One of the worst decisions to make while getting an iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch is that extra bit of storage is going to cost you a lot. Jumping from 16GB to 64GB seems an awful lot when you consider the price hike. However, Seagate wants to remedy this problem with their GoFlex Satellite wireless hard drive, where you can purchase 500GB for $200. That price would net you an extra 48GB on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

The GoFlex Satellite is basically an external 500GB HDD but with built-in 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, which is why it looks chunkier than the average pocket HDD. Well, that and the rechargeable battery. There are two LEDs on the top to indicate power and wireless activity. On the top there’s a SATA power connector whereby you can connect the GoFlex USB 3.0 adapter to connect the hard drive to your PC or Mac to transfer files. On the right there’s the power button and on the left there’s the DC adapter plug.

Now the way the GoFlex Satellite works is very simple: you simply turn it on, connect to it via WiFi and playback everything on the device. Now playback of the type of files depends on your device. For instance on my iPhone 4 and iPad 2 I couldn’t playback .mkv or .avi files, but when connected to my laptop, I could playback any type of video file. Furthermore while compatible videos, like .mp4, would stream immediately on my iOS devices, on my computer I actually had to download the video files first, and then WMP11 would play it back. The same happens when trying to view video files on a MacBook Air. Images and songs streamed immediately, with certain .mp4 files streaming instantaneously.

Routers aren’t necessarily the most exciting piece of technology. In fact, for many, it’s a daunting task if they ever want to replace one but Linksys is really trying to make that process easier. And truth be told, you won’t really enjoy your new laptop or tablet or Smartphone if it wasn’t for the wireless router in your home of office keeping everything connected. We had a quick chat with Ulrike Tegtmeier, the VP for Cisco Consumer on their new models as well as why flip was let go.

With the explosion of wireless devices in the last few years, a wirless router has pretty much become a requirement for every home and office. Gone are the days when you were stuck in front of your desktop- when wireless access didn’t matter much. But with every household sporting a combination of laptops, tablets and Smartphones, you need access to the Internet from your bathroom to your balcony. We have thus put together a guide that should help you pick a wireless router that will work for you. Lets start by talking about some of the terminology that routers can confuse you with.

Internet connectivity

The first thing you need to be sure of is that your router can connect to the Internet and that depends on the type of connection you have at your home of office. If you have an Al-Shamil connection by Etisalat, then you need an ADSL modem built in your router otherwise you will not be able to access the Internet. If you have Fibre or are using du, then you don’t need an ADSL router which will bring costs down by a bit but increase the amount of devices you can chose from significantly.

Once you chose your ADSL or non-ADSL router, you will need to configure it’s settings for an Internet connection. If you have fibre, this can be as easy as selecting the type of connection which is generally PPPoE in the UAE and then typing in the username and password provided to you by du or Etisalat. On an ADSL modem.

Gigabit Connectivity

Most of the budget to mid-range routers will support 10/100Mbps wired connectivity which works fine if you all you are doing is browsing the Internet or downloading files. However, if you plan of copying big files across your internal network or stream high definition movies, then you should really be looking at Gigabit wired connectivity. Even offices that feature a NAS device should ideally be looking at Gigabit to not saturate the throughput. Chances are that you have already started watching hi-def movies especially if you have a Full-HD TV at your place so I highly recommend getting Gigabit connectivity on your router. It will cost a little extra but will make you a bit more future proof.

USB Port

Many new routers have a USB port that can either be used to plug-in a USB drive or a printer to share across the network. While useful, I don’t think this is a must-have feature. When it comes to printers, I find it much easier to share the printer using your computer instead of the router and besides, new printers are starting to features Wi-Fi built-in so you directly connect the printer to the router. For USB drives, I’ve found that most of the USB ports are too slow on routers to offer a good file transfer speed and also configuring the USB drive and creating shares and permissions is not the easiest of most intuitive procedure.

With mobiles and tablets picking up in sales and usage tremendously over the last couple of years, the need to connect them in better ways will definitely see some innovation in the near future. At iQ2011, Qualcomm demonstrated their AllJoyn technology- an open-source software framework that makes it easy for you to add ad-hoc, proximity -based P2P into your apps without the need to connect to cellular networks.

To explain what that means, let me give you an example. When you play a multi-player game on your phone, it connects to a server sitting somewhere across the globe where all the other players are also connected. From there, you select the person you want to play with and the server connects you to them. Doesn’t sound too complicated but what if the person you want to play the game with is sitting a couple of feet away from you and on top of that, you don’t have Internet access to connect to a server? That’s where AllJoyn comes in and allows you to directly connect one mobile phone to another as long as both devices are running AllJoyn. The following video explains a bit more:

The best thing about AllJoyn is the open-source framework meaning you will be able to run it over multiple platforms like iOs, Android and BlackBerry and use multiple types of connectivity such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or even NFC.

Packaged in a relatively small box, at least as far as printers are concerned, the Samsung CLP-325 comes bundled with a power cord, a quickstart guide and a drivers CD. Four toner cartridges are also included inside the package with the black cartridge rated at 1000 pages and Yellow, Magenta and Cyan cartridges rated at 500 pages. Replacement toners cartridges are rated at 1500 pages for black and 750 for color so you are not getting a full toner cartridge which is sadly true for almost every single printer that is sold.

The Samsung CLP-325W measures 388mm x 313mm x 243mm making it reasonably small for a color laser printer. In fact, it is the smallest color laser printer that I have seen. The input tray can take upto 130 sheets and with its 360MHz CPU, it has a printing speeds of 16ppm for black and 4ppm for color in fast mode with a 2400×600 dpi effective output. On the connectivity front, the Samsung CLP-325W supports USB, Wired and Wireless connections making it very flexible for any location.

Evidently Google was onto something when they decided to feature the latest Near Field Communication (NFC) Technology on their flagship device, the Nexus S. McDonald’s restaurants across the United Kingdom are to feature this new contact-less payment option as more and more companies embrace the idea. There are said to be 12 million NFC-enabled payment cards out there at the moment and this latest endorsement by the worlds largest restaurant chain is only going to spur development even further.

The fast-food chain, with 1,200 restaurants across the UK, has collaborated with Visa to bring the technology to the masses and if you’re wondering about how secure the payments will be, there will be a £15 limit on NFC payments. Once the limit is reached, users will have to switch to a chip-and-pin reader.

Source: Neowin