Personal Tech

The Natural Resources Defense Council has ranked the biggest energy hogs in the home, and the thing that's gobbling up the most is probably not what you think: the pairing of your digital video recorder and set-top box.

The environmental monitoring group released a study today that says that a high-definition cable or satellite set-top box when combined with a high-definition DVR uses up 446 kilowatt hours per year. That's more than a new Energy Star rated 21 cubic-foot refrigerator, which uses 415 kWh per year, according to the NRDC's data.

The combination of an HD DVR … Read more

Verizon is working on a mobile payments service for smartphones, tablets, and PCs with mobile payments start-up Payfone.

The two companies made the announcement today, but did not reveal many details about how the service would work or a target date for when it will be ready for customers.

According to the release, Verizon customers will be able to make "online purchases" from a phone, tablet, or PC and send the charges to their monthly Verizon bill, or "traditional payment methods through financial partners," which implies credit cards.

Payfone's system will handle the routing, pre-authorization, … Read more

Josh Lowensohn is with us today to help us understand the impact of Apple's announcement that it's bringing music and data synchronization to its apps and devices--if not the Web itself. Also: What to do with a dead RAID array, how to save big bucks on Windows upgrades, and much more.

If you have a tech question for CNET to the Rescue, e-mail rescue@cnet.com. No question is too basic, so if you've got a tech problem that's been getting under your skin, please drop us a line and we'll try our best to help you out.

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LOS ANGELES--People who prefer to play Wii Tennis and those drooling over the upcoming Madden 12 have traditionally been treated as two distinct audiences. But at E3 2011, hardware makers and game publishers alike seem to be trying to blend the two groups.

Microsoft spent a lot of its stage time on Monday talking about incorporating its motion control accessory Kinect into not only kid-oriented Disneyland Adventures, but its biggest titles this year and next, like Fable: The Journey, Ghost Recon Future Soldier, and Star Wars.

Sony is similarly pushing game makers toward PlayStation Move, as well as toward making use of not only traditional control sticks and buttons with its next-generation portable PlayStation Vita, but a touch screen as well.

At its press event Monday evening, Sony's senior vice president of Worldwide Studios North America, Scott Rohde, described the concept of using Vita's regular controllers and touch screen and the ability to switch back and forth between them in the same game, on titles like Uncharted Golden Abyss, ModNation Racer, and Little Big Planet as "playing however you want."

There's a distinct challenge in persuading those who've grown up playing shooter games… Read more

All 77 million of you that had your personal information exposed in the massive breach of PlayStation Network, you can get your free games now.

Sony said this morning that its "Welcome Back" package of free games, movie rentals, and in-game content is available starting today.

Sony initially announced the compensation package in early May as a way to apologize to customers whose names, addresses, birth dates, e-mail addresses, and passwords were compromised when a still-unnamed group of people were able to access 10 Sony servers running its PlayStation Network and Qriocity entertainment service. In addition to the … Read more

A group of hackers said today that they have broken into several Sony Web sites and compromised the personal data of more Sony customers.

The group, which calls itself "Lulzsec," is the same group that posted fake news stories on PBS.com over the weekend.

They have been promising Sony attacks since this past weekend, a plan they called "the beginning of the end" for Sony. After being challenged to show what they found, the group today posted links on Twitter to samples of information they compromised on internal Sony networks and Web sites, including Sony … Read more

At the pace that new e-readers, tablets, and smartphones are released, it can be disappointing how the latest gadget can make that shiny new iPad or Kindle you bought last year seem obsolete.

If you don't have an endless budget for tech purchases and would rather not just dump the old one in the trash, or are looking to raise some funds, one way to recoup some of what you paid for old tech is through buyback services. They're popping up all over, on the Web, in-store recycling kiosks, and even at major electronics retailers.

The appeal is … Read more

Google today introduced Google Wallet and Google Offers at an event in New York City.

The company says it plans to bring all parts of the retail experience together to make "tomorrow's best shopping experience," said Google Vice President of Commerce for Stephanie Tilenius.

The services will combine coupons and discounts and payments at the time people buy things through their phone.

Together the services will work like this: Coupons for items you buy regularly will pop up on your phone, or an item that the store you're shopping at is out of will pop up … Read more

At a press conference scheduled for today in New York City, Google is expected to lay out the beginning of something mobile-technology experts have been foretelling for years: using mobile phones to pay for almost everything via near-field communications chips, or NFC.

NFC is a chip technology that, when placed in two different devices, lets small amounts of data be sent over very short distances between them. This can include data such as credit card information, train ticket info, and a coupon bar code.

We already have credit cards with NFC chips inside, and some figure moving away from credit cards to paying with a phone is the next step. Rumors have swirled that Apple has been hatching a plan to turn the iPhone into a mobile credit card via iTunes for over a year. Amazon.com is reported to be considering such a service, as have some credit card and wireless companies.

But talking about NFC and actually making a usable service for consumers happen with phones are two different things. Different companies in different industries need to work closely together for it to work in a straightforward manner for mobile phone users. That includes phone makers, mobile software companies, wireless service providers, banks, retailers, and makers of payment terminals.

That challenge -- as much of a management issue as it is a technological issue -- helps explain why no one has done it on a wide scale yet.

Google is perhaps best-positioned right now for instituting a mobile-payments system for several reasons: First, Google already makes one of the two phones in the world with NFC chips inside, the Nexus S (Nokia makes the other, the C7) and is likely to make more. Second, Google also has its own software, Android, which it can configure to the advantage of NFC chips in a phone. Thanks to Android, Google enjoys relationships with carriers too. Reports indicate it's planning to launch the NFC service for "select" phones on Sprint.

Retailers are a different story. They need to be able to accept a… Read more