It’s been a while since Data Robotics had some new hardware. But now they are sharing a larger, tougher DroboPro that’s as easy to use as its predecessor. The 8-bay NAS is aimed at small businesses and creative professional types, but everyone can get in on loving it.

The price is $1300 and it connects to your network via iSCSI, Firewire 800 or USB 2 and supports up to 8 3.5-inch SATA drives for a maximum of 16TB of storage. It’s rack mountable as well if you like. It will only take up about a square foot of desk real estate, while standing five inches tall.

Looky here. Apple retailer ClubMac’s 500 GB Time Capsule page is currently NOT showing an image (shown here) of a 2 TB Time Capsule retail box in its “Product Detail” section. At one point, it apparently was showing such a box. Apple’s Time Capsule combination wireless router and network-attached storage drive is currently available only in 500 GB for $299 and 1 TB for $499.

It may turn out to be real. 2TB 3.5″ hard drives have recently become available, so why not? The original source of the image used on ClubMac’s site is unknown.

Brando is known for its whacky USB gadgets, so it isn’t much of a surprise to see them offering this combination SATA HDD dock / stereo speaker / USB hub. While it won’t tell you the temperature at your desk, it’s sure to come in handy.

Some features include compatibility with 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA hard disks, two USB 2.0 ports, USB audio, three watt stereo speakers, and volume control. If you are a fan of Brando’s gadget combo creativity, it will only cost you $59.

Summer is almost here in many areas. Spring may have only just officially begun, but in the south, the summer heat will be here in mere weeks. That means that many people are already getting their swimming pools ready for the summer.

If you are looking for a way to get some music outside during your pool party without risking shock or frying your MP3 player Grace Audio has a new waterproof speaker system that is pretty slick called the Aqua Sounder wireless speaker. The Aqua Sounder is a round orb speaker that floats on the surface of the water pumping out the tunes from a wireless transmitter up to 150 feet away.

Panasonic jumps full onto the iPod bandwagon with their SC-HC-Series iPod D-Docks named the SC-HC3 and SC-HC4. Both are very similar. Aside from having unique colors, the SC-HC4 includes an SD memory card slot. You can also rip music from your CDs onto the SD/SDHC card directly without software, with transfer speeds of 8x.

Both docks feature two 2.6″ diameter speakers and a 40W stereo amplifier, a built-in AM/FM radio tuner, 3.5mm auxiliary input jack and display. It doesn’t mention whether the iPhones are supported, but we are guessing they must be. They’ll run you $350 and $400. They arrive in Japan on April 18th.

It looks like Samsung was ultra serious about releasing about a million touchscreen devices this year. Two more handsets have been leaked and despite the fact that they look exactly the same, they have some differences.

Both pack in a 240 x 400 resolution touchscreen and both have a home button. Their exteriors make them look like twins, but under the hood is where the differences are. We don’t know much about the S8000, but we do know it features a 5-megapixel camera with dual LED flash and autofocus. The M8000 also has the camera but is marketed toward the music-listening crowd with a music key on the screen and a 3.5mm headset jack.

Saving a few watts by using a more energy efficient hard drive isn’t high on the list of priorities for most businesses and your average computer user. The savings in electricity for most of us won’t offset the cost of replacing a hard drive. However, for large data centers saving a few watts per hard drive can equate to millions of dollars.

Hitachi has announced its latest energy efficient hard drive aimed at the enterprise market called the Ultrastar C10K300. The drive spins at 10,000 RPM and connects to servers via an SAS interface. The drive has a 2.5-inch form factor helping to save space in crowded server environments.

The folks over at Samsung have been busy. The new Samsung SCH-U490, aka the Samsung Trance will soon be unveiled. The phone features touch and context sensitive keys for navigation and media playback, microSDHC expansion slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, 1.3 megapixel camera with video recorder, speakerphone, and 1GB of internal memory.

The bulkier but more feature-packed replacement for the Juke will sport Bang & Olufsen speakers, 128MB dedicated for apps, and microSD expansion up to 16GB. The Samsung Trance will be heading for Verizon as under the name Samsung Trance in the second quarter of 2009.

You could always just wait for Apple to release its first netbook, but you may be in for a long wait. But if you’re in China, turns out you can now get one. Manufacturers in Shenzhen got sick of waiting and created their own netbook. Like any copycat, they had to make some adjustments to the design, ike the inverted fruit on the top cover.

When it comes to specs, the WF188 actually isn’t too shabby. It features a 10-inch LED display with a resolution of 1024 x 576, a 1.3Ghz Via Nano processor with the VIA VX855 chipset, and a max of 2GB RAM. You can choose between a 160GB hard drive or up to 64GB SSD. Bluetooth, 802.11b/g wireless, and 3.5G HSDPA connectivity.

The new voice-enabled iPod shuffle. It’s like Stephen Hawking is there to guide you through your songs in between constantly touching your earbuds wire. I’ll be honest, I think it’s a lame move. A gimmick. One designed to get more money out of the consumer and give you nothing extra.

It has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, but it’s controlled by proprietary headphones. Non-Apple headphones will require a special adapter that includes the required three-button controller. According to Apple they are working with third parties to put other compatible ear phones on shelves.

It seems counterproductive to be buying a portable DVD player, what with Blu-Ray and all of the other options available to you, but if you are eyeing a new DVD player, check this out. The most interesting feature of the DCP951/37 from Philips is the retractable iPod dock.

Its compatible with the iPod Touch, iPod Nano and the iPod Classic. The DCP951/37 will give you only a 640×220 resolution, but on the other hand it can play almost all standard video discs and also has an SD card slot. You’ll also get MP3 support, 2 x 3.5mm stereo headphone jacks and a built-in battery that will give you almost 3 hours of playback.

The Samsung S7220 Ultra b is a 3.5G handset with a 5MP shooter and GPS support. It weighs in at just 88 grams and comes equipped with a standard 2.2-inch 240 x 320 pixel OLED panel, and WiFi. Its 5MP camera also adopts flash and autofocus, panoramic capture function, smile detection, macro capabilities, image stabilization, and red-eye reduction.

The Samsung Ultra b / S7220 will also handle MP3, AAC and MPEG4 file formats and can be synchronized with Windows Media Player on a PC or laptop. Some other features include an FM radio, stereo Bluetooth, microSD expandable memory, USB 2.0 connectivity, flight mode and Java support.

Sony Insider has some leaked images of the CMT-Z100iR mini-sound system, which, turns out, is an uber-stylish looking system with an iPod dock, CD player and USB port to go along with 20w speakers.

An actual nice looking iPod dock? Seems too good to be true. Let the cries of “photoshopped!” begin. The device also features touch panel controls, a 3.5mm audio-in jack, bass/treble adjustments, AM/FM radio and a remote. We don’t have a release date or price, but Sony Insider is guessing $150-$250.

GPS devices are becoming very common for not only automotive use, but for those needing directions when walking or riding a bike. Garmin is one of the biggest names in GPS navigation and the company announced several new GPS models at CeBIT 2009 in Germany today.

The new models are in the nuvi 1200 and 1300 families and all offer thin profiles with the ability to give directions when driving or walking. One new feature of all the devices is optional CityXplorer maps that are available for select tourist destinations around the globe.

After CES comes and goes the next big consumer electronics show happens in Germany and is called CeBIT. CeBIT 2009 will be kicking off this month and a slew of new computers, computer accessories and consumer electronics devices will be debuted at the show.

Among the new devices will be a line of external hard drives from Rocstor called Eagleroc. The Eagleroc drives are available with versions supports USB, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and eSATA. Some of the drives use small 2.5-imnch notebook HDDs and some use larger 3.5-inmch drives.