Best computer news

Samsung S2 recently becomes the first native USB hard drive. The decision to drop SATA or PATA altogether from the drive is about cutting cost associated with a USB bridge controller, improving speed by eliminating interrupt service time, and reducing physical size, which also has to do with that same component. By taking out the USB-to-SATA board, Samsung can easily win contest for having the smallest mobile drive.

As another breakthrough, Samsung now debuts Spinpoint N3U 250GB 1.8″ drive that comprises of two 125GB platters. The native USB controller stays, resulting in less power usage, smaller footprint and optimized speed. The disk’s rotation speed is clocked at 3,600 rpm, compared to 120GB/160GB’s 4,200 rpm. Though, it’s uncertain whether how this will impact performance and how the 8MB cache can make up for the slower spinning rate. Expect the N3U 250GB to ship to OEMs in July with a MSRP of $199. We may initially see Samsung offering the new N3U in its S1 mini series as well.
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UK’s Digital Vision is going after a particular market with their new flash drive-based DVR. The GiGo DV-DTR1 DVB-T recorder has plentiful USB ports (three to be exact), which are all located in front of the chassis for easy access.

When all jacks are occupied, different family members can choose where to record the content into. Scheduled recordings from EPG can go into three separate USB storage, whether it be an external hard drive or a regular thumbdrive. This should come in handy since you can eject flash drive and take away the Freeview content without interrupting what other people are watching. At the same time, this can save you precious time of copying the show from the internal DVR’s hard drive, which in this case is ditched by the company to reduce cost. Digital Vision is likely targeting at the less-tech savvy who would rather go back to putting sticky labels on their flash drives than managing long list of files in a terabyte hard drive.
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Our chief complaint with LaCie LaCinema Rugged is the lack of H.264 codec and especially MKV container compatibility. When you are targeting a portable media center market, skipping those features will almost guarantee failure. Other than that, the Rugged by Neil Poulton is pretty slick overall. This is why we should give it a second chance with the release of LaCinema Rugged HD.

The updated version sports the same scratch-resistant aluminum design as its “SD” sibling except with the addition of popular HD video codec and audio format support. The LaCinema Rugged HD, like its unsuccessful predecessor, can now playback H.264, VC-1 and WMV9. Container support has been expanded to MKV, TRP and M2TS. Audio support now includes OGG, PCM and AC3. Feature-wise, it’s fair to say that WDTV media player has finally met its match. Then again, after checking LaCie product page on the Rugged, the $349.99 price tag for the 500GB model may deter buyers.
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Should you and your LAN party buddies need to travel light, this mobile Ethernet hub from Buffalo is undoubtedly the most effortless way to connect notebooks or desktops together in a hotel room or at a camp site. This 2280-yen ($24) accessory is powered by none other than USB which makes the network device very traveler-friendly as there’s no need bulky AC adapter to lug around.

The only caveat is that the max. speed you get is 100Mbps, so it isn’t the optimal connection for sharing multi-gigabyte HD content. And of course, if there are more people joining, the Buffalo USB Ethernet hub is inherently limited by the three RJ45 jacks on-board.
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