Sugar Labs Nonprofit Announces v2 of Sugar on a Stick with Improved E-Book Readers, Recycles Any USB Stick Into Learning Environment for Children; Partners with Nexcopy, Inc.
PARIS, December 8, 2009 — Netbook World Summit — Sugar Labs(R), volunteer-driven nonprofit provider of the Sugar Learning Platform for over one-million children around the world, announces the release of Sugar on a Stick v2 Blueberry. Available for download at https://www.sugarlabs.org, Sugar on a Stick can be loaded onto any ordinary 1Gb or greater flash drive to reboot any PC, netbook or recent Mac directly into the child-friendly Sugar environment without touching the existing installation. Sugar is also available for GNU/Linux distributions, runs under virtualization on Windows and Apple OS X, and features built-in classroom collaboration and automatic backup to a Journal. The latest version of Sugar offers simpler navigation, improved wireless networking, streamlined updating of Activities for children, easier keyboard configuration, better Gnash support for Adobe Flash content, and more. New Activities such as Physics and OOo4Kids join updated favorites such as Browse and Read, suitable for reading e-books.
“Sugar on a Stick is a great way to experience Sugarâ€, commented Walter Bender, Sugar Labs executive director. “In this holiday season, we wish to remind parents and teachers that e-books are not only for costly reader units for the well-to-do, but freely available as part of the open-access to knowledge movement to help children everywhere develop critical learning skills and to bridge the digital divide wherever it exists.â€
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The US Branding Company has come up with a very clever USB stick which acts like a puzzle. This is an excellent idea for promotional USB drives, as it forces the user to construct your company logo or brand before the USB stick can be used.
The trick is to correctly configure the printed logo so the USB connector pops out when the puzzle is complete. Think of this as the 1974 phenomenon Rubiks Cube but applied to a USB stick and obvious very simplified.
The US Branding Co. has coined the phrase Rotating Puzzle USB and is available in a wide range of colors and sizes with print capabilities from single color to multi-color prints and logos.
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Press Release:Â Andrea Electronics Revolutionizes PC Sound Quality with Debut of New High Fidelity USB Sound Card.
Andrea Electronics revolutionizes PC sound with their all new PureAudioâ„¢ USB-SA high fidelity external sound card. Yes, it’s the shape of a USB stick, but it packs the power of even the most impressive sound cards. In fact, it’s designed to surpass the quality of hi-end sound cards.
Andrea Electronics is a specialist in noise cancelation technology and has incorporated their technology into the PureAudio™ USB-SA sound card. The idea is to provide superior tools for noise cancelation so conversations via VoIP, gaming chats, or on-line video such as YouTube will sound much better than from traditional sound cards found inside your PC.
One of the fundamental problems with sound cards inside your computer is their location. Sitting right next to a power supply or processor means there is audio degradation from noise emitted from these devices. By having the PureAudioâ„¢ USB-SA external sound card away from all this, your sound quality is greatly improved. Coupled with the Andrea Electronics noise cancellation technology it’s unlikely you’ll get anything as clean and clear as the PureAudioâ„¢ USB-SA.
“We were immediately impressed by the compact size and the quality. The full duplex device isn’t just a petite pretty face. It produced the lowest noise floor of any previous soundcard we’ve tested.†said Lunis Orcutt of KnowBrainer, value added reseller of speech recognition equipment and software. “The USB-SA seems to be well thought out and attractively priced. Some of the microphones that we sell have difficulty with full duplex USB Pods but none have a problem with the USB-SA, which is now our favorite.â€
Icron is leading the way in low cost USB extension options with their new Ranger 2101 and Ranger 2104 products. These extension adapters are a single connect to extend a USB device up to 100 meters away. The concept is simple, through USB and CAT5 Icron ExtremeUSB technology can maintain high speed USB transfer rates over such a hard wired configuration.
The Ranger 2101 is a single connect ExtremeUSB extension box with a retail price of $349 and the Ranger 2104 is a single connect with 4 port end-point hub for multiple device connection for only $389. To learn more about the Icron ExtremeUSB technology read my earlier posts.
As for today’s announcement:
“Our customers are connecting USB enabled devices in more challenging and unique applications which demand higher performance and flexibility from our ExtremeUSB technology.†stated Robert Eisses, President and CEO of Icron Technologies. “We are committed to enhancing the technology to increase the implementation options to be able to dramatically expand the market for ExtremeUSB technology. Ranger 2101 and Ranger 2104 are the initial products in a new series of solutions from Icron that include other cost down products and ultimately a family of single chip ExtremeUSB devices, ideal for embedding into a variety of applications.â€
Over the past 18 months the company has focused its Research and Development initiatives on evolving its core ExtremeUSB technology to be more flexible and cost effective to encourage quick adoption into larger markets. With over 2 Billion USB ports shipped
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Press Release: Philips Launches New USB Smart Key for Dictation Product Line.
Philips is the first company to offer such a tool, which replaces current dongles and older security codes that had to be manually typed in. The USB Smart Key is now packaged with Philips SpeechExec Pro Dictate and Philips SpeechExec Pro Transcribe, as well as Transcribe software packages.
The USB Smart Key can simply be inserted into a USB port and the software will automatically access the license stored on the key. The license can then be easily transferred to a computer with the touch of a download button and, after download is complete, the key is no longer needed for licensing and users can work on that computer without having to keep and carry a dongle. If a user wishes to work with the dictation software on an office computer as well as a computer at home, the USB Smart Key allows him or her to switch from one computer to another without having to purchase a second license.
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Press Release – BURNABY, B.C., September 13, 2007 – Icron Technologies Corporation (TSX Venture: IT), the developers of ExtremeUSB® places as one of the fastest growing companies in British Columbia by Business in Vancouver newspaper. Icron ranks in at 64 based upon their revenue growth between and including 2002 / 2006 which increased 213% during this period.
This is Icron’s second recognition of rapid growth in the last three months
Ranking BC’s Fastest-Growing Companies by five-year revenue growth, the BIV Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies List profiles BC’s most successful growth companies. Published in the September 4th issue of BIV, the list shows that companies in BC are excelling more than ever before in this sustained economic boom.
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Press Release – BURNABY, B.C. September 13, 2007 – Icron Technologies Corporation (TSX Venture: IT), the developers of ExtremeUSB® today announced that it has been issued a patent from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office for enhancements to its ExtremeUSB technology for high-speed USB 2.0 implementations.
This patent, titled “Method and apparatus for extending the range of the universal serial bus protocolâ€, builds upon earlier patents covering USB 1.1 range extension. The invention described in the patent enables long-range or increased latency communication between high-speed (480 Mb/s) host controllers and full-speed (12 Mb/s) peripherals. It also provides support for the high-bandwidth peripherals that were introduced by the USB 2.0 specification. The issuance of this patent is the third of a series of applications filed through the Patent Corporation Treaty in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom patent was issued in December 2005 and the US patent was issued in January of 2007.
Icron’s ExtremeUSB 2.0 technology allows manufacturers of PC’s, peripherals, and consumer electronics to extend the range that USB 2.0 devices can operate over UTP cable, fiber optics, power line or any wireless media at any distance without making any changes to the USB ecosystem. This ensures that users will have a “plug and play†experience right out of the box, requiring no additional drivers, host controller changes, or user configurations. It supports all USB supported operating systems including Windows, MAC OS, Linux, Unix and Solaris.
“As Icron continues to evolve our ExtremeUSB technology and implement it over more and more platforms, we will continue to expand out patent portfolio to protect our intellectual property in the USB technology space.â€
commented Robert Eisses, President and CEO for Icron. USB 2.0 continues to be the most recognized and successful interface for device connectivity in the PC, CE and mobile device market. Icron continues its leadership in the USB 2.0 market with the receipt of this patent and expansion of its USB 2.0 extension product line including new long distance wired, USB over Power Line and wireless USB solutions.
About Icron Technologies Corporation
Icron Technologies Corporation’s patented ExtremeUSB® technology extends the range of USB in wired environments and enables wireless USB over any RF technology. ExtremeUSB is the only USB-IF compliant extension solution and is deployed globally in a wide range of applications including: industrial automation, medical device, aerospace, KVM and computer networking. ExtremeUSB technology is available in a variety of formats including technology licenses, OEM modules, developer kits, as well as branded and private-label products.
Icron is a publicly traded corporation and trades under the symbol “IT” on the TSX Venture Exchange. For more information on the company and its products, please visit www.icron.com.
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Contact Information
Icron Media Contact
Brigitta Shore Phone: +1 604-729-9479
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Press Release – Burnaby BC., June 19, 2007 – Icron Technologies Corporation (TSX Venture: IT), the developers of ExtremeUSB® announced that Gefen Inc, of Woodland Hills, California, has launched a wireless USB 2.0 extender based on Icron’s ExtremeUSB technology at this years InfoComm 07 show in Anaheim, CA from June 19th to the 21st.
The Gefen wireless USB extender supports the connection of hi-speed USB 2.0 and 1.1 devices up to 100 feet from the computer. It works with both Apple (OSX) and PC (Windows, Linux) systems using Icron Technologies’ ExtremeUSB based on 802.11g technology. The receiver is a four-port USB hub that can support multiple devices by adding additional hubs. Data can be delivered at high speeds, thanks to optimized circuitry.
“We believe this reliable and wireless method of USB extension will significantly enhance the way systems operate well into the future,” said Hagai Gefen, president and CEO. “Subsequent versions will also support multiple receiver hubs connected to one sender unit, allowing a same time distribution that delivers data real-time with no cables.”
Like most of Gefen’s extender solutions, the wireless USB 2.0 extender uses small sender and receiver units connected to the computer and to the extended USB devices. No cables are needed to link sender to the receiver, which allows connection to cameras, keyboards, printers, hard drives or any USB 2.0 devices at distances up to 100 feet away.
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Jungo’s Software Connectivity Business Unit, a market leading provider of USB software protocol stacks, driver development tools and testing tools, today announced the release of version 1.01 of its USBTester product line: a software USB testing tool that enables USB developers to quickly validate their USB devices for USB compatibility, Chapter 9 conformance and mass storage functionality and performance.
A thoughtful feature Jungo included with this release version is the ability to configure read and write tests to any block size. I’m especially pleased with this configuration option as I spoke with Matan Naor of Jungo to implement this ability. Thanks! It allows developers to test their code when optimizing for different packet sizes in their embedded firmware.
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Press Release:GetUSB.info Summary: FotoTime now offers their powerful and award winning digital photo suite, FotoAlbum, to be used with U3 smart drives. The FotoAlbum Pro provides the power to manage a lifetime of pictures and videos by maintaining an easily searchable database that includes albums, keywords, captions, ratings and dates.
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Press Release:GetUSB.info Summary: The USB Flash Drive Alliance is officially standing behind “smart” drives where 3rd party applications run directly from a USB flash drive or UFD. This endorsement along with the strong momentum of flash drives in general will surely cement the long term staying power of USB as a preferred bus technology.
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A prototype USB drive using bug protein to store data in the neighborhood of around 50 terabytes worth of data could be here in less then 18 months. This idea first started out by coating DVDs with a layer of protein so that one day solid state memory could hold so much information that storing data on your computer hard drive will be obsolete,
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Press Release:Â Andrea Electronics Revolutionizes PC Sound Quality with Debut of New High Fidelity USB Sound Card.
Andrea Electronics revolutionizes PC sound with their all new PureAudioâ„¢ USB-SA high fidelity external sound card. Yes, it’s the shape of a USB stick, but it packs the power of even the most impressive sound cards. In fact, it’s designed to surpass the quality of hi-end sound cards.
Andrea Electronics is a specialist in noise cancelation technology and has incorporated their technology into the PureAudio™ USB-SA sound card. The idea is to provide superior tools for noise cancelation so conversations via VoIP, gaming chats, or on-line video such as YouTube will sound much better than from traditional sound cards found inside your PC.
Icron
