As we amass more and more flash drives, it gets to be harder and harder to tell them apart. Fun drives like this, 18 and Over drive, helps us keep our files sorted. This fun 2GB drive makes the distinction that the content is adult oriented or not to be put in children’s hands. No, this is not just a Pr0n drive, it can be for any sensitive content. Tax documents, controversial programs that might get you into trouble with system administrators or vacation photos that don’t need to end up on the company file server. More and more invasive system monitoring by corporations requires serious control of your personal files so that they stay personal.
Our flash drives are sorted by abilities and then by function. Fast drives are application drives or bulk data drives like iso’s and virtual disks. our sportier looking drives are for office documents, code libraries or reference materials. Then we have my special purpose drives from leather clad to bare circuit board on the outside. The insides vary from prank programs to forensics and password stealers. Plugging the wrong one in at the wrong time can be disastrous. Having unique cases and labels makes them easy to sort and keep track of. Check out some of our favorite stand-out flash drives from weeks past or pick up this one for about $35.
Archive for the Category ◊ USB News ◊
C-Star Technologies is releasing a phone management system that’s long overdue and may be a little too late, the UTR-Fi3001B. The migration to digital phone systems is well underway but if you are still using any sort of analog phone system personal or professional you’ll want to check these out. This box connects to your PC via USB and has a pass-through RJ-12 phone connectors for connecting to a wall plug and a phone. The software that comes with the UTR-Fi3001B can record caller-ID, pickups, hangups and every second of audio. Record all your conversations and take notes on the call and make address book entries with ease with built-in functions. C-Star doesn’t list a price but is ready to ship them in bulk and in multiple colors no less. A perfect complement for any salesperson, tech-support call monitoring or teleworker that needs quick recall of any detail of a any phone conversation. The UTR-Fi3001B is only for single line phones but the UTR-Fi3002B can handle 2 line phones. No hint on price or availability interested parties will need to hit them personally until retail units make it to the shelves.
Icron apparently has been busy with their secret USB projects. At upcoming CES 2010, the Vancouver-based company, which brought us the ExtremeUSB distance extension technology, will finally show us what their hardcore engineers have been working on.
The most exciting of all is the Wireless ExtremeLink PC-on-TV which supposedly serves as a Windows extension on your HDTV. Icron has confirmed the remote unit will connect to the host PC thru a dedicated 802.11n link, and the same box will have several USB ports for expansion. It remains to be seen whether there are some other technologies (e.g. DisplayLink USB video) behind this if the remote unit is going to pull video stream from the host. The company will also demo USB over DisplayPort using a standard, well, DisplayPort cable. If this works as expected, then we should be able to get rid of one more USB cable connecting between our PCs and HD monitors with built-in USB hub & webcam. Video demo of the Wireless ExtremeLink after the jump.
Digital self-serve kiosks are found all over the place for quick tasks like printing maps or pictures. You can create greeting cards and photo albums. These are well on their way to becoming the vending machines of the digital era. The next evolution of this trend is here with the vending machine dispensing data instead of physical goods like the MK3 Kiosk. Movies can be downloaded from these Redbox competitors straight to your portable hard drive. Nothing to return, nothing to rewind(how long until no one knows what that meant?). The content simply expires and won’t play in the player. This XIMD technology smacks of the original Divx expiring DVD’s that came in went in months around the dawn of DVDs.
USB 3.0 technology should be able to push a full DVD of content to your drive in under 10 seconds. Xona’s media distribution system will feed the MK3 Kiosk with current and obscure movies. Prices, peripherals and plans will have to come later as the devices roll into retail locations around the world.
Everyone knows that the key to faster-than-light (FTL) travel is in random number generation. Advances in Bistromathics just aren’t happening fast enough so folks like Peter Allan are racing to crack the random number puzzle. It isn’t the most interesting read for those not obsessed with number theory but it is an interesting project. This garage project uses an Arduino board as the base and a small motors and an optical sensor to measure sand through a tiny hourglass.
Computers have exceptionally poor imagination. This might seem obvious but the hurdle to programmers, cryptographers and lottery officials is a very major one. Many of technologies require very truly random numbers generated often. Any patterns that start to emerge from non random systems starts to emerge over time break those systems. The amount of sand that falls at any given time creates a reading on the device. This random amount of sand specks is sent via USB to the PC system. The PC can then use or incorporate this data where it’s needed. These aren’t for sale yet but production is being considered in the near future.
For John so loved us all that he gave his PortableApps Format 1.0 release to the world. Having put the finishing touches on a few remaining items that allow for many more programs to share in the portable glory. The 1.0 release is effectively an invitation for developers to tinker with creating portable applications with a friendly wrapper and installer. The specification includes functions that help handle portability features like registry redirects and setting storage locations. The truly hardcore portable applications can run on all windows versions from 98 and up. With the maturity of many Java and .Net applications the bar has been obliged to move. The times, and the relative ubiquitous installation of both .Net frameworks and Java run-times, has called for the inclusion of applications that require those frameworks. Recent work on making the JRE portable has also met with some success.
This expanded base has opened the door and PortableApps.com is welcoming all comers to add their applications to the fun. The same philosophical guidelines remain around GNU and GPL code being required. Commercial development can be accommodated as well with special permission. There are quite a few new applications for grabs on the site thanks to this expanded policy. This is truly great news for those of us checking the site daily for new gems to add to our Swiss Army flash drives.
Intel Corp.’s decision to wait until 2011 to support USB 3.0 in PC chipsets will put the wide adoption of the interconnect on hold for a year, said a senior technology manager at a top tier PC maker.
The issue is the second to dog a major USB initiative, following the virtual collapse of UWB-based wireless USB which is effectively dead, said the source who asked not to be named. In its place, interest is now building for 60GHz technology, but separate industry groups need to unite to ensure the future of it, he added.
Without chipset support from Intel for USB 3.0 aka SuperSpeed USB, adoption in 2010 will be limited to “a few high-end graphics workstations and consumer systems,” said the source. That’s because system makers will be forced to buy discrete host controllers for their motherboards, a relatively high cost.
“It’s hard to commit to an emerging technology like this when the key silicon enablers are not making it a priority,” said the source, referring to Intel. “You get into a chicken-and-egg situation,” he added.
The 5GHz USB 3.0 spec got plenty of attention at the Intel Developer Forum last month with a dozen chip, system and software vendors showing products with throughput up to 250MBps.
At the time one source said Intel originally planned to sample chipsets supporting USB 3.0 in early 2010, then shifted its plans out a year. The PC technology manager confirmed that report. An Intel spokesperson said he had not heard of any delay, but declined further comment.
USB 3.0 “won’t get real traction until it gets integrated in the chipsets,” said the PC manager.
That poses a problem for a handful of chip makers rolling out products such as storage controllers for the technology. But it would not be the first time Intel and Microsoft initiative managers have rallied the industry to support a new spec only to have their own key product teams move slowly to adopt it.
The Microsoft and Intel “tech and strategy groups are not always aligned with the product development teams that are in the mode of trying to make revenue and prioritize what to integrate,” the PC manager said.
Intel’s chipset teams are currently focused on supporting Nehalem, Intel’s first processor to use an integrated memory controller. They also are working through a transition to the 5GHz PCIe 2.0 spec.
“They need to prioritize their time and resources on a whole host of things and have to consider the compelling needs for USB 3.0 now versus 18 months later,” the source said.
Lost UWB
Meanwhile the push for wireless USB has “lost its window of opportunity,” said the PC manager, pointing to the closure of many startups and an industry group backing it. Indeed, one market watcher predicted UWB in general will virtually die off by 2013.
“Now with 60GHz technology getting a lot of executive ear time, we don’t believe UWB will gain traction,” the PC manager said.
However, 60GHz is no slam dunk as the next big wireless interface for systems, he added. Contention over the market direction for the technology between the Wireless Gigabit Alliance and the Wireless HD could slow or even derail adoption, he said.
“It’s a discontinuity in the industry, and we are not interested in supporting multiple organizations for one technology,” he said. “The companies in both groups need to take a mature, adult approach and merge the two,” he added.
On the technical front, a handful of 60GHz startups should leverage existing UWB silicon technologies so they can concentrate their efforts on the challenge of designing 60GHz radios in CMOS, he said. Existing 60GHz startups are wasting time and resources designing baseband and media access controllers rather than licensing available IP.
“I’ve seen this movie ten times before,” he added.
Besides SiBeam, one of the early pioneers in 60GHz, Beam Networks in Tel Aviv and a startup called Nitero in Australia are among those developing 60GHz chips.
PC makers believe 60 GHz offers uses for TV, PC and handheld systems in the home and for office PCs that don’t need a wired link to external monitors.
The Wi-Fi Alliance could act as a certification and testing agency for the technology, the source said. He believes if all goes well it could make it into mainstream products in late 2011.
Wondering how you can share your FreeAgent Go with everyone else on your LAN?
Seagate has the answer, and it’s called the DockStar cradle.The FreeAgent DockStar network adapter is a stellar way to share and access your digital life. Share almost anything with anyone with just a few clicks. Access your files from any networked computer in your home, or around the world.All this from a convenient little dock.
Sharing so simple, it’s futuristic.
Plug your FreeAgent Go into FreeAgent DockStar and you can share files, photos and movies with anyone, anywhere in the world. All right from your portable drive. Your friends get a direct link to download the files you share and you can allow them to upload their own. Got an iPhone? You can send your photos to FreeAgent DockStar right from your device.
View your files from any networked computer.
If you have more than one computer in your home, FreeAgent DockStar lets you access your external drive from any computer on your wireless home network. No cables to fumble with. No clutter. And FreeAgent DockStar is compatible with Mac and PC.
Access from anywhere.
Thanks to built-in Pogoplug functionality, you can access your files at home from anywhere in the world. You simply log in from any web browser and you have easy access to your files at home. Best of all, there’s no special software needed.
Buckle up for a new caliber in USB devices as USB 3.0 starts getting exploited. Point Grey wows us with their new video camera which they plan to debut at 2009 Intel Developer Forum. What looks like an HD-wannabe webcam is actually capable of pumping full 1080p video at an astounding 60fps. The widened pipe of USB 3.0 actually may make high bandwidth devices cheaper now that they can push raw data through to the host computer’s CPU. Previous devices would have to include additional circuitry to compress the data before channeling to the host. The camera uses a 3 mega-pixel Sony CMOS sensor to capture the 1920×1080 video images.
Since host controllers for SuperSpeed USB have yet to hit the market they’ve formed a special alliance with Fresco Logic. Fresco Logic’s FL1000 controller is used in their test system via a PCI-Express USB 3.0 interface card. We’ll have to wait patiently for the IDF 2009 to find out the price on either the card or the camera.
There’s a rumor circulating in the blogsphere that MS is planning to offer Windows 7 on a flash drive which would make it third way to get the OS without buying a new PC. The other two are through download & retail DVD. While the decision is still being made, this move is being considered in the first place to appeal to the ever growing netbook crowd whose under-powered machines usually lack any optical media drive.
Having said that, thumbdrives logically become the easiest, not to mention fastest route to get Windows 7 running on a netbook. In fact, they have already become the unofficial install method for XP, Vista and now 7 if you are comfortable with command prompt. If tweakers can teach newbies to do it in 10 minutes, it should be dead easy for MS to get a Windows 7 thumbdrive package ready.