hardware

Monotype Imaging is bringing its font-rendering software a step into the future with hardware acceleration features it expects will help improve readability, add fancy features such as 3D, and offload work from mobile devices' main processors.

The company, while perhaps best known for creating and licensing typefaces, also has a business selling software that lets printers print the text and devices such as e-book readers display it on screens. It's this last category where the company offers its iType product, and the new version 5.0 announced today adds the new hardware acceleration features.

iType 5.0 draws upon … Read more

Our utilities update report is a column on updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is on bringing you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week there were updates for some popular maintenance tools, a few file management and search utilities, and a couple of hardware management suites, including a relatively good software monitor calibrator.

Maintenance With OS X Lion's release the various maintenance … Read more

Our utilities update report is a column on updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is on bringing you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week there were mainly updates for file system management tools, but also a couple of maintenance tools and a hardware utility.

Files and file systemWhile not technically applications, AppleScripts and compiled AppleScript applications can be coded to perform a variety … Read more

The latest developer's build of Firefox launched today, bringing hope to the small but vocal minority of Firefox stable users who have been plagued by the browser's persistent memory and performance problems that Mozilla is not ignoring their complaints. Firefox Aurora 7 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and includes changes that Mozilla said in a blog post announcing the release will result in 30 percent less memory use "for many users."

Another big memory usage change comes to the "garbage collector" process, which, when working properly, cleans out from your system … Read more

Our utilities update report is a column on updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is on bringing you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week there were updates for maintenance utilities, file recovery and filesystem management tools, and a couple of disk hardware utilities.

Maintenance The first update this week is to the popular freeware utility OnyX, which interfaces with a number of the … Read more

Apple may soon be launching a new AirPort Extreme Base Station.

The Federal Communications Commission today posted its test report on a new version of Apple's wireless hardware. Dubbed model A1408, the device is a 3x3 wireless access point operating on both the 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz bands, according to the FCC filing.

Rumors that Apple is planning to launch new wireless hardware have been cropping up for weeks. Leading up to Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month, reports surfaced claiming Apple would be updating its AirPort Extreme Base Station, along with its Time Capsule--the company'… Read more

OK, honestly, this is my last post on E3. While this year's show is over and we've seen both surprises and disappointments, another year looms: and with it, we hold out hope that next year's show can deliver on some unanswerables that this year's show conveniently skipped. At least, that's the way I feel. No show can ever hope to bring everything we expect--mainly, because E3 is only a collection of demonstrations from an industry that's constantly evolving--but as I peer into next year's crystal ball, this is what I hope we find.

Games and reasons to buy the Wii U Nintendo's next console, the Wii U, remains shrouded in mystery, in the middle of a year where Nintendo remains in a larger cloud of uncertainty. The Nintendo 3DS feels like a disappointment, and the Wii is in decline. That touch-screen tablet-of-wonders that Nintendo's hawking is a project with no definitive must-have games or applications, and that will need to change next year.… Read more

Sure, you know about the Wii U. You know about the PlayStation Vita. But do you know about the jDome immersive game screen? How about a device that takes physical game pieces and puts them in games? Or, what about a triple-mount TV stand for all your motion-control camera gear?

The E3 Expo is always known for its explosively loud gaming demos and endless play kiosks (not to mention costumed absurdity), but tucked away in the corners are lesser-known companies hawking peripherals and technology that ranges from the intriguing to the absurd. In years past, these odd bits of gaming … Read more

Our utilities update report is a column on updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is on bringing you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems. This week there were updates to maintenance utilities and one hardware management tool.

Maintenance Most of the updates this week are for maintenance utilities, some of which can be used for running general maintenance routines in OS X, and also for … Read more