You Won’t Believe All the Crazy Hardware the NSA Uses for Spying

The NSA’s Sears catalog for spies has been released.

Here’s How the Oculus Rift Will Work on Mobile

“We’re about mobile gaming hardware. We don’t want to play [casual] mobile games in VR.” Or do they?
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Media Device Stores and Shares Well With Others

SanDisk’s Connect Wireless Media Device may relieve some of your devices’ storage burden and could serve as a media-sharing godsend on a long car trip.

Transferring Video to a PC

Walt answers a reader who wants to know how to transfer videotape material to a PC.

Using Google Chromecast

Walt answers readers’ questions on Google Chromecast.

News Byte

USB 3.1 Accelerates to 10 Gigabits Per Second

The ubiquitous USB standard is due for an update, and it’s about to get a big one. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group said on Thursday that it has finalized the specification for USB version 3.1, an upgrade that will dramatically increase its data-transfer speeds. Where USB 3.0 delivers transfer rates of five gigabits per second, USB 3.1 will deliver speeds of 10Gbps. A nice bump up in performance, and one that matches that of Intel’s Thunderbolt standard — but only for a short while. Before year’s end, Intel will roll out the next-generation version of its Thunderbolt standard, which supports bidirectional data transfers of up to 20Gbps.

How to Control a PC in Thin Air

The Leap Motion Controller connects to PCs via a USB port to let users control their machines with gestures in the air.

A Laptop for Students

Walt answers readers’ questions on buying reasonably priced laptops for college and high-school students.

Kindle Fire, USB on the iPad, and Disk Defragmentation

Walt answers questions about the Kindle Fire HD, iPad and more.

Smart Hub Could Be Smarter When It Comes to Streaming DVDs

A great solution for wirelessly streaming DVDs to your iPad — but setting it up is a headache.