Best computer news

It’s hard to keep your hands off a shiny new laptop or cellphone. Everything seems more exciting. But, like most relationships, the passion tends to die down after a while. Perhaps it’s time to rekindle your romance by dressing up your phone or laptop with Gelaskin’s new line of skins featuring some beautiful NatGeo photos. [...]

They won’t be available to the general public for a few weeks yet, but we got a first look at MusicSkins’ exclusive Adult Swim lineup of skins for cellphones and laptops. Apparently, the line will feature over 30 designs from Adult Swim programming like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, Venture Bros., Metalocalypse, Space Ghost [...]

Apparently not happy with the game-changing new speed of USB 3.0′s theoretical maximum of 4.8 Gbps, NEC claims they are now capable of 14.8 Gbps. Their R&D team has re-engineered some very technical aspects of signal transmission to expand the amount of data that can be successfully transmitted. We won’t bore you with the hardcore details of the change, but this clears a significant hurdle. This update also opens new avenues for any of current or future standards that care to try and incorporate it. PCI Express and USB could all take advantage of this incredible new ceiling.

This could mean that a USB 3.1 standard is around the corner or that up-and-comers like LightPeak will have to work significantly harder to challenge USB. NEC currently stands alone in the manufacture of USB 3.0 chipsets and could easily shepherd this improvement into production and into our homes. Let’s hope that USB 3.0′s true friend gets this approved and onto the shelf really soon.
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USB 3.0 devices are finally flowing enough and cheap enough there’s not much excuse not to have one. Active Media brings out a perfect example of an affordable 2.5″ drive enclosure with the Aviator 2. This USB 3.0 enclosure promises double the average throughput over USB 2.0 drives. While USB 3.0 promises 4.8 Gbps max bandwidth (which is 10 times faster than the USB 2.0 maximum), actual throughput will be closer to double what you currently see. If used on USB 2.0 systems, power may become a problem. They’ve thoughtfully included a power supply to help add supplemental power.

The enclosure can be purchased without a drive for $39.99; you just supply your own 2.5″ SATA. Active Media also has an option with 64GB and 128GB Predator X7 SSD. The Aviator-2′s SSD options are capable of upwards of 200MB/s read speeds. Both drive bearing versions are fairly pricey at $260 and $450 for the 64GB and 128GB versions respectively. Comparable performers can be found for less currently and be paired with the USB 3.0 enclosure for a speedy result. All three options are available at Amazon now.
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Single drive docking stations are so pedestrian. Sharkoon’s new USB 3.0 docking station really has a pair…. of hard drives. This USB 3.0 docking station has 2 slots for 2.5 and 3.5 inch SATA hard drives. Both drives are cradled inside the base station, and can be powered on and off individually. Driverless, they will show up as mass storage devices as soon as they are powered on. Each bay has an eject button as well to assist in removal. The dual-drive docking station uses a discrete USB 3.0 interface for each drive presumably for power and maximum bandwidth or they might have just been lazy. This gives you a total of 2 distinct devices connected to your PC requiring 2 cables.

This new entrant from Sharkoon is one of the first to gain motherboard manufacturer, Gigabyte’s seal of approval. Gigabyte has certified that this product will work well with their new line USB 3.0 enabled motherboards and PCIe card. This double-decker docking station will only cost you about $60 and 2 sets of USB 3.0 cables. It’s available for order now if you are tempted.
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Finally, it looks like a USB 3.0 flash drive might finally hit wide availability. Super Talent has had a RAID-based SuperSpeed flash drive on the market for a few months now, but by shaving a few higher end features, they hope to get the price more palatable to consumers. The new drives, called USB 3.0 Express, still retain decent speed at around 125MB/s read, 50MB/s write. This is 4x faster read and 2x faster write speeds than the fastest rated USB 2.0 flash drives.

The drives will also continue to function while plugged into legacy USB ports but with reduced maximum speeds. They are launching 2 models that should reach stores by April. The 32GB version will run about $150 and the 16GB version should hit $70. We’ll be looking forward to testing the USB 3.0 performance once they arrive to see if an early purchase is warranted. The price is actually pretty competitive with the now hard to find ultra fast flash drives. Anyone heavily using flash drives now would be well served by this future proof (at least until USB 4.0) flash drive.
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Connect One has a new take on the mobile hotspot concept with the Wi-Reach Classic. The Wi-Reach Classic lets you power and plug in a USB EVDO or HSPA Modem, and turn it into a WiFi hotspot, creating a wireless network wherever you are for up to 10 people. Its internal rechargeable battery should last for 4 to 5 hours, and it can accept any slim sized USB adapter. The Wi-Reach Classic mobile router can then be kept anywhere, providing 3G access to the Internet via secure connection. So, this is similar to this mobile router from GlobeSurfer except the latter always needs to tether to a power outlet.

The firmware is upgradable with the popular router-on-a-chip system that they claim has been vetted in many products. They plan to add more LTE and WiMAX (4G) USB modem support as they are released. Their business model also makes provisions for working with other companies to rebrand, relabel or rebuild as a hybrid device. This means there will be no excuse for your carrier not to have a MiFi competitor. The very capable Connect One Wi-Reach is supposedly available for order now at $99, but we had trouble locating it on their proffered website. Hopefully they get the site updated so we can get our hands on one.
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It will be a while before people may need USB 3.0 hubs, but Buffalo always likes to plan ahead. The Japanese branch of the Buffalo peripheral manufacturer has already shipping the world’s first 4-port USB 3.0 hub. The rectangular box houses 4 forward-pointing SuperSpeed USB ports for all the prohibitively expensive flash drives and SSDs. Also, 4 LED indicators glow through the top glossy surface to show you port activity. It isn’t clear as of this writing whether the the LED will change color when the hub detects USB 2.0 devices.

Buffalo did mention multi-TT which is something born in the early days of USB 2.0 for hubs to accommodate multiple full-speed gadgets (i.e. headsets, speakers, high-end gaming keyboards), but there doesn’t seem to be a USB 3.0 version of multi-TT yet. So, if this Buffalo hub surprises to allow multiple Hi-speed USB devices (e.g. HDTV tuners, most external storage) to operate concurrently without suffering from any bandwidth bottleneck, that would make a USB 3.0 upgrade very appealing.
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What should be the first of many convenient devices in USB 3.0 has just crossed our news desk, the SIIG USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter. Minuscule in size, the adapter can super-size your bandwidth if you have USB 3.0 ports, but no eSATA port. Connect this to a full power USB 3.0 port and get up to 3GB/s performance of any eSATA based drives. You’ll need to supply your own eSATA cable, but the USB 3.0 bus should contain enough juice to power the drives. You’ll be able to read and write to drives up to 2TB in size. They can even be hot-swapped from drive to drive if you have the need.

There’s another hidden goody that we’ll hope to see in other USB 3.0 is backwards compatibility to USB 2.0. This dongle works just fine with both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 machines. That makes this device a great tool to have handy, which will remain useful as you gain more and more access to USB 3.0 computers. There’s only drivers for the Windows XP class OS’s and up to Windows 7 to Server 2008. No support for Linux or Apple has been released yet. On the up side, Windows drivers are still native and built into the OS. $49.99 gets you this handy little adapter, and it’s available now.
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Anti-virus developer Panda has a compiled together a little program that they are giving away free. This program they are calling an Anti-malware Vaccine for USB is intended to staunch the spread of viruses by thumbdrives. Conficker’s damage worldwide was legendary and one of the vehicles it used to spread was infecting USB drives. The vaccine gives you the option of disabling the autorun feature of Windows that conficker exploits. Disabling autorun is not a big loss for most people but it can be likened to throwing the baby out with the bath water. Autorun is a very handy function for portable application development, such as PortableApps. Microsoft unfortunately seems to agree, and has removed autorun from Vista and Windows 7.

The vaccination of the USB drives isn’t exactly bulletproof but it will definitely help. It writes a hidden read-only autorun.inf file to the drive. This technique should have some success at least due to obscurity. As long as very few people are using it, virus writers won’t target it. This should help you avoid current versions of a conficker and variants. This is a little late to the party, most antivirus programs defend against conficker and the previously mentioned Microsoft overkill move of disabling the whole feature. John 3:16
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