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Online retailers will begin selling a 4.5-inch-wide Intel-branded desktop PC for do-it-yourselfers later this month.

The product name is a mouthful -- the "Next Unit of Computing," or NUC for short.

"It's geared more to home theater/home media center," said Intel spokesperson Dan Snyder. One usage scenario he suggested: slap it on the back of a wide-screen display (see photo below).

But note: as Anandtech points out, it is truly a bare-bones system aimed at DIYers. … Read more

With Apple's fourth-quarter earnings in the bag, we now have a full picture of how the company has done during its entire fiscal year.

Though Apple's last quarter was a disappointment on the profit side, and soft on iPad sales, the company surprised with stronger-than-expected iPhone sales.

The company's current quarter, during which Apple expects to bring in $52 billion in sales, kicked off last month.

Here's some of Apple's 2012 by the numbers:

$156.5 billion. Apple's total sales for the year. The biggest chunk of that came during the first quarter, when … Read more

Seattle residents now have the option of following the local police department on Twitter. In a first-of-a-kind program, the city's authorities are launching a new initiative that involves cops translating the news they get on the streets to tweets.

Dubbed "Tweets-by-beat," this program attempts to replace the police blotter that normally runs in local papers with a tech version of basically the same thing, according to the New York Times. When residents follow the department on the social network, they'll get routine tweets of the up-to-the-moment crime happenings in their neighborhoods.

"Liquor violation -- intoxicated … Read more

We've been hearing a lot of stories around the Web about how the Apple Maps app in iOS 6 is proving to be a poor replacement for the former Google-powered Maps app in iOS 5. Some of the stories say the Apple app doesn't show certain roads that are obviously there in real life, while others say they've followed directions to a destination and found that they didn't end up where they wanted to go.

For the first post in the series, CNET editors Jason Parker and Jaymar Cabebe took the turn-by-turn navigation through its paces … Read more

Multiscreen setups for PC gaming aren't new, but MIT Media Lab's Infinity-by-Nine system may take the idea to a whole new level.

The system generates real-time blurred pictures of a video and then projects them separately onto three big screens (refer to the above image) using ceiling-mounted projectors. This visual extension of the original content is said to produce a more immersive viewing experience by relying on the reduced sensitivity to detail in users' peripheral vision. … Read more

In the face of a few solid free navigation apps for the iPhone, such as Bing or MapQuest, MotionX GPS Drive would seem to have trouble justifying its price, even at only 99 cents. But it has proven a popular enough navigation app that Pioneer integrated it with the AppRadio head unit.

Two features of MotionX GPS Drive give it an edge over the free apps, its destination search capabilities and the ability to preload maps. MotionX GPS Drive is a connected navigation app, meaning it relies on an iPhone's data connection to get its maps. However, it is … Read more

Android users are now facing another malware twist.

A new Android Trojan dubbed "NotCompatible" is being spread through compromised Web sites. Though the threat seems to be minimal at this point, security provider Lookout says this is the first time hacked Web sites are being used to target mobile devices.

Further, Lookout believes the new malware could be used to break into private networks via an infected Android device.

The Trojan works by automatically downloading an application from a compromised site through the Web browser, a process known as a "drive-by download." The mobile device then … Read more

Introduced last summer, the Nokia Maps mobile site, m.maps.nokia.com, has pretty much been the Google Maps knockoff that nobody knew about. It has given mobile users the ability to search for places, get directions, and share items with friends--all fairly standard stuff. But starting today, the Nokia Maps mobile site may have differentiated itself, as it now offers voice-guided, turn-by-turn walking navigation for all, something that Google's mobile site doesn't provide.

In order to use the navigation, all you have to do is go to m.maps.nokia.com, give it permission to access your … Read more

On the way to our digital world, a strange thing happened--analog became cool again. How else can you explain something like Twitter-by-post?

The idea is simple, the execution not so much. Freelance writer Giles Turnbull decided to take his tweets offline by responding to his Twitter feed using physical postcards. He laid out the mechanics of the experiment--done with the help of about 15 "volunteers" from among his Twitter followers--in The Morning News:… Read more