Free Buffalo NAS Upgrade Allows Remote Access

Buffalo Technology announced a new free Web Access feature for its LinkStation Live NAS (networked attached storage) devices on Monday, which the company says will let customers share and access their content from anywhere in the world.

While the new, free feature will not require any additional software, it will only work with the company's LinkStation Live devices, according to a Buffalo representative. Users can access content, such as photos, videos, music, and other data stored on a LinkStation Live, via a standard Web browser.

New LinkStation Live owners can sign up for the service at buffaloNAS.com , and after entering their LinkStation name, immediately connect to their digital content. The feature is also available for existing LinkStation Live customers after a firmware upgrade, the company said.

Buffalo said that its only responsibility is providing a peer-to-peer access conduit to a user's stored files. The company says it can not and will not access any of the shared content. Remote "viewers" of shared NAS files can only view the files, not delete them. In addition to enabling content sharing, Web Access will also include support for MP3 streaming so that users can remotely stream music stored on their LinkStation Live device to any other computer.

The device itself supports UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and comes with optional SSL encryption. Users can also designate who has access to particular files. Users do not have to open firewall ports.

Currently, the LinkStation Live is available in 250-, 320-, 500-, and 750-Gbyte capacities, and lets users to store, access, backup, and share multimedia and other files from any computer on their home network.

Buffalo says the LinkStation Live can be used as an iTunes server - allowing iTunes 7 software to access music stored on the device - and can also download and store photos and videos directly from a digital camera.

In addition to being both Windows and Macintosh compatible, the LinkStation Live allows for transfer rates of up to 35MB/s, includes a 10/100/1000 gigabit Ethernet port, gigabit jumbo frame support, and comes with two USB 2.0 ports for expanded networked storage.

For the time being, Buffalo says that the Web Access feature is only available for LinkStation Live customers, but that it plans on making the feature available for other Buffalo NAS products in the future.

The LinkStation Live is available through Buffalo's Web site and via various retailers for $230 (250 Gbytes), $249 (320 Gbytes), $349 (500 Gbytes), and $649 (750 Gbytes).

Copyright 2007 by Ziff Davis Media, Distributed by United Press International

New Sony Cyber-Shot Camera Clears Up Life's Blurry Moments

Sony is building up its arsenal of anti-blur, digital still cameras to help people who are out on the town win the fight against blur with the introduction of the new 7.2-megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-T30 model.

Everybody's feeling the vibe and you want a group shot before leaving dinner or the party. Don't make everyone pose and re-pose, smiling as if they're suffering from lock jaw, while you take shot after shot trying to get a good picture.

Equipped with double anti-blur protection, you can press the DSC-T30 model's Super Steady Shot optical image stabilization and high-sensitivity mode buttons in seconds, and reduce the chance of taking a blurry picture the very first time - especially in low-light conditions.

The Super Steady Shot technology minimizes blur caused by shaky hands, while the new camera's high light sensitivity (ISO 1000) mode reduces blur resulting from shooting at faster shutter speeds. There's even added defense with Sony's Clear RAW noise reduction system, which kicks in to counter picture noise associated with high-sensitivity shooting.

These technologies make the camera ideal for shooting in low-light conditions, such as restaurants, bars and clubs. Combined with its stylish finish and svelte dimensions, the DSC-T30 camera is the perfect accessory for even the most discerning "fashionista."

Armed with features for optimal shooting and sharing, the new camera with its Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3x optical zoom lens combines power, portability and distinctive playback. Its slide show with music function is ideal for viewing on the camera's three-inch, Clear Photo LCD Plus screen.

This is Sony's first T-series model to feature selectable color modes. Choose natural mode for subtle color variations or vivid mode for more intense colors, depending on how you want to preserve the mood from your night on the town.

Sony's ultra-fast Real Imaging Processor circuitry increases the camera's efficiency for quicker start-up, faster shot-to-shot times, higher-quality movie capture, and longer battery life. Its supplied InfoLithium battery provides plenty of power - up to 420 shots per full charge. That's nearly double the performance of previous T-series models.

The camera has 58MB of internal memory, just in case you forget your memory card. Its capacity can be expanded up to two gigabytes, however, with an optional Memory Stick Duo media card.

The Cyber-shot DSC-T30 camera will be available next month for about $500.

"When people are out having a good time, they don't want to spend it learning how to avoid taking blurry pictures," said James Neal, director of marketing for digital imaging products at Sony Electronics. "We've engineered our flagship T-series camera with intelligent, automatic features so people can spend more time having fun and less time understanding technology."

Source: Sony

Europe to get the Meizu M9 soon

It is often said thatChinaisonly place where manufacturers can produce knockoffs of popular consumer electronic devices without getting into trouble in the form of lawsuits and Cease and Desist orders, right? Well, not if Meizu and its M9 smartphone, which is reportedly extremely popular in China, has got anything to say about it.

Apparently, word has it that Meizu, the makers of the popular M-series of smartphones that bear more than just a passing semblance to the likes of Apples iPhones, has been given the go-ahead to sell its M9 smartphone legally in Europe, and has even received the much-needed CE certificate to prove its legality on European soil. According to a report published by Shanzai.com, the M9 was able to clear the tests and meet all the requirements that the EU has imposed in order for such devices to be given the right to be imported and legally sold in Europe.

The report also cited CiPhone, a leading French gadget blog, which claimsto have confirmed the validity ofthe CE certificate for the Meizu M9, and that the company has already performed atranslation of its user interface in order to make it more EU-friendly. This ties in with our earlier story published in December last year, where we pointed out that the company had successfully pushed out an English version of the M9s UI.

Last but definitely not least, Shanzai.com is also claiming that Meizu intends to release a new, updated firmware for the M9 which will allow it to "improve the display of European special characters by fixing the ID3 tag issues and enabling users to remove factory default apps".

Unfortunately, no mention about the M9s suggested retail price for the EU was made in either report, but we are guessing that Meizu willprobably attempt to make it as affordable aspossible for the average Joe. Still, it will be interesting to see how Apple will react to this, considering that the Cupertino giant had previously filed a lawsuit againstthe company over the latters products similarities to the iPhone.

Source: Shanzai.com

New MacBook Air to hit market this month report

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The latest model of Apple's ultra-light MacBook Air is scheduled to hit the market by the end of this month, media in the computer manufacturing hub of Taiwan reported Tuesday.

The first shipment of the next-generation MacBook Air -- the thinnest line of Apple's computer manufacturer.

ECS' A75F-A motherboard gets pictured

Although ECS didnt provide a picture with its announcement earlier today pertaining to its AMD socket FM1 boards, a picture of the A75F-A motherboard has now turned out via a German website. This is the first picture of a production AMD FM1 motherboard to appear and we cant say that were entirely sold on ECS design choices.

Its amazing how much more information you have at your fingertips once a picture is posted of a new motherboard and now we can do a much more detailed breakdown on whats coming. The most obvious part is the CPU socket with the 950-pin FM1 socket and this is also what seems to be the main reason for AMDs change to its CPU cooler retention mechanism. We saw the split design being demonstrated by ASRock at CeBIT earlier this year and it now makes a lot more sense, as the FM1 socket and the AMD3+ will be sharing the same CPU coolers.

The PWM design is really basic, to the extent that were almost surprised had we not seen AMDs in-house testing board already. Were looking at what appears to be a 4+1 phase design. The board has a simple 4-pin +12V connector rather than the now almost standard 8-pin one which together with the PWM design is suggesting that were looking at a fairly power frugal set of CPUs.

The board has a single x16 PCI Express slot, a single x4 PCI Express slot, two x1 PCI Express slots and three PCI Slots. Were not quite sure why ECS has placed them as it has, as if you want to use a dual-width slot in the x4 slot at the same time as using a dual-slot graphics card, then youre out of PCI Express expansion slots.

The board has as we mentioned in our previous news story, five SATA 6Gbps ports and there are also pin headers for what appears to be two USB 3.0 ports, six USB 2.0 ports and a serial and parallel port. Around the back were looking at a PS/2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an eSATA port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and of course an HDMI, DVI and D-sub connector. Theres also a clear CMOS button located here.

Despite being part of ECS Black Deluxe series the A75F-A only has solid capacitors located near power regulation circuitry and elsewhere on the board were looking at traditional electrolyte capacitors, somewhat disappointing on a higher-end board these days. Apparently there support for DDR3 memory up to 1866MHz, at least judging by the silk screening on the PCB. Overall we have mixed feelings about this very first AMD FM1 board, but wed expect better things to come.

Source: PC Games Hardware

Diablo III Breaks Multiple Sales Records

It may have taken them twelve years to make, but it appears that Activision Blizzard have hit the jackpot with Diablo III. According to the company, the long-anticipated game shattered release day records for PC sales, with more than 3.5 million copies sold within the first 24 hours. That totals to roughly $210 million in revenue, but that’s not the end of the story.

Including players that got the game as a tie-in for purchasing a World of Warcraft annual pass, the number of players jumps to 4.7 million worldwide on the first day. Continuing on, Diablo III has sold more than 6.3 million copies in its first week, bringing revenues to an absolutely staggering $378 million.

With numbers like these hammering their servers, it’s no wonder that Blizzard has been struggling with connection issues. Mike Morhaime, Blizzard’s founder and CEO, had this to say about the game’s first week: “Regarding today’s announcement, we recognize that setting a new launch record is a big achievement. However, we’re especially proud of the gameplay feedback we’ve received from players worldwide. We’re pleased that Diablo III has lived up to players’ high expectations, and we’re looking forward to welcoming more players into Sanctuary in the days ahead.”

The full press release can be read here: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?id=5967868

ELSA GLADIAC 880 Series

The well-known graphics boards manufacturer, ELSA Technology Inc. justannounced the new generation graphics boards – ELSA GLADIAC™ 880GTX and ELSAGLADIAC™ 880GTS, powered by lastest generation NVIDIA Geforce™ 8800 graphicsprocessing units.

World’s first DX 10 graphics board
The new generation graphics boards – ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 GTX and ELSA GLADIAC™880GTS fully support Microsoft® DirectX® 10 with Shader Model 4.0 to deliverunparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects. ELSA GLADIAC™880 series support several new technologies. For example, NVIDIA unifiedarchitecture dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex,physics, or pixel shading operations, delivering up to 2x the gaming performanceof prior generation graphics boards.

ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 series with NVIDIA Lumenex™ Engine which support 16xAnti-aliasing and 128-bit floating point HDR, deliver stunning image quality andfloating point accuracy at ultra-fast frame rates. One more special technologyis NVIDIA Quantum Effects™ which enables a new level of physics effects to besimulated and rendered on the GPU so that CPU is able to run the game engine andAI. In the new generation, such lots of new technologies are created fordelivering incredible image quality and improving overall gameplay toward users.ELSA would like to through ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 series bring you an outstandingtrue-to-life gaming experience.

Ultimate home theater experience on PCs
With NVIDIA PureVideo™ technology, ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 series have hardwareacceleration for decoding H.264, VC-1, WMV and MPEG-2 movies that can deliverlifelike images and up to six times the detail of standard DVD movies. Dedicatedvideo processor offloads the CPU and 3D engine of complex video tasks, andprovides a higher quality movie experience. Moreover, post-processing supportincluding advanced de-interlacing, scaling, noise reduction and edge enhancementprovides spectacular picture clarity and detail.

ELSA GLADIAC™ 880GTX and ELSA GLADIAC™ 880GTS provide world-class TV-outfunctionality via Composite, S-Video, Component, or DVI connections and supportHD resolutions up to 1080p depending on connection type and TV capability.Through these new technologies and advanced components, ELSA GLADIAC™ 880 seriescan let you experience enjoyment of home theater on your PC.