Tech. World

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, which means it’s time to think about which techie products are suited for your own mother, the moms in the office, extended family, or your wife. Fortunately, there are quite a few new gadgets for 2015 suited for the big day. There’s a digital picture frame that lets you load through a website. There’s even a clock radio that has a trendy flower-print design. 1.  LivingPlug INLET ($25) These colorful wall outlet covers serve multiple purposes. They are safer for kids, since the plugs are located below the faceplate. You can design your own (think: pictures of the kids). One outlet turns into three plugs and you can charge a phone or tablet using USB. 2.  Nixplay Cloud Frame ($100) This low-cost digital frame connects to the cloud so the kids (or grandkids) can stream photos from anywhere in the world. It connects to Facebook so you can add photos that way using a Web app or you can load pictures onto a local camera card. The frame powers down and

Apple is on track to bring out a giant iPad later this year that would rival, in size at least, Microsoft’s 12-inch Surface Pro 3, according to an analyst. “We expect it to be part of the iPad refresh in October,” Rhoda Alexander, director of Tablet and Monitor Research at marketing research firm IHS Technology, told FoxNews.com. “Our sources are still indicating this is a 2015 product, slated to go into production mid-to-late third quarter,” she wrote in an email. Alexander is citing Asia-based sources who garner data from companies that supply components to Apple. “Sources indicate the panel will be 12.9-inches, with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,920,” she added. That would be slightly less than the resolution (using pixels-per-inch as a yardstick) of the 9.7-inch iPad Air 2. A 12.9 inch display would approach the screen size of Apple’s 13.3-inch MacBooks. It may come with other features too. A recent report said that the tablet may come with a stylus. Alexander wrote that IH

Amazon's patent has been published by the US Patent and Trademark Office. It says  that the drones  will track the location of the person they're delivering to by pulling in data from their smartphone. Creepy? A bit. But if it means it knows you've popped out to the shops, that will give it an edge over a regular human courier. The drones will also talk to each other about the weather and traffic conditions. But not what happened on Strictly last night. The US Patent and Trademark Office approved the idea when  Amazon proposed it back in September  2014. Now the e-tail giant has to convince the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to approve widespread commercial use of drones. There are also plenty of technical obstacles to overcome – how will it discern between flats, for example? You'll be able to specify where the drone should deliver – options include 'bring it to me', 'bring it to my home' or even 'bring it to my boat'. Which shows

It's no secret that Apple plans on revealing a  new streaming music service  -- thanks to its  Beats Music acquisition  -- some time this year, supposedly at its annual developer conference in June. What has so far been a secret, however, is whether or not that service will be free or paid. While it's been widely reported that Apple plans on charging  $8 a month  for a subscription, it now appears that the folks in Cupertino could be planning on integrating a free option or two as well. According to  ReCode 's industry sources, those options include a free trial period of one to three months, a SoundCloud-type service where artists could upload free tunes for non-subscribers, and a new version of iTunes Radio that would feature human-curated playlists similar to, of course,  Beats Music . Yet,  ReCode  also reports that Apple doesn't plan on going up against other unlimited free streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora. Apparently the company thinks that ad

Years before  stolen pictures of celebs hit the internet in a massive bundle , news that Reddit posters were searching for private photos popped up under the term "fusking." As detailed by  Buzzfeed  in August of 2012, Reddit channels were dedicated to using a security flaw in Photobucket.com to search for pictures posted in private folders. If anyone on the internet knew (or could guess) a private photo's direct URL it was visible, and guessing the default filename of digital photos isn't very difficult. Today the US Department of Justice  is announcing the arrest of two men  for selling "Photofucket" software that it says stole guest passwords for protected albums and sought out those private pictures. Brandon Bourret of Colorado and Athanasios Andrianakis of Californias are facing charges of "computer fraud and abuse, access device fraud, identification document fraud and wire fraud." Access device fraud carries the longest potential penalt

Senior members of Google's public policy team took to  Reddit today  to discuss the company's stance on government surveillance reform and the  pending expiration of Section 215 of the Patriot Act  that allows for the bulk collection of phone records. Google's director for law enforcement and information security, Richard Salgado and David Lieber, its senior privacy policy counsel took part in the discussion. Judging by the responses, the AMA didn't start as smoothly as they probably hoped. The  very first answer  about  Google being hacked by individuals in China  in 2009 seemed extremely canned and prompted the reply, "that is a non-answer. Did the PR team type it up for you?" After that, the answers got a bit more genuine.

Russia and China have further solidified their growing friendship this week by making a cybersecurity pact. According to  The Wall Street Journal , the two countries have sworn not to launch  cyberattacks  against each other. They've also agreed to an exchange not only of technologies, but also of information (such as data about cyber threats) between their law enforcement agencies. In addition, the two heads of states promised to have each other's backs and thwart any technology that might "destabilize the internal political and socio-economic atmosphere," "disturb public order" or "interfere with the internal affairs of the state" together. The two countries  have been friends  since the end of the cold war. But Russia has been turning to the East more and more after its military actions in the Ukraine affected its relationship with the US and the rest of Europe. The  WSJ  says this new agreement "is the latest sign that Beijing and Mos

If you just got yourself a Samsung  Galaxy S6  (or its curvier sibling, the S6 Edge) and you happen to be a fan of VR, well good news: the latest  Gear VR for the Galaxy S6  is now officially on sale. It's still in limited rollout but it should be in your local Best Buy starting today for around $199, with availability expanding quickly to even more places. Introduced at Mobile World Congress  in Barcelona, the new headset is not only designed for Samsung's new phones, but also features a number of improvements over the original Gear VR for the Note 4. We had a chance to take a brief spin with the new hardware a few days ago, tried out a few new made-for-VR games and also talked to Max Cohen, VP of mobile at Oculus, for more on Gear VR's future.

When LG cooked up last year's  G3 , we (and many of our contemporaries) fell in love with it. At last, a well-designed phone with a killer Quad HD screen and a custom interface that didn't make us want to wrap a USB cord around our necks! Building a beloved smartphone is no small feat, but it's still not as hard as crafting a sequel that will be just as well-received. When it came time for LG to design the new  G4 , the company latched onto a handful of areas it thought people really cared about. It rebuilt its 16-megapixel camera from the ground up. That Quad HD screen? LG tried to make it more "accurate." Now the question is: How'd LG do? Did it figure out how to excite people for another year? The answer -- in case you've got somewhere else to be -- is "almost."

When ASUS formally unveiled the  Transformer Book Chi T300 , it did so in the cheekiest way possible: with a cleverly worded swipe at Apple. " Our Chi is thinner than Air ," the company proclaimed -- a clear shot at the MacBook Air. ("Chi" means "air" in Mandarin Chinese, by the way, in case the dig wasn't obvious enough.) Indeed, ASUS' newest laptop/tablet hybrid measures a scant 0.3 inch for the tablet (or 0.65 inch when docked), making it slightly thinner than the Air, which comes in at 0.68 inch at its thickest point. The Chi is also more affordable than the Air (not to mention most other thin-and-light laptops), with a starting price of $699. On paper, it's a relatively affordable way to get your hands on a super-skinny machine. In practice, though, you're probably better off spending a little more on something else. Here's why.