Verbatim announced their 32GB flash drive today in the form of a USB dongle no larger than a nickel. There is no lanyard loop and it’s damn small, so will most likely get lost if you place it in your pocket – but that is all okay. It seems Verbatim is gunning for this product to be a permanent extension of memory for your Netbook or laptop anyway.
However, in the event you plan to swap the 32GB stick from PC to PC there is one dirty little secret you should be aware of…it needs a DC powered USB port.
In most situations and applications this isn’t a problem as the device will be connected directly to a motherboard USB port, but you’ll need to pay specific attention to dock stations or non-powered USB hubs. To understand a little better, the device controller needs
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With Apple’s recent news about the MacBook Air being ultra thing, ultra long lasting and ultra cool, what many overlooked was the reinstall software shipping on a USB drive.
With companies trying to save energy, reduce cost and reduce product sizes, it’s no surprise [at least to me] that Apple dumped the optical drive in favor of solid state memory…for both the computer and the restore media.
“Even the flash drive looks awesome from Apple,” says my colleague who does a ton of iPhone and iPad applications…with a new one coming out.
Beside the fact of flash being faster than optical, we also save space on the internal SSD drive by not having the reinstallation software loaded, but rather off-line and secure. Just be sure to wrap a key-chain around it, the Apple restore USB drive looks pretty small.
When Sony officially supports the USB 3.0 specification by supplying a dual USB 3.0 port on their new VAIO laptops, it’s safe to say the transition is picking up steam.
The Sony desktop-replacements are HD VAIO laptops coming with possibly everything you can hope for with the exception of 3D and SSD. The more expensive model ($2,970) will have Core i7-740QM, GeForce GT 425M 1GB graphics card while the lower end laptop ($2,140) will only carry a Core i5-460M and GeForce 310M 512MB. Both Sony VAIO models are stocked with 4GB RAM, the same Blu-ray optical reader, 500GB 2.5″ drive and a dual HDTV tuner as well as a 16.4″ full HD LCD.
In the connectivity department, both laptops will feature not one but two USB 3.0 ports – likely powered by
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With the fast pace of our multimedia lifestyles it’s getting more important to be able to transfer or save large files more quickly. With this future trend it’s nice to see the USB 3.0 products hitting the market in larger quantities with different product offerings. Lenovo is introducing their first portable USB 3.0 hard drive, the F360.
With the 3.0 getting integrated into more products, it’s nice to see a large industry leader like Lenovo getting on board.
The slim F360 USB hard drive is only 11 mm thick with a brushed metal surface treatment and unique etching process to give it a contemporary look. The no screw chassis is an additional feature, which I guess, is more common these days, but still looks great.The F360 will be a 7200RPM drive and includes a new calibration chip [no info on which one] which guarantees data transfer efficiency, error correction and security to insure your data is always safe, yet accessible.
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If rumors are to be true, Intel will be adding a USB 3.0 chipset to their winter 2010 lineup. The Intel Developer Forum is expected to showcase an Intel Cougar Point chipset for desktops.
For a bit, it was said Intel will forgo the the USB 3.0 chipset in favor of LightPeak technology, but maybe that technology has hit a bump in the road? Odd to have Intel flip-flop like this…or wait, maybe not.Currently integrators are turning to a third OEM for the USB 3.0 like NEC, but the Intel native would help reduce expense of motherboard manufacturers and speed the adoption of USB 3.0 technology into laptops, desktops and tablets.
Source:Â Electronista.com.
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DisplayLink will be pushing a new graphics chipset they say will take a major step toward any device with any display connectivity. Well damn, that’ll make it easy.
The nut for DisplayLink is their ability to leverage the bi-directional throughput of USB 3.0 to offer an array of functions and features. This means multiple full HD videos, high res graphics, standard video imaging and networking data can be simultaneously running. To give you an idea, apply these products to your imagination:
USB or Ethernet bus powered monitors
Universal USB docking stations with graphics, networking, and audio
Affordable Ethernet and USB zero clients for shared resource computing
USB to HDMI adapters for PC to TV connectivity
USB to DVI, VGA or DisplayPort adapters for multi-display notebooks
Mobile device to display
Dual-Headed USB bus powered graphics adapters
The new technology by DisplayLink include items such as:
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Buffalo is rolling out an all new USB Blu-Ray player for your laptop. What is particularely interseting about this offer is the forward thinking support for the 3D format.
Buying for the upcoming formats doesn’t come cheap, the new Buffalo USB Blu-Ray player has a list price of $350. For that price, many will consider getting an all new laptop with Blu-Ray…although it might not have 3D support.
The Buffalo portable player is part number BP3D-PI6U2-BK and measures 137- × 147- × 20mm. The device is currently available in Japan, but will lander later this month in the US.
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Yet another “i” product for all those Apple gadgets, but this time we feel it’s a product worth mentioning. The iPADock is a dock station to power or sync all your Apple gear in one handy location. The iDevices has designated USB power ports, designated USB-to-PC sync ports and additional flash memory ports for SD cards, SDHC and Compact Flash downloading.
So if you haven’t asked yourself how to clean up your sync area at work or home for the Apple gear…don’t worry, that day will come. For example, at our house we have 4 iPhones, two iPods, a FlipVideo and several cameras. All of them will receive power via USB.
First off, we have 4 iPhones because we’ve migrated from 3G or 3GS to the 4. The iPods are legacy products we had before the phones, yet we still use them for workouts…and the cameras, well those are good anytime.
What I like about the iPADock station are all the power and sync options.
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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. 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. However, with the PS3 it was a bit different. 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. That is a feat no other gaming company has
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If you’ve been to this site before, you know we are a fan of USB Steampunk. 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.”
WWWorks is the profile name over at Etsy and he’s done some nice work on his first release. What I like about the style of this design is the lack of gears you so commonly see with USB steampunk. Rather, WWWorks put some detail into the design on the brass.
So here is a bit of detail about WWWorks. Based in Budapest Hungary WWWorks is a computer IT guy by day and a craftsman by night. Trying to break away from the
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Mitsubishi is paving the way for hi-end 3D TVs with their recent announcement of a 40, 46 and 55 inch HD set. The specifications are impressive but it seems there might be a disconnect on what they are making verse what people want.
Lets start with the specifications. 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. 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 spend between $3K and $6K for the above, and they supply you with 1 pair of 3D glasses. 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
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Iomega is charging forward with USB 3.0 technology integrated into all their products. 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. 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.
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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. 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. However, with the PS3 it was a bit different. 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. That is a feat no other gaming company has
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