Archive for the 'PC Peripherals' Category

USB Flash Drive Skull Rings

Posted by Anton on November 4th, 2008

Something new straight form Japan – a handmade USB Flash Drive Skull Ring. Yes, you’ve heard it right… these are 2GB USB flash drives in the form of a Skull that attaches to your finger just like a normal ring. It might be a bit strange for everyone’s taste, but if you like skulls and such this might be a perfect addition to your collection. Also a great and somewhat unique thing that is also a great gift idea for a true geek…


The chin of the skull is removable, revealing a normal USB connector for using the 2GB flash storage you’ve got available in the ring. You can choose a USB flash drive skull ring from 8 different color variations, these are: Antique Gold, Antique Silver, Black, Matt Black, Pink, Purple, Silver and Turquoise Blue. All are very detailed and you can consider each of the rings to be unique, because it is hand made, although that is also the reason for their quite high price.

These hand made rings with flash memory are available for $156.

- For more information about the USB Flash Drive Skull Rings…

Hardcore Reactor the Oil Immersion Cooled Computer

Posted by Anton on October 22nd, 2008

Hardcore Computer officially announced the launch of their Reactor PC – the world’s first commercially available high-performance computer with total liquid submersion cooling technology. The Reactor PC has been developed for hardcore computer users such as gamers, graphic artists, audiophiles, industrial designers, engineers, medical imaging technicians and military technologists with the idea to provide top performance and lots of features in a really unique form. With a Reactor PC you can not only get the latest technology such as Tripple SLI with the latest Nvidia GTX 280 video cards, Quad Core Intel CPU, SSD disks combined with a really cool and innovative oil cooling that gives you not only quiet working, but also a highly overclockable computer.


Hardcore Computer submerged all of the heat-producing components – the CPU, motherboard, video card, memory and power supplies – in a custom dielectric fluid they have named Core Coolant, eliminating heat-related computing limitations. Reactor incorporates the benefits of liquid submersion cooling with twin additive and redundant server-class 650Watt power supplies; audiophile-quality Creative Labs X-Fi, EAX, 7.1-channel Dolby digital surround sound embedded on the motherboard; three on-board SATA solid-state drives configured in an ultra-fast RAID 0 array; and two truly hot-swappable external hard drives.

Form following function, Reactor has a distinctive look. Locating the majority of I/O on the top of the case for easy access resulted in the unique Spinal Cord cable management system, another industry first for a desktop system. Also on the case top are optional, dual, diversity Wi-Fi antennas. The system chassis incorporates handles that serve as a means for transporting Reactor. The handles also aid in the removal of the system core, which includes all of the computer’s active components, from the liquid for maintenance or upgrades. Over-clocking enthusiasts will appreciate a CMOS battery and BIOS reset switch located on the lid, inside a push-push access hatch door. Reactor also sports user-selectable internal tank and chassis base lights. The result is a cool and quiet state-of-the-art system that provides full-throttle processing, sustained over-clocking, HD/3D realism with maximum frame rates, an easily upgradable modular design and a rugged custom chassis. The liquid submersion technology also ensures stable, 24/7/365 hardware reliability.

You can get a Reactor PC for as low as $4464, but in order to get the top specs computer you’ll have to prepare $10541. You can pre-order your fully oil cooled PC now and it is expected to ship on 11/19/2008.

- For more information about Hardcore Computers’ Reactor PC…

OCZ NIA – Neural Impulse Actuator

Posted by Anton on October 18th, 2008

OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) is an innovative device that allows you to control games and practically everything on your computer with your brain or more exactly with your thoughts and not only by them. You should have in mind that the NIA is not a complete replacement for your mouse or keyboard, but an additional accessory that can give you better control of your PC, but you may still need to use additional controllers for better functionality. What the Neural Impulse Actuator actually does is to translate electrical biosignals of your body directly into computer commands… these include brainwaves, eye and muscle movements. You can combine the readings of multiple bio signals by building a custom game profile so that a given thought can be translated to the PC as a fire command in the game (simulating the pressing of the left mouse button for instance). The NIA comes with some predefined profiles that will allow you to start learning how to use the device and then you can extend and make your own gaming profiles to achieve the best results.


You should have in mind that NIA is not an easy device to master, it will take you a lot of time and effort to learn how to adequately use the device at first, because it is something new and not as straightforward as a mouse or keyboard that requires just to press a given button. So controlling your PC with your thoughts is not as easy as you think, because you’ll have to learn to control the alpha and beta brainwaves that the device detects in a way, that they can be used for movement of your character in a game for instance. And that is the hardest part of learning to use the device, because gaining control of the eye and muscle movement detection by the device will require you just a few hours, but for the brainwaves functionality it could take you up to a few weeks.

For the moment OCZ NIA works just fine under Windows XP and Vista, but only in the 32-bit versions of these operating systems. There are already beta drivers available for 64-bit Vista OS, but if you are running 64-bit Windows XP you’ll not be able to use the NIA, so have that in mind before ordering the device. Also you should know that some users are experiencing problems with the device related to inadequate grounding of their computers or electromagnetic interferences, but these issues usually can be quickly solved by some reading and experimenting with the device. After all NIA is a the first very affordable commercial brain computer interface and you should be prepared for some unexpected things to happen, because that area of development is still quite new, but that makes the usage of the device even more fun and interesting, provided that you are willing to take that additional time. If you are not ready to experiment using this new cool gadget you better wait for some more time or just stick to using your mouse and keyboard for now… ;)


The current price of this innovative device is just $136.99 ($116.99 after $20.00 Mail-In Rebate at the moment!).

- To buy an OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator brain mouse for your PC…

PicoLCD 4×20 Auxiliary Display with Vista Sideshow support

Posted by Anton on September 24th, 2008

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PicoLCD is a family of Intelligent USB LCD displays with true HID USB interface, that you can connect to your PC with ease and use them to display any info you want on them. Current end existent products range from simple 2×20 LCDs, 4×20 as well as graphic models. The picoLCD has strong application support (SDK included) for Windows XP and Linux as well as native Vista SideShow auxiliary display driver support and SDK. But the most interesting model seems to be the PicoLCD 4×20 Auxiliary Display with Vista Sideshow support, because it is more affordable, quite useful and even very cool looking, compared to the simpler smaller screens or the graphical models. That is why we are going to look into the PicoLCD 4×20 Auxiliary Display…

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You can use this cool external device to show Vista Sideshow applications (stocks, weather, music information, news and sports updates) on a 2nd dedicated LCD display that also looks very cool on your desk, especially with the blue backlight of the screen. The PicoLCD display has the ability to display 4 lines of text data with up to 20 characters on each line with gives you the ability to display quite a lot of data on the screen. The unit is self-powered via a full speed USB connection so there is no need for any external power supply. The device also has some built-in functional buttons allowing direct control on some of it’s functions, without having to touch the keyboard or the mouse on the PC. However you should have in mind that the PicoLCD 4×20 Auxiliary Display requires Microsoft Windows Vista operating system, and that the Vista Home Edition does not come with Sideshow functionality supported. You can also use the device with Linux, because it also has drivers for different Linux distributions available.

The price of the PicoLCD 4X20-Sideshow is $49.95.

- To get a PicoLCD 4×20 Auxiliary Display for your PC…

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