The Download Blog

Microsoft has revamped Bing search on Windows Phone 8, adding features that have been available on the Bing search apps for Android and iOS for the last few weeks. The company announced the changes in a post on the Bing Search blog Monday.

Windows Phone 8 devices come with Bing already baked into the operating system, usually accessible from a search button on the phone. Originally, when you ran a search and swiped left or right, you would see four categories of search results: web, local, media, and shopping.

Bing has condensed those categories to just Web, images, and video, … Read more

Google's Chrome Canary -- a browser version that's available, but still under development -- is adding touch-friendly features to the software, according to The Verge.

The browser now includes a slide-to-navigate option that will allow users to swipe across the display to either go forward or back. Like mobile operating systems, swiping to the left in Chrome Canary takes users to the next page, while swiping to the right will take them to a previous page.

In addition, the browser comes with an "enable pinch scale" option that lets users pinch their fingers together on the … Read more

While Def Con packs more events, workshops, and contests than the storage space of a ZIP drive, one of the longest lasting traditions revolves around the mysteries of the conference badge, itself.

This year, Def Con celebrates its 21st birthday with a card-themed cryptographic challenge based on the standard playing card deck -- except this is no ordinary card deck.

Attendees of Def Con 21 are all given custom badges, which are actually elegantly fabricated PCB boards complete with delicately carved copper contact points, mathematical constants, binary numbers, Chinese characters, and more.

In an improved and renewed focus on social … Read more

With its full-HD screen, upgraded processor, and Open GL ES 3.0 support, the new Nexus 7 tablet is a beast when it comes to running games, specifically those with rich graphics. It handles lens flares, shadows, and other shader effects with ease, and its blacks and colors show up significantly deeper than those on the previous Nexus 7. With these things in mind, I've put together a list of graphics-heavy games to showcase the new tablet's impressive capabilities. Of course, games with such high-level visuals often come at premium, but in my opinion, these are all worth … Read more

Linkin Park embraced the digital age early on. Even prior to changing the spelling of their name (because LincolnPark.com was already taken), founding members promoted their music in online chat rooms when most bands were still relying on street teams.

The eventually Grammy-winning, chart-topping alternative band, best known for such hits as "In the End," "Numb," "Breaking the Habit," "What I've Done," and "New Divide," has used MySpace to promote the "A Thousand Suns" album and has topped 1 billion views on YouTube. Linkin Park remains … Read more

As with previous years, attending DEF CON 21 means assuming the worst and accepting the risks that come with setting foot in Vegas the moment you get off the plane. Roaming among the largest gathering of hackers in the world means no one is safe. CNET's Seth Rosenblatt summed it up nicely: "The best way to avoid getting hacked at DEF CON is to not show up."

That said, here are some key suggestions for those attending:

1. Wi-Fi? Bluetooth? Keepin' it (un)real like its 1995.

Translation: Turn them off and pretend like they don't … Read more

There are many photo storage services available out there competing for the right to hold our digital memories. Apps like Instagram and Flickr were designed to make sharing photos online easier but were not specifically designed for private storage. Cloud depositories like Dropbox or Google Drive work amazingly well with documents and spreadsheets but not with images or movies. Loom comes onto the scene with a fantastic app to tackle a specific problem in a great way.

The Loom app automatically uploads all of your photos and videos from your iPad and iPhone to be shared interchangeably. The Web and … Read more

Technology, software in particular, has taken us places never thought imaginable. So it wasn't surprising when a conversation about apps took a turn into a deeper dialogue about art, childhood, and deep-seated insecurities. The aforementioned discussion took place between Download.com and Alex Karpovsky, in late July, in San Francisco, while he was on a promotional tour for his film "Red Flag," a smart satire about...a moviemaker (Alex Karpovsky) on a promotional tour (his 2008 film "Woodpecker," following a brutal breakup).

Karpovsky, best known for his role on the hit HBO series "Girls&… Read more

On Tuesday, McAfee updated its Mobile Security app (now called McAfee Antivirus & Security) for Android and added several new features that include custom profile setups, improved analysis of data exposure, and backup operations over Wi-Fi.

These updates are added on top of Mobile Security's Basic free tier features like mobile antivirus, anti-theft, and backup services. McAfee aims to protect their users through both preventative and post-catastrophic measures, with added security features in the Premium service.

According to Ari Jaaksi, McAfee's SVP of Mobile Engineering, "When consumers contemplate securing their smartphones and tablets, they often think in … Read more