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Protecting yourself against harmful and life threatening viruses, its best to choose the antivirus by brand name. But each Antivirus download that you can find on the internet is dependent on what is most important to the user in terms of variables. Some are more dedicated to filtering through malware and spyware; some systems pride themselves on being the most reliable, or adaptable to the constant change of cyberspace gunk that's floating around. So with all these choices, how're we supposed to know which program is suited to our professional needs? We hope to address those concerns and point the potential onlooker in the right direction for a potential download, or perhaps full-on purchase of the bundled software. For the moment we'll be looking at Avast! and AVG which are both free antivirus downloads available for your computer on reliable online websites. Avast! Free Antivirus Software: The Basics Chances are if you're looking to get in on the ground floor to check if Avast! is right for you, then you'll be looking into the coverage that the free antivirus download is going to offer. Avast! is ranked as one of the top antivirus programs in the market with 17% of users in the entire market share of protection services. Which is pretty far up there with McAfee, Bitdefender, and other potential competition. AVG Antivirus Software: The Basics In comparison to Avast! the folks at AVG are a little behind in their numbers at 170 million+ having entrusted their computer's health to the program. But the software itself is secure and accessible on their website. AVG have won an array of awards for their antivirus software, and can be considered a lively competitor to Avast! and other protection bundles.

3D printing continues to be a global spectacle in 2014, making appearances from Las Vegas during International CES and Barcelona during Mobile World Congress. With the 3D printing industry predicted to reach $10.8 billion by 2021, many are asking how it will change the future of the consumer landscape, much like MP3 players and iPods transformed the music industry. While the answers may not be obvious, there are a number of ways 3D printing will impact the daily lives of consumers in years to come. Opening the door to customization A major appeal to everyday consumers is how 3D printing opens the entryway to customization. From custom jewelry to food, the possibilities when using a 3D printer are endless. As 3D printers become more accessible over time, so will the ability to print items that are extremely personalized and tailored to each user. If we think about most of the products we buy, they are commoditized in some way for the average person; jeans are a certain length and cabinet handles come in standardized sizes. 3D printing allows consumers to create items exactly the way they need or want them - ultimately, letting customers set their own parameters. Companies like Nokia and New Balance, for example, have taken to the 3D printing trend and now offer online services where consumers can customize their own 3D printed cell phone case or sneakers, respectively. Tech Reviews by The Corliss Group

It's a truth as universal as it is annoying; if you want all your devices to work with a specific keyboard, well, you'll probably need either one for each, sign on for precisely one device ecosystem, or get used to swiping in words. Travelers in particular are driven insane by this problem, so Logitech decided, quite cleverly, to solve it with the K480. Swiss Army Keyboard There are two problems with modern portable keyboards. The first is, as we noted, device compatibility. Ask anybody who's had to install drivers just to get a basic keyboard to work, the various device ecosystems out there don't play well with each other and seemingly want to drive you insane. Logitech solves this with some clever design. You can switch between three different places to send your words, so that regardless of whether you're all Apple, or a mix of Apple, Chrome, and Windows, you'll be able to use the keyboard and get the point across. Basically, if it uses Bluetooth, you're all set to type. At The Trough The second problem is keeping all your stuff organized; you've got your phone over here, your tablet over there, and your laptop in front of you… and many keyboards want to be docked solely at your tablet. How does Logitech solve this? Simple: It puts a trough at the top of the keyboard that can easily be used to stand up both your tablet and your phone, and to type away at both of them with ease. A Keyboard For The Multitasker Multitasking, or at least sorting through your various tasks properly, can be a profoundly annoying experience, and Logitech deserves credit for looking at how we actually use our gadgets and creating a keyboard that fits in with them. If that's something you need, it starts at just $50.

Technology stocks have never been the best friend of the equity income investor. Until the financial crisis struck in 2008, the yield on the MSCI Global Technology index remained resolutely below 1 per cent, with many tech companies simply not having the free cash flows to pay meaningful dividends. Those that did generally preferred to splurge on acquisitions as they chased market share in a frenetic land grab. And even after the global stock market sell-off briefly pushed yields above 2 per cent in late 2008 and early 2009, they sank back to little over 1 per cent in 2010. However, yields have since climbed back above 1.5 per cent and some equity income fund managers, at least, are starting to take note. "Traditionally, technology companies never really paid dividends, so we were unable to make investments, resulting in us being structurally underweight technology for a long time," says Nick Clay, co-manager of the £4bn Newton Global Higher Income fund. Tech Reviews by The Corliss Group

It weighs just 34 grams, is 72 x 35 x 12 mm in size, and costs only the $39: The Google Chromecast looks and feels like a USB flash drive with a glandular problem. Cheap, easy to set up and even easier to use, there's really nothing to dislike about the Google streaming device, except for one thing: Canadian content (which we will get to in a moment). The Chromecast is so small that once it's plugged into an HDMI port in the back of a television set, there's almost no indication that it's a part of your home theatre setup. Only its power cord, which can either be plugged into a wall socket or available USB port, gives a hint that it's even there. Unlike other streaming media devices like the Apple TV or Roku 3, Google Chromecast doesn't come with a remote control, or in fact, any onboard applications or content. Everything, from setting up the device to watching a video from your personal media collection or browsing YouTube, is done through the use of apps on an Android phone or tablet, iOS device or via Google Chrome browser on a Chrome OS, Windows or Mac PC. No matter which device you use with the Chromecast, setup is a cinch. Simply power the device, plug it into an available television HDMI port and follow the Chromecast's onscreen prompts. The device will walk you through the process of connecting it to a Wi-Fi network, pairing with your choice of source device and downloading any available firmware updates. Even with the lousy Internet speeds I suffered while testing the hardware in rural southwestern Ontario I was setup and ready to start streaming content to my Chromecast in under 10 minutes.

The way we navigate in cities has been revolutionized in the last few years by the advent of GPS mapping programs. Enter your start and end location and these will give you the shortest route from A to B. That's usually the best bet when driving, but walking is a different matter. Often, pedestrians want the quietest route or the most beautiful but if they turn to a mapping application, they'll get little help. That could change now thanks to the work of Daniele Quercia at Yahoo Labs in Barcelona, Spain, and a couple of pals. These guys have worked out how to measure the "beauty" of specific locations within cities and then designed an algorithm that automatically chooses a route between two locations in a way that maximizes the beauty along it. "The goal of this work is to automatically suggest routes that are not only short but also emotionally pleasant," they say. Quercia and co begin by creating a database of images of various parts of the center of London taken from Google Street View and Geograph, both of which have reasonably consistent standards of images. They then crowdsourced opinions about the beauty of each location using a website called UrbanGems.org. Each visitor to UrbanGems sees two photographs and chooses the one which shows the more beautiful location. That gives the team a crowdsourced opinion about the beauty of each location. They then plot each of these locations and their beauty score on a map which they use to provide directions. The idea here is that the user enters a start and end location and an algorithm then finds the most beautiful route, rather than the shortest one. It does this by searching through every possible route, adding the beauty scores for each and choosing the one that ranks highest.

Always Online The Anqor itself is fairly straightforward, as a device. It's about the size of a novelty paperback you get as a gift, and relatively light, although that's just the prototype; the end goal device is roughly the size of an iPhone. And it works relatively simply, as well; it connects to a 3G or 4G network in the area you're in, connects to up to ten of the devices you have handy, and we're off to the races. It's how it connects that's more interesting. SIMulated Card As we all know, to access a local mobile network, you need a SIM card, which is profoundly annoying. What the Anqor does is determine where you are, riffle through the company's library of SIM cards, upload the profile, and you're done. The tradeoff, of course, is that this doesn't come cheap. Global travelers looking for this convenience will be paying roughly $52 a month for the library, although you can pause a subscription at any time, and for just one country, it'll be a more reasonable $16 a month. Online Anywhere If you're a world traveler, you know from experience that you'll be running around juggling SIM cards anyway, so you may as well clean some of the clutter out of your life. And, if you never leave the country but your job requires constant Internet access, this might be worth it as well. The device, without data plan, will start at around $270 if you get in early on the Kickstarter.