25 Miles USB Cable??? Do you think it is possible? See below.

This is an interesting Idea though. If such a cable exists we can following easily. We can break away with the 5 meter USB cable limit.

Working from home by connecting your USB Monitor, USB Keyboard and USB Mouse to your computer at office which at a distance of 25 Miles.

You can monitor activity in your backyard, or you can also monitor what your kid is doing at school and what the teacher is doing at school with an USB Camera and an USB Microphone. Outrageous right. But it is possible too.

The main benefit with such a cable according to wired blog is "one of the selling points of the system is that governments can use it to run secure connections to distant cameras. For us, more modest extensions over USB's five-foot limit mean we can tuck unsightly peripherals away in hidden corners."

The image on right hand side shows the Icron's ThinkLogical setup, ExtremeUSB .

ThinkLogical setup doesn't use the actual USB protocol to transfer the USB Data. They provide interface boxes and you need to plug them in. Each box converts the USB signal to or from a Icron's proprietary signal and sends this over the wire (or the air, or the powerline). The trick is, to the computer and other devices, the whole thing looks like a regular USB hub. A twenty five mile long USB hub, but a hub nonetheless(Wired.com).

See the "ExtremeUSB" site for more details details.

That's an useful and impressive solution.

USB Guard Dog - Desktop Rex - Funny Device

USB Guard Dog - Desktop Rex

It really does not protect you and your PC if some is logging in with your Password. But one thing the USB Guard Dog does is, he makes menacing growl each time someone comes too close. So, they even cannot touch your keyboard, till they know that he just growls.

Works with USB, basically draws power from USB or with three AA batteries too. Funny is in't it?

It's pricing can be found on this site.

USB Based Data Recovery Software and Tools

Selkie Freedom is the first data recovery product in the Selkie Software line to allow users to back-up their data to a USB key. 

Selkie Freedom is network independent so it doesn’t require a second computer. 

“Not everyone has a second computer to receive their recovered data. This product allows the user to push their data to a USB key, do a re-install on their broken machine, restore the data from the key and be up and running again in no time at all,” says Philip Fleischer, CTO. 

Selkie Freedom is available in three data recovery categories,  Selkie Freedom Photographer, Selkie Freedom Multimedia and Selkie Freedom Office.

Find out more about Selkie Freedom at www.SelkieFreedom.com or www.SelkieSoftware.com. 

The Rechargeable USB AA Cell

A pack of these two Rechargeable USB AA cells cost around $19.95.

Nordic Semiconductor nRF24LU1+ USB dongle single chip system

Nordic Semiconductor has released the nRF24LU1+ USB dongle single chip for ultra-low power (ULP) wireless peripherals.

The nRF24LU1+ combines Nordic’s nRF24L01+ 2.4GHz radio transceiver with the nRF24LU1 USB dongle single chip device.

This solution includes an integrated voltage regulator that allows the chip to be powered directly from a USB bus, removing the requirement for an external voltage regulator. 

In addition, on-chip flash memory eliminates the need for an external E2PROM memory. The only external components the nRF24LU1+ chip requires are a low cost 16MHz crystal, decoupling, matching network and antenna.

More details can be found here.

Super Speed USB Logo and Cable Details - USB 3.0

 USB 3.0 uses different cable. But the connectors remains same. USB 3.0 cable carries 6 signals. The SuperSpeed USB carries 4 different signals, and can provide upto 50 percent more power for unconfigured or suspended devices, and 80 percent more power for configured devices.

USB 3.0 will support data rates as high as 5.0 Gb/sec— which is 10 times faster than USB 2.0 (High Speed USB). 

USB over IP Capabilities for your USB device. Silex introduced SDKs for network sharing of USB devices. It is called Silex Virtual Link SDKs.

For more information and features of this SDK visit here.

A USB Beverage Chiller?

Hmm.. that's an interesting Idea. 

This product is available here for 24.99 USD. But the web site also says it is out of stock.

Looks useful. Is in't it?

At Amazon also it is available. Here is the link.

What to do with small memory size USB Flash Drives

Today I found out an interesting article posted by Michael Kwan here that explains how to get benifit from existing USB Drives.

Here I will give the synopsis.

1. If you are using Windows Vista you can convert your USB drive to a Computer Lock. The process of doing this is explained here by Lifehacker.

2. There are versions of Linux that you can carry in the Thumb Drive. Visit http://www.pendrivelinux.com for the possibilities.

3. Again you can load portable Apps. This helps you when you go to internet cafe as suggested by Michael Kwan. You can find some USB portable Apps here(http://portableapps.com/). 

If you also have any more Ideas feel free to add them here.

Acer and DisplayLink unleases a new 22-inch USB Monitor

Acer, and DisplayLink, announced the availability of a new USB computer LCD monitor which still supports Windows Vista’s Aero Glass interface as well as other 3D functions. 

The B223 USB LCD Monitor comes with the following features:

22″ LCD display, 1,680 x 1,050 resolution, DisplayLink DL-160 network display chip, USB 2.0 connectivity, 5ms response time, 32-bit, true-color graphics. 

The B223’s height, rotation and swivel angles can be adjusted for your optimal viewing comfort. It’s already available in Europe. Priced around $430.

DisplayLink plug-and-play technology helps you to quickly connect the screen without having to install any drivers in Windows; DisplayLink offers separate Mac drivers for USB monitors but hasn’t said whether the B223 is supported.

PC and USB based Relay and Control Products

http://www.j-works.com/ is manufacturer of PC and USB based  Relay.  DPDT,  SPDT, Temperature, Thermocouple, I/O, Digital, FPGA, Counter, WDT, Encoder, USB Switch, Analog, Opto IO, Monitor, USB IO, USB DIO, USB ADC, USB DAC, USB Measurement and Control Products.

They have whole portfolio of USB Opto I/O Modules, USB WatchDog Timers Modules, USB Relay modules, USB Digital I/O (DIO) modules, USB Analog Measurement modules, USB AC Monitor Modules, USB Counter  Modules, and USBTemperature modules.

They recently released their J-Works JSB291-03 USB controlled SPDT 20 Amp relay module now and it is in full production.

Wow, this is one company that is fully into control systems and USB.

Amazing Tiny 8GB Pico USB drive

This Tiny USB Drive has 8GB capacity. This family of USB drives are available in the range of 1 GB to 8GB.

Visit http://www.supertalent.com/ and here to get more details on this device.

It is USB 2.0 compliant and the gold plated one is around $39.95.

LaCie USB Speakers

Look at their ergonomics. These USB speakers look different.

And here is a good review on these speakers.