Graph Search is Facebook’s new, shiny feature – and Russian search engine Yandex’s Wonder might actually one-up it. So what does Facebook do? Pull access, of course.

“Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected,” reads the first line of Facebook’s blog post introducing Graph Search. But after Facebook blocked Wonder – the mobile App that launched the same day by Google’s Russian competitor Yandex – from accessing the social giant’s much touted one trillion data-points, that should be rewritten: “Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected… so long as Facebook retains control over the information and how it can be accessed.”

Timing is everything

Graph Search was launched a mere four days after news broke that Yandex had essentially built the mobile app, voice search-enabled version of Graph Search.

Graph Search is a tool to navigate the endless data-points on Facebook, including reportedly a billion people (minus all the cat and dog profile pages), 240 billion photos, and more than a trillion connections. Graph Search goes beyond letting you search for friends, and lets you search for people, photos, places and interests in a more semantic way, within a defined context.

Beta testers can now ask Facebook to find “friends who live in New York City and ski,” “books read by CEOs,” or “music my friends like.” Because of its ability to tap into preferences and essentially recommendations from friends, Graph Search could be considered a threat to not only Google – which released its Knowledge Graph last year – but also to Amazon and even Yelp. Which brings to mind the old saying: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

But the traditional social-meets-search players aren’t the only ones reeling from the launch of Graph Search: Yandex’s Wonder app is being threatened. In Yandex’s words, “Wonder is an iPhone app that collects your friends’ activity from Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, and Twitter and makes it easily accessible to you. Now you can ask questions about what places your friends visit, what music they listen to, and what news they read.” Apparently this treads too closely to what Graph Search does… because you can integrate Facebook, thus rendering the app without important social information.

Facebook has reportedly done this because of its policy stating: “You must not include data obtained from us in any search engine or directory without our written permission.” Yandex, however, argues that Wonder is not a search engine or directory, and thus should be free use Facebook’s social graph.

When I reached out to Facebook to find out why they had blocked Wonder, they pointed me to a blog post responding to the issue. The post reads in part, “Over the past few days, we’ve received questions about a few of our platform policies and want to clarify our thinking.

“For the vast majority of developers building social apps and games, keep doing what you’re doing. Our goal is to provide a platform that gives people an easy way to login to your apps, create personalized and social experiences, and easily share what they’re doing in your apps with people on Facebook…

“For a much smaller number of apps that are using Facebook to either replicate our functionality or bootstrap their growth in a way that creates little value for people on Facebook, such as not providing users an easy way to share back to Facebook, we’ve had policies against this that we are further clarifying today (see I.10).”

What about Wonder?

Founded in 1997, Yandex is the fifth largest search engine globally and Russia’s largest search engine, controlling more than 60 percent of the Russian market. Similar to Google, the Russian search giant generates the majority of its revenue through online advertising, and offers multiple products from maps and traffic information to photo hosting and email. But to put Yandex in context, its market cap is $7.59 B while Google’s market cap is $248.28 B—about 32 times as large, and Facebook’s is $67.3 B—nearly eight times as large.

Google, however, is just one of Yandex’s “Big Four” tech giant competitors; with its launch of Wonder, it is now in some ways a competitor to Facebook’s Graph Search—pulling in social data from Instagram, iTunes, Last.fm, and Facebook competitors Twitter and Foursquare. Currently, Wonder can (or rather, would be able to) provide answers to questions about places, music and news—questions like “What clubs have my friends been to in New York,” or “What electronic songs do my friends like?”. But Yandex plans to gradually expand the types of questions to which it can return answers.

Wonder, which is Yandex’s first U.S. product, was launched January 24. Before Facebook started blocking all API calls from Wonder, many wondered if Facebook—which is still a ways away from building out its own mobile app for Graph Search, according to Zuckerberg—would save itself some time and just acquire the app. The exponential growth of consumers accessing the Web via a growing number of mobile devices puts Facebook at a disadvantage, especially when considering products that go to market first are often the ones that gain traction and staying power. Facebook knows this all too well, considering how the Snapchat-Poke episode played out.

“Wonder was launched to test some of our very new technologies and to get answers on questions like: ‘How good is our new Natural Language Understanding Unit (NLUU), the technology that can transform a human query into a database query,’ ‘How to proceed duplicates correctly (e.g. how to glue the same venue’s check-ins made in Facebook, Foursquare and, say, Instagram,’ and ‘How to make semantic analysis of queries,’” Yandex’s deputy CTO Grigory Bakuniv tells me when asked why they launched Wonder. Bakuniv said they’re also interested in testing the “new user interface of a results page with horizontal swiping [and finding out if] it is really convenient for mobile search or should it look different.”

During Facebook’s press event on Graph Search, Zuckerberg said Facebook didn’t have plans to integrate voice search—a feature Wonder boasts—and that it didn’t have an estimate on when its mobile version would be ready.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend… but what happens when the enemy of my enemy is my enemy?

Many have reported that a deal is not completely off the table, as Facebook and Yandex are currently in talks. The two companies have a history: In 2010, they struck a licensing deal allowing Yandex to show public posts from Facebook Pages in its search results. But this time around, a deal seems unlikely.

From Yandex’s side, the company’s CTO told me they launched Wonder as a test to experiment with the capabilities of its tetchnology, backing away from the idea that they were looking to sell. “We launched this app to check and test our new technologies. The result of the experiment should confirm or deny some tech theories we have in mind,” Bakuniv says, adding that the company would incorporate some of Wonder’s elements into other products and services supported by Yandex based on their findings. “We don’t think selling Wonder to anyone will help us to conduct the experiment successfully,” he said.

From Facebook’s side, even if they were somehow able to buy Wonder, there would be a strong possibility that Twitter and Foursquare would pull their data from something owned by Facebook. If, as Bakuniv suggests, there isn’t likely to be a deal with Facebook, there’s a possibility for Yandex to partner with competitor Google for access to Google+ data to fill out what Wonder lost along with Facebook integration.

When I asked Bakuniv if the company had plans to draw from other platforms like Google+ and LinkedIn, he said, “Wonder is Yandex’s experiment and four sources [Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Foursquare] are quite enough for experimental tasks. Potentially, we are interested to use as many social networks as possible, including Google+ if we find it contains enough social data shared and we can get convenient access to it via API.” 

Wonder isn’t the only app Facebook has blocked in recent weeks. The social media giant recently blocked Twitter’s video app Vine, and the messaging service Voxer, from letting their users connect with friends via Facebook. Facebook’s public reasoning, as explained in their recent blog post, is that many apps are using Facebook to replicate functionality or bootstrap their own growth “in a way that creates little value for people on Facebook.” Obviously, however, the people attempting to connect with their friends on apps like Wonder, Vine and Voxer via Facebook, are Facebook users themselves. And these Facebook users, who also happen to be users of competing apps, clearly find value in being able to connect with their Facebook friends across multiple apps.

And of course, the fact remains that Wonder and all its technology will have to sit idle and unused simply because its a competitor to a service Facebook hasn’t even finished rolling out. To be fair, Facebook has the right to block competing apps from using its services to bolster non-Facebook services, but then maybe Facebook should change its mission statement: “Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected.” 

In this week’s Jetsetter, we look at how the French publisher Ubisoft just brought one of its key creators back into the fold by acquiring THQ Montreal. That studio’s lead is Patirce Desilets, director of Assassin’s Creed, and creator of the new 1666.

 Welcome back again to Jetsetter, Digital Trends’ weekly column that reaches into the far corners of the world to let you know about the games you otherwise wouldn’t. The United States is the biggest video game market in the world, with more people making, playing, and spending on games than anywhere else. It’s Jetsetter’s job to look beyond our borders, to places as close as Canada and as far away as Finland, to find the choices video games around. From big to small, from the Indian publishing schedule of Electronic Arts to a weird bootleg from the Philippines, Jetsetter’s got its finger on the global pulse.

It was a rough week for the global video game market. Two major plays, namely THQ and Funcom, saw their business shrink, and disintegrate completely in the case of the former. THQ’s demise means that the biggest non-American video game publisher in the world has a valuable new studio in its arsenal.

* THQ Montreal snatched up by Ubisoft alongside Assassin’s Creed creator’s new game.

French gaming giant Ubisoft was rumored to be considering a complete buyout of THQ, including all its properties and worldwide publishing operations. When THQ went up for auction, Ubi only bought a tiny slice of the company. In addition to picking up the publishing rights for South Park: The Stick of Truth, Ubi also bought Canadian studio THQ Montreal. The acquisition is actually a sort of homecoming. The head of THQ Montreal is none other than Patrice Desilets, director of Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed II. Desilets abandoned the acclaimed series to start a new studio for THQ and create a brand new franchise codenamed 1666. Now 1666 is Ubisoft’s property. The team is apparently thrilled. “This is the first time in my life that I have to a studio that was just newly acquired, given a speech to everyone, and then have everyone applaud,” said Ubisoft Montreal chief executive Yannis Mallat of his first meeting with Desilet’s studio. What is 1666 about? No one knows, but that was the year of the Great Fire of London (pictured above), a historically significant event perfect for inspiring of the creators of Assassin’s Creed.

* Funcom closes Beijing studio in massive restructuring.

The publisher and creator of MMOs The Secret World, Age of Conan, and Anarchy Online Funcom had a mediocre 2012. The Secret World didn’t even sell 1 million copies after more than half a decade of development, and the company was forced to layoff a number of employees. It announced on Friday that it’s now shutting down some of its international operations. Funcom Beijing, responsible for building much of The Secret World, will be closed by the end of the year. The Beijing team’s loss is the Funcom Canada team’s gain, though. As a result of the restructuring, Funcom’s Montreal studio will now be able to work on new projects, namely a swath of mobile titles.

* New red and blue PlayStation 3s for the United Kingdom.

Damn those Brittons and their snazzy new PlayStation 3s. While we have to settle for boring old black—and a dull, ugly black on the newest models at that—the United Kingdom gets two flashy new PlayStation 3 models come February. The Azurite Blue and Garnet Red models will have 500GB hard drives rather than the 12GB of flash memory on recent European models.

Spilling a liquid on your laptop isn’t necessarily the end of the world. Minimize the damage by following our tutorial to rescue your laptop from a watery doom.

So you’ve spilled something on your laptop. Whether you put your glass down too close to your computer, or were using it to play music at a party and your Elaine dance didn’t go as planned, you unfortunately may be reading this article frantically on your phone while trying to figure out how to save your precious laptop from the liquid you just spilled on it.

It’s important to note that if your laptop gets wet, time is of the essence. You must turn it off, unplug it, and remove the battery at once. Every second counts. Do not bother to take the proper steps to turn it off, either – go ahead and press that power button until your machine shuts down. Next, follow our tutorial, and accept the hard truth that your computer will be out of commission for about three days. 

In case of wet-laptop emergency

1. Remove all components that are easily detachable – Unplug your mouse and any cables, and remove any flash drives and DVDs. Leave your laptop bare.

2. Dry the outside of your machine – Immediately open your laptop as far as it goes, hold it upside down, and wipe dry any wet surfaces that you see with a towel or another lint-free absorbent fabric. The type of liquid matters: water is the least corrosive, while sugary and alcoholic liquids are the most harmful. Either way, the goal is to mitigate their effects as much as possible by drying the computer immediately.

At this point, there’s two ways to go. On the one hand, you can hurry it to a computer repair shop; on the other hand, you can try to fix it yourself. If you want to take the DIY approach, act at once and improve your chances of salvaging your laptop from the accident and follow the remaining steps. Remember that if your machine is still covered by the manufacturer’s warranty, opening the case may void the warranty. You may want to take advantage of your warranty period if it’s still going.

Also, we should note that neither Digital Trends nor the author accept any responsibility for damage caused to your machine from taking it apart. Here we go…

Break it down

1. Strip it down – This is where it gets tricky, but stick with it. We’re going to help you take your machine apart to see how much damage has been done. If you haven’t already, remove your battery. Next, remove your keyboard, top panel, drives (hard and optical), memory modules, and of course the motherboard. If you’ve got a manual lying around, make friends with it. But if you don’t, we’ve got you covered:

1. Acquire a small Phillips screwdriver and a butter knife or other small, flat, and thin tool. We will use the screwdriver to take out screws and the butter knife to take off the covers.
2. Many machines will let you pry off the cover between the keyboard and the screen. If your machine fits this profile, go ahead and remove any screws that you see with the screwdriver (check the screen hinges too). Be gentle in case your machine has a data cable in the back so as not to damage or rip it off in the process.
3. Once loosened, carefully pull off the cover/trim using the butter knife if needed. Refrain from using excessive force. If the trim doesn’t snap off with ease, check for remaining screws especially along the top of the keyboard. If it is being held in place by a cable, attempt to remove the cover without causing damage to the cable.
4. Pull off the keyboard while being careful with the cable. Unfasten the data cable connector (try to flip up its latch, which should be small). Set the keyboard aside.
5. Move on to the motherboard. If it looks fully dry, stop there. If it’s wet, you’ll want to disassemble it. First, put on an anti-static wristband to prevent emanating electrostatic discharge (ESD) that could destroy your machine. Second, unplug any cables left that connect the internal components you see to the motherboard. Remove the screws and unplug the cables attaching the motherboard to the power board.

2. Dry it off – Examine each component you’ve removed to check for any sign of wetness or corrosion. Any wet parts should be dried, but if the liquid is anything other than water, you’ll want to wipe it off (you can use a cotton swab) with 99 percent isopropyl alcohol – this will dissolve gunk without causing damage and evaporate without leaving residue. If you see corrosion, grab a toothbrush, dip it in the alcohol, dry off the excess liquid, and begin cleaning off the signs of corrosion. For the screen, make a mixture of 50 percent alcohol and 50 percent distilled water (tap water will leave mineral deposits behind that could lead to electrical shorts), and use the softest cloth you can find (e.g., flannel) to gently dry the screen.

You can speed up the evaporation of alcohol by blowing canned air on your components. Once you’re done, you’ll want to leave it all alone to air-dry for two to three days in a warm, dry area. Remember that a fan will hasten the drying process. Do not use a hair dryer, as this could cause static problems.

3. Dress it back up – Once you’ve picked your machine apart, dried all the components, and given them time to dry, you can follow the instructions in reverse to put your laptop back together and see if it works. Hopefully, all will be well. At this point, you’ll want to take it to a repair center if your laptop malfunctions. Even if it works, depending the type of liquid spilled, your keyboard might be permanently damaged and may need to be replaced. You can then look up what keyboard you need for your particular brand and model of laptop, buy it online (they usually go for $30 to $60), and either take it to a store for reassembly, or (more fun and less expensive) put it on yourself following our instructions in reverse.

If you want to try salvaging your keyboard, you can try washing it in a sink with warm water and soap, and letting it dry for at least a week before reinstalling it.

If your laptop cannot be taken apart

What if you have a MacBook Air or another laptop that refuses to be taken apart? This situation drastically reduces your options, so you’ll have to take it to a repair center.

Between the time that liquid is spilled on your keyboard and the time that you take it to the store, here’s what you can do: just like in Step 2 above, hold your machine upside down, wiping dry any visible wetness with a towel. Then, lay it down on a dry surface – an excellent option is a large bag of rice because rice is absorbent enough to help draw out any liquid that made its way inside through the crevices of your keyboard. Use a big bag, a lot of rice, and place it all in a warm, dry room. Feel free to turn on a fan to speed the process along until the time when you can carry your laptop to an Apple repair store.

Waterproofing options

You can purchase the following gadgets to safeguard your computer from future liquid mishaps: a silicone or clear plastic keyboard cover, a waterproof laptop skin for the top and bottom halves of the case, and a waterproof laptop screen protector. You can also carry your laptop around in a waterproof laptop backpack. Be careful not to cover any ventilation holes, however, and use scissors to cut the skin if necessary to ensure that your ventilation holes are left free.

That’s it! We wish you luck in transforming your soggy laptop back into a dry and fully functional macine.

Image via artifishall

Looking for a reasonably high-end Android smartphone, but don’t want to pay a fortune to get it? If you are a Verizon customer and due for an upgrade, you can now get your hands on the Droid RAZR HD without paying a single cent. In most cases these super-low cost deals tend to be targeted towards new subscribers. In a change of pace, Wirefly is offering the RAZR HD free for existing customers.

So what kind of specs does this smartphone feature? While it’s far from the most powerful phone on the market, it isn’t exactly a pushover either. The Droid RAZR HD is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Other specs include microSD for expansion, an 8MP rear cam, 1.3MP back cam, a 1280 x 720 4.7-inch display, and Android 4.1.

Tempted by the Motorola Droid RAZR HD but not a Verizon subscriber? New customers can still get their hands on the Droid RAZR HD through Wirefly for only $50. While this isn’t as great of a deal as existing customers are getting, $50 is still a pretty low price considering this handsets specs.

What do you think, would you consider renewing your contract to get your hands on a Droid RAZR HD?

I don’t think anyone really saw this one coming. When we talk about market share in the smartphone world, we are used to seeing names like Samsung, LG, and Motorola, but Huawei has (not so) quietly moved itself into the third spot overall when it comes to worldwide smartphone market share. That’s huge. And we’re not just talking about the size of the Huawei Mate either.

Even though the Huawei products may not exactly be the flagship smartphones offered by your local cell phone carrier, Huawei has made its presence known and let’s not forget about the massive market that it can enjoy in its home China. Indeed, Huawei’s year-over-year change for units shipped in Q4 was a remarkable 89.5%. That being said, it still only has a 4.9% overall market share as of Q4 2012.

The overall smartphone market continues to grow, so even though the market share numbers have only moved a few percentage points, the year-over-year change for units shipped has increased almost across the board. Samsung is sitting in the top spot with 29.0% market share with a 76.0% increase in units shipped. Apple is second with a 21.8% market share and a 29.2% increase in shipments. Sony is fourth with 4.5% market share and interestingly enough, another Chinese company, ZTE, rounds out the top five with its 4.3% market share.

Yes, Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the smartphone world with a combined 50% of the market and Huawei is a distant third with its 4.9%, but it really is amazing how this seemingly “second tier” brand has propelled itself onto the smartphone podium in such a short amount of time. Remember that they’re beating out what we may otherwise consider to be heavy hitters like HTC, LG and Motorola.

Mobile technology has moved in leaps and bounds over the past decade. So why is it that call quality is still so terrible? HD Voice is starting to be more available, but Fraunhofer, the inventors of the .mp3 and .AAC, don’t think it’s earned the title of HD. The organization has its own solution, Full-HD Voice, which could be available right now.

You may not be familiar with the name Fraunhofer, but you’re definitely familiar with its work. It’s a large research organization that has been at the forefront of many of the technological advancements that we enjoy today. Listing the non-profit’s full list of achievements would be too extensive to fit here, but to give some perspective: If you’re watching a Blu-ray, a YouTube video, or a 3D television, if you’ve listened to a song today in .mp3 or .AAC format, or if you’ve connected to the Internet via a LTE network, you’re utilizing research conducted by the folks at Fraunhofer.

Being the organization that invented both .mp3 and .AAC, Fraunhofer knows a thing or two about sound quality. When the idea of HD Voice was announced, the teams at Fraunhofer IIS (Institue for Integrated Circuits) and Fraunhofer USA were shocked. In the eyes of the researchers at the institute, the idea of HD Voice is a scam – not because it isn’t an improvement, but because it isn’t nearly enough of one. Standard phone calls take place on an audio bandwidth of up to 3.4KHz. HD Voice, using the Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) waveband speech codec, bumps calls up to 7KHz. HP Baumeister, one of the researchers at Fraunhofer, describes this as a “timid step” at best. He believes he can do better, and is more than willing to prove it.

Baumeister had a long list of shortcomings that is produced by HD Voice, most of which stems from the codec it uses. HD Voice is designed specifically for for speech, which would seem perfect for a phone call. The problem is, your voice likely isn’t the only thing that can be heard during a call. Background noises of all kinds, from music to environment, will exist no matter what. In Baumeister’s words, the limitation of speech codecs come because they ”absolutely must have voice suppression,” which means “the codec cannot deal with it [if it's not voice].” It also requires a licensing fee to use, adding a cost to the provider and potentially the consumer.

His solution? A project of Fraunhofer research: Full-HD Voice. While the name doesn’t differentiate the service that well (these guys are tech geniuses, not marketers after all), Baumeister believes the quality speaks for itself. Using the VoIP technology that we are inevitably moving toward, Full-HD Voice takes avantage of codecs designed for all sorts of audio to deliver a higher quality call experience. Improving quality to between 14KHz and 20KHz, it produces calls with the full audible spectrum. There are a total of five AAC codecs, which you’ve likely used in the past. AAC-LD is a standard in video conferencing, while AAC-ELD is the codec of choice for Apple’s FaceTime. The full AAC offering is compatible with Android 4.1 and up, AAC-ELD is present in both Android and iOS. This is the technology that powers Full-HD Voice, conveniently already available within the two most popular mobile operating systems around – no additional licensing or royalties required.

What does all this mean? Your phone is likely already capable of carrying out high quality audio conversations with sound comparable to that of a CD. Baumeister believes this can be done without increasing the bit rates of today’s phone services. The AAC-ELD codec actually achieves higher audio quality with a lower bit rate, making it for a better and more efficient conversation.

It’s crazy to think of all the advancements our phones have gone through over the past decade, the one part of that hasn’t improved is the actual call quality – You know, the thing the phone was invented for. For comparison’s sake, imagine TVs develpoed to the point they are now, big screens and thin frames, but we still watched films on VHS. You have a piece of technology in your pocket that is so advanced that it can outthink the computers that put a man on the moon. Why spend all your time on it asking people to repeat what they said or holding your arms at odd angles like rabbit ear antennas in hopes of getting better call quality?

Everything is in place for Full-HD Voice to be utilized as the standard mobile communication. It’s capable of being used cross-platform to complete audio conversations from Android to iOS devices. We just need some clever app creators to get going on making this a reality. Make our lives easier, app devs.

Learn more about Full-HD Voice and get a demo of the quality it offers and find out more about Fraunhofer’s creation here.

It is now illegal under federal law to unlock your cell phone without permission from your wireless carrier. Here’s a quick quick to answer all your why, how, and WTF questions.

As of today, it is illegal to unlock your new smartphone. This rule, issued by the Librarian of Congress in October, is seen by many as a slap in the face of consumers who wish to do what they want, when they want, with the devices they own. But there are a few silver linings in this dark cloud. Here, we’ll answer all the pertinent questions about the new no-unlock rule.

Why is it illegal to unlock a smartphone?

Because unlocking a phone requires making changes to its firmware – software that is copyrighted and owned by your carrier – therefore, doing so would be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Was this always the case?

No.

Every three years, the Librarian reviews the specific rules of the DMCA, and makes exemptions allowed under the law. In 2006, the Librarian decided that phone unlocking should be exempted under DMCA. But that changed this year.

Why did the rule change?

Because the Librarian was convinced, for a number of reasons, that allowing unlocking was no longer a necessary exemption.

The main reason is that there are an increasing number of phones you can buy that come unlocked. Apple and its carrier partners sell the iPhone 5 unlocked, for example. Google’s Nexus 4 also comes unlocked. T-Mobile has plans to offer more of its phones unlocked. And retailers like Best Buy offer all sorts of unlocked phones. In short, the Librarian decided that there’s no reason to alter the DMCA to allow people to unlock any phone since people can easily buy an unlocked phone nowadays, if they choose to do so.

Furthermore, new court decisions have changed the interpretation of the law. In 2010, the Ninth Circuit court decided in Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc that we cell phone owners do not actually “own” the software running their phones. Instead, they are only “licensing” this software – a key difference – which means that we don’t have a right to alter that software. This also played a role in the Librarian’s decision.

Is it illegal to unlock all smartphones?

No.

The no-unlocking rule only applies to “newly purchased” phones, meaning any carrier-locked phone purchased from a carrier on or after October 28, 2012, the date the new rules went into effect.

If you buy a used phone – or even a new phone not directly from a carrier – you are still allowed to unlock it. It’s also perfectly legal to buy a phone that comes unlocked. You can also, in some circumstances, ask your carrier for permission to unlock your device. (More on this below.)

What are the benefits of an unlocked phone?

Unlocked phones can be freely used on other networks simply by swapping out the SIM card. So if you’re an AT&T customer, and you want to take the pone you have to T-Mobile, you could do so very easily with an unlocked phone.

The most common beneficiaries of unlocked phones, however, are world travelers. Say you have an unlocked iPhone 5; you could take your device to Europe, for example, buy a pre-paid SIM card (which is readily available there) and use your phone on the local network, allowing you to avoid exorbitant roaming fees.

What are the downsides of unlocked phones?

If you’re buying a new unlocked phone, it will cost you far more money up front than a carrier-locked device. A 16GB unlocked iPhone 5, for instance, will cost you $650. Buy the same phone through AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, and you’ll pay just $200 thanks to carrier subsidies – but you also have to agree to a two-year contract. In the long run, you will likely end up paying more for your locked device than for an unlocked one.

Is jailbreaking the same as unlocking?

No.

Jailbreaking allows you to run apps on your device that you couldn’t do with an un-jailbroken phone, such as iOS apps that are not available through the iTunes App Store. But jailbreaking does not let you switch to a different carrier. Also, jailbreaking is still completely legal under the DMCA.

Is there a legal way for me to unlock my phone?

Yes – but it is a pain.

AT&T will let you unlock your device permanently, provided your contract has already expired. AT&T customers still on contract may unlock their devices up to five times per year (for international travel purposes), as long as they don’t owe any past-due amount on their accounts, and have been a customer for 60 days or more.

Verizon sells all iPhone 5s unlocked, meaning you could take your device over to AT&T or T-Mobile without having to unlock the device. But other devices, like the Samsung Galaxy S3, are locked by Verizon. However, like AT&T, customers in good standing can request to to have their devices unlocked for international travel.

Sprint does not offer unlocked devices, but it will allow customers to unlock their devices for travel after three months with the carrier.

What happens if I unlock my device anyway?

We don’t know. You could potentially have your service cancelled,  you could be sued under the DMCA, a federal agent could bust down your door and confiscate your illegally unlocked device. (Probably not that last one.) But those are just guesses, so we’ll just have to wait and see. What is clear, however, is that the new DMCA rule gives the carriers better legal backing to take action if you do unlock your device while on contract without permission.

Have other questions about the unlocking rules? Ask in the comments below, and we’ll find an answer.

Desktops sales have slowed because manufacturers have let their designs stagnate, but the need for a comfortable machine you can work on hasn’t gone away. Who will reinvent the PC and reap the rewards?

Every other week, there seems to be story about the PC dying. This week, it was because Intel is planning on exiting the motherboard business. The screwy thing is, I think the exact opposite is about to happen. Not only is the desktop not dead, it’s about to go through a resurgence. We’re just waiting for that visionary vendor who realizes that bigger is still better, and this Lemming-like agreement that the desktop is dead is holding people back. Here’s why.

How we got here

We started off with desktop computers. The Apple II, Mac, IBM PCs, and even Commodore and Atari machines were all designed to mostly stay in one place. Our first portables were pretty ugly. My own first portable from Panasonic, called the Sr. Partner, weighed in around 35 pounds, and even had a built-in thermal printer and a plasma screen that displayed, wait for it, an amazing two colors. Both orange. These machines wouldn’t run on batteries, and were basically desktop computers with smaller, more limited screens, and handles for lugging them around.

We then moved to laptops, and even early tablets, but the laptop form factor held. They had batteries, but two hours on battery was often a stretch. Best of that early lot was the IBM Butterfly laptop, which showcased both the promise and the problem. It was wonderfully portable, but slow as snot.

Laptops didn’t become truly viable until the beginning of the last decade, and desktop computers have started to fall off in popularity since then. But laptops were still smaller, slower, and really just portable desktops. Tablets were basically expensive laptops with or without keyboards, and not very popular.

Now jump ahead to the iPad. Suddenly tablets are the thing, and laptops began to emulate them. They’re very light, reasonably fast, but with ever smaller screens and tinier keyboards, which are often touch based. Yes, we’re now far more mobile, but far less productive.

We’re trained to think that this process is evolutionary, that desktops gave way to laptops, which give way to tablets. But that’s like saying four-door sedans gave way to two-door sedans, which gave way to Mazda Miatas. You can’t live off a cell phone or a 7-inch tablet, yet that’s where the market seems to think evolution is taking us. With a large cell phone or small tablet, you don’t need a laptop as much when you are mobile, so if anything, laptops might be more ripe for replacement. The powerful, productive desktop still has a role to play.

We need a new desktop

Back in the 80s, people speculated that personal computers were about to kill the mainframe. Yet here, 30 years later, it is IBM’s most profitable line. But it isn’t the same mainframe we knew back then, the product had to be updated to address today’s needs. If IBM hadn’t done that, it would have died years ago as predicted.

That will be challenge for desktops. Because of the perception that desktops are dead, few manufacturers are making major efforts to update them. Case design stopped advancing about 10 years ago, and while external skins keep changing, the tower and mini-tower, which form the backbone of this segment, have stagnated. These designs are arguably better than all-in-ones because they are more flexible, they can more easily be updated, and they can address more and different sizes of screens more aggressively. With monitors, bigger is always better, unless you have to carry them.

In addition to upgrading the designs, the ecosystem really needs to aggressively create a “better together” solution with tablets. Ideally when you grab your tablet or smartphone and leave your desktop, whatever it was you were working with goes with you until you can once again get back to a bigger machine. Technologies like OnLive desktop, Windows To Go, Skydrive, Office 365 and others will sort of get you there, but they need to be packaged and presented better. Desktops should offer an experience very similar to what you get with books on multiple Kindle readers and apps today; it doesn’t matter which device you grab, not only is your book on it, it’s opened to right where you left off.

Wanted: Desktop visionary

Lenovo is likely one of the companies likely to figure out that desktops are still viable – and give them the reinvention they need. The company’s 27-inch table-top all-in-one was arguably one of the most innovative PCs at CES 2013, and it was a desktop PC (even though it had a short-term battery).

Even Vizio, which seemed to get this “better together” concept early on, isn’t executing it with PCs and tablets. I’m kind of surprised at this, since PC vendors are fighting on foreign terrain with tablets, and this strategy would let them bring the battle back to their own turf. A next-generation desktop PC designed to pair perfectly with tablets and smartphones could shift the advantage back their way… if they would build it.

I think someone will figure this out eventually, much as IBM did with the mainframe, but I also think we’ll be sorry it took them so long. I’m imagining a desktop that’s small, fast, with lots of capacity, a large 4K display, and a high-speed tablet sync connection.

Guest contributor Rob Enderle is the founder and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, and one of the most frequently quoted tech pundits in the world. Opinion pieces denote the opinions of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Digital Trends.

Definitely a cool product for anyone that’s into home automation, the Almond+ touchscreen router provides a ton of control options and fast Wi-Fi speeds.

After launching on Kickstarter this week and raising over 60 percent of the funding goal over the past two days, Securifi’s Almond+ touchscreen router and smart hub is drawing significant attention from fans of the original Almond touchscreen router and range extender. The first generation Almond continues to receive a plethora of stellar reviews, specifically due to the simplicity of setting up the device as a wireless N router in addition to the device’s ability to significantly extend the range of a home’s existing wireless network. 

Building on the success of the first generation model, the Almond+ adds support for the new 802.11ac 1.17Gb/s standard. As new mobile hardware from Apple, Samsung and other manufacturers launch with 802.11ac device support, Almond+ users will be able to take advantage of faster wireless speeds for consuming bandwidth-heavy content like high definition video streaming over serviced like Netflix or Vudu. Of course, the Almond+ also supports the wireless N standard and comes with the typical four Gigabit Ethernet ports for wired connections. 

In addition to 802.11ac support, the Almond+ includes the ability to interact with home automation technology developed by Zigbee and Z-Wave. The Almond+ acts as a delivery system for notifications in addition to providing controls for specific functions within a smart home. For instance, if a front or rear door of a home is equipped with a door sensor, the Almond+ can trigger a notification that’s sent to your smartphone letting you know that the door has been opened or closed. Other features demonstrated at CES 2013 recently include the ability to dim room lighting and control a home’s temperature by using the Almond+ 2.8-inch TFT touchscreen. Basically, this eliminates the cost of a $120 smart hub from Zigbee or Z-Wave as well as the cost of a touchscreen tablet. 

Regarding design, the Almond+ definitely has more of a minimal look when compared to the original Almond router. The Almond+ device can be wall mounted or propped up on a table with the included stand.

The Almond+ will be released in five different colors for Kickstarter backers including black, pearl white, sky blue, green and red. Internally, the Almond+ is powered by 620MHz Processor and 128MB of RAM. The team plans to support for iOS and Android mobile devices at launch. 

While all Kickstarter projects come with a modicum of risk for investors, the risk of investing in the Almond+ is significantly reduced since this is a second generation product. In other words, Securifi has already experienced all the manufacturing issues that other Kickstarter project managers have to deal with to get their first generation product in the hands of early backers. The creators of the Pebble smartwatch, for instance, had to postpone the original launch of that product due to many manufacturing problems.

According to the details on the Kickstarter page, Securifi will likely go through a couple more design revisions in the coming months. However, company management seems confident in both the manufacturer and the supply chain in regards to the product launch. The black version of the Almond+ is priced at $99 while the remaining four colors are priced at $129. Securifi expects to ship the final version to Kickstarter backers by September 2013. 

Dennis Rodman and Shaquille O’Neal have their very own mobile games. We have a feeling they are just the first of many who will join the wave of athletes finding relevancy in apps. We’ve got a few suggestions for who the next pro athlete turned pro game characters should be.

Athletes are, by default, also entrepreneurs. Why? Because they need a backup plan. You can only push your body to perform ridiculous feats for so long before it begins to break down. Lucky for most athletes, money is delivered in piles while they’re playing. But what do they do with all that money after playing with a ball all day? For far too many athletes, the answer to that question is, “Blow it on extravagant cars and houses, then file for bankruptcy,” which isn’t exactly a good answer.

Shaquille O’Neal and Dennis Rodman, however, have a different idea. Both of these basketball stars have found leading roles in their own iOS games. Rodman stuck to what he knows, starring in a free throw game and the upcoming Big Win Basketball title from Hothead Games. Shaq reprised his role from Shaq Fu with ShaqDown, acting as a martial arts master version of himself in which he’s bulging with muscles as opposed to the fat he’s acquired in his post-NBA life. This got us thinking: What other formerly relevant athletes could use a little profile boost from a mobile game?

Brett Favre’s Quest to Lose Respect

If you look at Brett Favre’s career from his college years to 2007, it’s a story of triumph, redemption, and overcoming great struggles. He was an improbable star who came off the bench when the Packers starting quarterback, Dan Majkowski, got injured and never relinquished the role. He overcame an addiction to painkillers and led his team to a Super Bowl. His career ended on a low note with a playoff loss, but he went out a competitor. But it’s 2007-2010 that would be the focus of this never-ending runner style game.

Here’s the idea: Players start with his exit from Green Bay and trade to the New York Jets, where he struggled before retiring and returning again to the loathed Minnesota Viking. Then you collect things like arrant interceptions, inappropriate pictures sent to attractive women, and the crocodile tears that come with every retirement announcement as you try to help Favre distance himself as far as he possibly can from the positive legacy he could have had.

Barry Bond’s Baseball RPG

Role-playing games are all about personal advancement. You better your character by performing certain tasks, gaining experience, collecting items that are beneficial to you, and upgrading yourself in every way possible. It’s the almost a perfect parallel to the career of a professional athlete. Moving up from the minors to the pros is like leveling up. Taking batting practice can help you acquire a new ability, just like a character in an RPG would learn a new skill. Interacting with players and coaches can improve your relationships and might reveal beneficial information.

Here’s the idea: All of the RPG elements above would be present in the Barry Bonds branded baseball RPG, except there would be in-app purchases for steroids and human growth hormone that will max out every stat of your character. It’ll also make your head huge, but that’s the price you pay for smacking every ball thrown at you out of the park.

Latrell Sprewell’s Don’t Choke

More than almost any other major sport, basketball can be as much of a one-man game as it can be team oriented. Sure, there’s almost nothing better than watching a team perfectly execute a strategy that covers the squads’ weaknesses while effectively taking advantage of all its strengths. But if there’s one thing just as fun to see, it’s the one man show when a player absolutely goes off, hits every shot, and carries a team to victory.

Here’s the idea: In Latrell Sprewell’s game, it’s all about teamwork. You’ll play asynchronously as you’re tasked with working together with friends to accomplish a common goal – until one of them speaks up with a strategy. Then you get to choke them, knocking them out for a turn during which you get to do whatever you want. Why? Because you’re Latrell Sprewell and you put spinning rims on shoes, that’s why.

Wayne Gretzky’s Tower Defense featuring Paulina Gretzky

Here’s a little known fact about Wayne Gretzky: Though his scoring prowess is often touted, equally impressive is the number of assists the Great One accumulated over the course of his career. He set the NHL record for most assists to go along with his scoring, points, and hat trick records. The man did almost everything on the ice. The one task he never did tackle was goaltending. Unfortunately for Wayne, that’s pretty much exactly what he’ll be tasked with in his mobile game debut.

Here’s the idea: In this tower defense style game, the Great One will have to play some solid defense to keep the perverted gazes and grabby hands of the ever-eager Internet audience away from his daughter Paulina. She’s become a bit of an entity on Twitter and Instagram, getting lots of attention that has very little to do with her relation to Wayne Gretzky. Pick up the pads and keep the creeps of the world wide web from going five-hole.

Find David Beckham’s Shirt

David Beckham is a worldwide phenomenon. His fame on the soccer field is equally matched by his fame off of it. It could be his high profile stature as a star of the world’s favorite sport, or his marriage to one of the Spice Girls, or the fact that he’s a rather attractive gentleman in his own right. No matter how you look at it, any guy who gets a movie named after him and isn’t even in the movie is clearly well known. But where is David Beckham’s shirt? The man can often be found with absolutely no cloth on his upper body.

Here’s the idea: How does Beckham keep losing his shirt? That’s up to you to discover in this mystery game in the style of Where’s Waldo? See if you can spot Beckham’s jersey across various levels. The final levels are extremely tough and will require you to find Beckham’s old Manchester United kit in a stadium full of rabid Man U fans. The first levels though, just require you to find it in a totally empty LA Galaxy arena.

The PC release of Resident Evil 6 will be the biggest and best version of the game to date, though it will also still feature almost all of the things fans hated about the game’s original incarnation.

When Capcom released Resident Evil 6 on the the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 last October, the company seemed confident that it would be yet another massive hit. The Resident Evil games have always been beloved by fans and have perennially done well at retail, so it stands to reason that Resident Evil 6 would continue that trend. The only thing that could cause a new entry in an established franchise like this to fail would be a huge number of baffling design choices or a near-complete ignorance of what made its predecessors so successful. Unfortunately, as our review points out, that’s exactly what went into Resident Evil 6, and almost immediately following the game’s debut it was branded a failure.

Hoping to somehow salvage the game’s fortunes, Capcom has spent the months since its release coming up with new schemes to draw potential gamers to the title. New multiplayer modes, extra characters; anything that could possibly qualify as downloadable content has seemingly been created for Resident Evil 6, though as the game’s sales figures demonstrate, it’s probably long past time for Capcom to simply cut its losses.

Don’t tell Capcom that though, as the publisher is still hoping against hope that it can somehow strike gold with some incarnation of Resident Evil 6. Its final hope may be the game’s PC version, which is scheduled for release on March 22. Instead of merely bringing the console game to home computers with improved resolutions and pretty new graphical effects, Capcom is also promising fans a number of PC-exclusive features (at least for now).

If you purchase the PC version of Resident Evil 6, not only will you instantly have access to all of the downloadable content additions created for the console versions of the game to date, you’ll also receive access to a new Mercenaries mode dubbed Mercenaries: No Mercy. “[Mercenaries: No Mercy] takes fan favorite The Mercenaries and ramps up the gameplay to 11,” reads Capcom’s official announcement. “More enemies on screen than ever before will provide a greater challenge, but also the opportunity for players to use their skills to rack up even higher combo scores.”

Further, shortly after the game’s release, PC users will also be able to enjoy a mode called “Siege” that Capcom describes thusly:

An online multiplayer mode for two to six players, Siege sees a lone AI-controlled rookie BSAA agent in trouble and in need of help. Players will split into two teams with one assuming control of enemy creatures who are trying to take down the rookie, while the other team selects playable characters from the main game and must keep him alive. Each game consists of two rounds with teams switching between the human and enemy roles. The human team wins a round if the BSAA agent survives, while the enemies win if they can defeat him.

Siege will also be coming to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, while PC gamers get the mode for free, console owners will need to shell out $4 for Siege.

Capcom also revealed that henceforth any DLC content released for the console versions of Resident Evil 6 will also be available for the PC game, and all future console DLC will be free to PC players. Consider it Capcom’s mea culpa for forcing PC players to wait six months for Resident Evil 6.