6 things I want to do with NFC (Smartphones Unlocked)

S Beam on the Samsung Galaxy S3 makes terrific use of NFC.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

Tapping your phone on a console to pay for fries and a Coke is cool. Yet until the stars align, it's not how you'll be using NFC, the near field communications standard that gets devices talking to one another quickly and in a very short range.

Instead of using NFC to replace your credit card, it will increasingly become your passcode, your key. Best of all, it can be used to program one tag with a certain set of instructions that can launch specific actions when read by another NFC-enabled device.

In other words, just one tap of an NFC smartphone on the right tag can launch an app, a map, and share photos and documents.

NFC has been sitting around in phones for years, waiting for people to figure out how to use its charms. This past
CES and MWC, device-makers have begun showing more smartphones, laptops, cameras, and appliances built with an embedded NFC chip.

The problem is, some of these NFC-enabled devices just don't work. There are software and hardware hurdles to overcome, but for the first time since NFC landed on an unsuspecting phone, there's the real possibility for NFC pairing to meld into a way of life.

Here are the ways I'd want use the protocol. Some already exist in nascent or concept-only forms. Others are logical next steps that will take root if and when NFC use becomes much more widespread. And finally, there's the category that's probably flawed, but that's why they call it wish list.

1. Transfer photos, video, and music from any device

I take a lot of photos and screenshots on the different phones that I review. What I would love to do is initiate photo, video, and music transfers with a single tap on the laptop body or through a USB dongle.

While we're at it, let's throw NFC cameras into the mix. I love the idea of an Internet-connected camera, but I don't always want to upload a picture or e-mail it right away, especially if I'm using the photo as part of a larger project.

One tap is all it would take to kick off camera and laptop sharing.

Yes, Bluetooth 4.0 supports contact pairing, so that could be another option. Yet NFC is often used to very quickly initiate more complicated protocols to make Bluetooth sharing possible.

That's how
Android Beam and Samsung's tweaked version, S Beam, are able to share multimedia from phone to phone.

NFC laptops already exist in the HP Envy 14 Spectre and Sony Vaio Tap. The problem is that they don't work very well. CNET editor Dan Ackerman was able to share a URL on the Spectre, but Rich Brown couldn't get beyond the pairing.

On the camera side of things, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS30 and DMC-TS5 will ship later in March with NFC enabled, though CNET hasn't had an opportunity yet to try it out (oh, but we will.)

In addition to quickly transferring photos, NFC with cameras can help you share media directly with someone else's device (like another camera, or maybe TV.) Pair it with a phone and you can also use it as a remote control for the camera shutter button, which is great for self-portraits and group shots.

NFC is also starting to creep up in other appliances, too, like washing machines and other home appliances.

2. Control your
car

There are already some cool, extremely useful proofs of concept out there, including a QNX-running, NFC-enabled Porsche Carrera at CES.

Drop the NFC smartphone on the central console or in a cup holder and a car can not only start charging your phone, it can also rapidly save your contacts to the address book and automatically set up a Bluetooth profile for pairing and playing your music through its speakers.

I'd love to push out map coordinates to your GPS system with the help of NFC.

The guys in CNET's Car Tech division thought up a few other great uses when awarding NFC for most promising future technology.

Keyless car entry through a smart fob is terrifically convenient, but having a redundancy through your phone is a good backup if you need to get into your own car. Tapping the handle could launch a verification screen where you enter a code and start about the business of getting back into the driver's seat.

Similarly, if you live in a city like San Francisco where car-sharing is popular, you (or a car-sharing fleet) can use NFC to hasten unlocking the door for strangers.

3. Replace your ATM card, sometimes

Instead of inserting your bank card into the ATM, what if the tap of your phone (which you probably have in your phone anyway) launches your profile on the ATM screen. You'll still have to verify with your pin in order to see the menu, but the initial NFC handshake would pull up your saved details from the corresponding app on your phone.

I'm not suggesting that ATMs nix card slots altogether, but there's nothing wrong with having two ways to get started with your deposits and withdrawals.

4. Help you shop

There's already some talk of tapping a phone to an NFC tag at malls and supermarkets. I'm also envisioning that tapping strategically-located tags will surface a map of the mall, or list of stores.

In a supermarket, sporting goods store, or DIY home improvement store, NFC could pop up a mobile site that helps you locate items by aisle, track down a salesperson, and surface coupons or deals.

NFC is ideal for this ephemeral type of transaction. Why take the time to download an app with similar features for a store you visit once or twice a year?

MasterCard wants commuters to scan for fare packages with their phones, then bump an NFC sensor before boarding to dock the amount of the ride.

(Credit:
Eric Franklin/CNET)

5. Check you in

Your phone knows your name, your phone number (obviously), and probably where you live. That data is all stored within the address book.

It'd be wonderful to use those details to check yourself into appointments at hospitals, sporting events, concerts, the DMV, and airport kiosks.

Again, I'm not suggesting we dissolve the old-fashioned way, but a quick tap could get the ball rolling with our credentials while we take the next step to verification.

6. Stay on the side of convenience

One of the biggest items on my wish list is for consumer electronics-makers who implement NFC to remember the customer and make their requirements as few as possible.

NFC itself is a standard, yes, but will you only be able to take advantage of the tapping shortcut on your Samsung TV if you have a Samsung phone, or on an LG washing machine in your LG phone?

Will you have to download a specific app and open it every time you want to use NFC with something (thereby making it more of a hassle than a shortcut,) or will smart software authors also launch the app you need and get you started in the right place?

What about NFC tags?

NFC tags or stickers that you can buy already exist and they're great for triggering some kind of response on your phone, like turning on WiFi and Bluetooth when you tag on in your home, or turning on the alarm and shutting off sound when you go to bed.

How to program your own NFC chips

However, I'm not talking about ugly stickers that get bent or lost, or that bear a company logo, like Samsung's TecTiles. What we're talking about here are smoothly integrated and embedded NFC transceivers that become a part of the way we shop, work, drive, and live.

With all the devices that are starting to receive NFC, and all the companies interested in turning a profit from this growing technology, I'm confident we'll see more and more practical and clever implementations soon. There will be kinks to work out, as there is with any new ecosystem, but we're on our way.

What do you want to do with NFC? Share with me in the comments below.

Smartphones Unlocked is a monthly column that dives deep into the inner workings of your trusty smartphone.

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Ubuntu Touch beats Firefox OS to win best of MWC from CNET

Ubuntu Touch has won the best of Mobile World Congress award from CNET

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/ CNET)

We've seen lots of interesting hardware at Mobile World Congress, and yesterday when the team met to talk about what product should get our best of show award, there were plenty of gadgets in the mix. Asus' Padfone Infinity was in the running, along with its FonePad, the Nokia Lumia 720 and Sony's Xperia Z tablet.

But the nine-strong judging team from our San Francisco, New York and London offices quickly discounted those products. We were much more interested in the product category that has arguably generated more buzz at MWC and is potentially much more disruptive: new mobile operating systems.

The two we zeroed in on, Mozilla's Firefox OS and Canonical's Ubuntu Touch, were hotly debated. Lots was said about the impressive number of carriers and manufacturers
Firefox OS has lined up behind it. But once put to a vote, Ubuntu Touch was the clear winner, with Firefox OS the runner-up.

The team thought that Ubuntu Touch, the
tablet version of which we got our hands-on for the first time at MWC, feels more like the complete package at this point. We liked its slick, elegant interface that makes use of every side of the screen and puts your content and contacts front and centre, minimising the time spent hopping back to a home screen.

Take a look at our hands-on video and picture galleries on this page to see what all the fuss is about, and read our first takes of both Ubuntu Touch and Firefox OS for more details on both.

Ubuntu Touch is a touch of class

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Dropbox clears 1 billion file uploads per day

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston speaks at Mobile World Congress 2013.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

BARCELONA, Spain--People save 1 billion files every day to Dropbox's online storage service, Chief Executive Drew Houston said today at the Mobile World Congress show here.

In addition, the company's 100 million users tap into the service with 500 million devices, he said. The statistics shows major growth for a company founded in 2007 when today's high-end smartphones only just were emerging.

When the company started, Dropbox could synchronize people's data among PCs, but now of course it helps bridge the gaps to smartphones,
tablets, and presumably other Internet-connected devices of the future. The company has been gradually expanding the abilities of its software to make it more of a central hub for people's data with features such as graphics viewers and automatic photo uploads from phones.

Houston said the lavishly funded company plans more features. Among them are better tools to deal with people who use Dropbox for both work and personal tasks and family plans.

His speech was essentially a sales pitch to the mobile network operators and device manufacturers that dominate the show, Houston made the case that they should consider partnerships.

There's "untapped opportunity" for carriers that could sign up with Dropbox, mentioning the family plan possibility as an example. "We can tie a family together in a way that's broader than just a billing relationship," Houston said.

He also tried to nudge handset makers into partnerships, touting Dropbox's Samsung deal as an example. Samsung was initially leery of dumping its own cloud-based storage plan for a cross-platform service like Dropbox, but they found a way to stand out.

"The way they differentiate is by building Dropbox onto all these core features on the phone," Houston said.

Dropbox expects its users to link up another 150 million devices to the service in 2013.

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Ford EcoSport heads to Europe, Spotify voice-control in tow (hands-on)

BARCELONA, Spain--Mobile World Congress is usually more about smart phones and tablets than full-blooded vehicles, but that hasn't stopped Ford from using the show to announce its newest motor, the Ford EcoSport, which boasts Spotify voice control and a host of other futuristic features.

Technically the EcoSport isn't a new
car, as it's already on sale in South America. This is the first model that gets to melt some rubber to European roads however, when it goes on sale in Europe in late 2013.

The EcoSport is equipped with Ford's 'Ford Sync' technology, including AppLink, which lets you control smart phone apps by barking orders at the car's voice-recognition software. Streaming music service Spotify is the latest app to land on the AppLink service, filling the EcoSport's cabin with your carefully crafted playlists

iPhones connect to the car via a USB cable located just below the handbrake, while
Android and BlackBerry mobiles can link up wirelessly. There's currently no support for Windows Phone devices, unfortunately.

Once connected, you press a voice control button that's built into the right of the EcoSport's steering wheel. The first voice command you'll need is "mobile apps" followed by "Spotify". Once the car has connected to the app, you can use the voice control to do things like turn shuffle on or off or select specific playlists. Nifty.

The voice recognition tech works quite well, though as with most systems of this type, you'll spend longer than you want listening to the robotic in-car system telling you your options, or asking you try speaking again. You'll feel a little self-conscious shouting at your dashboard if there are other folks in the car with you, so I imagine this feature is something you'll mainly use when it's just you and the road.

Hearing playlists read out by the robotic voice sounds a little odd, and you might have to strain to make out exactly what your options are. The temptation will be to pick up your phone and just use the app itself, but thankfully this isn't possible -- when your mobile is connected to the car all you can access a Ford-branded lock-screen, which stops you distracting yourself from the road.

The lock screen stops you from using the smart phone interface while driving.

(Credit:
Luke Westaway/CNET)

Another Ford Sync safety measure is that if you crash, the car will automatically contact emergency services with your GPS co-ordinates.

Thrumming away beneath the EcoSport's bright orange exterior is Ford's one litre, three-cylinder EcoBoost engine, which Ford reckons will boost fuel economy while slashing greenhouse emissions. The body isn't as chunky as some SUVs, and I imagine this surprisingly-small car will fit in well on Europe's narrow, winding roads.

Are you keen on the EcoSport? Would you use in-car voice control? Let me know in the comments, and be sure the check out all our coverage from Mobile World Congress.

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Japan's NTT Docomo plans to offer 112.5 mb/sec LTE speeds

NTT Docomo CEO Kaoru Kato at Mobile World Congress in February 2013.

(Credit:
Roger Cheng/CNET)

BARCELONA, Spain--Think Verizon Wireless or AT&T's 4G LTE network is fast? Check out Japan.

NTT Docomo's CEO, Kaoru Kato, said he plans to offer download speeds of 112.5Mbps to his company's customers. The higher speeds should come shortly, he said. NTT Docomo is Japan's largest wireless carrier by customer base.

By comparison, Verizon and AT&T boasts speeds of 20Mbps on a good day and an uncluttered network. In practise, the speeds are more in the high single or low double digits.

LTE, Kato said during a keynote address at Mobile World Congress, is key to the company's push to offer its subscribers a bundle of services it calls "smart life." The carrier is looking to wrest control of the customer from the likes of
Android or iOS by offering a number of different services, offering everything from its own credit card to medical and healthcare services.

NTT Docomo offers a portal of various digital services that is curated, secure, and filled with high-quality content, Kato said.

Like Verizon, NTT Docomo was early in deploying its 4G LTE network. Kato said the company has 10 million LTE subscribers, and is targeting 41 million subscribers by fiscal 2015.

He said that revenue from these non-core services could grow to $11 billion by fiscal 2015.

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Samsung HomeSync is a Jelly Bean-powered Apple TV rival

Samsung's not content with just making smart TVs, taking another lunge into your living room with HomeSync, an Android-powered media hub.

The glossy black box, announced today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, has an HDMI connection, but also hooks up to other gadgets over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The HomeSync streams
Android movies, TV shows and games, but Samsung promises the system will also work with Galaxy smart phones, giving smart phone owners the power to beam their home movies or photos onto the big screen.

Samsung says the HomeSync will feature a 'Jelly Bean media player', so while there's no detail yet on the HomeSync's interface, it should be broadly familiar to anyone who's toyed around with Android before. Access to the Google Play store is also confirmed.

You get up to eight separate accounts on one device, so each family member or flat-mate can create their own space on the HomeSync's 1TB hard drive. You can share stored files with another account, or if you're concealing footage you'd rather keep private, there's the option to lock your data down with file encryption and user IDs.

Powering the system is a 1.7GHz dual-core processor, while other hardware niceties include USB 3.0, micro USB and an optical audio connection.

Homesync goes head-to-head with
Apple TV, which is currently a popular choice if you're looking for a box to sit next to your gogglebox and stream movies and TV. HomeSync's appeal will depend greatly on how many movie options there are available, and it'll need a comprehensive selection of flicks if it wants to compete with Apple's own device.

There's no word on pricing yet, but Samsung's touting an April release date. Stay tuned, and let me know if you'd buy this box by dropping a note in the comments.

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Nokia Lumia 720, 520 photos leak ahead of MWC

This could be the Nokia Lumia 720 you're gazing at.

(Credit:
EVLeaks)

BARCELONA, Spain--Days before Nokia has a chance to unveil its Mobile World Congress lineup, apparent leaks of its two upcoming smartphones, the Lumia 720 and Lumia 520, have already surfaced to go along with some bubbled-up specs.

If the images, provided by EvLeaks, prove accurate, the mid-tier Lumia 720 and more entry level 520 will feature the same bright colors and signature look as other smartphones in Nokia's Lumia line.

Expect to see handsets in cyan, yellow, red, white, and black.

According to rumored specs, the Lumia 720 will feature a 4.3-inch display with Nokia's ClearBlack glare-reducing filter, plus a 1GHz dual-core processor. The Windows Phone 8 device could also sport a 6-megapixel camera, 2-megapixel front-facing shooter, 8GB of storage, and a microSD card slot.

Meanwhile, the lower-end 520 might deliver a 4-inch touch screen and 5-megapixel, and no front-facing camera, but keep the 720's other specs, including 512MB RAM.

Nokia is expected to announce the Lumia 520 this week.

(Credit:
EVLeaks)

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Crave giveaway: Kanex Sydnee four-port recharging station

Congrats to Johnal L. of Costa Mesa, Calif., for winning a pair of Aperio Audio Verus Forte speakers in last week's giveaway. This week's prize is sure to get the winner all charged up.

We're giving away a Kanex Sydnee recharging station, which charges up to four iOS devices at once through its four 2.1-amp USB ports. It works with all iPhones and iPads, and would be quite happy in any iFriendly home, office, or classroom looking to keep its gear organized and powered up.

A side view.

(Credit:
Kanex)

The unit plugs into a wall socket and comes with three USB cables so you can start multi-charging right out of the box. While the Sydnee's configured and marketed as a charging station for iDevices, it'll work with just about any USB-powered gadget.

Normally, a Kanex Sydnee would cost you $149, but you have the chance to score one for free. How do you go about doing that? Well, like this:

• Register as a CNET user. Go to the top of this page and hit the Join CNET link to start the registration process. If you're already registered, there's no need to register again.


• Leave a comment below. You can leave whatever comment you want. If it's funny or insightful, it won't help you win, but we're trying to have fun here, so anything entertaining is appreciated.


• Leave only one comment. You may enter for this specific giveaway only once. If you enter more than one comment, you will be automatically disqualified.
  


• The winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) Kanex Sydnee, with a retail value of $149.


• If you are chosen, you will be notified via e-mail. The winner must respond within three days of the end of the sweepstakes. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.


• Entries can be submitted until Monday, February 25, at 12 p.m. ET.

And here's the disclaimer that our legal department said we had to include (sorry for the caps, but rules are rules):

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. YOU HAVE NOT YET WON. MUST BE LEGAL RESIDENT OF ONE OF THE 50 UNITED STATES OR D.C., 18 YEARS OLD OR AGE OF MAJORITY, WHICHEVER IS OLDER IN YOUR STATE OF RESIDENCE AT DATE OF ENTRY INTO SWEEPSTAKES. VOID IN PUERTO RICO, ALL U.S. TERRITORIES AND POSSESSIONS, AND WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. Sweepstakes ends at 12 p.m. ET on Monday, February 25, 2013. See official rules for details.

Good luck.

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Social pollution masks? Winning wearable tech ideas

The Tree Voice concept lets anyone walk up and interact with a tree and get updates on the local environment.

(Credit:
Frog Design)

While anyone could dream up a spinning virtual GPS globe constantly updated with a slideshow of global Flickr photos emanating from a hat, competitors in Frog Design's contest for new wearable technology concepts had to keep their designs within the realm of feasibility.

The key requirement that keeps all the designs within reason is that they have to be able to come to market within three years. That doesn't necessarily mean they will come to market, but at least there's a chance.

The global design firm ran its internal competition for new wearable technology concepts last year and just unveiled the results (PDF). They include some fun and fascinating ideas that explore everything from communing with trees through technology to an urban compass that leads you into discovering unexpected parts of a city.

The eight winners came from around the world. There's Mnemo, an interactive friendship bracelet from Amsterdam that records times, locations, people, media, and music to create a record of an event. These digital memories can be shared with friends and combined into a collective memory, all wearable on a bracelet.

The Tree Voice concept hails from Austin, Texas. It involves attaching a display to a tree. The display communicates data gathered from sensors to share information on pollution, noise, and temperature levels. Anyone can walk up and interact with the tree and get updates on the local environment.

My personal favorite of the top eight designs is the CompassGo from Milan. It's a round device that fits in the palm of your hand. You tell it what you're interested in (like boutique shopping, history, independent restaurants, or culture) and it leads you through a city with visual cues. There's no guidebook to shackle you down, you just follow and discover the lesser-known parts of a city. It could add a real spark of adventure for tourists.

The other top designs include an interactive tool for the blind to navigate their environments, a device that harnesses the energy of physical movement, a wristband that helps wearers navigate the New York subway system, a pollution mask that monitors and shares air quality information, and a maker kit to get girls into creating their own wearable technology.

With so much attention being paid to smartwatches, it's encouraging to see designers branching out with creative ideas in other wearable spaces. Knowing that all these designers believe their concepts could be made real within just a few years, we may soon be welcoming some of them into the world. I, for one, can't wait to get my CompassGo.

HelloWorld is a wearable tech creation kit geared for preteen girls.

(Credit:
Frog)

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Google debuts event page for Academy Awards ceremony

Google's Academy Awards destination page.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET)

Google is rolling out the red carpet for the Academy Awards with a destination site that promises to help users "get more from the Oscars."

In a partnership with Oscars organizers, the Web giant has created a resource page to keep movie fans engaged and informed in the days leading up to the awards ceremony on Sunday. While Google has created event-specific sites before, such as its election hub last year, this is the first time it has focused on the Oscars.

In honor of its Oscars debut, Google is making sure it gets as many of its own products play supporting roles, including YouTube, Google Play, Knowledge Graph, Maps and even Google+ Hangouts.

In addition to the standard list of nominees for every category, the page includes projections on who the winner will be based on the search popularity of nominees. A YouTube video takes users through a visual rewind of 2012 on the silver screen (see below), while Google Play offers a chance to catch up with some of movies and other related media, including an app offering nominee information and movie trailers.

Need information on how to dress for the red carpet, an Oscars ballot, or real-time mobile information on the awards? Google promises to deliver the best performance in those roles as well.

However, some features didn't seem ready for their close-up. A map purporting to hold information about actor birthplaces and movie filming locations didn't seem to be functioning, while another map of the ceremony location was said to be "coming soon."

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Microsoft moves Outlook.com out of preview

Microsoft announced Tuesday that its Outlook.com browser-based e-mail service has moved out of its preview stage and is now available globally.

First introduced last July, Outlook.com is Microsoft's boldest e-mail move since Google launched Gmail in 2004 and a clear answer to it. As I said in my First Take, the simple interface, Skydrive integration, and promise of mega storage will remind you of Google's product while the People Hub and vaguely Windows 8 look and feel give Outlook.com a distinct identity.

Microsoft designed Outlook.com to replace its Hotmail product, which it acquired in 1997, and the general availability marks the start of that process. The Hotmail name won't disappear entirely, but Outlook.com will become Microsoft's sole free consumer e-mail offering.

In a phone interview last week, Senior Director of Product Management Dharmesh Mehta said existing Hotmail users can switch over at anytime. You'll be able to keep using your "@Hotmail" address and you'll have the option to claim an "@Outlook.com" alias, as well.

Users who don't switch over on their own will be upgraded in waves to the new product automatically starting this week. Mehta said that the process should finish by the summer, though he declined to name an exact date.

Microsoft also announced that in the six months since Outlook.com debut, the service has attracted to 60 million users. And in an effort to attract more, Mehta said that the company is launching its largest marketing ever for an e-mail service.

Outlook.com's minimalist interface is both familiar and unique.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Kent German/CNET)

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LG's 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro to reach U.S. in Q2

LG Optimus G Pro

(Credit:
LG Electronics)

After some earlier teasing, LG Electronics fully detailed its Optimus G Pro Android phone today, a high-end model with 5.5-inch screen, LTE networking, and a quad-core 1.7GHz processor.

LG often sells its phones first in its home market of South Korea, and it looks like that's the plan for the Optimus G Pro, too. But it'll arrive in other areas, too, including North America and Japan in the second quarter of 2013, LG said in an announcement a week ahead of the Mobile World Congress show. That's where the South Korean company will show off the phone and announced three lower-end L-series Android phones, the Optimus L7 II, L5 II, and L3 II.

The Optimus G Pro is a large-screen model that
Android smartphone makers such as HTC and Samsung have embraced in an effort to differentiate products from the smaller iPhone. The Optimus Pro G has a 5.5-inch, 1920x1080-pixel AMOLED screen with a linear resolution of 400 pixels per inch.

Combined with its relatively large 3,140mAh battery, that means people can watch Full HD video "for hours on end," LG said.

The processor is the quad-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600, and the phone comes with 2GB of RAM. The phone itself measure 150.2x76.1x9.4mm

The camera has a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with an LED flash and a 2.1MP front-facing camera. A feature called VR Panorama will construct 360-degree panoramas out of an array of horizontal and vertical views around the person holding the phone.

Both of the phones' cameras can be used in a dual-recording mode that "allows users to capture video with both the front and rear cameras simultaneously for a unique picture-in-picture experience," LG said.

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Russian meteorite: The conspiracy theories

A strange time for a military attack?

(Credit:
CNN; screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

A good hearty conspiracy theory can shine a sharp light on two of humanity's most enduring traits.

One, of course, is humanity's boundless imagination. The other is humanity's essential suspicion of humanity.

So while you might be deeply immersed in Bill Nye's explanation of the Russian meteorite, those with darker sensibilities have filled the Web with their fears and hauntings about the phenomenon.

There are few nations with greater awareness of dark sensibilities than Russia. The fact that there seems to be little evidence of meteorite fragments on the ground has encouraged some Russians to offer their own suspicions.

As the Toronto Globe and Mail reports, nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky hasn't been slow to offer something of a Hot War perspective.

"It's not meteors falling. It's a new weapon being tested by the Americans," he was quoted as saying.

We know from our recent experience of North Korea that weapons testing is an imprecise science.

But if you were an American in the mood to test a weapon, would Chelyabinsk, Russia, be your very first choice of place for the experiment?

Perhaps Tallahassee; Area 51; and Bialystok, Poland, were all unavailable due to prior commitments. Or perhaps it wasn't the Americans, but, say, the North Koreans, who mistook Chelyabinsk for, say, Chelsea.

Zhirinovsky's rather emotionally manipulative offering was countered by Russia's Emergency Ministry, which dedicated itself to an extensive rebuttal of his belief (and that of others) that this was some sort of military thing. The rebuttal? "Rubbish."

But that wasn't going to put off the local media, was it? Not only do they have papers to sell, they also have theories to expound to a troubled nation and world.

So, as The Atlantic reports, the local Znak newspaper accepted that this was a meteorite but insisted the explosion was caused by military defense blowing it up.

More Technically Incorrect

Yes, of course it has a source in the military. You thought it didn't?

Though I've watched a few movies in which exciting things happen, I don't find it easy to imagine that some sort of terrestrially created missile-laden aircraft could really explode a meteorite in such a manner.

It is easier to imagine, though, that politicians like Zhirinovsky might take the opportunity to foment a little rage.

Indeed, Alex Jones' infamously well-guarded Infowars site offered that Zhirinovsky insisted that America -- in the person of Secretary of State John Kerry -- had tried to give Russia advance notice of its "attack."

The Drudge Report led me to a piece at Foreign Policy that explained that Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, simply hadn't called Kerry back.

Which all suggests that Russia isn't, after all, living in fear of an attack from the U.S. Especially one over Chelyabinsk.

On balance, I prefer to currently believe Nye. He is the science guy, after all. And science guys know scientific events when they see them.

I hope.

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Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions on how to read older AppleWorks documents in newer versions of OS X, how to get files to all open in a specific application, recovering a
Mac Mini's files from a system that will not boot, and whether or not cleaning utilities are useful. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Managing old AppleWorks documents
MacFixIt reader Don asks:

I have dozens of AppleWorks Draw program documents, ".cwk". How can I convert them? I was hoping Pages would work, but apparently not.

Answer:
Unfortunately, Apple removed support for these older formats, so your best bet is to get access to an older Mac on which you can run AppleWorks (you should be able to do this in
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard) and then use that to convert the older documents to a more universal file format that can be opened in Pages, Word, or another word processor.

If your Mac was able to run Snow Leopard at one point and you have the installation discs available, then one option is to install Snow Leopard on an external hard drive and then boot off of that to run AppleWorks and convert your documents.

Question: Setting a default application for a file type
MacFixIt reader "tytwins" asks:

I am trying to get all .jpg files to open with Photoshop by default. I go through the Get Info window to make this change, and it sticks until I shut the computer down or restart it. Short of reinstalling the OS, is there a way to fix this behavior so that it works properly?

Answer:
Try using Get Info and selecting the desired application, and then click the Change All button below the menu where you selected the application. If this does not work then it indicates a problem with the system's launch services. Try running the commands I mention in this article to clear this and rebuild it to hopefully fix the problem. Then again try clicking the Change All button to assign the file to your application of choice.

Question: Recovering a Mac Mini's files if it cannot be repaired
MacFixIt reader Burneto asks:

My Mac Mini is dead. I think it overheated. Is it worth fixing? Can I recover disk contents?

Answer:
It may be simply a matter of a dead power supply, which can be fixed easily; however, I am not certain of the costs. If it will not power up then you will need to take it in for a repair estimate, and if you find it not worth fixing after getting repair quotes, then you can still recover the disk's contents by removing it (check out the how-to guides at iFixit) and then using an external drive enclosure to attach the drive to another system, which should allow it to be read like any standard USB or FireWire drive.

Question: Whether or not cleaning utilities are useful
MacFixIt reader Michael asks:

I have been around the Apple Support Forums a long time as a user and throughout my membership, I have heard arguments for and against using cleaning utilities such as OnyX on your Mac. The claim against the utilities is that they obstruct the OS in normally taking care of old caches and hidden maintenance routines, which may lead to problems in the future. Another opposing viewpoint is that Macs simply behave differently from Windows PCs when it comes to cleaning, and ... that these cleaning utilities are more for the world of Windows than in a Mac.

As a result of this confusion, I was wondering what your take is on this topic and whether it is necessary or not to use cleaning apps such as OnyX (or even MacKeeper) on your Mac. All I can say is that I personally use OnyX for Internet cache cleaning and nothing else.

Answer:
My stance on these utilities is they should only be used when needed. Often they offer scheduling options for cleaning numerous features all at once, but if your system is running fine then there is no need to periodically run them. If you find slowdowns in the system, then some of the routines these programs have can be beneficial.

Ultimately they should only target temporary files and so should not harm anything; however, as with any program there is the chance that a bug or two could cause problems. This is why it's best to leave well enough alone. However, the clearing of caches and the running of other maintenance scripts will not hurt the system as some have claimed.

The Windows registry has been a source of problems with performance in some situations, which is why some folks have assumed these programs are necessary on that platform. However, even the "need" for these is often questionable.

I keep OnyX on my systems as well, but do not have it configured to automatically clean or run on a schedule.

---

Questions? Comments? Have a fix? Post them below or !
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Researchers develop a more accurate car navigation system

Researchers say new navigation system can be installed on any vehicle, including a Volkswagen Touareg.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

Driverless cars could get a big boost from a new system that researchers say will increase the accuracy of in-car satellite navigation systems by 90 percent.

Researchers say the system combines conventional GPS signals with data from sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes to determine a vehicle's position within six feet of its location, a dramatic reduction from the current margin of error of 50 feet. The system can be installed inexpensively in any vehicle, say researchers at Spain's Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, where the system was developed.

"We have managed to improve the determination of a vehicle's position in critical cases by between 50 and 90 percent, depending on the degree of the signals' degradation and the time that is affecting the degradation on the GPS receiver," David Martín, a researcher at the Systems Intelligence Laboratory, said in a statement describing the project.

The system aims to tackle the greatest challenge faced by conventional GPS systems in urban settings: loss or disruption of satellite signal due to interference created by buildings, trees, and tunnels. The new system uses contextual information and an algorithm that eliminates deviations caused by degradation or loss of signal from satellites.

The researchers have installed a prototype system on an "intelligent
car" with the goal of capturing and interpreting all the information available while driving a car. The team sees applications of the system in driverless car systems currently under development by Google and a handful of automakers.

"Future applications that will benefit from the technology that we are currently working on will include cooperative driving, automatic maneuvers for the safety of pedestrians, autonomous vehicles or cooperative collision warning systems," the team said.

Ultimately, the team hopes to develop a system that harnesses the sensors built in to smartphones, such an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer, and GPS, as well as taking advantage of communications tools such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GSM.

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Opera embraces WebKit in browser brain transplant

Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Opera Software, an independent voice in the browser market since the 1990s, will dramatically change its strategy by instead adopting the WebKit browser engine used by Safari and Chrome.

The Norwegian company announced the move today and said it will show off the first fruits of the work with a WebKit-based version of its
Android browser at the Mobile World Congress show in less than two weeks. But the company will move to WebKit for its desktop browser, too.

A browser engine processes the Web page instructions written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS then renders the results on screens. The engine also interactions that are increasingly important as the developer world expands from static Web pages to dynamic Web apps.

Opera Chief Technology Officer Håkon Wium Lie described the company's motives in a statement:

The WebKit engine is already very good, and we aim to take part in making it even better. It supports the standards we care about, and it has the performance we need. It makes more sense to have our experts working with the open source communities to further improve WebKit and Chromium, rather than developing our own rendering engine further. Opera will contribute to the WebKit and Chromium projects, and we have already submitted our first set of patches: to improve multi-column layout.

Hints of Opera's WebKit work emerged with a mobile-browser project called ICE in January, but today's news is a much more sweeping change than just a single product. Opera said it will move gradually to the WebKit for "most of its upcoming versions of browsers for smartphones and computers." It's not immediately clear which products will continue to use Opera's in-house technology, and Opera declined to say which.

Opera has struggled to keep its fifth-place ranking in the browser usage, but it's certainly not irrelevant. The company also announced today that 300 million people use its browsers each month.

But there are difficult trends the company must face. On mobile devices, Opera Mini is a strong contender, but its popularity is chiefly on lower-end phones; iOS and Android devices come with their own WebKit-based browsers. On personal computers, Google's Chrome rose from nowhere in a few years, quickly surpassing Opera and
Safari, while Microsoft by some measures has reversed declines in its share of browser usage.

Although ditching its in-house Presto browser engine raises the possibility of engineering layoffs, Opera spokeswoman Zara Lauder took an optimistic tone when asked about it.

"We have never had more people at Opera working on our products than right now, and we look forward to contributing to WebKit," Lauder said. "This change has been some time in the making, and all hands are now hard at work on making the best possible browser for our users."

Although Opera's profile is lower than that of many rivals, it's still functioning financially. During the company's third quarter of 2012, the most recent for which financial results are available, Opera reported revenue grew 40 percent to $56 million, and its profit was $6.5 million. Its revenue sources include payments from search traffic it drives to partners including Google and Yandex, its own advertising technology, and partnerships with mobile network operators.

The WebKit project began as the KHTML engine used in the KDE project to supply Linux with a polished user interface and a host of software utilities, but Apple became its chief sponsor when it based OS X's WebKit on the project. WebKit got another major boost with Google's embrace.

Adobe Systems now is also contributing as it moves to recreate many of Flash Player's abilities without requiring the browser plug-in, and WebKit also is used in the browsers of BlackBerry OS and Samsung's Bada.

One notable consequence of moving to WebKit is that Opera will be able to more easily support the large and growing number of iOS devices. Apple rules prohibit browser engines besides a version of WebKit that Apple itself supplies (and incidentally, that runs slower than the version Safari on iOS itself uses). Google's Chrome for iOS uses this Apple-supplied version of WebKit, and Opera would be able to make such a move more easily if its own browser used WebKit, too.

WebKit is not a single, unified project, though. For example, Chrome and Safari differ dramatically under the covers in how they execute the JavaScript programs on Web pages. Chrome uses Google's V8 JavaScript engine, whereas Safari uses a different one called Nitro. Opera said it will use V8.

Another consequence of Opera's change is that developers could have an easier time supporting browsers. Although independent testing will still be required, Web pages likely will be easier to write and test -- especially advanced ones using newer features such as animations and "responsive" design that can handle a wide variety of screen types.

With Opera throwing in the towel on its own Presto engine technology, the bulk of the browser market will be reduced to using three primary engines: WebKit, Microsoft's Trident, and Mozilla's Gecko.

Lie also announced Opera's move on the WebKit mailing list.

"Switching from Presto to WebKit frees up resources and allows us to contribute to the WebKit platform," Lie said.

Being part of WebKit potentially gives Opera more clout in the standards world, because it can build experiments that are more easily tested and adopted by fellow WebKit members. That, in turn, makes it easier to formalize new ideas into actual standards.

Opera has begun work on first such standard through WebKit, an approach at Web page layouts that handle multiple columns of text and graphics more easily. Opera has begun submitting patches for the multicolumn layout idea.

"We have experimented with combining multicol layout with page floats and column spans; in 10 lines of CSS code one can create amazingly beautiful, scalable, and responsive paged
presentations," Lie said.

Opera's move from Presto to WebKit arguably give the company a lot more engineering breathing room, since it can share labor with other browser makers instead of pulling all its own weight. But not everybody was happy to hear the news.

"Sad day for my former team at Opera and for the Web to lose a rendering engine," tweeted Anne van Kesteren, who for years worked on standards issues at Opera.

Updated at 12:53 a.m. PT and 1:37 a.m. PT
with further details and comment from Opera.

Opera's revenue continues to steadily grow even as it faces the challenges of being the fifth-ranked browser.

(Credit:
Opera Software)

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Most-viewed tech on CNET right now

Click through to find out where the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 falls on the list.

We spend a lot of time evaluating tech around here, looking at both the hardware and the software sides, and telling you which products we think are worth your hard-earned dough and which are best avoided. Behind the scenes, we're always keeping an eye on what you're looking at as well. Some gadgets are obviously going to draw a lot of attention, their appearance on the list of most viewed a given, but sometimes a product pops up that surprises us and gives a bit of insight into where consumer trends may be headed.

Without further ado, let's count down the top 20 products that you've clicked on the most over the past four weeks.

 

Featured Posts

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Android, iPhone, Windows Phone 8, BlackBerry? We break down which OS is right for you and why.

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LA Microsoft Store not mobbed, but Surface has a following

The Surface Pro

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

LOS ANGELES -- The launch of the Surface Pro at the Microsoft Store in LA's Century City was a relatively low-key affair compared with the debut of the Surface RT.

When I arrived just after 10 a.m. there was a small line (see photo). That said, both versions -- 64GB and 128GB -- of the
Surface Pro had sold out immediately.

Of course, no one would say how many units were set aside for first-day sales, and the lines didn't exactly snake around the Westfield Century City mall. So, it wasn't like a Depression-era run on a bank.

And back in October the lines were longer and the atmosphere a bit more frenzied when the Surface RT launched.

On Saturday, there was a small line outside the Century City Microsoft Store near Beverly Hills. The Surface Pro sold out immediately at the store.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

But like the RT rollout, there was a fixation on and interest in the product not unlike what's found at an Apple event. I saw more than a few customers glued to the device for 30 minutes or even an hour.

In other words, Surface has a following. An analogy I would use is the Chevy Volt. Recently in LA, the Chevy Volt is gaining ground, driven by a small but growing (and fervent) customer base.

And Microsoft Store sales reps know what they're talking about. A patient, focused rep gave me a long, hands-on explanation of the
Windows 8 touch interface and demonstrated a new touch-enabled paint app, among other apps.

Finally, note that there are other enticing touch-screen Windows 8 devices at the store, including the 2.3-pound Acer Aspire S7 and the HP Spectre XT TouchSmart. And that's good for Windows 8 overall.

Looking at the line from inside the store.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

The Surface Pro isn't the only cool Windows 8 device on sale at the Microsoft Store. The 11.6-inch Acer Aspire S7 touch-screen laptop is a tempting alternative to the Pro.

(Credit:
Brooke Crothers)

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Apple and the iWatch conundrum

Will Apple ever make an iWatch?

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

Ever since the sixth-generation iPod Nano, lots of people have thought that Apple making its own branded watch is not merely a smart potential move but simply a matter of time. No matter what some have recently argued, I doubt, however, that today's Apple is hungry enough to create the fabled iWatch device.

I've been covering the technology beat long enough to feel, no, smell certain shifts in the gadget market. I'm talking about those cycles when a new product category springs up from nowhere and first seems like a completely goofy notion. Soon after, the segment really heats up with scores of companies jumping into the fray to make a quick buck.

Traditionally, if Apple senses a legitimate opportunity it steps in at the right moment after figuring out the secret to success and sucks the air right out of the market.
Tablets and MP3 players existed well before Apple launched the
iPod and iPad, but their arrival completely transformed the playing field. Remember music players from Creative Labs, Rio, or even Microsoft's clunky Windows Tablet PCs?

I'm getting the same tingling sensation right now from smartwatches. At
CES in January the sleeper hit of the show was wearable tech, essentially devices you could strap or clip to yourself as you would an accessory or article of clothing. A lot of smartwatches, fitness bands, or some hybrid of the two, were talked up at the conference.

These included everything from the long-awaited and crowd-funded Pebble and the Dick Tracy/007-inspired Martian Passport Watch to the Fitbit Flex fitness tracker and the Basis Band. When you factor in the success of the Nike FuelBand, Nike being a company Apple has partnered with in the past to create fitness products, I'd say the time is ripe for Apple to swoop in for the kill.

Chat through the Martian Passport like a speakerphone.

(Credit:
Brian Bennett/CNET)

This is a move the Cupertino company used to accomplish without breaking a sweat. Apple has the knack of catching the competition completely flat-footed, surprising since many already had a big head start. The iPhone is a perfect example. Smartphones had existed for years but the iPhone sounded the death knell for Microsoft's struggling Windows Mobile products -- trust me, I was saddled with a T-Mobile Wing at the time. The Sidekick and a legion of keyboarded feature phones suffered the same fate.

I'm afraid Apple hasn't demonstrated its signature ferocity in recent years. We haven't seen a truly disruptive product from the company since the first iPad. Every noteworthy hardware release since then has been evolutionary and incremental, not transformative. The iPad Mini is simply a smaller iPad, while the iPhone 5 essentially increased the screen from 3.7 to 4 inches. Its A6 processor is also dual-core where many Android CPUs have gone to full quad-core and it received 4G LTE well after its rivals.

What Apple needs here is true out-of-the-box action to quell the doubters at large and on Wall Street. A serious example of nonlinear thinking that matches the creation of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Something that would merge multiple gadgets and applications into something entirely new or perhaps clean up the confused mess other manufacturers tout as useful gadgets. Something like a fabulous, shiny Apple iWatch.

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Apple releases raw support for Nikon D5200, Sony RX1

The Sony RX1 comes with an optional viewfinder, shown here perched atop the camera body in the flash hot shoe. The camera comes with a Carl Zeiss lens, too.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

With the release of its raw compatibility update 4.04, Apple software now can handle raw-format photos from two hot new cameras, the Nikon D5200 SLR and the high-end compact Sony RX1.

The D5200 is a relatively inexpensive SLR whose 24-megapixel sensor looks to have promisingly high performance -- the top rating for an APS-C-sized sensor, according to DxO Labs' DxOMark test results. The $2,800 RX1 has an even larger full-frame sensor, also with a 24-megapixel resolution, but its design uses a fixed 35mm lens.

Also supported in the Apple update is support for raw photos from Pentax's K-5 II and K-5 IIs, which also get high marks from the DxO sensor test.

Apple has been turning the crank faster to keep up with the constant stream of new cameras, with eight raw support updates in the last year. Each update means that software such as iPhoto and Aperture that rely on OS X's raw-image support can handle newer cameras' formats. Raw photos, available on higher-end cameras, offer higher image quality and more flexibility than JPEGs, but they also require some manual processing that makes them less convenient than JPEGs.

Also supported in the update are Leica's D-Lux 6, V-Lux 4, and X2, and Pentax's Q and K-30.

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