iWishihadthis.com » Tablet PCs

IOGear Wireless USB for CardBus

Tim Zastrow — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:33:18 +0000

Wireless USB is just starting to take off with many companies (such as Dell) offering integrated WUSB capabilities into their new laptops. However not everyone is so lucky to have a wireless USB receiver built-in. IOGear has solved this problem with their new CardBus wireless USB receiver. The card itself will use the rarely occupied CarBus slot on laptops, without having to worry about another USB dongle. Unfortunately price and availability are currently unknown. (Source)

Brando USB Bluetooth Adapter

Tim Zastrow — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:22:07 +0000

This new USB Bluetooth Adapter from Brando is a full feature Bluetooth 2.0 adapter but is so small can fit into any device without having to worry about any large USB dongles. The device is also Bluetooth 1.1 compliant and even allows for connectivity to 7 Bluetooth devices simultaneously. The best part is that its extremely inexpensive at only $24

Click on Thumbnail for Full Size Image

Connects most Bluetooth devices.
Supports A2DP up to 30 meters Enables wireless connectivity between computers and devices
Enables connectivity to 7 Bluetooth devices at one time
Enables Wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) connectivity
Bluetooth 1.1 compliant
Bluetooth class 2, compatible with Bluetooth class 1
USB 1.1 compliant
More than 33 feet wireless networking range
Up to 723 Kbps data rate
Dimensions: 14 x 19 x 6mm
Weight: 2g

iRiver UNIT 2

Adam Gunderson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:40:44 +0000

I am sure most of you have been reading about all that awesome new gadgets that popped up at this years Consumer Electronics Show. One thing that seriously caught my eye was iRivers UNIT 2. It is an interesting concept that features about 50 gadgets in one. iRiver says the UNIT 2 is the ultimate all-in-one solution for integrating your personal digital content such as music, photos and movies with your TV and set-top box. It comes with a base unit, a portable unit, and a remote unit.

The device features phone and web functionality includes: Audio, Video, DVD player, DiVX player, CD player, FM Tuner, VoIP phone, VoIP Video Phone, SMS/MMS, Web Browsing, Web Mail. Its 7” (800 x 600) touch screen interface makes navigation easy and the built-in high-quality stereo speakers produce every nuance of your favorite music and video entertainment. UNIT 2’s communication features include Wi-Fi, a Built-in Mic and Wireless AP. Storage capabilities include both a 30BG hard disc drive and 2GB of NAND Flash.

Napkin PC Concept

Tim Zastrow — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 06:31:14 +0000

Sometimes a concept comes along and its such a fantastic idea you wonder “why the hell didn’t I think of this??” Introducing the Napkin PC Concept by designer Avery Holleman. The Napkin PC is designed to be used in a business environment to help groups collaborate on various designs or documents simultaneously. Data is sent to the multi-touch e-paper via the pen by RF and has the ability to communicate to all the various tablets. Unfortunately this is only a concept so we probably will never see an actual production unit, but it is nice to see that designers are finally starting to think outside the box for PC designs.

Bitmicro’s E-Disk Altima 461GB 2.5-inch SSD

Adam Gunderson — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 23:24:12 +0000

Bitmicro has created a 461GB Solid State Disk Drive. The E-Disk Altima flash drives are standard 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA), and are engineered to be very reliable. They can operate in temperatures of -40 to +85 degrees Celsius, and withstand substantial shock. Based on current flash memory prices, these things are going to be pretty pricey and will be built specifically for industrial and military applications. The 461GB Bitmicro E-Disk Altima is said to be available March of 2008. [via]

LinuxDevices.com:

Performance:

Access time — 30 to 100 microseconds

Burst transfer rate — 300 MB/sec.

Sustained transfer rate — up to 100 MB/sec.

I/O operations per second — Up to 20,000

Environmental specifications:

Operating temperature 0-70 degrees C (“commercial” range), -40 to +85 degrees C (“industrial” range)

Shock (operating) — 1,250 G

Vibration (operating) — 16.4 G rms

Reliability:

MTBF — 1.9 million hours, minimum

Error correction — corrects up to 9 random bit errors per 528-byte block

Data integrity — up to ten years

Read endurance — unlimited

Physical specifications:

Form-factor — 2.5-inch HDD

Dimensions — 2.75 x 3.95 x 0.93 inches (69.85 x 100.45 x 23.55 mm) maximum, storage capacities 64 GB and below are 0.33 inches thick

Weight — 2.9 to 7.8 ounces (83 to 221 grams)

New Compenion Slider Laptop Concept

Tim Zastrow — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:56:34 +0000

Lately we have seen a new segment in portable computing starting to emerge. VIA introduced the NanoBook Ultra Mobile Device, Palm introduced the Foleo and several other companies are also planning to release smaller more portable designs as well. Well this new concept is by far the best design for a small UMPC / PDA type computer that I have ever seen. The new concept is called the Compenion and was designed by Felix Schmidberger. Since this is a concept there are no spec’s but the laptop does make uses a pair of sliding OLED touch screens. However the really cool part is the second OLED touchscreen underneath, which allows you can have a keyboard or anything of you choice to be displayed, basically its dual monitor laptop. In addition there is a a laser projector embedded in the bottom side and in conjunction with a home station they allow you to project images or movies onto the wall while using the pen as a remote controlPhotos –

Compenion slider PDA-like concept design – GEARFUSE

External Graphics for Notebooks by ASUS

Adam Gunderson — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 06:54:27 +0000

So you want a lightweight laptop but dont want to sacrifice playing computer games (or any other 3D rendering you may do). ASUS has a solution for you! They are about to release an external graphics processor for laptops that connects via Express Card slot. It includes a Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS which is upgradeable to any PCIe graphics card. The device displays the current GPU temperature, current frames per second and GPU fan speed. Not only does this guy accelerate video, it also has a sound card to deliver Dolby® 5.1 channel surround sound. There is price yet but we should know soon. Expect to see these things in stores soon ASUS reports that they will be releasing it in the beginning of Q2 2007.

[Source: ASUS News]

SmackBook Pro, Damn Cool

Tim Zastrow — Fri, 26 May 2006 23:42:28 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uvQTTPr9Rw

As everyone knows the new MacBook Pro’s use a nice motion sensor for its iSight software and various other applications but the coolest is a mod out there is a feature that allows you too switch desktops with just a little tap. This mod alone makes me want to purchase a MacBook Pro (the fact that its one of the fastest laptops out there also help a lil too)