Texas Instruments Demos World's First Coin Cell for Bluetooth Low Energy Apps

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Texas Instruments has announced that it has demonstrated the world's first coin cell demo for the new Bluetooth low energy open standard based on its upcoming CC2540 single-mode, system-on-chip. Bluetooth low energy applications like sports and fitness equipment, mobile accessories, and home and office devices use coin cell and energy harvesting solutions to run for more than a year on a single tiny button cell battery.

The TI application supports both dual-mode and single-mode solutions and are optimized for low-power and low-cost applications. TI says that its device is packaged on a 6mm x 6mm unit including the controller, host, and application. Read more

Posted on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

AMD Radeon HD 5700 Series Graphics Cards Get Official

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

We already know all there is to know about AMDs new Radeon 5700 series video cards including the 5770 and the 5750. The details and even pictures were leaked last week ahead of the official announcement today.

AMD has gone official with the cards that both fully support DirectX 11 and Eyefinity multi-monitors from ATI. The video cards deliver over one teraflops of computing power. The GPUs are built on 40nm technology and have up to 800 stream processors. Read more

Posted on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Samsung Lapfit Monitors LD220G And LD190N Now Available In U.S.

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Samsung today announced the release of its Lapfit monitors, LD220G and LD190N, for use as a secondary display for notebook PCs also for the United States.
The Samsung Lapfit LD220G and LD190N have an estimated street price of $249.99 and $149.99 respectively and are supposed to be available now.
Samsung announced the Lapfit monitor line in Korea already in February. Read more

Posted on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:15:15 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Samsung Premium Plus Memory Cards Launched

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Samsung today announced that this month in Taiwan, it is introducing premium Samsung memory cards for sale. In previous years, Samsung manufactured 'white-label' digital memory cards for a variety of leading electronics companies and memory card companies.

Samsung's new premium Plus memory cards, which comply with the Secure Digital class 6 ratings for performance, are available in SD, microSD and Compact Flash (CF) formats with densities of 4-gigabytes (GBs) and 8GBs, with a 16GB density for an SD Plus card. Read more

Posted on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:47:59 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Roundshot Livecam D2 HD Webcam has 66M pixels

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

A Swiss company called Seitz Phototechnik AG has announced a new webcam that has a massive resolution called the Roundshot Livecam D2. The camera creates a seamless panorama of up to 66 million pixels in a few seconds. The device has a resolution twice that of HD and can be used for a variety of functions.

The company says that the webcam can be used by hotels, cities, harbors, airports, and resorts to control how it is presented on the Internet. The camera can rotate 360 degrees and has good color and high light sensitivity. Read more

Posted on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

iSkin Offers Cool Keyboard Protection for Mac Computers

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

I am pretty much a slob and I tend to eat while I work during the day so crumbs and goo ends up on my keyboard. That means that I end up having to blow the debris out with a can of air a few times per month. If you tend to collect crumbs and dust in your keyboard and the keyboard is attached to a Mac notebook or desktop keyboard iSkin has a new product for you.

The iSkin ProTouch Classic, ProTouchFX, and Protouch Vibes keyboard covers are cool and go over the keys to protect them from the normal mess that can end up on your keyboard. They come in various colors and look very cool. Read more

Posted on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Logitech G110 Gaming Keyboard Debuts

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Logitech makes all sorts of peripherals and accessories for computers. The company is probably still best known by many for its line of gaming accessories. Today Logitech has unveiled its latest gaming keyboard called the G110.

The keyboard has on the fly macro recording capability for up to 36 single key presses. The keyboard also has integrated USB audio to allow easy VoIP in games. The user can also pick a custom color for the key backlighting. Read more

Posted on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:31:36 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Samsung Updates Story Station with Low Power Standby

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Samsung launched their Samsung Story Station external hard-drive line in April. Today Samsung announced that updated Story drives will be launched in November with reduced standby power consumption of 95%.

Samsung has lowered the standby power consumption of the Story Station by over 95 percent, to 0.09W from the conventional level of 2.5W. The reduced power level for standby mode was achieved by adopting a new circuit structure, which makes the drive non-operational when the power cable is connected and the USB port is not.
Read more

Posted on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:41:06 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Epson Expands its Compact Photo Printer Line with PictureMate Charm

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Epson has a line of printers that run form larger business and consumer units for use in the home or office to small portable printers designed to allow users to print their images wherever they are. Epson has added a new printer to its portable PictureMate line called the Charm.

The Charm has a 2.5-inch LCD that lets users crop, print, and view photos without a PC. The LCD also allows for basic editing of photos like red eye removal and application of filters like B&W and sepia. The printer produces 4x6 prints in as little as 37 seconds. Read more

Posted on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Logitech Unveils Notebook Kit MK605

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Logitech has unveiled a new notebook kit that packs three things that your average notebook user really needs into one package. The kit is called the Logitech Notebook Kit MK605 and it offers a stand, a mouse, and a keyboard.

The mouse in the kit is the Logitech Wireless Mouse M505 with a cool gray/black color with yellow trim. The keyboard is the Logitech Wireless Keyboard K340 that appears to be full size and designed for lots of typing. Read more

Posted on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Pretec Launches World's Fastest Flash Drive

Topic: Hardware & Peripherals

Pretec has unveiled a new flash drive called the i-Disk Tango 266x that promises to be the world's fastest USB flash drive with record setting speeds of 40MB/s read and 30MB/s write. The theoretical maximum for USB 2.0 is 60MB/s.

Most devices can’t hit that theoretical limit because of overhead and Pretec claims that 40MB/s is the practical limit for the USB 2.0 specifications meaning its Tango flash drive is as fast as you can get before USB 3.0 is widely available. Read more

Posted on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun