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Sometimes it's hard to say "no." You get an e-mail from a friend who wants you to read, critique, and edit his 500,000-word epic sci-fi fantasy novel. Your boss wants you to forfeit the next 12 weekends to help out with a pet project. This is when you need to have the Semi-Automatic Gmail Assistant (SAGA).

SAGA looks deceptively simple. It's a colorful rectangular box with a chrome button, a place for a key, and a USB hook-up for your computer. Your computer sees it as a standard keyboard.… Read more

What big feature will be missing from the Wii U on launch day?

Bad news for first-day Wii U buyers: the company has announced that the TVii service, which was promised to be available at launch, will now not be live until sometime in December. In addition, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and Amazon Instant Video will now be going live in the coming weeks. This is certainly a blow for Nintendo, which can't seem to get things ready for any launch -- you'll recall that the 3DS launched without access to the virtual eShop store, … Read more

The Windows 8 Mail e-mail app has a nice, clean interface and works with a variety of e-mail accounts, including Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. Here's how to add them to Windows 8 Mail:

Step 1: Make sure you're logged in to Mail with a Microsoft account. If you're using a local account to log in to Windows 8, you'll need to log in to Mail with a Microsoft account before you can add other e-mail accounts.

Step 2: From within Mail, use the Win+I shortcut to quickly get to Mail settings, then click on Accounts.… Read more

Earlier this week Google released a new line of Nexus devices along with a small update to the Android operating system itself. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean includes a few new features for both smartphones and tablets alike.

One of the new features included in Android 4.2 is the addition of widgets to the lock screen. These widgets (a total of five currently available) provide a preview of your inbox, the clock, messages, calendar, or a shortcut to your camera and a widget to quickly identify a song.

You'll, of course, need to be running Android … Read more

In the never-ending arms race between web mail providers, the latest tweak to Google's Gmail just came over the transom. You can now search through your email by file size or using more flexible date options.

We're always looking for ways to make it faster and easier for you to find your messages using search in Gmail. So starting today, you can now search emails by size, more flexible date options, exact match and more. This means, for example, to find emails larger than 5MB, you can search for size:5m or larger:5m or to find emails … Read more

In an effort to cover a trail of messages between him and his mistress, former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus reportedly used a tactic favored by terrorists and teenagers -- communicating via draft e-mail.

Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, the co-author of Petraeus' biography and the woman he was having an affair with, set up private Gmail accounts in order to communicate, the Associated Press reported today. In addition to creating the e-mails under false identities, Petraeus and Broadwell decided to exchange some messages using the draft function, as an added precaution.

Instead of actually e-mailing each other, they would compose … Read more

Google has launched a new service designed to get users in developing countries to access its core offerings.

Dubbed Free Zone, the service is launching first in the Philippines starting today. Users in that country will be able to access Google Search, Gmail, and Google+ from their mobile devices without incurring any data charges.

In an interview with Reuters published today, Google product manager AbdelKarim Mardini said that the service is designed to take aim "at the next billion users on the Internet, many of whom will be in emerging markets and encounter the Internet first on a mobile … Read more

Selecting an e-mail provider is a very personal choice, like picking out a deodorant or a mobile operating system or pledging your allegiance to a particular king in "Game of Thrones." You may be a longtime Gmailer or an old school Hotmailer or a dedicated Yahooer.

New numbers from ComScore show Gmail has topped Hotmail as the most popular e-mail service in the world with 287.9 million unique worldwide visitors in October. Hotmail edged in just under that at 286.2 million unique visitors. Yahoo Mail took top honors in the United States with 76.7 million visitors.… Read more

Aside from cut, copy, and paste, I'm not much of a keyboard shortcut guy. I've tried at various points over the years to remember key combos that promise to make me more effective during the workday, but they rarely stick. I tend to rely on a touch pad or mouse as my navigation guide, which is why I was excited to discover a Chrome extension aptly titled, Gmail Mouse Gestures.

With only three gestures, this Chrome extension will not overwhelm you with its offerings. Though limited, the gestures provide shortcuts for three common functions when reading an e-mail: … Read more