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Panasonic's DY-PS10 Pocket Server streams music to your iPhone, fits in your pocket as advertised
How to get all of the entertainment content you want onto your iPhone? If you live in Japan, have a free pocket, and don't mind shelling out the ¥14,800 ($191), Panasonic's Pocket Server DY-PS10 should do the trick. The handset-sized device can stream content from its built-in SD card slot to your iPhone / iPod touch via a wireless connection. The Pocket Server can handle H.264 files, JPEGs, and MP3s, and the battery should give you about 10 hours of playback. The device will go on sale September 15th in Japan. The rest of us, meanwhile, will have to find other things to fill our pockets with.
Iomega's SuperHero for iPhone provides an iTunes-free backup solution
Personally, I have no issue with plugging my iPhone into my Mac every evening before I head to bed, recharging it, backing up my contacts and photos, and syncing my podcasts and music when I want it to. But I've heard before that a surprising number of iPhone (and iPod touch) users don't ever connect their devices to iTunes, and that theory is supported by Apple's big drive to go "PC Free" in iOS 5, leaving a PC or Mac connection out of the equation completely. For those not interested in connecting their iPhones to an actual computer every evening, Iomega is there with its SuperHero dock system, which I saw earlier this year at CES and tried out recently. The device is basically just a dock which plugs into the wall, and has only a power cord input and an SD card slot on it. Combined with an app you can pick up free from the App Store (and in fact, you're prompted to download the app the first time you plug in), the dock automatically backs up photos and contacts onto an SD card, and charges your device. The device was $69.99 at launch, but is now available for as low as $39.99, and at that price, I can see a lot of good uses for it beyond just the most basic of someone who might not understand iTunes or deal with a full sync every time they plug an iPhone in. This could be a good solution for an office or school backup system, where you might not be able to install iTunes and run a full sync on a work PC. Or it might just be a good way to offload your contacts and photos, keeping them in yet another location. The actual setup runs smoothly -- it really is designed for newbies, as it only takes about three taps to install the app early on, and afterward the app runs without any prompting. Plug your iPhone into the dock and let it go. Backup of contacts is quick, though photos takes significantly longer. I just got back from a trip, and loading the 17 photos I took with my iPhone took around 30 minutes. Still, this kind of "set it and forget it" backup is very useful, and of course there are options to not run contact or photos backup if you don't want to. You can also restore contacts and photos directly from the dock itself, so if you ever need to replace your phone, that's all very easy to do, even without a computer. Unfortunately, I don't have multiple iPhones for testing, but presumably, you might be able to use this system to copy contacts over across multiple iPhones -- each backup file is named separately on the SD card (controlled by another option), but it might be possible to plug in a different iPhone, and restore the contacts from there. One issue I had is that there's no way of pausing or cancelling a backup in progress, short of just pulling your iPhone out of the dock. But then again, that works all right, and the sync will just pick up where it left off when you replace the phone, so it's probably better not to have the extra UI anyway. Finally, there's one more option to encrypt contacts with a password if you like, providing a layer of security (which might be important if you set this up at your workplace). That's easy enough to do, though you have to remember that the security is only as good as your password, which you re-enter every time you run a restore. Iomega's SuperHero is a solid little device with quite a few different uses. Originally, I thought it was meant more as a dummy-proof way to get your iPhone backed up, but after using it, I can see quite a few places where a PC free way to get your iPhone's contacts and photos saved on an SD card could come in handy. It also works with the iPod touch. Even in Apple's brand new world of iCloud, where all of this information will be automatically saved on their servers, I can see reasons why the especially careful or paranoid might still want that extra backup functionality built into a charger, and especially after the drops in the SuperHero's price since launch, the SuperHero is a good deal. Iomega's made a weird little creature here with this dock, but it seems destined to be the platypus of iOS backup, sticking to old ways even when normal evolution might have deemed otherwise.
Delkin intros 64GB SDXC card, claims to be the fastest with 45MBps write speeds
We have a sneaking suspicion we've written this post before. Oh wait, we did -- sort of. Months after taking a victory lap to flaunt the world's fastest SDHC card, Delkin is back, this time with a superlatively speedy SDXC in tow. The 64GB Elite633 card promises read and write speeds of 95 MBps and 45 MBps, respectively -- that compares with 95MBps and 80MBps for the company's 32GB SDHC. With a price of $539.99, of course, it wasn't exactly intended for those of you who are too lazy to dump some 17,000-odd photos onto a hard drive. Rather, it'll come in handy for the enthusiast crowd, especially folks with a penchant for high-def and 3D video. As for the rest of you casual shooters, we're quite partial to a game we like to call, "How much camera could I get for that $540?"
Sony PlayStation Vita's removable memory looks like it's an SD card, but it isn't
Sony's seen fit to tell us many of the PlayStation Vita's specs, how much it'll cost ($249 for WiFi, $299 for 3G), and who gets it (everyone). Amidst all the hullabaloo at E3 2011, however, we missed seeing that Sony was showing off the new handheld's internal memory cards. Good thing an eagle-eyed member of the public snapped a pic of the 4, 8, 16, and 32GB cards on the show floor. They look awfully similar to garden variety SD cards, only there's a little notch in the side confirming they hew to Sony's unfortunate habit of using proprietary storage formats. The cost of the cards remains shrouded in secrecy, but life's more fun when a little mystery's involved, right?
AirStash wireless flash drive (and iOS app) review
We love ourselves extra storage as much as the next guy, and we also happen to hate cables as much the next guy, so whenever a device promises some extra wiggle room with no strings attached, we're all ears. The AirStash is a wireless flash drive that lets you expand the capacity of your mobile device up to 32GB at a time through swappable SD cards, freeing up local storage for apps and the like. We first got our paws on one back at CES, but now that it's a shipping product and has a finalized iOS app, we gave it a quick shakedown as promised to see whether this gadget is worth dipping into your personal stash for. %Gallery-124463%
LCD-equipped Cisco REN301 Residential Gateway stops by FCC, reveals all its dirty secrets
Ah, the all too familiar WiFi troubleshooting dance: the network goes down, you dig through the closet for an Ethernet cable, saunter over to the router, jack yourself in, type in the IP address, and start poking around at your settings. Cisco's REN301 Residential Gateway (a fancy way of saying "router"), which just passed through the FCC, could make things at least a little bit easier thanks to its built-in LCD screen and capacitive touch controls. Wave your hand over the display to bring it to life and you can check the status of your connections, modify some basic settings, and peruse a log of calls that have come in over the SIP VoIP phone jacks. The REN301, which has a single band 802.11b/g/n radio, can also turn USB drives and SD cards into NAS storage -- the company even throws in a 32GB card to get you started. We don't have a price or release date, but since it's been splayed open for federal regulators we probably won't have to wait long. There's a couple of pics of the router's UI after the break.
Eye-Fi Direct Mode is here, turns tablets and smartphones into must-have camera accessories
Eye-Fi promised that its Direct Mode for beaming photos straight from your camera to your smartphone or tablet would land this week, and we're pleased to announce the company has kept its word. Just pop your X2 card into a computer, launch the Eye-Fi Center, and you should be prompted to install the new firmware -- version 4.5022. All you have to do then is install the Eye-Fi app on your Android or iOS device, pair it with your camera (you did remember to put the card back in your camera, right?), and you're ready to rock and/or roll. From then on, any pics you snap with your Eye-Fi-equipped cam will automatically beam themselves to your handheld, and sharing on Picasa or Eye-Fi View is just a tap or two away. If you need a bit of a refresher on what Direct Mode looks like in action, just check out our hands-on from CES.
Eye-Fi launching new 8GB wireless SD card today, kicking out Direct Mode for iOS and Android next week
Remember how Eye-Fi was cooking up some software to let their WiFi-enabled SD memory cards sling photos directly to your tablet or phone? Here's some sweet news -- starting next week, Direct Mode will be a free download for any Eye-Fi X2 card, and debut alongside companion apps in the Android Market and iTunes App Store. Moreover, the company's celebrating the launch of the new transfer protocol with a brand-new card, the $80 Eye-Fi Mobile X2, which should be available for purchase online momentarily and make its merry way to Best Buy and Apple stores by April 17th. Basically, the Mobile is a redux of the $50 Connect X2, but with double the storage capacity (8GB) and Direct Mode pre-installed -- though a price drop on the top-of-the-line Pro X2 (to $100) will add geotagging and RAW support for just one Jackson more. Need a refresher on how Direct Mode works? Peek our CES video demo (and a hefty press release) after the break.
Delkin Elite 633 claims to be the fastest SDHC card with 80MBps write speeds
We can't say we're pleased that camera makers still haven't called an armistice in their megapixel war, but a race for the speediest memory card is one battle we can get behind. Delkin says its 32GB Elite 633 SDHC is the fastest in the world, with 80MBps and 95MBps write and read speeds, respectively, handily trumping Sony's new Memory Sticks that so recently impressed us. This card's ideal for people who shoot gobs of 1080p video, 3D movies, and high-resolution shots coupled with RAW files, but with a price of $440, it's only worth it for pros. And debutants.
Philips' new camcorder comes with 23x zoom and WiFi, but no price or release date
Philips makes plenty of audio / video equipment for use when consuming our content, but until now, the company didn't offer many options on the creating end. Well, Philips fanboys (they exist, don't they?), take a gander at your next must-buy purchase -- the ESee HD camcorder touts a 23x zoom, 1080p recording to an SD card, touchscreen viewfinder (of unknown size), WiFi for uploading vids (so as not to keep fans waiting for your next cinematic masterpiece), and an audio zoom feature. Yeah, a zoom for your audio. Details about pricing and availability are nowhere to be found, but not knowing makes you want it all the more, right? [Thanks, Jakob]
Android 2.3 security bug shows microSD access vulnerability
A researcher at North Carolina State University is warning of an Android 2.3 security vulnerability that gives attackers access to your personal information, further proof that Gingerbread isn't all sugar and spice (to be fair, that SMS issue has since been remedied). According to Xuxian Jiang, the bug allows malicious websites to access and upload the contents of a user's microSD card, including voicemails, photos, and online banking information to a remote server. The flaw apparently resembles a similar bug in previous version of Android, thought to have been addressed with Gingerbread. However, as Jiang points out, that fix is easily bypassed. Apart from removing the microSD card, disabling JavaScript, or switching to a third-party browser, Android 2.3 users have little recourse in squashing the bug. The folks at eWeek reported that Google is working on a solution to the problem, but there's no word on when we can expect to see an update.
Eye-Fi's Direct Mode hands-on: from camera to tablet in seconds (video)
We have to say, we're pretty pumped about Eye-Fi's new Direct Mode, and that's not just because it's free -- CEO Jef Holove showed us how his wireless SD cards can fire snapshots from a point-and-shoot camera straight to a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and it looks like a breeze. Once the free update launches later this year, you'll just need to download the Eye-Fi app, and select your Eye-Fi X2 card from a list to permanently pair them -- much like Bluetooth or a WiFi access point -- and then whenever you shoot within range, the pics will automatically spirit themselves to your Android, and can send them to Picasa or Eye-Fi View from there with an additional tap. See Direct Mode do its thing in the video above.
Iomega SuperHero iPhone dock backs up photos to SD memory card
We forget how important our photos are until we lose them. The 5 megapixel camera in the iPhone 4 encourages a lot of picture taking, but most of us put our phones on a charger over night instead of docking with our computers, so our photos aren't getting backed up. The Iomega® SuperHero™ Backup and Charger for iPhone aims to solve that problem with a dock that backs up your camera roll photos and contacts while recharging your iPhone. Keep it by your bed, and you won't forget. The charger and accompanying backup app will be available later this month. To make photo backup part of your daily routine, you'll need to download the free SuperHero iPhone Backup app from the Apple app store, and run the app when you dock your phone. The dock and app support iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4. For US$69.99, the Iomega SuperHero dock comes with a 4 GB SD memory card, but if you shoot a lot, or keep a year's worth of photos and videos on your camera roll like some friends I know, you can swap that out for a 16 GB or 32 GB SD card. If your phone is lost, damaged or stolen, you should first restore your latest backup from iTunes (you are backing up at least occasionally, aren't you?), then restore last night's backup of contacts and photos from the dock. The dock doesn't back up email or apps, but your email is on your email server and you can re-download apps from the App Store, so those aren't as critical as your once-in-a-lifetime photo ops. To get notified when the dock is available, sign up at the Iomega SuperHero product page, and while you're waiting, head on over to Engadget to watch Iomega's video ad reminding you just how many moments can lead to needing this dock. [via Engadget]
Eye-Fi's Direct Mode unites phone and camera in holy matrimony
The WiFi-enabled SD card wizards at Eye-Fi already have a mobile app kicking around that lets you upload shots from your phone to the cloud, but their relationship with mobile is about to get a whole lot cozier with the introduction of Direct Mode. Basically, Direct Mode lets the Eye-Fi card in your camera communicate directly with your tablet or phone -- with Eye-Fi software installed, of course -- giving you direct and immediate access to the photos that are on your camera without the need to either cable up or first allow the card to upload the images to a photo sharing service before they can be pulled back down on the mobile device. Granted, the cameras inside phones are getting better by the day, but most of them still don't come anywhere near serious point-and-shoot quality -- and that seems to be the angle Eye-Fi's trying to attack here, making it dead simple to share your "real" camera photos just as quickly as you would had you taken them with your phone itself. Look for it as a free upgrade for Eye-Fi's existing line of X2 cards "later in 2011." Free's nice, eh? Follow the break for the press release.
Planex MZK-SNG02US brings DLNA to your SD cards and USB drives
Not looking to go all out with a DLNA-ready NAS or dedicated media player to get some streaming started on your home network? Then you might be able to get by with something like Planex's new MZK-SNG02US device, which packs a single USB port and an SD card slot, and basically acts as DLNA-enabled bridge between your storage media and your router. Unfortunately, it looks like this one is only available in Japan at the moment, and its ¥8,000 (or $95) price tag places it a bit closer to some of those aforementioned dedicated devices than we would have liked. We're guessing that will get knocked down a bit if and when it's released (and most likely rebadged) over here, though.
3-in-1 iPad camera connection kit is triple the goodness in one package
Here at TUAW, most of the bloggers are huge fans of devices featuring multiple levels of functionality jammed into one little box (this probably has something to do with a lifelong fascination with Swiss Army Knives.) That's why there were smiles all around when M.I.C.Gadget, a blog that follows stories about gizmos that are, uh, Made In China, had a story about a new 3-in-1 iPad camera connection kit. As you know, the Apple equivalent sells for US$29 and is made up of two separate dongles. Two dongles = twice as much opportunity to lose one of them. This little 3-in-1 kit features the USB port and SD card reader that make up the Apple connection kit, but there's one more thing -- a micro-SD card reader as well. Boom! But wait, there's more! The connection kit comes in black or white, which will be a nightmare for people who have problems making decisions. Want to buy one? They're available for US$29.90 from the M.I.C. Gadget Store, but act now to avoid bitter disappointment. There are only 25 of the kits left in stock as of this morning... [via Gizmodo]
Sony announces suite of SD cards for cameras that don't work with Sticks
Sony has announced three (count 'em) new series of SD cards, giving amateurs, pros, and prosumers alike even more choices on where to stick their pics. First up is the budget Essential Series in 2, 4, and 8GB capacities, offering Class 4 (4MB/s) speeds and little else. Next up is the similarly Class 4 Experience Series, which adds 16 and 32GB models to the list. Finally is the full-bore, Class 10 Expert Series in 8, 16, and 32GB capacities. This is obviously your choice for high bitrate HD recording (hello PMW-F3), but any should do just fine for taking pictures. All come with a handy "memo space" for those with petite handwriting and ultra-fine point pens, and all ship in January, but, alas, none have been assigned MSRPs just yet. Now, who said Sony doesn't like industry-standard formats?
HTC HD7 has hidden microSD slot, user-replaceable card? (update: risky business)
We thought the Samsung Focus was the only Windows Phone 7 launch device that could replace its external storage, but the HTC HD7 can apparently do the same -- there's an SD card slot under that Windows Phone logo, and The Unwired managed to replace it while dodging the dreaded "There's a storage error" screen. What sort of black magic did the publication cast to make it recognize the new card? They're not quite sure themselves, but several factory resets and physical reinsertion of the chip seemed to do the trick, if only for an 8GB card. If you're in a daring mood, let us know if it works for you in comments below! Update: HTC tells us that this particular surgery's a risky one, not only for your warranty but the connectivity of your phone. Here's what you're getting yourself into, according to a senior company rep: While this is not technically impossible, one thing that is important to know is that the process of removing the cover to access these components is actually very tricky – and in many cases, will result in the antenna section being irreparably detached from the circuit board (rendering the phone unusable). Additionally, to actually replace the card, a few reasonably important parts have to be forcibly removed. So, just a good warning to anyone thinking of attempting this maneuver is that the possibility of bricking is extremely high, and will, of course, void the product warranty.Update 2: But if you do throw caution to the wind, you may be able to get it to work with a 32GB card.
Eye-Fi gets social with the Eye-Fi View online picture portal
Yeah, we know. E-mail is like so 1999. Kids today are all about their tweets and their texts, but if grandma can decode a digital picture at all pretty much the only way she's going to get it is via e-mail, and Eye-Fi is making that easier. It's launched Eye-Fi View, an online sharing site not unlike your Picasas or your Flickrs, except that pictures are (nearly) instantly and automatically uploaded straight from the camera, where they can be shared (or not shared) with others. Users can also set up e-mail alerts so that grandma can get a private link to Gerard's graduation photos. Eye-Fi View is free if you don't mind your pictures disappearing after seven days, but if you want unlimited storage for an unlimited time you'll need to step up to the $4.99 monthly or $49.99 annual plans. The disembodied hand? We're pretty sure that's not included.
Eye-Fi starting up a developer program, will have some APIs open for business this fall
Pardon us as we coin the term "apportunity" to describe the upcoming developer program Eye-Fi has just announced. Developers will able to tie their apps / applications / sites into Eye-Fi features and services through the web, including accessing an Eye-Fi card for photos and video, changing settings on the card, and uploading to online sharing sites through Eye-Fi channels instead of directly connecting to each site. It all sounds very promising in a niche, people-who-use-WiFi-SD-cards sort of way, and we look forward to the results as Eye-Fi starts giving out API keys in phases, beginning this fall.
