Kicking around in technology since 2002. I like to write about technology products and ideas, but at the consumer level understanding. Some tech, but not too techie.
Palm Pre owners might find a small window of opportunity to sync their device with iTunes for easy music browsing, listening and downloading. In short, someone figured out how to have the Palm Pre appear as an iPod to iTunes by chancing the VendorID of the Palm. Meaning – iTunes thinks its an iPod, but it really isn’t.
I seriously doubt this was something done by Palm, but rather a hacker out there doing what hackers do.
First you have Palm claiming it’s a USB compliant device for a different vendor, I don’t think that will fly. Second, you have Palm tricking iTunes thinking it’s an iPod – Apple wont be too happy about that. Third, it shows
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Today I was doing some research for a good solar powered iPhone charger. I went the direction of a DIY [Do It Yourself] project then realized this is all a waste of time. Maybe there are a select few that would jump on a DIY solar powered iPhone charger project, but considering the complexity of the tutorials I found, very very unlikely my average reader would actually do it.
So to save yourself the 30+ minutes of looking for a good tutorial, just spend 3 minutes and buy one that will A) work better, B) look better and C) be cheaper.
The project directions can be found here and you’ll quickly see it’s a complex project that requires some tools you might not have, plus supplies you’ll surely need to buy. All in all, it’s about a $70 project,
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Read an interesting article on social media and how it can impact your business, blog, or audience through social media websites like FaceBook and Twitter. Granted, these terms are nothing new, and today we announce the addition of another network for GetUSB, Twitter.
The article which inspired me to sign up was from Chris Brogan and if you are looking for 50 reasons, or just one, on why to get onto Twitter – give it a read.
So now you can receive the GetUSB article title each day on Twitter, and if the topic tickles your fancy, click through and read the rest. There is plenty of good content we churn out day after day, so please follow us.
Thanks & Cheers,
Gmo
Editor in Chief GetUSB.info
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The world is going Green. This is your chance to keep those USB gadgets, yet charge them without consuming electricity and leaving your carbon footprint. The idea behind this USB tutorial is taking the kinetic energy of your bike and turn that into re-powering any USB gadget.
I found this fun little project off the Instructables website. Apparently the author received some grant funds from Lemelson-MIT program and put together a team of 6 students to create this solution.
The team got their idea from shake-up flashlights which are based off the Faraday Principle – which is a type of electromagnetism reaction to generate energy.
You will need to get a bread-board and create a small circuit to capture the energy produced by the bike and turn it towards your USB gadget.
Next, you’ll need a motor provider that will actually “capture” the energy, feed it through your newly made circuit. There are many options for this, check
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Brando sent out an email with their latest USB flash drive and the images immediately caught my eye. I must also admit, the USB key isn’t solid gold either, Brando doesn’t sell expensive stuff.
This day in age, even a USB stick that looks like a gold bar should make you feel better. We all know how the stock market has been treating us.
As with all USB keys, it’s plug-n-play, works on all OS’ and is made of a metal gold case. Size is 55 x 22 x 11mm.
Priced just right at
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How would you like to connect wirelessly to your iPhone? Imagine sharing your photo’s or [soon to be] video with your TV or monitor without a cable? How about sync your iTunes without the white USB connector, or update contacts, schedules, calendar and more without making a connection. How about getting real crazy and juicing up your iPhone without a plug?
Well, all of this will be possible with the new Alereon wireless USB technology for the iPhone and those who integrate into their peripheral.
The demonstration consists of a small wireless USB peripheral connected to a typical iPhone or iPod’s edge connector. The adapter enables any iPhone or iPod to both provide extra battery power/charging as well as synchronize wirelessly to iTunes whether on a Windows or MAC OS machine. Future enhancements will enable connectivity to HDTVs for displaying photos or videos.
The ultimate vision of Alereon is to have a peripheral device integrated into
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A UK based company [Cambrionix Limited] has mapped out a single PCB board to house 49 USB ports. Using the typical cascading style of USB typology, the main 7 port hub is then wired to another set of 7 hubs with seven ports…giving you 49 total.
The device is originally designed for testing USB devices in bulk, which is fine, but I see a fundamental flaw in all this. If one Hub chip goes south, the entire board [or portion of it] goes bad as well.
Typically a cascade style is fine because if one hub goes bad you simply replace that one hub, but in this case it’s not so easy. With an entire PCB board, you need solder rework – that takes time and expense. It’s a great concept, but I don’t think it’s very practical. Here at GetUSB
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Some things sound better on paper than real life. Take, for example, this stylish wrist watch that doubles as a USB storage device. First, it is so clever, you always need a watch, you always need your USB drive, put the two together and it’s a perfect match.
Aaaah, but wait, there is a flaw. The USB flash drive is on the wrist band. This means you [most likely] need to remove the watch from your person to use the USB stick for any length of time. What a waste.
Couldn’t they put the USB flash drive on the other side of the of the wrist band?
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So what are some basic elements you need to overcome to use the USB spy camera packed up as a cigarette lighter? First, you need to be someone who smokes…or looks like someone who smokes. It wouldn’t be easy to use this product on your friends, if they know you don’t smoke. Second, you need to be willing to let the world know you’re a smoker. This probably isn’t a big deal for most people in the world, but being from California, it’s something no one approves of.
So if you’ve gotten past the stigma, then the cigarette lighter spy camera is a viable option to bust your best friend, wife or boss with suspicious activity.
With 2GB of built in memory, you’ll never have a shortage of memory for audio or video surveillance. In addition, the video quality is fairly good at 640 x 480 pixels and a respectable 16 frames per second [respectable given the size of the device at just 5.3 x 3.7 x 1.2 cm]. Once your mission is complete, and you feel something good was caught on tape, simply download the content via USB and make your case.
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NEC has been the leader in USB host controllers over the past five years, and now they are gearing up for USB 3.0 with their uPD720200 USB 3.0 host controller chip. You can expect hard drives, flash drives and solid state memory devices to use the NEC SuperSpeed chip.
EverythingUSB reports the small quantity price will be around $15 USD and include Windows drivers for quick integration. NEC forcastes sales to be several million per month by September and rapid adoption in 2010.
Stay up to date with USB 3.0 SuperSpeed with GetUSB.info
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Not that we’d EVER see a USB device in Star Trek, but if we did, it might be a USB communicator like the one from Gadget4All. The Star Trek USB Communicator comes on the heels of the most recent release of Star Trek [May 8th]. The movie is a chronicle of the early days with James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.
“The Original Series” Replica USB internet phone plugs in and plays to allow users to transfer audio signals via USB. With built-in microphone and earphone, works with Skype, MSN, AIM, Ichat, etc. Includes built-in speaker with 21 different sound effects.
What sound effects you ask? Click the video to find out or drop $44 and experience it live.
Star Trek USB Communicator product page.
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Today Sunland International introduced their self powered Blu-ray DVD writer. The unit doesn’t need an AC connection to burn a disc, but it does need a PC connection for the software to control it. You can think of this as a USB connected Blu-ray burner, but it’s ultra portable because it doesn’t require AC power or laptop power to burn a disc. Rather, the self-powered DIG-78102 [nice name guys] uses an Li-Poly battery to get it’s daily dose.
The self-powered Blu-ray burner uses a “smart charge” approach via USB to power the device. With an intelligent power manager to auto trickle charge the internal Li-Poly battery you can get up to 3 hours of use without a charge.
