One of the things that many people like about a DSLR camera is that they tend to give you control over all of the little things the camera can do right from the front of the camera on the lens or with little knobs on the camera body. The way the cameras are designed for the most part means you can adjust all the settings without having to take your eye away from the viewfinder. Samsung has a similar technology for its interchangeable lens cameras like its NEX10.

The technology is called i-Function lenses. These lenses are able to communicate with the body of the camera to get optimized settings and allow more creative control over photos. Samsung has announced that it has updated the firmware for the NEX10 digital camera and with the update applied; the camera will now support the i-Function features of the lenses. The camera gets an updated GUI as well.

The single i-Function lens button allows the user to access settings like shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and others. The user presses the i-Function button and then spins a ring on the lens to go through the settings available. The lenses that are available for the NEX10 after the firmware version 1.20 is applied include a 20-50mm lens and a 20mm wide-angle pancake lens. The firmware can be downloaded right now from the Samsung website.

The amount of storage space on a computer is sort of like thinking about how much money is in a bank vault for me. I can think about how cool it would be to have a billion dollars in my account, but the reality is that it's hard to fathom exactly how much money that would be. The same goes for storage capacity. I have a hard time fathoming how much data is contained in 17 petabytes of storage.

Autonomy is a company that offers all sorts of services to corporations and one of those services is access to the firm's private cloud computing network. That private cloud now manages 17 petabytes of data according to the company. The data includes things like email, multimedia, and documents. If you convert 17 petabytes to gigabytes, that works out to 17,825,792 gigabytes of data. We can put that into terms that are a bit easier to compare though.

Some scientists claim that the human brain only stores about 2.5 petabytes of memories. If you are wondering how much video you could store in 17 petabytes, you could watch for 226 years and never see the same thing twice. The total storage in 17 petabytes is more than 11 times the estimated 10 billion photos that are on Facebook right now. That is an insane amount of data to say the least.

Notebooks of all brands and in all price ranges have featured the small little rectangular hole on the case for years now that is specifically designed for Kensington locks. These locks use cables attached to the desk or another object that is hard or impossible for a thief to make off with. Kensington has unveiled the latest generation of notebook locks that still makes use of the port that is on notebooks today.

The new lock is called the ClickSafe and it has a separate portion that plugs into the port on a notebook whereas the older lock design had the portion that connects to the notebook built into the lock itself. Once the separate ClickSafe nub is placed into the notebooks Kensington port, the ClickSafe lock can simply be clicked onto the port for fast security when the user needs to walk away from their notebook.

There will be several version of the ClickSafe notebook lock offered. A keyed consumer version of the lock will sell for $49.99 and has the features you expect from a Kensington lock. The lock head is tamper proof and no key is needed to lock the notebook down unlike older versions of the lock. The steel cable is the strongest physical security on the market. A key is required to remove the lock from the computer.

As long as there have been DSLR cameras on the market the entry-level range was typically the first step into interchangeable lens digital cameras for many point-and-shoot users. Those days are slipping away now that micro four-thirds cameras are becoming popular and offering many of the benefits and features of a DSLR in a smaller package. Olympus is one of the more well known names in the DSLR market and the company has announced some big changes.

Olympus' Toshiyuki Terada, a product manager for the SLR planning department, has stated that there will be no new entry-level DSLR cameras from Olympus. He said, "We do not have concrete plans to replace the E-620 and other recent SLRs. The entry level SLR class can be completely replaced by the Pen system in terms of performance." If no new entry-level DSLR cameras shocks you, Terada had an even more interesting prediction about the future of DSLR cameras of all types.

Olympus plans to extend the line of PEN cameras all the way from low-end models to the semi-professional photography market. Terada stated when asked if there will at some point be no DSLRs from Olympus, "In the future - yes. This is one of our goals but we do not know when this will happen. Until then, we will support the SLR segment because the E-3 users are Olympus's foundations."

If you are lucky, your computer may have one or two USB 3.0 ports. My desktop only has a single USB 3.0 port and then has a few USB 2.0 ports as well. It's still common for notebooks and netbooks to only offer a single USB 3.0 port and this can be a big issue for you if you have an external HDD that uses USB 3.0 and a flash drive that supports the faster interface as well.

Trendnet has unveiled a new USB 3.0 hub that adds additional ports to any computer. The hub has four ports on it and needs one of your ports for connectivity to your computer. That means you get a net extra of three USB 3.0 ports. That should be enough to allow you to connect more USB 3.0 devices to your computer, assuming those devices aren't so fat that they block the port beside whatever you are plugging in.

The four port hub is called the TU3-H4 and the thing will work when plugged into USB 2.0 ports as well. I am used to seeing low prices on USB hubs, so this USB 3.0 hub looks very expensive to me at $79.99. The hub will ship "shortly" with nothing specific on the date. Trendnet also has add in cards for notebooks and desktops that will put a couple USB 3.0 ports in your computer if you don't have any USB 3.0 love by default.

Current LCD/LED monitors are very power efficient, but it doesn't stop the constantly evolving IT market from trying out new tech.

The University of Cincinnati has recently announced a new "e-Display design", which includes a massive breakthrough for electronic devices called, Electrofluidic Display Technology (EFD). Now, this is where you put your lab coat on... finally, you can be Gordon Freeman!

Got it on? Good, here we go, EFD is created through the collaboration between U of C, Dupont, Sun Chemical and Gamma Dynamics.

Storage needs in the enterprise and consumer spaces are not the same. Consumers tend to want more capacity and don't always care as much about power savings and all out performance as some sectors of the enterprise market does. In a large enterprise data center with lots of storage drives a small savings in power consumption can add up to big savings in an electric bill. Hitachi has shipped a new enterprise class HDD called the Ultrastar C10K600.

The new HDD comes in several capacities with 300GB, 450GB, and 600GB versions all using 2.5-inch form factors to take up less space and use less power than similar 3.5-inch offerings. The new 10K rpm HDDs are 15% faster when it comes to random performance and 18% faster for sequential performance than competing products on the market today. At the same time the performance increases, the drives also need 22% less power than competing products on the market.

The new drive has a dual port 6Gb/s SAS interface for fast data throughput. The drive is also the only one in its class that uses a 64MB cache to optimize the read/write response time. The average seek time for the drive is as low as 3.7ms with latency of 3ms. The drives are intended to be used in Tier 1 data center, Enterprise network storage arrays, blade servers, and rack-mounted servers. The drives can also be ordered with optional bulk data encryption feature. The drive needs only 5.6W of power in read/write operation and 3.1W in idle mode.

In Europe and other countries, the practice of subsidizing notebooks and netbooks in exchange for a contract on a new mobile broadband account has been going on for a long time. The practice isn't new in the US with many wireless providers now doing the same thing, though it took much longer to become normal in the US than it did in Europe. Verizon Wireless has announced a new addition to the subsidized notebook line called the HP Pavilion dm1-2010nr.

The notebook runs on an AMD Athlon II Neo K325 CPU that runs at 1.3GHz and has dual-cores. The notebook also has 2GB of DDR3 RAM with one single memory slot. HP uses Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS on the machine and it has an integrated microphone and webcam. The notebook is finished with the HP imprint finish with champagne gold color.

The screen of the notebook is 11.6-inches and it is LED backlit with a resolution of 1366 x 768. The sound system of the notebook is from Altec Lansing and the machine measures 11.4" L x 8.03" D x 0.78 to 1.20" H and weighs 3.24 pounds. The little notebook naturally has an integrated Verizon broadband modem. It will sell for $199.99 after a $200 mail-in rebate and a new 2-year mobile broadband agreement. The machine is available right now.

With more and more notebooks, netbooks, and desktops now coming with USB 3.0 ports, we are seeing a lot of new USB 3.0 external storage solutions crop up on the market. HP is the largest computer company in the world as far as shipments go and the company sells a vast line of accessories and peripherals to go along with its notebooks, netbooks, and desktops as well. HP has now unveiled a new USB 3.0 portable HDD that is aimed at the mobile user.

The new HDD provides up to three times faster data transfers than USB 2.0 and retains USB 2.0 compatibility for older machines. The HDD can be had in 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB capacities and the drive can back up large data sets very quickly. HP claims that the drive can transfer a 2-hour HD movie in 4 minutes and 50 seconds using USB 3.0 compared to 14 minutes and 27 seconds using USB 2.0. For the most portability, the external storage solution needs no power adapter.

The drive gets all the power and connectivity it needs directly from the USB port. The portable drive can fit into a pocket and will be easy to carry on the road when needed. The storage solution measures 4.47" L x 3.15" W x 0.75" H and it weighs 0.44 pounds. HP hasn't offered official pricing or availability information at this time. The drive is covered with a 2-year limited warranty on the hardware.

One of the newest video cards that covers the home theater and modestly priced segments of the video card market to come from Big Green is the GT430. Club 3D has pulled the wraps off its own single slot GT430 video card and the small little card should be a nice choice for a HTPC machine that doesn't need the most powerful hardware on the market.

The GT430 from Club 3D is aimed at accelerating photos and HD video according to the company and will allow the user to watch 3D Blu-ray flicks on a computer screen or a big screen in the living room. The video card uses the PCIe v2.0 slot and has a core clock of 700MHz. The card uses 1024MB of DDR3 RAM that is clocked at 1333MHz and has a 128-bit memory interface.

A fan and heat sink keeps the GPU cool while producing little noise to distract you from your favorite movie. Dimensions of the single slot card are 154mm x 120mm x 16mm. The card has a single DVI output, a VGA output, and HDMI out. It supports HDCP for Blu-ray films and has a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1600. Pricing and availability are unknown at this time.