE
• Release and stress an internal alpha to identify and address weakspots - DONE
• Build and utilize load testing and application profiling tools to find and fix bottlenecks - DONE
• Release a public "alpha" stress test to apply real world load to the application to check our hardware needs against estimates and monitor it under real conditions
• Roll out a "beta" launch
• Ramp up to full access in increments

On March 23, we will announce access to a public stress test version of EVE Gate which will be connected to Singularity for all of you to log into and look around. What is critical for everyone to understand is that the intent of this test is to stress the underlying hardware and key architectural components. This will allow us to identify and address bottlenecks and weaknesses well before launch and to make sure we have adequate hardware in place for all the pounding you folks will put on it once you are all browsing EVE Gate routinely from work (when your boss isn't looking). We will be watching your comments closely for feedback as well as closely logging and monitoring the behavior of the software and hardware under load. You can help us out greatly just by logging in, browsing around and trying the application out.

It needs to be emphasized that while it gives you an early glimpse at EVE Gate, the primary purpose of this test is a technical one. The features included in the test are still heavily in development and we wanted to get an early version up and available for you to beat up the hardware well in advance. There will be elements that are not yet done or which are presented as a simplified version for testing purposes. To make this clear the application will be labeled the "EVE Gate Alpha Stress Test"; it will be pretty hard to miss. I am not going to go into depth here on the features that will be included; we have an additional Dev Blog that will be presented soon which will focus on the web based functionality which will come with EVE Gate at launch (calendar, mail, contacts, profiles, broadcast logs, etc).

When EVE Gate does go live with the expansion it will be released as a Beta launch. It will be fully functional and connected to Tranquility for access to production data however it will be a Web site that we will continually modify and enhance. As it is a Web site, we have the benefit of not being tied directly to client releases and can continue to upgrade the site as quickly as we can get improvements completed. Once access is fully ramped up and we are comfortable that it is fully stable and production ready we’ll rip off the Beta stamp.

When I mention an incremental ramp up to full access, what I am describing is a measured increase in the number of players that can access the site when the Beta version goes live. We will do this with a basic signup page on launch day and we will give X number of additional players access each day depending on how things are going. Rather than turning the faucet fully on we are going to open it up a bit, check that all is well, open it up a bit more, etc… until we have it fully open and everyone has access.

Obviously we will open it up as quickly as is feasible as we have a lot more features we want to get to work on (>cough< forums >cough<) but our emphasis is on doing this the right way. Hopefully the ramp up will be quick, and this "Alpha" test I have announced here will play a big part in getting us as much information as possible so we can be ready. The better the info we get out of the "Alpha," the more accurate our hardware setup will be, the quicker we can ramp up full access when we go live.

The team is really looking forward to rolling out EVE Gate for you to use, and we will have greater detail on the features it will include in a future Dev Blog.

JVC of Japan is back with a spanking new Everio camera which will go one up on all of its other rivals – why do we say so? Well, it comes with integrated Bluetooth wireless technology that allows it to “talk” to other similarly equipped wireless devices. Of course, let us not get sidetracked by this and focus on what the Everio GZ-HM550 can do as a camcorder first before moving on to see the capabilities of Bluetooth connectivity. The Everio GZ-HM550 will sport a 10.6 megapixel CMOS sensor for recording high quality Full HD video and nine megapixel digital stills, and 32GB of internal flash memory which can be further expanded thanks to an SD/SDHC memory card slot.

Right, on to the Bluetooth now – it basically allows you to control the camera using nothing else but a smartphone, while you can also geo-tag your recorded videos as well as snapped photos through a compatible Bluetooth headset. Needless to say, you will still need to install the application which it ships with before it is able to pair up with a compatible Bluetooth-equipped smartphone. Using this software, one can control the camera remotely, letting you record, zoom and play operations. With a GPS device in tow, it is a snap to record location data of where movie and still files were recorded. All relevant data stored will be synchronized with Google Earth when viewing the file on a PC, and you can also take advantage of a Bluetooth-equipped headset to monitor the recorded sound or for voice recording. Hmmm, sounds fine and dandy for the rest, but don’t you think a regular remote control would work just fine for this camcorder if you want to operate it from afar? Guess having the Bluetooth option allows you to lose the remote without feeling a tinge of regret or panic.

Other hardware specifications include a 10.62 megapixel Back-illuminated CMOS sensor, 1920 x 1080 Full HD video shooting, real nine megapixel digital stills, a KONICA MINOLTA HD LENS with 16x dynamic zoom without suffering from any degradation of picture quality, an LED light and a flash for shooting in dark situation, Advanced Image Stabilization and advanced shooting functions. All that shooting could prove to be painful on your arms, which is why the Everio GZ-HM550 comes with a redesigned grip belt that works in two ways, as that of a conventional handle-style grip when both ends are snapped in place, or as a strap when one end of the belt is released. Expect to pick up the JVC GZ-HM550 Bluetooth-enabled camera for $799.95.

Press Release
Coolest Gadgets UK – For all your UK centric tech and gadget news.
[ JVC has new Everio camera ready to rock and roll copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]