Plus-sized, Interactive Dog Gives Fans of Japanimation or UrumaDelvi a Treat
This purportedly popular fellow has been enshrined in plastic from its celluloid beginnings. Fashioned by Cube-Works into a peripheral, the anime dog, Dodobongo, is a USB watch dog for your PC. He comes with a food bowl which doubles as a sign holder for those times you leave your computer and put Dodobongo in charge of security. He'll bark or wiggle his head in response to motion. He'll also waddle up to you to the length of his USB tether. Be aware of the space you put him on, he doesn't seem to pay much attention to where he's going. This depressing character is the brain child of design team Uruma and Delvi. They refer to themselves jointly as UrumaDelvi. They are a pair of very modern designers that seem to have a genuine following, something akin to the Blue Dog craze in the US that lasted a year too long.
While he may not be as strong as some security systems released lately, having this on your desk should deter many a hacker or promotion. There's not much that a USB dog barking and roaming around your desk doesn't tell about you except that you have ONLY useless information on your computer. It may not be a high profile successory if this is going to make your daily routine even a little bit brighter, do it. Dodobongo can be had from Amazon Japan for about $40 not including shipping. Video demo after the jump.
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Intel Says USB 3.0 Likely to Reach Mainstream Status in Windows 8
Amidst speculation of features of Windows 7 SP1, Intel has confirmed that it is working with Microsoft on USB 3.0 integration. That's the good news, the bad news is that they are working on getting into Windows 8. Windows 8 is expected to ship in 2012. That's a little long for our taste. Steve Peterson of Intel thinks that SuperSpeed USB devices will only show up on high end PC's, and will take another a year or two to reach mainstream. Despite obvious signs that USB 3.0 is on the rise, the titans of the industry apparently haven't put USB 3.0 as their first priority. Instead, NEC is taking the opportunity to rake in large sums from money with their world's first and only xHCI USB 3.0 host controller ICs.
We're still hoping that the rumors of Windows 7 SP1 having native support melded into the forthcoming patch are true. There's more than a few things we hope get fixed with SP1, not the least of which is the handling of USB autoruns, or lack thereof. At least this means that Intel is working on USB 3.0, we'll take what we can get. Even though the lack of dedicated, native drivers from Intel and Microsoft won't keep USB 3.0 devices from being rolled out, upgrade card and driver disc will only add to cost and slow user acceptance. Compared to Linux, which has had USB 3.0 support for some time now, Microsoft is lagging way behind. Yes, we do hope that kind of mud-slinging is all that it takes to get Redmond off it's duff and on the SuperSpeed bus. We are willing to add some snide comments about Bill's mother if that will help.
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Asus EeeBox Packs Dual USB 3.0 Ports for One Hot Nettop
Asus, you had us at HELO, now you deliver us the USB THReee we've been waiting for. Apparently unfazed by the economy's stagnant state, they are still popping out innovations with their nettop line. Still riding high on the netbook craze that they cashed in on, they continue to hawk their nettop line with the EeeBox EB1501U. Tiny desktop systems claiming sufficient performance for everyday tasks and a much greener, low power consumption footprint. The most surprising addition is the two USB 3.0 ports right next to the slot-loading DVD drive. The Atom processor may be close to its limit moving 5GB/s of data around, but we'd rather spend our money getting close to the limit than staying away from it.
This is a smart move by Asus to add support for faster peripherals early. USB 3.0 makes this a much more future-proof desktop alternative. Large, high powered machines may still run years from now, but their bulk ultimately limits their usefulness. Laptops and tiny desktops can live on for many years performing niche tasks. Hand-me-down laptops make great learning tools for kids as well as gaming stations or even the heart of a MAME cabinet. A nettop may make a decent media center today, and it will make a fine webmail tool tomorrow and network storage device after that. Unfortunately, this doesn't pack the even lower powered ION 2 chipset that's all the rage, but it should have enough power to run most tasks you can think of today and tomorrow. Pricing and availability details are still lacking as of this writing.
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