GameStop is ready to challenge the iPad in mobile gaming?

(Credit: Apple)

Boutique game retailer GameStop is pushing its way into the tablet space, president Tony Bartel said in an interview published today with GamesIndustry.biz.

According to Bartel, his company will be selling a "GameStop-certified gaming platform" in its stores. The tablet, Bartel says, was not developed by GameStop, but his company tested several slates before choosing one it believes is worthy of its certification.

"We definitely have selected one," Bartel told GamesIndustry.biz in the interview. "We're in test phase right now. But we're excited at the prospect of coming out with this tablet. I would call it a 'GameStop-certified gaming platform.' We looked at all the tablets and these are the ones that really worked for gaming and we're going to give you a few benefits that you're not going to get elsewhere."

Bartel didn't offer up too many details on the tablet, saying only that it will be based on Android and come with pre-installed games. In addition, he said that his company plans to eventually stream console games to the device to help increase the number of titles available to it.

Related stories: • ... [Read more]

AVG is sticking by its new antivirus software for Windows Phone despite a flurry of complaints and a decision by Microsoft to remove the app from the Marketplace.

Launched a week ago, the app by AVG was designed to detect and remove viruses on Windows Phone devices. But after a couple of external experts noted that there are presently no viruses on Windows Phone and that the software seemed to violate guidelines by capturing certain private data, Microsoft pulled the app from its online store late last week.

Responding to Microsoft's move, AVG's Chief Technology Officer Yuval Ben-Itzhak issued a statement on Friday in an attempt to address the two major complaints against the app, known as AVG Mobilation.

The first complaint centered on the app improperly using a geolocation feature to track Windows Phone devices and send certain data back to AVG. Ben-Itzhak acknowledged that the app does include such a feature but claimed that its only purpose is to help a user locate a phone should it ever be lost or stolen.

"This feature was a response to requests by many mobile users and is a functionality that exists in many other mobile ... [Read more]

Samsung's application downloads have hit nearly 10 million, the company says.

(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung's television application marketplace is starting to gain some steam.

According to the company, nearly 10 million applications have been downloaded from its marketplace since the service was made available last year.

The rate of growth in Samsung's store has been quite impressive. Late last year, Samsung announced that its store hit the one-million-downloads mark, 268 days after the marketplace launched. In January, the store reached 2 million downloads. What's more, the company's applications inventory is growing quite rapidly. According to Samsung, it now has over 900 applications available to folks to download to their HDTVs.

To help improve its apps offering, Samsung also announced today that it has opened up its Free the TV Challenge for 2011. The company held the challenge last year, asking developers to create an application for its TV marketplace. Last year's winner was WeDraw, an application for both Samsung televisions and iOS and Android, that let users draw pictures from their mobile devices, and see the big-screen version of those images in real-time on their sets.

... [Read more]

(Credit: Orb) Meet Orb Live for Android, a versatile media app that lets you stream free Hulu content, premium videos, and even your home media library right to your Android device. Since it requires no subscription fee, its $9.99 download price may just be a great deal for those of us wishing for more multimedia on the go.

Here's how it works. First, install Orb Caster on your PC or Mac (for free), and point the program to your multimedia folders so it knows which files to make available for streaming. You can also point it to your iTunes and have it stream everything from there. Next, navigate to Settings and create a Remote Access Account for use on your mobile device. Finally, download Orb Live onto your Android mobile device, and sign in using your Remote Access credentials.

As long as your desktop computer is powered on and has a reliable Web connection, you'll be able to stream photos, music, and videos to your Android screen. And of course, you can also watch TV shows through Hulu's non-premium service, YouTube, Dailymotion, and more, all for free. If you have subscriptions to premium services like Hulu Plus, Amazon Video On Demand, or Netflix, you can add to access those as well.

While streaming media apps are certainly nothing new to Android users, Orb Live does bring something unique to the table. It's the first app we've seen ... [Read more]

The newly updated NBC for iPad app can stream full-length TV episodes free of charge.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rick Broida)

Your iPad just took two big steps closer to replacing your TV--or at least your Hulu Plus subscription. Last week, NBC released an updated version of its iPad app, allowing users to view full-length episodes of pretty much every show in its lineup.

That means you can stream "30 Rock," "America's Got Talent," "Community," "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," and, when they debut, new shows like "The Playboy Club" and "Whitney." All this happens totally free of charge, and with surprisingly minimal commercial interruption.

For example, I decided to check out "Friends with Benefits," which, though derivative and predictable, was actually not awful. The only commercial breaks were short, silent banner ads for Extra gum.

Also last week, TNT debuted its eponymous iPad app, complete with full-length TV shows and movies. Just one catch: as with HBO Go, you need to be a cable subscriber to unlock all the good stuff. And although the app supports most of the major providers, Time Warner Cable isn't one of them.

Unlike NBC's busy, feature-laden app, TNT for... [Read more]

Last week, Symantec launched its updates for Norton 2012, which included some interesting ancillary features and a hint of a much stronger connection between the company's desktop and mobile offerings. At the same time, the robust Norton Internet Security 2012 (download) and the slimmer Norton AntiVirus 2012 (download) show off a reasonable but not amazing performance bump. Get the full rundown here.

Also, be sure to check out WinDirStat (download), a tool that employs colorful graphics to help you pinpoint what's taking up all the space on your crowded hard drive. This useful piece of freeware even lets you permanently delete unnecessary files from within the app. Check out our CNET How To article here.

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Instead of using the Windows 7 Control Panel to get to settings you use frequently, why not use shortcuts? You can create both graphical and keyboard shortcuts for Windows 7 settings. Here's how:

Category shortcuts

Category shortcuts allow quick access to any category or subcategory of the Control Panel.

Step 1: Open the Windows Control Panel and navigate to the category you want to create a shortcut for.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Step 2: Hover over the text of the category you want, then drag it over to your desktop.

Task and configuration shortcuts

Task and configuration shortcuts allow direct access to specific tasks like, "Show hidden files and folders."

Step 1: Enter Windows 7's GodMode. To learn how to enable GodMode, read the CNET article, "Understanding Windows 7's 'GodMode'."

Step 2: Right-click on the task or setting you want, then select "Create shortcut." This will create a shortcut on your desktop.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee)

Keyboard shortcuts

If you want take it even further, create keyboard shortcuts for quick access to Windows 7 settings.

Step 1: Right-click on one of the shortcut icons you just created and select "Properties."

... [Read more]

Microsoft has pulled a new AVG antivirus app from the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Brandon Watson, Microsoft's director of developer experience for Windows Phone, confirmed yesterday in a tweet that the app had been removed based on research done by two external experts and that the company had started its own investigation.

Launched earlier this week, AVG's new antivirus app for Windows Phone quickly triggered concerns among users, according to enthusiast site WinRumors. Digging into the app's codebase, Justin Angel, a former Microsoft employee, and Rafael Rivera, a self-proclaimed Windows hacker and author of the Within Windows blog, uncovered the reasons for concern.

Rivera asserted that the app just displays ads and scans for EICAR test strings, which are used to test antivirus software. Noting that "there just isn't any malware to scan for on Windows Phone," Rivera dubbed the app "AVG-owned scareware."

Angel also asserted that the app was improperly using a geolocation feat... [Read more]

For too many of us, passwords are annoying obstacles rather than valuable tools meant to keep our business (and back accounts) private. You may find yourself sticking with the same small number of passwords for every site, which means that you're only as secure as the least secure site you visit. Here are some tips to boost your online security: 

Find out if your account has been compromised. Visit ShouldIChangeMyPassword.com to see if your account has been made public by hackers. You only need to enter the e-mail addresses used on your accounts, and of course there are still plenty of compromised accounts that remain unpublished, but this is a great starting point.

Change your passwords. Even if none of your accounts show up here, you may want to take a half-hour to change the passwords on your most important sites, then set up a reminder to do so every few months. Picking a memorable password is easy, but picking a strong password can be tough. Here's a great overview of how to check your passwords' strength. 

ShouldIChangeMyPassword start screen.

Use a password generator. Password Hasher is a great, simple tool for generating strong passwords with ... [Read more]

Which browser do you use? Your Mac comes preloaded with Safari, a world-class option on its own that now has extensions you can add for even more functionality. Mozilla Firefox has wiggled its way into many Mac users' hearts with its speed and virtually unlimited amount of useful add-ons. Opera is another great choice with its Speed Dial favorites pages, tons of added features, and sleek and skinnable interface. All of these are good choices depending on the features you want, but there's also something to be said for simplicity.

If you just want a simple and stylish browsing experience without a lot of added bells and whistles, check out Camino. This light and agile browser is based on the Mozilla engine like Firefox, but was built from the ground up to fit well within the entire Mac OS X aesthetic. Light on its feet, Camino doesn't foist countless features on you, concentrating more on the basics of browsing the Web in style. This latest version includes better ad blocking, improved handling of bad SSL certificates, and other tweaks.

Also this week, we have the latest version of Bevy, a new way t... [Read more]