Hasta La Gadget!

Here’s a handy little device I wish I packed for this year’s CES. The Flipower from Taiwanese company, Power Tech, features a USB slot. The device plugs directly into a wall outlet and lets you charge up USB gadgets while a normal three-pronged plug is plugged into the socket. Consider the device something of portable power strip, handy for the traveler running low on computer ports and hotel room outlets.

Not a lot of information on the availability of the device, though the company did manage to score a 2010 Innovations Award from CEA, so it likely won’t be too difficult to get some distribution in the States.

Western Digital’s kicking off the expected flood of USB 3.0 announcements here at CES with the new My Book 3.0 series. The 1TB version of the SuperSpeed drive is actually available now for $179, or $199 in a kit with a USB 3.0 adapter card, while a 2TB version will hit next week. That’s actually not a terrible deal if you’re into futureproofing, since USB 3.0 is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 — you could theoretically use this drive with both your current machine and your next one. Or you could just keep buying cheap storage for the thrill of it. We won’t judge you.

Western Digital My Book 3.0 goes SuperSpeed USB originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The banners aren’t even officially up in Vegas yet, and already we’re catching a drift of what all will be unveiled in the days to come. Take this Wireless Media Stick for example, which is HSTi’s way of telling you that a dedicated storage drive beside your Blu-ray player or media player is completely unnecessary. Put simply, this device (and the accompanying software, we presume) plugs directly into any USB-enabled disc player or media streamer that’s connected to your television; from there, you can easily stream media that’s already shacked up within your main PC to your TV-connected device(s), which cures the problem of having your media fragmented between varying drives. We’re still waiting to hear exactly what kind of technology this thing relies on (we’re guessing 2.4GHz), but hopefully we’ll find out more (along with a price and ship date) real soon.

HSTi Wireless Media Stick nixes the need for dedicated storage drives originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 06:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A-DATA’s USB 3.0 / SATA II flash drive announced for January originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This USB hub has 24 ports. Who could possibly use such a thing? I regularly have to re-jig my USB setup to fit in everything I use (not to mention the gear I test) and I can’t ever see myself needing almost a quarter-century of sockets.

We suppose it could be good for those who need to write a whole lot of thumb-drives at once, although there are purpose built devices for that which don’t make your peripherals radiate from the center like some demented electronic sunburst. The Super USB 24-Port Hub will set you back $70, and comes (of course) with a power adapter.

I have another concern about having so may gadgets hooked up to just one port on your computer. Unlike FireWire, USB communication is controlled by your computer and not the peripheral itself. Wouldn’t having 24 gizmos running concurrently drain the resources of even a powerful modern machine?

Super USB 24-Port Hub [USB Fever]