Stories by Lamont Wood

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 Premium review: Accurate voice recognition

Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the premiere voice-recognition software package. Its latest version adds additional accuracy.

Incubator grows firms via geek service swaps

The tenants at this tech-oriented co-working space/business incubator have a resource they could not tap elsewhere: one another. Collaboration with strangers is, in fact, required for membership.

Blind and online: Progress, not perfection, for visually impaired tech users

Advances in accessible interfaces - especially by Apple - have been beneficial for the blind, but the Web remains a minefield of accessibility problems.

Today, printers. Tomorrow, 'integrated peripherals'?

Out went 42 aging black and white copiers with interface boxes that let them serve as printers. In went 42 new networked multi-function printers (MFPs) that could do color printing and copying and scan directly to e-mail, fax or files. And the owner, the Park Hill School District in Kansas City, MO, saves $19,000 yearly.

Printer ink: Tired of feeding the cash cow?

Human blood costs about $17.27 an ounce, silver about $34 an ounce. But both are bargains compared to the ink sold to the owners of inkjet printers, which can exceed $80 an ounce. Meanwhile, the ink used to print newspapers costs about 16 cents an ounce.

Phones become electronic wallets

In a recent pilot project, about 30 regular guests at a Clarion Hotel in Stockholm were given smartphones enabled with Near Field Communication technology, enabling them to bypass the check-in counter and access their rooms by tapping their phones on an NFC reader, which replaced the typical card-swipe door lock.

Gamification goes mainstream

Increased sales, increased participation, increased engagement. It doesn't sound like a game, but those are some of the goals, and reported achievements, of the new field of "gamification."

Future world: Today, the Internet - tomorrow, the Internet of Things?

Embedded in the heel of his shoe was an early example of the Internet of Things -- but Andrew Duncan didn't know it at the time.

3D chips: The next electronics revolution

To accomplish anything in the suburbs, you need to get in your car and drive to another address. Downtown, in a skyscraper, you just use an elevator.

Got cyber insurance?

Heartland Payment Systems figured it was in pretty good shape when it took out a $30 million cyber insurance policy. Unfortunately, the credit card transaction processor was the victim of a massive data breach in early 2009 that resulted in losses estimated at $145 million. The insurance company did pay Heartland the $30 million, but the company was on the hook for the remaining $115 million.

The wild, wacky world of webcams grows up -- kinda

A decade ago, it was a clever novelty: a webcam pointed at an office water cooler. The first one is still online, at www.coolercam.com, broadcasting a fresh picture every 10 seconds.

Forgotten history: the true origins of the PC

This year marks an almost forgotten 40th anniversary: the conception of the device that ultimately became the PC. And no, it did not happen in California.

Blind users still struggle with computing obstacles

Put your graphical user interface to this test: Adjust the contrast on your display until the screen is completely black.

3-D printing: The next big thing?

Heading a start-up after leaving his position as head of Microsoft Game Studios, Ed Fries thought that he might be able to sell 10,000 units of his product -- personalized online game figurines -- the first year.

The LAN turns 30, but will it reach 40?

LAN technology recently passed a milestone -- it's been around for 30 years, some of them tumultuous. But while the LAN seems ubiquitous now, there are those who think its future may be more troubled than its past.