LightScribe Competitor

Watch out LightScribe, here comes new LabelFlash technology. The two shortcomings of LightScribe are cost, and slow speed. Well, LabelFlash can burn the label in a more reasonable 5 minutes. If the price is right, this will sell. Also, the color contrast is much better than with LightScribe.

Yamaha expanded their T@2 technology to a new LabelFlash technology which allows labelling your discs with your burner"s laser within 5 minutes. On the back of their reflection layer, LabelFlash discs have a coloured area that's used by the burner for labelling the disc. Since the colour is on the back of the reflection layer, it is protected by a 0.6 mm polycarbonate disc. Disc prices are expected to be about 20% higher than for current discs. CD-R with this technique are not planned at the moment. The first burners supporting this technology will be the half height drive ND3551A and ND4551A and the slimline drive ND7551A from NEC

iPod Phone Update

The iPod Phone is a highly anticipated product. After all, combining music and a phone into one product is sure to be a winner. Right? Well, this report today says that the phone, via a TransFlash memory card, has a very limited capacity. It may not be true, and just a fake out to generate some buzz.

A person who has seen a version of the phone says it was designed to accommodate just 25 songs, which would be "sideloaded" from a user's computer using iTunes. The phone was equipped with a 128-megabyte Sandisk TransFlash memory card--just one-quarter the capacity of Apple's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) smallest iPod, the 512-megabyte shuffle, which holds about 120 songs.

While it should be possible to swap out the memory card on the new iTunes phone for one with more capacity, the person who has seen the handset says the phone's software appears to artificially cap song storage at 25 songs, regardless of how much memory the phone has.

If it can only hold 25 songs, I can see hackaday working on an unofficial upgrade. Or, reencode your MP3's at the "popular" low quality setting of 16 kbps.

Notebook Chips- The Next Round

Notebooks next year will use one of two processors: Intel's "Dothan" or AMD's "Turion." They both are available in a few models now, and will be mainstream soon. Traditionally, Intel has had quite the lead in notebook chips, and AMD has had a lead in desktop chips. From this test, I'm quite surprised that AMD looks like they have caught up.

After 21 benchmarks, 2 comparisons, and a detailed architecture analysis, the conclusion is clear. Unless battery life while performing CPU-intensive tasks is paramount, choosing a Turion-based laptop over a Dothan-based laptop is recommended.

The chips were matched on many benchmarks, although the Turion was stronger at games, an AMD stronghold.

Current Optical Drives

Over at Anandtech, they have some commentary on the drives out there now. I think I'm not the only one who thinks that LightScribe is overpriced.

As bland as the Optical Storage market was last month, this month is even worse. Both best of breed drives, the NEC 3540 and the BenQ DW1640, come in just under $45 shipped. Now that the NEC 3540A has matured a bit the drive is very attractive. The BenQ DW1640, on the other hand, performed well in our recent 16X DVDR roundup. We are keeping our eye on some other drives, like the Plextor 740A as well, but no one can touch NEC or BenQ right now as far as quality and price is concerned; 8X DVD+DL works just fine on the newest Verbatim media in our lab.

Pioneer also quietly unveiled their DVR-110D. Although Pioneer used to be the DVD-R champion many years ago, they are not really in the same position to recapture the market from the likes of NEC; particularly when NEC can undercut everyone (including Lite-On) on component cost. We also started to track HP's LightScribe units over the last few weeks, the HP DVD640I. Without much competition, LightScribe drives will continue to be much too expensive to warrant a recommendation from AnandTech, but since NEC is due to release a LightScribe drive in the next few weeks we might actually see some healthy competition in that field. Until then, I have a Sharpie...

Power Supply Review

Bless the folks over at Tom's Hardware. They've painstakingly reviewed no less than 19 power supplies. If you're thinking of building a new system, this is a must read!

The results from our 6-week Live Stress Test from the THG Lab in Munich are now all in. The soundless Fortron FSP300-60GNF was unphased throughout the Stress Test and offers terrific efficiency that is unparalleled in the 300 watt class. Another argument in its favor is its inexpensive price for a passive power supply of $95.

Keyring Laptop Equivalent

A USB flash drive, which fits on your keychain, can do a whole lot more than just shuttle files. It can be set up to run a browser, IM software, even antivirus, and antispyware. This is a comprehensive article on the topic.

Most people don't realize that these drives can also carry enough applications to serve as a personal office on the road, and can even contain a complete bootable operating system to provide total security when you are computing away from home. There are plenty of reasons to carry applications or an operating system on your USB drive: You'll have your e-mail and instant messaging accounts, Internet bookmarks, log-on passwords, and even document templates instantly available on any computer you find in a hotel's computer center, a home, or an office that you might visit. You can also be certain that your settings will stay on your USB drive and won't be stored in the browser cache or anywhere else on a remote machine. Here's what we put on our ultimate USB drive; the programs are free for personal use, unless noted. Most of the apps we describe can run entirely from the USB drive without installation.

iPod Killer - NOT!

Think of this as the MP3 player that never made it out of the gate from Rio. It looks impressive on paper, too bad they couldn't produce it.

So what was it going to sport? Well, to start it was going to have 20 and 30GB drive models, a high res screen, theme support, scroll wheel, dock, remote (sigh), USB charging, mass-storage compliancy, line-in/FM recording, PlaysForSure, picture viewer, and, of course Audible and MP3 support. (FLAC and OGG support were not mentioned in the manual.)

Pocket Hard Drives Compared

If the "tiny" 1 GB of a USB key doesn't do it, and you don't want to carry a full size external hard drive, than one of these may be the size for you. In terms of bang for the buck, they're a pretty good deal if you can use the space. Bill O'Brien does a great job of explaining this small devices.

Which pocket hard drive you choose depends on what you need it for. Do you need backup software? If the Windows’ backup system works for you, then the ArcDisk is a very cost-conscious solution. Is security an issue? The 128-bit encryption provided by Imation could be the answer to that need — even though the price of the Imation drive is a bit higher than its competitors on a relative capacity basis.
What type of files will you be transferring? Drives with larger buffers (such as the Seagate and Sony devices) appear to do better with small numbers of large files and badly with large numbers of small files. You’ll age gracefully while waiting for them to complete a system backup, but they’re at the top of the class for video or music file transfers. Price is the separator for those two, with Seagate getting the nod for now.

Do you want a boot drive, perhaps to run an alternate operating system? You can probably massage any of these into that task (if your PC’s BIOS allows it), but Seagate gives you the software to make its drive bootable. Nothing could be simpler.

As for design — ignore it. Despite their size and looks, these really are hard drives –not artwork. You’ll do fine if you select one for your needs, not just because of how cute it might look.

Samsung DVD Writer Reviewed

There are a lot of drive reviews out there lately. This is the latest effort from Samsung. It has some rough spots, but overall a good drive. They just never look too attractive when Microcenter is selling them in clear plastic bags like they were pulled from a garbage dump.

- The Good

- Good CD and DVD error correction capabilities
- Supports audio protected discs
- Can create working backups of Safedisc v3.1
- No problems against Key2Audio and CDS200 AudioCD protections
- Magic Speed utility
- Supports bitsetting for DVD+R and DVD+R DL

- The Bad

- Cannot play 90/99min Audio CDs
- Cannot overburn DVD recordable media
- No DVD-RAM support

- Like To be fixed

- Writing quality with specific DVD media
- Minor Booktype issue with +RW media

1st Look at Pioneer's 110 Drive

Pioneer is on the verge of releasing their latest DVDRW drive, the 110 which will replace the 109. This highly antcipated drive is notable for 32x CDR writing (slow), and DVD-RAM reading (rare). In the limited testing done in this 1st look, we can see that it read quite quickly, and had high quality writes on the media tested.

Supports DVD±R/±R DL writing at 16x/8x
Supports DVD+RW/DVD-RW writing at 8x/6x *
Supports CD-RW writing at 32x
Supports bitsetting on DVD+R DL media (sets auto. booktype to DVD-ROM)
Reads DVD-Video SL/DL at 16x/12x
Can read DVD-RAM discs

Stay tuned to further tests to see how this drive compares to its competition.
CDR Info has put the drive through its paces. They were not thrilled with the CD writing speed which is slower than most of this current generation of drives.

DVD-R DL writing at 8X burning speed is currently the fastest DL writing speed for the -R DL format thanks to the DVR-110D, the latest release from Pioneer. This is the major difference between this drive and its predecessor, the DVR-109. Apart from that, it is a 16X/16X enabled drive and can re-write DVD media at 8X/6X for DVD+RW and DVD-RW respectively.

The DVR-110D is not the fastest drive on the market when it comes to reading CD media, due to its 40X max reading speed. With DVD media, the drive supports SL reading speed up to 16X, as do most of the other market drives, while the max supported reading speed for DL media is 12X. Pioneer enthusiasts will be glad to hear that the riplock feature has been removed and higher ripping speeds can now be achieved.

Benq 1640 Review

The Benq 1640 is the same hardware as the Plextor 740A. Benq seems to be on a roll lately, as Sony is using a Benq for the 810 drive. Sony has been using LiteOn to make their drives for some years now. The drive did well in testing, although it favored the "+" over the "-" format discs in terms of speed and quality.

As one of the most highly anticipated drives this year, the BenQ DW1640 has a lot of hype and high expectations surrounding it. On the whole, I think the drive was deserving of the hype and these expectations. This drive truly stands out amongst its competition, thanks to its impressive performance and innovative features.

In many ways, the DW1640 is a lot like BenQ's previous DVD writer, the DW1620. Aside from the DW1640's faster DVD±RW, DVD±R DL and CD-R/RW reading and writing speeds, the specs of the two drives appear to be very similar. Looking a little closer though, you see that the DW1640 is, in many ways more mature than the DW1620. For starters, when both drives burn a disc at 16x, the DW1640 is almost always faster than its predecessor. Also, BenQ's new drive is able to burn a much larger variety of media with useable results then any other drive I've ever seen.

Looking specifically at media quality, I think it is a safe bet to say the DW1640 is following in the line of BenQ products that seem to favour the DVD+R format. Whether the media was DVD+R, DVD+RW or DVD+R DL, the discs from the DVD+RW Alliance always held even just a slightly upper hand when it came to overall scores. Nevertheless, looking at individual results show that this drive is completely capable of burning DVD-R media with good quality.

A First Look At Blu-Ray- In Korean

Blu-Ray is one of 2 competing standards to be the DVD of the HDTV era. You'll be hearing a lot more in the next few months.

On this page on DVDRWInfo.net you can see some pictures of the drives, a lot of Korean text (for those who understand it), and some tables that indicate the specifications of the drive. From it we can learn the drive can write BD-R at 2x, BD-RE at 2x and it also reads back BD-ROM discs at 2x. Also more exotic formats such as DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL are supported while the drive lacks support for CD-R, CD-RW and DVD-RAM

I hope the drive can write CD's as well. This thread has some more info as well.

LightScribe Gets Around - Slowly

The last few drives I've reviewed haven't featured the Lightscribe technology. I'm just itching to try it, but at a speed faster than 1x.

On the topic of speed, the LightScribe write technology offered by the HP dvd640e is still, unfortunately, at a painstakingly slow 1x write speed when applied to a LightScribe-enabled media. This means a patience testing session that is in excess of 25 minutes for "Best" quality setting. Surely, the speed at which the labels are created must be improved if LightScribe was to hold its ground and have a greater chance of winning consumers over to adopt the technology.

A Look At The Creative X-Fi Card

This new Creative sound card is a story we've been following closely. It seems like given the price, it may be a tough sell for Creative. After all, current integrated audio solutions, are really quite decent for most users.

Should you buy an X-Fi?

If you have a current Audigy 2 solution and you are only a casual music listener or gamer, the answer is likely no. That user would likely opt for the $129 basic version, which is too much for the gain they would see. If you're a serious audio buff, though, you should give some thought to it, particularly if you're building a new system. The 127-voice capability is pretty amazing, and you'll have great fun fooling around with all the audio effects. Think about moving up to the Platinum, though, as the 1/4-inch jacks allow more robust connection to high end headphones and also brings that spiffy remote to the table.


Gamers building new systems should at least think about either the Elite Pro or the Fatal1ty FPS. The overall price, though, leaves us with a bad taste in our mouths. The lower cost unit still weighs in at $279, which is a lot of spare change for simply adding 64MB of RAM and a fancy logo. As more games support X-RAM, however, this could become a more compelling solution. High fidelity enthusiasts and people who want to do a little content creation should give the Elite Pro some thought. The high end DACs, guitar input, and music creation apps make the Elite Pro seem like a fairly decent deal. In some ways, the Elite Pro is more powerful than the entry level E-MU pro solutions, though perhaps not as well tuned to the needs of professional gamers.

What's really lacking is an entry level gamer's card. We'd love to see a $149 retail card without the front panel bay (and minus the logo), but with the 64MB of onboard X-RAM. If Creative is serious about promoting OpenAL as a solution for the gaming industry, they need to make the X-Fi's much more pervasive. While developers may like the idea, they'll want to see ROI based on a substantial installed base. Only a scant few gamers will actually run out and get a Fatal1ty FPS unit at $279.

We suspect the price will come down over time. Creative does need to amortize their investment, and it's clearly been a substantial one. When you strip out the concerns about pricing, the X-Fi is a stunning achievement in PC audio. Whether it will turn around declining market share of add-in audio solutions, however, is unlikely until that pesky pricing issue is addressed.

PC Mag's Reader Satisfaction Survey

It was nice to see that Averatec and Shuttle are now added as I own both and am satisfied. I really think that Dell is paying them off year after year at this point.

To assist in your search for the best (and best-supported) PCs and PC manufacturers, we give you our annual Reader Satisfaction Survey. In this, the survey's 18th edition, nearly 14,000 PC Magazine readers describe their experiences with desktops, notebooks, and printers. They rate over 26,000 PCs and over 19,000 printers, including products used in the home and at work. They detail not only the reliability of these products—how well they hold up over time—but also the quality of the support and repair services provided by manufacturers.—

Back-To-School Notebook Accessory Guide

With my interest in notebook accessories, I really wanted to write an article on some of the better gadgets to fill it up with on the road. The new items reviewed include the Logitech V200 mouse, and Kensington's WiFi Finder Plus and Personal Firewall. Enjoy!

In order to get the most productivity on the road, it’s important to bring along your notebook and its accessories. There are miles of aisles of accessories in every electronics store and mass merchandiser, and gigabytes of gadgets at online retailers. However, even the most Herculean among us can carry only so much weight, and even the largest notebook bag has just so much space.

With the back to school season upon us, it is even more relevant to look at notebook accessories. Most college students have a notebook rather than a desktop. They tote their computers from class to dorm to library to back home- you get the idea. While these accessories would also apply to any mobile professional, it was written with maximizing productivity for college students.

HomePlug AV Technology Announced

They're about 3 years too late. Before wireless "G" networking got to be so popular, they could have made a lot of money. This will likely be a niche product for now.

HomePlug AV technology will revolutionize the way that consumers and service providers think about distributing multimedia entertainment content. HomePlug AV delivers a standards-based connectivity solution enabling simultaneous HD and SD video distribution, whole-house audio, VoIP traffic management and data networking. HomePlug AV delivers this level of performance while providing a stable, robust, secure and easy to use broadband backbone topology in homes on a global basis. For example, with HomePlug AV capability designed into consumer products (such as TVs, audio equipment, computers, and networking gear), a high-definition television show or movie from a PC, PVR or set top box can be viewed on any television in a home – all without running new wiring. This is because HomePlug AV uses the power lines already installed in a home as a path to transmit digital data between devices.

PC World discusses the issue here.

Although HomePlug AV is a promising technology, it nonetheless faces some significant challenges in the marketplace, according to Jonathan Gaw, an IDC analyst who tracks the home networking industry.

Technically speaking, Gaw says, HomePlug AV "offers a real alternative" to other networking technologies--such as coaxial cables used for cable TV, Wi-Fi, and ethernet--that are lining up to serve the still-nascent market for networks that can distribute multimedia in the home.

And HomePlug AV isn't too late to the party, Gaw says. While Wi-Fi has more or less triumphed as the networking technology for Internet sharing, "when it comes to more advanced applications, like sending video or audio over a home network, it's still very early in the game."

But HomePlug suffers from a "poor history" with both consumers and vendors, Gaw says. Some people who tried out early power-line products came away disillusioned when they didn't work well--particularly in buildings with older electrical circuitry. And vendors who were unable to move many HomePlug 1.0 products may be reluctant to try again, even with a new and improved successor.

"Once you have an initial bad run, it's hard to come back," Gaw says. "These guys [HomePlug backers] have a lot of evangelizing to do on both ends."

Back-To-School Bargains

Soon, they'll be paying us to take the computers out of the store. After rebate, of course.

Prices for a basic desktop setup have hit rock bottom. CompUSA, for example, advertised a special this weekend for a $199.99 Hewlett-Packard Pavilion desktop with a monitor after about $370 in rebates. Dell has been offering entry-level Dimension desktop computer bundles for $299 for some time and desktop PCs priced at $399 are becoming more commonplace.

First Look At The Creative X-Fi Card

It's kind of rare when one manufacturer can dominate an segment of the computer hardware industry. Creative has done that for years, first with their SoundBlaster cards that set the standards for audio boards. Next were the Audigy series, that computer audiophiles fell in love with. Now, they are releasing their newest creation, the X-Fi sound card with just a little anticipation.

With X-Fi, Creative has ushered in the audio of the 21st century, and the actual listening experience - like the measurable performance - is very convincing. If sound quality is at all important to you and you want to take advantage of the most recent advances in sound reproduction, it's clearly the best choice, regardless of what your main activity is. And best of all, the price is not exorbitant: the basic card, priced at around $130, is sufficient to let you get the benefit of all the advantages we've listed without leaving a big hole in your wallet.

Serious Storage

If you've got a need for serious storage, than this is the drive for you. Who can't get excited about 400 GB on tap to house even the largest MP3 collection? And with USB 2.0 and FireWire connectors, the info is easily accessible.

Seagate has always been in the forefront when it comes to drive capacity and one of their highest capacity 3.5-inch hard disk drives has made it into an external solution. The squarish external drive unit features both USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 (1394a) interfaces and comes with a single pushbutton in the front for instant backup. The silver-black design of the drive chassis has adequate ventilation areas on all sides, giving the drive plenty of room to cool itself. However, unlike some of their competitor's designs, the drive is built entirely out of sturdy plastics, which does not help much in terms of heat management although we don't see much of a problem given the size of the chassis.

Flirting, the Wireless Way

I doubt the inventors of Bluetooth would have seen this one coming....

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- The restaurant, like all Riyadh eateries, has taken precautions to prevent its male and female diners from seeing or contacting each other.

Circular white walls surround each table in the family section, open only to women alone or women accompanied by close male relatives. Other male diners are on lower floors.

Yet despite the barriers, the men and women flirt and exchange phone numbers, photos and kisses.

They elude the mores imposed by the kingdom's puritanical Wahhabi version of Islam -- formulated in the 18th century -- by using a 21st century device in their mobile phones: the wireless Bluetooth technology that permits users to connect without going through the phone company.

MobiBLU DAH-1500i Reviewed

This may be the answer to the iPod Shuffle. After all, it's even smaller, and has a screen.

What's just slightly bigger than a caramel, lets you rock out to radio hits or 1GB of your favorite music, can make its own recordings, and is available at Wal-Mart? The bite-size, full-featured MobiBLU DAH-1500i is billed as the "world's smallest" digital audio player, and we're pretty sure that's true—for now, at least. And it does a lot more than just play MP3s. We're so impressed with the DAH-1500i that while we were testing it, our iPod shuffle started whining and giving us puppy-dog eyes.

New Lexar MP3 Player Reviewed

If there was a "no frills" section in the Wal-Mart electronics section, this should be there. Than again, with the strange problem, it probably would end up in returns.

Overall, the Lexar LDP-200 player has one major thing going for it- price. For $49, plus the cost of a memory card, there really is nothing else out there. I’ve recently seen 1 GB memory cards on sale in the $60 range, so for just over one hundred bucks total, you can have a 1 GB MP3 player, with a screen. I don’t know of anything else with that kind of capacity in that low price range. The nice blue screen, included quality earbuds, and standard AAA battery power sweeten the deal.

For a low price, I would be very willing to live without a carrying case, no included software, and limited equalizer options. I didn’t even miss a built in microphone, or FM radio. I can even live with only two supported music formats (MP3 and WMA) as these are the only two I really use anyway.

Unfortunately, there are significant shortcomings. The spontaneous shut off has me concerned about the overall quality of Lexar’s unit. Also, the audio, on playback over quality speakers in the car or the Altec-Lansing setup, reveals a lack of bass and depth despite the equalizer.

In short, unless I was very cash strapped, I would rather spend a few more dollars, and get a higher quality product. Lexar’s LDP-600, while more money, has a lot more features and offers significantly more “bang for the buck.” While the LDP-200 has great potential, it appears to end up on the cheap side of inexpensive.

This review was linked to by Technudge, and Gizmodo.

The LDP-200 was also reviewed by CNET.

Make no mistake: The Lexar LDP-200 is intended for digital music newcomers or those who want a low-cost, no-frills, lightweight secondary device to use while working out. You can tell just from looking at the device that it's designed for simplicity. The only controls on the front are a power button, a playback/volume joystick, and a menu button. The left side features the SD card slot and a hold switch, while the right side sports the headphone and USB ports. The blue backlit screen is easy to read, and the menus are easy to navigate, largely because there are so few features to wade through.

At least CNET's unit didn't have the spontaneous shut off "feature."

Bluetooth Headphones

I have a Bluetooth mouse, but I've had my eyes out for Bluetooth headphones. The 10 m range is just about right for this type of device.

In October, Plantronics Inc. will start selling the Pulsar 590, a pair of rechargeable Bluetooth-enabled headphones. The company sent me a pair to try and suddenly I can't live without them.

They offer nice styling and killer sound quality extended over a range of about 50 feet from a small transmitter that can be connected to the miniplug audio output jack of any device.

The headphones cost $150 alone, $200 with the transmitter.

Students Trade In Books For Laptops

Why carry around a whole bag full of books when a laptop can have all the info, and so much more?

VAIL, Ariz. - Students at Empire High School here started class this year with no textbooks — but it wasn't because of a funding crisis. Instead, the school issued iBooks — laptop computers by Apple Computer Inc. — to each of its 340 students, becoming one of the first U.S. public schools to shun printed textbooks.

School officials believe the electronic materials will get students more engaged in learning. Empire High, which opened for the first time this year, was designed specifically to have a textbook-free environment.

New Xbox May Be Too Robust

The new Xbox's specs may be too powerful. As in, what do I need a Media Center PC for if the cheaper Xbox has it all covered.

MICROSOFT'S DECISION to make its Xbox 360 box available for the Yule season is likely to put pressure on PC OEMs, distributors and dealers attempting to sell full blown Media Centre PCs.
Because the Xbox 360 is so highly specced, and so cheap and cheerful compared to Microsoft Media Centre PCs, many households contemplating buying a PC could switch to the console instead.

The nongaming capabilities are:

Nongaming capabilities: The Xbox 360's built-in ability to serve as a Media Center Extender will let users stream digital video, audio, and photos from networked PCs running Windows XP Media Center Edition. Microsoft is also promising the "ability to stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras, and Windows XP-based PCs." Last but not least, the 360 will double as a CD/DVD player.

Cities Offer Wireless Access

Your local municipality offers garbage collection, water service, and in some cases electricity. Now, they want to get into the internet supplier business. With the way the cable and DSL companies price their services, we may be better off.

Thirteen cities are currently participating in the initiative, called "Digital Communities." Its goal is to give cities technical resources and discounts to help them establish or build out their broadband wireless infrastructure so they can better connect with police and fire personnel as well as with public-works employees such as meter readers and building inspectors.

Labels, Digital Style

The NY Times this week looks at the ways to label things in the digital era.

People like to label things. They put labels on cellphones, digital cameras, CD's and circuit breakers, not to mention file folders, envelopes and name tags. There was a time when people used typewriters to create paper labels and Dymo label makers to emboss plastic labels. But labeling, like most things these days, has mostly gone digital.

New AMD Notebook Chip

A 4000+ 64-bit chip for a notebook is one potent part! I'm eager to see how hot it runs- let's see if it melts the plastic or not.

The company said its Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processor 4000+ is meant for full-size notebook computers--machines with screen sizes measuring 15 to 17 inches on the diagonal. Already, Fujitsu Siemens and VoodooPC have jumped on the bandwagon and said they would include the new Athlon chip as part of their latest laptop offerings.

Priced at $382 in 1,000-unit quantities, AMD said its 4000+ can handle 32-bit and 64-bit processing jobs and includes 802.11a/b/g wireless capabilities. The mobile Athlon also includes virus protection hardwired to the chip that works in tandem with Microsoft Windows Service Pack 2. In addition to its 4000+, AMD said it now offers five other Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processors.

The original press release has a little more info.

A Look At Wireless Keyboards...

Thinking of taking the plunge towards a wireless keyboard or Bluetooth mouse? This article has a nice review of some of the current offerings. I'm not surprised they liked the Logitech stuff, I've been a big fan for a while myself. I looked at the Logitech Bluetooth diNovo Keyboard earlier this year and found it more than worthy.

Wireless Optical Desktops are definitely liberating. No wires to get tangled up in or to trip over. No more cleaning out your mouse ball and rollers. These products set you free. Ok, so they are not "get out of jail free" cards, but you know what we're getting at.

Of all the wireless keyboards, the MX3100/LX700 keyboard from Logitech was probably the nicest of the bunch. Granted, all the keyboards here had their shortcomings, but these two (identical) keyboards were generally the easiest to use, had the nicest feel, and had the longest operating distance. Both Logitech mice were pleasant to use as well—especially the MX1000 Laser mouse (which can be purchased separately if you don't want the keyboard.) Both the Kensington and the Microsoft keyboards were nice because of their ergonomic design and additional functionality.

Regarding BlueTooth mice, the Logitech MX900 took top honors. The included charging cradle/BT transceiver, rechargeable batteries, multi-function buttons, and the nice feel made this mouse a winner. The Microsoft BT mouse was also nice with its "chiseled" like design and mini USB BT adapter. The Kensington mouse was simple yet worked with any BT hub, and it fit easily in either left or right hand.

I enjoyed this review very much, however, it is already out of date as Logitech announced several new products today, including this.

Congrats...To Us!

I just wanted to point out that we reached our 3000th visitor today! Thanks so much to the dedicated readership of our site. Now everyone tell at least two others about this site, and we'll keep growing. Thanks again.

New iPaq Leaked

The new 6700 series of iPaqs are to feature a miniSD slot, and a 1.3 MP digital camera, as well as the new Windows Mobile 2005 OS. Expect to see these on shelves in January.

A slide show available on Thursday, but quickly removed by Friday morning, revealed two new hw6700-series Mobile Messenger devices--the hw6710 and the hw6715--with a 1.3 megapixel camera. The new family of personal digital assistants offers the same functionality as HP's hw6500 series, HP said on the Web site.

The new iPaqs, however, only support a miniSD slot. That could be troublesome for iPaq owners who use larger-size SD cards. The hw6500 supports both miniSD and SD formats.

$600 Graphic Card? No!

In this era of sub $500 PC's, I think the graphics companies, and the fools that pay the price have lost their common sense!

Building or buying a top-of-the-line desktop computer has never been cheap. While prices for budget PCs seem to creep continuously lower (Dell advertises a $299 system, for crying out loud), they appear to be headed ever higher for top-performance models, with no upper limit in sight.

Sneak preview: a prototype board with NVidia's GeForce 7800 GTX chip.The high end reached new heights in June when NVidia announced that its next flagship graphics chip, the GeForce 7800 GTX, would grace cards selling for $600. Not $500, the previous "you've got to be kidding me" watermark, but $100 more. And if you're lucky enough to own a dual-card ready SLI motherboard, you can spend a cool $1200 to load up with two of these bad boys.

New Mice From Logitech Coming

Two items to note. First, Logitech is dividing their desktop mice into a "G" series for gamers, and a "MX" series for office users. Second, the new mice are expected to use the laser technology that debuted last year in their MX1000 mouse. With the laser, the tracking is very accurate, even on glass.

Not only is there a G5 coming, but also a G7 and an MX610. It looks like they are separating the lines into Gx for gaming and MXxxx for the cubicle bound soul-sucked office troglodytes. Personally, I just want a Marble Mouse with a scroll wheel, but if I ever get $99 to my name, the Kensington Expert Mouse looks really nice.

Unused Bandwidth Utilized To Meet Neighbors

This is giving a whole new meaning to the word community.

When Tony Guagliardo moved to Manhattan’s East Fourth Street, he didn’t know anyone in the neighborhood. Then one day, while trying to get wireless Internet in his apartment, he noticed an open Wi-Fi network named Neighbornode. He chose it, launched his browser, and a message board popped up welcoming him to the Fourth Street Avenue B Node. The network had been set up by a local resident who wanted to share his Internet connection. Soon, Tony’s neighbors were using it to discuss local restaurants, a community art project and even the block’s homeless guy, Eddie.

iPod Listening Devices

If you want to listen to your iPod music with some friends, this article explains the current options. Personally, I just plug my MP3 player directly into my speakers and crank it up. Of course, this has one disadvantage- it doesn't have an Apple logo, or iPod written anywhere on it. If you put the volume on the MP3 player to the max, and adjust the listening volume on the speakers, it works best. Enjoy the article, some of the solutions are quite expensive.

Today, music listening is much more intimate and way more portable. iPods are the item that every teen must own (and heavens forbid that you have a portable MP3 player that doesn’t say Apple anywhere on it. It’s just not cool.)

Luckily, young adults still like to get together and listen to music -– and dance. Tough to share the experience when all you have is a set of earphones. No problem. There are many companies out there that can’t wait to help you with your iPod sharing problems.

Keychain Computer

This is the future of USB drives and computers. Users who use FireFox Lite off a USB thumb drive are just the beginning. While there may not be a processor or RAM on your keychain, if you can bring your browser with all your settings, and your documents with you, that's just about as good as bringing a computer along- assuming you have something to plug the drive into.

Personal computers could soon fit entirely on a key ring. Researchers at IBM in New York, US, have developed a way to carry a powerful, personalised virtual computer from one PC to the next, without losing the user’s work.

The trick is to store the virtual computer on a USB key, or any portable device with substantial storage space, like an MP3 player.

The virtual computer’s "soul" - as the researchers dub it - can then be uploaded to a new PC simply by plugging the portable device in. This host machine needs no special software or even a network connection to take on an entirely new personality.

New Sound Cards From Creative

Attention all audiophiles!

The Audigy sound card is soon to be replaced. Reportedly, this new X-Fi series can even upmix a 2 channel source to full surround sound. This could have a lot of potential for music listening- and kill DVD Audio sales! At the heart of this is a much more powerful sound processor.

Creative Technology's Sound Blaster line has been the standard in sound cards for quite some time. Now the company is releasing the next generation of that line, the Sound Blaster X-Fi series, available in major retail outlets later this month. Using the 51 million-transistor Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity multi-engine audio processor, these four sound cards provide 24-bit 96-kHz audio in three different modes optimized for particular uses

Creative WebCam Review

This is the latest review I put together for Live Digitally. A real fun product to look at.

I had my first webcam about five years ago. I found the camera difficult to use. The camera had a low frame rate, and I was never centered in the frame. The software was clunky to use, and I couldn’t even easily capture a still picture with the camera. Quite honestly, I never was able to video conference with another user, and lost interest.

However, the allure was still great. I grew up watching “The Jetsons,” and the technology for easy videoconferencing has always been just “a few years away” (just like speech recognition). Has the webcam hardware caught up with today’s powerful computers? Can I harness the transmission power of broadband to finally make my video call? I am ready to give it another try.

Creative makes a variety of computer electronic products centered on audio sound cards, MP3 players, speakers, and webcams. Today, we’ll be looking at the Creative WebCam Live! Ultra for Notebooks. This is a complete solution that is designed for the mobile notebook user looking to video conference, as well as some other applications. Read on to see if video conferencing has arrived, and if this is the right hardware solution.

Technudge was very nice to run a link.

LiteOn 52x32x52 CDRW Review

It's been ages since I saw a good old fashioned CD-RW review. However, not everyone needs the latest DVD burners when a more inexpensive CDRW will suffice.

The Lite-On SOHR-5238S is a very capable drive when it comes to CD-R media, the burn quality is very good indeed. The SOHR-5238S is also a very fast and reliable reader and can also read protected media well. Digital Audio Extraction quality is also a plus point with this drive and consistently impressed us with the DAE speed and quality.

The SOHR-5238S is let down by poor CD-RW write quality, and this is really the only bad point about the drive.

If you are in the market for a fast CD reader, with good CD-R write quality, and don’t wish to spend a great deal of cash on a drive. Then this drive might be just the drive you have been looking for. If however you are looking for a drive that has a high write quality with CD-RW media, then this may not be the drive for you.

The Minis Are Coming

The Minis I'm referring to are the smaller sized memory cards. The small cards actually had some unexpectedly fast read and write speeds.

It won't be long before all kinds of mobile devices sport at least one slot for some kind of memory card. This makes perfect sense, simply because devices that can't accept new data or programming lock users into increasingly obsolete functionality. After all, would you buy a notebook that could only handle 256 MB RAM with no room for expansion?

Various predictions indicate that as soon as 2006, a good third of all mobile telephones in active use will also incorporate memory cards of some kind. This could mean that technologies like MMCmicro or TransFlash/MicroSD will find excellent opportunities for deployment. Their extremely low weight (less than half a gram) and tiny form factors make them good candidates for all kinds of uses, even in consumer goods like wristwatches.

USB Mouse Pad

Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. If you have your computer on the flor, or your USB ports are in the rear, this is a useful gadget idea.

I always double over laughing in stores when I see those mouse pads with gel wrist guards, and built in calculators, and paper clip holders, etc. They always seem to wind up on the desk of the laziest slob in the company (ever notice that?). But today I found a mouse pad that actually makes sense: it offers 4 built-in USB ports.

Memorex USB Drive Reviews

CDR Info took a look at two of the latest USB drives. They were both reasonably quick.

Constant backup has made memory sticks the perfect solution for many, everyday chores. As the need for larger data storage keeps growing, so does the need for greater memory stick storage capacities. Among others, Memorex has introduced onto the market a variety of solutions in data storage, in the form of memory sticks. Here, we had the opportunity to check out two of it's latest products, the M-Flyer and the classic TravelDrive storage USB drives, both with 1GB storage capacity.

As we went through the tests, we came to see that the classic TravelDrive was faster in both reading and writing, while the M-Flyer is a more robust solution (longer lifespan). Both performed excellently, with up to 17MB/s for the classic and 13MB/s for the M-Flyer in reading and about 11MB/s in writing fro both, while other current USB memory sticks report only as high as 8-9MB/s. Another plus is the advanced features of the M-Flyer. The option to password protect and to compress or decrypt with the supplied utilities makes the M-Flyer a very versatile device.

My Plextor 740A Review

The Plextor 740A was a real intersting drive to review. It's very fast read performance won't be bested for some time. I'm still not sure why the dual layer write didn't work out.

The Plextor 740A is a mixed bag of high and low points. I was very impressed with its CD, and DVD reading performances that put it up there with the fastest of the dedicated reader drives. While I was also impressed with its fast, high quality writing on both CDR’s and DVD+R’s, it did disappoint on DVD+RW, and DVD+R DL media. The high quality on the DVD-R disc was a high point as well. Assess your needs carefully, and if the tasks this drive excels at are your predominant tasks, then the Plextor 740A is the drive for you. The full Nero burning suite in the latest edition sweetens the affordable deal even further.

It also made CD Freaks news section.

Breaking up is hard to do....

I never really understood why innovative HP was happy to sell an Apple product. I guess they're fighting over the moolah in the end. Anyway, I wonder if HP is going to develop their own player now, like they should have done in the 1st place.

Computer maker Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ - news) will no longer market the Apple iPod. The company had been labeling and distributing the iPod since the middle of last year. Now, however, HP says that the iPod program no longer fits within its digital-entertainment strategy.

Although the company has not released any further details, the program's end is being viewed either as a blow to Apple or as a non-issue, depending on the observer's perspective.

Dual Core Chip Reaches Affordability

AMD's X2 3800+ does very well in the benchmarks. More importantly, it now retails at a price that the mere mortals can actually afford- about $350 currently.

At around $350, AMD's latest dual-core processor does a pretty good job of addressing our only real complaint about the X2 line—its exorbitant price. Over time, this little gem will get cheap enough to fit into those $1,000 PCs with ease. It's still a premium processor, but one you can afford.

It compares favorably with comparably priced Intel processors. It generally loses out in some synthetic tests, but we are less concerned about those as with real-word benchmarks. In those situations, the X2 3800+ usually outpaces the low-cost Pentium D chips, and in some cases, it even outperforms the very expensive, high-end dual-core Extreme Edition CPU. When it comes to gaming, AMD continues to demonstrate its unmatched dominance.

New Creative Photo Zen

It's nice to see something new in the larger hard drive segment of the mp3 market as many of the recent players have been flash based. This one even supports some video formats.

Available first in the United States and Europe and then elsewhere, the 30GB Zen Vision sports a 3.7-inch color screen and can store up to 120 hours of video or carry as many as 15,000 songs, the company said. A little larger in size and heavier than even Apple's 60GB iPod photo, the device comes in black or white and sells for $399.99. It initially will be available online only.

PC Mag already got one to review.

Our overall impression of the Zen Vision is that it will do quite well, though if you want to record video or audio from a line-in source you'll need something more along the lines of the Archos PMA400. The fairly compact Zen Vision is easy to use, and the screen is big and good-looking enough for watching full-length movies comfortably. As with most Creative products, the audio quality is very good, though we don't see the Zen Vision as a replacement for a dedicated music player. It will be available in pearl white or black, and the Creative site is taking preorders now for $399. We'll take another look when the final product is ready later this month.

Plextor 740A Review

A nice review, of a nice drive. My own review of this drive is in progress, and should be up this week.

With the exception of the Platinum brand DVD+/-R media, the PX-740A proved to be a competitor with drives such as NEC's ND-3540A and Pioneer's DVR-109D, and being at the same level as BenQ's DW1640. Even when using mid-quality media, the PX-740A does not disappoint as many of the new generation drives have thus far.

Our test unit ran us about $76.00 excluding shipping costs, which is not bad, but compared to some retailers offering BenQ's DW1640 for about $10 less, the PX-740A does give more bang for the buck. Plextor's firmware team has taken the same hardware BenQ uses to a higher level of quality and speed. On the down side, thePX-740A does not support the PlexTools utility so it's a trade-off between features and performance. But those who don't care too much for the benchmarking characteristics of Plextor's other units, the PX-740A will fit the bill just fine.

Overall, though, Plextor offers a great drive at an affordable price and that's what will attract customers in the end. We recommend the PX-740A to anyone looking for great performance and write quality at a decent price.

New Apple Mouse

I'm not sure this is going to be as hot as the iPod. It looks like they missed on the ergonomics to me. The Mac faithful will think this is the best thing since sliced bread, of course.

Dubbed Mighty Mouse, the new $49 pointer has a 360-degree scroll wheel and can be programmed to recognize a click on either the left or right side. For Apple purists, it can also act as a single-button mouse.

Multibutton mice have been standard on Windows PCs for years and even the Mac OS has long recognized a right click. However, the company has stuck by its single-button design, refining it and adding a Bluetooth wireless version, but maintaining only a single-click option.


David Moody, Apple's vice president of Mac product marketing, said the company waited until it was able to design a mouse that had the scrolling and multiple-button features but was still as simple to use as the one-click original.

PC World already got their hands on one, but were not impressed...

You activate the fourth mouse button by simultaneously clicking the two buttons on either side of the mouse. These side buttons don't press in too deeply (you squeeze them more than push them in), and I found that I had to use a little more pressure than my hand would have preferred, particularly in repetitive situations. All in all, the Mighty Mouse's ergonomics didn't impress me.

This hardly sounds like the simplicity that Apple is known for.