bands

Seems like gloves that manipulate music are this month's must-have fashion accessory. The Imaginary Marching Band consists of several pairs of open-source gloves that let you create music as though you were playing actual instruments. … Read more

The HD Media Router 1000, model DIR-657, is the first in the Media router series that D-Link introduced at CES 2011, and it's a totally new router. At least on the outside.

Unlike previous routers, such as the DIR-655, DIR-825, and DIR-855, the DIR-657 doesn't have external antennas that stick up from its back anymore. Following the lead of Cisco and other vendors, D-Link now uses the internal antenna design, making the new router seem much more compact than previous models. The router's chassis is as sleek as many other new routers, and attracts fingerprints very easily. … Read more

Cisco announced today the availability of its first dual-band wireless bridge, the Linksys WES610N Wireless-N Dual-Band Entertainment Bridge. This is similar to the TEW-680MB from Trendnet and the DAP-1513 from D-Link.

The WES610N offers four Ethernet ports and can connect to an existing Wireless-N network, either on a 5GHz or 2.4GHz band. This means you can connect up to four nonwireless Ethernet-ready devices to an existing wireless network. The device is designed for home entertainment products, such as TV set-top boxes, game consoles, and other devices that tend to come without built-in wireless adapters.

The new Linksys bridge features … Read more

Apple has released a few updates for its iLife suite of media creation and management applications, which have been made available through the Mac App Store as well as by conventional means. Because of the way Mac App Store applications are coded, the version of iLife distributed through it will require updates issued through the store instead of via Software Update. Therefore, if you have installed iLife via the Mac App Store, you will need to use the Store to update your applications, and if you have iLife installed by conventional means then you can download updates either via Software … Read more

Generally, if you want to get a good true dual-band router, you should be prepared to spend around $130 or more.

For this reason, at a street price of less than $100, Belkin's stylish new N750 DB Wireless Dual-Band N+ Router is a steal. And this is not just a regular dual-band router; it's also one of the few on the market that offers the higher 450Mbps speed on the 5GHz band.

However, as they say, things are cheap for a reason. And for the N750 DB, this reason is not that it's a bad router but that it delivers less than it makes buyers expect.

An example of this is the fact that the router doesn't support IPv6 or the old standard WEP wireless encryption. This means it's neither future-proof nor backward-compatible with existing wireless clients that only use WEP.… Read more

The N750 Wireless Dual-Band WNDR4000 is the first true dual-band router from Netgear that offers the new 450Mbps speed on the 5GHz band. This means it competes directly with Cisco's Linksys E4200, which was released a while ago.

Apart from the guest networking feature, which lets you create separate Internet-only wireless networks for guests, the Netgear seems to trail behind the E4200 on almost all other counts. It's in no way a bad router, however.

As a matter of fact, it topped the chart on the 2.4GHz band in our close-range throughput test, registering a sustained real-world … Read more

If you want to hook your Ethernet-ready devices to a wireless network, you can either get the D-Link DAP-1513, or you can wait for what Trendnet unveiled today, the 450Mbps Dual Band Wireless N Media Bridge, model TEW-680MB.

This new device shares the same design as the company's previous single-band 450Mbps Wireless-N gaming adapter, the TEW-687GA, but the TEW-680MB also supports the 5GHz frequency band.

Like other media bridge devices, the TEW-680MB connects itself to an existing Wireless-N network, on either the 2.4GHz band or the 5GHz band, and bridges that connection to a wired device plugged into its Ethernet port.

Unlike the D-Link DAP-1513, with its four network ports to handle four devices out of the box, the Trendnet TEW-680MB has only one network port and therefore can bridge the connection to only one device. To make up for this, you will want Gigabit Ethernet to ensure that the bridged device will get the fastest possible connection speed.… Read more

Announced at CES 2011, Trendnet's first true dual-band 450Mbps Wireless-N router--the 450Mbps Concurrent Dual Band Wireless-N Router, model TEW-692GR--is now about to be available for purchase, the company said today.

Unlike other 450Mbps dual-band routers, such as the Cisco Linksys E4200, which offers the higher 450Mbps speed only on the 5GHz frequency, the TEW-692GR is the first that also offers this higher speed on the 2.4GHz band at the same time.

Note that you'd need a wireless client that also supports the new 3x3 450Mbps standard to take advantage of the higher speed. An example would be … Read more

If you want to hook up your game console, such as an Xbox 360, to the Internet without running network cable all over the place, you can either get a Wi-Fi adapter from the vendor, which tends to be overpriced, or get yourself a gaming bridge that can bring a wireless signal to any Ethernet-ready device. Those opting for the latter now have another option.

D-Link announced today that it's shipping the Wireless N Dual Band MediaBridge (model DAP-1513), which can bridge a wireless network to up to four network devices that don't have built-in Wi-Fi. The device combines a selectable dual-band wireless-N chip and a four-port switch and will work with any N router.

The device basically connects itself to an existing Wi-Fi network, then shares that connection with any device plugged into its network ports, hence the terms "bridge."… Read more