Best computer news

Korean manufacturer SoundGraph has expanded the idea of the USB monitor and made it more of a touchscreen dashboard as the FingerVU 706 & 436. You can set shortcut controls for applications without moving the mouse over to the touchscreen USB sub-monitor. All of the unique functions of the two FingerVU models can be isolated from your other monitors. More of a collection of widgets with touch and media capabilities the FingerUI makes the tiny monitors much more useful despite their size. Dubbed the FingerUI, the software makes the 7″ ($179) or 4.3″ ($129) version into a video based controller similar to the functions of the Art Lebedev Optimus series keyboards.

The nicest thing about the FingerVU is the price, even with the special software they are priced in the range of other USB monitors. The FingerVU-series USB monitors are also based on the same DisplayLink hardware that is powering most of the Mimo styled monitors that are coming out. The DisplayLink drivers have become very stable with recent releases, and are very convenient to use needing no power cables. Video demo after the jump.
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There’s just not enough noise makers in the world and here’s Creative to ruin the quiet. Coming out in China shortly, this USB drum kit is fun for the whole family near the computer or on the go. The included software makes it a breeze to start up your own drum solo with just about any kind of percussion instrument you can imagine. The software with an as yet untranslated name can synthesize traditional Chinese drums, rock drums and cymbals, bongo drums and more. All this can be captured and recorded for your own personal Stomp (the performance group, not the fetish) style masterpiece. There’s also a guitar hero-esque set of games you can plan on the USB connected drum for fun and even a little fitness. The drum’s skin flexes and feels like real for comfort and extended play sessions.

The USB drum also works as a speaker. You can select up to three sound types and play them along with your music or more with hot keys. Aesthetically, you can just leave it on your desk as a simple PC speaker to complement your other trinkets of pan-Asian flare. Price and release date are unknown as of yet, but Creative doesn’t usually make us wait long after their announcements. Unfortunately, this might not be released outside the Central Kingdom.
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It’s definitely a landmark for a technology to have hit the mark where bleeding edge gives way to fun. Hardbox has released another external hard drive in the shape of a book. It may not be a true novelty drive, but it’s the coolest we’ve got so far, comparing to some commodity drive. The Hardbox would fit in just fine on any book shelf except for the fact that we’re not really racking up books on our shelves like we used to. So this may stand out like a sore thumb next to your junk mail and gum wrappers but it still looks good. That’s ignoring the USB 3.0 sweetness in sizes from 1TB to 3TB.

Sarotech has been making this particular style drive for awhile and knows the external harddrive game. If you are thinking about storing data at anywhere near those capacities, you definitely need to be putting some money into USB 3.0. Anything else would just be ridiculously time consuming. Sarotech should be shipping the Hardbox drives in February.
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DACport has a niche USB sound system that promises to bring increased music fidelity to your computer as well as more volume. Digital recordings that are compressed to popular formats like MP3 and OGG do suffer some of the side effects of being shrunk down; those with an ear for audio miss the fine details removed from their originals. The DACport from CEntrance packs a 24-bit DAC that can improve and restore quality back to your down-sampled compressed digital recordings. Their AdaptiWave technology requires no drivers or software all the work is done inside the hot-dog sized adapter.

Those of you lucky enough to have truly audiophile-class headphones will know that volume traditionally has been a serious problem. Better headphone drivers require more power to push and therefore volume is significantly lower compared to cheaper smaller headphones. DACport to the rescue, it packs a Class A amplifier streamlined to maintain signal quality and power. These two features work together to send more juice to your cans. The only drawback is the price, however. Centrance wants $500 for this ear candy, but if you have to have studio quality sound reproduction on the move this maybe just about the only game in town.
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If travel and photography are your thing, Panasonic has some gear you need. Matsuhita, a.k.a. Panasonic, submits for your approval the DMC-TZ10. This little 12MP point ‘n shoot packs an internal GPS system to tag each of your photos with longitude and latitude information, which is already consumed by online services like Picasa, Flickr and alike. GPS information is then instantly processed to show map locations and track trip trajectory. While they are plugging the heart of a navigation system into the camera, they keep most of the rest of one as well. The Lumix DMC-TZ10 camera contains a Navteq geo-location database with 500,000 points of interest, covering over 73 countries. Now your camera can let you know your whereabouts and maybe something else you might be near to go take pictures of (e.g. landmarks).

There’s also a slew of other more traditional features like a 25mm wide angle lens, which is capable of zooming up to 300mm. The Lumix DMC-TZ10 doubles as a high-def camcorder, recording video at 720p in AVCHD Lite with audio encoded in Dolby Digital. If you can upgrade to a SDXC, you can afford adjust your video bit-rate up to 17Mbps. Still sporting one of the best image stabilization systems, this new Lumix maybe bound to be even more popular than it’s predecessors.
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UWB’s fate is pretty much tied to that of Certified Wireless USB, which is only communication protocol that still depends on the said radio technology. While there are already several WUSB devices, from video / audio adapters to hard drives and docking stations, on the market, the adoption rate is a far cry from that of other USB standards. The performance of these wireless peripherals is quite discouraging with real-world transfer rate averaging at just around 15MB/s. Native WUSB hosts can remove some overhead, and likely provide some speed boost, but significant improvement will only come with new specs, just like USB 3.0.

WiMedia Alliance, believed to be in the process of disbanding, has released version 1.5 of the common radio platform specs, which in a nutshell defines the foundation for Wireless USB. The upgrade now pushes speed from 480Mbps to 1024Mbps, doubling the available bandwidth for peripherals that stream 1080p video from a laptop to HDTV. Whether or not this will save WUSB remains to be seen, but the new specs certainly outpaces 802.11n in speed, yet slaughtered by upcoming WiGig 1.0 (7Gbps).
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High-def video conferencing is something that doesn’t mix with notebooks, despite of their ever-increasing CPU power. FaceVsion (oddly, it’s spelled without the ‘i’) has done something that Logitech and MS should have done for their QuickCam and LifeCam respectively long time ago. This company embeds a H.264 encoder into its TouchCam N1 Skype HD webcam to offload the demanding video processing task from the CPU. Apparently, the price of those H.264 compression chips has gone down to a level that is affordable for manufacturers to put it in something like the TouchCam N1 without deterring the buyers.

Having said that, the $119 TouchCam N1 is priced within reach of most road warriors in need of a true HD camera on the go. Most important of all is its Skype HD badge so you can be pretty sure the world’s most popular VoIP app will play nice with the FaceVsion. You’ll also need to upgrade Skype to 4.2 to enable the 720p HD mode. There’s one caveat though; the specs states H.264 streaming will only hit 22fps max., which may not be that bad as most users couldn’t tell between 24 and 30fps so a little lower than this FPS range could still be considered acceptable. As for the TouchCam N1 itself, the cam has a unidirectional dual mic and auto-focus lens with 78-degree field of view.
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Subculture fans will line up for a new USB flash drive featuring Halloween Town’s fearless leader, Pumpkin King Jack Skellington. Famous from the movie The Nightmare before Christmas, this movie tie-in thumb drive is going straight to the top of our our favorites. The spooky effigy of Jack from the digital clay-mation cult favorite hides a USB connector and 4, 8 or 16GB flash drive. Made of impact resistant plastic, the Jack Skellington drive is effectively waterproof and shockproof. Reenact the movie and remove Jack’s head, and jack him into your USB port for quick access to flash storage.

A-Data has conveniently included a few trial pieces of software which are woefully unrelated to Jack’s dark image. A Marilyn Manson album or Rob Zombie MP3 would have been much more suitable for this fun flashback drive. These applications are free from A-Data’s web site as well. The USB drives are available at favorite gadget provider Brando’s online store for $30, $47 and $72 depending on the amount of storage you want.
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As we amass more and more flash drives, it gets to be harder and harder to tell them apart. Fun drives like this, 18 and Over drive, helps us keep our files sorted. This fun 2GB drive makes the distinction that the content is adult oriented or not to be put in children’s hands. No, this is not just a Pr0n drive, it can be for any sensitive content. Tax documents, controversial programs that might get you into trouble with system administrators or vacation photos that don’t need to end up on the company file server. More and more invasive system monitoring by corporations requires serious control of your personal files so that they stay personal.

Our flash drives are sorted by abilities and then by function. Fast drives are application drives or bulk data drives like iso’s and virtual disks. our sportier looking drives are for office documents, code libraries or reference materials. Then we have my special purpose drives from leather clad to bare circuit board on the outside. The insides vary from prank programs to forensics and password stealers. Plugging the wrong one in at the wrong time can be disastrous. Having unique cases and labels makes them easy to sort and keep track of. Check out some of our favorite stand-out flash drives from weeks past or pick up this one for about $35.
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The group that maintains and monitors the beloved PCMCIA standard is closing up shop and passing the torch to the USB-IF. The USB-IF does the same chore for the USB standards. PCMCIA as everyone knows is the card standard that is so popular in notebooks, providing high-speed access and enough room for most devices to be fully internal if they don’t require any external inputs. The PCMCIA card standard has only finally seemed to have given way to the ExpressCard standard which supports 2 sizes and is considerably faster.

The PCMCIA Group has been supporting both of these and several other variants for some time. The USB-IF group will take over their standards and support for the PCMCIA Group. This doesn’t mean the end of the oh-so-useful cards the group is just shuffling its cards into the USB-IF’s deck. This should just mean increased efficiency in the development of both standards as efficiencies are merged. Members of both groups will now be treated to only having to pay one membership.
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