Best computer news

Got a potential laptop theft problem (and really, who doesn’t)? You’ll need some sort of lock – a solid piece of steel with a rubber-wrapped steel cable that’ll foil a potential thief long enough for you to come back, interrupt their deviltry and brain them over the head with a metal pipe. Of course, if you’re away from your computer for a while and someone particularly stealthy and resourceful breaks in, a lock may not be enough: you’ll need an alarm, too, or so Belkin would like you to believe. Their F5L013 USB Laptop Security Alarm breaks the standard lock mold by basing their security system around what appears to be a solid lock-like base with an alarm system and a USB cable. Cut or disconnect the USB cable and the alarm goes off until you insert a key into the base.

We have a feeling this alarm won’t be particularly effective unless someone tries to steal you’re computer when you’re nearby – or have a particularly conscientious neighbor – but since it’s USB based, we have to wonder: can you change the default alarm with tones of your own? We think “Step away from the computer! You are too close to the computer!” might be a good option to try.
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Somewhere out there are engineers who suffer from extreme cold while at their desks – how else to explain the slew of USB-based warming products – and they’re clearly not going to rest until they come up with enough products to cover the entire body. The latest and greatest: the Hotpad, from Thanko, the people who brought you the USB Heating Slippers. The Hotpad makes use of the same technology as its USB-powered heating brethren, but unlike other USB heating products, the Hotpad is (slightly) adaptable, in that you can use its Velcro technology to strap the Hotpad around your back or your shoulder!

Actually, as USB heating products, we’re actually pretty impressed with the concept of the Hotpad: many people who sit in front of a computer all day suffer from aching shoulders and lower backs thanks to poor posture, and the Hotpad might well relieve some of the stress with its electrically-generated heat.
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External hard drives traditionally provide data security against hardware failures, software viruses, and maybe theft if you encrypt your data. However, in face of threats like fire and flood, these storage solutions don’t really stand a chance.

Sentry Group has teamed up with Maxtor to develop the first ever fire resistant and waterproof USB hard drive that is especially designed to survive in a fire up to 1550F degrees for 30 minutes and underwater for up to 24 hours. Sentry took care of the physical protection, while Maxtor provided the drive and backup software against fatal crash and trojan horse attack. The bundled software is called SafetyDrill – a new bare metal system restore feature allows for a nearly instantaneous restoration of an entire system. This is definitely too cool to miss, even if the MSRP is set at $259.99 for 80GB and $319.99 for 160GB.

If you don’t feel like getting an integrated solution, Sentry also offers a $520 safe with a USB pass-through and storage for over a hundred CD/DVDs, probably some flash drives and documents.
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Spend too much time text messaging on your cellphone and now having problems typing properly on a standard QWERT keyboard? The Cre8txt may help you make with the transition. It is technically a USB keypad with all the keys you would traditionally find on a cellphone. There are dedicated buttons for login, copy, paste in addition to the alphabets on top of each the number keys.

What’s so unique about the Cre8txt is the bundled software that can translate the corrupted cellphone language back into proper English. The keypad itself will cost you $105 while the crown jewel – the translation piece – is asking for an additional $85. I couldn’t find another product that is even remotely related to this, so there’s nothing really compare with.
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It appears someone has stumbled upon on a MS filing to FCC of an update to the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000. The current shipping version has been out long enough. The leaked pics show both finger and thumb grooves removed. Every surface is also smoothed from end to end. According to iStartedSomething, the thumb inset is now much deeper with the thumb buttons now streamlined. It’s hard to tell whether these are improvements or a step back. My guess is that we will find out later in Las Vegas CES 2008 as all these stuff usually make an appearance around that time of the year.
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You have seen one or two digital scribe pens; the sole function of these products is just to capture whatever you wrote and convert them into some graphics format or editable text for Word. The Livescribe is another thing altogether. In addition to digitalizing your handwriting, the Livescribe also links the audio with jotted notes. Then, when you tap on your notes, you hear what was recorded during that moment.

This killer app is what the company calls “Paper Relay”. In their own owrds, when taking notes during a discussion or lecture, the smartpen records the conversation and digitizes the handwriting, automatically synching the ink and audio. More apps can be downloaded from the website. One particular that attracted our attention is the Livescribe’s ability to interpret the math formula one writes down, to calculate, and to give the answer in audible form or on the pen’s OLED display. For $200, you can get yourself this super pen in time for X’mas.
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Digital photo albums are all the rage, so it’s no surprise that someone finally put one in a Christmas ornament: the Santa’s Slide Show Ornament from firstSTREET displays up to 50 photos on a color 1.5-inch LCD screen housed in a red ornament ball. The ornament, which you can either mount on a Christmas tree or display on a small stand (which makes it look a bit like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey) connects to your computer via the included USB cord and comes with software to help you transfer your photos to the ornament’s memory system. The ornament can freeze on individual images, or display them all in a slideshow.

One thing that surprised us: the $34.95 asking price doesn’t get you any sort of rechargeable battery, or any battery at all: the ornament requires two AAA batteries, not included (oh, the Christmas Day woes!). For that price, we’d expect some sort of USB-powered charging system, and maybe some indication of how many pictures those AAA batteries are supposed to display.
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Nostalgia-loving detail-obsessed electronics company Crosley’s newest old-is-new product puts the company in the odd world of USB turntables, where old technology (vinyl) meets new (digital audio) in an uneasy balance of (for the collector) the lesser of two evils. The new product, the oh-so-appropriately named Keepsake USB Turntable, follows the standard for USB turntables: three-speed motor powering a standard record player that happens to have a digital to analog converter with a USB output. Connect the turntable to your computer with a cable, use the included (and unnamed) recording software, and voila! Instant digital recording.

What makes Crosley’s different is the housing: while other companies try to go for the youth or DJ markets with modern styling and LEDs, the Keepsake USB Turntable looks firmly towards the past – about 60 years ago, from the looks of its metal-cornered wood box housing, resin and metal handle, and built in stereo speakers. Stereo components? RCA outputs? In my day, young man, we didn’t have fancy RCA outputs. We had our USB port and our stereo speakers and we liked it!

Want to see what we think makes a good USB turntable? Check out our reviews of the ION TTUSB10 and Stanton T.90.
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Unless you’re prepared to lay out a significant chunk of change for a higher-end laptop with a brand-name sound card, chances are your mobile computing solution has the hardware to play sounds and music, but offers nothing particularly interesting: no equalizations options, no digital signal processing, and no surround sound. To put it in another context: you’ll have no problem playing the audio on your presentation, but won’t be able to make the DVD you’re watching truly immersive.

Solving the problem can be as simple as adding an external soundcard, but the key is for that extra piece of equipment to both feature-rich and lightweight so it’s easy to carry. Enter the ASUS Xonar U1 Audio Station, a USB sound module that weighs about two pounds and supports a whole group of digital processing features. Could it be the external soundcard you need? Let’s find out.
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Elecom has a PASS or Password Authentication Security System that uses a different sort of method to keep your data safe. The name sounds like the drive uses a password to secure your data, which is does not. The security method the drive uses allows you to specify which computers can see the data on the drive.

If you lose the PASS drive and someone plugs it into a non-authorized computer the data is unreadable. Currently no price is listed for the drives and availability is unknown. Storage capacity is up to 16GB. Supported operating systems include Windows and Mac. You can also see from the photo that the drive will be available in black, silver, blue and white.
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