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LAS VEGAS--If you are looking to upgrade your existing computer to support 802.11ac, without having to get a new computer entirely, here's something to look forward to.

Trendnet announced today at CES 2013 its first USB 3.0 802.11ac W-Fi adapter, the AC1200 Dual Band Wireless USB 3.0 adapter, model TEW-805UB.

This adapter card supports the dual-stream setup Wi-Fi standard and offers the cap speed of up to 867Mbps, when used with a 802.11ac router. It also works with existing Wireless-N routers and offers up to 300Mbps data rate in this case.

The new adapter … Read more

A new specification being pushed by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group offers double the current throughput rate while maintaining backward compatibility.

The latest generation of USB 3.0 technology supports data transfer rates of up to 5Gbps, and has been one answer to the increasing I/O bottleneck for many peripheral devices, especially high-speed storage solutions.

The backward compatibility of USB 3.0 with prior versions of the protocol has made it quite convenient for users, but it has competition from the Thunderbolt technology from Intel and Apple. Thunderbolt has quadruple the overall data throughput of USB 3.0 … Read more

Computing industry powers are doubling the data-transfer speed of USB 3.0 from today's 5 gigabits per second rate to 10Gbps.

The move will uncork speed bottlenecks of external SSD storage devices, open up options such second monitors, and help confine the even faster Thunderbolt interface to a high-end niche.

But it won't happen immediately. The specification should be done in mid-2013, which "will enable initial products to appear in late 2014 with a much broader availability of products in 2015," according to the USB 3.0 Promoter Group, which announced the faster Universal Serial Bus … Read more

In the future, you'll be able to unlock your Hyundai car, start its engine, and more with little more than your NFC-enabled smartphone. Using the new Hyundai i30 (known here in the States as the Elantra GT) as its Connectivity Concept test platform, Hyundai showed off a variety of wireless technologies that it hopes to implement as early as 2015.

According to Hyundai, "the Connectivity Concept allows the user to lock and unlock the car by placing their smartphone over an NFC-tag (near-field communication), negating the need for a traditional key fob." Upon entering the vehicle, placing … Read more

Regular readers know that flash-drive prices have plummeted in the past year. But you know what all those dirt-cheap drives have had in common? A USB 2.0 interface.

What is this, 2001? USB 2.0 is over, man. It's the digital equivalent of the horse and buggy. And yet it's still pretty rare to find flash drives that support the newer, faster USB 3.0 spec.

That's why I'm jazzed about today's deal. While supplies last, Ice Monkey has the Super Talent ST3U32ST1K 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $19.99 shipped. Elsewhere … Read more

Facebook 4 Mac is an app that lets you access your Facebook account from outside a Web browser. A free download, Facebook 4 Mac installs quickly and with no issues.

Facebook 4 Mac launches with a log-in window in which you enter your Facebook account credentials. From there, you can use this app to access your friend list, browse mail and chat sessions, and perform many actions you would normally perform through a Web browser. Essentially providing the Facebook interface in an app form instead of a browser window, Facebook 4 Mac allows you to interact with Facebook without worrying … Read more

Mouse clickers are tools that click your mouse buttons automatically at preset intervals. Free Mouse Auto Clicker is a simple, no-nonsense utility that single-clicks or double-clicks your right or left mouse button at intervals ranging from hours to fractions of a second. It also starts and stops hotkeys. It runs unobtrusively, with a System Tray icon you can click to call it up.

Free Mouse Auto Clicker's user interface is very basic, with all its controls right in the layout. Don't get us wrong: Plain and simple is a fine combination in software utilities, especially those that are … Read more

Seagate announced today a new version of the Backup Plus portable drive designed especially for Macs.

The new Backup Plus family was first introduced back in June, initially available for Windows. The drive offers USB 3.0 and comes with the HFS+ file system out of the box.

The Backup Plus family replaces Seagate's GoFlex family but still offers a flexible design thanks to the Universal Storage Module (USM) standard, which basically allows you to use any type of connection standard (USB, FireWire, eSATA, or even Thunderbolt) just by swapping out the adapter part of the drive. The drive … Read more

Learn Mac Edition is, not surprisingly, a port of the Learn tool to the Mac platform. A video training course app, Learn Mac Edition installs easily and launches with more than 5 hours (approximately 90 different lessons) of high-resolution training videos included. Of course, if you like the approach Learn Mac Edition takes, you can buy additional videos online for $1.99 each.

The basic lessons included with Learn Mac Edition cover basic aspects of using OS X (including eight videos on new Mountain Lion features). There's a set of videos on basic desktop and Finder use, and a … Read more