Everything USB... We Mean Everything!

USB (or Universal Serial Bus) is a 13-year old standard that was originally designed to connect then smart phones to PCs in the mid-90s. It later became the de facto standard for connecting any external, thanks to USB's built-in power supply and relatively fast speeds. The then-unique one-cable approach sparked a revolution that spawned everything USB (no pun intended) ranging from flash drives, hard drives, speakers, TV tuners to webcams. All these top at 12Mbps, at which speed is only good for mice and keyboards; so the official USB body upgraded the specs to USB 2.0, adding Hi-Speed USB mode operating at 480Mbps. As more applications moved on to wireless thereafter, the same group decided to follow the trend by cutting the wire in the latest Certified Wireless USB standard, completed in 2005. And now, we are currently in the pre-WUSB and SuperSpeed USB era.

USB, USB and More USB...

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In USB Webcams , Camcorders & Digital Cameras
News: Thanko's Best Pinhole Spycam Yet
Thursday 2nd July, 2009

The folks behind Thanko likely do a lot of spying from what we can tell from these so-called gadgets such as tie camera, watch camera and underwater cam. They now come up with hiding a pinhole camera behind a shirt button. This is by far the best device from Thanko will let you carry out covert surveillance without risking exposing yourself. In comparison, the tie is just silly and the the watch is just somewhat inconvenient in use.

Thanko's Spy Button Camera carries 4GB with a mini-USB receptacle, and has the ability to shoot video at VGA at 15fps or to snap pics at 1280 x 1024. The integrated battery can last up to three and a half hours. Here's the best part: the Thanko comes with a ring to wirelessly remote control power, video recording and still shot capture. Between all the other so-called spycams, this one is worth dropping 6600 yen ($68 USD).

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In External Hard Drives
News: Seagate BlackArmor PS 110 Drive Let you 'Try & Decide'
Thursday 2nd July, 2009

Maxtor BlackArmor that made its debut at the beginning of 2008 is a full disk encryption external drive. When the product series was handed over to Seagate, it receives massive software overhual, but shares the same chassis with FreeAgent Go, measuring just 5" x 3" x 0.5". The BlackArmor PS 110 USB 2.0 drive is now in black, lending a more professional image than its colorful sibling.

In addition to full-system & file-based backup via scheduled or manual backup method for PCs, Seagate includes a very interesting "Try and Decide" feature that allows you to download and install new software titles or open email attachments in a protected partition so you can roll back the changes. Say, if you are installing some freeware and encounter a virus or malware, it's as easy as hitting "stop" and let Seagate software to revert to the last known condition after a restart. This alone is pretty unique, but it doesn't seem like the BlackArmor PS 110 is hardware encrypted even though the software does 256-bit AES security. Performance isn't too shabby, topping at 30MB/s read and 25MB/s write. Last but not least the BlackArmor is backed by a generous 5-year warranty.

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In USB Flash Drives
News: Cigar Flash Drive with Glowing LED at Tip
Thursday 2nd July, 2009

Here's a little DIY project for your Independence Day weekend. Instructables has provided a very detailed instructions on how to turn a perfect good cigar into a flash drive with glowing LED. The materials needed include a thick cigar; a very small thumbdrive; a pair of red LEDs; a 10k resistor; wood primer; tape; and some very thin paper. For tools, you need cutter, drills, X-Acto knives set, soldering iron, desolder kit, and hot melt gun as well as glue.

In a nutshell, procedures are to bore out the cigar, prime the internal leaves, gut the flashd rive, connect to the LED, insert flash drive components into the cigar body, and lastly glue the ends. The guy started this obviously has too much time on his hand. Personally, we would rather watch the July 4th parade.

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In Web Watch
News: Best of June 2009 - Everything USB
Thursday 2nd July, 2009

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USB News

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In USB Flash Drives
News: Funko Competes with Mimoco for Star Wars Flash Drive Market
Tuesday 30th June, 2009

The time has come to dethrone Mimoco as the de facto manufacturer of Star Wars flash drive figurines. Funko is ready to jump into the arena as a formidable contender with 2GB flash drives based on four iconic Star Wars characters: Yoda, Darth Yader, Stormtrooper and Boba Fett. Their USB connector is revealed by pulling out their head which doubles as a cap.

In comparison, Funko has paid more attention on the details and its drives are more faithful to the original characters while Mimoco designed Mimobots, whose shapes are almost identical with each other, to work better as a flash drive than the Funko's and there's also pre-loaded content and more capacity choices. Funko will ship all four models in October at a price of $24.99 apiece.

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In USB Headsets & USB Speakers
News: Vacuum Tube-lookalike USB Sound Card (Creativity: +1)
Tuesday 30th June, 2009

The sheer number of choices for USB sound cards tells us there's not much room for innovations, but someone manages to teach the old dog new tricks. Rather than a dongle form factor, the USB Tube Delight Audio is a vacuum tube-lookalike whose LED glows in blue when plugged in. 3.5 mm headphone jack and mic-in are elegantly placed opposite to the mini-USB receptacle, and the mic-in can be disabled to switch to line-in via software.

Granted, this isn't exactly designed for portability and the fade-in and fade-out effect is also a minor annoyance when watching movies. The "sound tube" deserves credit for bringing us a small surprise. Like many USB gadgets, the USB Tube Delight Audio is sold exclusively at Brando for $32.

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In Smartphones
News: Apple Backs Micro USB... Sorta
Tuesday 30th June, 2009

Even after Open Mobile Terminal Platform and GSM Association had agreed to switch to micro USB as standard connector for smartphones, Apple still didn't bow, and insisted on milking its iPod dock connector. Now top mobile phone suppliers have agreed with European Union to standardize micro-USB on smartphones, and hope to achieve this by 2012.

EU said this the move is strictly voluntary, but since Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, RIM and LG have pledged support and they together command over 90% of market share, the rest will likely follow suit due to peer pressure. Interestingly, the defiant Apple now also makes the switch, in its own way. The fruit company has confirmed while it intends to support micro-USB connection, Apple will likely provide a dock adapter to meet the compatibility goal. So we won't be kissing Apple's dock connector goodbye in the next iPhone 3G 'whatever'.

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In DVD & CD Writers
News: Asus' Slim & Sleek Blu-ray USB Drive with Glowing Big 'X'
Sunday 28th June, 2009

Having a big screen laptop without Blu-ray is kinda like missing an opportunity to cruise down an empty highway. Granted, you can download HD content, but if you are geeks like us, there's an urge to fully leverage the full potential of the notebook. For whatever reasons you are getting Blu-ray, the USB-powered Asus' slim & sleek drive has you covered. It has upped the max. read speed to 4.8x for BD-ROM/RE which should relieve the agonizingly slow Blu-ray disc loading time. This however doesn't help with writing Blu-ray as the Asus SBC-04D1S-U is only a BD reader, a tray-loading one.

What we also like about the BD reader is the big glowing 'X' on the side, making it far more aesthetically pleasing than the FastMac. A copy of CyberLink is bundled for movie playback. Keep in mind you can only output the HD content given both the laptop and the LCD screen have either HDMI or DVI (HDCP).

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In USB Flash Drives
News: Windows 7 to Ship on Flash Drives?
Friday 26th June, 2009

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.

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