Archive for August, 2010

Serous About Headset Comfort? Check Out The HS1 USB Headset From Corsair

Matt Laboff August 31, 2010 USB Hardware & Gadgets

The Corsair HS1 USB headset is about as serious as you can get for superior audio while gaming, watching movies or simply Skyping.Â The all new line from Corsair is a bit out of their comfort zone of storage and cooling gear, but at least they’ve done it right.Â Headset gear is an essential part of enjoying intense games like FPS Doom, Half Life or Halo.Â In addition it keeps the other half equally as happy [meaning Mom’s, girlfriends and wives don’t b!@ch about the cranked up noise].

Corsair SH1 USB headset

The HS1 was built for supreme audio with massive 50mm drivers to deliver more accurate low-frequency effects in a carefully tuned acoustical design.Â The clear, low-noise reproduction of the unidirectional noise-canceling microphone lets teammates hear better, and with extra-large inline volume and microphone controls it’s easy to grab and control sounds given the situation of the game. Some other notable points before making the jump to Corsair for full details: Continue Reading

PS Jailbreak Sales Solution Held Up In Red Tape

Matt Laboff August 27, 2010 Flash Storage & Memory, Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB Hardware & Gadgets, USB News & Press Releases

Over the past several weeks we’ve read reports about the PS3 Jail breaking solution via USB whereby the jailbreak tricks the console into thinking it’s in debug mode and thus gives you access to the device like never before. The PS3 jailbreak would allow the use of illegal games as well as homebrew games to be played on the console.Â In addition, the hack also blocked mandatory updates from Sony which could overwrite the hack and secure the device once again. Jail breaking like this is nothing new, in fact we’ve heard about it with the iPhone for [literally] years.Â However, with the PS3 it was a bit different.Â It was different because the PS3 has been a platform which has remained unbroken or un-hacked [if that’s a word] for nearly a decade.Â That is a feat no other gaming company has Continue Reading

WWWorks USB Steampunk Drive – New Kid On The Block

Matt Laboff August 26, 2010 Flash Storage & Memory, Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB Hardware & Gadgets

If you’ve been to this site before, you know we are a fan of USB Steampunk.Â We just received word there is a new kid on the block who’s doing some cool USB steampunk. This design is coined “Steampunk Scorpion USB.”

USB steampunk Scorpion

WWWorks is the profile name over at Etsy and he’s done some nice work on his first release.Â What I like about the style of this design is the lack of gears you so commonly see with USB steampunk.Â Rather, WWWorks put some detail into the design on the brass. So here is a bit of detail about WWWorks.Â Based in Budapest Hungary WWWorks is a computer IT guy by day and a craftsman by night.Â Trying to break away from the Continue Reading

Mitsubishi Home Theater 3D TV With USB

Matt Laboff August 26, 2010 Flash Storage & Memory, USB News & Press Releases

Mitsubishi is paving the way for hi-end 3D TVs with their recent announcement of a 40, 46 and 55 inch HD set.Â The specifications are impressive but it seems there might be a disconnect on what they are making verse what people want.

Mitsubishi 3D TV

Lets start with the specifications.Â Given the sizes above, you also have an internal 1TB hard drive, ten Diatone system speakers, a USB slot, a SD slot and HDMI connectivity and a pair of 3D glasses. The following might be just my take on the situation, but I’ve found most folks like their DVR [hard drive] to be separate than their TV so that if something goes wrong, you don’t need to ship the entire thing back.Â It also seems that with a USB port on the HD TV, you can now just attached storage. I also find it funny that you spendÂ between $3K and $6K for the above, and they supply you with 1 pair of 3D glasses.Â I’ll chalk this up to bad reporting from the original article and assume at least a 4 pack comes with the set. Finally – is it just me, or does it seem Continue Reading

Iomega Makes Full Switch to USB 3.0

Matt Laboff August 25, 2010 Flash Storage & Memory, USB News & Press Releases

Iomega is charging forward with USB 3.0 technology integrated into all their products.Â Despite the fact that recent reports [In-Stat] indicate USB 3.0 will be slow to adaption throughout 2011 and 2012.

Iomega says the change will not cost consumers a penny more in retail cost, but will deliver faster transfer speeds.Â USB 3.0, as we’ve reported, has a theoretical max of 5Gbps but we’ve only seen 70MB/s as best performing drives at the moment. Iomega continues their promise of better performance with not only speed performance, but now a “drop spec” of up to 7 feet before you can expect any kind of damage or malfunction with the device. Iomega’s drives come in 500GB and 1TB size starting at just $119. Continue Reading

USB Hack: miniUSB Connector Hack for Dell Streak

Matt Laboff August 24, 2010 Tutorials & How-To Guides

John from LinuxSlate.com figured out the Dell Streak connector for sync and charging is nothing more than a PDMI connector.Â So John made a nice little USB hack to eliminate the need for Dell’s expensive accessory kit in exchange for a quick DIY mod with a miniUSB cable.

USB Hack Dell Streak

The USB hack allows you to connect the Dell Streak to a PC for synchronizing with your computer, or simply charging the device from any USB charger [or port]. The modification also allows the unit to appear as a normal mass storage device or removable memory. Continue Reading

USB Hack: Apple USB Trackpad

Matt Laboff August 23, 2010 Tutorials & How-To Guides, USB Hardware & Gadgets

All of Apple products are designed as a “less is more” philosophy where a user just “knows” how to use the product when they hold it or see it.Â The Apple Trackpad is no exception.Â Great looking product that works exceptionally well and is bare bone minimum on design features.

USB Hack, Apple Trackpad

One of the beautiful elements of the Trackpad is the wireless freedom you get from using the product.Â For the wireless product you need juice.Â The Trackpad does this via batteries.Â However, some get tired of replacing the batteries [like it’s that hard] and did a simple USB hack to power the Trackpad.Â This hack is not used for communication, that is still done through Blue-tooth, but this is only for eliminating the need to swap batteries or constantly recharge them. To accomplish the hack, remove the pad’s batteries, strip a USB cable down to the red and black power wires and attach them to a battery-sized wooden dowel. Finally, push the dowel inside the pad’s battery compartment and presto! It works. Granted this is a USB hack even my 7 year old could do [less the wire stripping] and I’d recommend making something a bit more elegant. Continue Reading

USB Laser Duck Solves Lack of Laser Ducks

Matt Laboff August 19, 2010 Tutorials & How-To Guides

I think we can all agree there are not enough USB laser ducks out there.Â To help solve this problem we came across a nice USB laser duck tutorial to take any rubber ducky and turn it into a zombie, creepy laser duck. I don’t think Ernie will be to pleased to hear the news.

USB duck

The USB hack is fairly simple and the ideal project for a young kid looking to do something cool for the first time.Â All you need is a USB cable, rubber duck and some diodes. You’ll need to solder the diodes to the USB cable, then mount the laser eyes correctly and securely into the rubber ducky.Â If the concept doesn’t make sense, you can jump over to Instructables and get the play-by-play. I think one way to increase the coolness would be stuffing the entire USB cable into the duck body.Â Either that, or take another Instructable where you can increase the laser intensity to pop balloons, burn paper and more… but do it with a bit of caution and common sense.

Video. Continue Reading

Nexcopy’s Standalone USB Duplicator at 30MB Per Second

Matt Laboff August 16, 2010 Flash Storage & Memory, Nexcopy Hardware & Solutions, USB Duplicators, USB News & Press Releases

Introducing the Nexcopy Standalone USB Duplicator

We’ve reported about Nexcopy several times before, ranging from their USB duplicators to SD and Compact Flash duplicators. Today, we’re here to highlight the Nexcopy standalone USB duplicator.

Nexcopy, Standalone USB Duplicator

With flash drives growing in both capacity and affordability, it’s no surprise that data loads are also increasing. A few years ago, it was common to load a PDF or PowerPoint presentation onto a promotional USB stick for trade shows. Today, with the ease of creating videos and the popularity of platforms like YouTube, promotional content has become much larger.

Between 2010 and the mid?2010s, average MP4 video file sizes grew by roughly 30%, as creators embraced higher resolutions. In the past three years alone, they’ve expanded another 20%, driven by increased use of 4K and 8K content—a cumulative >50% increase over 15 years. Source: MASV – How Big Will Video Files Get?

The Nexcopy standalone USB duplicator supports copy speeds up to 30MB per second—that’s about 1,800MB per minute. While most standard USB drives won’t hit those speeds, higher-end flash memory can certainly take advantage of it. Taking this a step further, if you have 16 USB sticks on the system and each port is receiving 1,800MB per minute, this means the entire unit is actually copying 28.8GBs per minute as an overall throughput.

Real-World Impact on Productivity

A large software company is preparing a nationwide training program for 1,000 new employees across 50 regional offices. Each employee must receive a USB flash drive preloaded with 4GB of onboarding videos, security protocols, and software installation packages.

Without a High-Speed Duplicator:
Using a standard PC and manual copy process, it takes 10 minutes to copy 4GB to one USB drive. Copying 1,000 drives would require 10,000 minutes (over 166 hours) of labor. This could take an entire week even with multiple staff involved.

With the Nexcopy Standalone USB Duplicator:
Each port delivers up to 30MB/sec, or 1.8GB per minute. With 16 drives copying in parallel, 28.8GB is transferred every minute. Copying 4GB per drive means each batch of 16 takes just about 2.5 minutes. To duplicate 1,000 drives:
1,000 ÷ 16 = 62.5 batches
62.5 batches × 2.5 minutes = 156.25 minutes (~2.6 hours total)

Productivity Gain:
From 166 hours down to just 2.6 hours. This results in reduced labor costs, faster turnaround, and the ability to reallocate staff to other tasks. It also gives the organization immediate scaling capability for future projects.

Summary:
The Nexcopy standalone duplicator’s 30MB/sec per port speed translates to 28.8GB/min total throughput, which enables massive productivity boosts for businesses distributing digital content at scale—especially for training kits, product launches, software deployments, and marketing promotions. This technology doesn’t just save time—it transforms how companies manage USB-based data distribution.

The Nexcopy standalone duplicator line includes two models: a 16-port system and a 32-port system. Each system dedicates one port for the master device. That’s likely why the models are named USB115SA and USB131SA—one master and 15 or 31 targets, respectively.

We couldn’t find specific pricing on the Nexcopy website since the products are only available through authorized dealers. The release date for these standalone duplicator models was the first week of September 2010.

To learn more about Nexcopy’s standalone USB duplicators, visit the official Nexcopy site.

Source: EverythingUSB.com

Net Neutrality – You HAVE To Do Something

Matt Laboff August 13, 2010 USB News & Press Releases

If you stay up on technology news then you’ve probably heard about the on-going talks with regards to Net Neutrality.Â In short, Net Neutrality means that companies cannot control the flow or speed of information going through the internet.Â [definition/info]

Before it is too late, YOU – the reader – must do something to prevent the internet from being controlled by cable companies and big search engines like Google. SF Gate did a great job on summarizing what is going on.

What We Said:Â “Google and Verizon insist that what they’re working on is not a backroom deal for their own benefit but instead a legislative proposal about how Internet content should be managed. All of this may be true – but it still doesn’t look right.” – Editorial, Aug. 9, 2010 What Happened:Â Google has turned its back on its promise to insist on Internet neutralityÂ – the idea that all Internet traffic should be treated the same. Its just-announced proposal with Verizon would prohibit carriers from discriminating against competitors but allow them to charge websites more for better service. It excludes wireless mobile networks, which means that websites on mobile phones wouldn’t even have safeguards against non-discrimination. Because the two companies are so huge – and because the FCC has been unable to issue its own policy on net neutrality – their proposal will shape the debate. What’s Next:Â What’s next: Unless WashingtonÂ is ready to accept an Internet that only works for the wealthiest and most-established websites, Congress needs to step in with net neutrality legislation. And the Google-Verizon pact isn’t even close. They need to go back to the drawing board and get support from consumer groups and Internet users instead of just broadband carriers and web giants. The FCC also needs to step in immediately, by reclassifying broadband under a section of the telecommunications code that’s subject to more scrutiny – and therefore less ability to discriminate.

What YOU can do: The FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski needs to know where you stand on net neutrality. Send him an email by using our message below.Â It will only take you 3.7 seconds!Â His e-mail is Julius.Genachowski@fcc.gov Just cut-n-paste the following: Continue Reading

USB Hub – 13 Ports in 5 Inch Bay

Matt Laboff August 9, 2010 USB Hardware & Gadgets, USB Security & Compliance

Just last week GetUSB.info reported on a solar charging USB hub and a USB power strip and for noting more than to recharge your gadgets. It’s clear that USB is the common thread in recharging – and moving forward I only expect this trend to continue.

Speaking of continue, now we have a 13 port USB hub which fits right into your 5.25″ computer bay. I do say, the picture is inviting enough to get this add-on component and integrate it into your tower, but then we’ve got two questions for you. 1) Don’t most people use laptops these days and 2) Imagine all the cables coming out of this thing. I say this because you’ll quickly realize the ports are much too close for anything but cables. Even the most slim USB stick would have a hard time fitting into each port.

What I do like about the design is the power connection you can make to the internal power supply of your PC. This means the 13 port USB hub will support larger devices with more power thurst…say hard drives and large 64GB flash drives.

The 13 port hub isn’t on sale yet, but will be in late August 2010. Pricing was not given. Here is a link you can bookmark to check availability.

PlayStation3 USB Charge Station For Controllers – $8

Matt Laboff August 6, 2010 USB News & Press Releases

The GetUSBDealz for today is a 4 port USB charging station for your PlayStation3 controllers.Â At just $8 there is just now way you can turn this down…well, unless you don’t have a PlayStation. So we start a $49 – Buy.com knocks off just about all that and drops the price to $8…then throws in free shipping.Â Clearly we have some inventory dumping going on, and YOU should take advantage.

Here is the company sales pitch: You’re in the middle of an awesome game, tension high, adrenaline pumping, and then…Warning: Low Battery! Don’t let the fun stop due to lack of battery power! With the PlayStation3 Quadruple Port Drop-in USB Charging Dock, you’ll have everything you need to keep the games going. Containing four-space cradles that allows you to charge and rest a total of four remotes at one time, the dock also includes built-in LED indicator lights. Need to know where charging is holding? The unit’s multicolored LED lights notify you of each controller’s charge status: Red for battery empty, yellow for charging, and green for fully charged. This charging dock is powered by a USB cable that can be connected to a USB port on the PS3 Console or on a computer. Simply drop one or all of your Playstation3 controllers into this 4-port charging dock and leave them alone as they power up!Grab this GetUSBDealz now! Continue Reading