When I see the word "free" I'm always wondering what the catch is. Maybe this is it: Researchers at Purdue University have conducted a study in conjunction with Microsoft that showed in some cases up to 75% of an app's total energy consumption was spent on locating and powering up the app's third party advertising.

Back in October, we found out that the Nintendo 3DS's battery was going to be crappy. The exact amount of hours that the next Nintendo handheld would suck up was uncertain. Nintendo officially unveiled the numbers and it's not looking good.

A big gripe with netbooks you often hear is that they're too sluggish, especially when you're trying to do anything remotely taxing to the GPU — anything from playing a simple game to working with more advanced elements. Even with...