I think we can agree that “USB light back” is not a common tech term among the geeks out there. What I mean is a LED system powered by USB which provide background lighting to your TV or monitor.
USB light back takes your TV one step further by supply complimentary tones and colors to what is currently being displayed on your TV. Gives you a theater effect.
The only way to fully understand, is to watch:
A quote from the creator:
The software analyzes the image on your monitor and transfers its data by USB to the Lightpack board. This board lights the surface behind a monitor, TV or laptop by means of RGB LEDs of the corresponding colors. The effect reminds us of the illumination of Phillips Ambilight TVs most of all.
The lightpack is available for all via Google Code download link. For the more advanced, but an very effective tool to enhance your TV experience.
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The USB Implimentors Forum announced the availability of the USB On-The-GO [OTG] specification for embedded USB host controller applications where a PC is not required.
The supplement ensures that mobile devices such as phones or cameras are able to use a SuperSpeed USB link in both USB host and USB peripheral roles through a single receptacle. OTG and Embedded Host Devices requiring fast synchronization or streaming of rich data will benefit from this feature.
The USB OTG 3.0 and Embedded Host supplement offers power saving features equivalent to those available in USB OTG 2.0, enabling the adoption of SuperSpeed USB in mobile devices. Additionally, USB OTG 3.0 provides backward compatibility with USB OTG 2.0.
To learn more about the specification,
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Cell phone standards ditched the AC/DC adapter about a year ago and it’ll be a requirement all cell phones power only via USB. Now it looks like we could do the same for computers. The USB 3.0 Promoter Group introduced a new specification to offer up to 100watts of power over a USB 3.0 cable. How convenient would that be!
Lets ditch the AC/DC power block with most laptops and just plug into one of those USB wall mount power stations. Or recharge your laptop directly off your tower PC. Or easily power an unlimited number of USB devices via your USB laptop USB 3.0 port.
This means more and more peripherals will be powered via USB and not require the extra power adapter. This ultimately mean less cost and less hassle for the average computer user.
“Building on the rapidly increasing industry momentum for using USB bus power to charge a broad range of mobile devices, the new USB Power Delivery specification extends USB’s cable power delivery capabilities beyond simple battery charging,” said Brad Saunders, USB 3.0 Promoter Group chairman, in a statement. “For example, charging the battery of a notebook PC, or simply powering that notebook PC while actively using the USB data connection, would be possible. Conceivably, a notebook PC could rely solely on a USB connection for its source of power.”
The preliminary spec indicated power is bi-directional and therefore no need to switch or swap the USB cable. The new specification would be compatible with
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These days it’s popular to take just about any house hold item, a USB flash drive, and mill out a space to make a USB mod case. Today’s post is no exception. Using just two dice and a mini USB, in four easy steps you can make a USB dice key-chain.
Step 1: Get your items. Dice, USB, Dremel, blue or epoxy and a file.
Step 2:Â After some measurements, mill out the hold where the USB will be inserted.
Step 3: Repeat step 2 for the second die as this will be your cap. You also need to drill a hole on a dice side for the lanyard which will attached to your key-chain
Step 4: Epoxy the USB drive into the base die, and attached the lanyard to the cap die. Now you’ve got a USB dice key-chain.
You might want to take things a step further and
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Apple has made waves in the news with their stellar 2nd Quarter results, increased stock price, new MacBook Air and Mac Mini’s computers, no wonder many are talking about them. In addition, Apple released another OS update, the OS X Lion. Lion is available immediately via download off the app store. Some may not want to download a new 4GB OS update. For that, Apple will release their Lion on USB.
First off, lets get some pricing out of the way. The download update is retail at $30. The USB stick is set to be at $70. Not bad, but seems like their math doesn’t add up. Granted you get an 8GB stick, but lets take a look…$30 for update + $15 for an 8GB stick, the retail should around $45. Oh, and the Apple logo, that’s another $25. Okay, now my math is correct. I apologize.
However, if you have an extra 4GB or 8GB stick you can create your own USB OS X Lion stick. The USB tutorial isn’t that long and only involves three steps. For the tutorial, I’m going to redirect you to
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Several years ago the concept of a 2GB luggage tag would be out of the questions. A 2GB drive was about $15 and for that reason, most everyone would consider it too expensive.
Today however, with a 2GB flash drive less than $5.00 it makes plenty of sense to use a flash drive to store your contact information via USB. Sure, you still write your name, address and phone number on the label above, but you can now include additional information. Travel itinerary, medical information and 2nd contact information.
Now, if you want the luggage tag looking USB with label area, it will cost you the full price of $30, but I’d rather take an old USB or a new $5.00 and create my own. Wouldn’t be that hard with some creative material like duct tape.
Transcend and Taiwan’s ITRI are doing a joint venture design on an ultra slim 2TB USB flashdrive. The “Thin Card” was shown at the Display Taiwan convention. Not sure why the release was at a flat screen convention, but I guess a moot point.
Nothing official from either company in regards to specs or a simple introduction, nor does the high-capacity USB 3.0 stick appear on Display Taiwan’s trade show website. So adding this all up, it could be nothing more then a USB case and a trade show hottie giving out false information.
If you watch the video [here] you can hear the girl say things like “this could be a 2TB drive” well no sh!t I could pull out any sized drive and claim it “could be 2TB” and follow up with a release date of March 2015.
However, lets keep a positive attitude about this and hope a 2TB drive isn’t too far off.
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One of the main goals for Windows 8 with respect to peripheral support, is the robust support for USB devices. From the first 1.1 standard, the high speed 2.0 standard and the newest addition of SuperSpeed USB 3.0.
Microsoft expects to see all new PCs have a USB 3.0 port by 2015…but I think we’ll see USB 3.0 in all PCs before the end of 2013. Microsoft also forecasts a number of 2 billion USB 3.0 devices to ship in 2015 as well.
Microsoft’s game plan is keeping their current USB stack for 1.1 and 2.0 devices as it’s proven and stable, while incorporating a new USB stack for 3.0 devices.
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If you guess Apple, you are correct. The US Treasury released their cash savings numbers yesterday and it appears US has about 73.7billion in cash. Compare that to Apple’s cash in the back at 76.4billion and it’s clear who’s got more green.
Just 9 years ago, Apple had several hundred million in the bank. This just goes to show you what a decade of strong sales can do for a retail product line such as Apple’s.
Just last quarter Apple sold 20.3 million devices and with the minimum price of a couple hundred bucks per unit, that’s a big number.Continue Reading
Found this today, little kid project for turning a USB drive into a Shuriken. Not familiar with the term, then check this out.
As for the tutorial and link, it’s after the jump.
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Who didn’t love the movie thriller “The Da Vinci Code?” Not only that, who didn’t dream about having a cool Cryptex gadget to store all your valuable secrets? Come one, you know it would be phenomenally great to have such a device. Well, it might not be that far off.
A Russian engineer has posted his version of a USB Cryptex case which includes detailed drawings, CAD files and component assembly.
You can’t help but to want one. [more photo’s after the break]
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Just looking at the picture, wouldn’t it be a shame if the Porsche inspired USB hard drive from LaCie got a scratch on it? Not many tech products get designed after house-hold names, like Porsche, but it seems LaCie is making a good business out of it.
The exclusive design is available in 500GB and 1TB size with an even more exclusive size of 750GBs only available at Porsche stores. Wouldn’t that be odd, “Honey, I’m going down to the Porsche dealership to pick up a hard drive to expand the TiVo box.” But, after she saw the hard drive, I’m sure she would understand.
So when you can find a 500GB USB hard drive for about $80, why bother? Drop another $20 and get the LaCie Porsche version. Now that is money well spent.
For the tech folks, it’s USB 3.0 so great transfer rates. For the Uber-Geek, forget about Thunderbolt – sh!t, the spec just came out and I’m sure it took Porsche at least 6 months just to approve the design. So stop getting theoretical
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The USB Implimentors Forum announced the availability of the USB On-The-GO [OTG] specification for embedded USB host controller applications where a PC is not required.
The supplement ensures that mobile devices such as phones or cameras are able to use a SuperSpeed USB link in both USB host and USB peripheral roles through a single receptacle. OTG and Embedded Host Devices requiring fast synchronization or streaming of rich data will benefit from this feature.
The USB OTG 3.0 and Embedded Host supplement offers power saving features equivalent to those available in USB OTG 2.0, enabling the adoption of SuperSpeed USB in mobile devices. Additionally, USB OTG 3.0 provides backward compatibility with USB OTG 2.0.
To learn more about the specification,
Lets ditch the AC/DC power block with most laptops and just plug into one of those USB wall mount power stations. Or recharge your laptop directly off your tower PC. Or easily power an unlimited number of USB devices via your USB laptop USB 3.0 port.
This means more and more peripherals will be powered via USB and not require the extra power adapter. This ultimately mean less cost and less hassle for the average computer user.
Step 1: Get your items. Dice, USB, Dremel, blue or epoxy and a file.
Step 2:Â After some measurements, mill out the hold where the USB will be inserted.
Step 3: Repeat step 2 for the second die as this will be your cap. You also need to drill a hole on a dice side for the lanyard which will attached to your key-chain
Step 4: Epoxy the USB drive into the base die, and attached the lanyard to the cap die. Now you’ve got a USB dice key-chain.
You might want to take things a step further and
First off, lets get some pricing out of the way. The download update is retail at $30. The 
Nothing official from either company in regards to specs or a simple introduction, nor does the high-capacity USB 3.0 stick appear on Display Taiwan’s trade show website. So adding this all up, it could be nothing more then a USB case and a trade show hottie giving out false information.
If you watch the video [
One of the main goals for Windows 8 with respect to peripheral support, is the robust support for USB devices. From the first 1.1 standard, the high speed 2.0 standard and the newest addition of SuperSpeed USB 3.0.
Microsoft expects to see all new PCs have a USB 3.0 port by 2015…but I think we’ll see USB 3.0 in all PCs before the end of 2013. Microsoft also forecasts a number of 2 billion USB 3.0 devices to ship in 2015 as well.
Microsoft’s game plan is keeping their current USB stack for 1.1 and 2.0 devices as it’s proven and stable, while incorporating a new USB stack for 3.0 devices.
A Russian engineer has posted his version of a 
The exclusive design is available in 500GB and 1TB size with an even more exclusive size of 750GBs only available at Porsche stores. Wouldn’t that be odd, “Honey, I’m going down to the Porsche dealership to pick up a hard drive to expand the TiVo box.” But, after she saw the hard drive, I’m sure she would understand.
So when you can find a 500GB USB hard drive for about $80, why bother? Drop another $20 and get the LaCie Porsche version. Now that is money well spent.
For the tech folks, it’s USB 3.0 so great transfer rates. For the Uber-Geek, forget about Thunderbolt – sh!t, the spec just came out and I’m sure it took Porsche at least 6 months just to approve the design. So stop getting theoretical