Hasta La Gadget!

Mama always said that one was never enough, and just five months after revealing its first NIC / GPU combo card to us at Computex, Bigfoot Networks has taken the wraps off of its second. This go ’round, the outfit is partnering with VisionTek to produce the VisionTek Killer HD 5770, a single PCIe card that combines an AMD Radeon HD 5770 GPU (with 1GB of GDDR5 memory) and a Killer E2100 networking card. All told, buyers are presented with two DVI ports, a single HDMI output and a gigabit Ethernet jack. The card is compatible with Windows 7, Vista and XP, and put simply, it’s designed to both improve your frame rates (that’s AMD’s role) and lower your latency / jitter (hello, Bigfoot!). The NIC portion actually has a 400MHz onboard processor that helps minimize the impact of slight changes in your connection, and Bigfoot’s management software will be thrown in for good measure. The board is expected to hit North American retail shops within a fortnight or so, with the $199.99 asking price representing a ~$10 savings compared to buying an HD 5770 GPU and Killer 2100 separately. Oh, and you get a pretty sick dragon, too.

Continue reading VisionTek Killer HD 5770 combo NIC / GPU hikes frame rates, lowers ping times for $200

VisionTek Killer HD 5770 combo NIC / GPU hikes frame rates, lowers ping times for $200 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, now we’re talking. Over the years, HomePlug and wireless HD / HDMI haven’t exactly “taken off.” Routing internet signals over a home’s power network has been hampered by subpar transmission rates, and using wireless in the home for anything other than basic web duties has shown to be either too costly or too much hassle. Now, however, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance and the Wi-Fi Alliance have seen the light, and they’re joining hands in order to jointly push their technologies to homeowners. Focused primarily on ” facilitating interoperability of smart grid applications,” these organizations are fixing to enable SEP 2.0 applications to operate across a diverse mix of wireless and wired networks, and hopefully they’ll reach out to product manufacturers while they’re at it. Here’s hoping they’ll be able to nail it — the demand is certainly there, but the execution thus far has been downright depressing.

Continue reading HomePlug Powerline Alliance and Wi-Fi Alliance align, hope for wireless home nirvana

HomePlug Powerline Alliance and Wi-Fi Alliance align, hope for wireless home nirvana originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon’s FiOS footprint may be on an expansion hiatus, but that’s not to say the company’s abandoning existing users. Nearly 3.5 years after boosting FiOS internet speeds with G-PON, the company is now out testing XG-PON2 — a newfangled iteration that somehow enables 10Gbps upstream and downstream from its existing fiber network. If you’ll recall, we heard just a few weeks back that the outfit was close to being able to serve GigE on its existing platform, and now that this field trial has been successful, we’d say the boundaries are stretched even further. In the test, technicians were able to suck down a 2.3GB movie in four ticks of the second hand, and if you’re hoping to see the nerdiest video of the day, a highlight reel of the trial awaits you just past the break.

[Thanks, David]

Continue reading Verizon FiOS field trial introduces XG-PON2 to the lexicon, shows 10Gbps capabilities

Verizon FiOS field trial introduces XG-PON2 to the lexicon, shows 10Gbps capabilities originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The new Pogoplug Pro gets a color change, from a cake-frosting pink and white to a somber, businesslike black, and adds one essential that has been missing until now: built-in Wi-Fi.

The Pogoplug is a small box that hooks up to both your router and up to four USB drives. It then makes all of the content on those drives available to you via the internet, wherever you may be. You can do this with a computer, but the advantage of the Pogoplug is that you don’t have to leave a power-thirsty desktop running at home, and the configuration is also a lot easier.

With the addition of Wi-Fi, the box just got a whole lot more versatile. It still does the same as before, but now you can stash it in a closet along with the hard drives and even a printer and forget about stringing ethernet cables, or adding external Wi-Fi adapters.

There is also a Pogoplug app for the iPad and iPhone which will let you stream your music and videos or access other files direct, whether away from home or directly over the local network. For many, who keep large movie libraries on external drives, this could be the killer app right there: the Pogoplug apps let you stream your video direct from the drives with no pesky computer required.

The Pogoplug Pro is available now, for the same $100 as the original, meaning you should only buy the old one if you love pink, and are allergic to Wi-Fi.

Pogoplug Pro product page [Pogoplug]

See Also:

• Pogoplug Goes Wireless
• Pogoplug Update Lets You Print With an E-mail
• Pogoplug Brings External Hard Drives Online
• Have You Read the Review of the PogoPlug Yet?

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Continue reading EPFL develops Linux-based swarming micro air vehicles

EPFL develops Linux-based swarming micro air vehicles originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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