Best computer news

ADATA has a new USB 3.0 enclosure, the Nobility NH03, that brings some cool new features to the hot new bus. This external backup drive is made for easy backups and long running stability. ADATA has designed the enclosure so that regardless of the way you stack it or lay it, it will always have ample space to vent heat. Apart from looking cool, the heat vents can add years to the life of a hard drive which means you don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about backing up your backups or investing in a RAID system. Just click the backup button and the included software kicks in.

Not satisfied with the huge jump in USB 3.0 speed over USB 2.0, ADATA has also tweaked its USB drivers to push the speed just a little bit further. Their Turbo HDD drivers purport to add another almost 10% speed boost to what should already be 130 MB/s transfer rates. Buffalo has a similar technology that has been repeatedly tested and while providing some boost the real world results are never quite up to the advertised speeds. Still who would turn their nose up at even some improvement when you are copying vast amounts of data. The ADATA NH03 will come out in 3 sizes: 1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB. Prices and release date are still undisclosed so little telling how long this will take to get to shelves.
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Today’s hot smart-phones are amazing in so many ways except for battery life. Hot topic phones, the iPhone 4 and the EVO, both average only a day’s use on a full charge. This makes power supplies and charging options vital for day to day use. The Mophie Reserve and Boost are a life preserver for your dead or dying phone. They both contain a powerful Lithium Ion rechargeable battery. Both the Reserve and the smaller Boost are able to provide nearly a full charge.

The internal batteries rated at 1000 and 1500 mAh which rival the capacity of your phone’s internal battery. The Reserve and Boost both look at home daintily hanging on a key-chain. Charged by miniUSB you should be able to keep one or 2 of these handy given their tiny size. There’s also a tiny LED light that you can use to find your way in the dark if need be. The bad news, they only currently work on the iPhone. You can get your Boost for $60 and a Reserve for $40.
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TRON, the movie that captured our imaginations and united young and old at the dawn of the graphical evolution for computing, is about to return. The original TRON is still near to our hearts and we challenge you to find someone who didn’t dream of racing Light-Cycles or Frisbee fighting. As weak as that may sound or the TRON Guy makes it look, the TRON movie is bound to be epic. Gamer favorite Razer has recently shown off their TRON:Legacy inspired gaming keyboard and mouse. Made of the same high grade materials that comprise all Razer gaming devices.

Actually, having Razer make a special TRON device is kind of redundant. They already specialize in glowing and futuristic gaming accessories. Please see any of their keyboard, mice, headsets or joysticks for examples of glowing gaming gear. Besides the extra extra cool lighting effects the over-sized mouse wheel is the only obvious variation from the normal slick looks of Razer gear. If you want to take a look at these newest additions to Razer’s line you’ll have to line up at the San Diego Comic-Con next month. Actual release of the items will likely be available closer to the release of the movie slated for December of this year.
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Even if you don’t smoke, carrying a cigarette lighter around is a great conversation starter. Brando has a great USB tool that may just replace your current wing man the next time you hit the clubs. It’s a USB Cigarette Lighter with a UV light. Charged by the ubiquitous miniUSB cable, an internal rechargeable battery powers a hidden spring loaded door that covers a pair of nichrome style red hot wires that can quickly get your smoke on. No, it is not compatible with the USB cigarette.

This may be the best thing that’s ever happened to bartenders with the inclusion of the UV light. In addition to constantly having to light cigarettes, bartenders and cashiers everywhere are also having to inspect currency with UV lights. Some counterfeit methods have an Achilles heel that is exposed when exposed to fluorescent light. Our same bartender friend can also use this to check the “Over 21″ hand stamp that his club puts on all the eligible patrons in fluorescent ink. Being able to check ID, check the cash and light a cigarette all with something that can be charged with most phone chargers is a stroke of genius. Don’t forget the goth factor and the convenience of lighting clove cigarettes and showing off your black light makeup at the same time. Available now at Brando for a measly $15.
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The quirky folks over at Ultra Modern Life Training Lab have an odd tool to help you effect some behavior modification. If you think you’re in need of a bit of social reform and need to clean up your act, these guys can lend a helping hand. They are trying to market a small USB canister that monitors your keystrokes. They call it the Pepper Mouth USB Companion. When you type in foul words you are warned once then an annoying pepper scented spray is released. The pungent odor is supposed to act as negative feedback and encourage you to alter your bad habits.

This is great news for those of you dealing with court ordered anger management therapy. The software, which looks like it will be available for PC or Apple, should be configurable to your own list of words. We’d love to be able to give it to people who type “loose” when they mean “lose”. Extreme disciplinarians could take their sadism to an entirely new level correcting spelling mistakes. If you have a pet-peeve of your own that you’d like to curb or have recently have had one suggested to you by a jury of your peers, you might want to keep an eye out for these. There’s no release date nor price info yet and the quality of the website makes one think these might not be more than concepts. Alas, more vaporware and these would have made a great gift for the new New Yorker in the office. He’s the one who seems to have an email version of Tourette’s syndrome. Unfortunately, it seems he might have to wait for HR to correct him.
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Iomega is taking a different approach to avoid a price war in the ever increasingly competitive external drive market. The company is now partnership with Skin Industries, a high-profile sport fashion brand in the States, to roll out a new line of Skin branded Hard Drives whose design really stands out. Iomega and Skin come up with three different models, all based on eGo USB 2.0-powered 500GB portable hard drive. The “Radical” model sports a retro logo design on a back top with bright yellow base. The “Red Hot” drive also shows the Skin logo prominently on a red top with a black base. The “Knock Out” one features a gothic logo design on a silver top with a black base.

Even though the trio is tailored towards those into the hip culture, the tech specs of the drives should appeal to geeks. Included as a bundle with all three Iomega Skin drives is a suite of data protection titles, including QuikProtect backup software; Trend Micro Internet Security with 12 month subscription; and another backup utility from Retrospect for saving data plus applications and settings. Last but not least is the Drop Guard which basically protects accidental drops of up to 51 inches. Backed by a three-year warranty, expect the Iomega Skin drives to hit retail for $119.99 each.
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In anticipation of the upcoming film Tron Legacy, Disney Consumer Products will release a remote-controlled version of the Tron Legacy Light Cycle that uses suction technology, allowing it to drive on walls as easily as it does on the ground. For added realism movie accuracy, the vehicle also projects a beam of light from the [...]

Designers from Herraiz Soto & Co in Barcelona recently developed these stickers called “Stick With Me, Baby” to customize your Apple logo with hair ranging from a 70s porn star look to a Fu Manchu. What a relief. I didn’t know how much longer I could make it without a caricature of Elvis on my [...]

From the makers of iPhone Dummy comes iPad Dummy—a non-functional iPad replica that can be smashed at a fraction of the cost of the real thing.
Why would you want to do this you ask? Stunts and gags my friend. Think about it. If you’re creative, you could even incorporate it into the decor somehow, as [...]

Storage maven inXtron adds to its line of USB 3.0 devices with the Orbit. Not to be confused with the Altec Lansing Orbit speaker, this Orbit is a 2.5 hard drive enclosure built for two 2.5″ drives. They’ve developed this closely with Gigabyte, who is leading the way with many USB 3.0 implementations; and Silicon Image who is providing its SteelVine Series 3 Core storage technology. These drives can be configured to run in RAID configurations 0 and 1 as well as JBOD. RAID 1 mirroring is an ideal use for this device as a great method to handle drive failures for critical data. Unfortunately, even the best RAID 1 device sacrifices speed for security. Duplicating the data across disks is done real-time and can effectively take twice as long as normal.

RAID 0 is where this drive will really smoke. The USB 3.0 bandwidth can really be exploited with the dual write, striping operations permitted by RAID 0. USB 3.0 should provide plenty of power to be able to run both drives solely with bus power. There’s not much more detail at this time so release may be far off. Hopefully no more than a few months will pass before we can get our hands on one.
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