War. What is it good for? Well, if new use of technology by the US Navy has anything to do with it, finding Pirates for a start. By upgrading its existing Fire Scouts with new 3D laser imaging tech, it’s hoped that the drones will be able to recognize the small ships used by these unscrupulous seafarers. The system, known as LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging, also known as LADAR) uses millions of laser pulses reflected off [...]

In case you’ve been wondering why Netflix tends to recommend the movies it does, there’s a post on the company’s Tech Blog breaking down the various levels of its system. Remember the Netflix Prize contest? Teams of researchers produced competing algorithms capable of more accurately predicting how members would rate movies, but while some of the early winning efforts are still in use, the million dollar solution was never implemented because the potential gains were too small [...]

Did our thorough Lumia 900 review convince you that a mix of polycarbonate hardware and Metro UI is where your smartphone future lies? Well, it’s time to head to your nearest AT&T vendor because Nokia’s latest effort to break America is here. Just don’t forget those 100 bucks.

Still dallying at the corner of Custom ROM Road? Then maybe the forthcoming update from Team Kang (AOKP Build 30, no less) will entice you onwards. The preview clip after the break reveals a new level of freedom for the ICS navigation bar, including the ability to add up to five buttons, assign them to apps or actions as you wish, modify their icons and add separate long-press functions. It also gives you the ability [...]

“All hail the new king,” was how we capped off our review of the Transformer Prime, which simply blew us away. Gaming performance was astonishing and it only improved when Ice Cream Sandwich appeared in the middle of this year’s CES. In fact, the only issues we could find involved a less-than-ideal speaker placement, slightly flat color reproduction and the fact that the keyboard dock and battery is an additional $150. The company’s even getting around fixing [...]

Remember those halcyon days when your mother would chide you to sit up straight should you ever start to slouch? Good news, desk jockeys, because Philips’ ErgoSensor desktop monitor is here to stop your stooping now that mom’s no longer around — and it doesn’t require you to wear some silly plastic pendant or occupy any of your USB real estate. The 24-inch, 250-nit, 1920 x 1080 display has a sensor in its bezel that watches you [...]

You can use as complex as a password as you like, but that won’t do you much good if someone’s able to watch or record you entering it. Researchers Andrea Bianchi, Ian Oakley and Dong-Soo Kwon have some ideas for overcoming that little problem though, and recently put together a video demonstrating a few of the possibilities they’ve come up with. All of those rely on haptic input systems — either on their own or in [...]