Digital Bits Technology Column

The casually-conversing HAL 2000 computer in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey makes it look easy. From “Danger, Will Robinson!” to the Star Wars’ language translation droid C-3PO, the movies continually assume that computers can and will understand the spoken word as well as any human. It’s not that easy. When you consider the use […]

Roomba Discovery Review and Testing

(Read the review or jump to Does the Roomba work?, Testing the Roomba, Problems with Roomba and potential solutions , and Review Conclusion). So you don’t like vacuuming. And you want a robot to do it. No problem, say the folks atiRobot, who develop robots for government, industrial and residential uses. They’ve created the Roomba, billed as “the first […]

Interactive fiction and text adventure games – How to get them and play them

“You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.” Those words begin one of the best known text adventure games of all time:Zork. For those who haven’t heard of it, I’m talking about the wildly popular game that saw popular release around 1982, far before the proliferation […]

OpenOffice review: Options beyond Microsoft Office

When you buy a computer, you pay for more than the hardware. You also pay for the operating system (probably Microsoft Windows) and application software (probably Microsoft Office). It’s difficult to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations without Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to spend the extra $400 […]

Rechargeable batteries, from Li-Ion to NiMH to Ni-Cad

Today’s electronics consume batteries the same way I consume pizza: With gusto. And with Christmas approaching, you’d better be prepared. Even if you don’t intend to buy remote-controlled cars and “See-Me-Smirk Susie” for everyone in your family, chances are you have many devices using many batteries. You’ll often see ads for rechargeable batteries, claiming hundreds […]

Fighting Online Fraud and Scams

Some online retailers operate by carefully nudging the line of the law. Others step over that line, waving their arms and laughing maniacally. Know your options if you’re targeted, and know the methods the bad guys use, since their sole purpose is to make your money disappear faster than food in Fat Albert’s lunchbox. Warning […]

Free graphic editing and rendering software tools: Color your world

When I was young, my art medium of choice was a box of Crayola crayons. The 8-pack was fine. It offered all the basic colors needed for my pictures of helicopters and dragons. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the 16-pack. More was better, I theorized, so you can imagine my excitement when I […]

Oh what a tangled Web we weave – What makes up a Website name?

My website is http://www.andybrain.com. There are four different parts making up that address. Those pieces may be confusing and overly complex, but we see Web addresses so often these days, they slip by our eyes easier than greased banana peels. What’s the point of all the junk surrounding “andybrain”? What insane designer chose to use “www” […]

What is X10, and what does it do?

A reader asks: “What are the devices that send and receive information over electric wires and turn lights off and on?”Another way to ask this question is “What is X10?” When I was a kid, my family was lucky enough to regularly test interesting technologies. Among my favorites were X10 units: I had a “control box” […]

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Voice Recognition Software Review: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.0 and IBM ViaVoice 10