It used to be that the wireless router only did one thing and threw in a few wired ports for computers close to the hub. Today the wireless router is becoming a converged device that serves multiple purposes. Netgear has announced a new router called the Rangemax Wireless-N Gigabit Router with USB model number WNR3500L.

The router has gigabit ports on it for fast wired connections and has a single USB port on it. The USB port will allow you to share USB peripherals with the wired and wireless network including hard drives and other devices.

After a delay that felt like years, the IEEE finally ratified the 802.11n standard. This means that products can finally stop advertising the 802.11 draft N caveat and become fully 802.11n complaint.

Belkin wasted no time and announced that many of its existing products are already compatible and meet the 802.11n specifications. The compliant products include the N Wireless Routers and modem routers, the N+ Wireless router, N1 Vision Router, N Wireless Notebook Card, N Wireless USB Adapter, and more.

One of the things that I often wished I had when I was traveling was a wireless router. The fact of the matter is that most wireless routers are so large that you can’t easily travel with them. TrendNet has unveiled a new wireless router designed for travel.

TrendNet has announced what it claims to be the world’s smallest travel router capable of 300Mbps speeds. The device is called the TEW-654TR and it measures in at a scant 2.5 x 3.25 x 0.75 inches. The device may be small but it offers the features you expect on a router including a reset button, power port, and a WAN port along with an LED display for status.

Not that it’s a competition or anything, but Logitec of Japan is now claiming the thinnest wireless router in the world. The LAN-W300N/R measures a sickly and anorexic 7mm at its thinnest part, while the widest part is a mere 24mm thick.

If you like your routers like supermodels, thin and sexy, the LAN-W300N/R also functions as an access point in your home or office. It’s too early to know if we will ever see it around these parts, but we hope so.

Look at this. Routers are getting just a tad sexier after all. And if you have some media to share with those around you, the Linksys Wireless N Storage Router is a nice looking option. It’s a sexier refresh of Wireless G, throwing in external R-SMA antenna connectors, USB connectivity (for your external drive) and an integrated media server.

The device can stream to PCs or UPnP AV digital media adapters, and it supports FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS file systems in both read and write mode. It’s available now for Just $109.99.

Ericsson is introducing the concept that routers can be sexy with the company’s new W30 and W35 models. Sleek, sexy and they will supposedly do 7.2Mbps down and 2.0Mbps up on three HSPA bands in addition to quadband EDGE.

Both models offer 802.11b / g and four Ethernet ports for routing high-speed WWAN data however you want. The W35 throws in two RJ11 ports on board for VoIP connectivity and should be shipping in early June. So make some room for it and wait patiently.

We are all familiar with those annoying know captchas that can be found on sites all over the web. The idea is to make sure that you are human. Well, D-Link has added it to their latest router range. Yep. Routers with Captcha-capability built-in, hoping to prevent attacks from malware and spyware.

The new firmware will also also work with current models, where the distorted letters and numbers combination are added to common router settings pages. The D-Link router models that feature CAPTCHA include the DIR-615, DIR-625, DIR-628, DIR-655, DIR-825, DIR-855, DIR-685 and DGL-4500.

3G routers aren’t new, even though many of us don’t have one. Those who do own one don’t have any this good looking. Ericsson must have finally seen the light and realized that these devices don’t have to look ugly. The Ericsson W30 Data Router and Ericsson W35 Data and Voice Router just slipped past the FCC, and they do indeed look sexy.

They can get HSPA / UMTS / GSM data and toss it out over WiFi and Ethernet. They can also share a USB printer. The W35 adds voice and fax capability. No word on price or availability. Mostly we’re just excited to see a router this nice looking.

Femtocells are small devices that resemble wireless routers that take cellular signals indoors and route them across the Internet allowing users to get better reception when in their home or office. Most femtocells focus on being able to improve voice call quality and fail to mention benefits provided in data speeds.

Airvana has been showing off its HubBub CDMA femtocell and is focusing on the improvements the device offers on broadband speeds and connectivity indoors rather than voice call quality. The company says that studies have shown that while 36% of voice calls with mobile phones happen inside a user’s home, 45% of data usage happens inside the home.

Trendnet unveiled today a beefy new dual band N router. It is called the Trendnet TEW-672GR and pricing is around $158.

The Trendnet TEW-672GR is a new 300Mbps dual band wireless N Gigabit router. It offers users the choice of the 2.4GHz or 5.0GHz radio bands for their data transfer needs and includes four Gigabit ports on the back of the router to do quick transfers to other wired devices.

The rate at which Wi-Fi networks are popping up in homes and offices is impressive. To save money and to have less of an impact on the environment many of the components and accessories we use with our wireless networks and computers are going green.

D-Link announced today that it is the first company to offer green Wi-Fi networking gear for home networks. According to D-Link its Green home network Wi-Fi routers are capable of saving up to 40% in power usage. Power savings are gained from the ability for the routers to detect cable length and link status and adjust power accordingly. The routers can also be programmed to turn the Wi-Fi radio off to save power.

A company by the name of Blackmagic Design does a fair amount of business in video editing products, converters and routers for the post-production and television broadcast industries. It is now crossing over to the consumer side with the introduction of the Blackmagic Video Recorder, priced at around $120.

The Blackmagic Video Recorder is a USB video capture product designed to take video from any analog video source, such as VHS or DVD, capture it and convert it to H.264 video files stored on your computer. This type of video file and can be used with products such as the iPod. Blackmagic says this product is thumb drive sized.

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.

All wireless routers are boring looking and some shade of gray, right? Not so, says D-Link. The hardware connectivity company is going a little stylish with a black paint job and interesting OLED display on its new D-Link Xtreme N Gaming Router (DGL-4500), priced at around $240.

The D-Link Xtreme N Gaming Router (DGL-4500) is gamer-focused, combining Draft 802.11n wireless technology with an “intelligent” packet processing engine to give online gaming a priority for bandwidth over other home network applications. There’s also duo wireless technology to let you choose between the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz band, Gigabit WAN and LAN ports and a “game-centric” user interface which allows for configuration of multiple ports or port ranges in the firewall by selecting a game title from a menu.

Kyocrea Wireless recently unveiled a new portable router which supports 802.11n (Draft 2.0) for faster wireless connections. The Kyocera KR2 Mobile Router will be available sometime in early 2008.

The Kyocera KR2 Mobile Router follows on the heels of the award-winning KR1. The KR2, besides supporting 802.11n, is designed to work with PCMCIA, ExpressCard and USB devices for wireless connectivity. It can also also act as a regular router via wired connections. A dedicated button helps setup and bolster wireless security, with the router featuring VPN-L2TP and enhanced encryption for network security.