Best computer news

Hercules makes a decent line of desktop speakers for the budget or image conscious. Today, they extend their range with some very affordable travel friendly speakers, the Hercules XPS 2.0 35. These portable speakers are sleek and shiny and can almost hide in a laptop bag. They are a bit bigger speakers than what would fit comfortably in every laptop, but at the same time, they bring quality sound and volume in exchange for their slightly extra heft.

The speakers also have VoIP capabilities. The front of the slim speakers bear a volume control and microphone jack. Plug in a microphone and you can chat via Skype or any other VoIP sessions. The speakers are USB powered and don’t require any drivers at all. Once you’re done with them just unplug the USB cable and pack them up. The best feature of all is that these little guys are retailing for only $20. At this rate, you can afford to have a couple of them and get rid of a bunch cables and power supplies. Hercules should have XPS 2.0 35 speakers in stores in June of this year.
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LaCie Rugged already has the looks and now, the speed. Resembling an inflated life raft, the Neil Poulton-designed external USB 3.0 hard drive beats all other variants of the same series, including ones with eSATA and FireWire 800. The Rugged’s rubber bumpers surrounding aluminum drive provides cushion that makes the drive drop resistant up to 2.2m. The Rugged comes with orange sleeve as standard, but you can swap with green-grey, blue-grey or black at $19.99 apiece.

Being a mobile USB 3.0 hard drive, the LaCie Rugged tops at 110MB/s, at which speed is mostly handicapped by the 7,200-rpm 500GB drive. On the back of the drive, there’s a familiar auxiliary jack for powering the Rugged should it connect to a USB 2.0 port, and there’s also the new micro-USB 3.0. The software bundle isn’t anything to write home about, in contrast to Seagate USB 3.0 BlackArmor. Last but not least, LaCie includes 10GB Wuala cloud storage 1-year subscription along with 2-year warranty.
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An inherent problem with webcams is that hackers are aggressively finding ways to take control user’s PC through malware to peep into user’s homes. Other than putting tape over the webcam’s lens, Chinese camera specialist Gsou has this nifty USB webcam with a new new “anti-peep” technology. Their interesting approach is having a robotic arm that will automatically cover this camera lens of this one-eyed buddy as soon as a video conferencing session completes. This fella will put down his hands when it detects incoming Skype / MSN video calls.

If you still fear the malware might still take control of the webcam’s arms, there’s an override function that allows you to use the unit’s physical button to uncover the lens only when needed. The video quality seems surprisingly good for what it’s worth as the webcam core has a 5-layer glass coating lens. This webcam isn’t exactly made for HD video calls in mind, but it deserves credit for creativity.
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Another snooper stick is here to help you clean up your world. The ChatStick is a USB drive with a custom application loaded on it. The ChatStick, once inserted, launches its chat analysis software, which scans the computer in question, pulling all the logs of conversations, even deleted ones, onto the drive itself. The conversations logs can be reviewed at a later time. Fire up the program on your own computer and search through all the sent and received messages to your heart’s content.

The ChatStick is targeted at parents and administrators that might want to review what kind of things are being said in IM. Managers might want to track what kind of time is being wasted chatting. Parents can check on who is talking to their children and what’s being said. Predators and phishers are targeting younger victims all the time. Jealous lovers and spouses should just move on and not waste time with this sort of paranoia. Not surprisingly, the ChatStick is made by the same company that makes the Porn Detecting Stick. This tiny thumbdrive should keep you aprised of any inroads being made into your family’s privacy or your company’s confidentiality. The ChatStick is up for sale on their site for a mere $100.
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Pretty much the only real downfall that shopping online has, versus in person, is not being able to really get a feel for the product. The next best thing for web entrepreneurs is the interactive 360 product picture that lets you rotate the product around and around to view it from any angle. Ortery has wrapped this very desired web marketing tool into the PhotoCapture 360M‏. In a nut shell, the PhotoCapture 360M‏ combines all the tricks required to get these compiled, for they are many.

The heart of the system is a rotating platform with a remote control compatible with several popular pro-sumer DSLR cameras. The platform can support up to 100 lbs. and rotates the subject while automatically triggering the camera to take up to 200 pictures of the subject. The included software can then take the photos and stitch them together into either an animated GIF or a flash SWF movie. All manner of subjects can be digitized on their various other models as well which can hold 25, 100 and 400 lbs. The Windows only software can connect to the rig via USB and make adjustments and preview your movie creation. Once you are done, you can set up another product and run through your entire product catalog in just a few minutes per item. Ortery’s not quite at the mass distribution phase for its hardware and is still negotiating with resellers. Web pricing is not currently available, quotes are created on a customer by customer basis. Too bad their business model isn’t as advanced as their product.
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Buffalo America has quitted flash memory business altogether after an infringement lawsuit filed against the company by Sandisk, but that didn’t stop the Japanese division from rolling out exciting new flash memory gadgets. Here’s Buffalo SHD-PEHU3 – the latest SuperSpeed USB SSD in almost the same glossy black plastic case as its hard drive sibling. Unlike the HDD version, the Buffalo USB 3.0 SSD is built to rake in money and to impress early adopters in mind. Nearly all models carry a jaw-dropping price tag, from $281 for 64GB to $476 for 128GB and $1075 for 256GB.

If you have the dose, then the USB 3.0 SSD will give you up to 8 times better performance than with a, eh, USB 2.0 equivalent. There’s even a piece of software called Turbo PC that squeezes every last drop of performance out of USB 3.0. The result is a 240MB/s bus-powered shockproof external storage, weighing a mere 66g. To put this into perspective, copying 1000 800KB of JPEGs will take just 8 seconds, at such speed not even other first gen. USB 3.0 hard drives can rival. We simply just fall in love with the Buffalo SSD, though we treasure our hard-earned pennies even more.
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When it comes to obnoxiously fashionable watches, there’s only one name that comes to mind, Tokyoflash. The chic Japanese watch company is testing the waters with another concept design, throwing in some flash memory. The wrist-strap has an retractable USB connector built into the clasp. The amount of memory and speed won’t be determined until much later, when this becomes a more imminent release.

While fitting a flash drive into a watch is nothing new, this model wants to incorporate memory capacity into the display. The current mock-up displays the time with segmented circles representing hours and minutes. A fourth ring shows the capacity, full or remaining, of the included USB storage. There’s some discussion of keeping the same indicators and switching the memory to microSD instead of USB. Either way, Tokyoflash seems to be doing a lot more peddling of concepts than actually releasing new watches. So get comfortable, if you are inclined to wait for this one. Prices for Tokyoflash watches run from $100-$200, so be ready to shell out for it, if it becomes available.
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Huaqi Technology is now going after the companies who it believes to have infringed its “USB Plus” patent right. The so-called “USB Plus” is like a eSATA / USB 2.0 hybrid port that allows compatible devices to draw power from USB while enjoying SATA speed advantage from the same jack. Similar implementations can be found on some recent notebooks from HP and Toshiba. The Beijing-based tech firm has already filed in lawsuit against said companies – both of which have already denied of any patent infringement.

Marketed under the brand name Aigo, “USB Plus” is aimed squarely at USB 3.0, which due to numerous delays has pushed manufacturers seeking for alternate solution for faster data transfer solutions. Huaqi also has plans to take other smaller peripheral makers to court for similar alleged infringements. It is an early sign that the tide has turned; Chinese companies are starting to protect their intellectual property rights instead of copying them from foreign firms.
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Lok-it has a new take on the padlock flash drive and wants to show it to you. They’ve added a rechargeable battery to the padlock drive which powers their in-line security system. The correct key sequence has to be entered before the drive will even show up as active hardware. The security system essentially prevents any communication from the host computer to the drive until the password is physically entered. As a result, this removes the easy options for snoops. There’s no password to be sniffed via keyloggers and conventional means of brute force attacks on the drive won’t help. These means of computer enhanced attacks leverage the PC’s power to help attack your private data. Cracking this drive hence will require much more work which is the best that any security system can really hope for.

Entering the correct code on the keypad opens the 256-bit AES encryption drive to the operating system. 10 incorrect attempts will wipe the cipher and the data is effectively lost (to anyone who doesn’t have a major government in their employ and 5 years or so to spare). The encryption is all hardware based and requires nothing from the PC, making it perfectly compatible with all operating systems that support USB mass storage. The only problem with this nifty FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified drive is that it’s not quite here yet. They are likely still shopping the drive to retailers hoping to get a big order before they sink the capital into manufacturing. We’ll hope this is soon and that the drive is cheap enough to get us a few. Video demo after the jump.
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Are you ready for 3D on your PC? The 3D craze hasn’t quite taken off yet as 3D systems have no champion and no standard, but that could change at any minute. The fetal technology is bound to get people excited as soon as a decent movie is able to take advantage of it and bring it home. So far, there’s only a handful of decent 3D gadgets (i.e. camera and camcorder), but companies continue to test the water with releases more and more often. The Honk Kong Electronics Fair in mid-April was giving more than enough evidence that technology companies are ready for what will hopefully be another gold rush. Korean-based NDIS seems to have prototype model capable of running 3D at 800×480 in an almost ready-for-market midget USB monitor. Judging by one of the related images, they may actually be partnering with MIMO to develop this product.

If the technology is that easy to produce, PC 3D interfaces could start showing up in a matter of months. Home theater applications are already available for purchase but they have received little attention from consumers to date. Not wanting to end up on the wrong side of another HD-DVD/Blu-Ray bad purchase, consumers will likely force manufacturers to standardize first before hazarding precious coin on an unproven 3D technology. The current details on these systems show it requiring more power than USB 2.0 can normally supply, so additional power is required to supplement the USB connection. Bandwidth and power needs for 3D make it an ideal user of USB 3.0 technology, but no word yet on 3D’s connection with SuperSpeed USB. If anyone is going to make this happen, then DisplayLink is the one to look for. Though they have yet to indicate any interest in 3D. Hopefully, more details surface soon as well as enough manufacturer interest to coax potential buyers into making the investment.
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