lowe's

The home of the future may be coming to a neighborhood near you.

A number of companies, including AT&T, Comcast, Lowe's, and Verizon are intent on making your home a smart home.

Imagine getting an alert when you leave the garage door open, or when your elderly parents fall down, or when your liquor cabinet is breached by wayward teens. Connected homes give residents the ability to remotely control thermostats, lights, and door locks through mobile devices.

The selling point is convenience; and routine.

"Every single day you get up in the morning and you leave … Read more

It seems die-hard Olympics fans hate the Internet now that results are posted instantaneously. The drama that prime-time coverage can usually deliver is somewhat dampened by the fact that a list of winners is readily available quicker than the time it takes to turn on a TV.

Even if you casually browse a site like Twitter, you're bound to accidentally uncover some breaking news from the Summer Games. Come to think of it, it's probably harder to shield yourself from the news than it is to find it out. … Read more

YouTube is now encouraging video uploaders to use their real names. Is this the first sign of what's to come? Will our anonymity on YouTube become a thing of the past?

For now, users still have the option to opt out of disclosing their true identity, but a world in which YouTube videos are no longer anonymously uploaded appears much closer to reality than ever before. Of course we've seen things like this before. Most of us seem to have no problem giving away our personal information to Facebook, right? … Read more

Lowe's has teamed up with U.K.-based monitoring-tech company AlertMe for some home improvement designed to take your house into the future (or at least help you save on your energy bill).

The companies unveiled today the Iris, a new cloud-based home-monitoring and security system. Iris, which won't be in stores until the end of August, is meant to let homeowners monitor and control devices in the home -- including heating and cooling, home alarm systems, security cameras, or appliances -- using a smartphone, tablet, or computer.

Mary Turner, CEO of AlertMe, said the system is an … Read more

When you load a video on YouTube, you're getting a lot more than just something to watch. There's an information panel that goes along with the video mentioning credits, keywords, and other interesting tidbits. Below the video and top comments, you'll find video responses to the one you're watching. On the right-hand side of the page, you'll see a long list of suggested videos that might be related to the one you're watching. All of these things, along with less obvious ones like buttons that interact with each comment for thumbs up/down, are … Read more

What did it take to revamp Twitter for mobile Web? Lots and lots of man-hours.

Twitter completed the overhaul of its mobile site today, which aims to make Twitter available to anyone who owns a cell phone -- smartphone or feature. Now people in far away or rural places, and even those on low-bandwidth networks, can use the newest version of Twitter for mobile Web on their cell phone.

This is significant because it means that news on events like the Arab Spring, where Twitter played a major role in spreading information, will now be even easier to get.

Here'… Read more

Is it wrong of Orbitz to be pushing higher prices on Mac users? Of course not. The travel agency can do whatever it wants, and if it's found that Mac users spend more money on vacations, the agency's well within its rights to serve them more expensive trip results. And let's be honest, there are plenty of people who buy a Mac for all of the wrong reasons, ultimately overpaying on a machine that's only going to be browsing Facebook.

On the other hand, there's no denying that Apple products have earned a solid reputation in terms of build quality and reliability. This has trickled over into the buying psychology of customers. If people are convinced paying more will get them a product that they will be satisfied with, the same mentality can be applied to spending more on a vacation to ensure a better time. Don't hate Orbitz for figuring that out.… Read more

Microsoft's press conference earlier this week reminded us a lot of what Apple has perfected -- the dramatic press conference. However, after the lights went off, we still had plenty of questions about what the new Microsoft Surface tablets were going to cost and when we could buy them. If Microsoft is using the Apple Playbook, they may have skipped a page or two.

Love it or hate it, Apple has all but mastered the art of the press conference. It's not that they use fancy graphics or a laser-light show, it's mostly because they answer a lot of questions and perhaps most importantly, begin selling the product right away. Cashing in on the excitement of a new product and then allowing the public to buy it immediately is something no other company really does, so it'll be interesting to see if the Surface hype is still churning once it's finally ready to be sold. … Read more

We think the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is an awesome machine. Our only gripe is that we'd have to make 4,150 Low Latency cartoons before we could afford one. It's a lot of money to ask for a laptop, which is why we wish Apple offered it without the expensive retina screen.

Having such a high-resolution and dense pixel display makes sense on the new iPad, but that's also because we stare at it a lot more closely than we do a laptop. We've seen the new MacBook side by side with last year's model, and it's really tough to tell the difference.… Read more