Best computer news

Gigabyte is looking to prove that there is money to be made in the vacuum of a slow economy. Like competitor Asus who is still riding the eeePC craze, Gigabyte seems determined to become synonymous with USB 3.0. They have been releasing USB 3.0 powered motherboards for several months already. Their use of NEC’s USB-IF certified chipset has almost kept pace with NEC ability to produce them. Currently at 1 million motherboards, for every 3 USB 3.0 chips produced by NEC one of them is headed towards a Gigabyte motherboard.

Hopefully, betting on the technology will help build their name up and pay dividends in the long run. USB 3.0 isn’t exactly an uncertain technology, but Intel and some others seem to be waiting for it to pick up more momentum before fully adopting it. Other standards like LightPeak loom on the horizon with powerful backers making some people weary of backing the SuperSpeed pony. It’s even money as things stand now that LightPeak would become LightSpeed USB, and get adopted as another USB-IF standard. While there are some other great options out there, history teaches us that Moore’s Law is obeyed and that trying to exceed the speed increments that seem built into computer hardware development carry more than equivalent drawbacks. We’re still waiting for our multilayer fluorescing optical discs. SuperSpeed USB seems to be just right and ready to go. Check out Gigabyte’s USB 3.0 competition here as they try to get you to imagine the USB 3.0 future along with them.
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The current generation of USB monitors are great but a little on the diminutive side with few exceptions. The Panel from Medltech is a 13″ USB monitor which can run up to 1280×800 over the now miniscule 800×480 offered by current mini monitors. Running double the diagonal width comes with some extra power requirements that the USB 2.0 standard of 500mA just can’t handle. Medltech’s “The Panel” (they really need to come up with a different name) incorporates a rechargeable Li-ion battery that supplments USB power for up to 5 hours of run time. Charging options haven’t been specified but an external charger should allow it to reach full charge in roughly the same time; USB recharging might take double that amount of time. USB 3.0 powered version of this would be really exciting, it might not need the battery.

Surprisingly, this isn’t just a PC peripheral. It may actually end up a favorite of the consumer electronics crowd due to the plethora of multimedia connection options it offers. USB sourced video is just one of the many options available; VGA, DVI, Component, mini-HDMI and S-video inputs will also feed this tiny monster for a mobile gaming station with high definition display options. Having a self powered display unit can vastly simplify mobile presentations. Long road trips could definitely benefit from having a working game console to take the edge off. A low power monitor like this could make a traveling Wii Tennis tournament possible without draining your car battery or overloading the inverter. Price and release date aren’t available yet but this is one that would easily be worth a few benjamins just to have around.
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We’ve been a little underwhelmed with Intel’s movement on the USB 3.0 front, but there’s word they might have a controller in the works. Rumor has it that Intel will have an external controller coming out in the near future which will directly compete with NEC. Intel’s entry would keep NEC from having a monopoly or gaining an early lead on this important technology. This move should also satisfy the many Intel partners that could risk falling behind while NEC’s partners surge ahead.

While it’s nice to hear that Intel is finally putting a horse in the race, let’s hope they commit a little more and get a full SuperSpeed implementation on die very soon, before Windows 8. Having the option to buy a USB 3.0 card is nice for the first few obvious uses for SuperSpeed bandwidth. The truth is that manufacturers won’t start taking advantage of it until they are pretty sure there’s a market segment already equipped to use their products. Let’s hope an official announcement from Intel on both topics is forthcoming.
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First launched almost ten years ago, USB flash drives have revolutionized the way we transfer files in-between computers. Blessed with an ever-expanding storage capacity, near universal compatibility and enhanced durability, it’s this wonderful plug-and-play technology that was finally able to kill the abomination known as the floppy drive. In this FAQ, we answer a few of the most common questions and concerns about flash drives and attempt to explore the vast number of hardware solutions currently available. Here’s a list of questions; answers are found after the jump.

1. What is a flash drive?
2. What kinds of flash drives are available?
3. Why not use a portable hard drive instead of a flash drive?
4. How fast are flash drives?
5. Why should I be concerned with how fast my flash drive is?
6. What should I format my flash drive as?
7. What are the latest hot trends surrounding flash drives?
8. How can I keep the data on my flash drive secure?
9. Why shouldn’t I pick up any flash drive I see lying in the parking lot?
10. Why can’t I use my flash drive at work?
11. Help! I accidentally deleted a file I shouldn’t have on my flash drive!
12. How can I run applications from my flash drive?
13. Can I boot my computer from a USB flash drive?
14. What is ReadyBoost and why should I (not) care?
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Farstone Technology has released a new backup tool for PC recovery that is bound to make a lot of PC techs and system administrators very happy. This bootable USB key runs a Win-PE system that mounts any attached drives or network resources in a matter of minutes, allowing for restore or backup on even the most fatally compromised systems. Because the entire OS and software are contained on the USB drive, there’s no reliance on any of the original system’s data or operating system.

Once booted and connected to network or connected resources, USB or other, Farstone’s TotalRecovery software is ready to get down to business backing up or restoring your data. A drive can be cloned out to a target or burned to CD or DVD with built in burning software. The entire Win-PE environment is configured to make disaster recovery or cloning a breeze. In the case of catastrophic failure or decommissioning, they also included data wiping software to multi-overwrite data to DoD data destruction standards. Perfect for sanitizing systems before selling on eBay or donating. MSRP should be available as soon as their resellers stock up.
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SuperSpeed USB’s knight in shining armor is ready to fulfill your high bandwidth peripheral dreams. NEC has announced today that their USB 3.0 host controllers should be in full production by the end of next month. The company is currently producing 1 million of these chips per month and that number will jump to 2 million in the next 30 days or so. Given the lack of enthusiasm by some big names, NEC’s expansion is a great win for consumers who will start to see better and faster products hit the market with USB 3.0 chips from NEC at their core.

Unfortunately, the lack of competitors in the market means that companies can sit on their laurels, reselling the same technology and reduce R&D spending. This means higher prices and less variety and choices. The same problem exists in the world of cell phones, device manufacturers have been reticent to upgrade hardware for a long time now. Could this be the year that Moore’s law is broken (as it applies to CPU’s and bandwidth)? NEC seems set to do just the opposite and will eclipse the rate of production compared to USB 2.0′s timeline many times over. They aren’t doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, this is obviously a result of increased demand. That means there are new devices and new options that are being created which hopefully points to an end of the technology slump.
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USB secondary LCDs have been around for a while, yet we feel touchscreen capability on these midget monitors may prove to be more useful. Nanovision has tried touchscreen on the 720-S with a slider clamshell design, but tapping on its rather small 7″ screen isn’t exactly ideal. The same company has returned with iMo Plus – a 10″ 1024×576 USB monitor with resistive touchscreen.

Resistive touchscreen is somewhat different than what we are used to in terms of usability from capacitive touchscreen, which pretty dominates the smartphone market. We believe the newer capacitive touchscreen is more suitable on a midget like iMo Plus as much less finger pressure is needed, preventing the unit from tipping over. Internally, the 16:9 USB monitor has a brightness output of 200cd/m² and a 400:1 contrast ratio. They are nothing to write home about, but fine for such a small display. A single USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 connection provides electricity and video (powered by none other than DisplayLink). iMo Plus is going for $270; a touchscreen-less version will cost $50 less.
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AT&T is doing a bit to green the scene on this St. Patty’s day with an announcement about some new greener chargers for its cell phones. The new Zero cellphone charger works just as normal when a device is connected, but as soon as the phone is disconnected the charger stops pulling power. In contrast, normal chargers will continue to draw power even when the device is connected. This is a habit of all AD-DC converters, and they should be unplugged as much as possible when not in use. The green movement is still only a trickle here and there from large companies like this, but it’s a good sign that it is growing. There are already similar products that try to cut vampire power; these power bars check your PC and peripherals with USB to check if they are still active and to cut electricity when necessary.

Along with the standardization effort in place from all the major players towards micro-USB, which should reduce the landfill contribution of proprietary chargers this is a good start. AT&T also plans to start working to minimize the materials used in accessory packing. They also say that they will be using more and more recycled materials in the packing and manufacturing of their devices. Get Al Gore to come in and verify that this more than just a marketing blitz and we’ll be tipping our hats to you. Hopefully this inspires others to join in.
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Mac version of the high capacity variant of the Western Digital My Passport SE has made its debut. Late last year, the same company outed the PC-version of the My Passport SE, shipping with Windows version of SmartWare backup suite and for the first time ever, hitting 1TB mark for a portable 2.5″ USB drive. The new Mac-series of the My Passport SE is largely the same; the only only two differences are the titanium silver chassis instead of the PC’s glossy black; and the SmartWare, now running exclusively on MacOS (Tiger or better).

The two versions also share 256-bit AES hardware encryption, and are able to run on USB bus without need for an AC adapter. Internally, the drives spin at 5200 rpm compared to 7200 and 5400 rpm for most others, and interestingly, they are of the few external drives that connect to USB natively rather than through a USB 2.0-to-SATA bridge. Expect the 750GB and the top-of-the-line 1TB to hit retail anytime now with a MSRP of $179.99 and $199.99 respectively.
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We’ve been waiting to get our hands on a USB 3.0 flash drive for a while, but if you listen to Patriot that may be a bad idea. Seems Patriot has been running into a problem with the current batch of SuperSpeed controllers. The chips are great but they run a little too hot to be in really tiny devices like flash drives. Patriot, a veteran in the memory and flash memory world, probably knows what it is talking about. Strangely though, none of the other vendors bringing USB 3.0 flash drives to the market have mentioned this heat problem.

Patriot says there are currently two ways that manufacturers are dealing with this issue. Dual under-clocked controller chips: This two-chip solution runs a pair of controllers at half the bus speed in a RAID 0 configuration. While this does allow for a cooler operation it introduces the possibility of data corruption and more importantly greater cost. The 2nd is to try and dissipate the heat with novel designs and heat sinks. This is the approach patriot is taking. The most obvious route for them is to physical attach the chips heat sink to a thermal conductive outer casing. Expect to see copper and aluminum sheathed flash drives in droves if this remains the case. This also means that flash memory makers will have much fewer options with regards to design if they hope to have them fast or compact. This should bother on the most elite of flash drive fans. For the time being, SSD memory is still too slow or too expensive to make drives that truly push the limits of USB 3.0. The stars will align and bring us better thumb drives soon though, just maybe not today.
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