Western Digital Dips its USB Drives in Company e-Ink
Western Digital has added a slick new feature to its latest line of My Book Elite and Studio external hard drives. In place of the electric blue glow normally emanating from them, you now have an informative e-Ink display on the front. The display is configurable to some degree and shows the drive's label and the amount of free space available. The nicest thing about the e-Ink technology is that the display stays visible even without power. Lexar has incorporated this once on their flash drive.
The Elite and the Studio share the most of their features together. They are available in capacities of 500GB up to 2TB and have built in hardware based 256-bit AES encryption. The Elite line is made for Windows devices, and comes formatted NTFS with a USB 2.0 interface. The Studio line is geared towards Apple users, and is equipped with a Firewire 800 interface. Both ship with WD SmartWare software for drive management and display configuration. They are available now from $169.99 to $279.99 depending on capacity.
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USB Soldering Iron from Thanko May Actually Work, Sorta
If there is absolutely no need for a device to be USB powered or enabled, you can almost guarantee that Thanko will have it for you. Case in point: the USB Soldering Iron. Should your electronics work space has spilled over into your computer room, this USB powered soldering iron may give you some other options or at least some more convenience. This soldering iron should be able to handle light soldering tasks with its 3 power options. You can use any standard USB cables, but you will only be able to get about 300 degrees out of it. Opt for the included dual connector USB cords, and you can push that up to 350 degrees. That should get you hot enough to be able to work with highly lead based solder.
Conveniently, they include a 3rd rather scary power option. U sing their 9V to mini-USB connector you can jump the all the way up to 450 degrees. This should get you, just barely, able to work with most commercial soldering compounds. That is, unfortunately, for only as long as the 9V battery lasts. 9V batteries do not have a great track record for being long lasting under high drain applications. If you just have to have something that might almost, just barely, be able to do what you are asking, it should only cost you around $30.
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USB 3.0 SSDs Hit 240MB/s, Goes Retail Very Soon
One of the most anticipated products for SuperSpeed USB is solid state storage which can easily max out the potential of the new interface. Active Media's Aviator 312 line of USB 3.0 external MLC SSDs is the first to race into retail before years's end with capacities ranging from 16GB to 64GB. One of the major selling points of the Aviator is obviously speed, topping at 240MB/s read and 160GB/s write. As impressive as numbers are, the USB 3.0 SSDs only make use 40% of the USB 3.0 theoretical bandwidth. So, there are still much room for improvements.
Also appealing is the size, measuring less than 3" long and 0.2" thick. The drive sporting an industrial aluminum design will be the first to employ the micro-USB 3.0 connector. In perspective, the SSD will be smaller than a credit card and easily fits in one's pocket or even a wallet. Why Active Media didn't make a USB / ExpressCard hybrid drive is beyond us. And what's not so welcome is the price tag - $209 for 64GB; $119 for 32GB; and $89 for 16GB. Then again, a 128GB USB 2.0 flash drive is equally prohibitively expensive.
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EyeBall 2.0 is More of a USB Mic than a HD Webcam
For a webcam, this is likely the first time we've seen a company paying more attention to the microphone quality than camera itself. Meet the Eyeball 2.0, made by BlueMic that is famous for making high-end audio recording equipment. Those who have seen the Snowflake USB mic may also recognize the Eyeball 2.0 except the latter has a nifty retractable lens. Both share a flexible monitor mount and a high-quality condenser with a frequency rate between 35Hz to 20kHz that is suitable from podcasting to video narration.
The EyeBall 2.0's video camera specs is somewhat confusing though. BlueMic claims the 2-megapixel lens can do HD video, in fact, up to 1600 x 1200. Yet the webcam can only stream 30fps when the resolution is 640 x 480; this is something to watch out for. The EyeBall 2.0 hybrid complies with both USB video and audio class, meaning most video editing programs should accept the input right away. If the mic quality is more important to you, then the $80 price tag isn't too much to ask for.
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