Todays & Tomorrows Technology

Feeling a little wistful for the old days when USB flash drives costs hundreds of dollars apiece? Then you may want to pick up Kingston's new 128GB DataTraveler 200, which is apparently not only largest drive of its type to date but, at $546, one of the most expensive as well. In addition to that added storage space, that hefty price will also buy you a fairly rugged drive with a capless design, plus some built-in password protection and the usual Windows ReadyBoost capabilities. Of course, if you don't need that extra space, you can simply pick up Kingston's 32GB or 64GB drives, which run a slightly more reasonable $120 and $213, respectively.

With nary another word in terms of specs or details, one lucky forum goer at NotebookReview has posted what looks to be pics of a new, as of yet unannounced Dell Latitude Z Series laptop. Not much to say at the moment, aside from the obvious Adamo influence, but we did spot a biometric fingerprint scanner, an oddly-placed ethernet port in the back, and Windows / Intel Centrino stickers. Earlier in the thread another person, albeit lacking any physical proof of owning one, chimed in to say it'd have a 15-inch matte screen, Core 2 Duo processor, webcam with facial recognition, and DisplayPort, with a scheduled release a week from today. Judging by the ports in the pics, it's definitely a thin one -- could we be seeing Dell finally dip its toes into the CULV market? With any luck, we'll be hearing more about this soon.

Face it, not all mods are created equal. Take this SNES PC Case Mod, for instance, built by quangDX and DuPPs (their real names? we think not). Sure, they could've just crammed some PC guts in there and called it a day, but with love, care and some Lego spacers, they've crafted a true piece of art. The gutted Super Mario World cartridge acts as a slot-loading CD drive, there's a perfect lineup of connectivity in the back, and the real piece of magic: USB extenders disguised as regular controller plugs, and a reworked SNES controller to plug into 'em. The main guts are courtesy of an Acer Aspire One, and even the webcam and mic have been crammed into the front of that poor shredded cartridge. This is how it's done, folks.

It's hard to believe this is really the first official confirmation that BlackBerry Tour is bound for Verizon's network, given what we've seen and heard so far, but that's exactly what we've got. The self-proclaimed "America's Best 3G Network" company has unveiled a teaser page for the smartphone. Not much else here other than a fancy product shot and a newsletter sign up, but more importantly, it looks like an official launch can't be too far off now.

New BlackBerry models are few and far between -- particularly of the CDMA variety -- so when one is announced, the usual carrier suspects typically fall in line within a few weeks of each other and announce their branded versions in rapid succession. This one was particularly tight, though: Sprint has announced its plans for carrying the Tour 9630 just minutes after Verizon. It'll launch "later this summer" for $199.99 after $150 worth of rebates and a two-year contract, which makes the Pre comparison virtually inevitable. Keep the comments civil, though, alright?

First is the PJD6381, which features a .68 throw ratio, a 2,500 lumens brightness level and a 2,500:1 contrast ratio with a 1,024 x 768 resolution. A release date is expected in August and it will sell for $1,249.

Next is the PJD6211 and the PJD6221, which are the more middle of the road models. They have a 1,024 x 768 resolution and several inputs including VGA, S-Video and composite. Both will be available next month for $849 and $999, respectively.

Samsung announced an update to their S1 Mini external hard drive line today that adds a new 160GB model to the mix. As if that weren’t enough, you’ll now be able to choose from two additional Pop colors.
The 1.8-inch S1 Mini line already comes in Snow White, Piano Black, Wine Red and Chocolate Brown but now you have the additional options of Ocean Blue and Sweet Pink.

About the size of a credit card, the S1 features auto back-up, a capacity gauge, a USB 2.0 connection, 128-bit and 256-bit AES encryption, password security and a standby mode. You can get the updated S1 Mini line in Korea now and will be available elsewhere by the end of the month.

Novatel Wireless’ MiFi 2352 is the third of the company’s “Intelligent Mobile Hotspots” that we’ve unboxed here on SlashGear, but unlike Verizon’s and Sprint’s the 2352 is a GSM/UMTS device rather than EVDO Rev.A. Launching today on Telefonica Espana [pdf link], the MiFi 2352 features 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA, sharing that connection out for up to five WiFi b/g clients. We caught up with Novatel in London today, to find out what else makes the MiFi 2352 special; you can also see the first video unboxing of the portable 3G router after the cut.


As with the Sprint and Verizon models, the concept behind the MiFi 2352 is simple: pay for one 3G mobile broadband connection, and share it between your various WiFi-enabled devices. The MiFi 2352 supports triband HSPA (900/1900/2100MHz) and quadband GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900MHz) together with A-GPS, WiFi b/g and WEP/WPA/WPA2 security. There’s also a microSDHC slot, which you can use to share files between the WiFi clients.

Novatel are particularly proud of the MiFi’s ability to quickly serve up a landing page. The complexity of that page depends on the carrier: Sprint and Verizon have used the default setup system (and Verizon also use a connection manager, though Sprint’s MiFi does without) whereas Telefonica have gone one step further and created a new landing page with full microSDHC access, shortcuts to the carrier’s support pages and widgets. Right now the widgets include geotagging and geosearch, but Novatel talked about cloud-based storage back at CES and it seems likely that an enabling widget for that will arrive soon enough.

ASUS have been showing off their Eee Keyboard since CES back in January, but until now it’s always been demonstrated running Windows XP. Now the Eee Keyboard – which has a 5-inch touchscreen and is intended to function as a media PC – has been given a shot of Moblin, Intel’s Linux-based OS.

The model you can see is only a prototype at present, but there’s no reason that ASUS couldn’t deliver a Moblin version alongside the Windows XP Eee Keyboard. Hardware in this case looks to be unchanged, so we’d still expect the same Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of SSD storage. Wireless HDMI is believed to be an option.

What the video doesn’t show is any media functionality, so it remains to be seen what advantages there Moblin may bring over the Microsoft OS. ASUS have repeatedly assured us that the Eee Keyboard will launch this month, priced at around $400.

The ASUS Eee PC T91 has made its official debut on the company’s US website, and according to one dealer it’s apparently set to hit stores this week. The 8.9-inch convertible touchscreen netbook is already available in the UK, with Intel’s Z520 1.33GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD.

There’s also ASUS’ Super Hybrid Engine, which can be used to boost battery life to up to 5hrs, and optional HSDPA cellular connectivity. Standard wireless includes WiFi draft-n and Bluetooth. Other options are a TV tuner and GPS receiver.

So far we’re unclear on how much the Eee PC T91 will cost in the US. UK pricing for the convertible netbook is around £449 ($684) but the company has not yet commented.