Hasta La Gadget!

It’s taken a while – a very long while – but Belkin’s Thunderbolt Express Dock has finally hit shelves, offering Mac users a simple way to hook up a workstation’s-worth of peripherals by stringing a single cable. First announced back in January 2012, and clearly missing its original release date in September of the same year, the $299.99 Thunderbolt Express Dock offers three USB 3.0 ports, gigabit ethernet, and a pass-through Thunderbolt connector of its own, among other things.

That second Thunderbolt (the first hooking the dock up to your Mac or MacBook) means you can attach up to five more Thunderbolt devices to the same machine. As we’ve already seen, Thunderbolt’s hefty throughput – bidirectional 10Gbps, in fact – means you can have RAID arrays, Full HD displays, A/V interfaces, and more, all connected and operating simultaneously.

The dock also includes a single FireWire 800 port, handy if you’ve got legacy devices but a newer Mac which dropped the connection, and both audio-in and audio-out. In total, Belkin says, you can hook up eight devices with a single cable to your Mac.

It’s not exactly cheap for a dock, and we’re a little unimpressed that Belkin doesn’t even include the Thunderbolt cable you’ll need in order to use it. Still, if you want to make your MacBook Pro the hub of a desktop setup, it’s a straightforward way to do that without needing to hook up half a dozen cables every time you get home or into the office.

Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock finally arrives, only seven months late is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When it comes to accessories for your iPhone or iPad, there really are accessories for every need. If you need to be able to attach a microscope over the camera lens of your iPhone or iPad, there is an accessory for that. A company called Bodelin Technologies has introduced a new accessory for the iPhone and iPad called the ProScope Micro Mobile.

The company says that the ProScope Micro Mobile is the first professional handheld microscope for the iPad, iPhone, iPad mini, iPod Touch, and other mobile devices. The microscope accessory itself uses precision optical glass allowing edge to edge imaging and magnification ranging from 20x up to 80x. The microscope attachment features 12 white LEDs arranged in two alternating circles around the lens allowing for polarized and reflecting light.

Light output from those LEDs is intensity adjustable with a three-way power saving switch. The light is powered by an internal lithium-ion battery promising up to five hours of continuous use of the LEDs. When that battery pack runs out, it can be recharged by connecting the lens lighting system to a USB port.

The microscope can also be used to view slides using any sort of backlighting, including things like a photographer’s light pad and more. The microscope itself is the same for any device with the company offering special sleeves to fit individual Apple gadgets for holding the microscope in place over the camera lens. There are currently sleeves available for the iPhone 4, 4S, 5, fourth and fifth generation iPod Touch, iPad mini, and the full-size iPad. Pre-ordering for the ProScope Micro Mobile is underway now for $149 with shipping kicking off on May 1.

[via Bodelin]

ProScope Micro Mobile adds a microscope to your iPhone or iPad is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Keyboard cases for the iPad are nothing new, there are plenty of them on the market today. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for new offerings that are either easier-to-use, better looking, or more durable. Logitech has unveiled a new keyboard cover called the FabricSkin Keyboard Folio that brings the style of the Microsoft Surface RT to your iPad.

The keyboard folio is available in multiple colors including Mars Red Orange, Carbon Black, Mystic Blue, and Sunflower Yellow. The design of the new keyboard case protects the iPad on the front and the back with a wraparound design. Logitech equips the device with a magnetic clasp to keep the folio closed when you’re traveling.

The keyboard folio also has an integrated magnetic stand to allow you to prop the screen of your tablet up for comfortable typing or lay it flat depending on your needs. The keyboard section connects to your tablet using Bluetooth and the keyboard is spill resistant. The FabricSkin Keyboard has magnets on the edges near the iPad frame that automatically puts the iPad to sleep when you close the folio and wakes it up when you open the cover.

Power for the rechargeable keyboard comes from an internal rechargeable battery that charges using a USB port. Logitech claims you can get three months of usable battery life on a single full charge. The retail price for the FabricSkin Keyboard Folio is $149.99. You can pre-order the keyboard folio right now but the shipping date is unknown. The case is designed to work with the iPad 2 and third and fourth generation iPad tablets.

[via Logitech]

Logitech FabricSkin Keyboard Folio borrows Surface RT style for iPad is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I have a feeling I’m not the only one who’s ever needed to move information to or from the iPhone and felt like Apple played some sort of cruel joke on us. Without a memory card slot or some sort of data transfer application, you can’t just move files back and forth easily. This is one of the big benefits of most Android phones in that they have a built-in memory card slot so you can just copy files to and from that card as you need to.

A company called Apotop has unveiled a new accessory aimed specifically at iPhone users that should make it very easy to move your data around. The product is called the DW-09 Wi-Reader and it has a built-in USB port and SD memory card slot. The device is designed to allow you to plug in an SD, SDHC or SDXC memory card or a flash drive. When using the companion application that runs on your iPhone or iPad, you can transfer data to and from that memory card wirelessly.

Powered by an internal rechargeable battery, the device can also be used with external USB hard drives as long as the drives are externally powered. Another cool thing about the Wi-Reader is that it supports content streaming for up to three users at the same time, and you can also use the DW09 as a Wi-Fi hotspot to connect wireless networks when traveling.

Pricing and availability for the Apotop DW09 have yet to be announced.

It can be very tricky to get information to and from Apple gadgets since Apple doesn’t include a memory card slot. On many of the Android devices on the market all you need do to get information off the smartphone or tablet or onto it is take out the memory card, slip it into your reader, and transfer it to or from your computer. You have to go through more steps to do that same thing for iPhones.

A new product has debuted from Apotop that is specifically designed to help iPhone and iPad users get data to and from their devices with ease. The product is called the DW09 and it is a palm-sized little device described as a Wi-Reader. It’s designed to enable wireless sharing and transferring of video, photographs, and other data between an iPad or iPhone and SD memory card for flash drives.

The DW09 supports up to three iOS devices at the same time allowing the simultaneous sharing and streaming of high-definition movies and other content. The device also allows the streaming of movies and other videos in file formats that iOS devices don’t support natively. The DW09 supports flash drives and self powered external hard drives up to 3 TB capacity.

It works with memory cards including SD, SDHC, and SDXC up to 128 GB in capacity using FAT32, NTFS, and exFAT formats. The device works in conjunction with a Wi-Reader app on the Apple device. The device is also designed to work as a travel size Wi-Fi hotspot supporting 802.11n wireless networks. TheDW09 can be purchased now online and an MSRP of $79.99.

[via Apotop]

Apotop DW09 Wi-Reader makes it easy to transfer data to and from iOS devices is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.