Psst... hey you. Yeah, you. Tired of having to sleep with one eye on your HDD? Enter Raidon's STARAY S3 Series Data Encryption Box, which enables the drive within to be partitioned into public and private parts. There's also talk of S-Codes and X-Codes in order to ratchet up security, and the keypad-based password entry ensures that data snatchers will have to extract strings of thought from your brain before they can tap into your collection of 1980s-era R&B videos. Get yours sent to an undisclosed underground location for just $69, but don't forget to order up a hard drive while you're at it.

Got a hankering for glossy imagery of those new Samsung S3 and S2 DAPs. We've got the hookup, so knock yourself out. How the photographer made those pebbles look matte we'll never know.

We just got to spend a smidgen of quality time with Samsung's new boringdaps: the S2 and S3. Gone are the pretensions of Bluetooth grandeur of the P2, these two players are about as straightforward as it gets. Samsung's targeting the fashionistas in the crowd, and while the S3 might be a bit larger than they were hoping for in a 4GB player, the S2 "pebble" has kind of a fun feel to it -- though some sort of clip-on apparatus would be appreciated.

Samsung -- known for dropping a PMP or two on the public -- has introduced a couple of new media players sure to have you tearing up and snapping open piggy banks. First up is the S2 "Pebble" player which we saw a little while back, a tiny, rounded DAP with 1GB of storage on-board that can tune in your favorite FM stations (they still have those, right?) as well as play back MP3, WMA, and OGG files. The S2 comes in green, purple, red, and black / white, which should make it easy to match up with your outfit. The other new offering is the S3, a 4GB or 8GB full-function (yet slim) device which sports a 240 x 320 display, plays MP3, MPEG4, and WMA files, includes an FM tuner, flash games, and comes in green, red, blue, or black / white. Both models will be available in June, no word on price. Stay tuned for a thrilling hands-on experience with both new models.

We're beginning to see some more interesting PMPs out of China lately, like this white number out of Acelabs that's listed as the S3 even though it's marked "Handy." The 0.4-inch thick device features a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen, 8GB of microSD-expandable storage and pretty decent codec support including MPEG4, VOB, WMV, and, randomly, Real. Most impressive, however, is the slick-looking touch interface, which actually looks well thought-out for once. No word on whether we'll ever see these over here, as usual, but encouraging nonetheless.

Update: Yep, Acelabs is Korean, not Chinese. Explains the Cowon resemblance a little, doesn't it?

[Via AVING]

IBM's decided that it's had enough of making traditional processors, and instead will head further into the lucrative military and law enforcement business. Big Blue just announced today that it's begun selling the "Smart Surveillance System," or S3. According to Reuters, the new system is able to record video feeds and the analyze the information gathered, sounding an alarm when it "identifies suspicious activity." CNET also reports that IBM is in talks with the federal government to put an S3 along the US-Mexico border. According to IBM, the Feds are "doing backflips" every time they see the S3, which apparently can index and search videos based on specific objects and/or actions. We're still not sure if this is a better system than that web-based border cam setup down in Texas, but perhaps the S3 can spy on those Texan cams to make sure they're getting the job done.

[Via Slashdot]

Read - Reuters
Read - CNET
Read - IBM press release

Digital Camera Resource got their mits on the Canon PowerShot S3 IS recently and were kind enough to post a detailed review for our perusal. While the S3 isn't exactly "an exciting upgrade" over its S2 IS predecessor, the reviewer still found it to be an "excellent" ultra zoom camera. Besides the bump from 5 to 6 mexapixels, the camera's two most touted new features are ISO 800 sensitivity and 60fps QVGA / 30fps VGA recording. Well, the ISO 800 snaps shot under low light were found to be, er, "not usable" while those taken under normal light should be limited to 4x6 prints with the aid of some noise reduction software. However, the overall noise level was still considered "low for a 6 megapixel camera." Meanwhile, the video capabilities were found to be excellent due to stereo sound recording and the ability to zoom silently while filming. However, lacking an MPEG-4 codec means your flicks will hit the 1GB per recording wall in only 9-minutes under the highest quality settings. Overall, the camera earns the reviewer's "enthusiastic recommendation" due to its "very good photo quality" and "snappy performance" in a "solid and capable" ultra zoom camera.