hanwha
Latest
Hanwha unleashes HDMI / USB adapter for iPad, iPhone 4, and fourth-gen iPod touch
Feel the desire to watch your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch (fourth gen) videos on the big screen, but looking for something with a little more girth than Apple's HDMI solution? Hanwha's latest dongle might do the job. As you can see above, in place of the original adapter's dock connector port is a USB 2.0 socket -- compatible with cameras supporting mass storage connection -- alongside the 720p-friendly HDMI port, but you'll have to use the switch to toggle between the two modes. And that little mini-USB port on the far right? Well, it's there to provide some juice to "reduce battery drain," but probably not enough to charge up your iDevice. If you're still interested and have a friend in Japan, Hanwha's charging ¥5,980 (around $73), which is almost double that of Apple's $39 connector. Is USB support worth such a price jump? Your call.
Digital Cowboy's DC-MCNP1 2.5-inch NAS doubles as media player
It's a little hard to believe that we've gone two whole months without a new device from Digital Cowboy, but at long last, the Japanese wrangler is hitting back with a striking new piece of consumer electronics goodness. The DC-MCNP1, which falls neatly into the Movie Cowboy family, is a 2.5-inch NAS drive at heart, but aside from giving you access to files on its diminutive internal drive anywhere in the world, it also streams a plethora of file formats to your HDTV. The HDMI / composite video outputs should take care of the vast majority of ya, and the USB 2.0 socket provides an expansion option for those needing to hook up an external HDD. An Ethernet port is built in for network access, but those who'd prefer to cut the cord can certainly plug a wireless adapter into that USB socket and pray continuously to the signal gods above. If you find yourself in Fukuoka next month, give this one a look if you've got ¥19,900 ($209) to spare.
Hanwha's Duo for Laptop lets you doodle on your standard 15.4-inch laptop
Here's a novel idea -- turning one's standard, non-tablet PC into a tablet PC. Hanwha Japan has just introduced its incredibly useful Duo for Laptop device, which sits gently atop one's laptop display and tracks digital pen movements via Infrared and ultrasonic technology in order to add doodling functionality to LCDs that were never designed to understand touch input. The only limitation -- and it's a big one -- is that this seems to only work with lappies possessing up to a 15.4-inch display. If that's kosher with you, you can snap one up for ¥9,980 ($101), or if not, you can just wait 'til these are announced for netbooks, ultraportables and desktop replacements.[Via Engadget Japanese]
