Entries tagged with hardware - Channel 10

Diagnose Hard Drive Problems With HDDScan

sarahintampa — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:27:00 GMT

Have you been hearing an ominous clicking sound coming from inside your computer? That sound could be one of your hard drives on its way to failure…or something else entirely. If you want to know for sure, a utility called HDDScan can help. This free app will scan your internal or external drives for bad blocks, test write/read/erase capabilities, read and analyze S.M.A.R.T. parameters and run S.M.A.R.T. tests, and even monitor the temperatures of the drives themselves. When complete, the reports produced can either be printed or saved for future reference. HDDScan is definitely an app worth adding to your toolkit.

(Thanks AppScout!)

Dell’s New Studio Hybrid PCs

sarahintampa — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:01:00 GMT

At long last, the new “green” PCs that have been under development at Dell have finally arrived. The Dell Studio Hybrid PC is 80% smaller than the conventional desktop mini-tower while also using 70% less power than typical desktop PCs. Their small form factor lets them fit almost anywhere and the optional wireless keyboard and mouse help kill the clutter. The PCs are Energy Star 4.0 compliant (of course!)and can be customized with 6 interchangeable color sleeves or even a sleeve made of environmentally- friendly bamboo. Despite their small size, the Studio Hybrid still finds room for a CD/DVD drive, analog and digital sound ports, a gigabit networking port, and HDMI and DVI ports. The PCs start at $499 and go up depending on your customizations like selecting a Blu-Ray drive, more memory, or a larger hard drive.

A Pink Mouse!

sarahintampa — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:29:00 GMT

Anyone who knows me well knows I have a thing for the color pink when it comes to my electronics. I don't care if it's too girly or if represents the absolute opposite of "girl-power", I just love pink. And green....but mostly pink. I've had a pink Razr, a pink case for my Blackberry Pearl (whose pearl I hacked to shine pink), pink headphones, a pink and gray laptop bag for my pink Dell Inspiron 1520. It's kind of sick when you think about it.

So, needless to say, when I saw the new, special edition Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 3000 in pink, I immediately added it to my wish list of must-haves.

The mouse is just like its plainer cousin, the "not special edition" Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 3000, complete with the snap-in receiver that saves battery life and the compact shape and size for ultra-portability.

But for those of you who get a little nauseous at the color pink, you should know the mouse also comes in red, green, brown, and khaki.

Belkin 3-outlet + 2-USB adaptor

Larry — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 05:10:00 GMT

I've spent the last two weeks in hotel rooms and continually juggled between lamp, clock, laptop, phone, and MP3 player(s) in the power outlet that was available. Then there is the ruthless power outlet jockeying that goes on in airports... Well, Belkin has a great solution for this in a three outlet power adaptor that has two built-in USB chargers on the side. It features a 360-degree rotating plug with a surge protector. Well worth the money at $24.99.
(via Uncrate)

The Amazing Optimus Maximus Keyboard in the Wild!

sarahintampa — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:05:00 GMT

Engadget has the best toys! They recently posted of a video of the Optimus Maximus keyboard that they got to play with. In case you're not familiar (where have you been?), the Optimus Maximus is a new keyboard whose keys are customizable via an OLED display on each key. Each key's display can be changed to display any character of any language, as well as any other characters, whether a number, a symbol, HTML codes, math functions, notes, etc. You can see why this is one sought-after keyboard. However, at a price that is approximately $462.27 U.S., you'll have to really think about it before pre-ordering one for yourself.

Cool Cord Trap Design

sarahintampa — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:36:00 GMT

When I saw this on .net DEvHammer's blog, I thought: genius! This grommet is designed for keeping cables in place as they are fed up through a hole in your desk. One of the hardest things for me in the I.T. world from which I came was threading cords up through a hole in a desk. Of course, some cords can be dropped down, but others, with large AC adapters and the like could only go one way: UP. With my short arms, I often couldn't hold the cord in place with one hand while grasping the end with the other, leading me to become a master cord balancer by necessity. But if these grommets had existed...sigh...Unfortunately, as I continued reading, it appears that these grommets don't actually exist yet - this is a design concept only. What?! Please, someone, hear my plea: make these things already!

My Dream Machine: Tuning

nhodge — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:26:00 GMT

This Part 3 of a 3 part series on My Dream Machine (Part 1, Part 2)

Tuning.

I finished Part 2 with a Windows Experience Index of 4.7

Stated goal: an all round 5.9 for all measurements.

Off to order more bits, and change some components in the beastie: General Melchett.

Tweaking time.

Video Card.

At the time of building this machine, the NVidia GeForce 8800GT cards were extremely popular, if not sold out. Many gamers and performance enthusiasts had to wait in a queue for their cards to arrive. DirectX 10. Those extra smooth graphics in Crysis. Nice. Shame I don't play Crysis, but if I did - it would look way excellent.

Once the card arrived, and I arrived home: a quick swap over and installation of the Vista x64 drivers, and another check of the Windows Experience Index: 5.6. We are getting closer.

Temperature

Like any new performance car owner, I want to take it out on the track and safely measure the top speed. How fast can this thing go?

Before heading down the motorway of speed, it's time to talk safety.

Too much heat in your PC, and your engine is going to be fried. Melted bits of copper, silicon and gold. Fire could erupt. Safety first. To ensure safe speed, keeping your performance PC cool is paramount.

Using a nifty little tool from Franck Delattre, CPU-Z: you can find out many things about your motherboard. The hotter a PC is, the less efficient the electrons. The cooler, the longer the components work and the more efficient your PC. Keeping air flowing through the PC and cooling all the hot bits is a key game all performance enthusiasts.

I decided to get a faster yet quieter rear case fan to pull air through the case, and replace the stock-supplied CPU fan. Intel provide a sufficient CPU fan with their processors, but knowing that colder is better, a little research was in order.

After looking at what other AUSPCMarket guys where buying for their Intel Q6600s. Result: Zalman CPU fans. Below is a photo of the fan installed.

Installation process (note, being the hardware n00b that I am: this took an hour. Chiefly gathering the courage to remove the underside heatsink)

Remove motherboard from case
Remove existing CPU fan with the badly designed plastic clips
A benefit of the Gigabyte motherboard: removable underside heatsink. Remove this
Screw new baseplate onto front/backside of motherboard
Clean off old thermal grease from top of CPU
Re-apply new thermal grease to top of CPU
Screw down new baseplate for fan
Clip on new fan
Wire in fan to CPU_FAN connector on motherboard
Replace motherboard, restart PC

What is my target temperature? Less than 50degC in my research is a good target temperature for my configuration. With the application of the Zalman fan, I managed to reduce the core temperatures by an average of 5-7 degrees C, and the ambient temperature in the case by the same measurement. This was a net change in temperature after installing the new RAM and Video card as described above. The NVidia Geforce is a mini-motherboard on its own: it has its own power connector, fan, processor and memory.

I found CPUID's Hardware Monitor an excellent, and more accurate tool, for measuring both the speed of the fans and the temperature on hard disks and video card.

Overclock

As this machine is my "go-to-work drive", stability is critical. Burning out a cylinder is not a good look.

But, on the weekends.. well, it's time to see what General Melchett can do. As a side note, I own a MINI Cooper S John Cooper Works. My wife has taken this beauty of a car around a racing track at near 200km/hr. This also happens to be my work car. Really don't know why this is relevant, but I thought I'd post it anyway.

Overclocking is a little rocket science, a little play with the numbers and mostly fun. Essentially, you are tweaking values in the BIOS at boot time to increase voltages, bus speeds and clocking to get a faster PC. Thankfully, for overclocking newbies, the Gigabyte BIOS has a great mechanism for tweaking. If you set something wrong, it switches back to a known-good default. Almost fail-safe BIOS tweaking.

By tweaking the Bus Speed to 350Mhz, I managed to push the processor to 3.15Ghz. The fans where blaring as the core temperature raised to above 60degrees C due to the core voltage going to greater than 1.3v - the cries of "she cannae go any faster, captn" rang through my head.

Memory

The memory scored a 5.6 in the initial construction. Using two packs of Corsair Twin2X DDR2 XMS2-6400 Twin Pack was financially a good purchase, however not the fastest. The speed is not the absolute maximum; with a little research I found that the Corsair was OK. It was more a matter of latency.

Memory has speeds. There are these strange codes saying things like "2-2-2-12". These numbers refer to the latency timings at a very low level; and the smaller the numbers the faster the memory can be read to and written from. And it is no the direct speed, but rather the "queue waiting time". The smaller the number, the smaller the queue and the less waiting time.

A quick review of the Gigabyte motherboard list of supported RAM modules pops up an interesting choice: Geil DDR2-800 Quad Pack. Lower latency timings, and boom! above that 4Gb barrier on the beastie.

Lesson: when making performance PCs, check memory latency timing speeds. Lower the better.

Recheck the Windows Experience Index:

We get 5.9s all around! Success.

Added bits bill: AU$1,257.19

My Dream Machine: Planning

nhodge — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:12:00 GMT

This Part 1 of a 3 part series on My Dream Machine (Part 2)

I am a software guy. Install software, tune the bits, configure the system. Find the limits. Show others how to use it. Software has been the central theme of my geek journey. A Hardware Guy? Well, not so much.

Traditionally, Dell and Apple have made my software-centric life a breeze. After finding some money resting in my account (or someone else's budget), I would wander to an online store and build a machine. After two weeks of impatience, the computer arrives and off I go into software installation heaven.

Challenging your limitations is a natural part of human existence. For me, I had conquer my own personal everest. Time to build something that will go fast, just like the car tweakers from The Fast and the Furious.

Building your own computer is at the core of PC freedom. Picking and choosing the components, plugging it all in. Installing the software. Ensuring that the devices all work. Knowing that your tool-of-trade is constructed by your own hands. Adding more bits later. Finding more money. Adding blinkenlights. All a part of the experience.

Time to build my own dream machine. So started the General Melchett project.

Goal.

Apart from building my own machine, I wanted to make a fast-yet-upgradeable computer. Defining fast as a 5.9 score for all components of the Windows Experience Index in Windows Vista's Performance and Tools

Why only 5.9? 5.9 is as fast as the present versions of Windows Vista display.

What do I want to do with my self-created frankenstein-ian machine?

Anything better than my Toshiba M400 for editing videos. In fact, anything is better than the old Toshiba.
Able to run multiple virtual machines under Virtual PC to test out software, special new things from Microsoft and others without breaking my main workstations
Dual screen to have TV/video/Podcasts running on one side, whilst working on the other. Or at least attempting to work

Making an informed purchasing decision using internet tools and research is easy. As an Aide-mémoire, I installed Live Labs Listas, to manage my collection of knowledge in snippets.

So the simple goal is a reliable performance machine that have fun driving to and from work everyday. Maybe pop out onto the racing track on weekends.

First: Vista x64. what is 64-bit?

The first consideration was a desire to run Vista x64. I needed to the full value of the 64bits that Microsoft have engineered into the operating system. As x64 is a long topic, I've a separate post on the matter.

Second: The Processor

Windows Vista has support for multiple processors. Multiple cores are really handy with heavy number crunching tasks, such as video encode/decode/transcode.

Research lead me to Quad-core processors - and specifically, the Intel Q6600 processor. As AMD had yet to release the Phenom in retail, and Intel their 45nm range of processors - this particular beastie fit the bill. And the budget.

Another core reason for choosing the Q6600 was the freedom to overclock. (For the balance record: my Windows Media Center PC runs on AMD Athlon 6400+)

Third: memory

A big question: DDR2 or DDR3 memory? DDR3 memory, whilst faster to read/write - is way expensive at the present time. The speed of the FSB. I have decided to wait for DDR3 to reduce in price, or the smart scientists do wonderous things with DDR2.

As you will see, my initial choice of brand of DDR2 memory set me up with 4Gb but didn't perform to my 5.9 expectations.

Fourth: motherboard

One of the beauties of choosing a motherboard and processor combination is the upgradability of either, and the "chipset" on the motherboard.

A chipset defines the range of processors that can be supported, memory speeds, 'system bus speeds', audio and other hardware enhancements.

As the next processor I will upgrade to on this particular PC will be a reasonably priced 45nm processor with a greater cache and more performance, thinking of the future is extremely important.

In this configration, I have chosen a Gigabyte motherboard due to their x64 drivers, choice and the value of the features; many SATA connections (eight!), ability to RAID up on the motherboard and overclockability.

Another feature, which came in handy when later tuning, is the removable motherboard cooling heatsink on rear of motherboard.

Fifth:Case

The case I chose had two additional physical constraints: width and height. As this workstation was destined for my GeekSpace at home, the desk my wife kindly let me purchase had certain constrains.

Sixth: The bits that are needed to make it work

The power supply is an important choice. I chose a 620W power supply which has enough head-room for additional pieces to be added. A key feature of the Corsair powersupply chosen was its use of modular power cables. Many power supplies provide rats-nest of cables to wire into hard disks, motherboards, fans and the like. There is invariably cables left over, or you run out of SATA power for instance. Modular installations provide a connector on the powersupply and a collection of cables to suit your installation. Highly recommended.

Disk drives: 10,000 RPM 'boot' drive and 2 x 500Gb (mirrored) 7200 PRM data drives. RPM is a measure of the revolutions-per-minute of the hard disk. The higher the RPM, the quicker the data is found, and the quicker the hard drive. As I was going for 5.9s, I chose a Western Digital 10000 RPM drive.

Second choice of memory: Geil 8Gb of RAM (note: originally purchased older RAM that wasn't fast or big enough. this now sits in my self-built Media Center)

Video card: NVidia 8800GT. The first card I purchased was permanently borrowed by my son to play Crysis. Had to purchase a second 8800GT. All the rage at the time of purchase, there was a waiting list for these beasties.

Monitors: In a similar vein as the case, the hutch in the GeekSpace had limited height; and I wanted two monitors exactly the same. Time to go to Dell and check the specifications of their LCD displays. I chose two Dell E228WFP displays.

Keyboard: Microsoft Wireless Entertainment 8000. Highly recommended. As I also use the PC as a Windows Media Center, the keyboard is just brilliant at 4 metres.

Seventh: Sundries

Like all geek houses, there are bits of hardware of unknown vintage lazing around the house. Included in this list is an old DVICO USB digital TV receiver. Also on the new shopping list included an internal USB module for SD/CF media read/write, DVD/CD R/W drive, desk speakers.

Chosen an Australian online vendor that ships within Sydney on the same day. Clear the credit card! Off we go purchasing the bits and pieces.

Total bill: AU$4,351.79

Next episode: the building

Further References

Microsoft Hardware helps put an end to our wrist pain

Laura — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:39:00 GMT

I, along with the majority of you (I would assume) spend countless hours in front of our computers, and then even more hours maneuvering our game controllers. Well, after a while you may start to become concerned with carpal tunnel syndrome. I switched from using my right hand for my mouse to my left and it's even affected my Halo game (unacceptable!). So now, with ergonomic design being of interest to so many, Microsoft is offering their latest keyboard and mice to help relieve some pain out their. This newest addition to the #1 best selling line of ergonomic keyboards makes day-to-day tasks easier with a more natural wrist alignment. And I say, "Thank You!".

NVousPC's Custom-Designed Laptops

sarahintampa — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:15:00 GMT

A new company called NVousPC is capitalizing on the custom-designed laptops trend. Since laptops have become just as much a fashion accessory as they are a tool for getting work done, NVousPC lets you customize your laptop's look...totally & completely, both inside and out. The panels of the laptop can be painted any color with paint that rivals that which is used on luxury cars. In addition to custom paint jobs, the panels can be adorned with uploaded images that can be plastered on the lid. Customers get to work with a designer, one-on-one, to perfect the look and approve the final design.

You can either customize your current notebook or purchase one of NVousPC's laptops. There is the 14.1-inch Mercury and the 15.4-inch Ether notebooks that carry a minimum 1GB of RAM and offer options like the Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 processor, choice of hard drive, Bluetooth modules, optical drives, Windows Vista, and more. The Mercury starts at $1,099, and the Ether at $999, and the price for custom design is $186 and up. If you want a customized look for your notebook, but don't have the design skills to create one, NVousPC also has a line of pre-customized laptops featuring some nice designs. The president & co-founder of NVousPC, Oscar Zapata, is a former Alienware product development engineer. He left Alienware a week before the Dell buyout. (Via Crave)

Microsoft Hardware celebrates 25 years

Laura — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:53:00 GMT

Microsoft Hardware was formed in 1982 to develop a device that would help people use the company’s new word processing program.

The device was a mouse and the application was called Word, laying the foundation for a future of delivering hardware that helps people better and more easily use software.

From the original "green-eyed mouse" to groundbreaking products like the LifeCam NX-6000 and Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 (oh my gosh its so cool I need one), Microsoft Hardware has delivered exceptional mice, keyboards, communication products, and gaming gear that has changed the way the world works, plays, and connects.

I visited the Hardware department to take a tour down memory lane and get a peek into the future. Enjoy!

WinHEC 2007: New Windows Home Server hardware

Jesse — Tue, 15 May 2007 22:03:00 GMT

This morning Steven Leonard announced a significant list of hardware partners that will be building Windows Home Server devices. AMD, HP, LaCie, Gateway, Intel, and Medion International have all announced intentions to build devices. In the past we’ve shown you the abilities of WHS, but today we’ve got a hit list of companies from whom we should expect devices. Of course, if you’d rather roll your own, there will of course be a System Builder SKU for those with the kung-fu to create their own monster storage rig.

WinHEC 2007 has begun

Jesse — Tue, 15 May 2007 16:31:00 GMT

Uncle Bill went on stage 30 minutes ago to begin this year’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. For those who aren’t familiar, this is the place to see the some of the coolest new hardware coming to the Windows ecosystem. There are also a series of demos (complete with cumbersome dialog) on the optimum experiences for setting up new hardware. If you must see the news as it happens, then go and grab the hot and tasty WinHEC Keynote stream.

Samsung activates silent drive

Larry — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:01:00 GMT

Let’s say you’re building a HTPC (home theater PC) or even a desktop for your office and you want to keep the noise to a bare minimum. Besides fans, your biggest noise culprit is probably going to be your hard drive, which can make anything from a weird whirring noise to a nasty grinding noise when copying files. Samsung has fixed this with a new line of silent hard drives called the SpinPoint S166 Series.

The new drives will be up to 8 decibels quieter than other drives while retaining the same 7200 RPM, 3Gb/sec speeds.

The drives will ship with 8MB caches in SATA and PATA versions.

Microsoft TechFest 2007 Wrap-up

Jesse — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:07:00 GMT

Microsoft’s Conference Center has been buzzing this week and we’re going to bring you up to speed for all of your weekend dinner party banter. The boffins from MS Research were on campus to peel back the curtain on all of their latest and greatest and they came nowhere near disappointing. Tuesday the show was also open to public press for the first time in the event’s 15 year history.

Rory Blyth published his videos to Channel 9, the first featuring DynaVis and FastDash and the second focusing on technology on the wall. Both videos give you a great idea of the vibe in the room, as well as Rory’s unique style if you haven’t ever sampled it.

Scott Beale of Laughing Squid shot gorgeous photos (as usual), featuring Lego workfolk, Windows Vista soda, and of course kittens. Brady Forrest came down from O’Reilly and was smitten by Asirra (a crowdsource service that helps cats and dogs find new homes) and how some Microsoft Researchers are able to move gigapixel images across the web with their HDView technology. Scoble experienced TechFest by viewing everything through the LCD on his PodTech camera. He also determined that using Twitter to publish updates of Rick Rashid’s keynote, available in webcast and transcript forms, was the right tool for the job--a decision probably best described as, “permalinks schmermalinks.”

Bre Pettis was reporting for Make Magazine and talked to MSR boffins about Personal Audio Spaces (think grooving to Sketches of Spain where you’re sitting, but the person next to you is rocking to Now Here Is Nowhere). And of course Engadget’s Ryan Block was there to photograph his fingers on everything.

All told it was quite a whirlwind tour. We here at the 10 HQ have certainly got ourselves a new list of people and projects to follow as we hunt for the cool inside of Microsoft, in this Year of our Bond.

Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid.

Superbowl halftime performance powered by Windows

Jesse — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 23:14:00 GMT

Most of you are probably enjoying the game about now, and the halftime entertainment could prove to be the 2nd most entertaining part of the day (behind either the TV ads or the game, depending on how your team's doing). Prince will rock Miami harder than ever before, thanks in part to the new Gen3 Neko keyboard from Open Labs.

The Neko and Miko keyboards are powered by Intel Core 2 Duo chips and Windows software. They're also the first Windows-powered keyboards to be used in a Super Bowl performance. While we can't speak for the quality of the rock n' roll, but at least you can put some more faith in the tools.

Belkin Skype handset reviewed

Jesse — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:52:00 GMT

Belkin's wifi phone for Skype can now be found in the wild, and the first reports back are relatively good. The advantage of being able to manage our Skype existence from either the desktop or the handset outweighs the few niggles related to Belkin's hardware design. The ever-growing access to wireless networks in major metros should continue to make this sort of gadget increasingly useful. Also keep in mind that you've got eleven days left to get Skype Unlimited for 15 stones.

Read Alan Graham's review for ZDnet: Hands on With the Belkin Skype Phone.

JAQ3: World's thinnest PocketPC reviewed

Jesse — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:25:00 GMT

The i-mate JAQ3 is certainly the new, hot Windows Mobile device for the size-conscious among us. At just a touch larger than a T-Mobile Dash in every measurement, but with Pocket PC being its ace in the hole, this svelte handset is going to make you the talk of your road warrior circle.

Check out Matthew Miller's article for ZDNet: A first look at the world's thinnest Pocket PC Phone.

Perceptive Pixel reinvents the human-computer interface

Jesse — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:51:00 GMT

Remember this name: Perceptive Pixel, because you'll be telling anyone who will listen about their kit for the next month. Last year at the TED conference, an NYU computer scientist named Jeff Han brought the house down with his multi-touch interface. He manipulated applications with the flawless, effortless touchy-feely ability that only a few years earlier was the sole realm of Chief John Anderton.

While our friends in Cupertino have been getting a lot of attention for their multi-touch implementation, the work Han and his team are doing is so much bigger (literally). Watch their demo video from Fast Company and then go read more in Can't Touch This (yes we know it's a confusing title).

Intel's Polaris prototype is a glimpse ten years into chip futures

Jesse — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:55:00 GMT

Our new favorite phrase in hardware lust around the 10 HQ has been 'multi-core' (Sampy says it like Leeloo Dallas says 'multi-pass'). However according to Intel's CTO the era of many-core isn't so far off. Justin Rattner tested the first Polaris processor prototypes recently, and he's pleased to report that deep inside Intel's test labs, they were getting 1.02 TFLOPS at 3.2GHz, all for less than 100 watts of power. Justin would also remind you that a decade ago, that sort of power took up a space about the size of your house.

The full specs of the Polaris chip are available, and there's certainly no roadmap for putting these bad boys on the shelves at Fry's. Nonetheless, these sort of lab accomplishments send shockwaves through our minds. If you want a good job in 2020, start learning how to program to as many cores as you can imagine.

Fab@Home rapid prototyper and 3D Printer

Jesse — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:51:00 GMT

We saw this last week and it's been on our minds ever since. For the price of your next computer, you could instead buy yourself all the parts, tools, and instructions necessary to build your own Fab@Home 3D printer or 'fabber.' Also included in your kit is the software to drive your new creation.

Once you've got it fired up, your action figure collection can really begin to blossom. Imagine: a collection of esteemed chemistry professors of the 19th century!

New Vista Media Center remote design?

Jesse — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 19:22:00 GMT

We here at 10 love the rumors as much as anyone, and when we see talk of something handheld we get even more excited.

The maligned yet fabulous world of Windows Media Center has gotten a breath of fresh air in Vista, and with the consumer launch fast approaching new Vista Media Center (VMC) machines will hit the streets. What is potentially the new VMC remote sure looks pretty, and a comfortable place for millions of predominantly male hands to rest while relaxing at home.

(via Digg)

Korea brings convergence back with the Samsung SGH-9000

Jesse — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 20:56:00 GMT

A few years back the idea of 'convergence devices' fell from grace quicker than we can say pets dot com. Lately though the idea of a new category of handheld device is hugely exciting. Naturally whenever the wind carries the scent of the future, it typically comes from Asia.

The Samsung SGH-9000 comes armed with a 5-inch lcd, folding qwerty keyboard, and a 30 gig drive. Add EV-DO, WiMAX, bluetooth, and a camera and you've got quite an immaculate device. Oh and to top it all of this thing folds up into a neat little package. Who wants to move to Seoul?

Office RoundTable part four: The fashion event of the winter season

Jesse — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 02:00:00 GMT

It's no secret that we're big fans of the Office RoundTable. Microsoft's Unified Communciations group took Ross Cutler's expertise into the mix along with Rajiv Kapoor's smarts to come up with a seriously cool piece of kit that could change the way we work together.

The kids from UC whipped up a demo of RoundTable (apparently after all going to see The Devil Wears Prada). The result is a quick and quirky vision of what RoundTable can do. We love it, and we're looking forward to getting our own RoundTable for use on 10 and C9.

Hitachi promises laptop disk encryption in 2007

Jesse — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 18:43:00 GMT

Thanks to the magic of Get Perpendicular, Hitachi hopes to ship 750GB laptop HDDs next year (2.5 inch for those keeping score at home). If that weren't enough to get our blood pumping a bit quicker, these drives will also come in hybrid flavors, which will allow for better performance and lower power consumption. Great right?

Well that's not all folks. These same hybrid disks will feature AES-based encryption. Using a key generated from your password, both the data on flash memory and the disk platters will be wrapped in a blanket of mathematics so complex...well let's just say Setec Astronomy ;)

(via Engadget)