Hasta La Gadget!

Asus has quietly slipped in a new feature in a bunch of their more recent motherboards including the P8Z77-V and a few of its contemporary brethren, calling this feature “USB attached SCSI protocol”, or UASP if you find it to be a mouthful. According to Asus, UASP might nearly double the speed of USB 3.0 connections to external hard drives and SSDs, hence speeding up the transfer rate of older USB 2.0 connections, now how about that?

To put it simply, UASP throws on top a blanket of modernity to the USB transfer protocol. USB 2.0 and 3.0 at the moment still rely on the Bulk-Only Transport (BOT) protocol for mass storage I/O, which is a very simple (a nicer way of saying dumb) protocol that limits USB 2.0 to just 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 carries a maximum data rate of 4.8Gbps – hence pushing the limits of the BOT protocol, especially when one is moving 100s of MBs per second from an SSD or a VelociRaptor.

UASP will ditch BOT and have something similar to SCSI as a replacement, making it far more suitable for low-latency bulk data transfers. Hot Hardware did perform a benchmark, hitting 5% to 20% increase in speed boost compared to the 70% that Asus claims. Minimal? Well, at least is better than nothing, right?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Asus Xonar Essence One first USB DAC from Asus, Asus Xonar U3 external sound card gets the job done,

You know how some smartphones do come with a tiny LED somewhere in front, where it will light up in different colors to indicate different notifications? Well, it seems that this particular idea has been ported over to the far less mobile desktop environment, although notebooks, too, will be able to work with the Blink USB LED visual indicator. Basically, this particular peripheral can be specially programmed to inform you of different events which happen on your computer, ranging from incoming email to new tweets as well as Facebook status updates. Finished downloading a file but do not know it? Blink will get the job done for you.

Bear in mind that this is a Kickstarter project, and it has far surpassed its original funding goal of $29,000. It is estimated that the retail price for Blink will be $30 thereabouts, where it will play nice on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux platforms. The thing is this – on a desktop, I am not too worried, but it sure as heck takes up a precious USB port on a notebook.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Memory on Hand Band is fashionable and functional, LandingZone dock for the MacBook Air adds more ports,

There’s no doubt about it, USB 3.0 is wicked fast when pitted against its predecessors — but the ancient bulk-only transport protocol it uses is showing its age. Some newer external drives hope sidestep the old protocol by supporting a new one: UASP, or, USB attached SCSI. As its name implies, the modern protocol leverages the SCSI command set to reduce latency, enable queue functions and improve performance for compatible drives. Windows 8 will ship with UASP drivers baked in, but the protocol is already available in the form of third-party controllers and drivers. Speaking of which, Hot Hardware found the functionality on ASUS’ P8Z77V motherboard, and gave it a rundown. The conclusion? “Turbo and UASP modes will never hurt performance, and you’ve got early access to a capability that’s already been wrapped into future versions of Windows. That’s a win, all the way around.” We’re hard pressed to disagree. Check out the outfit’s tests in full at the source link below.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

ASUS loads P8Z77V with USB attached SCSI, beats Windows 8 to the punch originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Jul 2012 19:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s only so much kit you can cram into a sub-$200 tablet without pushing past the price ceiling. And for Google’s Jelly Bean-blessed Nexus 7, corners were definitely cut, leaving users without a handy microSD slot for expansion and rear-facing camera. But where there’s a will, there’s the XDA and its community of developers to remedy the situation. As you can glimpse from the photo above, an enterprising forum member by the handle of c0m47053 devised an interesting workaround for the slate’s lack of expandable storage and then some. Using the StickMount app available on the Play store, which allows users to mount/dismount mass storage devices, he was able to connect the ASUS-made tab to a USB hub and hook it up to a keyboard, mouse and, most amusingly of all, a floppy drive — to play Ultima on DOSbox, of course. It goes without saying that a feat of this kind requires root access, but thankfully that’s what Mountain View made the Nexuses for.

Filed under: Peripherals, Tablet PCs, Software

ULTIMAte hack: Nexus 7 hooks up with external USB storage, floppy drive for retro-gaming originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Jul 2012 22:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most digital Braille devices are built on the assumption that the legally blind already know how to write in the format — if they don’t, they’re often forced back to the analog world to learn. PDT and Perkins hope to address that longstanding technology gap with the Perkins Smart Brailler. Going digital lets Perkins build in lessons for newcomers as well as provide immediate audio feedback (visual for writers with borderline vision) and text-to-speech conversion to give even an old hand a boost. Logically, the leap into the modern world also allows transferring documents over USB along with traditional Braille printouts. Smart Braillers will cost a weighty $1,995 each when they first ship in September, but it’s hard to put a price tag on mastering communication and fully joining the digital generation.

Continue reading Perkins Smart Brailler helps the blind learn to type, closes the digital divide

Filed under: Peripherals

Perkins Smart Brailler helps the blind learn to type, closes the digital divide originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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