In separate (but obviously related) news, Sony also announced that a firmware update for the PS3 would soon be released, giving their premier gaming platform (along with its Blu-ray DVD player) 3D compatibility as well.

So how will 3D TV work at home? Well, pretty much the same way it works in the theater. When we look at the world around us, our brain merges the information from both eyes to create one picture. The difference between the visual information from each eye is what allows our brain to computer as depth. So it’s a simple matter for a human to distinguish which items are near and far way.

Three-dimensional entertainment essentially tricks the brain into thinking that it is receiving slightly different images from each eye so that it will create depth in the image we see. That’s why you have to wear 3D glasses at the movie theater, with each lens a different color. The movie is then printed with two differently colored images on top of each other, and we’re fooled into thinking things are flying out at us.

So what does this mean for home systems. Unfortunately the glasses are going to be with us for a while longer. But they’ll be way more comfortable and stylish than the throwaway glasses we get handed at the box office. The two different colors will probably be replaced with a more complicated and more effective way of filtering the images and creating the sense of 3D.

The introduction of 3D televisions is still months away. But these recent moves by Sony signal that 3D is definitely on the way.

But you probably already know how difficult it is to have everyone gather around a laptop to watch something. The whole point of a laptop or notebook is to have something small and light. So there is usually not a huge screen for everyone to watch. And if you have a netbook, forget it. You might be able to share that video with one close friend.

Obviously the best solution is to connect your laptop to a TV. The laptop serves up content from the Internet, and the TV displays it so that everyone can see it. Hooking up your laptop to your TV will depend on what kind of outputs you have on the laptop and what kind of inputs you have on your TV or video receiver.

The kinds of inputs and outputs that will be avilable really depends a lot on the age of your laptop or television. If you have a brand-new fully loaded laptop, there’s a good chance it has an HDMI output. Pair that up with a brand-new flatscreen with HDMI inputs and all you will need is one of those very simple (but remarkably expensive) HDMI cables.

Your next best bet in terms of quality is S-video. Both S-video inputs and outputs are round black sockets with an arrangement of holes for the S-video plug pins. You can find S-video cables in many different stores, including the big discount stores like Wal-Mart or Target. The only problem with S-video is that it doesn’t contain audio information. If you want the audio to play through the television speakers you’ll have to get an additional plug for that. Unless you have stereo audio output on your laptop — which is unlikely — then you need to find a cable that goes from a stereo headphone plug to “RCA” plugs. RCA plugs are usually red for the right stereo channel and white for the left.

Some laptops might have an RCA video out, which will look pretty much like the yellow plug on the back of many old VCRs. That’s another way you can get the video to your TV. You’ll need an audio cable for this solution too.

Those are the basic options for connecting your laptop to a TV. There may be other ways, or sometimes you can mix and match. If you would like to share your solution or you are stuck with a combination you can’t figure out, leave a comment below.

GPS stands for Global Positioning System. Over the past couple of decades GPS has evolved from a military targeting and navigation system, to experimental gadgets for geeks, to an indispensable technology that has integrated itself into our daily lives.

Of course, it was only natural that GPS systems would become a part of navigating our way on the roads. Not that long ago, a road atlas could be found in every car. Remember those AAA Trip-Tiks (a custom-made strip map for your road trip)? Those items are a thing of the past as even the most basic four-wheelers have built-in navigation systems. Today’s high end auto GPS systems even route you around traffic jams and warn you of construction. Tomorrow’s systems will be talking to each other, with the GPS units in cars ahead of you signaling back to your car that they are slowing down ahead.

Of GPS isn’t always perfect. More than once I have sat idling next to an empty field while my GPS resolutely repeats “You have reached your destination.” Maybe the GPS units of the next generation could come with a camera so they could see what I see and maybe reconsider.

One of my favorite features on a GPS is probably one of the simplest. I like the arrival time display. Whenever someone at my destination begins to wonder when I will arrive and calls me on my cell phone, I can announce with a reasonable degree of certainty, “I will be there at 8:13!” I’ll admit I couldn’t do that without a map.

So I suppose these new-fangled gadgets are here to stay. In fact, they are well on their way to becoming standard equipment for trips of any length. Even if you believe you’d rather pass on this tech marvel, you should probably try it out. You may find that you enjoy having a little more direction in your life.

Come on, people. You can’t count on honesty and discretion of strangers today. Securing your wireless router is not difficult. Basically you can do three different things. Encrypt the communications to and from your router. Hide the ID of your router. And to be super safe, you can restrict access to specific computers or other devices. Let’s review just how simple this is.

For all of these adjustments to your router, you will need to log into the administration panel. If you’ve never logged in before, then there will be a default login and password. Each manufacturer and each router model tends to follow a different convention, so you may need to check the manual or look online.

Once you’ve signed into your router, the first thing you can do is add an encryption key. This option should be available under “wireless security” settings. You can choose a type of encryption (there are several, depending on the age of your router). Double-check to make sure your computer can use the same type. And make the password something difficult to guess. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be easy to remember. Think up something difficult and write it down somewhere.

Another easy security enhancement is to stop broadcasting the SSID of your router. The SSID is the name that identifies your wireless router. Again, it probably came with some default value from the factory. The thing you should do is change the SSID to something unique. Try to be creative: if your name is Bob, don’t name it “Bob’s Router.” Once you’ve changed the SSID, look for a check box to check or uncheck so that you no longer broadcast the SSID. That will keep casual hackers and nosy neighbors from even realizing the network exists.

Finally, if you want to go really hard-core, you can restrict access to specific devices. You do this my entering the “MAC” ID of each device that is allowed to connect. MAC stands for “media access control” and it is a unique code for each piece of hardware that has wireless capabilities. All you do is write down the MAC addresses of your laptops, smart phones and anything else that might connect to your wireless and enter them into the appropriate place in your router control panel. Then anyone else that wants to connect comes face to face with a virtual “bouncer.” If they ain’t on the list, they don’t get into the party.

There you go. Your wireless network is now nice and secure. The great thing is that after you get it set up, you shouldn’t have to mess with it much in the future. Don’t you wish everything could be like that?

So now their second computer is seriously in the dust when it comes to computing. Old everything, not enough memory, not enough disk space (who thought we’d need more than 500 megabytes?). We start talking upgrade, and again I get this “What!?! Are we going to have to buy one of these every few years?”

Well….yes. Never think of your computer as an asset. A computer in today’s world is designed to be used for a while, then trashed and replaced with the next level up. It just doesn’t sound right to people grounded in tradition, but there’s no real tradition for technological change that happens as fast as it does today.

So how do you decide which computer to buy next? Start by figuring out if you want a desktop, laptop or netbook. Desktops give you the most “bang for the buck” performance-wise. You can get faster processing, more storage and more memory for less money than any other configuration. But it has to stay at home. And plugged in.

A laptop is the middle ground in this scenario. Medium price, medium performance. You can take it with you, but it still might be heavy. The battery will last for a couple of hours, but you’ll need to plug in eventually.

Netbooks are the new thing, smaller than laptops. So-so performance in most cases. No drives for CDs or DVDs. But their tiny size makes them ultra-portable. Their ability to access the web means you can download most of the content you need. Of course, they’re great for updating Facebook and Twitter. And netbook batteries last from six to eight hours.

To be sure, there are other decisions involved in buying a new computer, but this is the most basic. Once you decide on size and portability, many of the following decisions will get easier. But don’t get too attached to whatever you buy, because…that’s right, in a few years you’ll be doing it again.

If your laptop is no longer working, or is much too old to keep pace with the demands of today’s software, the temptation is to throw the whole thing away. But don’t give up on your baby just yet. With a little transformation, your “laptop-formerly-known-as-useless” could turn out to be quite useful. Recently, TechRadar.com published an interesting piece about cool things to do with your laptop. Let’s take a look at some of their suggestions.

Believe it or not, you can salvage some of the components inside. This is an option you should reserve for laptops that are truly and finally dead. Start with the hard drive. Is it still working? Then you can have a “new” external hard drive (and also recover any files you may have lost in the death throes of your laptop). Purchase an external case for a 3.5 inch drive and your old laptop’s hard drive will plug right (usually). There may be a chance that it won’t fit-I’ve run into a few old IBM drives that are two thick for the enclosure. But guess what, it works without the enclosure too, although it does look a little Borg-ish. It’s a quick, easy and inexpensive route to an additional external drive.

Pull the memory cards out. They may be of no more use to you, but lots of people are always on the search for replacements for their broken laptops (broken less than yours, of course). Actually, there may be a few people farther behind the curve than your laptop and would love to upgrade their memory with your cards.

What about the optical drive? Do you fancy a new home theater computer? To fit with the living room décor, cases for media computers are usually thinner and require a slimline optical drive. Your salvaged laptop drive may be just the thing.

There you have it, at least three components that you can extract from your dead laptop and use to make something else, save some money, or even make money by selling them on eBay. Just don’t start throwing your laptop around to hasten its demise!

Let’s take a look at some tips that are easy to implement and may add up to an hour onto your average battery life.

Close programs you aren’t using. Better yet, never open them in the first place. The more programs you have running simultaneously, the harder your laptop’s components have to work. When they work hard, they use more power. Plus they eat up your system resources, slowing down your computing in general. Keep open just the applications you need and save the big power drainers until you’re plugged in again.

You would probably be surprised to know how many processes are running on your computer at any given time. Many of these processes are related to handy little items on your computer desktop that might be nice, but not worth the power drain when you want to maximize your battery. Start by removing some of the programs from the automatic start-up list.

If you are confident that you won’t stop a needed process, you can also remove some of the power hungry processes using task manager. Are you using wi-fi? If not, turn off the wireless radio on your computer. There’s no point in wasting watts just to look for a connection that’s not there or not needed. And if you’re not online or using a suspect USB stick, you can probably kill your virus protection as well. Just remember to turn it back on when you reconnect with the world.

Use a little common sense. If you are starting a business and will need to hit the ground running with your computer, then by all means, don’t sit in the airport lounge watching a movie or playing a graphics intensive game. Save that battery power for when you’ll really need it-your big presentation that lands you the next big client!

For the longest time, you could only compute at home. The desktop computer was everyone’s only option. A few portable (or transportable) computers came and went, but they were like carrying luggage. Reasonably well-performing laptops that you could actually carry began to proliferate in the mid to late 1990s. The IBM Thinkpad was a definite leader in this era. Over time, laptops actually grew in size and power to become true desktop replacements.

A funny thing happened at this point. People began complaining that their laptops were too heavy, too hot and ran short on battery power too quickly. Manufacturers responded by introducing the notebook computer. These new machines were lighter, lasted longer without being plugged in, and accomplished this with only a small sacrifice in performance (but a sacrifice nevertheless).

Not long ago, the mobile computing customer changed again. With the advent of socially interactive sites like Facebook and Twitter, people began wishing they could stay connected to the web pretty much all the time. Smartphones filled the gap for a while, but people wanted more. Enter the netbook.

The netbook is perfect for whipping out to update your Facebook page or post your Twitter updates. Widespread wi-fi and 4G networks make it possible to stay connected in most urban and suburban areas. However, if you think the netbook is something you want, you should not expect it to replace your laptop, notebook or desktop. The netbook is designed primarily for the ‘net (hence the name). So you’ll be getting a machine with a less powerful processor, no optical drives (CD or DVD), a much smaller screen and a really tiny keyboard.

As long as you know what you’re getting into, you may be perfectly happy with a netbook. Just remember it’s probably better to think of it as an oversized phone.

The backlight on my LCD lights up, but the screen looks blank. Sometimes when I press on the corner, I see some images.

This problem isn’t related to the inverter. If your display lights up-even without images-this means that the backlight lamp and inverter board are still working. Probably this is a failure in some of the connections on your screen controller board. A less likely cause could be a loose video connector on the back of your display.

My screen is a flickering rainbow all the time. I need to see my work, not a light show. (Everything looks fine on an external monitor.)

If the external video output works fine, then you have eliminated software, your video card and your motherboard as the cause. Otherwise, your external monitor would be garbled too. Possible causes for this colorful symptom include a faulty video cable, a loose video cable, a defective LCD panel, or a loose video card.

My screen randomly goes blank, usually when I use certain programs. The backlight is still on and an external monitor works fine.

Here’s what to try. Start with making sure you have the latest BIOS version for your laptop motherboard. You can find out by checking your manufacturer’s website. If that doesn’t fix your intermittent video problem, check the video cable connection both at the motherboard and the back of your LCD. If reconnecting or reseating this cable doesn’t work, the cable or your LCD is probably failing.

My display is a blank white screen. I replaced it and it is still blank white. External monitor is working OK.

When you replaced your LCD panel, did you replace the video cable too? If so, then you probably have some issue with your graphics card. Since this is probably integrated with the motherboard, it may be time to think about a new laptop.

Truecrypt – Why is it first on the list? It’s obvious. An easy-to-lose, multi-gig, unencrypted flash drive with your important data on it; is a high security risk. This app can help in keeping all your private stuff locked down safely.

Operator - I’ve never really been a fan of Opera, but if you want to browse on a public computer, you should use Operator. It has a built-in anonymous browsing feature to keep you safe. But, if you’re on a trusted computer, you may opt for Portable Firefox.

Pidgin – A useful app if you need a quick instant messaging

Filezilla - The portable version of Filezilla will keeps all your sites accessible from wherever you are.

CCleaner - When you are traveling, you may find a lot of computers that have gigabytes of useless temporary files and bloated registry. CCleaner can make short work of dumping tons of trash files and tidy up the registry.

Revo Uninstaller - It will purge the filth off sluggish computers by ridding them of unwanted programs. Revo is way more powerful than Windows’s add/remove feature, and its “hunter mode” quickly uproots stubborn apps.

Treesize Free - If you suddenly get a hard disk full warning. Treesize can make drive cleanup a snap by identifying unusually large folders.

CDBurner XP - Burning software tends to be big. CD Burner XP offers quick burning capability while using other PCs.

Screamer - Great for accessing internet radio streams

VDownloader - Sometimes we stumble across a totally amazing YouTube video. VDownloader will quickly download Youtube clips and support many popular video formats. It also saves audio clips as MP3.

Irfanview - A light but powerful app for picture viewing and basic editing (resize, rotate, crop, etc.).

VLC - An excellent portable media player that supports many video formats and does not require 3rd-party codecs.

Notepad++ - If the old Notepad is too simplistic and Microsoft Word is too big, then Notepad++ is a perfect option to get a powerful yet portable text editing capabilities. It comes with tons of nice features, like tabbed interface, syntax highlighting, macro recording, and much more.

Abiword - Some may choose OpenOffice, but you should pick Abiword if you use Google Docs and Zoho for out-of-office chores.

Foxit PDF Reader - It can be quite annoying when using a public PC and it doesn’t have a PDF viewer installed. Foxit is a light and powerful app for opening your PDFs.

Total Commander - Total Commander is an excellent tabbed, dual-pane Explorer replacement, it also supports all kinds of archive/compressed files. That eliminates the hassle of using two more apps just to handle file extraction and syncs. It also has basic text editor and FTP client features.

PStart - It gives you quick access to all the portable apps on your flash drive, and it creates a tray icon for quick access.