Honda has unveiled its second experimental walking assist device that helps support bodyweight. It helps reduce the load on the user's legs while walking, going up and down stairs, and in a semi-crouching position. Honda claims the device is designed for people who are still capable of walking on their own.

The product has a relatively simple structure consisting of seat, frame, and shoes, and the user can put it on by simply wearing the shoes and lifting the seat into position. The structure to position the device between the user's legs minimizes the required footprint, therefore making it easier for them to maneuver.

Honda says the walking assistant offers a natural walking experience, which is achieved by changing the amount of assisting force applied to the right and left legs through the control of two motors based on the information obtained though sensors in the shoes of the device.

The company has been doing research on walking-assisted devices since 1999. Honda developed the knowledge required to develop the walking assist device from its thorough study of human walking represented by the research and development of Honda's advanced humanoid robot, ASIMO. Honda will now begin testing the device in real-world conditions to evaluate its effectiveness.

Link: Honda

ViewSonic now offers you an excellent gift for anyone on your list, including yourself. It has introduced two new 8-inch digital photo frames, the DPG801BK and the DPG807BK. The digital photo frames include cutting-edge SwifTouch touch-screen technology to provide a clutter- and smudge-free display.

The digital frames sport 800x600 high resolution screen to displays your photos in beautiful color and vivid detail. 512MB of internal memory provides ample photo, video and music storage. You can enjoy your favorite MP3 music along with your photos.

Pictures can be easily uploaded to the frames through a thumb drive, memory card, USB cable or computer. You could also zoom in up to 16 times, browse thumbnails or create an image slideshow with transition effects and audio. The hidden control buttons illuminate to show your menu selections only when needed.

The DPG801BK can display Motion JPEG, while the DPG807BK can display MPEG1, MPEG4 and Motion JPEG for video.

The DPG801BK is available for $119, while you can have DPG807BK for $159.

According to the United States FBI, a notebook computer is stolen every 53 seconds and 97% are never recovered. Seagate has now announced ‘sweeping advances’ to help secure laptop information from theft or loss with self-encrypting notebook PC hard drives.

Seagate has introduced the new Momentus FDE (full-disk encryption) notebook hard drives with up to 320GB of capacity. McAfee is to provide the software for the enterprise-wide management of notebooks with Seagate Secure hard drives.

The Momentus FDE drives feature a fast Serial ATA interface and built-in AES encryption, an AES government-grade encryption used to encrypt all hard drive information transparently and automatically.

“Delivering easy-to-use notebook security that also is cost-effective requires leading partnerships and technologies,” said Tom Major, vice president of the Personal Compute Business Unit at Seagate.

“McAfee provides leading enterprise-class, powerful encryption and strong access control technologies,” said Tony Jennings, vice president Strategic Partnerships at McAfee. “By teaming with Seagate on its new encrypting Momentus drive, we are extending additional protection tools to our customers.”

The new 320GB Momentus laptop drives are now available in 5,400-rpm and 7,200-rpm models, with the 500GB model shipping early next year.

Link: Seagate

Cygnett has unveiled GrooveNeo dock, an iPod accessory that works as a speaker system and alarm clock. With GrroveNeo, you can wake up to your favourite iPod tracks, AM/FM radio or buzzer

It features large format digital time displays and touch-sensitive keys for easy programming and operation. The dual 2.75” full-range speakers bring power & energy to every track on your playlist with real-time bass response. The easy dock & play system charges your iPod while it plays.

A full-function remote is also provided to control both your iPod and GrooveNeo. The GrooveNeo dock is available now for $90.

Link: Cygnett

OCZ has launched its new Solid Series of solid state drives offering consumers the latest storage technology at an affordable price. Solid series SSD drives are available in capacities of 30GB, 60GB, and 120GB. The drives feature a 2.5" design, measuring 100 x 70 x 9.3mm and weighing 77g.

With 155 MB/s and 90 MB/s read/write speeds and seek times of less than 0.35ms, OCZ claims it makes Solid series up to 10x as fast on a seek-time basis than the best performing 2.5” HDDs on the market.

The new Solid Series supports RAID and are shock resistant. The addition of a mini-USB port also makes it possible for customers to update firmware when the new version becomes available. This ensures compatibility with future platforms.

All Solid Series SSD drives are backed a two year warranty. These are not recommended for use in laptops models purchased prior to 2007.

Link: Fudzilla

LaCie today announced Internet Space, a network hard disk accessible through the Internet anywhere, anytime, even when the local computer is turned off.

Designed by Neil Poulton, the Internet Space features a discreet, minimalist form with a mirror-polished white finish and a cool, blue LED strip that casts an ambient glow. The Internet Space provides shared storage for home computers and UPnP or DLNA certified media players. It also acts as a personal web portal for remote access and content sharing.

With easy setup that takes just minutes, users can access their information from any computer from anywhere, by logging on to www.homelacie.com. This exclusive web portal allows authorized users to access stored content, download it or even upload new files from anywhere.

It comes with HipServTM DesktopMirror software to safely backs up and restores files, along with a USB 2port to connect any USB hard drive. Available in capacity of 500 GB and 1 TB, it allows users to centralize their entire multimedia library.

The LaCie Internet Space is currently available in Europe at a starting price of 179€ at LaCie Online Store and LaCie Storage Partners.

Link: LaCie

MSI has recently introduced its 16-inch EX623 notebook. Based on Intel Centrino 2 Processor Technology, EX623 boasts a powerful NVIDIA  Geforce 9500M GS graphic card with 512MB VRAM.

The 16:9 golden theatrical ratio display sports a 1366x768 resolution. A built-in 2.0 mega pixel webcam and an internal mic enables you to engage in real-time sharing and wireless communication.

MSI's Exclusive Cinema Pro Technology offers consumers the finest movie viewing experience. With a simple touch of the exclusive Cinema Pro button; you may immediately switch to Movie Mode. With ECO touch sensor, you can switch among the 5 different modes - Gaming mode, Movie mode, Presentation mode, Office mode, and Turbo Battery mode.

The standard 320GB hard disk drive comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium. EX623 is also equipped with up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, Bluetooth, WiFi b/g/n, eSATA port, stereo speakers, subwoofer, a 3-in-1 card reader, and USB 2.0 port x3.

There is no word on availability and pricing as yet.

Link: MSI

 QNAP Security today launched the new 5-bay, standalone network video surveillance recording system VioStor-5020 NVR for SMB and enterprise users. Designed to meet the high security demand of the business market, the VioStor-5020 NVR combines a number of industry-leading features, e.g. 20-channel real-time recording (Full D1/VGA), five hotswappable SATA drives (up to 7.5 TB for long term recording), dual Giga LAN, and advanced RAID configurations.

The VioStor-5020 NVR is a Linux-embedded system powered by Intel 1.6GHz CPU and 1GB DDRII memory. It supports 20-channel M-JPEG/ MPEG4 recording, megapixel (up to 8 megapixels) recording from Axis, Panasonic, Canon, Sony, Sanyo, D-Link, Arecont, Mobotix, IQeye, GANZ, Vivotek, ACTi, Toshiba and LevelOne IP-based security cameras. The NVR works as a standalone system that no PC or extra software utility are required.

According to Jacky Cheng, Senior Product Manager from QNAP, "The VioStor-5020 NVR is an all-in-one network surveillance system with the most diversified monitoring, recording, and playback features." The complete recording functions of the NVR include schedule recording, alarm recording, alarm recording schedule, motion-detection recording, pre-alarm, and post-alarm recordings. In the live monitoring, different display modes, easy drag and drop function, smart control of PTZ cameras, alarm notification, digital zoom, real-time snapshot, and E-map are supported. Other powerful functions include multi-channel playback at different speed, easy data search by date & time and alarm event, digital zoom, and video snapshot etc. All these functions can be performed through the web-based GUI by the IE browser. "Our NVR realizes true boundless surveillance. The users can simply set up the network cameras and our NVR system for remote monitoring and recording anytime, anywhere over the Internet."

The VioStor-5020 NVR enables secure recording data protection with advanced RAID protection by RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 5 + Spare/ 6/ JBOD, online RAID capacity expansion and online RAID level migration. Moreover, dual Gigabit LAN ports are provided for network failover, load-balancing, and standalone configurations for efficient data transfer over the network. The VioStor-5020 NVR also supports powerful authority management, host access control, error logging system. The users can set up the surveillance system in a few minutes by Touch-N-Go LCD panel configuration or 6-step web-based installation. The VioStor-5020 NVR is undoubtedly an ideal end-to-end network surveillance system for system integrators, SMB, and enterprise users.

Saitek has unveiled the Eclipse III Backlit Multimedia Keyboard, a sleek backlit keyboard featuring touch-sensitive lighting and volume controls, and ergonomically placed shortcut keys.

The new Eclipse III Backlit Multimedia Keyboard features adjustable, multi color backlighting highlight key controls. The touch-sensitive control panel lets users change settings quickly and easily. Color and keyboard settings remain even after system reboot.

The two stage height adjustment and removable wrist rest increase user comfort. Offering laser-etched, soft touch, durable keys, the USB plug and play device includes pass through headphone and microphone audio ports for simple connectivity.

The pricing for the new Eclipse III Backlit Multimedia Keyboard has not unveiled yet by Saitek.

Link: Saitek

SanDisk has unveiled ExtremeFFS, an advanced flash file system for solid-state drives (SSDs) that yields dramatic improvement in performance and reliability for computing applications. Sandisk says this patented flash management system has the potential to accelerate random write speeds by up to 100 times over existing systems.

ExtremeFFS operates on a page-based algorithm, which means there is no fixed coupling between physical and logical location. When a sector of data is written, the SSD puts it where it is most convenient and efficient, resulting in an improvement in random write performance - by up to 100 times.

ExtremeFFS incorporates a fully non-blocking architecture in which all of the NAND channels can behave independently. Another key element of ExtremeFFS is usage-based content localization, which allowing it to ‘learn’ user patterns and dynamically writes and alters the position of data to maximize the product’s performance and endurance.

The company expects the SSD net performance next year will be four times faster than the current generation of SSDs and nearly six times that of the latest 2.5-inch HDDs.

Link: Sandisk