Oh! Gizmo

By Chris Scott Barr

The era of USB 3.0 will soon be upon us. Devices are slowly being talked about, and compatible motherboards being announced. Of course unless you’re planning on building a new machine in the near future, you’ll either have to live with your old 2.0 ports, or buy an add-on card. Asus has announced such a card that not only gives you two of the latest USB ports, but also a pair of SATA 6.0 ports.

The card allows you to experience the full power of both new standards, provided you have a free PCI-E port on your motherboard. Sure, it’s probably still a little early to really start thinking about USB 3.0, but this is a case where I really don’t see an issue with it. The card is only $30 (USB 2.0 cards were at least twice as much when it came out) and you’re going to get SATA 6.0 ports to boot. According to Asus, the card will be out “soon.”

[ Asus ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Evan Ackerman

There are lots of ways to charge USB devices on the go using disposable or rechargeable batteries, but none of them are as small or as cheap as this DIY one. It’s basically just a female USB connector stuck to the top of a 9v battery, with a voltage regulator in the middle to make sure that there’s only 5 volts coming out. Total cost? If you have a soldering iron and a scrap female USB cable, the voltage regulator will run you about $1.59 plus tax at RadioShack (which I refuse on principle to call “The Shack” like they want me to). The real beauty of this thing is that you don’t have to use a 9v battery. You could use a whole series of D batteries, for example, and go on vacation for a month with your iPod.

Now, yes, you do have to know how to solder if you want to make one of these yourself. But seriously, soldering is easy. And it’s fun! You get to MELT METAL! You can pick up a basic soldering set at The Shack for all of eight bucks, and there are a bazillion beginner guides online (try Instructables or even YouTube). So, have a fun afternoon and learn a useful skill while making a handy little gadget at the same time. Or, you can always just do it with glue, you wimp.

[ AnythingButiPod ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Thanks to the likes of Brando and other companies, USB microscopes are plentiful and easy to find these days. But being tethered to your PC with a USB cable limits where they can go. Not this wireless model though, the only limit of where you can use it is your imagination… and possibly good taste.

It uses a 2.4GHz wireless signal with a switch on the cradle/wireless receiver for choosing one of 4 channels, and the optics are able to magnify whatever it is you’re looking at from 10-200x. It’s also got a ring of 8 white LEDs around the ‘lens’ for added illumination, a built-in Li-ion battery that charges when placed in the cradle, and is available from ThinkGeek for $139.99.

[ Wireless USB Digital Microscope ]

By Andrew Liszewski

For just $18 Brando will sell you a USB Foot Switch that comes with software allowing it to reproduce any keyboard shortcut when you tap your foot. Now off the top of my head I can’t really think of a keyboard shortcut I’d need to pass off to my foot, but since you can connect more than one switch to any given PC I assume there has to be the potential for something useful here. Internet? I pass the buck to you to figure out what it is.

[ USB Foot Switch ] VIA [ Pocket-lint ]

By David Ponce

October 22nd is just around the corner and with it the launch of Windows 7. Retarded promotional videos aside, this OS has a few people excited as it might actually not suck. So if you’re thinking of buying a new PC running the new OS but are afraid you’ll have to painstakingly transfer all “user accounts, Windows settings, files and folders, pictures and photos, MP3s and other music, videos, program settings and program data, and e-mail messages, settings, and contacts” to the new PC, Belkin’s got you covered with this Easy Transfer Cable. Designed to work with Windows 7’s Easy Transfer utility, it’ll simply automate the entire process. Plug one end to the old PC, another to the new and run the included software.

Once the transfer done, a post migration report is generated, which gives you a comprehensive view of everything that was transferred. Because of possible incompatibility issues, programs and applications are not transferred to the new computer. Instead, the utility provides a list of all the programs and applications that were installed on the old PC along with links to the latest versions of the programs if they are provided by the software developer.

The cable is about $33 and available in North America starting October 23rd. Q1 in Europe and Asia.

[ Amazon Product Page ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

By David Ponce

Albeit slowly, things are starting to shake up a little bit for SupoerSpeed USB 3.0. The technology we talked about twice before is a vast improvement over USB 2.0 in terms of speed, which increases tenfold to a theoretical 4.8Gbit/s. While there aren’t many consumer electronics around that take advantage of the new specification, Point Grey will be showing off at IDF next week a webcam with a 3MP Sony IMX036 CMOS sensor that will allow it to unload 1080p uncompressed video footage at 60fps. This transfers processing duties to the PC and allows for better facial recognition capabilities, among other presumably good things to come out of the use of this higher bandwidth.

No idea on price or availability on this yet, but like all things new, it’s probably better to not even ask.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Xataka ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Did you ever have a teacher or parent that always yelled at you for slouching? Well as annoying as that person may have been, they were probably right in doing so. Poor posture can lead to back and neck issues later in life, which no one wants to deal with. Since it’s hard to remember not to do it and you can’t have someone nagging at you all day, here’s a device that can alert you instead.

The USB Posture Alert Reminder uses ultrasonic sensors to detect just how close you are to your computer. This allows it to see when you’re slouching so that it can alert you accordingly. Alerts can come in the way of red and blue LEDs, or even a chime when you start to slouch. If posture is important, this $24 USB gadget might just be worth the cash.

[ SourcingMap ]VIA [ UberGizmo ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Yep, for just $24.95 from Vat19 you can split a single USB 2.0 port on your PC into 4 ports using this retro cassette tape USB hub. Unfortunately like real cassettes, flipping it over doesn’t give you an additional 4 more USB ports, so why would you opt for something like this? As one of the commenters on BBGadgets points out, it’s all explained in the FAQ:

Question: How is this different than a regular (boring) USB Hub?

Answer: The Cassette Tape USB Hub looks like a cassette tape. So, it’s awesome and not boring.

Can’t argue with that.

[ Cassette Tape 4-port USB 2.0 Hub ] VIA [ CrunchGear & BBGadgets ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Have you been pining over that USB 3.0-equipped Asus motherboard that we showed you last week? Sure, there aren’t any peripherals that actually take advantage of the new standard, but at least you’d be prepared. At the time Asus hadn’t provided us with any pricing or availability on the board, however, now we know exactly when this baby will be shipping. That would be never.

Apparently Asus has decided to scrap the board, without really giving any reason. The only thing they mentioned was that they were working on other things. I guess maybe it is a little early to get excited about USB 3.0, but you can’t use peripherals without ports. Then again, what good are ports without peripherals? Now we’re back to the old chicken and the egg thing.

[ Tom's Hardware ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]