monitors

Your mobile device screens aren't large enough! At least, that's what Samsung thinks. On Wednesday it announced three new lines of monitors, which wirelessly connect to both your tablet and smartphone and allows you to control them from the displays' 27-inch screens.

A smarter, less 'Central'-ized station? In 2011 Samsung introduced Central Station, its wireless monitor docking station for laptops. Given the novelty of the tech, I couldn't help but be impressed with it, but definitely saw room for improvement. Compatibility with tablets and smartphones however, wasn't exactly what I had in mind. But, maybe … Read more

If HP's latest business monitor, Samsung's Central Station, and Apple's Thunderbolt Display are any indication, monitors that act as docking stations are indeed a trend. If, of course, like me, you're willing to call it a trend after only a couple instances.

The HP Compaq L2311c sports a 23-inch, LED-backlit screen and features two USB 3.0 upstream ports. These allow your laptop to not only connect to the display, but to have its battery charged by it as well.

You'll also find two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, VGA, and audio ports.

Samsung's … Read more

Are you wondering how you're going to reach and maintain your fitness goals in the new year?

Fitness-tracking apps take advantage of your Android phone's GPS sensor and can track your route, pace, distance, and heart rate (with a supported heart rate monitor). Most of them also allow you to upload your stats so you can view your activity history. Going further, most of them even allow you to share your workouts on Twitter or Facebook, which is a great way to solicit encouragement from your friends and family.

Here are five popular fitness-tracking apps for your Android … Read more

Having extra monitors is always nice, but can be costly when you need a pair or more of them to complete your desktop. 

This guide may offer a temporary solution to your problem if you're on a Windows PC and have a spare Android device (or one you don't mind tying up for a while).

What you'll need:

Begin by purchasing and downloading ScreenSlider from the Android market. Once that's complete, request a download link for the ScreenSlider desktop client by providing a valid e-mail … Read more

I always wondered how Santa gets things down the chimney without them being covered in soot.

Which sometimes makes me wonder how, at Christmas time, those nice men from FedEx always ensure the package arrives absolutely, positively in one piece.

Then I saw this YouTube video, one that suggests that, perhaps, FedEx guys don't always try to ensure things arrive whole. In this case the package was a Samsung computer monitor.

It is unclear where this video was taken or who the poster is. Which will, of course, lead to some skepticism as to its real-lifeness.

However, the poster … Read more

Virtual desktop tools have been around a long time. They tend to be a good idea that somehow fails in implementation, often because it's just a nuisance to switch between desktops. So we didn't muster a lot of enthusiasm for Dexpot--until we tried it, that is. Yes, it enables you to create totally separate, customized desktops that you can switch between, though it's actually easy to do in Dexpot. But Dexpot offers enough choices to create useful desktops and enough ways to quickly view, change, and configure them to answer our concerns.

Dexpot's system tray icon … Read more

We saw some pretty cool monitor innovations in 2011. A new panel technology debuted, the thinnest panel yet was revealed, as was a monitor that functioned fully, without requiring a physical connection to a PC.

Going into 2011, we'll likely continue to see thinner monitors with more power baked into them, cheaper IPS monitors, more monitors that are completely self-sufficient (no PC required, necessarily), and be on the lookout for DisplayPort to finally take off in a big way.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now now it's time to take a look back at 2011 and the most impressive monitors that came through CNET Labs. … Read more

Patches of tiny needles have already been shown to effectively deliver medications painlessly, and without a bloody mess. Now the tiny needles could also be used to monitor body chemistry in real time.

The new tech, developed by a team of biomedical engineers out of North Carolina State University, the University of California at San Diego, and Sandia National Laboratories, employs electrochemical sensors in the hollow channels of microneedles to detect certain molecules. The researchers reported their findings in the chemistry journal Talanta.

Current body chemistry monitoring involves taking samples, often before or after an event. Wearable micro-sensors, on the … Read more

President Eisenhower, in his 1961 farewell address, warned that the military-industrial complex could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes." Today WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange is warning that the surveillance-industrial complex is even more dangerous.

A set of nearly 300 documents that the document-leaking Web site published today reveals how extensive and privacy-invasive the secretive multi-billion dollar industry devoted to surveillance technology has become.

"We are in a world now where not only is it theoretically possible to record nearly all telecommunications traffic out of a country, all telephone calls, but where there is an international industry selling … Read more