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We're back from San Diego Comic-Con 2012 with a wrap-up show of everything we saw at the show. This being our first year, it quickly became obvious that we missed the first rule of Comic-Con: leave your civilian clothes at home!… Read more

A computer's sleep process is helpful in a couple of ways. First, it reduces the power consumption of the computer, saving you a few pretty pennies in the long run. Second, it can prevent pieces of your desktop from getting forever burned into your monitor.

When your computer does not enter sleep mode like it's supposed to, it can become rather annoying. Really, who likes a glaring (literally) distraction while watching a movie or having a bright light on in the room when you're trying to sleep. Oh right, nobody. If your computer won't acknowledge its … Read more

Into history-based real-time strategy games and possibly dressing the part while playing them? Then you'll surely appreciate this week's giveaway prize, an ancient helmet (well, an ancient plastic helmet anyway) -- signed by the Age of Empires Online development team, no less.

Age of Empires Online, the latest installment in the Age of Empires series published by Microsoft Studios, lets you start your own Greek civilization and expand it from a village to an empire while playing with friends online.

The game came out last year and got a big update a few weeks ago when developer Gas … Read more

So, how difficult is it to make a low-power-consumption monitor? Well, if this list is any indication, not very. However, among the lowest of low-power-consumption monitors, there's usually one common factor: Twisted Nematic (TN) panels.

Any company can make a low-power-consumption TN-based monitor, though, so a list consisting of only TN monitors would be pretty boring. What would be slightly less boring is a list consisting of In-Plane Switching (IPS) monitors that draw relatively small amounts of power to function. That is a list to get somewhat more excited about. So, I've decided to make that list.

To be clear, the difference you'd pay per year running these things -- using our formula -- is small in the grand scheme of things.

Still, I thought it would be interesting to see just how low IPS monitors can go.… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Jeff, unimpressed with last night's Macy's Fireworks display, left his own message in the sky.

- San Diego fireworks fail ends as quickly as it starts.

- Dear Interns: Think twice before tweet-talking your coworkers.

- Men are from Reddit, women are from Pinterest.

Bathroom break video: Anaheim from Daniel shows us how to output 404 shirts using an mPower garment printer!… Read more

When it comes to storage, you definitely don't want to risk getting stuck with a lemon. That's because, unlike other commodities like a car or a TV, when a storage device breaks down, chances are you lose a lot more than just the drive itself. It's a painful experience to see your invaluable data vanish. Take my word for it on this.

But you likely don't want to spend too much, either, and want your storage device to be easily accessible, especially on the go since there's not much use for your data if it always has to stay at home.

Bearing that in mind, compact and portable external hard drives are arguably the most popular form of storage. They have room to hold lots of data, often more than your laptop or ultrabook can, without being big or heavy. Following is the list of the top five portable USB 3.0-based drives that are the best among their peers, offering great performance, large storage space, compact design, and sometimes even the kind of toughness that will withstand drops and submersion in water. Most importantly, you can easily find them for less than $100. Have more to spend? You can get larger capacities that cost more.

Note that these drives also work with USB 2.0 (MacBook Air owners, you're included here) and they are all bus-powered, so you don't need a separate power adapter to use them.… Read more

Apple's iPad costs precious little for you to charge it each year, according to a new study.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) conducted a study recently to see how much the iPad costs in electricity if users fully charge it every other day. The research agency, which is funded by electric power companies, found that the iPad will cost owners $1.36 a year, thanks to its consumption of just 12 kWh of electricity each year.

The EPRI assumed that there are now 67 million iPads in the world and applied the average energy use to each device … Read more

Capt. Francis Gary Powers, the Air Force pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was posthumously honored Friday in a medal ceremony at the Pentagon.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz presented the Silver Star Medal to Capt. Powers' children, Gary Powers Jr. and Dee Powers, in the Hall of Heroes, in tribute to Powers' "heroic action and his loyalty to the United States of America during a pivotal time in our nation's history."

"My sister, myself, my wife, my son, aunts and uncles, cousins, the … Read more

Apple's newest Macs will be able to accomplish updates, data refreshes, and more -- all while the computers are asleep.

At its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco today, Apple unveiled a feature called Power Nap. Available on second-generation MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros with Retina Displays, Power Nap is all about keeping Macs up to date even while they're snoozing.

The computers will be able to fetch data while in sleep mode, do an iCloud sync, update system software, get e-mail, and even do a Time Machine backup.

This could be a very useful feature for heavy … Read more