I just mentioned that cool looking MX-2 remote control from Gioteck. I also mentioned that you would need an IR adapter of some sort for it to work. The good news is that Gioteck has one of those coming too.

The device is called the Gioteck In2Link for the PS3 Slim. It not only adds a wide angle IR receiver, but it also adds some lost connectivity. The device plugs into the two USB ports of the Slim and adds a third powered USB port.

For a long time the only option for storing data inside computer was a traditional HDD with spinning palters. SSDs came along and used flash storage that needed no spinning platters and offered more speed. People are now starting to move to SSDs rather than HDDs in force with the price of SSD storage becoming down.

Addonics has announced a couple new ways to get solid-state storage in your notebook or desktop computer with two new CFast adapters. The first adapter is the CFast HDD adapter that lets users put either 8GB CFast or 32GB CFast cards inside the machine. The HDD adapter is a direct replacement for a 2.5-inch drive in a desktop or notebook computer.

One of the things that I don’t like about my high capacity memory cards is moving a lot of pictures from them to my PC in bulk. I tend to just snap pics until the card is full. It can take a long time to transfer lots of GB of pics to the PC via USB.

Pretec has announced the world’s first USB 3.0 memory card reader called the P240. This super fast memory card reader has up to 5Gb/s of bandwidth. That makes it perfect for transferring lots of images and video to and from memory cards.

When it comes to viewing your digital photos on the go or moving them from your memory cards to a bulk storage device the gadgets that allow this can be expensive. Digital Foci has announced a new version of the Photo Book in white.

The white version is just in time for showing off photos at spring and summer weddings. The PBK-080 has an 8-inch digital screen and a resolution of 800 x 600. Internal storage for the device is 4GB and it has a full memory card reader supporting CF, SD, SDHC and more letting you offload digital images to the Photo Book.

Without several digital photo frames around my house my wife would have me eternally printing all the digital photos she takes. Normally that wouldn’t be that big a deal, but she never seems to ask for the right size print or doesn’t like some aspect of the photo. That means printing one photo often turns into a long run of printing, fixing, and reprinting. At least I can skip the printing with the digital frames.

Viewsonic has announced a new line of digital photo frames that includes the 10.4-inch VFD1020, the 8-inch VFD820, and the 7-inch VFD720. The range is called the TrueView family and the entire line has a 4:3 aspect ratio for less image distortion.

More powerful cameras mean that we need powerful storage solutions. Well, here’s the latest portable external hard drive photo manager from Digital Foci. It goes by the name of the Picture Porter 35 and the device features a 160GB+ hard drive, a 3.5 inch color LCD screen, an integrated card reader supporting CF, MMC, SD/HC, miniSD, Memory Stick, MS PRO, MS Duo, and xD-Picture cards, a USB host, and a TV or a projector output.

It’s not the most beautiful device we’ve ever seen, but it’s a great tool to backup your endless vacation photos and enjoy them. The Picture Porter 35 will be introduced at CES next week, but won’t be available until Summer of 2009. No price info yet.

Look, your desk is looking really messy. I get it. Too much stuff. Some of the stuff you put inside other stuff, which connects to still more stuff, which you have to disconnect to recharge other stuff. It’s enough to drive you crazy. Wires, docks and slots are everywhere, sometimes you can;t find your computer. Well here’s a great solution.

The Griffin Simplifi combines the functionality of three devices in one package. It also has an adapter for charging your iPod without the computer or for an external HDD. You also get two USB hubs and it supports Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, SD, xD and CF cards. The Griffin Simplifi will cost about $70 and will let you clean up some of that clutter.

When you think about the French, chances are you think comedy involving mimes and baguettes dancing with their comedy god Jerry Lewis. Is that just me? Alright then. The French are doing something interesting with USB and trains. A kind of wireless easy-pass for trains. French public transportation company SNCF is getting 1,000 customers to help it test an RFID-enabled smart card that doubles as a USB drive, known as the Weneo ID Smart.

SNCF wants to expand its contactless payment system, and the plan would allow customers to plug their train passes into their PC at home. Which makes sense, because at home they can add money to their account, avoid missing trains because the train is pulling away as they rush to put money onto a card, and it probably helps with crowds as well. Schedules can also be downloaded to the card and it’s a photo ID. Once on the train, the fare would be deducted from the card by an RFID reader or an attendant with a handheld device. They’ll have to see if it’s a success first, but if so, the SNCF may want everyone using the system by 2010.

Most of us think that our 4,8 or 16GB SD card for our digital camera is large. How would you like to have 160GB of storage space for your camera? That’s huge! Well, today Digital Foci announced Photo Safe II, which is a portable photo storage device that takes some of the burden from your laptop, Mac or PC.

It’s basically a battery operated HD. It also has a built-in card reader and automated copy function which could really come in handy. The device supports all of the popular card formats, including CF (Extreme III, IV, UDMA), MMC, SD/HC Card, miniSD, Memory Stick, MS PRO, MS Duo, MS PRO Duo, and xD-Picture card. Just insert a card and hit the copy button, the entire card will be copied at a speed 3.5 minutes per GB. I comes in 80GB and 160GB versions, which cost $139 and $189.

Not too long ago my memory card reader died on me. Several people I know asked me why exactly I bothered with a memory card reader when I can just connect my DSLR/phone/MP3 player directly to my computer. The answer is that with a memory card reader I don’t have to remember to turn the camera or device back off.

Every time I hook my Nikon D80 up to my computer I tend to forget it’s on and the next time I need it my battery is dead. IOGEAR announced a couple of new card readers today that are exactly what I need to replace my dead one. The GFR209 is a 12-in-1 Pocket Card reader/Writer that retails for $11.95. The GFR 209 can read and write to SD, miniSD, MMC, Memory Stick, and MS Duo cards. It’s also tiny and very portable at only 2.5-inches long and under 1-inch deep.

Anything that calls itself “UFO Combo Card Reader + 7-Port Hub” catches my attention. It’s not just a useless device with a cool name either. It’s a gadget that is actually quite handy sporting 7 powered USB 2.0 ports. It’s also got 7 slots to read CF / T-Flash / MicroSD / M2 / Mini SD / SD / MMC Micro / MMC / XD / SM / MS / MS Duo cards.

Did I mention it’s shaped like a UFO? (Sort of) And it might even house little aliens for all I know. The kind that get all up in your business at night, while you sleep. You can get yours in either blue or gray for $30.

Since I have two young kids I tend to take lots of digital pictures. For the most part the pictures sit around on my memory card until it gets full and I copy them to a folder on my hard drive. Recently I have started getting digital photo frames and actually displaying the digital photos that usually just sit there and do nothing.

Kodak introduced a couple new digital picture frames today called the M820 and the M1020. The M820 is an 8-inch frame and the M1020 is a 10-inch frame. Both share the same features including 16:9 aspect ratio, 128 MB of internal memory and built-in speakers to play MP3 tunes. Card readers are built-in that allow direct connecting of CF, SD, MMC, xD, and MS.

Desk top space is a precious thing. We save it wherever we can, but it just seems to get reclaimed by something else. This should help. The ZPC-GX31 will save you desktop space by putting an Intel Core Duo PC with a CDRW/DVD drive and a card reader inside a “normal size keyboard”.

Some features are Dual Display capabilities, 4MB of DDR2/667MHz RAM, 1Gb LAN and DVI interface. They claim that this is a complete personal computer that takes up no more space than a typical keyboard. Just put it on your desktop, plug in a monitor and you are done. You can customize the ZPC-GX31 All-in-One PC to fit whatever your needs may be, which makes the price range anywhere from $629 to $1099. While it does admittedly look like an old Commodore 64 I still have to ask myself, is this the future as far as home PC’s are concerned?

Delkin has a new CompactFlash card reader they are showing off this week called the ImageRouter. This device solves the problem of photographers having to download multiple CF cards to a computer after a shoot. The ImageRouter doesn’t really make the actual transfer happen any faster but what it does do is allow the multiple cards to do their transfer simultaneously so you don’t have to watch it and swap them out when each are done.

As if loading 4 of the cards at a time is not enough Delkin says that if you buy more than one you can daisy-chain them together with two ImageRouters letting you download 8 CF cards at the same time. Delkin doesn’t elaborate on their site on just how many can be connected at a time but does say that you can connect “two or more” and also mentions that the ImageRouter will help whether you have “four or fourteen CompactFlash cards”. We’re guessing that after a few connected together things might get pretty slow and according to SlashGear three is the limit.

The card readers connect through a USB 2.0 connection and reach transfer speeds of 19MB/sec reads. Two ImageRouters connected slows it slightly with a 17MB/second read and 15MB/sec write speeds. Delkin is getting these card readers ready for purchase by April retailing at $149. The BackupandBurn software can be purchased with it in a bundle for $249, which helps with automatically routing and naming files during the transfer.

The Playstation 3 ended 2007 with a strong December selling just under 800,000 units during the month and looks to trying to keep on with momentum this year by releasing the white PS3 that we saw launch last October in Japan. It came with a 40GB hard drive, white DualShock controllers and like the other 40GB models it lacked the memory card reader, backwards compatibility and had only two USB ports. This white model headed for the US appears to be the same. The information along with photos was released by the FCC and shows it was originally submitted last October with a request to keep it under wraps for a while.