The Livescribe pulse is a pen with a difference. Incorporating a digital recorder you’ll finally be able to point out to the boss that he did actually say yes (or no, depending on what it is you’re on the hook for…).

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One thing I’ll admit Apple do well is style – the iMac with it’s integrated monitor is a very clean look.

If you like the all in one idea but don’t want the badge, Overclockers UK are selling this made to order Verso PC which packages a 19" monitor and choice of CPU into a single free standing unit.

With on board video and no expansion you won’t be playing Crysis, but if you want a neat office PC it should be worth a look.

You probably won’t have heard of Pogoplug – they’re only just releasing in the US and (as yet) aren’t available over here. Which is a shame as it’s got to be the easiest way yet of making your data available anywhere. Plug the Pogoplug into your router and a USB hard drive and voila – hard drive appears on your laptop as a standard windows (or Mac) network share, wherever in the world you happen to be.

As of Saturday morning the iPhone is added to the device list, meaning you can open and save files and photos from the connected drive on an iPhone.

Cute – all we need now is a UK version!

Data Robotics Inc, manufacturers of the funkiest looking external drive array on the market, today extended the their range with the new 8 bay DroboPro.

The Drobo is a box holding SATA disks which can be aggregated together to provide a single, redundant storage volume. Technically it’s not RAID as you know it, but the principle is the same.

The unique feature of the Drobo range is the ability to use a mixed size batch of disks – unlike normal RAID arrays the disks don’t need to be the same capacity. Drobo disks are also hot-swappable and upgrading capacity is just a matter of replacing a disk with a larger one.

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Recently I replaced the hard drive in my laptop with an SSD – specifically a Samsung 64GB model (model MMCRE64G5MPP – 0VA if you’re interested)

SSDs (Solid State Drives) have no moving parts which makes them resilient to knocks, fast and power efficient – exactly what you need in a laptop. The following post has some photos of the install (it was about as painless as you could hope for) and a few observations on performance.

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If you’re going to leave your data on the train then this is is the drive enclosure for you.  The Icy Box IB-220RFID is a standard 2.5” SATA external hard drive enclosure with a unique selling point, RFID.  Data is encrypted on the drive and can only be written and read while the RFID token is in close proximity to the enclosure. 

The enclosure has a USB 2.0 interface with an LCD display showing; power, encryption and de-encryption status.  Icy Box include 2 RFID tokens just in case as well as; a Y-power cable (if required), a USB cable, Screwdriver, leatherette pouch, CD and manual. 

If you don’t trust yourself not to lose an RFID token then Icy Box also do the IB-225-STU-FP 2.5” SATA drive enclosure with Finger Print authentication.  I’m hoping you won’t misplace a finger but just in case you do the enclosure can register up to 10 finger prints.

The RFID enclosure is selling for around £22 and the Finger Print version is going for around £32 not including hard drive.

Samsung are one of the lesser known names in storage technology but just like Seagate and WD they’ve been in the game for a while. They also make memory so it’s only logical that they’d get into solid state drives (SSDs) sooner or later.

SSDs are of particular interest to laptop users because they have no moving parts, making them faster, quieter and less power hungry than traditional hard drives

You can pick up the new Samsung 32GB drives from Novatech, where they’re pitched directly against the OCZ Solid series at a shade over £80 for 32GB. If you believe manufacturers rated specifications the OCZ drives are faster but as the two drives use different technologies (SLC in the Samsung, MLC in the OCZ) it’s hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison.

You’ve already got the bird of prey taking pride of place on the bookshelf next to the dictionary but there’s something missing. Insulting your opponents honour on Eve online just isn’t as authentic as it should be.

Obviously you’re missing the vital ingredient – you need to type in Klingon! Cherry have announced a special, limited edition version of their standard keyboard with Klingon language markings. Featuring laser etched keys and the traditional Cherry build quality (their kit is generally built to last) it should be able to take any punishment your puny human fingers can dish out.

Yours for £44 from the Cherry online shop – numbers are limited so get in early!

[via Zath]

Can’t get that shot off in time? Get the “Jump” and “self destruct” keys mixed up in your favourite game? This uninspiring box may well have the answer, at least if it lives up to it’s claims.

OCZ, usually associated with high performance memory and PC components are selling this “Neural Impulse Actuator”. Otherwise known as thought control for your PC gaming.

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If there’s one constant in the IT industry it’s that storage will continue to get faster and cheaper. For a few years there’s been a steady progression of hard drive capacities through 500, 650 and 750GB but once they hit the 1TB barrier things seemed to accelerate, so we get to the point now where you can pre-order a 2TB drive.

So – as we enter 2009, what storage options are available and which configuration gives you the most bang for your buck? Is it finally time to dump that stack of 250GB drives in your aging PC and replace them with a shiny new 1TB?

I did just that recently and replaced a couple of older 300GB drives with a Western Digital 1TB which draws less power, is quieter, runs cooler and is faster than the ones I took out! It’s a relatively painless way of getting more performance out of an older PC.

Let’s look at a few options:

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