MASS STORAGE FOR THE MASSES
I don't know about you but I worry about what
I'd lose if my hard drive crashed. Making backups of your important
data is crucial and you're flirting with disaster if you don't
routinely backup your hard drive. The primary reason we don't backup
is that it's a giant pain to do so. Wouldn't it be nice if you could
simply push one button and have all your backups made for you
automatically? Well now you can.
 Maxtor
has introduced a new line of external hard drives referred to as their
"Personal Storage" family with 120 or more gigabytes of storage
capacity. The Personal Storage 5000DV is an external hard drive that
connects to your computer via a Firewire or USB 2.0 connection. Using
a fast 7200 rpm drive, backups can be made more quickly that writing
to some other external storage medium such as tape or a removable
drive. And if you need additional storage, both interfaces allow you
to add additional drives as each unit comes with two connection ports.
Need more room? The 5000XT offers 250 gigabytes of storage on a 5400
rpm drive.
What makes the 5000 series of drives stand out
is the one button on the front panel. Press it and the drive instantly
makes a backup of your internal hard drive. The OneTouch button uses
the included copy of Dantz Retrospect Express software that can be set
up to copy your entire hard drive, or do an incremental backup. The
latter will backup only the files that have changed since the last
time you backed up. You can also configure the software to backup only
specific files or folders. Once everything is set up, all you do is
press the button on the Maxtor drive. It doesn't get much easier.
The Personal Storage line of drives with
OneTouch technology works with both Windows and Macintosh computers.
Check the web site for different options and prices.
www.maxtor.com
High Five for Virtual Reality Glove
 Michael
Jackson has nothing on this glove. The P5 Virtual Reality Glove is the
ultimate in computer gaming and should make an ideal holiday gift for
the technology geek in your life. A virtual glove lets you move
objects on the screen as you would using your hand to move and control
objects in the real world. Most other attempts at designing a glove of
this kind have been cumbersome at best. Until it's place on a hand,
the P5 really doesn't look like a glove in the traditional sense in
that your thumb and fingers are not contained within a sleeve, but
rather slip into little rings at the end of flexible finger
extensions. Your hand and digits are completely exposed to the air.
That's a good thing because anything else would probably cause your
hand to perspire and make the glove's use uncomfortable.
To see how the glove responds, a small hand
appears on the screen. As you move, bend, open and close your fingers,
the hand on the screen moves correspondingly. Moving your hand in
space moves the virtual hand in the same direction. It's an eerie
thing to watch. Travel motion is optically detected by the separate
unit that senses the P5's infrared emitters. Finger movement is
mirrored by the five finger extensions built into the P5 itself.
Depending on the game or simulation, different hand gestures will
yield different results. In a shooting game for example, pulling the
virtual trigger with your index finger will fire the gun. Pointing in
a direction might determine in which your character will walk or
drive. The possibilities are endless with this type of control. Make
sure to check for specific game titles designed to work with the P5,
however most mouse and some button definitions are already predefined
into the glove right out of the box. If you're looking for a highly
intuitive way to control all the action, then the P5 has your name all
over it.
USB versions will be available for Windows,
Macintosh, Linux, PlayStation2 and Xbox.
Around $129.
www.essentialreality.com |
