Sights and Sounds of Multimedia
By George Harding
More ShowStoppers …
Digital Innovations (www.digitalinnovations.com) has several small, inexpensive solutions for gaming, security, disk care and repair, and mobile. One of their interesting products is a thumb drive lock. It slips over the USB connector and protects the contents with a combination lock. The lock can’t be removed without destroying the contents, thus keeping your information safe. Only $15.
PC Tools (www.pctools.com) has a series of programs to help protect your computer, including Spyware Doctor, PC Tools Antivirus, Registry Mechanic and Spam Monitor. Spyware Doctor includes not only protection against spyware, but guards against keyloggers, helps prevent harmful cookies and warns against phishing attacks. The signature file is updated daily as necessary and upgrades to the product are free. I installed this to try it out. There’s a lot of stuff in this product! It takes about 9 MB of disk space and 5 MB of memory for the resident app. The automatic update feature works, but keeps doing an update until you restart. The program starts up when Windows starts and stays resident. If you terminate it, it keeps coming back! It got so intrusive that I removed it from my computer.
Mio Technology (www.miogps.com) provides several products that use GPS for auto or personal navigation. Each is small, portable and involves neither an installation nor service fee. No indication of how the GPS operates, since there is no obvious cablin or WiFi hookup. Prices vary.
Dymo (www.dymo.com) offers several label printers that produce excellent quality labels in speedy fashion. The labels can be printed on many different colors and types of stock, which Dymo makes available. I was told that one can even print postage through Stamps.com, which I do now with plain envelopes. Prices of the printers vary.
Panda Software (www.pandasoftware.com) has marketed one of the best anti-virus products on the market for many years. Now, though, they have included TruVector technology, which identifies malware (including new stuff) without updating, and protects against phishing. I’m going to try it out!
Davis Instruments (www.davisnet.com) offers two interesting products. The first is a chip for your car that logs information about your car, such as time and distance, average speed, maximum speed, hard braking and so on. You simply plug it into the OBDII connector in your car, drive, then download the data to your computer. Supplied software provides you with graphic displays of the stored information. Price is $139. The second product is a wireless weather station that transmits data to your desktop console every 2.5 seconds. It collects temperature, pressure, humidity, rainfall, dew point and more. These data can be displayed graphically for your analysis. Prices start at $595 for a wireless model.
www.showstoppers.com
Maximum PC …
This is a monthly magazine which deals exclusively with high-end computers specifically designed for gaming. Just about any PC will run many games, but some games require much more in the way of hardware than the run-of-the-mill PC. The most stringent requirement is usually a video card with extra memory to take the load off the CPU, and specific features to enable better viewing results. Rarely is a special keyboard a necessity. A large monitor, while not absolutely necessary, is very helpful; two monitors may also be useful.
Once each year, the editors of Maximum PC spend a lot of time coming up with the best gaming machine they can dream up, with components that anyone can acquire. While anyone can construct such a machine, not many would be willing to spend the $13,000 or so required to do so!
Maximum PC configures several computers to enable a few games to be played superbly, at a cost of only $8,000 or so, and take them on tour of several US locations, including New York, San Francisco, Dallas and, among others, Tucson. The tour is sponsored by a number of well-known firms, including Dell, Hitachi and several game manufacturers.
I went out to Foothills Mall to check out the equipment and to talk with Clause McIver, Assistant Editor of Maximum PC. The stay in each location is a week except in SF where it’s a month. The Foothills location is at the entrance to the theaters, so that there is a good flow of people. The setup is outside the theaters, but inside the mall. Each computer is installed with a different game and a keyboard specific to that game.
So what is in these fast, but expensive, machines? In a word, dual. Dual dual-core processors, dual chipsets, dual videocards, dual DVD writers, dual-booting OS , two terabytes of storage (five, count ‘em, five hard drives!) and 8 GB of memory. You must admit that’s an impressive array!
www.maximumpc.com
Something different …
Tychi Systems Ships Biometric Doorknob. Tychi Systems, Inc., is shipping their long anticipated BioKnob(TM), the first doorknob with fingerprint recognition. Users brush their finger across the knob to unlock the door. 100 sets of fingerprints can be stored. An audit feature records entries by Individual, Date and Time. Entry is also possible by an individually assigned passcode. A tiny sensor on the BioKnob reads your fingerprint pattern when you brush a finger across it. The pattern is converted into a template. No actual pictures of fingerprints are recorded, so no one can replicate fingerprints from the data. Rechargeable batteries last about three years and there is an advance warning.
www.tychisystems.com
Winter Olympics …
If you’ve been watching the Winter Olympic Games, you know that there are several groups of people to be served by facilities: athletes, coaches, spectators, officials, press and us, the viewing public. The tech part of serving these audiences is nothing short of amazing! Remember that these winter events are spread out all over the mountains in the area. Temperature, too, is probably an important factor.
The network system involves some 22,000 miles cabling, 14,000 telephones, 6,000 radio devices, 5,000 computers, 1,000 printers and 400 servers. While all these connections must be made, continuity of service is just as important.
There are several new technologies being used in this Olympics. One is WiFi capability, which is made unusually difficult because of the mountainous terrain. This will be of special interest to the press, since it can be used to transmit instantaneous photos of events. The other new technology is HDTV. All the TV broadcasts will be in high definition. This means higher quality equipment than has ever before been used at the Olympics.
Of course, the Internet will be heavily used by many participants. Nearly all athletes have a personal web page with information they want you to know. NBC has a special web site with a tremendous amount of text, photo and video information you can sample.
The firm provided the technical side of Olympic network facilities is Atos Origin, based in Paris. You may not be familiar with that name, but it is one of the largest tech service companies in Europe. They began their work with teht 2002 Salt Lake City games and will continue through the 2012 games in London.
www.nbcolympics.com
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