sda

Eye-Fi calls shenanigans on the SD Association

SD cards now have a patent spat of their own.

During CES, Toshiba and the SD Association made a couple of announcements that flew under my radar: a new specification dubbed Wireless LAN SD, aka iSDIO, (PDF) and a formal announcement by Toshiba about its FlashAir card, the first to support iSDIO.

Friday morning, Eye-Fi issued a statement on its blog expressing its displeasure over the SDA's announcement. In its statement, Yuval Koren, CEO of Eye-Fi, claims the announcement was premature, issued before the draft consideration process was complete, and that it runs the risk of violating some of … Read more

Asus U31SD-A1 laptop review: Graphics and good battery life equal back-to-school special?

The term "thin and light" has a flexible meaning in the laptop world. Currently, to be truly thin, a PC must be in the same range as the MacBook Air. Still, plenty of thicker 13-inch laptops still exist that would have been considered thin a few years ago, but seem merely normal today. The Asus U31SD-A1 is just that sort of laptop. Its thickness is more akin to a 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro, but Asus' laptop lacks an optical drive. We reviewed a nearly identical Asus U31JG laptop a few months ago, noting that it was a solid … Read more

Polk's SurroundBar SDA IHT sounds sweet, but lacks features

Just because you don't want a full surround-sound home audio system doesn't mean you have to settle for the sound coming out of your TV's speakers. That's the pitch behind TV add-on speakers, which are stripped-down versions of sound bar home theater systems that offer minimal connectivity, but promise a significant upgrade over your TV's tinny speakers.

Polk Audio's SurroundBar SDA IHT is the company's entry-level sound bar, and it offers only the bare essentials, with just one analog audio input, no remote, and no front display. If all you need is a … Read more

Polk's new SurroundBar adds a wireless subwoofer

As we mentioned in our CES 2009 home audio preview, the trend in home audio over the last few years has been toward simplicity, and sound bars have promised to deliver the full surround experience from a single speaker. In reality, it never quite sounds that good, but the Polk Audio SurroundBar systems are generally better than most. The newly announced SurroundBar SDA Instant Home Theater aims to improve on previous models by making the speaker even smaller and adding a wireless subwoofer. Here are the details.

Key features of the Polk Audio SurroundBar SDA Instant Home Theater :

260 watts … Read more