Best computer news

We’ve seen more than our fair share of USB heated devices this winter, but this is the first 2.0 version come out. Apparently the heated USB slippers that came out a while back did so well that Thanko has released a new and improved version. These new little piggy warmers one-up the old ones in 2 key ways: first, the slippers are actually that, individual slippers, the feet heaters we reviewed were one single foot holder, one unit that held both feet together. Secondly, they include a pair of lithium batteries that allow your 2 disconnected fuzzy feet to be heated while disconnected from your computer. They can still run off of USB power but they are still charging while they are connected.

Sadly it takes about 16 hours of charge time to get 2 hours of heat from the included batteries but they’ve at least included an LED system to tell you where you are at in the charging process. Now these aren’t exactly fitted so don’t expect to be able to run around the house or office with them but they should allow you more range of motion than other comparable products. Let’s just hope the added range of motion isn’t increased by turning your feet into grenades and rocket-jumping via exploding lithium batteries. Wear some asbestos socks while warming your toes, you know, just to be safe.
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Violet, the company who’s been toying with Internet enabled devices for quite a while now continues to expand the functionality of its already ubiquitous devices with the Mir:ror. The USB connected Mir:ror multicolor LED lighted pad reads RFID chips embedded in their Ztamp:s (and Ztamp loaded bunnies: Nazbatag:tag) to launch apps or do online errands all by proximity. The concept is pretty simple, attach a Ztamp(a postage stamp sized RFID tag) to any object you want, a coffee cup, your car keys or a picture frame, and bring the Ztamp’d object near the Mir:ror pad and a custom set of tasks is launched. You could Ztamp your car keys to get a traffic report, fetch a grocery list and text message it to your cell, and twit that you are on your way home. A picture frame could start an email to your spouse and set your Facebook status to “being thankful for my family”.

From the looks of it they have a good head start in creating a human-computer mash-up with lots of potential even if they do suffer from some serious schizophrenia in their marketing department. The key to the system will be the violet.net service and their creativity in providing options that are actually useful. The service is still free once you purchase the hardware. The service is capable of running local commands or fetching Internet available data (e.g. RSS feeds) to provide all its utility, but its not clear if the device will function in an offline mode. Currently the Mir:ror system is only available for purchase in some parts of Europe, but should become available as they get their online store updated. YouTube walk-through over the jump.
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Sierra wireless next week will be showcasing its new HSPA+ modem and the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona Spain. The 306/307 model USB modem promises triple the potential bandwidth of the highest speed currently to consumers. Looking at what’s currently available from most US carriers this is actually 7 times faster! HSPA+, a multi antenna MIMO version of HSDPA, promises 21Mbps download and upload up to 5.7Mbps (compared to UMTS’s max of 7.2Mbps / 2Mbps) once it’s rolled out. Both will have no problem communicating on the old GPRS/EDGE/UMTS networks. Of the 2 models, the 306 is the tri-band (850/1900/2100 MHz) North American/Asia-Pacific UMTS model and the 307 is the dual band (900/2100 MHz) European UMTS band version. These should become available in Q2 this year provided the telcos evolve their networks to support them.

Unfortunately there are no current areas that are supporting the HSPA+ network in North America or Europe. Australia’s Telstra and Hong Kong’s PCCW are the only current carriers with some HSPA+ features enabled. AT&T does seem to be making inroads in that direction until LTE networks are ready. LTE promises 326Mbps down and 86Mbps up, but is still quite a few years off. This could get pushed out even further due to the financial problems the providers like Nortel are having lately.
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Big screen laptop owners will sure dig this high-def optical upgrade option from FastMac. The Mac peripheral specialist has unveiled a trio of Blu-ray slim optical drives that interface exclusively with USB 2.0. Oddly, none of the MacBooks can playback Blu-ray due to inherent limitation of Leopard & QuickTime. You can always dual boot back to Windows Vista and XP but you still need to shell out your own copy of PowerDVD to decrypt and watch the commercial Blu-ray movies.

There are 1 BD-ROM drive and 2 Blu-ray re-writers. The least expensive BD reader goes for $99.95, reads BD-ROM at 2x, and doubles a fairly capable DVD burner. The $299.95 model can burn any single- and double-layer BD at 1x, which is agonizingly slow at a rate of 90 minutes per 25GB disc. The highest end quadruples read/write speed to 4x for BD-R (25GB write-once) and 2x for rest of the BD disc types. For a USB 2.0-only Blu-ray drive, you probably won’t see anything faster than 6x considering a 8x operation will require uninterrupted 36MB/s bandwidth, which at such speed very few USB hosts can manage without special driver.
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It appears there’s something seriously wrong with the Buffalo’s recently face-lifted DriveStation USB-only hard drives. The fan-less external storage may reportedly show ‘unintended behavior’ during hibernation or standby modes on PCs (presumably Windows). In some cases, there could be a remote possibility that the data may be rendered inaccessible; now that’s scary.

Buffalo acknowledged this is a problem that can be fixed via a simple firmware patch, assuming you haven’t been hit yet. The entire line of DriveStation seems to be affected, including HD-CE320U2, HD-CE500U2, HD-CE640U2, HD-CE750U2, and HD-CE1.0TU2. Since a solution is already made available online, it’s safe to say the latest shipment of the Buffalo DriveStation is bug-free. For precaution, one should check with the firmware program whether your new drive still needs the patch. Better safe than sorry.
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Canon’s yearly debutant ball has come and gone and the belles are here for you to adore.The two top models, Vixia HF S10 & S100 strut 24p and 30p photo modes for movie like appearance and crisp action. They both also pack full 1080p HD video recording and 8MP stills with O.I.S. image stabilization for highest quality recording. Focus assist can also be enabled that super imposes colored identifiers onto the viewfinder marking the parts of the video that are in focus to allow for better control of subject focus. Both also have a 10x optical zoom lens and a 2.7 inch LCD.

While both models support recording to SDHC memory cards the S10 has 32GB of memory built into it while the S100 relies on SDHC cards for all of its data storage, no cards are included with the camcorder. 32GBs of storage will allow for 3-12hours of video to be captured, depending on the resolution. There’s no word on how long you can record per battery charge but reviews should start showing up in early March after they are released to the public. MSRP for the S10 with built-in storage is set at $1,299 and the SDHC only S100 will still set you back $1,099. Pretty steep for hobbyists but right in line for the prosumer market they are aimed at.
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iRiver, maker of all manner flash media players has launched a new media player that’s packing an 80GB hard drive compared to its usual flash drive based line. With specs very similar to the innovative SPINN, the P20 is encroaching on storage territory once only held by rival Archos. iRiver’s players are known for good battery life and colorful displays and very innovative style. The Spinn’s novel design has gained it some notoriety and a touch more foothold outside of its Japanese homeland and the P20 is another extension for them.

The P20 can handle audio (MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC), video (Xvid SP, MPEG-4 SP, and WMV9 SP) and even office docs (DOC, XLS, PPT, PDF, HTML, TXT, MHTML) and images (JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG) on its 480×272 AMOLED display. Other features include an FM tuner, audio recording, and games. Another useful addition is an add-on multi-card reader for SD, Memory Stick Duo, and Compact Flash. The P20 PMP should be available in iRiver Japan’s eStore on February 27th for around $440.
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For awhile it seemed that fingerprint scanners were the future of security. Many, myself included, quickly tried to incorporate fingerprint based security measures as soon as they became mainstream priced. There was only one thing that nearly everyone overlooked, figuring out how easy they were to defeat. A warm pencil eraser can get past a surprising number of retail fingerprint scanners. There are quite a few other options for implementing biometric security measures but most are cost prohibitive for all but the highest security areas.

The PalmSecure device from Fujitsu looks like it might be breaking down doors and getting palm vein scanning down to a reasonable price point. The are conveniently packaging it as a USB mouse plus authentication device for easy integration into your workspace. Their LogonDirector software integrates the PalmSecure device into Windows 2000 and XP devices (Vista should be soon to follow). Palm Scanning is considered more secure than fingerprint scanning and nearly on par with Iris scanning due to “a false rejection rate of 0.01% and a false acceptance rate of 0.00008%”. The software package and a single reader should come in at under $500 and reach wide availability by the end of the year.
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Most computer monitor buyer guides recommend you go for the largest, the most vibrant, and the most responsive screen you can afford. There however appears to be a sudden detour in what people want (or how LCD manufacturers want to sell). Even with a full HD resolution display, one can easily fill it up with all sorts of application windows, leaving some other programs (e.g. iTunes/WMP, MSN, RSS reader) buried deep in the background. This is where Samsung U70 comes in.

Unlike other Samsung LCD offerings, the 7″ U70 serves primarily as a secondary display for your PC. Its 800×480 should be able to handle multiple chat sessions and some RSS tickers. The U70 mini monitor’s 400:1 contrast ratio, 30ms response, and 200 cd/m2 brightness aren’t anything to write home about, yet for its purpose, you don’t need the top-of-the-line LCD panel. Samsung has been selling a 10″ photo frame with a hidden talent to double as a USB LCD. This maybe what you’ve been looking for if you think a $150 digital frame can do more than repeating photo slideshows.
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It was bound to happen, some malware is managing to extend its stay in our Windows systems by infecting USB drives. Recent reports show that Conficker is still around and rapidly propagating, especially in China. Conficker (a.k.a. Downandup) exists as quite a few variants, but one of the ones that’s proving hard to kill is a variant that plants itself onto USB drives. It then tricks you into launching it by writing a special autolaunch file. That autorun.inf file mimics the standard “browse drive” dialog that pops up most of the time when you insert a new disc or CD drive. Clicking on the prompt reinfects the computer. Now it’s fairly easy to disinfect the computer but it’s another task altogether to disinfect every flash drive and memory card that’s ever been attached to an infected computer.

This is yet another reason to keep up on your Microsoft patches. F-secure distributes a free removal tool if you think you’re compromised. Also users of the novel OpenDNS service are getting some help via OpenDNS’s partnership with Kaspersky labs. OpenDNS is using it’s Big Brother abilities and preventing infected machines from ‘phoning home’ thus helping to limit potential fallout from the infection. So far the infection is sitting at Low on everyone’s priorities but here’s symantec’s map of the infection to date.
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