adapters

After years of making network storage devices, such as the Western Digital My Book World Edition (2TB) and WD TV Live HD Media Player, Western Digital now turns to making an adapter kit that will connect them.

The giant hard-drive maker announced Tuesday its first powerline adapter kit, the WD Livewire Powerline AV Network Kit. The kit includes two identical HomePlug AV-based powerline adapters, designed to turn the existing electrical wiring of your home into network cables.

Each of these adapter has four network ports; WD says these ports allow you to connect up to seven devices and one router … Read more

We recently took an exclusive look at the Neoya Wii2HDMI adapter for the Nintendo Wii. It's a small $40 attachment that plugs into the Wii's A/V-out port and successfully carries 480p video and stereo audio over a single signal.

Since its launch, we've been desperate for a way to make the Wii an HDMI device because of how easy the interface is to work with; especially with the rise in HDMI-compatible receivers. Better yet, the Wii2HDMI adapter also offers a separate 1/8 inch audio-out for those receivers that can't process audio over HDMI.

We … Read more

It's costly when you have to regularly change your prescription lenses, particularly with heavy computer use leading to astigmatism. So the idea of adaptive lenses whose strength can be adjusted with a twist of the dial on the side is certainly a novel and inspired one.

Adlens' adaptive-lens eyeglasses have hollow lenses with a clear plastic sheet stretched across on the inside. Twist the dial, and fluid pumps in between the sheet and lens, creating a high refractive index. More fluid means more curvature, which means more powerful lenses. When the oil is pumped back out, the lens curvature … Read more

Mitsubishi is now shipping the 3D adapter it showed at CES in January, which allows the company's legacy 3D-compatible DLP-based rear-projection televisions, released between 2007 and 2009, to work with new 3D formats. Contrary to what was previously reported, Mitsubishi has confirmed that its adapter will not support legacy Samsung 3D-compatible DLP and plasma TVs.

The adapter, renamed model 3DA-1, costs $99. It's the only official way we know about to get 3D Blu-ray, PS3, DirecTV, and other 2010 sources in the home without having to buy a new 2010 3D-compatible TV.

The 3DA-1 is designed to convert current 3D formats, namely "frame packing" (used by most 3D Blu-ray content); side-by-side (used by DirecTV's 3D broadcasts); and top-and-bottom to the "checkerboard" display format employed by those Mitsubishi DLP TVs.

The small box has just an HDMI input and output, as well as connections for an IR emitter (not included). In addition to a 3D source and 3D content, owners of legacy Mitsubishi 3D-compatible TVs will also need to purchase 3D glasses and an emitter, or "DLP Link" glasses that do not require an emitter, to enjoy new 3D sources.

To that end, Mitsubishi will in July begin selling its 3D Starter Pack, model 3DC-1000, for $399. The kit combines a 3DA-1 adapter with an IR emitter, two pairs of 3D glasses, an HDMI cable, and "a Disney 3D showcase Blu-ray disc featuring 3D trailers of 'A Christmas Carol,' 'Alice In Wonderland,' and 'Toy Story 3,' along with an educational short on 3D presented by Disney's infamous Timon and Pumba," according to the press release. … Read more

Recording with your iPhone's built-in microphone is a quick and easy way for musicians to sketch out song ideas. But if you're really bent on transforming your iPhone or iPod Touch into a mobile, multitrack recording studio, you'll need to drop some money on a quality recording app, and some kind of adapter for connecting instruments or mixers.

Professional, affordable apps such as FourTrack and FiRe recorder solve the first half of the equation, but shrinking a professional audio interface down to a pocketable iPhone adapter is a tall order.

Fortunately, the folks at Sonoma Wire Works are working on one of the best solutions we've seen yet. The GuitarJack ($199) is due out this fall, and offers a 1/4-inch instrument input, stereo line input, and headphone output, all in an adapter that fits in you palm. More importantly, the line and instrument inputs offer selectable gain pads, 60dB of continuous analog level control, and can be separately assigned for simultaneous dual-mono recording.… Read more

May 6, 2010, may long be remembered as one of the most significant events in the young history of electronic trading. As has been widely reported, at about 2:15 p.m. EDT on that Thursday, several financial indexes experienced a sudden and precipitous drop, losing around 8 percent of their value at the beginning of the day in a matter of minutes. The market recovered much of that loss quickly but closed the day down overall.

While there has been no definitive cause identified for the day's events, many financial market experts have identified the increasing presence of … Read more

This week, we go on and on about incredibly difficult-to-pronounce product names, which is just every product Dong comes in contact with. No, I kid! Actually, no I'm not kidding. No, of course, I'm joking! Um, no, it's true, he really has a problem. Oh, come on, you guys fall for the easiest jokes. Seriously, he needs help.

Then, we talk about games. Dong's playing Starcraft 2 and brags about how he's beating beginners; and I'm knee deep in Super Street Fighter 4 and getting my hat handed to me.

Finally, power-line adapters and … Read more

For a while, it has seemed impossible to design anything new or innovative when it comes to portable hard drives other than to increase their storage space or add minor features, like an e-label, in the case of the WD My Passport Studio. As it turns out, however, Seagate has been working on another major evolution.

The company announced Tuesday an entirely new line of storage solutions called FreeAgent GoFlex that emphasizes flexibility. The new storage family includes both portable and desktop external drives. Each comes with an array of cable adapters that allow it to quickly switch to difference interfaces. With this new family, the concept of an external hard drive has changed significantly.

Traditionally, an external hard drive has circuit boards with selective built-in ports for different interfaces. These interfaces includes USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA. Low-end or ultraportable drives generally support USB 2.0 only, whereas higher-end and desktop drives tend to support more interfaces. However, all of them share one common shortcoming: they are stuck with whatever ports they come with.

With Seagate's new FreeAgent GoFlex design, an external hard drive is now divided into two parts, the storage and the cable adapter. The storage part is just the hard drive itself with no circuit board. Essentially, it's like any internal SATA hard drive with a protective case. The second part is a small adapter that can be snapped-in tight on the first part to make it a complete external storage solution. The two connect via the standard SATA interface.

An adapter contains the circuit board that determines the functionality of the drive and can be designed to support different interfaces and features. Each FreeAgent GoFlex drive will come with a USB 2.0 adapter of its own and have the capability of working with any other adapters. This way, your new external hard drive can be quickly changed to support any interface or have any added features that Seagate offers.

The best thing about the new snap-in adapter design is that the adapters also work with any internal hard drives.… Read more

To all you iPad owners out there (or potential owners), I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the iPad is a fun, elegant, do-everything gadget that's easy to love. The bad news: you're going to baby this thing like nothing before.

Whether its a protective case, a Bluetooth keyboard, or an in-car charger for that summer road trip, there are dozens of accessories for the iPad that warrant consideration. Fortunately, we've thought of everything, and created a handy slideshow that runs through every conceivable iPad accessory on the market--from the … Read more