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The Internet is a hub for acquiring music, video and a just about any other form of content. Miro is one of the most capable player apps that I have seen for all of this media. Keeping up with the various forms of content the Web has to offer can be a daunting task. The process is similar to what...

I have to confess to being a little unfair on the Shazam Encore app for its first LinuxInsider test. It is supposed to identify songs you're listening to, but I think I may have asked it the impossible. I had downloaded the app just before a planned lunch that included a sojourn to my neighborhood c...

"Bug #1 - Microsoft has a majority market share." - Ubuntu bug tracker. Much has changed since Canonical started on its quirky quest to "fix bug #1." Seven years ago Microsoft was seen as stagnant, ripe for plucking. Longhorn was still MIA, and Microsoft users were busy patching XP against the lat...

The stage is set for a new battle of mobile form factors. The winner could set a new non-desktop standard for consumers and office workers looking for a better alternative to bulky laptops. Lighter, thinner and more powerful are the key factors guiding the designs of tablets, convertibles, hybrids a...

OK, Greenpeace, arrest me now as an eco-criminal. I must have single-handedly deforested a good tract of the Amazon rain forest over the last few days. In mitigation, I plead that this was because of the requirements of my job. I was testing the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The device is sleek and sexy, ha...

Asking a seasoned Linux user what music player you should use is akin to bringing up questions about religion or politics with your drinking buddies. A much safer strategy is, don't ask and don't tell. But if you insist, let me throw a suggestion into the fray. Uncage Songbird. You might be pleasant...

YouTube is a great source for watching an eclectic collection of videos on music, human stupidity and worldly comedy. But I find it much too easy to go far afield as I click on "also watched" videos when viewing a particular topic line. Minitube solves that problem for me. Not only does Minitube bet...

Last month, I succumbed to a peculiar urge to go out to my local, friendly big-box consumer electronics retailer and drop almost a hundred dollars on a product that had been panned by the critics on launch, had a dubious life expectancy because of that, and had been almost universally rejected by th...

HP announced Friday it will contribute webOS to the open source community. The decision seals the fate of the operating system, which HP acquired when it purchased Palm for $1.2 billion in April 2010. Since then, the Pre smartphone line running webOS flickered out, and HP's TouchPad tablet, launched...

User forums are lit up with complaints about Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone, which was released in the UK late last week. It seems that the handset's volume control goes haywire when the connection shifts to a 2G band. Unfortunately, 2G is widespread in Europe. The Galaxy Nexus is the first phone...

With the leaked Honeycomb 3.1 operating system installed, my Logitech Revue Google TV box was, for all intents and purposes, driving a giant Honeycomb tablet. The only problem was that there wasn't really any nonsubscription, ad-supported content -- none that I was interested in, anyway -- on the bo...

I've long held the opinion that the most effective way to get Internet-based content onto a TV is to simply hook a laptop up to the flat screen with an HDMI cable. The laptop acts as an oversized remote control. You get a full Flash-based Web browser, hard drive and keyboard on your TV. It's not the...

Google unveiled Android 4.0, aka "Ice Cream Sandwich," in Hong Kong on Wednesday. The presentation was accompanied by Samsung's announcement of the Galaxy Nexus, the first smartphone running Ice Cream Sandwich. Ice Cream Sandwich is a redesign of the Android OS. It has a highly visual interface, a f...

Orb Network's media server software has been around for years; in fact, Orb and TVersity are the grandparents of current media-everywhere apps. However, this is the first time Orb has officially been available in an app for Android phones. Orb functions by grabbing indexed media content from your ...

The number of attacks on Android devices has been rising over the past few months. The malware has exotic names such as "Zitmo," "DroidDreamLight," "Hong Tou Tou," "DroidKungFu," "YZHCSMS," "Geinimi" and "Plankton." In January 2010, Google removed more than 50 fake banking apps from the Android mark...

Converting media files can be a huge chore. The lack of standardization results in competing audio and video file standards. The file conversion fiasco is further compounded by a lack of choices that do not require a computer degree to use. Frustration mounts in using various media players and conve...

In what could potentially be a huge win for Android, Swedish automaker Saab has selected the operating system as the basis of its IQon in-vehicle infotainment system. Saab will open up the API for IQon to third-party developers and set up an app store to which they can post their apps after approval...

In terms of tablet market share, Android tablets will be running a close second to the iPad within two years, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. While the iPad will have 44 percent of the market, Android tablets will have 39 percent, Munster reportedly predicted. More Android tablets w...

Do you ever marvel at those step-by-step how-to product demos of software apps that end-users post on places like YouTube? It is often easy to spot these demo videos shot with cellphone cams or PC eye cams placed over the user's shoulder. But two cool Linux apps give you a the ability to record dire...

A huge gingerbread man has been put up on the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif., suggesting that Gingerbread, the next release of Android, may be released soon. Past dessert-themed displays have heralded the release of previous versions of Android such as Froyo. There's still a bit of confusion...