Where PCs are concerned, faster is invariably better. But things aren’t so clear-cut in human society. The next generation of social robots will be better loved if they adopt more human-like behaviour – even if that means losing some of their raw efficiency. Norihiro Hagita and colleagues at the ATR laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, asked 38 volunteers to click...

Android smartphones outsell the iPhone this quarter, Microsoft make their upcoming online suite Office Web Apps free to the public, and everyone is upset about Facebook’s privacy policies. Android Now Outselling iPhone [REPORT] Android smartphones outsold the iPhone in the first quarter of 2010, accounting for 28 percent of the market share versus the iPhone’s...

How does Sony’s motion-sensing gaming system compare to the Nintendo Wii, and can it see off the challenge posed by Nintendo’s Project Natal? Forgive me for using the C word – Christmas. I know spring has only just sprung, but already, retailers are beginning to think about what might be topping Christmas lists come December. Games consoles...

Innovation is our regular column that highlights emerging technological ideas and where they may lead How would you like to have just one all-powerful program on your computer? No cluttered “start” menu or “dock” to make your selection from, just one icon to click that opens up a window capable of any task you may require. In fact, you are already...

We’ll keep coverage down to this single post: today the Apple iPad launches in the US. At this stage just the WiFi-only version of the iPad will be available, with prices starting from $499 for the 16GB edition and rising to $699 for the most capacious 64GBer. 3G enabled models will launch in ‘late April’, which is believed to be inline with international...

For the past week or so, I have been testing a sleek, light, silver-and-black tablet computer called an iPad. After spending hours and hours with it, I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop. It could even help, eventually, to propel the finger-driven,...

The much awaited Apple iPad will be launched in the month of April. Apple has chosen April 3 to unveil its new gizmo the iPad in the US and it is expected to launch it in nine ...

Full-color displays for e-readers could really take off soon — on the wings of butterflies. Qualcomm MEMS Technologies new Mirasol is the first full color, video-capable display on a prototype e-reader. Built on the concept of the iridescence of a butterfly’s wing, the new technology reflects light rather than transmitting light the way LCD screens do. The display...

BLACK box flight recorders are key to finding out the cause of an air crash, but they are sometimes blank. Now there is a fix. Flight recorders are powered by three circuits, each tripping to the next if one cuts out. But recording stops if all power is lost. This happened in 1998, when an MD-11 airliner crashed after a fire burned through its wiring. Investigators found...

The Apple iPhone 3G S is the latest revision of Apple’s iPhone handset. Announced one year after the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 3G S is a faster phone with more features, but one that looks remarkably similar to previous generation iPhones. Apple say that the iPhone 3G S is up to twice as fast as the iPhone 3G, and that in turn was twice as fast as the original iPhone....