USB News

S1Digital has released a new 100-disc carousel disc changer for Blu-ray that is special tailored for media center PCs. This USB 2.0 Blu-ray player holds a up to 100 discs, and can pull each disc up from its cataloging software. As each disc is loaded into the carousel the software locates case art and media and downloads them into your library. This allows for a text, genre or cover art searching for the movie you want to watch. Movies can be played at will, but Blu-ray video almost maxes out USB 2.0 bandwidth, unless S1Digital moves up to USB 3.0.

Another ability this player brings is the ability to download the discs to a hard drive. Instead of leaving discs in the player, special software will rip the content to hard drive from which video can be played back. The best part is that the player can be loaded up, and told to rip your entire collection without intervention. That only works of course if your discs are DRM-less Blu-ray. Each disc can take up to an hour to load so you could fill and rip them all in about 4 days if you happen to have 3TB of storage handy. In 6 months that won't be much, but today that's still a little heavy. Also heavy is the price tag, $1500 to get this massive amount of Blu-ray content at hand.

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Today may mark another landmark in the evolution of electronics, the death of the button. While it may be premature to pronounce buttons dead, the iPhone and now the Canon SD3500 IS have all but removed all buttons from their devices. Canon's latest camera doesn't support multi-touch, but it does have gesture support, similar to the one found on Samsung DualView. The menu system is completely touch driven and intuitive functions like picture playback are easily controlled with finger movements. Defined gestures allow you to move from menu to menu with ease. The design is so unusual that it's looks wrong somehow. While the front of the Canon looks like most of their current sub-compacts, the back is all LCD. 3.5 inches of touchscreen and that is all there is to the back. There are still a few buttons on the top but the back is void of features.

Turning the camera on reveals menus and controls galore but we have to wonder whether holding the camera by the touchscreen will cause problems. Canon also adds a new aspect of face detection with the Wink Self Timer. Once in the shot and situated the photographer, now the subject, winks at the camera and the camera detects this facial expression and snaps the photo 2 seconds later. It can also be set to wait for a new face to enter a group and capture the image then. Up to 35 faces can be tracked at once in up to a 24mm wide angle shot, making for a much simpler group photo experience. Canon also improves support for the popular Eye-fi SD cards that helps transfer photos wirelessly once in range of your home network. The polished SD3500 IS sub-compact should hit the streets this month for around $330.

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If you are already missing Michael Jackson like the rest of us, here's a chance to get a piece of his legacy for you to have on hand always. The 2.5 inch 500GB Gold hard drive has a DRM protected copy of the "This is It" video pre-loaded on it. This is a movie compilation of the rehearsals and outtakes from what might have been his comeback tour. The so-called movie was made during his final months, showing the rehearsals and creative work that went into the sold-out London concerts.

The movie will likely only take up about 9GB of data which should leave you plenty of room for storing your other files and media. Accessory programs for backup and cryptography are easily found and installed for free to extend the function of this memorable high speed drive. There's no current detail about what form the DRM comes as, but you should be able to redeem it as soon as your drive ships. (Beatles on the other hand has gotten rid of DRM altogether with their re-mastered digital album in lossless FLAC format.) This may be a little loud in style, and will probably be a choice target for those with sticky fingers so keep an eye on it. It's currently around $90 dollars and shipping from Europe worldwide.

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A device that might just be a little too late to be useful has shown up recently, a USB Key Impressioner. This James Bond wannabe gadget can be inserted into a car lock and electronically map the interior of the lock. The device scans the position of the tumblers and transmits that information to a computer via USB. The software then takes that information and creates a pattern for a key cutter to make a perfect key for that lock. While this sounds pretty nefarious, unless you factor in common sense, it's not all that useful.

It's also not exactly a quick process and there's nothing really stealthy about a key cutting machine. You won't be gone in 60 seconds, but it could mean less of a problem the next time you lose your car keys. One quick insert and a few hours later you have a new set of keys. So far, the USB Key Impressioner only works on older model Fords with simple metal keys. Even if you had the desire to use this for evil, most modern cars already have this beat with advanced locks and microchip keys. This won't be available to the public at any point. That's just as well, unless you are repo-man working for a used Ford dealership.

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Anyone using a PC as a multimedia device knows how quickly USB devices start to add up. Here's a possible solution for that mess of cables you have to deal with every day. It's a normal sized USB hub with an amazing amount of ports. Altogether, this new USB hub has 13 total ports to get all your cords into one spot and all plugged in at the same time. Not having to juggle multiple hubs or swapping devices in and out due to port limitations should easily be worth the $33 it costs to get one of these home. The 13 port hub has 4 USB ports on each of its 4 sides except one which presumably has power and the upstream connection to your PC. There's also a flip up 13th port on top for quick access to flash drives or any other connection you make and break often.

There's only a few drawbacks to this great new toy. The 12 main ports are packed pretty tightly together, over-sized dongles will have trouble fitting or may completely block 2 adjacent ports. This is great for keeping devices all connected, but not if you plan to use them all at once. Even with USB 2.0's generous bandwidth, 13 devices running on one pipe your PC would fill up pretty quick. Of course, this kind of hub seems to be better fit if the interface is USB 3.0 rather the aging USB 2.0. Hit their store to pick up yours if you have the need.

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Looks like Virtual Privacy Machines might finally be getting enough momentum to take hold with the release of SPYRUS' Hydra PC Secure Pocket Drive for mobile workers and the security conscious. This flash based mobile OS already has a FIPS 140-2 Level 3 security certification due to its heavy encryption and tamper evident packing. While relatively unknown to most, these are the folks behind the recent Kingston Data Traveler 5000's on-board security system. This part of the SPYRUS technology protects and encrypts all the data that is being stored on the flash drive. This includes tamper-proofing and destroy the cipher on too many failed attempts.

The Hydra PC expands and modularizes the design, gaining a distinctly future-proof system. Windows Embedded Standard 2009 version is running the show; it will only boot once all the memory and files have been checked to ensure validity. The embedded OS is stored on firmware, and the data files are stored on removable microSD/HC cards. This gives the easy ability for the hardware to grow with the times and be expanded if your needs grow. Up to 16GB cards are currently supported. The Hydra also has technology to pair the USB drive to a restricted computer or group of computers so that the locations of its use are completely controlled. There's no word on price as these are likely sold in bulk to corporations but having the option of Windows is going to be worth quite a bit. We love Linux but sometimes you've got to have Windows.

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High Definition. Those two words are the very soul of what's driving consumer electronics and pushing broadband Internet, and Microsoft's sleek LifeCam Cinema is no exception. As one of the first webcams to boast an magnificent 1280x720 resolution with a price that doesn't break the bank, it won't be long before we're able to marvel at the next Star Wars Kid with each and every one of his clogged pores clearly visible. Now that's entertainment! But to get back to the webcam side of business, we put Microsoft's latest gizmo to the test and found the results to be quite resounding. Find out why after the break.

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Following on the heels of their mild mannered Arc Keyboard, Microsoft launches a similar snoozer keyboard with the SideWinder X4 gaming keyboard. This luxury model has got it all, we're talking A through Z as well as 1 through 9. All these come standard, but the X4 edition even packs the oft misunderstood zero for no extra charge. Additional keys are included for the working types like = and *, but underneath all that pizazz it's really just a plain old keyboard.

Seriously though, this gaming focused SideWinder series has quite a few gaming features that might move you to replace your old one. Its all black keys have adjustable levels of back-lighting for night play (and having a cool accessory to impress friends). There's 6 programmable macro keys which can be programmed to function independently or as part of a key profile. These profiles can be set to favor certain applications and when they are active the keyboard software will automatically switch. With this, mappings for Excel can be different than mappings for BF2142. The other anti-ghosting feature is starting to become popular. The SideWinder X4 is built for games that require several keys to function and be pressed simultaneously. Up to 26 keys can be pressed and transmitted at the same time. Last time we checked there are more fingers, toes and noses that come standard on most model humans, so we aren't certain how one can hit more than 10 at a time, but hey, who are we to argue with MS. The SideWinder X4 should be hitting shelves in March for the reasonable fee of $59 dollars.

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UXSight has a new scanner that is finely tuned to work with pictures of your pearly whites. Working with X-ray films about 2 by 2 inches, this little unit, powered exclusively by USB can enlarge and capture images from standard X-rays. You can interact with them on the screen or just convert them to images for later review. Images can be viewed at up to 50x magnification without loss of fidelity.

This is a consumer class version of what your dentist has already. The effluence of this technology will make it easier to start carrying your own personal medical information with you or online. You'll likely want to couple this new ability with some serious encryption for privacy. So smile big for the dentist and get a few wallet sized prints of those choppers and put the rest on a flash drive to go. Amateur dentists and X-ray-tech hobbyists (do those exist?) can order one of these for $145 once they come off back order.

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Looking more like a pinball on a tether, the SPHEREtouch mouse isn't really designed for retro gaming nostalgia. This highly polished laser mouse ball is a unique sight to behold. Available in satin finished stainless steel, titanium and platinum, they are a little pricey, but definitely make a classy minimalist statement. OreObject's creation has mouse buttons that are part of the smooth form, complemented by its ceramic base which should make for a nearly frictionless contact with your desk.

The price is the only thing that is not so smooth here. Starting at $155 for stainless steel and up to $225 for the platinum plated finish, it's hard to justify for what is probably an uncomfortably small mouse. While there's no denying the slick polish and finish actual use would leave fingerprints all over it. They do include a micro-fiber cloth for cleaning it but it seems like you'll be doing that a lot if you really want to show it off. If you have a strong compulsion for this ball bearing mouse you can get it at their online store.

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Unfettered by recent setbacks to certain drive models, Kingston puts out another line of secure flash drives, the Data Traveler 5000. Obtaining a FIPS 140-2 level 2 certification already, the drive's data has been secured and hardware encrypted to high government standards. The drives also manage to fold in anti-spyware software as well. The advanced functions of this drive are accomplished with a dual partition similar to that of U3. The first partition is read-only and loads the encryption software and, if successfully authenticated, mounts and decrypts the AES-256 encrypted data partition. One of the most overlooked problems with personal encryption standards is brute force password hacking. If someone gets a previous-gen drive, eventually a password can be guessed by simple scripting programs. This might take time but fast computers can make quick work of most passwords. Not true for the DataTraveler 5000 drives, 10 unsuccessful password attempts and the encryption key is destroyed and the data becomes almost completely unrecoverable.

The Data Traveler 5000 is also waiting to get its FIPS 140-2 level 3 certification, which rival IronKey S200 has already obtained earlier. It should be just a matter of testing time for the tamper evident features of the drive to receive passing marks. Special seals on the drives clearly show whether the drive has been altered while out of your sight. This sealing may also contribute to the fact that the drive is also waterproof. There's definitely a premium to be paid for this level of security. The drives range from $111 to $400 for drives only having 2 to 16GB of storage. This is about 10 times the price of normal drives but many companies are finding out that their secrets are worth many times more than that.

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As many of us have sadly found out, the Recycle Bin, temp storage for deleted files, doesn't work for flash drives. Delete a file on a flash drive and decide you need it later and there's a good chance you are SOL. Standard Windows drives are protected, yet network and flash drives are not. iBin is an Autohotkey script that can be run off of your flash drive to protect any of the files from accidental deletion. Run this program and any files that are intentionally deleted are moved into a user configurable space on the flash drive and kept until the space is needed. This extra recycle bin can be managed from the application and emptied or expanded as you see fit. All deleted files stay on the drive even when moved from computer to computer.

There are other ways to recover some deleted files from flash drives, but most of those only work if the space doesn't get reused. Also note that this only protects files that you manually delete, files that get deleted by other programs or processes they won't be picked up. Check out the parent project AutoHotKey for a huge variety of programs. AutoHotkey and AutoIt are very handy scripting programs that have a very active user community turning out dozens of very handy script-lets like spell checking and a slick program launcher. Besides being free and open source, AutoHotkey is perfectly portable, easily running from a flash drive. Come up with a script you really like, the included compiler allows you to turn it into a stand-alone executable. Pick up iBin here and AutoHotkey for your own dabblings here.

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Most us that remember and love the Atari 2600 gaming system revere, but may not adore, its iconic joystick. Suffering several disfiguring side effects of said joystick myself, newer and more ergo devices come home with me far more often than they should. Reflex Audio returns this venerable device to us with an new un-paintjob and a blue LED glow to set it apart. Black plastic and orange buttons have been replaced with clear acrylic. Listen to Kajagoogoo, do the Safety Dance and play your favorite yesteryear games like Tennis and Combat - the good ole days when there were so few video games they didn't need to have flashy long indecipherable titles like Super Karate Monkey Death Car 3: GOTY edition. Adventure, that was a name that said it all.

DIY-ers will swoon over the controller chip inside the Joystick chassis. This chip can be the brains behind a MAME cabinet's controller panel. All powered by USB with drivers for PC and Mac, both camps can enjoy classic emulation and nostalgia at the same time. $29.95 gets you the crystal joystick a CD containing a greatest hits collection of Atari Roms and an emulator.

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USB 3.0 Stuff

• WD My Book 3.0 1TB SuperSpeed USB Drive
• Seagate BlackArmor USB 3.0 2.5" Drive with ExpressCard Kit
• Asus USB 3.0, SATA 6Gbps Combo in PCIe x4 Card
• OCZ Showcases USB 3.0 Solid-state Drive
• USB 3.0 Notebooks Appear, Some Shipping
• Gigabyte "Heavy duty" USB 3.0 PCIe Card
• Hardbox - First Novelty USB 3.0 Hard Drive
• Linux Ready for USB 3.0 Already...

Top Stories

• HSTi Puts your Wireless Network Media on a Flash Drive
• Alereon Bets Big on WUSB Laptop-to-HDTV HDMI Solutions
• Philips Activa Fitness MP3 Player
• Logitech Speaker Lapdesk N700
• Iomega v.Clone - USB Virtual Privacy Machine
• FIPS 140-2 Level 2 Flash Drive Hacked
• Kodak Slice Touchscreen Camera
• MS Arc Keyboard to Complement Arc Mouse
• Creative USB Sound Blaster X-Fi HD
• ION Audio Twin-lens Handheld Camcorder
• USB Attacks Toddler
• Mad Catz R.A.T. High-customizable Gaming Mouse
• Buffalo Dualie - USB HDD Piggy Back iPhone Dock
• USB Charger Pulls Power from WiFi Signals
• AVerMedia USB HD PVR Records Component Video via On-board H.264
• Neon USB Cable Lights up the Night
• Sony Bloggie HD Camcorder Does Panorama Recording
• USB Piggy Bank
• USB Scent Flowers
• Creative WIreless USB Headset for WoW Fans
• iriver Smart HD MKV H.264 Touch-screen PMP
• IronClad - An IronKey Running Virtualized OS
• Silex Gigabit USB 3.0 Server
• Jack Skellington USB Drive
• Skype-certified 720p HD Webcam with Built-in H.264 Encoder
• WiMedia Ups UWB Bandwidth to 1Gbps
• SoundGraph USB Touch-screen Monitor is Finger-friendly
• DACport - High-end USB Headphone Amplifier

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Korean manufacturer SoundGraph has expanded the idea of the USB monitor and made it more of a touchscreen dashboard as the FingerVU 706 & 436. You can set shortcut controls for applications without moving the mouse over to the touchscreen USB sub-monitor. All of the unique functions of the two FingerVU models can be isolated from your other monitors. More of a collection of widgets with touch and media capabilities the FingerUI makes the tiny monitors much more useful despite their size. Dubbed the FingerUI, the software makes the 7" ($179) or 4.3" ($129) version into a video based controller similar to the functions of the Art Lebedev Optimus series keyboards.

The nicest thing about the FingerVU is the price, even with the special software they are priced in the range of other USB monitors. The FingerVU-series USB monitors are also based on the same DisplayLink hardware that is powering most of the Mimo styled monitors that are coming out. The DisplayLink drivers have become very stable with recent releases, and are very convenient to use needing no power cables. Video demo after the jump.

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There's just not enough noise makers in the world and here's Creative to ruin the quiet. Coming out in China shortly, this USB drum kit is fun for the whole family near the computer or on the go. The included software makes it a breeze to start up your own drum solo with just about any kind of percussion instrument you can imagine. The software with an as yet untranslated name can synthesize traditional Chinese drums, rock drums and cymbals, bongo drums and more. All this can be captured and recorded for your own personal Stomp (the performance group, not the fetish) style masterpiece. There's also a guitar hero-esque set of games you can plan on the USB connected drum for fun and even a little fitness. The drum's skin flexes and feels like real for comfort and extended play sessions.

The USB drum also works as a speaker. You can select up to three sound types and play them along with your music or more with hot keys. Aesthetically, you can just leave it on your desk as a simple PC speaker to complement your other trinkets of pan-Asian flare. Price and release date are unknown as of yet, but Creative doesn't usually make us wait long after their announcements. Unfortunately, this might not be released outside the Central Kingdom.

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It's definitely a landmark for a technology to have hit the mark where bleeding edge gives way to fun. Hardbox has released another external hard drive in the shape of a book. It may not be a true novelty drive, but it's the coolest we've got so far, comparing to some commodity drive. The Hardbox would fit in just fine on any book shelf except for the fact that we're not really racking up books on our shelves like we used to. So this may stand out like a sore thumb next to your junk mail and gum wrappers but it still looks good. That's ignoring the USB 3.0 sweetness in sizes from 1TB to 3TB.

Sarotech has been making this particular style drive for awhile and knows the external harddrive game. If you are thinking about storing data at anywhere near those capacities, you definitely need to be putting some money into USB 3.0. Anything else would just be ridiculously time consuming. Sarotech should be shipping the Hardbox drives in February.

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DACport has a niche USB sound system that promises to bring increased music fidelity to your computer as well as more volume. Digital recordings that are compressed to popular formats like MP3 and OGG do suffer some of the side effects of being shrunk down; those with an ear for audio miss the fine details removed from their originals. The DACport from CEntrance packs a 24-bit DAC that can improve and restore quality back to your down-sampled compressed digital recordings. Their AdaptiWave technology requires no drivers or software all the work is done inside the hot-dog sized adapter.

Those of you lucky enough to have truly audiophile-class headphones will know that volume traditionally has been a serious problem. Better headphone drivers require more power to push and therefore volume is significantly lower compared to cheaper smaller headphones. DACport to the rescue, it packs a Class A amplifier streamlined to maintain signal quality and power. These two features work together to send more juice to your cans. The only drawback is the price, however. Centrance wants $500 for this ear candy, but if you have to have studio quality sound reproduction on the move this maybe just about the only game in town.

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If travel and photography are your thing, Panasonic has some gear you need. Matsuhita, a.k.a. Panasonic, submits for your approval the DMC-TZ10. This little 12MP point 'n shoot packs an internal GPS system to tag each of your photos with longitude and latitude information, which is already consumed by online services like Picasa, Flickr and alike. GPS information is then instantly processed to show map locations and track trip trajectory. While they are plugging the heart of a navigation system into the camera, they keep most of the rest of one as well. The Lumix DMC-TZ10 camera contains a Navteq geo-location database with 500,000 points of interest, covering over 73 countries. Now your camera can let you know your whereabouts and maybe something else you might be near to go take pictures of (e.g. landmarks).

There's also a slew of other more traditional features like a 25mm wide angle lens, which is capable of zooming up to 300mm. The Lumix DMC-TZ10 doubles as a high-def camcorder, recording video at 720p in AVCHD Lite with audio encoded in Dolby Digital. If you can upgrade to a SDXC, you can afford adjust your video bit-rate up to 17Mbps. Still sporting one of the best image stabilization systems, this new Lumix maybe bound to be even more popular than it's predecessors.

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UWB's fate is pretty much tied to that of Certified Wireless USB, which is only communication protocol that still depends on the said radio technology. While there are already several WUSB devices, from video / audio adapters to hard drives and docking stations, on the market, the adoption rate is a far cry from that of other USB standards. The performance of these wireless peripherals is quite discouraging with real-world transfer rate averaging at just around 15MB/s. Native WUSB hosts can remove some overhead, and likely provide some speed boost, but significant improvement will only come with new specs, just like USB 3.0.

WiMedia Alliance, believed to be in the process of disbanding, has released version 1.5 of the common radio platform specs, which in a nutshell defines the foundation for Wireless USB. The upgrade now pushes speed from 480Mbps to 1024Mbps, doubling the available bandwidth for peripherals that stream 1080p video from a laptop to HDTV. Whether or not this will save WUSB remains to be seen, but the new specs certainly outpaces 802.11n in speed, yet slaughtered by upcoming WiGig 1.0 (7Gbps).

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High-def video conferencing is something that doesn't mix with notebooks, despite of their ever-increasing CPU power. FaceVsion (oddly, it's spelled without the 'i') has done something that Logitech and MS should have done for their QuickCam and LifeCam respectively long time ago. This company embeds a H.264 encoder into its TouchCam N1 Skype HD webcam to offload the demanding video processing task from the CPU. Apparently, the price of those H.264 compression chips has gone down to a level that is affordable for manufacturers to put it in something like the TouchCam N1 without deterring the buyers.

Having said that, the $119 TouchCam N1 is priced within reach of most road warriors in need of a true HD camera on the go. Most important of all is its Skype HD badge so you can be pretty sure the world's most popular VoIP app will play nice with the FaceVsion. You'll also need to upgrade Skype to 4.2 to enable the 720p HD mode. There's one caveat though; the specs states H.264 streaming will only hit 22fps max., which may not be that bad as most users couldn't tell between 24 and 30fps so a little lower than this FPS range could still be considered acceptable. As for the TouchCam N1 itself, the cam has a unidirectional dual mic and auto-focus lens with 78-degree field of view.

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Subculture fans will line up for a new USB flash drive featuring Halloween Town's fearless leader, Pumpkin King Jack Skellington. Famous from the movie The Nightmare before Christmas, this movie tie-in thumb drive is going straight to the top of our our favorites. The spooky effigy of Jack from the digital clay-mation cult favorite hides a USB connector and 4, 8 or 16GB flash drive. Made of impact resistant plastic, the Jack Skellington drive is effectively waterproof and shockproof. Reenact the movie and remove Jack's head, and jack him into your USB port for quick access to flash storage.

A-Data has conveniently included a few trial pieces of software which are woefully unrelated to Jack's dark image. A Marilyn Manson album or Rob Zombie MP3 would have been much more suitable for this fun flashback drive. These applications are free from A-Data's web site as well. The USB drives are available at favorite gadget provider Brando's online store for $30, $47 and $72 depending on the amount of storage you want.

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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.

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The group that maintains and monitors the beloved PCMCIA standard is closing up shop and passing the torch to the USB-IF. The USB-IF does the same chore for the USB standards. PCMCIA as everyone knows is the card standard that is so popular in notebooks, providing high-speed access and enough room for most devices to be fully internal if they don't require any external inputs. The PCMCIA card standard has only finally seemed to have given way to the ExpressCard standard which supports 2 sizes and is considerably faster.

The PCMCIA Group has been supporting both of these and several other variants for some time. The USB-IF group will take over their standards and support for the PCMCIA Group. This doesn't mean the end of the oh-so-useful cards the group is just shuffling its cards into the USB-IF's deck. This should just mean increased efficiency in the development of both standards as efficiencies are merged. Members of both groups will now be treated to only having to pay one membership.

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Silex has a new option for sharing your USB devices with the rest of your network. Several other manufacturers have released very useful devices like this but most of them are limited by the relatively low bandwidth of the network. Silex's SX-3000GB helps remedy that problem being able to connect at gigabit speeds. The compact SX-3000GB sports 2 USB 2.0 ports and a 10/100/1000 RJ-45 network port. Silex provides each of the USB ports with the standard 500mA power.

Most other network sharing devices caution at the use of high bandwidth USB devices like webcams and hard drives due to unexpected behavior at slower network speeds. Obviously, there's no such limitation for this new entrant from Silex. The SX-3000GB can optionally be connected to a USB hub for an additional 13 devices to a total 15. The device should retail for $99 once it hits shelves in the near future.

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Lockheed-Martin has partnered with super secure IronKey to release a new virtual privacy machine. VPM's have been around in concept for a few years now, a virtual secure operating system that runs in a window on a host PC. As with other VPMs, LM's "PC-on-Stick" on IronClad drive, has all files and settings maintained within the VPM and never stored on the host machine. The virtual privacy machine runs solely in RAM and can piggyback on the network connection of the host. Secure connections can be made that are secure even to the most invasive of infections of the host machine with the exception of key-loggers. Struggling Nortel had at one time release a VPM for its employees. Other companies are researching them as ways to secure desktop environments and maintain confidentiality of data that is entrusted to their staff.

IronKey adds yet another layer of hardware based encryption that has proven to be solid over the years since its introduction. The VPM is remotely manageable and completely revocable from a central server. The contents of the drive are hardware, and optionally software encrypted. Most VPM's are forged from hardened versions of Linux on a diet due to flash drive size constraints. USB 3.0, SLC flash, and larger flash drives have all, but removed this limit and embedded versions of more full featured, user friendly versions of Linux are popping up. While it may seem extreme, maintaining corporate intellectual property and securing assets from disgruntled employees can mean big bucks in today's bleeding edge world. Look for the rapid proliferation of ideas like this in the years to come.

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Everyone can appreciate the novelty of two things that really should have been combined, but never have. Quirky, crowd-sourced product design site has a new possible peripheral up submitted for your approval, The Space Bar. It's a mid sized shelf that functions as a keyboard cover and USB hub. There are 6 USB ports that face forward for easy access while you are at your desk. The Space Bar also sits up just high enough for you to slide your keyboard under as you leave for the day. Keyboards up to 18" long by 1.5" high should fit nicely underneath. The Space Bar isn't not designed to hold a monitor, but should hold smaller things just fine.

Quirky itself allows community members to submit designs to be collaborated upon by other community members. (One of the prominent USB gadget designs is Split Stick.) Once the idea gets enough momentum, the design goes up for pre-sales commitment. The new item will stay on their store as long as interest continues. The Space Bar has about 20% of the necessary buy-in so far and growing. The price is set $42 dollars, and looks well on its way to becoming a reality.

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Linuxplanet.com posted a jaded reminder recently about USB 3.0 support in Linux. The Linux kernel has had SuperSpeed USB driver since September 2009; the 2.6.31 version of the kernel has native support for the devices that are already starting to make their way onto the market. There's already a handful out there but without native support from Windows or Apple yet. Microsoft is planning to add support for USB 3.0 to Windows 7, but not until service pack 1. Since the OS is only 3 months old, there's no definite ship date set for SP1 yet.

Individual drivers are already available by the manufacturers on a one by one basis. This will slow some of the mass release of devices, but that's not likely to happen for a few more months as plants gear up with USB 3.0 device unveilings. Unfortunately, device makers tend to release drivers in the opposite fashion. PC and Mac first, then much later maybe Linux. Although Linux systems have made huge bounds in the market with adoption by distributors like Dell, the community remains a neglected segment for the most part. This note should remind people of one of the many strengths of Linux is its rapid inclusion of new technologies.

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Sporting the popular NEC USB 3.0 chip, the Gigabyte Ultra Durable USB 3.0 PCI Express Card is here to juice up your Hi-Speed USB and SuperSpeed USB gadgets. This half sized card fits in those tiny, almost completely useless, mini x1 PCIe ports included on most motherboards. The era of add-on cards died out with the 56k modem, but most motherboards still include some card slots even though we only ever see them when we upgrade our video cards. The only card really worth getting is one of those high fidelity SoundBlaster audio cards as everything else is pretty much built into the motherboard these days.

The Gigabyte USB 3.0 card is built around an extra tough 2 oz. copper circuit board for long life. And like what it did to their new motherboards, it has also opted to up the power to the USB ports so that both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices have plenty of power for any number of high drain devices. They triple the USB 2.0 minimum of 500mA as well as the USB 3.0 minimum of 900mA to each port, bringing the current level to 1500mA and 2700mA respectively. The extra juice is pulled from a pair of motherboard molex connectors that are joined to the card. Price is set at $53 at least on Brando, but you will likely find it on a few other online e-tailors as well.

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PMP manufacturers couldn't dismiss the importance of MKV to their products as the said format is just the de facto choice of container for a large number of videos (particularly HD) populating the bit-torrent world. Here, we have iriver Smart HD - likely the first HD-ready PMP by the Korean PMP titan. The Smart HD is almost everything most people, especially the Koreans, would hope for.

A 3.5" multi-touch screen capable of bumping out 480 x 320 pixels in 16 million colors dominates most of the front panel. The iriver lets you play just about every audio format, including the usuals as well as OGG, lossless FLAC and APE. As a mobile cinema, AC3 support is present to support 5.1 channel audio, which is emulated by SRS Circle Surround Headphone. For video, the Smart HD can handle 720p H.264 decoding at up to 10Mbps. There's no mention whether or not the iriver can read the soft subtitles in the MKV so we have to assume this is too much to ask for. The Smart HD will come in four versions: the 8GB; 16GB; 8GB with DMB TV tuner; and 16GB coupled with WiFi and DMB.

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More addictive than crack cocaine, World of Warcraft is played by millions. Creative has a new high fidelity wireless headset to help you really enhance your adventuring. The Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset is designed to give you a super realistic and dynamic sound field completely untethered by wires. THX TruStudio PC sound technologies - also found on recently announced X-Fi HD USB sound card - can create an amazing depth of sound with virtual speakers all around you. VoiceFX allows you to alter your voice as you voice chat with others in game or with separate services like Ventrilo. The mic can be detached and stored if you don't need it.

The large and comfy ear cups have two interchangeable panels that show your love for either the Alliance or Horde as well as playback controls for iTunes or Media player. While marketed towards WoW players the glowing panels aren't obnoxious and should be pleasing for players of other games or non-gamers alike. The color of the glow can be programmed to any color you like (an astounding 16 million colors available). The headset is fed audio from the USB wireless transmitter, which relies on 2.4Ghz frequency yet it isn't Bluetooth. Creative also includes the mini-USB cable that recharges the headset; a 4-hour charge gives you about enough juice for 9 hours of play. Price and release date are unknown at this point, given the features anything less than $100 would be a steal.

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Computers aren't really meant to be floral, but a little change of pace isn't bad. USBFlower.com has released their quartet of tiny USB Flowers that use your PC's power to heat a tiny packet of air freshener. These 4 tiny plastic flowers hold the even tinier aroma cartridges under the center of the flower. Each cartridge should last a month and each flower ships with a 3 month supply.

You can get you (or your sweetie) one of these in any of 4 colors: blue, purple, pink and daisy. Each color has its own corresponding scent, including Ocean Breeze, Lavender, Jasmine and Chamomille. These standards should pick up your spirits and shouldn't attract any buzzing USBees. The flowers can be plucked online or from a few participating stores. However, there doesn't seem to be an option to order the refill cartridges just yet but you can pick up the flowers from their online store for $9.99 each.

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One of the few things most of us addicted to computers can say is that they save us money. Although online banking and web and programming jobs employ many people, most of the time those lovely gadgets just cost us money. Canadian Ekomini has something that just might help the next generation learn to save and spend wisely. It's a USB Piggy Bank. It requires batteries, but connects to your PC by USB and is able to scan the coins that are deposited into it.

The deposits are credited to a virtual account that is stocked with games and life-skill building challenges related to finance. Counting, writing and just plain games are online and waiting for your future banker or fiscally responsible account executive. Concepts like investing and saving are introduced and built upon with social gaming similar to those found on Facebook on ekominiville.com. The current economy could use a few more savvy consumers schooled in frugality. You should still keep a close eye on your children's online activity as you can never tell when the website could get taken over by brainwashing kooks. Ekomini encourages parents with a configuration screen that let's parents guide their child's online endeavors. The USB piggy bank is available now for $38 dollars, but the access to the online games appear free to all owners. Video demo after the jump.

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Another lovely travel accessory showing up at CES is the Miniguru Keyboard. This slender keyboard is compact enough to sit on top of your laptop's wrist rest and has extra wide feet to make that possible. Raising the keyboard up just a bit higher is better for reducing RSI. The keyboard's standard keymap includes some subtle changes that are meant to improve typing efficiencies. The cursor keys for example have been relocated to a shifted key under the home row. The F keys have been given the same treatment. All of the keys can be remapped or programmed with macros using the included remapping utility. The Miniguru also sports 2 USB ports to act as a hub as well.

There's an optional pointing stick available that can act as a mouse as well. All these features work together to reduce the amount of travel your fingers have to do to type. The most unique feature of this keyboard is that the macros are actually uploaded to the keyboard's firmware and will work the same from whatever computer you hook it up to. The keyboard can be order with 3 different types of key switches like clicky or normal and with different key labels or and all manner of colors. No price listed yet but they should be available at the end of the year.

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The Sony Bloggie HD camcorder with an swiveling USB 2.0 connector is getting a new accessory, a panorama lens add-on that can take 360 degree movies. It looks like a little siren, and requires the lens to be tilted straight up; the images will also only make sense once uploaded to the updated version of the software. The movies can be edited to zoom in on certain parts of the panorama or viewed ultra-wide screen. The bundled software should provide a number of different options for working with such a wide view. The 1080p H.264 video is recorded onto Memory Stick Duo media.

The Bloggie's regular lens already swivels 270 degrees to ease video angles and let you view yourself if you are vlogging. The snap-on 360 lens should be available as an accessory, but is currently only available as a kit including the camera. The 360 kit only ups the price $20 over the camera-only package. It's available now at SonyStyle for those interested.

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Yubikey is launching a new security key which using a pretty novel concept for added system and online security. The USB key has a single button that sends a time based key to a password input. This system hopes to be another factor for security and authentication. Time based, the same key will never be sent twice aka OTP (One Time Password). This should defeat even the most effective keystroke loggers. The Yubikey effectively generates a highly encrypted string that it transmits upon the touch of its single button. Given that the site or application you are using has been programmed to decrypt the key this should make for a very effective digital signature. Password management site Lastpass.com has already integrated it into their system so that you can add this addition layer of security there. It is also OpenID compatible.

Effectively driverless, the Yubikey is shaped like a flash drive but it emulates a keyboard as far as your PC or Mac is concerned. Pressing the sole button sends the encrypted data as a long keystroke of AES-128 encoded data. Combined with this simple approach and the fact that their code is open source all you really have to commit to is the hardware. This will lower the bar for any organization that was considering other systems like SecureID. Authentication servers are generally open source projects and freely down-loadable and they are also have an RFID enabled Yubikey for integrating or consolidating existing security standards. You can order the regular Yubikey for $25 and the RFID Yubikey for $35.

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Well there's finally another over the top flashy gaming peripheral that you can obtain to add to your hardcore gaming rig, a neon USB Cable. The Desk FX illuminated cable from ION Audio will be distributed in all shades of the rainbow. So, even if you've already got a hot glowing red or icy blue system, you'll be able to find a set of cables that matches your setup. While more likely a flashy add on for looks, lighted cables can come in very handy. Manipulating cables at night can be a nightmare, not only easy to see these cables would be very easy to tell apart if they are different colors. These cords would make manipulating mini-USB phone charger cables in the dark.

There's no detail on price or if all the flavors of USB will be available. Mini, micro and alt flavors hopefully will be represented but just in case maybe you should start stocking up on converters. Expect to see them in a few months at online retailers or select stores.

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Getting HD signals from a cable / satellite set-top box to a PC isn't quite as easy and affordable as one thinks before Hauppauge HD PVR. So, the success of the said USB video box that can effortlessly convert 1080i content from a component cable into H.264 encoded files now invites competition. The AVerTV USB HD PVR is AVerMedia's answer to the Hauppauge, and both are pretty much the same thing on the technical side.

The AVerTV USB HD PVR has S-video, composite and one set of component video inputs, which is the closest you can get to HD quality with HDCP shielding HDMI video stream. The on-board H.264 encoder saves CPU processing time otherwise you would at least need a quad-core to transcode the HD stream in real-time. The AVerMedia also tries to differentiate itself from the pack with a HDMI output, which may prove to be useful in some scenarios. Just don't expect native Windows 7's Media Center support yet; that's why AVerTV USB HD PR includes a copy of Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre with scheduling features. AVerMedia plans to ship its HD PVR in March for $199.99 to undercut the Hauppauge a bit.

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It doesn't take a visionary to know that USB 3.0 - having distributed peripherals with faster data access than hard drives of the recent era - is just around the corner and is shaping up to be a game changer. Since we will all likely find a good use for USB 3.0 very soon, whether to buy or not may be hinged on the inclusion of the interface. There's also the option of ExpressCard USB 3.0 cards, but even those are a bit of a hassle compared to built-in hardware. For those of you smartly putting off a purchase waiting for USB 3.0 included in a laptop, here are your current options.

The HP Envy 15 and the Asus NX90 were making the rounds at CES, and both sport SuperSpeed USB ports. They are both standard-sized notebooks carrying some of the hottest new technologies. The Asus NX90 is a multimedia behemoth; the 18" laptop is capable of 1080p display, and boasts the hot Core i7 processor. Along with e-SATA and HDMI output, USB 3.0 is packed inside this bad boy. There's also dual touchpads for a variety of soon to be imagined uses. The Asus may cost a bit more than the standard laptop ~$2000, but the rest should be pretty nominal. More should be on the way soon if those don't tickle your fancy. The Asus laptop and another from Fujitsu carry the USB-IF stamp of approval, more should follow soon.

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A little late for Christmas, OCZ drops a slick looking USB 3.0 external SSD drive with some impressive specs. Specifically designed for us eager early adopters, the slick look and unreal speeds will likely command a premium. Designed to siphon off our hard earned or inherited cash, the looks of this drive are meant to entice. USB 3.0 devices are starting to trickling out and this will likely only end up in the hands of the true fans.

Those who snatch these up will be treated to some SuperSpeed to the tune of 188MB/s read and 130MB/s write speeds, which put the other bus-powered USB 3.0 hard drive to shame. Those who work with and need shock-resistance and speed are already familiar with the OCZ brand as one of the top manufacturers of SSD drives around. No official date has been released for when you can expect to purchase one of the drives but we're guessing Q2/Q3 based on what we've seen. The drives will be created in 60, 120 and 250 GB varieties and should retail for around $300 increasing sharply with size. Video demo after the jump.

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Let's hope this doesn't fall down a Steorn rabbit hole, but RCA has what could be an exciting addition to every portable device ever made. RCA's Airnergy contains a cellphone class lithium battery, which it claims able to charge itself using Wi-Fi networking signals. Supposedly any Wi-Fi signal will charge the Airnergy's internal battery eventually, the more signals the better. Once charged, the Airnergy can then be used to charge other USB electronics. The concept is similar to the Wildcharge and Powermat which use local induction to charge devices. RCA's spokesman claims the charged battery of the Airnergy was able to charge a blackberry to about 70% capacity in a few hours.

One should be cautiously optimistic about this device as little detail has surfaced to define the amount of time it takes for the internal battery to be charged off Wi-Fi. Their hope is to quickly shrink the size of the components down to the point that they can be built into a battery itself. Users would just have to locate the Airnergy version of the battery for their cellphone / camera / MP3 player. RCA believes the cost will be almost negligible to include in current devices to the extent that those replacement batteries will be on par with simple aftermarket replacement batteries. They plan to sell the Airnergy for $40 to $50 in the near future. Custom batteries will come a few generations after that. This also smartly positions them for induction into the ranks of the Wireless Power Consortium (pun intended). Video demo after the jump.

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The Cinq, french for five, is an odd name for this 10" USB monitor from from Sideline. Capable of 1024x600 16:9 output, the Cinq also has a SD card reader, and both LED-lit LCD display and the reader are serviced by the same USB cable providing power and data. Showing up at CES for the first time boasting larger screens and more pixels than previous competitors. It's pretty light-weight and is intended to be used as a companion monitor for laptops. They have even design an attachable hinge that lets you permanently attach it to your laptop. The hinge can be affixed in almost any orientation with the included adhesive strips.

Also included is a little stand so that you can run it without making near permanent alterations to your computer. DisplayLink is providing the internals for the 10" mini display, which is primarily targeted at both PC and Mac workaholics and gaming fanatics. The Cinq will be available in Q3 for $249, or $199 should you pre-order now from Sideline online store.

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Buffalo HDD Dualie is a perfect example of convergence that makes sense for all of us. It sports a two-slot dock so an iPhone slides in perfectly in the front seat while a 2.5" portable drive fits snugly in the rear. Since iPhone interfaces with a Mac or PC exclusively over a USB 2.0 connection and the Buffalo mobile drive is obviously USB, this effectively reduces some cable clutter. There are even 2 additional USB ports in the back.

The HDD Dualie itself can only be bought with a Buffalo-branded 500GB portable drive, which interestingly comes with a FireWire 800 port. The reason for it being here, according to Buffalo, is to meet Apple Store requirement as every drive on the shelves must be equipped with both USB 2.0 and FireWire. Regardless, as Dualie only talks to a PC by USB, the faster FW800 interface isn't going to be left to rot unless you pop out the drive, and connect it to a FW port instead. For $249.99, the combined storage and iPhone dock station is distinguished by a two-tone, brushed aluminum finish that should be as durable as it is scratch-resistant. Expect to only find it at a local Apple Store starting Jan. 12th.

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This seriously cyberpunk gaming mouse from Mad Catz is for hardcore gamers but may find another niche among ergo junkies. The Cyborg R.A.T. 7 & 9 both have 5600 dpi laser sensor for high definition tracking, which translates to very precise game movements. There's a system for adding weight to the mouse which will give it the perfect heft or resistance that you prefer. They both have a number of programmable buttons for macros or extra tasks as well. Its ominous look is due to the flexibility that a fully customizable system that the mouse was built around.

Every surface of the Cyborg R.A.T. is adjustable either with thumb controls or an hex key. The length of the buttons from the palm rest, the height and slope of the mouse, the width of the thumb sled from the body all can be adjusted to your exact hand shape and preference. All this comes at a street price that is actually very reasonable for the gaming market. Pricing has been released at $129 and $99 for the wireless R.A.T. 9 and wired R.A.T. 7 respectively. Look for them in the coming Spring.

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A 16 month old child was brought to the hospital with 3rd degree burns to the mouth and lip area, and the culprit appears to be a iPod charging USB cable. The mother, Rhianna Anderson, claims that the child was only out of her sight for a minute and that her daughter, Trinity, must have placed the connector into her mouth. She found her daughter face down and limp. Then she was rushed to a thankfully nearby hospital and resuscitated. Trinity remains under close supervision, but is expected to recover. The mother, studying to be a nurse, apparently missed the day in Nurse's school where they teach you that small children will put anything in their mouths.

Forgive our callousness, but there's several problems with this story. Two things appear to have happened, which are being argued jointly but need to be examined separately. Trinity's heart stopped, and she received very serious burns to the inside of her mouth and her fingers. Even if we grant that the tiny amount of voltage and current, less than a 9V battery produces, generated by a USB port did affect her heart, it would have taken a loooong time for that voltage to have burned her so severely alone. It may not be common practice now, but in the olden days, we used to test to see if a 9V was still good but touching it to our tongues. A tiny shock told us it was. A 9V would easily fit in your mouth, and I can't recall any stories about that hurting anyone. A lamp has been brought into question that was nearby and metallic, rational people are charging that it is the more likely culprit due to unexplained burns on the child's hands. This does make more sense but if some sort of circuit were bridged from the lamp to the USB cord, wouldn't the laptop have been seriously fried? We hope, for the safety of the child, that an investigation is done and that she recovers quickly.

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In what should turn out to be a huge boon for fans of Jackass videos and Darwin Award stories, ION Audio - known for its USB turntables - releases a handheld camcorder, which is capable of simultaneously recording the goings-on in front of and behind the camera. Twin Video owners will be able to record scenes of their lives and include themselves in the video. The handheld is easily able to capture stereo audio as well as surround video. The video selector switch can quickly switch from front to rear to simultaneous picture-in-picture. The Twin Video can be both charged and powered by USB cable.

This should inspire egotistical YouTube stars and wannabes to attempt death-defying feats while narrating to their tens of followers. Failure to defy said death should allow for some amazingly high quality videos recovered from the accident scenes on the supported SD or SDHC cards. ION Audio itself may choose to sponsor surprisedlook.com for a photo gallery of penultimate realizations prior to a shocking finale. Can you say "Posthumously humorous posts" ten times fast? Those who survive this self-obsessed culture and craze can quickly post videos to sites like YouTube and Facebook provided their injuries aren't too severe. We're sure there are legitimate uses for this camera but it will be awhile before anyone accidentally discovers them, at least until Q2 when it is released into the wild. Pricing is not currently known but it shouldn't really matter anyway, charge it, you won't have to worry about payments in the great beyond. Video showcase after the jump.

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Months of waiting paid off for USB 3.0 early adopters. Asus has made the announcement that mass production for its USB 3.0 & 6Gbps SATA PCI Express card has begun, and we should get it as soon as next week. The U3S6 combo card here relies on PCI Express 2.0 x4 to carry traffic for the on-board NEC D720200F1 USB 3.0 host and Marvell 88SE9123 SATA 6.0 chipset, both of which can easily saturate a x1 lane. Therefore, Asus has to design the card to work in a PCIe x4 slot at minimum. This mode will give the card some 4* 500MB/s bandwidth so there should be plenty of room for even the fastest USB 3.0 SSDs.

The U3S6 add-on will sport dual SATA 6Gbps pins and two USB 3.0 ports, each of which will supply a max. current of 900mA. Asus claims this card will also work on other motherboards as well since U3S6 is compliant with the PCIe specs. Best of all is perhaps the pricing; at $30 MSRP, Asus is almost like giving out the cards for free when retailers start cutting price in a few months. Interestingly, Brando has been selling the card for at least two weeks now, but it wants $66 for it.

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Creative made another upgrade their USB sound card line with the Sound Blaster X-Fi HD, an easy add-on upgrade to any system whether it be for gaming, movies or music. The X-Fi line has been one of the highest quality sound cards that Creative has manufactured with regards to THD and signal clarity. Less than .001% THD with gold plated connectors, a 24 bit DAC and fiber optic output make for incredible sound. All audio can be significantly enhanced by the X-Fi Crystalizer and Dialog enhancer included in their THX TruStudio PC Suite, which also creates virtualized surround sound channels. Crystalizer adds audio fidelity and quality back to downsampled or compressed music like MP3s. Dialog Plus cleans up voice tones and enhances speech for clearer sounding dialog over the rest of the soundtrack.

Analog phonograph line input is an interesting addition to the USB Sound Blaster. This allows ideal capture of vinyl transfers to digital format. Creative's ALchemy system makes a return appearance as well. ALchemy restores the DirectSound EAX function that was unfortunately crippled in a patch awhile back; it repairs this and allows gamers to experience immersive 3D positional audio in games for Vista and Windows 7. Windows XP isn't affected by that issue fortunately. The USB Sound Blaster X-Fi HD will be available soon starting for $99. No official release date has been announced nor a product image is posted as of this writing.

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Microsoft has once again released a real piece of eye candy with the new Arc Keyboard. Designed to be stylish but comfortable addition to any classy living room, this keyboard oozes style. Unfortunately, it's quite a bit more look than substance but looks count. The gentle curve and white underbelly give this a deceptively thin appearance. It's still very thin and extremely light weighing in at around 1 lb. This Arc keyboard however doesn't really match the Arc Mouse at all if you ask us.

Despite being light and sleek, the keyboard packs a nano-sized dongle that can be attached magnetically to the bottom of the keyboard if you ever need to unplug it. Also only 12 inches wide, the Arc is easy to haul around as a netbook companion. Netbooks make great classroom note-taking machines with their long battery life, but the rather un-ergonomic keyboards can really stress your shoulders. Having said that, the Arc keyboard makes for a nice travel keyboard that could be just what the doctor ordered. You should be able to easily justify the $80 for the ergonomic features and portability.

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Seagate has finally made its move to USB 3.0 arena with the release of BlackArmor PS 110. The company even touts the PS 110 as a USB 3.0 Performance Kit, a fancy name for a FreeAgent Go-alookalike equipped with a SuperSpeed USB interface and bundled with a USB 3.0 ExpressCard upgrade card. Enclosed in the BlackArmor is a 7200-rpm 500GB that becomes the bottleneck of the now external drive. Without official benchmark numbers, we just have to calculate the speed for ourselves from the recorded time needed to complete a 25GB HD movie drag 'n drop; and the real-world transfer rate turns out to be quite impressive (at 99MB/s), but still lags behind other 3.5" USB 3.0 counterparts.

In the software department, the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 comes pre-loaded with Acronis-powered software that not only does it system-wide data recovery but also allows to create a temporary workspace on which you can try out different apps without messing around with Windows registries and most importantly, damaging the system should the unthinkable occur. Lastly, the $180 BlackArmor PS 110 is generously by Seagate's 5-year warranty.

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Kodak's Slice is going where more cameras should, smarter. The onslaught of 'yet another compact digital camera' has finally slowed, maybe due to the economy and maybe due to the lack of public interest in a-few-more-megapixels. Still doling out 14MP in a tiny package and a huge 16:9 3.5" touchscreen LCD, this sub-compact's claim to fame is its picture sorting and prepping features. Anyone who has been using a digital camera for a while knows that the storage and sorting of images by person, event or location. A few years and a few gigabytes later, your collection is so big that you can't manage it.

The Kodak Slice features facial recognition to tag photos with the names of your subjects. Program in the faces of your friends one time, and every picture you take from then on gets tagged with their names. Kodak better makes this face tagging compatible with iPhoto '09 too. There's also an easy to reach Share button to tag and upload pictures to popular social media sites like Facebook, KodakGallery, Flickr and YouTube or immediately sent by email. The Kodak Slice impressively packs enough memory to store 5000 HD images, which should translate to about 2GB on-board. Like most other compacts, the Slice can handle 720p HD recording. MSRP is set at a hefty $349, and we should see the Slice commercially available in April.

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With more and more devices able to juice up from USB, we need more and more access to USB ports. Flipower ups the stakes with a very portable solution for USB charging on the go for those who won't go this far. Simply slide out the connector and plug a normal (US and International) powered device into the partially globally friendly pass-through. Then plug them together into a wall socket. There's something akin to an vampire for electronics tapping. The Flipower draws power from the socket via the prongs of the lamp, clock radio, laptop or television that's holding it in place.

The only real downside to such an incredibly travel-friendly device is the ease of which you will leave it in your hotel room. You'll just have to plug it in someplace really obvious until they come up with a model with some nice blinkenlights. No price or release date has been set, but hopefully they are pretty cheap so you don't freak out every time you lose one.

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Following the admonition of Kingston more supposedly secure drives are found to be vulnerable. Details have emerged of the far too simple hack that makes quick work defeating certain encryption programs. The drives themselves remain secure except the common software that opens them up seems to use basically the same "password correct" command to the drive to start serve up the protected contents. Using and in-line sniffer the universal password was discovered, and could easily be inserted into the data stream and start unraveling all those super secret files, like using a digital bump-key. Many of these affected drives have been granted FIPS 140-2 government security standards certification, whoops.

This is a very easy hack, and by "easy" we mean that you'd need to have a degree in electronics and a penchant for reading binary data with a few months to spare to whip up a program. You could always convert to TrueCrypt or some other software based encryption tool. If not, you should check to see if your drive is affected, and whether or not you can return it or patch it. Verbatim and SanDisk both have released software patches that should fix the issue. Since this vulnerability seems to have been incorporated into several manufacturers, more are likely to come to light in the next few weeks. You'd be wise to keep an eye on the feeds to make sure your private drive doesn't show up on the list.

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Come sit in the big chair with Sybil here, today her name is the Iomega iConnect. Iomega has apparently been taking some time off from the wow parade and saving it up for CES. The iConnect has so many features it may have a hard time fitting into a niche. It has sampled most of the features of the PogoPlug and added a few. That gives you online access to any files that you have hosted on any USB drives. Just plug in the drives, and the files are home network available, and can also be accessed via internet application. There's also DLNA streaming to network aware devices like the PS3 or Tivo. You can also add any USB printer, and the iConnect becomes a wireless printer.

Now for the interesting part, USB RAID. You can set scheduled drive to drive copies to protect your data. No need to buy expensive RAID bays or NAS devices just connect a pair of USB drives, and start the process with the web application. For Mac fans, there's Time Machine support to safeguard their data via their favorite backup program. On top of these, there's even unattended torrent downloads. Up to 4 USB devices are supported at once. Lastly, the Iomega iConnect comes with a slew of backup and anti-virus programs, most of which are probably trials, but everyone needs some form of antivirus and backup. Oh, and it's wireless in addition to having one Ethernet port. Place it anywhere within range of your 802.11b/g/n networks, and all of this can stay perched in any location that suits you. All this for only $99, and there's no mention of a subscription service, almost too good to be true.

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Finally, someone puts heaven in a box with a USB cord. What could very likely revolutionize desktop support and corporate computing has arrived with the Iomega v.Clone. It's 1 part Virtual Privacy machine, allowing you to work in a virtual shell on a foreign computer with very reduced risk of having personal information captured of comprised on the temporary machine. The software also contains security that should keep most meddlers at bay. Another version will be released on a fully encrypted drive.

1 part Portable Application, with the ability to take all of your installed programs and your desktop (exactly the way you like it) with you wherever you go. No registering, downloading, dealing with pop ups or other annoyances that you encounter any time you borrow a computer. We will probably still use 99% PortableApps.com software on principle, but for some things there's just not a portable substitute.

1 part laptop replacement, get your office to buy one, work at home on a duplicate of your office computer and come back to the office and your work from home will be automatically sync'd to your work machine when you start up. All this without having to lug around a laptop and power supply. No more clumsy docking and undocking.

1 part ultimate backup solution, with this you always have a near perfect mirror of your main computer. If anything happens to one or the other you have instant access to a perfect replacement (up to the time of your last synchronization).

PC hardware has gotten so cheap that it is almost cheaper to replace the laptop/desktop at the first sign of any problem than to spend the tech support hours to try and fix it. The Iomega v.Clone will have you up and running in minutes as long as you can find a new piece of metal to attach to. Storage Giant EMC owns VMWare and it says a lot for partnering with stalling Iomega to host the hardware. The v.Clone devices should command some premium but there's a good chance that it will not be much more than high end USB hard drives cost now. The addition of USB 3.0 is the only piece "missing" that could make this a very viable everyday work companion. Video demo after the jump.

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Logitech shares with us today a new laptop cooling device the Speaker Lapdesk N700. This is a heftier version of those laptop cooling pads with USB powered fans that elevate your laptop and actively cool it. The Lapdesk will make for the perfect dorm-buddy with a comfy padded insulating foam cushion to keep you cool and your PC in place along its 20 inch long surface. The N700 also has a pair of speakers that feed from an internal USB sound card. These side mounted speakers are pretty small but should definitely be a boost for any tiny netbooks for sure. The sound system should be auto-detected by PC and Mac computers without the need for any driver disks.

Since both fan and sound card are powered by the same USB cord, Logitech includes control buttons to either turn off the audio or fan portions of the Lapdesk individually. This not only enhances their functions, but can also reduce power draw and increase battery life. There's also a handy volume controller as well. The Logitech Speaker Lapdesk N700 should launch next month for about $80.

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Philips wants you to get off your couch and more Activa. The Activa Fitness MP3 Player is one a small breed of smart MP3 players that are tailored for people leading an active lifestyle. Smart MP3 players take into account what you are doing and adjust the musical selection accordingly. The Activa monitors your activity and adjusts the music selection up tempo or down tempo accordingly. Moving a lot, fast music plays; start to slow down and the digital coach kicks in to motivate you to do better. Shouting motivational slogans at you like "burn the envelope" and "feel the extreme" until you get back into rhythm. Or something like that.

There's a few other music players out there that either coach or DJ to your workouts but none of them that do both so far. The TempoMusic system also will ask you to select motivational songs for additional encouragement in case their cyber-coaching fails to uplift. The player should hit retail in April this year and will set you back $129 and approximately 2 holiday pounds per week. 1000 points to the first person to hack it to be abusive or sullen and convince you to give up and have another Twinkie.

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Lexar is finally gearing back up after a long hibernation of dull drives with the Echo Series Backup flash drives. Available in several capacities, the Echo's sport a robust, but streamlined backup software which stays on the flash drive but can also be configured for any computer it is attached to. The software can maintain system backups and with proper OS support can even backup open files while you are working on them. Timed backups and messianic file versioning are built into the software as well. The software piece is built around Dmailer, which shows great promised as a commercial portable package. Congratulations on getting together with Lexar.

The most pleasing part of this offering is that the Echo ZE is nano sized, like this microSD reader and 802.11n adapter. Barely bigger than the USB plug, this nubbin drive is small enough that you might actually use it and be rescued by it. Backups are so important that they probably will be built into most of the next generation operating systems. Until then slim, super simple, external options like this should really reduce the number of people waiting in tear-soaked lines at expensive data recovery specialists. The drives should begin shipping to the US and other markets after February. They should show up for pre-order on Amazon.com soon in 8, 16 and 32GB sizes.

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Alereon - one of the diehard proponents of UWB-based Wireless USB - is now counting on laptop to wireless USB to HDMI solution to be its savior. Its latest NoWire HDTV Extender Kit reference design is made available today for OEMs, and with this, you can mirror your laptop screen on the big screen HDTV. The NoWire - the only kit compliant with all three WiMedia band groups - consists of a small 2" USB dongle and a small HDMI adapter for HDTV supporting everything from Mac to Windows 7. The remote unit as seen in the video demo below looks very slim and looks to blend in well with rest of the AV receivers and Blu-ray players.

By offloading wireless HDTV output to WUSB whose speed now tops at 220Mbps, the NoWire frees Wi-Fi radio for HD video streaming from sites like Hulu, Netflix and YouTube. Another strength of the NoWire is driver-less installation, but we bet OEMs will ship with their own software for tech-savvy users who like to do some tweaking of their own. There's a caveat however, and that's 720p limit during full-screen video playback with audio. For photo slideshows or anything that doesn't require 30fps refresh, you can set the resolution as high as 1680x1050 which still won't fill the entire screen of a regular HDTV screen. It seems clear it's now a fight between Alereon and Wisair, which already has a similar solution of its own. Alereon's NoWire video demo after the break.

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Following USB 3.0 drive launches from Buffalo, Dane-Elec, Freecom and LaCie, one would expect the big guys won't be far behind. Western Digital has debuted the aptly-named My Book 3.0, which the company touts as the fastest external drive ever! The My Book 3.0 will come exclusively with, none other than, the uber-fast SuperSpeed USB interface. WD's own labs recorded a whopping 148MB/s when transferring a 24GB HD movie over USB 3.0 connection compared to 35MB/s with USB 2.0.

The My Book 3.0 however couldn't afford the nifty e-ink gauge found on the Elite series as the USB 3 drive retail price tag is already at $179.99 USD for a standalone 1TB drive. Since everyone will likely need a USB 3.0 add-on card in order to match the speed of the My Book 3.0, there's a drive bundle including the adapter (PCIe 2.0) that goes for $199.99. Also included is a two-year warranty guarantee.

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Another evolution in peripheral development lands today with the WirelessMediaStick from HSTi. This is truly a novel device, which acts as a flash drive infinityGB storage. That's right, Infinity. This drive is detected as a normal mass storage thumb drive by whatever computer it is plugged into. The thumb drive size device, which only reports as a hard drive, is actually connecting to your wireless network and displaying folders and files that you have configured it to share. A little confusing, this allows the myriad devices which have expansion by USB drive only to get to your shared music, video or photos. This is a an easy network upgrade without having to have built in wireless network abilities.

This would work great for media players like the WDTV or the ViewSonic VMP70. These sub $100 players are fantastic slim additions to any system. Much easier than setting up a full HTPC with many of the same media playing abilities. The configuration of the shared folders is done through a web based utility. Once the folders are mapped, any new media added to those folders is automatically available to the player. No word on price or availability yet but more details should show up mid-week.

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The Point 2 View (P2V) from IPEVO is a tethered USB camera designed to free users from the shackles of the screen-mounted webcam. Combining a 2.0 megapixel sensor, continuous autofocus, and a close-focussing distance of about 2 inches with a unique, articulating stand, the P2V allows much more freedom in capturing images from a unique perspective. Will you want to sacrifice $69 and a bit of desk real-estate for this little number? Read on and find out.

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USB 3.0 Stuff

• LaCie 2Big USB 3.0 RAID
• Western Digital & NEC Working on New USB SCSI Driver
• Xona USB 3.0 Movie Kiosk
• UNITEK Barebone SATA to USB 3.0 Adapter
• DisplayLink Wholeheartedly Supports USB 3.0

Other Top Stories

• Sony USB Vein Reader
• FlipShare TV Media Extender - Flip Camcorder Exclusive
• DIY USB Wall Socket
• Gboard - Keypad for Gmail
• USB Laptop Speakers powerd by NXT Tech
• PhotoFast JBOD USB MicroSD Reader
• Mattel Ucreate Music Mixer
• NZXT IU01 Internal USB Hub
• MS LifeCam Cinema Doubles as Telescope
• LaCie Rikiki - Smallest 2.5" Drive
• SiSoft Sandra Suite Portable USB
• Lockface USB Key Unlocks via Facial Recongition
• PortableApps Format 1.0 for USB Apps Developers
• DIY USB Hourglass
• Lenovo Mini HTPC Keyboard
• Kingston Data Traveler Blackbox Proven Hackable
• Nat Geo 120 Years of Issues on USB Drive

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Besides flash drives, RAID and even movie kiosks, video applications are moving fast to take advantage of ten-fold increase in bandwidth offered by USB 3.0. The first to jump onto the SuperSpeed USB bandwagon is none other than DisplayLink whose latest DL-195 network video chipset is already struggling with HD output on a heavily congested USB 2.0. If DL-195 is designed to be scalable, then the upgrade might just be as easy as swapping in new USB 3.0 peripheral bridge.

DisplayLink hasn't made any claims about performance improvements, but rest assured Palo Alto, Calif.-based company will have something to show at upcoming CES 2010. We reckon with first of the USB 3.0 HDDs enjoying a three-fold increase in data transfer compared to that of USB 2.0, a flicker-free 1080p USB monitor running at 60fps shouldn't be far behind. There are about 30 partners, including Lenovo, HP and Dell that rely on DisplayLink's network video to provide USB video output on their notebook docks, video adapters and mini monitors.

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National Geographic has seen fit to bestow a gift upon the world, a digital version of ALL of their past issues. One of the most pivotal publications of the last century, Nat Geo contains stunning photography and in depth research on every imaginable topic. From deep sea monsters to outer space and beyond, the compendium contains a searchable rendition of every single monthly tome ever published. These yellow spined marvels have decorated 3 generations of bookshelves in my family, but not mine. The line may extend with us now that there's a digital version - like the Beatles collection - which will fit in my household.

The amazing content in these high quality periodicals was plagued by an inability to search them comprehensively. We remember looking for content for school report and wrestling with hundreds of pounds of issues, reading the covers one at a time to find relevant material. Eventually, microfiche and online library systems helped but library copies were invariably ill-kept. The 160GB drive comes with 60GB of content and a bonus DVD with a photographer's tutorial and a behind the scenes documentary of the magazine. The USB drive can be laser engraved on request. The USB drive version commands an tempting $199. DVD versions are still available, starting at $59 but you'll be swapping amongst all 6 of the DVDs. Up to you if the convenience warrants the premium.

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As hackers continue to develop their insidious tools, committed device manufacturers have to decide how to handle the economic strain their advances induce. Several flaws have recently been discovered in one current and two discontinued models from Kingston. Flaws that could be exploited by a very sophisticated hacker with some sophisticated tools. The DataTraveler BlackBox, DataTraveler Secure and Elite Privacy USB drives are susceptible to the attack. Only the BlackBox is still for sale and Kingston has paused sales on it and has issued notice to its resellers. This flaw is likely not isolated to Kingston but due to their popularity they may have been scrutinized more closely than others.

In addition to halting sales, owners of the drives are urged to contact Kingston for possible repair or updating. We're waiting to hear what they are actually able to offer their customers on an older drive. Unfortunately we are going to continue to see an evolution of threat/counter-threat as computer technology evolves. The government super-computers that were used to test the security of encryption just a few years ago are now outclassed by home gaming consoles. A few PS3's linked together may be enough to crack still relevant security in a matter of minutes and who knows what the PS4 or PS5 may be capable of. If you've bought any of the aforementioned products check here to find out your options from Kingston.

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Here's another nice mini keyboard arrives to compliment your HTPC or carputer project. Lenovo has a tiny remote complete with trackball and media hotkeys that they quietly launched last week. This tiny qwerty keyboard is perfect for anyone who has mastered texting to any extent. The tiny but finger-friendly keys are perfect for surfing, youtube'ing or anything else that requires a small amount of typing. Just below the keyboard on the ping pong paddle shaped controller is a trackball crowned by left and right mouse buttons.

This is basically the love child of a the logitech diNovo mini and a wireless presenter remote. Rounding out the perfect controller is a nano USB dongle about the size of this micro-SD reader and AAA batteries. These are available right now on Lenovo's web site for a very modest $60. Smooth and comfortable these should work well on any project systems you were thinking about creating. Turn over a new leaf this year and start working on those pet projects.

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Probably one of the most anticipated uses for USB 3.0 is to be able to mesh together your mass storage at a useful speed. The Unitek adapter can be affixed to the terminus of any SATA hard drive. Once connected, data to and from the disk should be slippery to the tune of up to 5Gbps, the theoretical capacity of the bus. The system comes with a data cable and power supply cable. The power cord shouldn't be necessary for any of today's hard drives, even the most greedy should have ample power from the USB 3.0 bus.

The drivers should be available for all modern Windows versions including 7 and some flavors of Linux. Apple support should follow shortly thereafter but no promises. You might want to wait it out for a more convenient docking bay version but this will make a fantastic addition to a toolkit. That's provided of course, that you have the requisite availability of USB 3.0 enabled systems. These are available now for $48 at Brando.

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It's what Steampunk would call futuristic, a USB speaker system from Japan called the UMAZONe. This USB speaker resembles an old style vacuum tube amplifier well loved for its clarity and power. The four vacuum tubes bear a blue LED will flicker along with music in an authentic style. The UMAZONe sports 2 small down firing speakers that may be a little under powered since they don't seem to be the specially designed for downward firing. There's a front mounted volume knob for controlling guess what? Yep, that's right, it controls the volume. Another plus is the 2 USB ports that you can plug other devices into.

A USB hub, speakers and audio card with pretty lights for only $25, a veritable steal. You may need to wait awhile for them to show up on a continent or at one of our handy grey market importers. A perfect late gift for hobby electronics tinkerers or sentimental audiophiles.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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There could be some delay in mass adoption of USB 3.0, largely due to Intel pushing USB 3.0 integration into its southbridge to 2011. That doesn't stop rest of the industry from going after this huge connectivity market. Western Digital and NEC have jointly announced the two are going to push the envelope even further with a USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) driver that they claim to fully leverage the SuperSpeed USB transfer rate while giving a moderate boost for legacy USB 2.0 mass storage devices.

The UASP is a complete MSC back-compatible replacement for current USB Mass Storage class as well as Bulk Only Transfers (BOT). For it to work, UASP must be implemented on both host and device. That's why NEC and WD are collaborating on this. It's logical to believe that when the time is right, WD will debut a USB 3.0 SSD, which is perhaps the only application that needs UASP to flex its muscles. The current fastest USB 3.0 drive to date is LaCie 2Big, hitting 275MB/s when in RAID 0 mode.

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The governing body of the Bluetooth specification has released the 4.0 guidelines in what promises to be a more widely adopted version of Bluetooth. Bluetooth 3.0 is not reaching wide adoption yet due to a number of factors, mostly economic. More speed requires more power and more battery power. Battery technology has not kept up with bandwidth. Bluetooth 4.0 promises to do more with less which may stimulate device manufacturers and starved R&D groups to employ it in their existing applications. Also, data transfer rates are not currently the same kind of bottleneck for device usage that 'size' is. The Bluetooth 4.0 promises to work in smaller devices thus requiring less power, less battery and therefore less bulk.

Bluetooth 4.0 also heads down 2 paths for even more power saving, dual-mode and single-mode. Dual-mode which can alternate between high-speed and low-power modes for multi-role or data intensive uses, like computers and cell phones. The single-mode chipset will be for the ultra low power uses like location tags and reporting sensors. Some of the envisioned uses are air pressure sensors in your car's tires, key fobs, etc. The group expects to see Bluetooth 4.0 products shipping in the summer of 2010. I'm still looking for Bluetooth 3.0 products, let's hope 4 fares better.

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It looks a bit like a bottle opener but might actually be more useful (for some). The Lockface USB Key comes preloaded with encryption technology and a handy little piece of security software. Once you plug in this drive, the Lockface software takes over your webcam and uses your face to allow access to the data stored on your Lockface drive. The software only takes a few minutes to setup and stores the facial data on the drive so that it can be reused on other computers. In addition, the login information won't be discoverable on your PC while you're away.

The device's error rate is a little on the high side for it to be industrially acceptable, unlike some other proven high-end solutions. It also openly discloses that it has an almost 2% false acceptance and a similar rate of incorrect rejection. That's not terribly inconvenient to have to retry authentication 1 in 50 logins, an inappropriate user gaining access after only 50 attempts isn't that great though. But like most security, the important part is increasing the work-factor required to gain access to secured resources and this device does accomplish that. Probably not suited for an organization this is definitely a great boost for personal security. Should keep your dorm-mate out of your party pics and homework. Priced right at roughly $110, let's hope this one makes it outside of Japan soon.

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Nowadays everyone should give second thought about getting an external drive without any RAID capability for permanent data storage. The least you can do is opting for RAID 1. But if your laptop only comes with USB 2.0, but you want a simple, future-proof RAID drive. The new LaCie 2Big USB 3.0 is a logical choice.

The 2-bay RAID is powered by Symwave's USB 3.0 SATA bridge to achieve a jaw-dropping 275MB/s (when in RAID 0 mode), at which speed real-time multiple HD video editing is possible. From the looks of it, LaCie 2Big USB 3.0 will take advantage of the new USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) to break this new record. Also, upon checking LaCie website, there is already a 2Big Quadra with eSATA, USB 2.0, FireWire 800/400. Going USB 3.0 may lower the cost of the drive. While there are no words on pricing nor shipping date, the largest capacity available is 4TB, by combining two 2TB 3.5" drives.

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Now, we'd never claim to be the most frugal when it comes to gadgets, but this is one for only the Hollywood crowd. Vertu is marketing a set of cell phone-centric accessories to complement its exorbitant line of cell phones. Vertu's USB drive / MicroSD Card Reader is may out of high quality stainless steel and a durable resin. Both components are lovingly polished and should be extremely scratch resistant (and Shiny!). The USB drive hasn't not been hinted at being made with any similarly eye-catching new technology so we're betting it will be of the usual MLC variety.

Not just accessorizing their cell phones they claim that data from the flash drive and microSD card can both be transferred to the phone via a 3-stage process. If their "3-stage process" includes a computer then we're even further underwhelmed. While asking a great price, we're impressed they didn't sell out and opt for over-hyped titanium or carbon fibre components. Sadly, the only thing that could really save this gizmo from being an overpriced gimmick drive, is if they announce some appropriate size/performance numbers. That's on the order of a 128GB flash drive if they want to make it a break even deal. But come on, we know you can do better than that, here's your chance to wow us.

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Performance gurus and desktop support teams rejoice with the launch of a Portable version of SiSoft's legendary performance product. SiSoft Sandra 2010 Portable USB Edition will certainly become a favorite tool for large companies dealing with nebulous problems throughout the day. Just pop in the 4GB USB stick that comes loaded with the hugely popular Sandra application. The portable application runs directly off the stick without installation. There's a wide selection of tools available to rate your system, diagnose problems or attempt fixes. You can easily configure custom sets of named reports to suit your individual needs.

Once you are done running your tests all the results are stored in a database on the USB drive. The application only takes up 120MB of the 4GB stick so you'll have plenty of room for any other flash tools you like to carry with you as well as test results. Uses included rubbing your friends' faces in your smoking overclocked gaming machine's amazing stats. SiSoft Sandra could also be a great first step in helping (muzzling) that one annoying user that is always complaining his/her computer is too slow. Running this and having comparisons on hand can either shut them or give you a clue where the actual problem lies. Easily worth it as a tool that the entire IT team can share at $399

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LaCie's bewildering choices of external storage are almost never dressed up by utilitarian designers. But if you want a classy USB drive to go with your Dell Adamo or MacBook Air, LaCie's new Rikiki makes a great backup solution on the go. Housed in a brushed aluminum case, the Rikiki - 4.3" x 2.9" x 0.5" - is about an inch shorter than the already sleek Seagate FreeAgent Go - 5.12" x 3.15" 0.49". Rikiki, meaning tiny in French, is a naturally appropriate name for the, well, Rikiki.

The Rikiki should be also quite rugged and scratch-free, considering the aluminum exterior. LaCie also has been shipping USB Boost to enhance performance of its USB storage, including the Rikiki, by up to 33%. Though, the feature is exclusive to Windows. There's a mini-B USB jack placed vertically on the left side of the drive, but there's no provision of an auxiliary power port. Either LaCie decides to take out the secondary power in favor of a minimalist design, or simply the 2.5" drive inside Rikiki is able to spin up without needing much power. The drives are making their way to retail shelves as of this writing with 250GB going for $75, 500GB for $109, and 640B for $150.

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Some guy has dissected the Microsoft HD webcam and put some serious Frankenstein on it and turned it into a digital Telescope. Gary Honis decided for some reason to peel out the HD sensor in his webcam and fit it into a camera adapter for his telescope. Take a trip back in time to the dawn of HTML on his website and check out his step by step instructions on how to disassemble and rig together his video telescope. The trickiest part is getting at the IR filter which while great for earthbound scenes is terrible for celestial subjects. Afterward, make sure to check out his results, a tour of the lunar surface and an animated gif of Jupiter.

Be sure to check out his gorgeous DSLR photos of the night sky. You can tell he didn't waste time on web design and has been devoted to becoming a truly stellar photographer (pun intended). If you don't have the chops to do this yourself you might be able to convince him to do it for you, for a fee. He seems to do a similar set of modifications for Canon DSLRs. I may try this little DIY project myself for hobby microscopy, it should work exactly the same without the need to remove the IR filter. Yes, because we prefer to take time to appreciate the little things.

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Not exactly a 'hub', the NZXT IU01 Internal USB Expansion System‏ will allow you to graft several more USB ports into your desktop computer. This PCB based system can be attached directly to your motherboard to the standard 9-pin USB connector. Taking the 1 internal 9-pin spot on your motherboard it gives 3 in return. Each of those are able to provide 2 USB ports via a simple slot filler USB panel. If you have the card slot room in your case, you can have 4 new USB ports available on the back of your tower for a total of 6. The NZXT IU01 also asks for power from a standard power supply molex connector to feed all these new ports you're getting.

The real treat is that the NZXT card also carries 2 regular USB ports with it. With these ports you can conceal and protect any USB dongles that you might be using. Prime candidates for internal hosting are; wireless mouse and keyboard dongles, WiFi or Bluetooth dongles. All of which don't need to removed often and are either taking up space in a hub or worse yet, precariously poking out of the front or back of your case just asking to be bent or broken. This internal bag of holding will only cost you $19.99 since they seem to have spent no money on coming up with a friendly name and have passed the savings on to you.

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ViewSonic seems to have leapt into the foray of portable media players ill equipped to do the job. They have created, by all accounts, a very capable 8 GB media player the VPD400 MovieBook HD‏. Unfortunately they have completely ruined it by only equipping it with controls that are shoddy even by monitor standards. The inspiration for this torturous device seems to be the nauseating controls we all have to decipher when we want to change the brightness or contrast of our monitors. Usually the only time we are forced to figure out the rubik's cube on the side or bottom of our favorite LCD screen is when they are brand new. By the time you figure out which button does what, you never want to touch them again. Brightness is up, contrast is down, contrast twice is the color balance sub-menu, etc... ViewSonic seems to think those controls are adequate and that's all you get on their VPD400 MovieBook HD.

It's moderately priced for the market at $119, and plays most of the current video standards. The only notable absence is DivX support. It has advanced features like USB host functions and an MicroSD card slot to allow for great memory expansion options. Not that you will want to sort through any number of files with the 90 uncomfortable top button clicks it will take you to scroll down to your intended album. Videos should look fine played on the 800x480 4.3" LCD screen and you also have the option to output to TV with its AV output. All in all a full featured player that you will never use after the first day. We'll hope a 2nd gen. comes along with a tiny D-pad very soon and stops embarrassing the venerable display maker.

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These days you are hard pressed to find anyone over 8 years old without an MP3 player. The next step, miniature DJ's. Digital mixing systems are hitting the streets almost daily lately and it was only a matter of time until a kiddie version came along. The Ucreate Music Mixer from Mattel is capable of acting as a multi-track mixer and sampling board. Kids and adults alike can sample their voices or sounds into the Ucreate and build loops. The Ucreate Music comes loaded with tons of samples built in so you should get plenty of mileage out of the box. A distortion rocker lets you warp the sounds and mutate your music.

Voice sampling isn't the only customization you can make. The Ucreate has a USB cable that connects it to your PC. The PC software is loaded directly from the Ucreate website with no need for a CD. After the software is loaded you can sample your MP3's or other sound files and work them into your musical creation. Once you've created your opus you can upload it to your computer and share it with your friends. You can get one to play with, and maybe even share with your kids, for only $33. Might still be able to get one by Christmas, hurry up.

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It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a mouse to run a computer, but nothing says you can't run it with a little personality. Trackballs and touchpads are the preferred controls of some people, but if you really want to your computer to make a statement for you, there's a bunch of options with mice. From big to little, high tech to steampunk, there's something for just about everybody. Just to make the miles of anonymous scrolling and clicking that we do all day long a little more bearable. Now, check out our novelty mouse list.

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What was first thought to be only applicable on hard drives is now found on a USB key made by PhotoFast, a Japanese company focusing on flash media adapters of all sorts. The aptly-named JBOD USB Thumbkey accepts up to 4 MicroSD cards, and employs drive spanning protocol (a.k.a. Just a Bunch of Disks) to combine these cards, which can be of different sizes, into one single partition. As it supports MicroSDHC, the maximum capacity is 64GB when all slots are filled with a 16GB card.

The PhotoFast JBOD USB key is also particularly useful in recycling the MicroSD cards we come across from our cellphone purchases. Even if those MicroSD cards are only 1GB to 2GB in size, you can put them together to form a flash drive large enough to transfer files that would otherwise be too big for these cards to hold individually. Available here for $62 USD (ouch), the JBOD USB Reader is a green gadget that is quite worth money in the long run.

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Quick, call a young priest and an old priest! This little guy needs an exorcism. The Arimaz Pingo is possessed by Facebook. This tiny robot moves around your desk and talks to you. You can interact with it by poking or shoving it around or talking to it. The Pingo recognizes certain voice commands and can answer by reading the weather to you or other web based information. Pingo can also monitor your Facebook wall or email account and read off parts of the message or subject as soon as they come in. Play some music and it will dance along. Dance with the Pingo and it will sense your motions and dance with you.

Other sensors keep the Pingo from moving off the edge of the desk and thereby violating the 2nd Law of Robotics. The 4th Law needs to be added to not allow a human to harm themselves by being seen dancing with a toy robot. Other Pingo owners can apparently send messages of some sort through Facebook to your Pingo. That part sounds a little scary and possibly NSFW. There's also a way to give it presents from the Facebook gift page. If a co-dependent Tamagotchi is something you just MUST have you can order them from their online store for $148.

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The NXT speaker system priced itself out of what should have been the dawn of a new era in sound technology. The AQ Amigo speaker system makes use of another generation of NXT revolutionary technology but aims to put this in the hands of even the most frugal of shoppers. Instead of using a cone and large magnet to generate sound, the NXT system is able to generate copious amounts of sound out of a thin film of plastic. The AQ system is less than 1 inch thick and most of that is the laptop mount. The AQ Amigo is designed such that it can be placed directly atop a laptop screen close to the ears of the owner. This proximity lowers the amount of volume needed and simplifies the design of the device down to speaker and USB cord.

The integrated USB cord provides sound card function and power for the speakers all by itself. This has to be the most portable quality stereo sound system to date. The first versions of the NXT system were way overpriced. The economy and maybe some common sense may have NXT licensing its technology more reasonably now as the AQ Amigo speakers are available for the shockingly low $19.

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Those who spent several hours replying their Gmails may find mouse pointing not as efficient as keyboard shortcuts, which often come in handy but difficult to master. Here comes GBoard. The Gmail-friendly keypad has a 19-button layout divided into 4 zones. The green-colored keys handle what most people would regard as the frequently used functions, such as email / thread navigation, select, open / close and inbox. Reply, reply all, forward, search and etc. sit in the blue zone. The yellow zone contains two keys: add star and archive. Lastly, the trash and spam key are colored in red for good reasons. It's also worth noting that there's no send to avoid accidental keystroke; however, you can hit tab-enter on your main keyboard to dispatch the email.

There's no special software to install for Gboard to work on Windows and Mac. But to activate the keypad, you first have to enable keyboard shortcuts in Gmail settings. The Gboard doesn't seem to cover all the shortcuts as Gmail offers 69 of them. For $19.99 each, perhaps Google can give out the Gboard to AdWords advertisers and Adsense publishers as X'mas present. Video demo after the jump.

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Whether it's Wireless USB video kit, hard drive or docking station, you will find out a bulky USB dongle that acts as a bridge between the remote unit and the host. The oversized USB stick - called Host Wire Adapter (HWA) - is actually the Wireless USB host. Having the HWA built into a notebook removes the risk of the dongle breaking, and most importantly, significantly increases the transfer throughput. Unfortunately, only the current state-of-the-art Dell notebooks (i.e. Latitude Z and Precision M6500) offer WUSB optionally (420 UWB mini card) for $50 extra.

Particularly interesting is the Z600, which is touted as a minimalist notebook without any cable clutter (even battery charing is wireless for this model). So Dell offers a WUSB docking station alongside with the said UWB module for $349. What's not so cool about the station is the omission of an Ethernet port, and the interfaces only include a DVI port, analog stereo, and 4 USB jacks. Having said that, this really seems over-priced considering its features. Interested early adopters should check with Dell whether the so-called UWB module is WUSB certified. If so, it's logical other more competitively priced docks should work with the Z600 or other Dell notebooks with built-in WUSB modules.

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As Johnny Knoxville has proved that doing dangerous stuff is really cool, we can see how everyone might want to try this. Do NOT try this at home. Our lawyers made us say that. Super cool site, Instructables, has a post about how to convert a regular AC outlet into a USB charging station. Instructables is a great site dedicated to creating and sharing web walk-throughs of little do-it-yourself projects. Be careful, you can waste hours there learning how to make all kinds of stuff. The matchstick bottle-rocket is a treat. The wall socket conversion is basically about finding 2 small 120V USB adapters and fitting them to a wall-plate. You then push the wall plate and socket into the socket recess and screw it in.

Most socket recesses have plenty of room behind them to do this but be careful, this is also a quick way to find out if the wires you are squishing are properly insulated. This is also a quick way to find out if you are an immortal highlander. Caution, non-immortals should open all breakers and wear protective clothing. The cost for this project should be under $20 for all materials. It's a lot of work when you could just buy one of these for $14. But what's the use of being a highlander if you are going to do everything the easy way?

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When you have over three million user base, there's a untapped revenue source from selling accessories to this big crowd. Cisco-owned Pure Digital - selling millions of Flip camcorders in just 3 years - takes the opportunity to make a media extender-type device that seamlessly streams your video library in FlipShare software to a TV, and it expects to be a sales hit.

So, this product, aptly named FlipShare TV, works exclusively with various Flip camcorders, whose recorded content can be played back on a TV wirelessly without the chore of video re-encoding and hassle of setting up the network. The remote unit connects to a TV either via HDMI or composite, and the USB dongle is actually a 802.11n adapter with reconfigured adhoc settings. There's also a remote control for navigating through your own video list or checking out video channels shared by other proud Flip camcorder owners. As the FlipShare TV is about simplicity, it's tailored to Flip owners without the knowledge and equipment to share media in their living room. For these people, it maybe worth $149.99.

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Sony's stretching into the security market with an alternative to the fingerprint scanner, the FVA-U1 USB Vein Authentication Device‏. You're a beautiful little snowflake just like everyone else and Sony is taking advantage of it now. This USB connected system uses the vein patterns in your finger as a unique identification token. Many of Sony's laptops contain fingerprint scanners, and while those provide an infallible method of identifying a human being, they are easily defeated and confused. You leave your fingerprints everywhere. Fingerprint security is something akin to having a 256-bit strength password and chiseling it on the bottom of your shoes. In contrast, vein patterns are purportedly as unique as fingerprints and are contained within the skin and not available for easy interception.

Sony vein reader is based on their Mofiria technology, which was unveiled earlier this year as a very low power identification device suitable for institutional use or low power mobile use (e.g. cell phones). This mini-USB version is the first piece of hardware released based on Mofiria. Sony is pitching this as more than just a personal security token, but hoping it will be adopted by large corporations by releasing an SDK for public consumption. The SDK opens the device up for developers to customize and obscure their security systems. Sadly the FVA-U1 is similar in cost to already available vein scanners at $350, and won't be released until December 18th.

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