black

We first caught a glimpse of the Maxtor Black Armor back in January at CES 2008. Since then, we've been excited to get it into our labs for testing to see if it measures up to the rest of the market. After a few months of waiting, we finally got it and...not so much.

The Black Armor's No. 1 concern is data security. Like a little digital lockbox, everything inside the hard drive is protected by 128-bit government grade encryption that's built into the hardware itself, rendering the drive useless in the wrong hands. The owner … Read more

For serious syncers who routinely work from multiple computers or mobile phones, SugarSync is, in more ways than one, a premium solution to file-transferring problems. More flexible than some competing PC-to-PC syncing software or mobile and PC remote access services, Sugar Sync weaves in elements of both. Lite sync some folders for online back-up and fully sync folders or files to load them on each of your computers. A change to one file exacts a change to all.

SugarSync doesn't do everything, and the mobile functionality could use some usability finessing. There are also a few tricks worth knowing … Read more

Crave officially loves Will Smith. Our MP3 man Nate Lanxon loves him so much he actually claims to have previously been him. No, we don't know what that means either. But as you can imagine, when Sony sent us Men in Black on Blu-ray, we were delighted. And not only because we got to watch the Family Guy. parody of Will Smith's clean rap lyrics many, many times. Woohoo! Haha!

So, what makes this Blu-ray disc so special? For one, it's got some BD Live features such as interactive quizzes you can play on your own or, … Read more

We're excited about Epson's newest multifunction printer, the Stylus NX400. The all-in-one printer, copier, and scanner is outfitted in a glossy black finish and uses Epson's DURABrite Ultra ink to produce photos that can reportedly last up to six times longer than the average printer using plain paper.

Under the hood, you'll find Epson's MicroPiezo DX3 print nozzle head that uses variable ink droplet sizes from 4 picoliters and up, which translates to finer detail in the quality of your photos. The printer also has a 2.5 inch tilt LCD screen, memory card slots, … Read more

What if your nightlife agenda was dictated not by text messages, phone calls, or your city edition of Time Out, but by a shifting pattern of dots on a Google Map?

As absurd as it may sound, a New York company called Sense Networks thinks that's the solution. On Monday, the company emerged from stealth mode and simultaneously released an "experimental" product called CitySense, an urban navigation product that puts a new spin on the hot market of location-based mobile networking.

Backed by hedge funds rather than the venture firms that typically fuel tech start-ups, Sense Networks … Read more

Everyone has their own way of dealing with extraneous flesh and respiratory deterioration.

Some control their diet with the rigor of Reese Witherspoon and go for long walks, waving their arms around like angry spouses. (Which many of them appear to be.) Others staple their stomachs like a two-page letter from a lawyer. And there are those of us who go to gyms, where at least one can bike, read a book and laugh (inwardly, of course) at the progress of leotard design.

I choose to exercise at one of the amiable horse boxes in the stable of Crunch gyms.… Read more

YouMail, a free visual voice mail solution to organize cell phone messages like e-mail for online playback and response, announced on Thursday that customers can start viewing those same voice mail messages from their mobile phones.

By pointing the mobile browser to YouMail's home page, fans of the service can access their account with the usual login and pin to view contact's images, play back messages in any order, and forward or reply to voice messages in a form factor tailored from YouMail's servers to many high-end smartphones.

YouMail certainly isn't the first visual voice mail … Read more

Apple experienced a bit of a setback in the U.S. smartphone market during the first quarter after coming out of nowhere last year to rank among the top companies.

According to data compiled by IDC, Apple's still the second-leading smartphone maker in the U.S. behind Research in Motion and the BlackBerry franchise. But it lost market share going from the fourth quarter to the first at the expense of RIM and Palm, according to the figures provided by IDC analyst Ramon Llamas.

RIM's market share went from 35.1 percent in the fourth quarter to 44.… Read more

No one can make a kooky lyric feel utterly affecting like Charles Thompson. With "Svn Fngrs," as brisk an "LP" as you'll likely find, the erstwhile Pixies sage returns with more scarcely sensical, highly conceptual, and dangerously inviting alt-rock. Every ugly riff does seem so pretty.

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