controller

LAS VEGAS -- There's much more to hacking than just the Hollywood portrayal of a speed typing contest, say the computer security professionals who've developed a new hacking-themed card game called Control-Alt-Hack.

Control-Alt-Hack is based on Steve Jackson Games' Ninja Burger, but from the characters to the mission cards to the entropy cards, the demystification of white hat computer security is the name of this game. Game co-designer, security researcher, and University of Washington Computer Security and Privacy Research Lab honorary member Adam Shostack said at the Black Hat 2012 confab here that when it comes to teaching … Read more

This is the week that the torture test really comes into its own, I think. We decided to toughen up and test the brand-new 11-inch Apple MacBook Air. Yeah, I know. Yikes. But I really want to test portable devices, and the Air is the epitome of portable, is it not?

We're down to a good rhythm with heat, cold, dropping, and water, and we're really trying to figure out how to make the wild card tests true to life. So, when three or four viewers tweeted me and told me they had put their MacBook Airs on … Read more

There's a lot of snake oil and questionable products lining the shelves of the average auto parts store. From octane booster to VTEC fluid (ha!), it's hard to separate the genuinely useful products from the chaff. So when A/C Pro sent me a few canisters of its do-it-yourself air conditioning recharge system, I was a bit skeptical.

The idea is that most aging car air conditioning systems that don't blow as cold as they should suffer only from low levels of refrigerant. The way A/C Pro works is that you plug a can into your … Read more

Hard-core gamers like a challenge. Just ask gaming business veteran Julie Uhrman.

Uhrman wants to disrupt the gaming industry with an affordable console called Ouya, a name she hopes will become the battle cry of game developers. Her company is soliciting developers to help build an open ecosystem of games on Android, essentially bringing the openness of mobile games back to the TV set.

"It's very ambitious -- it's hardware, it's software, it's building an ecosystem," Uhrman said.

But Uhrman said she believes her team has what it takes to challenge the status quo. … Read more

The bottom line: Bitdefender Total Security 2013 remains one of the best high-end security suites around. This update gives you a fully isolated Web browser for secure financial transactions.

Review: Bitdefender Total Security 2013 presents a convincing alternative to its better-known competitors. It's a strong program, with all the major tools that users expect, and some additional useful tricks in its arsenal. When it comes to efficacy, Bitdefender isn't the best in every area, but it's definitely competitive.

Editors' note: Portions of this review are based on CNET's review of Bitdefender Total Security 2012.

Installation Bitdefender … Read more

In an obvious effort to turn YouTube into more of a TV-like experience, Google has created the YouTube Remote app for Android devices. With this free download, you can pair your mobile device with a desktop computer or YouTube-ready television, and use Android to share control of your YouTube playlist.

As great as the concept is for YouTube Remote, in practice, I see some things that need to be ironed out. My biggest gripe is that the device pairing process is not as simple as it should be. You must first navigate to YouTube.com/leanback on your computer or … Read more

Recent versions of Windows pack some underrated security tools, such as the Windows Firewall, which compares favorably with quite a few better known firewalls and even plays nicely with many of them. Windows Firewall Control is a simple bit of freeware that extends the capabilities of the built-in Windows firewall controls. It adds icons and entries to the system tray, desktop, and other locations; adds shell integration in Explorer menus; and other options.

When installing Windows Firewall Control, you're presented with a small dialog containing a variety of check boxes for configuring how you access the program and how … Read more

With a host of unique features on the Galaxy S3 such as S Voice and AllShare, Samsung is looking to stand out from the rest of the Android crowd. Less documented among them is motion control, which allows you to do various activities through tilting your handset and making use of shortcuts.

To activate motion control, navigate to Settings > Motion, and toggle the switch to enable it. As there are a lot of motion features available, you can choose to use individual ones and leave others that you're less interested in disabled. Here are a few that you … Read more

Users of the Splashtop app, which lets you control your PC from an iPad, will find a few enhancements in the latest version.

Released on Wednesday, Splashtop 2 throws in support for the new iPad's Retina Display, so users can take advantage of the higher resolution. You can also now set up a connection without having to enter an IP address or port numbers. Just install and launch the Splashtop streamer app on your computer and the Splashtop iPad app on your tablet, and your computer automatically pops up as an available connection.

Security has also been beefed up … Read more