Gadget Zone » Hardware

Logitech Unifying Receiver – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:41:33 +0000

Logitech Unifying Receiver

Forget about having one ring to rule them all – the Logitech Unifying Receiver aims to free up your USB ports from the tyranny of USB gizmos around the desk by connecting up to half a dozen compatible devices, making sure your notebook or computer has free USB ports that can be used when the situation calls for it. This new Logitech Unifying Receiver won’t be too lonely where released, since it is bundled with new Logitech products including the K340 and K350 wireless keyboards, Marathon Mouse M705 and Wireless Mouse M505. You can always leave the Logitech Unifying Receiver inside your computer when traveling since it won’t stick out like a sore thumb, measuring just 8mm from the USB port. It keeps everything paired together via 2.4GHz wireless connectivity and boasts 128-bit AES encryption for added security.

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Cupertino Rumormill Ablaze with more Tablet Talk – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:32:35 +0000

Cupertino Rumormill Ablaze

Although still rumor, the never dying speculation of Apple releasing a Tablet Mac has taken a step towards reality with an “anonymous” analyst leaking details to Barron’s of the upcoming new MacTab.

According to this secret Judas, Apple will release an oversized iPod Touch with a 10? screen and updated media hardware sometime between September and November. Cost? Hovering around $800-900. Just in time for the holiday rush.

But is this just more fanboy speculation or is Barron’s buying it? It’s hard not to buy into the speculation considering stories of Apple’s large multitouch screen patents and orders of a few million screens for some as yet unknown purpose.

And there’s also the notion that rumors that simply refuse to go away regarding Cupertino usually mean that sooner or later, they become reality. That’s how it worked with the iPhone, remember?

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Western Digital unveils new My Passport Essential SE Portable USB Drives – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:05:00 +0000

Western Digital unveils new My Passport Essential SE Portable USB Drives

Guess today’s focus will be on a couple of Western Digital products, as the world leader in external storage solutions has just lifted the veil on its new My Passport Essential SE Portable USB Drives, offering 750GB and 1TB capacities that come encased in a titanium silver finish, giving you unprecedented amounts of storage capacity right smack in the palm of your hand. Guess with more and more people archiving their collection of photos and videos on hard drives, it makes perfect sense to have a decent storage solution that won’t just konk out within months, being more durable than optical discs at the same time.

The new 1 TB and 750 GB capacity My Passport Essential SE drives won’t be a burden on your shoulders whenever you go traveling with them since they are light and compact to tote around. In addition, by virtue of being USB powered means there is no need to lug around yet another power adapter which could prove to be rather heavy (it all adds up, you know). Each purchase of the new My Passport Essential SE drives will come equipped with sync and encryption software, but these will work only in the Windows environment – sorry, Mac users. In addition, it enables consumers to carry desktop content with them wherever they go, thanks to the synchronization of essential personal files and Microsoft Outlook data on a PC. Just in case you happen to be one clumsy person and misplace your drive, rest assured whoever finds it will have a tough time recovering the information inside thanks to 128-bit encryption technology.

According to Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD’s branded products group, “The enormous capacity of these new My Passport Essential SE drives makes them the perfect travel-friendly storage device to hold all the rich media content generated by higher resolution photos and HD videos and music. Carrying digital files close at hand continues to be a growing consumer interest and this new drive offers a sleek and stylish solution with plenty of storage capacity for people on the move.”

You can pick up the 750GB and 1TB My Passport Essential SE for $199.99 and $299.99, respectively.

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Western Digital releases new Scorpio Blue SATA hard drive – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:59:42 +0000

Western Digital releases new Scorpio Blue SATA hard drive

After taking a look at the My Passport Essential SE Portable USB drives, let us check out what else Western Digital has to offer – their new line of Scorpio Blue SATA hard drives that are able to reach new capacity extremes thanks to the technology involved. The main highlight of this new release would be the 1TB model, giving it the (temporary) bragging rights of being the highest-capacity 2.5? drive available in the industry, courtesy of industry-leading 333 GB-per-platter technology. Just in case you are on a tighter budget and would like to have something smaller (in size and retail price), there is always the option for a 750GB model, although as we know very well, one can never have enough USB ports and memory – they’re somewhat like how shoes and handbags are to the ladies.

The WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB and 1 TB hard drives will come in a svelte 12.5 mm form factor, making them perfectly suited for use in portable storage solutions including the hot-off-the-shelves My Passport Essential SE Portable USB Drives. OTher devices that could take advantage of the new Scorpio Blues include a range of notebooks as well as small form factor desktop PCs that are proliferating the market these days, where both quiet and cool operation are of importance in addition to performance, as the WD Scorpio Blue drives are no slouches in that department by delivering a 3 gigabits per second transfer rate.

Features of the WD Scorpio Blue include WhisperDrive technology, ShockGuard for superior data protection in the event of a knock or accidental drop and SecurePark that stashes the head off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. You can pick up the 750GB and 1TB models from selected distributors and resellers, where the 1TB capacity model can be found in the My Passport Essential SE USB drives. Both the 750TB and 1TB models are going for $189.99 and $249.99, respectively, where each purchase comes covered by a 3-year limited warranty.

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Jay Leno proves real world applications for 3D printer – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:54:43 +0000

Jay Leno proves real world applications for 3D printer

Jay Leno uses 3D gadgets to replace obsolete parts in his car collection.

Jay Leno is more than just a former host of the tonight show, or even a stand up comic. Jay is a car nut, and his has quite an impressive collection of automobiles from sports cars to trucks, to even tank like vehicles which are hybrids. But Jay also has some very old original automobiles with engines that have no replacement parts. And when one recently went down for good, it looked as if one of his cars would never run again. Then he got the idea to use a computer and 3D printer to make his own replacement parts. And it worked.

The part was a slide, or “D” vale from his 1907 White Steamer engine which had been used so much, that the metal had become porous, leaking oil and steam everywhere. Knowing that welding up any holes wouldn’t only do further damage, Leno and his mechanics used the NextEngine 3D scanner and Dimension 3D printer to scan the original part, make the necessary repairs digitally, and then simply reprint the part back. The Dimension 3D printer printed an exact copy of the part in plastic, which was then used to create a mold to recast the part back in it’s original form.

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Samsung unveils new Spinpoint N3U hard drive – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:00:11 +0000

Samsung unveils new Spinpoint N3U hard drive

Portable hard drives are dime a dozen, and there are already many players available in the market currently. Samsung aims to be at the forefront with their most recent release, the Spinpoint N3U which will incorporate a native USB controller on its printed circuit board. This optimized design will ultimately result in a much smaller foot print, alongside a greener solution with less power consumption and optimized performance that makes it suitable as a portable external storage device. In fact, the 1.8? Spinpoint N3U is able to hold up to 250GB worth of data, storing up to 125 Gigabytes per platter.

While the majority of other external hard drives will require the addition of a bridge circuit board to convert the hard drive’s PATA interface into a USB interface, Samsung’s latest N3U drive with its native USB interface will do away with the need for such a bridge board. According to Choel-Hee Lee, vice president of marketing Storage System Division, Samsung Electronics, “The new high-capacity 1.8” 250GB drive enhances Samsung’s product offerings and is ideal for consumers who require a small form factor, high capacity data storage. It is easy to carry around and it is designed to withstand a free fall drop of up to 50 centimeters and be resistant to a maximum shock incident of up to 1500G.”

50cm might not sound like much, but then again it is better than nothing. Then again, do always remember to make a backup of your data in any hard drive just in case any untoward incident happens. Using a native USB interface device, the Spinpoint N3U eliminates possible points of failure due to loose cable connections while optimizing performance by eliminating the interrupt service time for the bridge board to convert PATA to USB signals. In addition, the N3U 1.8” drive is eco-friendly as it sips a mere 60% of power compared to a 2.5” hard drive of an equivalent capacity. The Spinpoint N3U will be available in 120GB, 160GB, 200GB and 250GB capacities, with shipping commencing from mid-July onwards with the 250GB model going for $199.

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HP releases professional workstation with Six-core AMD Opteron processor – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:04:51 +0000

HP releases professional workstation with Six-core AMD Opteron processor

HP is no stranger when it comes to releasing new computers, but this time round things are a little bit different. After all, they have just announced the availability of their highly sought after Six-Core AMD Opteron 2400 Series processor-powered line of HP Workstations, targeting businesses and homes that need all the processing power they need and then some. These high-end workstation machines are able to be in their element when handling applications within fields such as engineering, 3-D digital content creation, oil and gas, and science, where the HP xw9400 Workstation won’t stutter or freeze up courtesy of the power of the new AMD Opteron processors that were specially developed to offer higher productivity, especially for multi-threaded applications, multi-tasking and mega-tasking environments.

Interestingly enough, the HP xw9400 Workstation is able to hold up to a pair of Six-Core AMD Opteron processors, giving you a grand total of a dozen cores. Each individual core is already not a pushover, boasting up to 34% more performance per watt over the previous-generation quad-core processors, so imagine what a dozen of these puppies are able to achieve for your work. While these won’t be able to track down any alien lifeforms using the SETI program, it is still able to handle a whole bunch of tests thrown at it, passing with flying colors to boot. The introduction of AMD HyperTransport 3.0 technology (HT3) increases interconnect rates from 2 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) up to a maximum 4.8 GT/s, while you can further augment its performance by throwing in, if budget permits, the ATI FirePro V7750 3-D workstation graphics accelerator.

All that firepower doesn’t mean the HP xw9400 Workstation is one meanie to the environment – no sir, in fact it has even been registered as an Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold product, practically the highest rating available. This ensures that over 90% of the machine is recyclable by weight, where the tool-less chassis makes upgrades a quick and painless affair. Depending on the configuration of choice, prices start from $1,899 upwards.

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AT&T Park gets Wi-Fi upgrade – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:56:40 +0000

AT&T Park gets Wi-Fi upgrade

AT&T has long taken pride by being the USA’s largest Wi-Fi network provider, offering over 20,000 domestic hot spots and more than 90,000 hot spots globally via roaming partners, and this time round they have announced recent upgrades to AT&T Park’s Giants Digital Dugout. What’s the Digital Dugout? It is actually an interactive, in-stadium site for San Francisco Giants fans that offers a much more enhanced visitor experience, thanks to special applications and exclusive content delivered throughout the ballpark over complimentary AT&T Wi-Fi access for any ballpark visitor with a Wi-Fi enabled device. Yes, you read that right – as long as your PSP, DS Lite, cellphone, PDA, netbook, notebook or other device with Wi-Fi capability is in good working order, you can gain access to a host of features shown right after the jump.

Food Finder, which allows hungry Giants fans to locate the nearest concession stand.
FanCaptions, which provides closed captioning of PA announcements for hearing-impaired patrons.
Pitch Tracker, so fans can enjoy live pitch tracking, score updates and statistics courtesy of MLB.com.
Games, including Base Runner, Match Game and Buzz!, to challenge and entertain baseball fans with creative and innovative activities.
Video Content Library, which provides a collection of player interviews, along with great moments in Giants’ history.

According to Bill Schlough, San Francisco Giants chief information officer, “The Digital Dugout is really changing the game for Giants fans at AT&T Park. We strive to provide an outstanding entertainment experience for each and every one of our ballpark guests, and thanks to AT&T, we have been able to make their visits even more interactive and memorable.”

We think that this is a pretty neat move as it helps bring fans closer to the detailed aspects of the game with instant access to information via Wi-Fi connectivity. After all, you not only get the full live experience with thousands of fans cheering your favorite team on, you will also be able to enjoy instant replays of glorious (and on the downside, painful) moments as though you were viewing a TV, making this combination one that offers the best of both worlds.

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AVerMedia debuts AVerTVHD Duet Dual TV Tuner – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:56:45 +0000

AVerMedia debuts AVerTVHD Duet Dual TV Tuner

AverMedia has rolled out its latest device, the AVerTVHD Duet dual TV tuner which is forward looking since it works with the yet unreleased Windows 7 operating system. The AVerTVHD Duet is able to receive over-the-air HD Digital TV signals (ATSC) or unencrypted digital cable (ClearQAM), letting you choose between recording two programs simultaneously or recording just one while watching another when you have more time than usual to spare. The PCI Express interface is used since it will be faster than a traditional PCI connection, while a Picture-in-Picture feature allows you to watch TV while working simultaneously. Depending on your budget, the $70 version comes with just the Tuner itself while $90 will net you the Tuner alongside AVer’s MediaCenter application that enables access to PVR-like features including pausing, rewinding and recording live TV as well as a program schedule and time shift capabilities.

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HP Photosmart Premium web-connected home printer – Gadget Zone

Gadget — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:47:01 +0000

HP Photosmart Premium

When you talk about printers, it is inevitable that the name HP will crop up – there’s just no denying the fact that this brand name has been offering solid printers across the (computing) ages, and this time round the company will roll out yet another first (for both HP and the printing industry as a whole) – the world’s first web-connected home printer known as the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web. When coupled with HP’s TouchSmart technology, it will offer regular folks at home and at the office quick, easy, touchscreen access to popular digital content, upping the user friendly ante in the process.

Targeting the digital generation and connected households, the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web will come with a whole new web-based printing platform with HP applications. It works pretty much in tandem with other Internet-connected devices, where these apps can be viewed on the generously sized, intuitive-to-use TouchSmart panel that enables people to connect in an instant to fun, informative and personal content. Apart from playing around with pre-loaded apps, users can also download new ones when they want something new and refreshing as the HP Apps Studio continues to roll out new ones. Navigating using the large 4.3” touchscreen panel is a snap, where a simple sweep of the finger will enable users to browse and view popular web destinations, while touching the app of their choice will launch a web page automatically, allowing users to customize and print content on demand in an easy-to-read format.

Apart from printing, the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web is also able to print, fax, copy and scan to keep even power home users happy with this all-in-one device, helping reduce the clutter on the work desk as well with the need for less devices congregating around your computer. Other features include the ability to print directly from Wi-Fi-enabled PCs, Bluetooth-enabled devices, the Apple iPhone and the Apple iPod touch using HP iPrint Photo. Expect to pick up the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web sometime this fall in the US for $399.

Gadget Zone » Hardware

Logitech Unifying Receiver – Gadget Zone

Random Posts

Cupertino Rumormill Ablaze with more Tablet Talk – Gadget Zone

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Western Digital unveils new My Passport Essential SE Portable USB Drives – Gadget Zone

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Western Digital releases new Scorpio Blue SATA hard drive – Gadget Zone

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Jay Leno proves real world applications for 3D printer – Gadget Zone

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Samsung unveils new Spinpoint N3U hard drive – Gadget Zone

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HP releases professional workstation with Six-core AMD Opteron processor – Gadget Zone

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AT&T Park gets Wi-Fi upgrade – Gadget Zone

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AVerMedia debuts AVerTVHD Duet Dual TV Tuner – Gadget Zone

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HP Photosmart Premium web-connected home printer – Gadget Zone

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