Hasta La Gadget!

There are already plenty of keyboard and mouse sharing solutions out there, but alas, most are not foolproof nor affordable enough for the average Joe. As such, we fell in love with j5 Create’s Wormhole KM Switch and Wormhole Station at Computex. The former, pictured above, is simply a cable sporting a USB dongle on each end; whereas the latter is an aluminum, externally powered expansion dock rod that comes with an intergrated KM switch, two USB 3.0 ports (which requires a USB 3.0 host for full potential, of course), a power button at the end, and card readers for microSD, SD, and MemoryStick.

After the one-click setup using the built-in installer, you can set your preferred method to toggle the keyboard and mouse switching: either by clicking the middle mouse button, by clicking a user-defined hot area on the screen, or by simply moving the cursor off one side of the screen. As you’ll see in our hands-on video after the break, the switching was seamless, and we had no problem with drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste across the two PCs. If either the Wormhole KM Switch or the Wormhole Station sounds like your kind of gadget, then keep an eye out for them at Fry’s soon for $29.99 (about $10 cheaper than IOGEAR’s USB Laptop KVM Switch) and $129, respectively. Additionally, there’ll also be a Mac-compatible KM Switch available next month for $39.99.

Update: We’re certainly aware of the free, cross-platform Synergy software solution, but it’s not ideal for those who are less tech-savvy, plus it doesn’t handle drag-and-drop across computers.

Continue reading j5 Creates a Wormhole, enables keyboard and mouse sharing with just one cable

j5 Creates a Wormhole, enables keyboard and mouse sharing with just one cable originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on December 11, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft must be prepping for the release of Vista SP1 RC1 this week because they have posted several documents that outline some of the features found in the upcoming Service Pack. One particular document covers the notable changes that have been implemented in Vista SP1 thusfar, and it has over 10 pages worth of bulleted lists covering some of the great additions.

One item in particular caught the eye of the Neowin editors. It discusses a feature dubbed hotpatching, which will enable patching of Windows components without needing to restart your computer. More specifically, it says that Vista SP1…

Enables support for hotpatching, a reboot-reduction servicing technology designed to maximize uptime. It works by allowing Windows components to be updated (or “patched”) while they are still in use by a running process. Hotpatch-enabled update packages are installed via the same methods as traditional update packages, and will not trigger a system reboot.

This is a feature that was outlined two years ago, and was originally supposed to ship with Vista. I’m not sure if non-Microsoft applications will be able to take advantage of this improved update process, but it will surely improve the user’s experience if they can.

One concern that I do have is the security behind such a system. Will viruses and malware now be able to install and activate themselves without even needing the user to restart the system? I’m sure Microsoft has tried to plug any backdoors, but it’s inevitable that hackers will try to take advantage of this new update technique.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Initial Vista SP1 ReviewCyberNet’s Year in Review: January-FebruaryGet A Tour Of Windows VistaNetvibes Introduces Several New FeaturesMake Sure To Activate Windows Vista Beta 2

Lian Li PC-U6 Cowry desktop case hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’ll be a little while before Windows Phone 7 Mango phones pop up in the shops, but here at Computex, Acer decided to give us a little tease with a mockup of its upcoming W4 handset. Before you get all excited, though, the hardware specs are pretty yawn-inducing: there’s a 3.6-inch 800 x 480 display of unknown type, 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 CPU, up to 8GB of storage, 5 megapixel auto-focus camera, and DLNA support. Hardly anything new here, which is a surprise given that we’re looking at a Mango device — a phone to be shipped with a major WP7 refresh.

Anyhow, you’ll also find the usual radios like 802.11 b/g/n plus Bluetooth 2.1 here, but interestingly enough, it looks like the W4 will be coming in two SKUs: one with HSPA 850 / 1900, and one with HSPA 900 / 2100 — obviously a potential problem for globetrotters. As for look and feel the W4’s well within the comfort zone of Acer’s smartphone ID, and the curved back felt nice and solid in our hands, but we shall save our final judgement for the real deal. When we hear a release date, you’ll know it as soon as we do.

Continue reading Acer W4 Windows Phone Mango handset eyes-on (video)

Acer W4 Windows Phone Mango handset eyes-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 08:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already fiddled with ViewSonic’s two new tablets at Computex’s pre-show event, but we decided to hit the booth earlier today to get a closer look at the ViewPad 10Pro’s BlueStacks Android virtualization on Windows 7, as well as the ViewPad 7x’s funky UI. Starting off with the bigger slate, you’ll see in the above video that the Android implementation isn’t as good as it sounds — ViewSonic says it wants to offer an Android experience “similar” to that of actual Android devices, but alas, we beg to differ with the virtual Android’s laggy performance plus its odd bugs. The reps assured us that the final product will be much smoother, but then we were further let down by the fact that Android Market is absent. The reason? It’s simply because from ViewSonic’s point of view the 10Pro’s focus is on Windows 7, so the company decided that it wasn’t worth all the hassle to obtain a Google Mobile Services license. To sum it up, this whole Android “feature” is very much just a gimmick, and it doesn’t look like running native Android on Oak Trail soon will do much good, either.

On a brighter note, the dual-core ViewPad 7x fared way better than its bloated brother. This world’s first 7-inch Honeycomb tablet ran surprisingly smooth, and we were glad to see SPB’s contribution here with its Shell 3D Android launcher (which we reviewed with much praise a little while back). We managed to get ViewSonic director Max Liu to give us a brief demo of the 7x after the break, and to be frank, the more we look at it, the more we want it. Here’s hoping that this tablet will be priced right.

Oh, and did we mention that ViewSonic had a few real Gouldian finches on the show floor? Check out them birds after the break.

Continue reading ViewSonic ViewPad 10Pro and ViewPad 7x hands-on redux (video)

ViewSonic ViewPad 10Pro and ViewPad 7x hands-on redux (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 14:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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