NEC USB 3.0 Host Controllers Ramped up to Full Production Mode
SuperSpeed USB's knight in shining armor is ready to fulfill your high bandwidth peripheral dreams. NEC has announced today that their USB 3.0 host controllers should be in full production by the end of next month. The company is currently producing 1 million of these chips per month and that number will jump to 2 million in the next 30 days or so. Given the lack of enthusiasm by some big names, NEC's expansion is a great win for consumers who will start to see better and faster products hit the market with USB 3.0 chips from NEC at their core.
Unfortunately, the lack of competitors in the market means that companies can sit on their laurels, reselling the same technology and reduce R&D spending. This means higher prices and less variety and choices. The same problem exists in the world of cell phones, device manufacturers have been reticent to upgrade hardware for a long time now. Could this be the year that Moore's law is broken (as it applies to CPU's and bandwidth)? NEC seems set to do just the opposite and will eclipse the rate of production compared to USB 2.0's timeline many times over. They aren't doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, this is obviously a result of increased demand. That means there are new devices and new options that are being created which hopefully points to an end of the technology slump.
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MIMO iMo Plus USB Monitor - 10" Resistive Touchscreen in 16:9 Flavor
USB secondary LCDs have been around for a while, yet we feel touchscreen capability on these midget monitors may prove to be more useful. Nanovision has tried touchscreen on the 720-S with a slider clamshell design, but tapping on its rather small 7" screen isn't exactly ideal. The same company has returned with iMo Plus - a 10" 1024x576 USB monitor with resistive touchscreen.
Resistive touchscreen is somewhat different than what we are used to in terms of usability from capacitive touchscreen, which pretty dominates the smartphone market. We believe the newer capacitive touchscreen is more suitable on a midget like iMo Plus as much less finger pressure is needed, preventing the unit from tipping over. Internally, the 16:9 USB monitor has a brightness output of 200cd/m2 and a 400:1 contrast ratio. They are nothing to write home about, but fine for such a small display. A single USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 connection provides electricity and video (powered by none other than DisplayLink). iMo Plus is going for $270; a touchscreen-less version will cost $50 less.
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AT&T Puts Some Green in its USB Chargers for St. Patrick's Day
AT&T is doing a bit to green the scene on this St. Patty's day with an announcement about some new greener chargers for its cell phones. The new Zero cellphone charger works just as normal when a device is connected, but as soon as the phone is disconnected the charger stops pulling power. In contrast, normal chargers will continue to draw power even when the device is connected. This is a habit of all AD-DC converters, and they should be unplugged as much as possible when not in use. The green movement is still only a trickle here and there from large companies like this, but it's a good sign that it is growing. There are already similar products that try to cut vampire power; these power bars check your PC and peripherals with USB to check if they are still active and to cut electricity when necessary.
Along with the standardization effort in place from all the major players towards micro-USB, which should reduce the landfill contribution of proprietary chargers this is a good start. AT&T also plans to start working to minimize the materials used in accessory packing. They also say that they will be using more and more recycled materials in the packing and manufacturing of their devices. Get Al Gore to come in and verify that this more than just a marketing blitz and we'll be tipping our hats to you. Hopefully this inspires others to join in.
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WD My Passport SE 750GB, 1TB Get Paint Job & Mac SmartWare
Mac version of the high capacity variant of the Western Digital My Passport SE has made its debut. Late last year, the same company outed the PC-version of the My Passport SE, shipping with Windows version of SmartWare backup suite and for the first time ever, hitting 1TB mark for a portable 2.5" USB drive. The new Mac-series of the My Passport SE is largely the same; the only only two differences are the titanium silver chassis instead of the PC's glossy black; and the SmartWare, now running exclusively on MacOS (Tiger or better).
The two versions also share 256-bit AES hardware encryption, and are able to run on USB bus without need for an AC adapter. Internally, the drives spin at 5200 rpm compared to 7200 and 5400 rpm for most others, and interestingly, they are of the few external drives that connect to USB natively rather than through a USB 2.0-to-SATA bridge. Expect the 750GB and the top-of-the-line 1TB to hit retail anytime now with a MSRP of $179.99 and $199.99 respectively.
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