Win a Samsung netbook with Sacha Baron Cohen’s new flick, The Dictator. Just answer the simple question below. To celebrate the release of The Dictator, at cinemas everywhere May 16 (cert 15), we have teamed up with Paramount Pictures UK to offer you the chance to win a Samsung N145 From the…

We’re used to robots — in their place. Think of a car factory; the image that comes to mind is probably not the assembly line of yore, but instead pivoting robot arms doing mind-numbingly repetitive tasks with great precision. But other than vacuum cleaners and the odd robotic pet, robots…

Buried in an 11,000-word tome on the Building Windows 8 blog, user experience honcho Jensen Harris explains that the legacy desktop in Windows 8 will ship with white — yes, solid white — window borders, square window edges, buttons that don’t glow, no shadows, no transparency (except, apparently, on the At least,…

NEW YORK — Los Angeles Lakers guard Steve Blake and his wife received multiple online threats after he missed a big shot late in Game 2 of L.A.’s second-round playoff series with Oklahoma City. Blake has contacted the Lakers’ security team about the threats, the backup point guard said…

May 20, 2012, 7:02 AM The meteoric rise in the smartphone market is creating a dangerous vulnerability in smartphone security – one that may not be patched until the problem expands into what has been dubbed an “apocalypse.” Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist at the Electronics Frontier Foundation, points to outdated encryption standards…

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan The Pakistani government blocked access to the social networking service Twitter on Sunday, after publicly holding Twitter responsible for promoting a blasphemous cartoon contest taking place on Facebook, officials said. A government spokesman was quoted by local news media as saying that the government had been in talks…

Japanese broadcaster NHK said that it has successfully completed a test broadcast of “Super Hi-Vision,” also sometimes referred to as 4320p HDTV. NHK sent the video, without errors, about 4.2 kilometers from one of its rooftop transmitters. Because of the bandwidth involved, the signal was sent along a pair of Today’s…

Foursquare, as we reported recently, is getting its revenue story in order in hopes of making money through promoted check-in deals. Now, the company is recruiting some talent to lead the company’s big financial effort with the hiring of Steven Rosenblatt, the former director of advertising sales and strategy at…

COLUMBUS Columbus City Council is expected to take action on a recommendation Monday that would make Frontier Communications the provider for wireless Internet service in Pawnee Park. Frontier, which submitted the lone proposal for the project, would design, install, maintain and provide ongoing support for the WiFi service at a…

IT’S an old line on Wall Street: If you can get your hands on a hot new stock, you probably don’t want it. This bit of Street wisdom came to mind last week, as Facebook went public amid so much fanfare. The stock eked out a 23-cent gain on its…