Best computer news

An uncertain economic outlook has already forced IT department to consider affordable upgrade options for HD video conferencing even if the virtual meeting tool is made to slash travel cost in the first place. Dedicated devices may cost upwards of $10,000, but USB cameras that rely on today’s duo core processing power to possess H.264 encoding can help lower cost. TANDBERG’s PrecisionHD USB Camera is such a device with a low price entry point yet streams HD video at 720p with 30fps. One of the more practical reasons for going hi-def is so you can see more people in the same screen as the aspect ratio is 16:9 widescreen. That way, the other party doesn’t have to rotate the camera during the session.

The PrecisionHD also includes built-in noise canceling mic and auto focus, the latter of which is found on even some $70 webcams nowadays. The USB camera additionally allows you to allocate the amount of bandwidth for the video, ranging from 600kbps to 1.5Mbps to unlimited. You’ll need 1.5Mbps for 720p. The PrecisionHD is designed from ground up to work with Office Communications Server 2007 so it should technically work out of the box.
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Fans of classic rock and hard core addicts of Guitar Hero can now show their pride at the office with the Fender Stratocaster USB Lamp made by Rabbit Tanaka out of Hong Kong. Part of a set of funky lumières, this 11″ tall desk lamp can really help you Rock N Roll all night with 6 ultra bright LEDs. While it’s not the weirdest USB light we’ve seen nor the dumbest it’s definitely in a league of its own.

Imported by The Knife Store, you can pick up the 11″ Fender or the Tony Montana Special the Scarface commemorative M-16 “Say hello to my little friend!” table lamp. Rabbit Tanaka also has a few other Kiss and Scarface themed decorative items but only the Fender has the ability to run off of raw PC power. So now you can revel over your Guitar Hero domination of your best friends while you are slaving away for the man. $19.99 at Amazon and available now.
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Targus, maker of useful computer and laptop accessories has never before been accused of being overly stylish. That all ends today. The Targus Chill Mat is a sleek aluminium grill notebook cooler mat designed to look at right at home cooling your unibody Mac laptop. It’ll do the job without looking like a UFO. A USB connection drives two quiet, high powered fans, which are positioned to line up with the heat centers of most Macs driving cooling winds up and onto your lovely machine.

The mat is slightly angled to make typing easier on your wrists reducing RSI complications. The bottom of the mat is covered with a breathable mesh to protect your desk surface from heat damage and your lap from sweating, and we all know how embarrassing that can be. The other big plus of this pad that it has been super-sized over other models to handle up to 17″ notebooks. You can get one now for $49.99 from the targus store to complete your chic coffee shop ensemble.
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Buffalo is a launching new series of SATA II SSD hard drive with an added bonus of mini USB interface for data transfer outside of computer in addition to its internal SATA interface. Buffalo’s SHD-NSUM series is about the 3rd to hit the retail market with a SATA+USB SSD but they are only the 2nd to actually enable the USB port to actually read the drive. The first, released by OCZ only allows for drive firmware updates. Buffalo currently produces quite a few nice flash memory based devices and this new model is likely to be of the same high quality. Unfortunately, their press release which is only available in Japanese seems to promise some new high speed technology but upon inspection of the fine print the “30% speed increase” promised is only for windows boot up times. Faster boot speeds is fairly standard across the board for SSD drives and 30% may actually fall a bit below par. The true difference that sets the Buffalo SHD-NSUM series apart is the inclusion of software that actually complements the use of this drive for migrating off of a HDD onto their SSD.

The new drive can be prepared and partitioned by Acronis Disk Director. Acronis True Image LE can then create restoration points onto external media for emergency restores to/from a USB drive. Acronis Migrate Easy will help migrate FAT16/32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP based installations from one machine to another. Acronis’ Drive Cleanser finishes the job by wiping and clearing data off of the original drive to international, government and military standards. The drives will be release in 3 sizes 32GB, 64GB and 128GB and will retail at $124, $217, $392 respectively. Watch for them in March 2009.
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The US’ Department of Defense is apparently working to recover all the utility that has been lost due to its November 25th ban on flash drives. The ban came after a few years of embarrassing misplacements of extremely sensitive data. Unfortunately, by that time the drives had worked themselves into the daily lives of many of the employees and enlisted men and women. The thumbdrives allowed them to carry tons of technical manuals around and complete work in the evening and bring it with them without having to tote around a laptop. Flash drives also proved resistant dust and sand, which brought them into wide use in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now troops are being forced to come up with clumsy workarounds like emailing large files around and repetitively burning CD-ROMs.

As justification for the extra work they were dishing back on their staff the Air Force is claiming that 80% of the worms and viruses on their networks. Some of the solutions that the military may be looking at are system based like port locking and disabling such features like autorun. Commercial products like the Ironkey secure USB hard drive with multilevel data protection or the few others that have entered the secure data market. These functions will become more and more important as portable flash storage media become more and more effluent.
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Samsung’s new CL5 9MP compact digital camera is taking a page from the phone industry’s playbook (see their own OmniaHD). The CL5 brings media player functionality to a traditionally all camera line. Doubling as a PMP, the hybrid camera can play MP3 files and movie files while you are on the go. Samsung hasn’t released too many details about the file formats the CL5 will support but we can at least count on H.264 for video standard MPEG layer 3 for audio. That should handle the majority of folks that aren’t slaved to some sort of DRM. Also unclear is how long the battery will last for video playback or MP3.

Packed with a 2.7″ LCD and 3x optical zoom, the CL5 also launches some interesting camera firsts in the camera arena as well. The Smart Album function will index your photos by date, color, balance, composition, lens settings and other aspects allowing for enhanced searching. This will come in very handy the first time you try and go looking for a digital picture you have taken but can’t quite remember the date. Another odd first is meant as a guide for the strangers you ask to snap a picture for you, the Frame Guide. You line up the picture without yourself in it, take the guide picture and a ghosted image is superimposed on the viewscreen to guide your helper to your desired result. Should hit stores in April and retail for around $260.
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The last few months have seen the fall of three of the pillars in the UWB (radio platform of Wireless USB) movement – Intel’s Ultrawideband Networking Operations (UNO), WiQuest, and most recently TZero. UNO’s demise, which was a pet project of parent Intel, has led many in the market to think that means that Intel was dropping UWB like a hot rock. “Not so!”, says Staccato CEO Marty Colombatto. Mr. Colombatto makes some very good points about supply and demand for UWB devices as well as pointing a very obvious finger at the current market in general.

To paraphrase, in a time when many companies are going bankrupt or closing their doors why would the closing of three of the many UWB fabless companies mean armageddon for UWB? He also draws very valid parallels to the trials of the early days of WiFi and Bluetooth. The same arguments could have been made for just about every emergent technology, one may rise, but many shall fall. His points being very valid and logical Marty then briefly uses his 15 minutes to sing the virtues of Staccato and how they have ‘The Right Stuff’ to get the technology to market especially with the competition disappearing. Best wishes but we’re cheering for them all. Competition breeds the best consumer solutions and prices. Apparently, Samsung is also a firm believer in Wireless USB as it announced earlier that it will produce its own WUSB System-on-chip – likely for practical reasons to guarantee steady supply of the chips.
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The ubiquitous USB charging interface makes its way into the cycling arena. While gas prices have stabilized for now the importance of human powered travel and greener forms of transportation continues to rise. NiteRider is releasing a bike light perfect the modern commuter or college student which should prove to be a bit more practical than other bike lights we’ve seen. The MiNewt Mini-USB is a versatile LED light source.

Weighing in at only 175 grams for bikers concerned with shaving weight, you can mount it practically anywhere with the included mounting hardware. This peddler friendly light runs off an internal Li-Ion battery and has a 3 hour run-time with a respectable 110 Lumen output. Due to the relatively low power output of the USB port, it will take more than 4 hours to fully recharge so make sure you give yourself enough time to restore your power before you head out into the dark. No word on price yet but if it falls in line with other models it will be between $100-$200.
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Canon seems to have optioned some Willy Wonka technology for shrinking down HD video recording into its latest super compact point-and-shoot. Several other camera makers are opting for HD video support, but this will be the first to bear the Canon name. The SX200 IS can take 720p video at 30fps in H.264 format. This is a much more popular format than other some others which will definitely make it easier to edit and publish. Recording can continue until a 4GB file size limit is reached which is roughly 29 minutes in HD mode. Video can be displayed using the including mini-HDMI cable on HDMI capable TV set.

On top of that, the PowerShot SX200 IS has included its normal gamut of best in class photo capturing features. On board picture editing allows for goofy color replacement tricks and a few other image manipulation novelties. Stitch Assistant will help pull panorama picture sets into a single wide-screen photo. Blink Detect takes face detection features one further and analyzes the photo post-shutter and lets you know that one of your subjects blinked giving you all notice that you need to re-shoot. The pop-up flash and 28mm – 12x optical zoom lens are the other primary features that make this a strong buy with an MSRP of $349.
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This week in Barcelona, the constituent members of the GSM Alliance announced jointly that they would no longer be releasing phones without a micro-USB connector for charging at least. Nokia, Motorola, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile, 3, Telefónica are among the key members of this group and represent an overwhelming majority of cell phone manufacturers in the modern world. In what must be a huge blow to accessory makers this agreement will be a huge boon for conservationists and customers who no longer have to throw away countless old chargers and other gear each time you upgrade your phone. This will lower the repurchase rate for low dollar peripherals, but may raise interest in long term and accordingly more expensive accessories.

This resolution was preceded by a similar group composed of power brokers hoping to sell juice for cell phones and devices in public places. That group’s motives are more directly of financial to them so not really surprising. HTC chimed in shortly after the press conference agreeing to go along with the initiative. The only major player that hasn’t spoken up is Apple. While apple has made surprising efforts to stick to their own connector throughout the evolution of devices their market share makes them a necessary participant.
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