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The yardstick used for Intel's new power-frugal chips is being questioned in article posted by Ars Technica.

The article, titled "Power saving through marketing: Intel's '7 watt' Ivy Bridge CPUs," asserts that Intel may have been over-aggressive with its power-efficiency claims.

More specifically, the 7-watt Ivy Bridge processors Intel announced on Monday at CES are actually specified by Intel on its site as 13 watts, the article says.

"The 7-watt number advertised during Intel's keynote yesterday is actually from a new metric, 'scenario design power' (SDP), which purports to measure how much power the … Read more

At a street price of around $50 for a kit of two units, the Actiontec 500 Mbps Powerline Network Adapter Kit is a bargain. And that's not the only good thing about it.

The kit, retail model number PWR511K01, comes with two identical adapters, currently the smallest of their type, that offered very good performance in my testing.

The only real complaint I have is that these adapters don't support Gigabit Ethernet, hence offering the limited data rate of the regular Ethernet standard at most. However, the affordable price and the supercompact design still make the kit an … Read more

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple a patent for a new way to supply power to a home through the use of an "intelligent power-enabled communications port."

The inventor was Tony Fadell, a key executive who worked for Apple on the iPod and iPhone, until leaving to found Nest, a company that makes a 'smart thermostat,' the idea being that it will be able to plug in to "the Internet of things."

You can read details of the patent filing here. Patently Apple also offers a write-up.

I recently put together a new sound system for my living room. With a couple of chunky bookshelf speakers on tall stands, it hardly blends into the vintage expedition decor of the space. I should have held out for a Transparent Speaker.

The Transparent Speaker is a Kickstarter project that looks a bit like a cross between a sound system and a fish tank. It puts all the audio components you need in a glass case. This helps it blend into its surroundings, like an audio system version of a chameleon. … Read more

You're a budding or aspiring filmmaker. You wrapped up all your shots and you're ready for post-production and distribution. Or you're an avid videographer or adventurer with a million video clips of family gatherings begging to be showcased on a TV. Cyberlink PowerProducer offers a video-production program for these folks and anyone looking to create DVDs or Blu-ray Discs.

Cyberlink PowerProducer is a user-friendly suite that lets users create and burn movie discs, complete with high-quality menu templates and Blu-ray support. The suite doesn't offer much as a real movie editor, per se -- you won'… Read more

If you need an easy way to create disk images, it's hard to imagine an option that's easier than PowerISO. This simple program makes it a breeze to create disk images in several different formats, open existing images, and burn disk images to CDs and DVDs.

PowerISO has a straightforward interface that's easy to navigate. A set of clearly marked buttons across the top make the program's main features easily accessible. It took us just a few seconds to navigate to a handful of files we wanted to include and then save them as an ISO … Read more

I have a friend called Shirley.

She is from very refined stock. One of the results of this is that she can eat corn on the cob with such speed and precision that what remains when she's finished is a perfectly smooth stick.

Not everyone can do this.

Which is why I was especially moved by a YouTube video that suggests a new way to eat corn if not with utter precision, at least with astounding speed.… Read more

We've seen several designs for military exoskeletons that can boost soldier strength, but these leg braces from Canada's Bionic Power generate electricity on the go.

The PowerWalk system looks like an athletic knee brace and weighs about 1.7 pounds. The braces generate about 12 watts of electricity when the user walks at a normal pace; an hour's walk can apparently produce enough juice to recharge four cell phones.

That's especially handy for soldiers who have to carry up to 28 pounds of batteries on a 72-hour mission to power everything from flashlights to night vision goggles, according to Bionic Power. … Read more

Microsoft might have a new Xbox for the 2013 holiday season.

A new report from Bloomberg suggests that Microsoft might be readying the successor to the Xbox 360 for the 2013 holiday season. We here at CNET have been speculating the company might do the big unveiling at E3 2013 next summer and then set up a release shortly after. Some of the rumored features of the next Xbox -- aside from an obvious bump in performance -- are a Blu-ray drive and a more precise version of Kinect.

Industry site Telecoms.com has discovered some information about the iPhone 5'… Read more