Best computer news

It’s only been a couple months since the HDC-SD1 started shipping. Now Panasonic is already revealing a minor update to its first flash-based HD camcorder. Panasonic with a large stake in SDHC is keeping it as storage media on the HDC-SD5. The revised tube-shaped pretty much has the same chassis and button layout including that barely practical joystick. It also retains the 2.7″ LCD touchscreen.

According to Camcorderinfo, the HDC-SD5 uses a even lower-res of CCDs than SD1; it is now equipped with 3 1/6″ CCDs with an effective count of 520k. The SD5 however pushes the res to 1920×1080 from the predecessor’s 1440×1080. Other changes include the drop of Dolby 5.1 surround in favor of stereo; the use of 10x optical zoom instead of 12x on SD1; and Pre-rec that captures 3s of video preceding your push on the Record button (uh?). Another notable addition to the HDC-SD5 is its ability to burn AVCHD discs with the just-annnounced Panasonic VW-BN1 USB DVD burner.

The HDC-SD5 has a MSRP of $999.95, a $300 drop in comparison to the SD1 suggested pricing.
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If you are the type that likes to label everything in your environment the Casio USB Egg-shaped label printer is just for you. This printer connects to your PC via USB and prints to thermal paper. The printer comes with preset label templates to make getting started easier.

You can print in any language that you have TrueType fonts installed for on your computer. The maximum print width is 8mm and the print length is 50mm max. In addition to the driver CD the USB cable is also included. What isn’t clear to me from the description is if the labels made are self adhesive or if they are simply paper and you have to glue or tape them to surfaces. One roll of thermal paper is included; you might want to be sure you can get more paper in your area before you buy. The price for the device is $29.00.
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Road Warriors that do lots of number crunching know that entering numbers on a laptop is not conductive for productivity. You can take an external keyboard with you, but if it is big enough to have a number pad, it’s probably not that portable. A new mouse called the EzKey aims to make number crunching much easier and more portable.

The device is a combo of a normal mouse and a keypad, flip up the clear plastic cover and you have a number pad to use when entering numerical data flip it down and you have your mouse again. It doesn’t look like the most ergonomic mouse in the world and there is no word on the sensitivity of the mouse or what type of sensor it uses. Pricing and availability information are unknown at this time. I’m betting you won’t mistake the EzKEY for a quality mouse like the Logitech VX Nano.
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• The only thing cooler than the giant telescope being built 5000m up in the Chilean Andes to see some of the first galaxies in our universe is the giant vehicle built to take the parts for the telescope up the mountain. Gizmodo reports that this behemoth is 20m long, weighs 130 tonnes, and has 28 wheels. There must be a road going up to where the telescope is being built, this beast couldn’t make it up the side of a mountain with its girth.
• Appletvhacks is reporting that a hack is now available that allows Apple TV to work with external USB drives. With the most storage space you can get on an Apple TV unit being a bit sparse for some, this is great news.
• I4U News found a $20 iPhone battery replacement kit that seems to overlook the fact that all the iPhone’s are still under warranty. It sells for $20, but beware it seems soldering might be required, perhaps that $80 odd bucks Apple wants to replace a battery isn’t so bad.
• If you are into soccer and impressing the kids a guy by the name of Aleksei R. Stevens has invented a Bluetooth soccer ball. Crave says that when you kick, spin or bounce the ball the Bluetooth connectivity sends different sounds to a nearby computer.
• ExtremeTech is reporting that the giant 20” laptop called the HP HDX that was shown off at CES last year is finally available. Be sure you check with your doctor and start a workout program before you buy one of these monsters. Carrying it around will be quite a workout.

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The Clique Hue HD webcam is certainly unique with the cam sitting on a long stalk. This means that you can use it with a notebook and get the camera at face level easily. The cam doesn’t exactly live up to the HD part of it’s name with a 1280 x 1024 video resolution, but lets face it that resolution is more than enough for most web needs.

As you can see from the image there are several colors available so you don’t have to stick to plain black or silver that most web cam makers prefer to use like Logitech. The sensor itself is a 1.3MP and a built-in mic with nose reduction tech makes video chats easy. If you record at the full 1280×1024 you will only get a pathetic 10 fps, you have to drop down to a resolution of 1024 x 768 to get full motion 30 fps video.
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If you are really concerned how your office or cubicle smells and want something small and compact to make it smell better, a USB thumb oil burner will do the trick. You plug this flash drive sized oil burner into your USB port and put your fragrance oil into the little oil compartment.

Once loaded up with oil you plug it in and wait for the foul stench of your office to be replaced the smell of roses. The oil burner weighs 5g and measures in at 66 x 22 x 7mm. You can get two colors, rose red and peppermint green. Pricing for the device is $7.00. I’m not sure I’d want hot oil that close to my PC personally. Plug this thing into your laptop and forget about it once and you are in for some serious problems if that oil gets inside your computer.
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Brando has a couple new and colorful USB hubs that both carry the Chromatic Hub name. The difference in the two of them is the shape that the hubs have, one is a square and the other is a circle design. The square hub is a bit snake like and can be bent and manipulated into different shapes and designs.

The circle hub is just a straight line of circles. Each hub has four USB 2.0 ports and requires no AC adapter. The circle hub measures in at 142×35x17mm the square hub measures in at 200×40x11mm. All for USB ports are on the top of the circle hub, while the square USB hub has two ports on each side. Pricing for each hub is $12 and they are available now.
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Desktop drives have exploded in density with capacities up to 1 terabyte now, but until recently the 2.5″ portable hard drive segment has been relatively quiet. Thanks to perpendicular recording technologies however, we’re finally seeing pocket drives break the 120GB barrier. Today we’re taking a look at Toshiba’s 200GB USB 2.0 External Portable Hard Drive, featuring set-and-forget backup software for Mac and Windows users alike.
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If there’s something that the pricey UMPCs is missing, it’s an optical drive. You can of course rip the CDs and mount them as virtual partitions, or you can shell out for a slim external DVD writer. Besides these options, Plxtech offers another alternative.

Its nifty USB Duet EZ-Dock technology allows UMPCs to take control of the USB peripherals on the host PC through you-know-what cable. Additionally, you can send the mirrored desktop screen on the desktop’s big LCD monitor as an external display. This docking feature also allows you to share the desktop’s keyboard and mouse to control the UMPC.

Through the same USB connection, you can establish Internet sharing as well as data synchronization. Don’t get too excited as we haven’t seen any UMPC manufacturers adopting this technology just yet. Perhaps next time you spot a female-B port on a UMPC, Plxtech Duet EZ-Dock might be already enabled on the unit. Video demo after the jump.
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Some road warriors are torn between getting a notebook’s friendly ExpressCard HSDPA adapter and a universally compatible USB equivalent. The USB offers compatibility for both desktops & laptops while the ExpressCard can fit snugly inside the slot on a notebook without inherent risk of bending or breaking like a USB dongle.

To kill two birds with one stone, here’s a USB 2.0 to USB 2.0 Mode ExpressCard Adapter even though their marketeer needs a lesson on naming their products. The MicroU2E from Syncrotech allows use of USB-based ExpressCards with USB ports, which unleash the hidden interface in many these cards. They are mostly memory adapters, 3G modems, WiMax, serial converters and SSDs. SIIG has a similar product but we prefer the $38 Synchrotech for its nifty packaging.
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