News

Never heard of slotRadio? It is an initiative by SanDisk to capitalize on the DRM encumbered music market. For a one time fee, you get lots of music that is playable on certain devices that can play slotRadio media. We at ASE Labs thought that the market moved on from proprietary forms of media. Still, we'll see if it has some worth to it.Next Page »

These days, full-sized headphones are a novelty. They have become impractical for most music lovers with an on-the-go lifestyle, leading to a rise in the popularity of smaller designs. Today, ASE Labs looks at the Arctic Sound E361-BM, one of Arctic Cooling's entries in the crowded sea of earbud models.Next Page »

Add a dash of color and style to your day, with Verbatim’s Color Nano Wireless Mouse. In six new colors, this mouse travels well in tight spaces. With a receiver that’s small enough to plug into your laptop and leave, it offers 2.4 GHz wireless performance - that means no delays in cursor movements and fewer cords to pack. The receiver also slides right into the bottom of the mouse for safekeeping. Its sleek design offers a smooth, contoured comfort grip for right or left hand and a programmable roller button. Small enough to fit easily in work totes, backpacks or even handbags, Verbatim’s Color Nano Notebook Mouse offers cool colors to match your laptop, your bag or even your mood.Next Page »

Most people should have heard about the ease of use that the Netflix streaming service provides. One of the major components of this ease of use would be the set top boxes that provide the service on TVs. Roku was the original and is still the best way to get streaming Netflix to your TV, right now.Next Page »

The year is 2010 and CES is now over. The exhibitor count was even less than last year, even though attendance was a bit higher. There were some interesting bits, but most of the fancy 3D TVs are just so-so technology. We take out some of the very interesting things seen on the show floor.Next Page »

Have a merry Christmas for all that celebrate it. Be happy, safe, and remember that Christmas is a time for giving, not being greedy.

Most consumer electronic products that use flash memory have moved to SD/SDHC media and with the convergences comes products that can be smaller and portable. Kingston produced an update to the original MobileLite brand of portable card reader known as the MobileLite G2 and this is the focus of the review.Next Page »

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah! Wish your Jewish friends a happy one. The first day is tomorrow. Did you get anything good yet?

Tax documents, company memos and even personal files are just some of the things that you might not want others to be able to see. With those security needs in mind, Kingston has created the DataTraveler Locker+, and ASE Labs has the 16GB model up for review.Next Page »

Take a router, a NAS, and a picture frame. Now smash it together. What is the end result? The D-Link DIR-685 Xtreme N Storage Router. This convergence device matches a router with a LCD picture frame and even manages to squeeze in a drive based NAS as well. Next Page »

Be safe, eat until you're stuffed, and remember those that don't have. That's what giving thanks is all about.

SSDs are here to stay. What changes is the segment they can be used in. Kingston has a new approach to a new product in the SSDNow V Series line; The SSD is the boot drive while your spindle drive takes care of all the large amounts of data. You can get the best of both worlds.Next Page »

While mousepads may be dull and boring, there are a few things that you should be concerned about when purchasing one. ASE Labs has always had a fondness for nice mousepads ever since we got a Duke Nukem 3D mousepad way back when... Times have certainly changed and now you see pads that cost an arm and a leg. Thankfully, some companies offer quality products along with a good price. Puretrak is one of those companies.Next Page »

If your state has an election today and you are eligible to vote, do your civic duty and vote! Even if you vote for no one, your vote is counted.

Logitech's newest gaming keyboard, the G19, has been released with much praise from reviewers. The color LCD and ability to change the backlighting color of the keys are just some of the features of this new gaming keyboard. Unfortunately, the keyboard seems to have taken a step back in one area critical to the intended use... the typing ability is worse than the older G15. The keyboard may pack a bunch of cool features, but is it worth it with that glaring problem?Next Page »

While the media calls it a black hole, scientists have actually made a radiation collector. The device traps microwaves and doesn't allow them to escape the event horizon (like a black hole). They are planning on moving to visible light soon.

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Now Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng at the Southeast University in Nanjing, China, have turned Narimanov and Kildishev's theory into practice, and built a "black hole" for microwave frequencies. It is made of 60 annular strips of so-called "meta-materials", which have previously been used to make invisibility cloaks. Each strip takes the form of a circuit board etched with intricate structures whose characteristics change progressively from one strip to the next, so that the permittivity varies smoothly. The outer 40 strips make up the shell and the inner 20 strips make up the absorber. "When the incident electromagnetic wave hits the device, the wave will be trapped and guided in the shell region towards the core of the black hole, and will then be absorbed by the core," says Cui. "The wave will not come out from the black hole." In their device, the core converts the absorbed light into heat.

There are properties of nature that even Moore's Law cannot break through. The so-called "Law" was made up by Gordon Moore working at Intel. He said that integrated circuits would pack twice the number of transitions every two years or so (people assume he said performance would double, not the case).

There are physical constraints to the doubling that happens. Soon, we won't be able to make faster computers! OH NO!

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If components are to continue shrinking, physicists must eventually code bits of information onto ever smaller particles. Smaller means faster in the microelectronic world, but physicists Lev Levitin and Tommaso Toffoli at Boston University in Massachusetts, have slapped a speed limit on computing, no matter how small the components get. "If we believe in Moore's laW ... then it would take about 75 to 80 years to achieve this quantum limit," Levitin said. "No system can overcome that limit. It doesn't depend on the physical nature of the system or how it's implemented, what algorithm you use for computation … any choice of hardware and software," Levitin said. "This bound poses an absolute law of nature, just like the speed of light."

Though, we could do some crazier things that we don't know about today to break through this wall.

SPARKLE Announced First 40nm GeForce GT 220 Graphics Card Bringing Better Graphics Processing Power With lower Power Consumption.

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Taipei, Taiwan - October 12, 2009 - SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today announced the SPARKLE GeForce GT 220 Graphics Cards the first NVIDIA graphics cards based on advanced 40nm process, they bring better graphics processing power with lower power consumption.

EVGA Announces 210 and GT 220 Graphics Cards.

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Brea, California and Munich, Germany - October 12, 2009 - EVGA, the leading-edge 3D processor graphics cards and motherboard manufacturer, announces the EVGA GeForce 210 and GT 220 graphics cards, offering great price, performance and features. The 210 and GT 220 products offer DirectX 10.1 support, NVIDIA PhysX technology, HDMI 1.3a ouput and NVIDIA CUDA technology meaning these new cards are essential for any media PC!

New JVC Pocket Camera Shoots HD Video & 8 Megapixel Stills.

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WAYNE, NJ, October 13, 2009 - JVC today announced the launch of its first pocket flash memory camera, the new PICSIO GC-FM1. PICSIO is designed for those who want a small, simple, camera that allows easy sharing and delivers high quality video and still images.

Media center setups are now a part of many homes, and with that comes the need to have good input devices to handle the functionality of the setup. Logitech steps forward with the diNovo Edge and really brings home what it means to be a major player in the input device market. This product does pretty much everything right.Next Page »

There is a new moon and it is that time of year for the start of a new Jewish New Year. This is the time when Jewish people celebrate their High Holy Days ending with Yom Kippur next week.

We will never forget when America was attacked.

The scars still remain, but we must move on. We must strive to be the best we can be. We are Americans and we will never forget.

Kingston has waited a long time before entering the SSD market. Was it worth the wait? The SSDNow V Series shows what a low priced SSD can be given the proper time for the bugs to be worked out. Consumers should be thankful that Kingston waited until the SSD was mature enough to be brought to market with a low price controller. Kingston's brand name still stands strong unlike those of other companies that rushed out SSDs only to have problem after problem.Next Page »

Professional douchebag Bobby Kotick, hot on the heels of Activision announcing Tony Hawk will cost £100, as well as them posting crazy profits and market share increase, responds in an interview that if he was in charge of game prices... he would raise them.

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With retail and consumers alike still getting to grips with the prospect of shelling out £54.99 for November’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has admitted that he would like to push prices even higher.

Linky.

I really have to wonder how far publishers will milk this "oh no games are so expensive" bullshit before the entire industry backlashes and stops buying altogether. The COD price increase was hilarious enough, considering the PC version of the exact same game costs 20 pounds less.
I also laugh at the people who think this is the kind of thing digital distribution will solve when it will allow publishers even more control over game prices and eliminate used game sales.

In fact, Activision are being such douchebags of late, particularly when Kotick says stupid crap like this right after having the balls to blast the PS3 for costs, I may reverse my self-imposed EA ban and move it to Activision instead. Activision is being more of the "evil publisher" than EA ever was anyways. This whole mess is honestly nearly as bad as Nintendo raising the price on their-made-a-profit-from-the-beginning Wii in the U.K. under the silly pretext of exchange rate deficiency (even ignoring the hedge that the Wii's absurd U.K. price already created), then saying flat out the next month that the Wii costs half as much to make as it did when it first came out. I feel sorry for you Brits.

Where is wireless USB right now? No, it isn't the prime time technology it really should be. The original standard promised that wireless USB would be the THE protocol for many other technologies. It isn't there, yet. It might not ever be as good as promise or even implemented into products. Regardless, there are companies providing support for the fledgling standard to get on the ground floor when it finally takes off. Cables To Go provides a great kit to intro wireless USB.Next Page »

If you have a website or are in to affiliate marketing, this is your chance to win a free iPod just by posting about the contest at ASE Adnet!

http://www.aseadnet.com/articles.php?id=111

ASE Adnet is a Cost Per Click price comparison shopping network built by publishers for publishers. While the focus is on technology related items, there are numerous products that are in the catalog.

http://www.aseadnet.com

Get in on the contest today! Post about ASE Adnet on your own site to be entered and be sure to join up as a publisher to make some money!

G-Cube is a new company that produces myriad peripherals designed by women for female computer users. The G-Laser wired and retractable mouse appears small and cute while in the package, but we're going to find out if this mouse is all looks or actually performs like a champ.Next Page »

Happy USA Independence Day everyone! Remember that today isn't all about grilling and hot dogs. Today was when this country was born and founded.

Our ideals seem to be wanning as the government moves us more towards a socialistic nanny state. People, the power of the government is in YOUR hands. Don't let greedy and power hungry politicians control your life. We need to stop spending money we don't have on pork projects and bailouts.

Well known as a heavyweight in the enthusiast community, Antec has been pushing out quality products for over two decades. As the successor to the renowned Nine Hundred, the Nine Hundred Two boasts an all black interior and a few other enhancements. Is it worth replacing the classic, or is this just another case to ignore?Next Page »

The USA has finally switched to DTV and of course the FCC has mandated technologies that are patented by companies and those patents aren't released to the public. It is said that each DTV tuner costs $40 to the patent holders (strangely, the coupons are $40 for those converters... hmm?).

This sort of government forcing people to use non-free technology is terrible and those patents should become public domain. Oh, most people that have received over the air analog TV will probably notice many stations that they now won't receive. DTV doesn't die gracefully as analog TV did.

We need to stop how companies force these technologies on the market through the government. The FCC is horrible corrupt and needs to be disbanded.

If you still get over the air analog TV, that's it. Time to get a digital tuner.

While KVMs have already invaded the server room and every datacenter, the home market is just getting into the mold of having multiple computers that are more server than workstation and the need to have multiple monitors and input devices becomes less of an issue. Enter the KVM for home use and Cables To Go is easily at home in the server room as well.Next Page »