Category Archives: Computers

Boxee: TV Tuner Dongle for Boxee Box



Boxee is showing off the new Live TV tuner is a USB dongle that you connect to the Boxee. Plug your cable or antenna to the dongle, and watch your shows from the Boxee box. There is also a social network option to this device that will help you find shows your friends are watching.

The Boxee live TV tuner USB only works on Boxee box. They have put out version 1.5 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but also announced they will be moving away from those platforms to focus on the Over the Top TV device.

Boxee Dongle is $49. The Boxee is available at $179

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of Geekazine

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KBCovers: Secret Weapon for Creative Types



The Need for Speed

Mousing around is one of the not-so-secret productivity killers, stealing time from creative types around the world. Keyboard shortcuts allow you to keep your fingers in motion – but unless you excel in the game “Missing MatchUps” with your kids, it’s hard to remember hundreds of combinations. And they are all standard patterns, except when they aren’t – like between every applications that you need to use on your project.

KBCovers offers a full range of apps. In both US and European keyboards, for video and photo editing, the covers are made of ultra thin silicone, and offer full color coding to help you learn and remember the shortcuts for your daily use.

Interview by Andy McCaskey and Courtney Wallin of SDRNews for the TechPodcast Network.

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Aviiq: Portable Laptop Stand and Accessories



Light and Compact

A closeup look at just the sort of accessories that a road warrior needs to keep his computing on track and his bag light. Aviiq On The Go presents a group of clever ideas to minimize bulk and weight, yet provide needed capabilities on the road. The folding laptop stand is warranted for three years, and in testing has exceeded 50,000 folding cycles.

The Portable Charging Station reduces the clutter of long cables in the bag, and enables you to maintain the full range of devices while mobile.

Interview by Andy McCaskey and Courtney Wallin of SDRNews for the TechPodcast Network.

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Nero Kwik Media Media Manager



Todd and Don talk to Martin Stein Senior Vice President of Global Products at Nero about Nero Kwik Media at the TPN booth at CES. Nero Kwik Media is a program that will sync all your media (pictures, videos, audio and music) across all the devices in your home.

Kwik Media Features (from the website):

  • Move all the files your heart desires to and from your PC and mobile devices
  • Play back Blu-ray movies
  • View HD video projects on DVD and watch Hollywood Blu-ray movies on your laptop
  • Burn Audio CDs from MP3s
  • With just a few clicks, you can create a CD mix from your favorite playlists
  • Play back your favorite jams from your laptop and rip Audio CDs to add to your computer
  • Find and organize friends by faces
  • Easily organize photos of friends and family by faces
  • Browse and organize photos, music and videos in one place
  • Conveniently create projects to burn and share straight from your library
  • Make quick and easy edits of photos before sharing or adding to slideshows
  • Share videos on Youtube or myNero
  • Upload your photos, music and videos to social media websites with just a few clicks
  • Edit slideshows with effects
  • Add exciting, animated background themes to slideshows
  • Sync your music playlists as well as photo and video album contents from your PC to any mobile device with USB mass storage

For more information or to get your copy of Nero Kwik Media, go the website kwikmedia.nero.com

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iTwin: An Infinite Capacity Thumb Drive ?



There is nothing more handy than having a USB stick – the ubiquitous “thumb drive” or “jump drive” with your critical documents.

The problem is – the document hanging around for years on your desktop system is NOT on the thumb drive.

You need it Right Now! ASAP !

That’s the problem that iTwin solves.

You plug in Plug one half of iTwin into your online office computer. Drag’n’drop files into the iTwin window to share them. Take the other half of iTwin with you. You will have instant access to all of the shared files, from any other online computer.  No configuration, no VPN token card, no login.

Available for both Mac and PC, price class $100.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDRNews for the TechPodcast Network.

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Samsung Series 9 Notebooks



If you are in the market for a new notebook computer then you may want to check out the latest offerings from Samsung with their Series 9 version, which was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas just recently. Samsung calls it the world’s thinnest laptop, which is saying something given the MacBook Air and all of the new UltraBooks that were unveiled at CES.

The new Samsung Series 9 will come in both 13 inch and 15 inch versions. The new laptops are extremely thin and light and sport all-aluminum bodies. In addition, the Series 9 has a back-lit keyboard, a 128 GB or 256 GB SSD, an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, and a high-resolution 1600 x 900 screen. The Samsung Series 9 notebooks should be available sometime this spring for an as-yet-undisclosed price. You can get a look at the 15″ version in the video posted below.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Polkast: Making Your Computer the Cloud



Polkast Cloud base solutions for accessing the data on your computer off site are great, but they have their limitations. First they are slow, because everything has to upload to the cloud first before you can access it off site. Second most cloud solutions have a limit on how much you can store on their sites. Third they can get expensive if you have to store a lot and finally you have to depend on them to be up.

What if you made your computer the cloud, that is the solution that Polkast came up with. You install the Polkast server on the computer you want to access the files from and then the Polkast app on your mobile devices including your smart phone, tablets or lap top. You can then access the files on that computer from anywhere in the world as long as the server is running. To access files using Polkast you have to sign in with a user name and password. Everything is encrypted while going from PC to PC or mobile device. Unlike a cloud base solution there is no storage limitation and it is as fast as your local ISP. You can share specific files with other people by email or through their Polkast account. The service is free for one computer for multiple devices it is $49.95 a year. If you are looking for a way to access your home files on the road, but are wary of a cloud solution, this might be a solution for you.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Don Baine The Gadget Professor of Geek News Central

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Penclic: It’s Time For A New Mouse



It’s Time to Leave the ’80’s Behind

This innovative Swedish design mimics a fountain pen,creating a natural working position, eliminating unnecessary “mousing around” in endless clicking. The mouse looks, feels and moves like a pen., with natural position of the forearm on the work surface.

Penclic Mouse has 5-buttons and scroll wheel. The left click, right click and middle click are on the pen shaft’s right side. On the pen shaft’s left side the backward click and forward click for surfing are positioned. It is offered in wired and wireless (Bluetooth) versions.

 

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDRNews for the TechPodcast Network.

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Polkast: Personal Cloud at Lightening Speed



Why upload and download to the cloud when you can create a personal cloud for data anywhere ?

Polkast is a new P2P approach to file access that you control. Your files are stored on systems that you control, and it doesn’t matter where the files are stored. With Polkast, you get anytime access to all of your files from any of your computers or mobile devices.

And, on your local network, files transfer at 10x the speed of a traditional upload/download from an external cloud service. And Polkast indexes and enables you to search for files from your mobile device- then pull just the one you need.

 

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDRNews for the TechPodcast Network.

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Kingston HyperX SSD



Kingston is known for their memory, but now they are branching out into the world of hard drives and, more specifically, solid state hard drives, or SSD’s as they are commonly referred to. The HyperX is the top of the Kingston line when it comes to this technology. The SSD is a much-hyped technology that has remained a dream for most consumers because of their price-point, but they are starting to come down into the realm of the affordable, although still top-end, drives. The SSD provides much faster speed than the traditional HDD, plus they are much smaller in size, which is driving the new Ultrabook craze, which was also capturing the media at this year’s CES.

The new HyperX comes with an external drive bay that you can plug into your computer and software to clone you current drive to get you started without any down time. The new Kingston drive may still be out of reach for the average user, but that’s okay, because they know it’s for the enthusiast, who knows how to get inside a PC and change out hardware, clone drives, and use all of the hardware and tools that come along with a project such as this.

Currently for the 120 GB version seen in the video below the price is coming in at a little over $200. To find out more be sure to check out the video and visit Kingston.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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