Posts in PC & Peripherals
Awkward timing for solid-gold USB drive
Leslie Katz | Oct 30, 2008
Given the current economic climate, this may be the only USB drive that
actually gets more valuable as time goes by. It's an 18-carat solid gold USB drive that screams: "Stockmarket dive, what
stockmarket dive?"
The limited-edition drive from Super Talent Technology is a member of the Pico-C line, which is water-resistant and supports data transfer speeds up to 30MBps. The US$599 bit of storage swankness comes with an 18-carat solid gold keychain and a serialized certificate of authenticity. It's wrapped in a black velvet jewelry box, and text or a logo can be etched onto the device at no charge.
The 8GB drive is available only on a preorder basis for a limited time, with three to four weeks lead time. Super Talent calls it a rare collector's item that would make an eloquent corporate
Via Crave CNET
HP to launch TouchSmart development kit
Rich Brown | Oct 29, 2008
Hoping to spur innovation on its touch-sensitive TouchSmart all-in-one desktops, HP will announce guidelines today explaining to third-party developers how they can create their own TouchSmart-compatible programs. HP informs us that it will post the guidelines to its TouchSmart Community Web site. The site will also host applications for TouchSmart owners to download, with the existing discussion forum providing a means for users to comment and give feedback.
HP says the programming guidelines are meant for "experienced, professional developers with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and C# language proficiency", so you'll need to know your stuff before you get coding. You may also want to consider that HP is not following the iPhone/iTunes Store model, and any applications hosted on the TouchSmart Community site will be free to download. HP says that it won't block developers from hosting and charging for applications themselves, which is good news for those who may need a financial incentive to start programming.
Potential TouchSmart developers should also consider the impending (give or take a year) launch of Windows 7 and its reported multitouch capability.
Read more »
Microsoft delivers the goods at PDC 2008
Elinor Mills | Oct 29, 2008
LOS ANGELES--As developers began to get their hands on Windows 7, they offered varied reactions to the Microsoft operating system update.
Windows 7 arrived in various forms here at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference. Windows VP Steven Sinofsky showed its key features on stage, the OS appeared on PCs throughout the convention center, and developers also got their own copies to take home with them.
Attendees to PDC 2008 received pre-beta copies of Windows 7 on DVD, as well as a 160GB Western Digital portable hard drive packed with code.
Here's the 160GB Western Digital portable hard drive and a pre-beta copy of Windows 7 that attendees of PDC 2008 received on Tuesday.
(Credit: Ina Fried)
In addition to the Ultimate Edition of Windows 7 (Hint: It looks like Microsoft isn't planning to ax its notion of an ultra-high-end version of its OS), the hard drive also comes with, among other things:
That said, there's still some room on that hard drive. Of the 149 GB of usable space on the drive, 91.8 GB are free.
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Color your typing skills
Dong Ngo | Oct 29, 2008
I remember learning how to type a long time ago with a fake keyboard sketched on a piece of paper. It was fun trying to imagine and remember all the keys' position, though I would never want to have to repeat that exercise. Good news is you don't have to, at least not the imagining part.
KeyRight aims to help people use their keyboard more quickly and accurately with its new colorful device. Picture credit: KeyRight
The KeyRight keyboard looks and works just like any other QWERTY USB keyboards with the exception that it comes with keys color-coded into different finger zones. These zones help you memorize which keys are used with the proper fingers, which will help to create muscle memory. For example, the left-hand pinkie finger uses all the red keys, and the right-hand pinkie uses pink keys.
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Psystar adds Blu-ray, Mac users yawn
Tom Krazit | Oct 29, 2008
Psystar's Open Computer now has an option for a Blu-ray drive, which is not available on a Mac.
(Credit: Psystar)
Psystar's Mac clones now come with a Blu-ray drive, but they still can't do much more with the technology than is already possible on a Mac.
Go ahead, order an Open Computer or Open Pro with a US$310 Blu-ray drive if you're a Mac OS X fan chafing at Apple CEO Steve Jobs' decision that Blu-ray is "a bag of hurt." But don't expect to be able to pop in a Blu-ray movie and watch a high-definition movie on the display attached to that system.
Without Mac OS support for a Blu-Ray player, all you can really do with a Blu-ray drive on an Open Computer is burn Blu-ray discs using Roxio's Toast 9 software, as Ars Technica points out. Apple doesn't appear close to licensing the Blu-ray technology to make a player compatible with Mac OS X, and Psystar isn't exactly in a position to add it on itself.
And you could already burn files or home movies with Toast 9 if you had a third-party Blu-ray disc drive hooked up to a Mac, or installed in a Mac Pro. I guess if you need the storage requirements of the Blu-ray format for files on a cheap computer this might be a palatable option, but otherwise, Psystar really isn't bringing much to the table with this move.
Via CNET Crave
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