Pinnacle have announced their smallest ever USB HDTV tuners, the PCTV HD mini Stick and the TV for Mac HD mini Stick. Both feature a retracting USB plug and support digital over-the-air TV (ATSC) and unencrypted digital cable TV (ClearQAM) for SDTV and HDTV with resolutions of up to 1080i.
PVR software is included with both products - Pinnacle TVCenter Pro 5 in the case of the PC tuner, and Elgato’s EyeTV Lite with the Mac tuner - as well as a telescopic TV antenna and mini remote control. A travel bag is also supplied.
An integrated signal booster will, according to Pinnacle, allow for high-quality viewing even in areas with weak signal. Both tuners are compatible with standard-definition content as well as HD, and the PC version is compatible with Vista Media Center.
Available from September 21st, the the PCTV HD mini Stick will be priced at $119.99 and the TV for Mac HD mini Stick at $129.99.
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Written by Chris Davies on September 8th, 2008 with no comments.
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OWC have updated their Mercury Elite-AL Pro dual-drive external hard-drive with a powered USB 2.0 hub, still keeping the Mac-style design while boosting capacity up to 2TB. There are now two USB 2.0 ports on the back and a third on the front, handy for plugging in USB memory sticks, with a high-performance USB bridge to ensure maximum speed to all of the ports and the internal drives themselves.
The drive is bundled with a USB cable and backup software. This includes Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools Utilities for Mac OS 8.6-X, ProSoft Engineering Data Backup III for Mac OS v10.2.8 or later and NovaStor NovaBACKUP for Windows 2000 or later. Prices are as follows:
- 500GB w/32MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $169.99
- 640GB w/32MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $189.99
- 1.0TB (1000GB) w/32MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $209.99
- 1.5TB (1500GB) w/64MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $319.99
- 2.0TB (2000GB) w/64MB Data Buffer, 5400RPM - $419.99
- 2.0TB (2000GB) w/64MB Data Buffer, 7200RPM - $439.99
Available now, each of the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro USB 2.0 Dual-Drive’s comes with a two-year warranty. They work with both PC and Mac systems.
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Written by Chris Davies on August 14th, 2008 with no comments.
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AMD has announced an update for one of its ATI Radeon dual-head graphics cards, especially optimizing it for use with Apple’s Mac Pro system. The HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition has a 56-bit 512MB GDDR4 frame buffer memory and 320 stream processors, together with two DVI outputs for plugging in some large-scale Cinema HD monitors.
The card has hardware decoding of high-definition video. ATI PowerPlay is built-in, which dynamically adjusts the 775MHz core GPU speed and card voltages to suit the usage environment, and like the rest of the HD 3800 series cards AMD are promising up to twice the processing performance-per-watt compared to earlier versions.
The ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition uses a PCI Express 2.0 slot and should be available in late June at Apple retailers. It’s expected to be priced at around $219.
[via Geekzone]
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Written by Chris Davies on June 13th, 2008 with no comments.
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Owners of computer components that use the PCI Express 2.0 standard will be pleased to hear that their existing hardware will still work once motherboards switch to the PCI Express 3.0 standard. At a recent press conference discussing the interface, SIG chairman Al Yanes disclosed more details about the upcoming connector, which has previously been quoted as managing 8.0 gigatransfers per second.
Yanes confirmed that the only difference expected between PCI Express 2.0 and 3.0 is with regards the electrical specifications. The actual hardware itself will stay the same, with PCs using one socket and servers two.
The 3.0 standard is not expected to be fully decided until late 2009, with testing scheduled for the second half of 2010. Then, of course, manufacturers actually have to start using it. Still, this is good news for anyone considering a big component upgrade over the next couple of years, but wanting their purchase to fit future motherboards.
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Written by Chris Davies on June 12th, 2008 with no comments.
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Dell is taking the unexpected step of culling its XPS Gaming Desktops range in order to give its Alienware acquisition room to breathe. According to the Wall Street Journal, the move is intended to reinvigorate Alienware’s focus as well as streamline the company’s offerings as a whole. A “combined gaming design and development unit” will tackle the seven current Alienware models and attempt to claw back sales that had been lost thanks to the XPS overlap.
Dell has been facing a declining market share, with arch rival HP overtaking it in general PC sales. The upcoming Inspiron refresh is expected to be the company’s push back for the lucrative notebook market, while Alienware is left free to explore the “edgy, maverick style that resonates with gamers.” According to the report, the gaming team is currently working on new Alienware case materials.
While arguably a niche range, gaming PCs punch above their weight in the computing world. Although richly priced, Dell credits their XPS and Alienware lines as shaping PC design trends and influencing mainstream buyers. Dell has given no indication of when the XPS Gaming Desktops range will be phased out.
[via Electronista]
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Written by Chris Davies on May 13th, 2008 with no comments.
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Data backup falls resolutely at the dreary end of the tech-task scale; periodically market researchers release stats showing how few people take the time to safely copy their accumulated files, usually prompting a guilty DVD burning session which never gets repeated. Apple’s Time Capsule, then, was welcomed with excited upon its announcement; with the slick, careful design Apple are renowned for, could they manage to make even backup sexy? To be fair, it’s a pretty huge challenge. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a nicer looking network hard-drive, or one so straightforward to set up, but Time Capsule undoubtedly has its caveats.
The resemblance to an Apple Airport Extreme is not just skin deep; the Time Capsule is basically that 802.11n WiFi router with an added hard-drive. That means you get three gigabit LAN ports, one gigabit WAN port, a USB port and WiFi in a/b/g/n flavors. You can choose between the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, which is useful if you already have a WiFi network you want to keep using: set the Time Capsule to 5GHz and while you lose out on backward compatibility with some WiFi devices, you won’t be plagued by interference. When we said the Time Capsule was just an Airport sharing casing space with a hard-drive, we weren’t quite accurate; Apple has packed the power brick in there too, meaning the power cable is just that, a cable.
Aside from the device itself and that cable, the typically-minimalistic box contains an installation disc (with software for both Mac and Windows) and the usual clutch of quickstart and warranty booklets. On the disc is the latest version of the Airport utility, v5.3, and a walk-through setup guide that manages to make installing a new router relatively straightforward. You can also choose to add the Time Capsule as a bridged device on an existing network, if you’re happy with your current router, or should you be replacing an Airport Extreme it’ll clone the old settings.
Windows users (for whom XP SP2 and Vista are catered for) get the short end of the stick: the Time Capsule shows up as another volume in the network folder, ready to have files copied across. You can add a password but that’s pretty much it. It’s when you use the Time Capsule with Leopard’s Time Machine app that things get clever; like the rest of us, Apple knows that it’s not enough to slap a chunk of storage down and expect people to religiously backup to it, you need to make things relatively automatic.
The updated software basically lets Time Machine work with the new, network-attached drive as if it were a local one. As with any fresh backup, the first time you run it takes an age as Time Machine copies everything across to the Time Capsule’s hard-drive. Gigabit is your best option here - we found it took roughly an hour to copy 10GB using the wired connection - as, despite the claimed speeds of 802.11n, it would definitely be an all-night operation carried out wirelessly. Of course, subsequent backups only transfer the changed data; Time Machine kicks in each hour (or sooner if you prod it manually) and squirts the altered files across to the Time Capsule’s storage.
In a sense, that could be the end of the review: Time Capsule sits quietly - there’s a low-noise fan in the base but things still get toasty warm - archiving your data until the fateful day you want to perform a restore. However people expect more from network-attached storage, and it’s here that the Apple device is less comprehensive.
As an all-in-one unit, upgrading the internal hard-drive isn’t really catered for. Yes, 500GB or 1TB should see you happy for a while, but if you’ve a few computers backing up to the Time Capsule the space will eventually dwindle. Thankfully the USB port can handle an external hard-drive, which shows up as a separate volume, and you can even plug in a USB hub and add a number of drives. We had no problem hooking up a USB hard-drive and a flash memory key; they were recognised on all the connected machines, both Mac and Windows. There’s no provision, though, for setting up an impromptu RAID array. You can’t mirror the internal hard-drive to an external one, nor can you address all the free space as a combined volume.
The USB port can also handle a printer, letting all networked computers send documents to the same machine. It’s not a print server, though, and we managed to cause it a few headaches by trying to simultaneously print from a number of computers: while dealing with one, the others bounced back with error messages about the printer not being ready, rather than being queued up. Really, asking the Time Capsule to share a printer is only sufficient for home use where print jobs are sporadic; it’s just plain inadequate in a busier environment.
Unlike many network-attached drives, the Time Capsule won’t act as a media server either. Apple TV units don’t recognise the storage, and although you can move your iTunes library onto it there’s no provision for multiple users to all access it at the same time. Hopefully both of these features could be introduced with a firmware update, as they’d turn the Time Capsule into a true media hub.
Anyone looking for something more for their money right now, though, could find better options elsewhere, whether they’re more interested in RAID redundancy, media servers or advanced drive management. The obvious alternative that comes to mind is Drobo, which has all three - however, it also has a $499 price tag (that’s what you’d pay for the 1TB Time Capsule; the 500GB version costs $299) and that’s before hard-drives or an ethernet interface. A better comparison is perhaps Buffalo’s LinkStation Pro Duo, the 1TB version of which you can currently pick up for around $300.
Shop around, then, and you’ll find similar, not as elegant as Drobo perhaps, but with some of the same functionality, and for the same price or cheaper than Apple are asking for the Time Capsule. The biggest clincher, though, is software support: right now, Time Machine won’t backup to any NAS but the Time Capsule, and despite the hardware being basically the same as that of the Airport Extreme, it won’t see a USB drive plugged into that either. Apple earns a big black mark for that one.
Have Apple failed to sprinkle their magic across backup, then? No, not at all: if you’re a Mac user who is less than organized when it comes to data management, Time Capsule could be ideal. It’s very much a set-and-forget solution, with straightforward setup and the reassurance of Time Machine making sure you never lose your files. Advanced users may sneer, but for the legion of Mac owners who up until now have never bothered backing-up, Time Capsule could be just the medicine.
Rating:
Unboxing video
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Written by Ewdison Then on March 10th, 2008 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Apple and Feature and Hard Drives and NAS and PCs and Mac and Review and SlashGear Reviews and Wireless and archive and backup and drobo and mac and router and shared storage and storage and wifi.
Filed under: Portable Audio, Wireless
Remember how Apple and Starbucks announced their partnership to sell music to Apple customers through the eighty ‘Bucks locations per square city block? Well, the rollouts have begun, and as of today iPhone, iPod touch, and iTunes users can roll into just about any Starbucks in Seattle, New York, and now the SF bay area — all in all about 800-900 spots — and see what’s playing over Starbucks radio and download a bunch of Starbucks-programmed music. We got a chance to sit down with Apple and Starbucks folks at a participating location in downtown San Francisco, here’s what we learned:
- Connecting iTunes through Starbucks is eminently simple: connect to the T-Mobile AP. That’s it. It’s all done behind the paywall, so you don’t have to fork out $10 to get online to use the service. (You can also visit apple.com behind the paywall, but not .Mac services.)
- As soon as you connect to the Starbucks T-Mobile AP with your iPhone / iPod touch / desktop machine running iTunes, you’ll see Starbucks music show up in your iTunes Store interface. (Hit the gallery to see how it works.)
- Downloading a track was reasonably fast, but the WiFi kept dropping with both our iPhone and MacBook Pro, leading us to believe there were some issues with the T-Mo hotspot. The download recovered fine through multiple disconnections, but it took us a little over 7 minutes to grab a single 8.5MB iTunes Plus track — so be careful before grabbing an entire album.
More info after the break; check out the gallery for shots of the Starbucks store on a hacked iPhone (of course it works) and from iTunes on a Mac.
Continue reading Apple and Starbucks iTunes WiFi integration hands-on
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Written by Ryan Block on November 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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Filed under: Features, Portable Audio
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:
The iPod and iTunes haven’t ostensibly suffered for (and have arguably gained from the) lack of a subscription music service. However, while such services have proven a tough sell to consumers at large, they have their benefits. One is the general liberation from the 30-second sample, a tiny prison of time that makes it difficult to engage in meaningful music discovery, the silver lining in the digital cloud that has been raining on the music industry for so many years.
In contrast to Rhapsody, Napster and Microsof’s Zune Pass, which offer several ways within their software for subscribers to hear full tracks in which they might be interested, Apple has recently turned “out of band” for music discovery. The high-profile announcement with Starbucks at the introduction of Apple’s latest round of iPods brings the portable devices to where the free music is rather than vice versa. Among Apple’s portable music players, the automatic track identification works only with the iPod touch and the iPhone. However, the flat-panel televisions in New York City Starbucks locations also note PCs and Macs as suitable (and prevalent) clients for purchasing music played at the popular coffee retailer.
An encouraging aspect of the collaboration between Starbucks and Apple is that the right company is making the brown product. However, one hot spot of trouble brewing in this Half-n-Half is that one can listen to the music only at a Starbucks location. This begs whether Apple would continue such a partnership when the iPhone finally gets access to 3G (perhaps to the scandalous exclusion of AT&T) or whether it or another device such as the iPod touch embrace WiMAX. But extending access to Starbucks’ percolated playlists need not wait for such wireless advances. The two companies could enable access via a simple option in iTunes that would stream Starbucks’ Hear Music XM station — or an equivalent — via any broadband connection.
Continue reading Switched On: The DAP, the Frap, the pap and the gap
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Written by Ross Rubin on October 8th, 2007 with no comments.
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