ASUS today announced the Xonar Essence STU USB external digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and headphone amplifier, based on the acclaimed design and quality of Xonar Essence ST/STX internal sound cards and going beyond their already high standards. Offering audiophile-grade performance, Xonar Essence STU delivers USB connectivity and accessible external controls.
It offers clear sound with a 120dB signal to noise ratio (SNR), strong 600ohm headphone amplifier, asynchronous USB audio and swappable Op-Amps for DIY sound modification. Precision clock tuning technology further enhances audio fidelity, making Xonar Essence STU a great choice for discerning music lovers who need a quality DAC and headphone amplifier to drive the full capabilities of high-end headphones.
ASUS today announced the compact Xonar U7 USB external soundcard and headphone amplifier, which offers powerful and clear 114dB SNR audio with USB convenience. It incorporates a headphone amplifier, Dolby® Home Theater v4 support, plus dedicated microphone and volume controls.
Xonar U7 serves the needs of PC gamers who want to enjoy strong and clear sound via headphones, and is also ideal for listening to music as it produces much more impactful and detailed audio than onboard hardware. Connecting via USB, it requires no standalone power supply and works instantly setup-free with no need to open the PC case.
Realtek Semiconductor Corp., one of the world’s largest IC design houses and a market leader in USB interface application technology, today announced the Realtek SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) hub controller (RTS5401) has passed USB 3.0 compliance and certification testing by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF).
“The USB-IF is pleased that Realtek has achieved certification for its SuperSpeed USB hub controller (RTS5401),” said Jeff Ravencraft, President & COO, USB-IF. “Realtek is a USB-IF member company dedicated to USB device standardization, and their efforts support the USB-IF’s mission to expand the SuperSpeed USB ecosystem”.
As the SuperSpeed USB market continues to grow at a rapid pace, hub solutions are needed to conveniently manage multiple consumer devices using USB 3.0. Realtek SuperSpeed USB hubs provide a flexible connection between the host and peripheral devices, with no sacrifice in transmission performance.
Skyera Inc. and Western Digital Corp. today announced that Skyera has received strategic funding from Western Digital Capital as part of its recently announced Series B round of financing. Western Digital Capital co-invested in the $51 million round as an extension of the strategic relationship between the two companies that also includes joint technology development. Western Digital had previously funded Skyera as its initial outside investor.
“The backing of Western Digital has enabled us to ramp our business across marketing, sales and engineering which has been instrumental in creating the industry’s most innovative solid-state solution,” said Radoslav Danilak, chief executive officer of Skyera. “With our skyHawk family of enterprise solid-state storage systems we are witnessing the next era of solid-state storage and I strongly believe that having a close working relationship with Western Digital, the world’s top disk drive vendor, is invaluable as we set out to reshape the storage landscape.”
“One of our primary goals in developing strategic relationships with technology innovators in the broader storage ecosystem is to enable customers to develop highly optimized storage solutions that meet their changing data management needs,” said Steve Milligan, president and chief executive officer, Western Digital. “We see companies like Skyera as offering a dramatic improvement over traditional approaches to emerging storage challenges. We will continue to support innovation by collaborating with customers and partners, and investing in companies who are addressing today’s most exciting storage opportunities.”
ZOTAC International, a global innovator and leading manufacturer of graphics cards, mainboards and mini-PCs, today embarks on a new era of digital media sharing with the StreamBox and RAIDbox accessories that eases sharing digital audio, video and image files.
The ZOTAC StreamBox bridges the gap between mobile devices and television sets to enable easy broadcasting of audio, video and image files from Android smartphones, tablets and notebooks via the industry standard DLNA protocol. Display mirroring capabilities are available for select Android mobile devices via Miracast compatibility.
LSI Corporation today announced the company is first to ship production-level 12Gb/s SAS RAID-on-Chip (ROC) and I/O controller solutions to OEM customers. 12Gb/s SAS technology is designed to deliver double the data transfer rate of prior SAS solutions and unleashes the full performance potential of next-generation enterprise systems deploying high-performance solid-state storage.
The new products include:
At CeBIT, LSI is demonstrating the LSISAS3108 ROC plus MegaRAID® 6 technology along with the LSISAS3x48 SAS expander. For those looking to take advantage of 12Gb/s speeds with existing 6Gb/s drive infrastructure, LSI is showcasing DataBolt™ technology, a bandwidth optimizer performance acceleration feature. DataBolt technology, combined with the extended bandwidth of PCIe® 3.0, is designed to deliver double the throughput performance while using today's 6Gb/s SAS or SATA drive solutions. With this feature, DataBolt technology offers product enhancements and future proofing that helps protect customers' hard disk drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD) investments.
HighPoint Technologies launches the industry's fastest USB 3.0 RAID HBA's available for Mac OS X 10.8x Mountain Lion - the RocketU 1144CM. This third generation, PCIe 2.0 RAID HBA delivers 5Gb/s per-port performance and supports up to 4 external USB SSD's, hard drives or Enclosures.
Dedicated 5Gb/s per-port Performance
HighPoint's innovative 4-Port HBA architecture delivers revolutionary USB 3.0 performance. Unlike conventional USB 3.0 HBA's, each port has a dedicated USB 3.0 SuperSpeed controller, and delivers the fastest SATA performance possible over USB connectivity. The four independent 5Gb/s USB 3.0 Type-A connectors can be used simultaneously, and deliver an unprecedented transfer bandwidth of 20Gb/s; ideal for multi-drive configurations of high-performance SATA 6Gb/s SSD's and hard drives.
Addonics Technologies today announced the Addonics Cipher RAID Rack and the Cipher RAID Tower, two RAID Storage solutions with AES 256-bit hardware encryption for high capacity storage. Both products are ideal for securing large volumes of sensitive information, data achieving or video recording.
The Addonics 1U Cipher RAID Rack is designed to accommodate up to four 3.5" SATA hard drives in a 1U Rack mount chassis. The Cipher RAID Tower accommodates up to five 3.5" SATA hard drives in a 4-bay lightweight sturdy aluminum chassis for easy transportation.
Both units, which are operating system independent, connect to systems via a single eSATA or USB cable to a USB 3.0 or 2.0 port. Both Cipher RAID storage solutions come integrated with bullet proof, highly secure AES 256-bit full disk hardware encryption that is simple to use.
Lite-On Technology (hereinafter “Lite-On”) announced today that its Board of Directors approved to commence a cash tender offer to acquire the remaining outstanding shares of Lite-On IT Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Lite-On IT”) through a 100%-owned subsidiary, Baoyuan Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Baoyuan”), at NTD 32.75 per share, in sight of industry trends and integration of corporate resources. The cash tender offer will start from January 31st, 2013 and conclude on March 15th, 2013. The acquisition is conditioned upon the purchase of minimum tender of 81,542,619 shares (i.e. 8.89% of Lite-On IT outstanding shares) and the approvals from domestic and international regulatory parties.
After the completion of the tender offer, Baoyuan will issue redeemable preferred stock as consideration in exchange for the remaining Lite-On IT common shares. Subsequently, Lite-On will commence the merger with Baoyuan and directly own 100% stake of Lite-On IT.
Lite-On expects to continuously retain its leading position as the world's largest player of optical drives and penetrate SSD market in the Information and Communication Technology industry and strengthen its competitiveness via this acquisition. With the benefit of shared R&D and product know-how expertise, Lite-On will be capable of providing a full range of products to global clients of both companies and materialize the cross-selling opportunities. In addition, with synergies of cross-marketing, the rise of high growth markets in cloud computing, automotive electronics and medical & biotech applications will further bring revenue growth and profit expansion.
Satechi, a mobile accessories manufacturer, announces the availability of the USB 3.0 Aluminum External Hard Disk Enclosure and Multifunction Card Reader. The two new peripherals feature a sleek, clean aesthetic complimenting Apple computers and laptops perfectly in both form and function.
Satechi’s user friendly, USB powered Aluminum External Hard Disk Enclosure for 9.5mm and 12.5mm 2.5” SATA HDD/SSDs converts the user’s hard disk drive or solid state drive into a protected external drive ideal for protecting valuable data. The lightweight yet sturdy enclosure has USB 3.0 and eSATA interfaces which allow for fast data transfer and is also backward compatible allowing it to work with older products or technology. The External Hard Disk Enclosure also allows for fast and easy installation and disk swapping.