Cool toys and Gadgets

Section: Peripherals, Storage

With the advances in technology meaning things are smaller and more valuable people are always looking for new ways to stop things from getting lost, and stop them from getting nicked.  Memory sticks certainly fall into this category: it is now far too easy to lose your new tiny memory stick, and if you are that sort of slimy person, it is also very easy to take them off your desk and copy all your valuable documents.  Bring in the CurrentKey: the height of USB stick disguise and poor puns.

The main idea behind these USB sticks is “acts” like coins, sitting nice and safe in the coin section of your wallet out of harms way and unlikely to get lost (as you always know where it is).  But if you were to twist it the snazzy rotation system brings out a USB stick capable of holding up to 8GB of work, music or whatever else you keep on your memory stick.

Originally a European company LaCie are now one of the world market leaders for computer peripherals who specialize in practical solutions for both the general public and professionals.  This is obviously aimed more at the public market (no where near geeky enough for a computer technician) along with many of their brightly colored not-easily-lost USB “solutions”.

This really is a neat product: designed to look like Euro coins (as the image suggests) they will fit in very well in any purse with the bronze (4GB) and silver (8GB) versions. T he only problem?  If you are in a rush you may end up giving someone one of these instead of a coin, which will be a fairly expensive mistake (admittedly not one your are likely to make in America) but the nice little USB logo and number indicating capacity is a bit of a give-away.

It is also not the sort of thing that a passing opportunist is going to take; I know that USB thefts are not very common, but I have heard of them and if you store valuable data (such as credit card details) there is definitely a motive for people to steal them.  However I doubt that anyone will steal a small foreign coin that is on your desk, so perhaps this is an advantage.

The only problem is the price, in a day where you can get 4Gb for around $8 the $20 and $30 price tags seem a little high, but I suppose that is the price for style and practicality, something that this little number has in buckets.  The pun (CurrentKey - Currency) isn’t that bad either so overall this is a solid piece of consumer orientated design, something we all want to see.

Source [UberGizmo]

Full Story » | Written by Christian Milsom for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

A higher cost external drive or USB-based flash storage usually comes equipped with a encryption to protect its data against theft or loss of the drive. Unfortunately most of them only work conjunction in Windows platform; but not anymore, Sandisk has announced the Industry first Secure USB drive to fully support OS X system.

The Sandisk Cruzer Enterprise flash drives are available in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB storage capacities. It comes with a secure safeguard feature that enables hardware-based password protection with 256-bit AES USB encryption to prevent for unauthorized users to access data if the drive is lost or stolen.

The security apps now supports OSX running 10.4 version and up, it has the same features as the Windows version and initialization is cross-platformed. Existing Cruzer Enterprize users now can download firmware support for Mac OSX here.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• The floral SanDisk Cruzer Patter USB Drive
• SanDisk and Veoh team up to allow offline video watching
• SanDisk Cruzer Titanium and Cruzer Micro Review
• SlashGear Review: SanDisk Cruzer Contour USB Flash Drive
• 6 MB Flash-based MP3 Player Revealed at CES.

Nokia’s seriousness with the touchscreen interface is quite evident as we are seeing another power packed touchscreen phone coming from the Finnish giant. The N97, first touchscreen in the Nseries family is a multimedia monster boasting humongous storage capacity, bigger battery, large vivid screen and a physical QWERTY keypad under the screen.

The phone runs on the 5th Edition of S60, has a 3.5-inch bright nHD screen supporting up to 640×360 pixels and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Other features are common which you could find in any high-end Nseries device like A-GPS, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus and flash, TV-Out, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP and a whopping up to 48GB of storage (32GB onboard and 16GB microSD). N97 also integrates the support for N-Gage games and a higher capacity battery of 1500 mAh, capable of giving around 6.6 hours of GSM talk time or 5.3 hours under the WCDMA network.

N97 will sell in first half of next year at a price tag of 550 Euros ($704) before taxes.

Specifications & Features:

Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
WCDMA 900/1900/2100
Size: 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm
Weight: 150 grams
OS: S60 5th Edition Symbian v9.4
Display: 3,5“ bright nHD (640 x 360 pixels and 16:9 aspect ratio) TFT color display with resistive touch screen and tactile feedback
Camera: CMOS 5.0 Megapixel, Auto Focus, Carl Zeiss Optics, Flash
Connectivity: EGPRS, HSDPA, WCDMA, Wi-Fi b/g
Input Methods: QWERTY keyboard, Touch Screen
Memory: 32GB onboard, expandable up to 16GB with microSD cards
Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and EDR
Music Player
TV-Out
A-GPS with Nokia Maps support
Flash Lite 3.0
Nokia AV 3.5mm
Talk Time: GSM – 6.6 hours/ WCDMA – 5.3 hours
Standby Time: GSM – 430 hours/ WCDMA – 400 hours

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Asus has vowed to change the perception of Nettops which looked merely a desktop iteration of netbooks. They have announced the Eee Box 204 and B206 that will enable the users to enjoy HD content on their PCs. The HD capable Eee Boxes come with an HDMI output, DVI connector, Eee Cinema media player, remote control and a dedicated ATI Radeon 3400 HD GPU with 256MB DDR2 memory.

Rest of the specs remain identical as its predecessors with Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB SATA HDD, 10GB Eee Storage, card reader, WLAN b/g/n, Ethernet and Windows XP Home as the only OS. B204 when compared to B206 is a bit superior because of the inclusion of Bluetooth and an integrated battery which functions like a UPS for the desktop.

No details on the price and availability though.

Press Release

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Notebooks sales are being bolstered significantly by the booming sales of low-cost netbook computers. Many may not have been familiar with the name MSI before its popular Wind netbook hit the market. MSI offers more than netbooks in the US market with a full line of notebook computers as well.

Yesterday MSI announced its latest, affordable ultraportable notebook called the EX300. The machine uses a 13.3-inch widescreen display and offers ATI HD3450 graphics. MSI says the notebook weighs 4.5 pounds with the 8-cell battery.

Two colors are available — red and blue — and the system includes Bluetooth and 802.11a/g/n networking. The CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile P7350 and the system runs Windows Vista Home Premium. The display resolution is 1280 x 800 and storage is to a 250GB HDD. Up to 4GB of RAM is supported and the video card has 256MB of VRAM. The EX300 retails for $999, making it a good deal for a portable machine.

MSI

Additional news from the Nokia front: The company announced the launch of Nokia messaging – a new push email service that consolidates access to consumer email and IM on Nokia devices – as well as an online portal for Mail on Ovi – allowing PC users to create and access Ovi email accounts as well as other Ovi services through a single sign-on account.

Nokia Messaging will launch in the Q1 2009 in Australia, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the UK, and Venezuela. It will be an operator supported service that will enable push access to email and IM access straight to Nokia devices. The service will work with popular messaging platforms including Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and ISP mail services. Owners of Nokia S60 devices can try the service for free as a limited period beta trial. All you’ll need to do is head to email.nokia.com and download and setup the application to work with your existing email accounts. Emails are then “seamlessly pushed to their mobile device”.

Nokia also introduced web access to Mail on Ovi, giving users 1GB of storage space and spam filters to block unwanted email messages. Creating an account on Mail on Ovi will also provide access to other Ovi services through a single sign-on account – both on the phone and on the PC. A beta version of Mail on Ovi will be introduced in December in 12 languages. The web access version will launch in February of 2009.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Nokia Messaging, Mail on Ovi

The new SageTV HD Theater media center extender device allows you to enjoy your videos, music, and photos in full HD on your HDTV sets wherever they are in your home. As with previous SageTV extenders, the HD Theater will allow you to watch live or recorded HD broadcasts from the PCs or Macs running SageTV Media Center software. Digital content can be played off of PCs, Macs, network storage devices, or even USB storage devices. 

In addition to local content, the HD Theater extender will be able to stream online video directly from sources such as YouTube, Google Video, and major TV networks without the need of a PC.

Here’s a list of the SageTV HD Theater Specifications:

Video format supported: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264 up to 1080p, AVI, MKV, MOV, ASF, VOB, WMV9/VC-1 up to 1080p

Audio format suppported: MP2, MP3, AAC, WMA, Vorbis (stereo only), AC3 (stereo down-mix/pass-through), FLAC, DTS (pass-through)

Video Outputs: 1 HDMI, 1 Component, 1 Composite, 1 S-Video

Audio Outputs: Left/Right audio output and optical S/PDIF

Maximum Number of SageTV HD Theaters: Limited only by your home network bandwidth, each HD video stream may use 20 Mbps or more of home network bandwidth.

TV Set Requirements:

• HDMI, Component, Composite or S-Video input (NTSC)
• Left and right audio input jacks, optical or HDMI audio input

Network Requirements:

• One 10/100 RJ-45 port on a Router, Hub or Switch network with DHCP server on network

  or

• Direct connect from SageTV HD Media Extender to PC running DHCP server via cross over LAN cable (not supplied)

You can purchase the SageTV HD Media Extender for $199.95 each.

[Check it out via eHomeUpgrade]

Technorati Tags: SageTV HD Theater Media Center Extender

Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops

As we expected, the Eee PC 1002HA has begun showing up with US based retailers.  The 1002HA appears to be replacing the now fast dwindling 1000H and is retailing for around $500.  Of course, as of now, these listings are simply for pre-order but they are expected to begin shipping shortly. 

The Eee PC 1002HA offers the nice brushed metal design that is found on the S101 and as for features it has a 10-inch display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n.  Based on the specification listing it seems the one item that is lacking is built-in Bluetooth.  Otherwise, another potential drawback is that it is shipping with a small 2-cell battery.  If you are looking for something with similar specs and a larger battery, you can always check out the 1000HA, that model is available for around $430 and ships with a 6-cell battery.

Product [ZipZoomFly]  Product [Buy.com]  Product [Amazon]

Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

Medion offers the new GPS navigation system in Europe in the form of the GoPal P5430. The gadget supports Traffic Master, Voice control, SiRF Titan 600Mhz processor, SiRF InstantFix II GPS receiver, Text-to-Speech for precise traffic guidance, Pre-loaded safety camera locations, Lane and Speed advisor, and 3GB of storage space. What makes this gadget different is that it comes with a fingerprint sensor. Priced at €200, the Medion GoPal P5430 has a huge 5 inch display screen and features maps of Western and Eastern Europe from Navteq. [Navigadget]

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Energy Sistem released the 4040 Touch portable media player. It comes with some high-end features like a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, built-in microphone, FM tuner, and supports most audio and video file formats.

The Energy Sistem 4040 Touch is priced at €120. The company has also released the 5020 and 5021, which have no touchscreen and take the storage down to 4GB. These lower-end PMPs are priced at about €85.

[Energysistem]