Connect USB Gadgets To Your Network

By | November 24, 2011
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This sounds useful, and is one of those things I would have thought was already available: a USB server. Say you’ve got a network and you want to share your USB devices with other folk on the network. At the moment you could do so, if it was a printer, or a hard-drive, but it would have to go through your computer, and things could get pretty bunged up. Keyspan reckon they have the answer: Today they will unveil their USB server in Las Vegas, which will allow users to hook up to four (Mac or Windows) USB devices — printers, hard drives, scanners, modems, etc — on a wired or wireless network for the princely sum of $130.

As they point out, it could be very useful for Wi-Fi addicts, who, like some of my home network users, like to move their laptops around a lot and don’t want to be encumbered by annoying peripherals jutting out of their USB ports.

Happy Birthday, SoBig

By | November 24, 2011
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A press release from email security folks MessageLabs points out that tomorrow is the first anniversary of the SoBig.A worm’s debut. SoBig.A (the A bit means it was the first of a stream of worms that were somehow based on the SoBig worm) wasn’t just any kind of worm, MessageLabs point out. SoBig.A was unique in being the first virus to use convergence techniques to create maximum havoc.

Basically this means SoBig.A didn’t just do one thing. It incorporated both spamming and virus writing techniques — infecting hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide, installing open proxies on compromised machines, which were then used to disseminate spam — unknown to the users. To date, MessageLabs has intercepted 727,102 copies of the worm in 183 countries, and it continues to spread.

SoBig was so successful it’s now into version F, the most prolific virus to date. The SoBig family, MessageLabs say, has also served as the model for other viruses using convergence techniques, such as the Fizzer worm. MessageLabs predicts that this style of virus writing will be extensive during 2004.

Needless to say, this all helps blur the boundary between spammers, scammers, virus writers (and, probably, the Mob). Says David Banes, MessageLabs’ Technical Director Asia Pacific: “The success of SoBig has served as an inspiration to cyber criminals, and demonstrates what can be achieved when they work together.”

Eight Gigabytes Of Stuff On One DVD

By | November 24, 2011
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In the next few weeks, expect to be able to buy DVD discs that can store up 16 hours of video or 8.5 GB of Data. Verbatim said yesterday they would this spring release “the industry’s first Double-Layer DVD+R (DVD+R DL) discs”, nearly doubling the storage capacity on DVD recordable discs (from 4.7GB to 8.5GB) on a single side. Verbatim says these discs will be compatible with existing DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives.

That ’16 hours’ bit needs some clarifying: in fact, you could only store up to 4 hours of DVD-quality video — the 16 hours refers to VHS video quality. The way Verbatim say they do this is to have the first recording layer semi-transparent with enough reflectivity for writing/reading data on the first layer, yet transmitting enough laser power to read/write on the second layer by refocusing the laser.

Verbatim expect content developers (read DVD movies, big software packages) to make use of this technology: You could fit two Hollywood movies on one of these discs, if you really wanted to. Is this the time when I can talk about how I remember how all you could get on a floppy drive was less than one megabyte, but how somehow we were happier then? (No – Ed.)

Warm Your Coffee With USB

By | November 24, 2011
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Not a lot of interesting stuff to report today so I thought I would offer you this (not particularly new, but still cutting-edge) gadget for USB port: a coffee warmer. AkibaLive reports the Sunbeam USB-bus powered coffee warmer will “keep your coffee warm at a temperature of around 40 degrees Celsius for 120 minutes. The device can fit any size coffee cup, comes with a power on/off switch and is made of high quality insulation material so you won’t get burned. Oh, and it doesn’t need a driver.

If you’re really serious about the issue of warming your coffee, here’s the company webpage showing a chart comparing the temperature of your coffee with or without a USB-bus powered coffee warmer. The warmer comes in blue, white or yellow, along with a warning — Don’t touch the metal heat area — and a whacky catchphrase: “Warm your coffee or tea in a cool way!”

Sunbeam are actually way ahead of the pack on cool post-tech uses of the computer. I already have their USB-powered fan — “This nifty UB Fan is dvisable either to cool you on the way, in a stuffy meeting, or to protect your Notebook as an external cooler” — but am saving up to buy their desktop PC CD-drive replacement cigarette lighter which comes with the obligatory warning (“Please don’t touch the Cigarette Lighter after heated!”) and will, like all good cigarette lighters, also recharge handphones. To be honest, I’m still trying to work out when I would use this product, but that won’t stop me getting it.

Apple Excites, Disappoints With iPod Mini

By | November 24, 2011
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As expected, sort of, Steve Jobs has unveiled a new Apple iPod — smaller, more colourful and cheaper (but not as cheap as people thought). About 3.5 inches long and just half an inch thick, the iPod mini looks a bit like the old iPod, with the same jog dial, but comes in five colours, stores only 4 GB (against up to 40 for the old iPod) and costs $250.

That’s pricier than people thought. A lot pricier: I wrote last month on talk that it would sell for about $100. And given you can now get a bigger iPod carrying 15 GB for $300, Apple may find themselves cannibalizing their own market, rather than opening up a new one. As Techdirt points out, for a lot of folk 4 GB pretty much covers their music collection, and even Apple describe the iPod mini as “enough music for a three-day weekend getaway in a package so small you’ll forget you’re carrying it”. Expect a backlash against Apple from folk who thought they would be getting a cheap iPod as their new year’s present.

What’s interesting is what is under the hood. Whereas rumour had it the iPod mini would be using flash memory, CNET says it is in a fact a mini hard drive made by Hitachi. Hitachi’s success with what was IBM’s technology seems to indicate a resurgence of interest in small devices that can store a lot of data. While CNET talks of video cameras — Samsung apparently uses a 1 inch hard drive in one of their models — I wonder when you’re going to see PDAs and phones using them. Wouldn’t it be useful to store 4 or more GB of stuff on your PDA? Or has it already happened and I’ve missed it?