Though it's not the first box we've seen built to take your local backups elsewhere, the Datto Backup NAS drive could certainly fill a gaping security hole at many small / medium-sized businesses that are currently operating without any kind of off-site storage. Said devices come in 100GB and 500GB versions, play nice with Windows, Mac or Linux setups and pipe your data to secure external servers (using AES+ SSL key-based encryption, too) in order to keep the process load off of your machine(s). Granted, the annual service fee is $99 for 100GB and $249 for 500GB (monthly plans available), but that does include free support, 24 / 7 backup monitoring and the promise of bringing you back up to speed in under 24 hours should disaster strike. Both drives are available now for $399 and $599, respectively. [Warning: PDF read link]

Taking Paper Mario to its logical -- albeit extreme -- conclusion, an artist / DIY'er named Keith Lam has created the first physical, playable implementation of Super Mario Brothers. By emphasizing Mario's movement on the background, and turning the "TV" into the object which moves, the character appears to traverse the familiar landscape of SMB, complete with collision detection, brick movement, and mechanized jumping. The "system" is built using a chain-driven platform, which is shakily directed with an actual NES (well, Famicom) controller, thus allowing for some game play -- though with response times like this, you're better off just watching. Speaking of, check the video after the break and see the system in action.

[Via Wired]

Sure, Acer may be marketing its Extensa lineup to small business owners, but there's nothing that says bargain hunters can get in on one, too. The 14.1-inch Extensa 4620 comes loaded with Windows XP Professional (sorry, Vista aficionados), 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, dual-layer DVD burner, 802.11a/b/g WiFi, gigabit Ethernet, a 56k modem, GMA 3100 graphics chipset and a six-cell Li-ion good for around two hours. The first of the two 4620 iterations (that'd be the 6294, break out the pencils!) sports an Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 CPU, while the 4620-4054 rocks a T2310. According to Acer, both of the lappies are available now throughout North America for $799 and $699, respectively.

[Via I4U News]

Although we were able to get the BH200 to pose for a few glamour shots back at CEDIA, the recently released player has just now got around to checking in for a review. According to Home Theater Mag, the BH200 exhibited "stunning" image quality from both Blu-ray and HD DVD titles, and moreover, the video processing (DVD upconversion included) was "as good as any it had seen in a disc player." Unfortunately, the (high) praise essentially ended there. First and foremost, it made little sense to the reviewer to pay such a high premium ($999) for a dual-format unit unless you place a great deal of value on size and convenience. Beyond that, the player really dropped the ball on high-resolution audio playback, as HTM couldn't even get it to output Dolby TrueHD in multichannel form from "any output, at any resolution." Overall, the BH200 turned out to be a mixed bag, and while strict videophiles may find nothing to kvetch about, its inability to handle certain audio codecs was viewed as a "serious shortcoming." Nevertheless, there's much, much more where this came from if you're in the market, so head on over to the read link to catch the full spill.

[Via AVSForum]

Buffalo's out tooting its own horn today, as the AirStation Wireless-G MIMO Performance Router claims to be the "first commercial wireless router to come with DD-WRT firmware pre-installed." Aimed squarely at the SMB and SOHO market, the WHR-HP-G54DD (WHR-HP-G54 pictured) is the first device to emerge from the firm's partnership with NewMedia-NET. Of note, this device features five QoS levels to prioritize traffic, optimized link state routing (OLSR), a data transfer application with VPN functionality, PPTP protocol support, WMM and DDNS, and a bevy of management applications including remote network status logging, remote web management via HTTPS and web-based backup / restore. If all this sounds like your cup of tea, you can pick one up now for £41.70 ($86), and you can check out the full (and we mean full) list of specifications right there in the read link.

Following up on the firm's TS-109, the all new two-bay, hot-swappable TS-209 NAS server ratchets things up a notch for SMB and SOHO. QNAP's latest Pro Turbo Station hopes to catch the eye of the almighty suits, and packs a fairly potent 500MHz processor, gigabit Ethernet port, and 128MB of DDR2 RAM within to "significantly boost file sharing speed." Moreover, ingrained server features such as automatic syncing / backup, SSH remote login, and cross-platform sharing for Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX machines are included, and the device can be equipped with up to 2TB of storage in a RAID 1 mirroring array. Look for this one to land next month for a currently undisclosed price.

[Thanks, Ivan H.]

Well, it looks like Cisco CEO John Chambers spoke a little too soon last Friday when he said that the Linksys brand was going the way of the dodo -- Cisco is now saying that it will continue selling Linksys-branded products "in the near term," and that changes would only come "if and when these changes add value to our customers' decision making processes." In other words, Linksys ain't dead yet, but the axe is still mighty close.

Linksys fanboys, if there even are such creatures, best get used to seeing a lot more Cisco and a lot less of their favorite brand, as Cisco CEO John Chambers recently announced at a European roundtable discussion (video after the jump) that Linksys products would now sport the Cisco name. Chambers was quoted as saying that "it would all come, over time, into a Cisco brand," and he also noted that the reason the Linksys name was kept alive was because "it was better known in the US than even Cisco was for the consumer." As the firm "goes globally," he concluded, there would be "little advantage" in keeping it around. Sayonara, dear Linksys.

[Via TheInquirer]

Fresh off its acquisition of Infrant Technologies, Netgear is unloading a bevy of new RAID NAS products, a host of small to mid-size business networking gear, and a newfound partnership with Avaya to provide VoIP to SMB customers. On the storage front, the four-bay ReadyNAS NV+ (desktop) and ReadyNAS 1100 (rackmount) devices support RAID 0/1/5 and X-RAID, automated backups and alerting, gigabit Ethernet, UPnP AV multimedia access, a number of USB ports, and room for up to four SATA drives. As for networking gear, the company is busting out its new WFS709TP ProSafe Smart Wireless Switch, WGL102 ProSafe 802.11g Light WAP, WAGL102 ProSafe Dual Band Light WAP, eight-port GS108T Gigabit Ethernet Smart Switch, 24-port GS724TP Smart PoE Switch, and a monstrous 48-port GS748TP Smart PoE Switch to finish things off. As if that wasn't enough to digest, Netgear is also partnering up with Avaya to provide "an IP telephony solution for small businesses with 20 users or less." The newfangled lineups will be available at varying times and prices, so be sure to visit the read link for specifics on each individual model.

[Via SmallNetBuilder]

Hot on the heels of yet another big time acquisition between Philips and DLO comes news that Netgear will be snapping up the privately-held Infrant Technologies for a cool $60 million in cash. All 34 employees will soon be wearing Netgear badges, and Infrant's CEO will move over and become Netgear's Vice President and General Manager for storage products. Essentially, Netgear is hoping that this move will strengthen the firm's presence in the enterprise and small-business storage realm, as it can now offer up a trusted name in RAID-based NAS products for SMB, SOHO, and the home. More specifically, the ReadyNAS, RAIDiator, and X-RAID portfolios were the targets of Netgear's desire, and while details on branding and the timeframe for the merge weren't noted, it sounds like Netgear's ready to get this party started on the double.

[Thanks, Matt]

Look out folks, as just one month after Buffalo cranked the NAS ante up to 3TB, we've got a new kid on the block holding down the mighty four-oh. MicroNet's Platinum NAS 4.0 indeed packs a whopping 4,000GB on just four SATA hard drives, and while the company didn't go out of its way to divulge exactly which units were stuffed within, we've all got our hunch. Regardless, this device also features 256MB of write-back / write-through error correcting cache memory, Windows / OS X / Linux compatibility, RAID 0/1/5 support, an Intel XScale 64-bit network storage processor, dual-channel gigabit Ethernet connectivity, a lightweight aluminum design, and it even consumes about "one-third less power" than similar alternatives. Cleverly, MicroNet only asserted that the 1TB edition would hit in Q2 for $879, but we're confident the flagship version will tack on quite a premium for all its capaciousness.

[Via MacWorld]

Remember those five teenage girls from Ravenna, Ohio, who on the eve of April first placed seventeen Mario Bros. inspired question cubes around town? Well, after HAZMAT, the Fire Dept. and the five-O were called in and the dust settled it looked like those little ladies were in for some serious trouble. Though it turns out the town of 12,000's dropping the case against them, the case prosecutor stating of the squeaky-clean teens he does "not believe that they had any bad or malicious intentions." Gee, ya think? Sure, we can understand a little why some people who didn't ever play Mario (unlike Engadget or our readers) might have gotten concerned at the sight of these boxes, but we're just glad that a slight case of Midwest terrorist hysteria didn't ultimately result in some crazed teenage witch hunt.

[Via Joystiq]