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The New Year is here, and almost everyone is working hard to see their resolutions succeed.

For some it's eating better or learning a new skill. For others, it's about being more productive at work and home. Being more productive can be hard, especially if you find yourself lacking energy for your work day. Even if the technology you use at work and home makes things easier, there still needs to be an alert human on the other end telling it what to do. If you're definitely human--but not quite alert--it's likely that you're on … Read more

Easy File Locker is a free tool for password-protecting files and folders. With it, others can't open, read, modify, copy, or delete your data without your password. Of course, neither can you, so be sure to take the usual (secure) password precautions. This tool is available in separate downloads for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, but the installation wizard won't let you install the wrong version. We tried it in 32-bit Vista and Windows 7 as well as 64-bit Windows 7, with success all around.

Easy File Locker has a very simple interface, just a menu bar and toolbar … Read more

Here's an intriguing design concept that's been stirring the currents of the blogosphere lately: an electrical wall socket that unplugs plugs as a way of saving power.

That's right--if your toaster sits idle for too long, the "PumPing Tap" lets you know it's time to toast or get out of the slot. It detects the drop in current and fires a spring-loaded mechanism that in turn fires the toaster's plug across the kitchen (or at least onto the counter--and hopefully not into the butter dish).… Read more

TOKYO--Downed a few too many beers this holiday season? No problem. Just tuck your organ into this electronic diaper for men and you won't have to get out of bed to visit the loo.

Japan's Unicharm Humancare recently showed off its new Robo-Humany Urine Aspiration diaper at the Eco-Products 2011 trade show in Tokyo. … Read more

Because of Apple's partnership with search comparison engine Wolfram Alpha, Siri now has the ability to search the entire Best Buy catalog, a feature added to Wolfram Alpha today.

Best Buy has public APIs that have allowed Wolfram Alpha to leverage the data from more than 35,000 products that Best Buy sells. Because Wolfram Alpha was built on a natural-language interface, as Siri is, the ability to get accurate and informative results using voice recognition is that much more impressive.

Siri, using Wolfram Alpha's access to Best Buy's APIs, has access to pricing information, tech specs, … Read more

Each year around this time I do a roundup of the most-anticipated products of the coming year. Last year I had 12; this year I'm going with 16.

Since many companies like to keep future new releases under tight wraps so they don't short-circuit sales of their current products, we can't predict what all the new hot gadgets will be. But as usual, we expect to see a fair amount of intriguing stuff at this year's CES in Las Vegas, and we know that plenty of sequels to today's popular products are on the way--whether … Read more

At some point you've probably heard about AirPlay, a wireless streaming feature found on your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and your Mac.

It was first announced in 2010, but with the arrival of iOS 4.3 (and now iOS 5), its features have been enhanced, and more third-party consumer electronics manufacturers are finally adding it to their products, though prices remain elevated. … Read more

It's getting to be a Cyber Monday tradition: as the biggest online-shopping day of the year approaches, the U.S. government seizes Web domains it suspects are selling counterfeit products. CNET's Edward Moyer explains in a post that this year's takedown netted more than 130 such sites.

That's nearly double the number of domains seized by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security on the eve of 2010's Cyber Monday. Still, determining just how prevalent counterfeit product sales are online is not easy.… Read more

Budget tech is one of our favorite categories here at CNET, so that's why we're running not one, but two budget tech gift roundups this year.

My compadre John Falcone put together a list of the 10 best el-cheapo tech products out there with his Best tech gifts under $50 feature.

I get a little more wiggle room with a $99.99 budget, which is why this list should really be called "Best tech gifts between $50 and $100." But more people are looking on Google for "best tech gifts under $100," so we'… Read more