VR-Zone

Apple is working on a 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display and USB 3.0, according to a report by 9to5Mac.

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We've already seen HighPoint's peculiar USB 3.0 RocketU cards with performance claims of 20Gbps and now the company has followed up with the RocketStor that might actually be able to take advantage of some of that claimed performance. The RocketStor is a simple USB 3.0 hard drive dock, but with a pair of USB 3.0 connectors at the rear.

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USB 3.0 hubs are apparently still being developed and VIA Labs announced a few days ago that it’s ready to unleash its third generation USB 3.0 hub controller. The big news this time around is a more power efficient design that allows for more bus powered devices to be used simultaneously.

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If you're an iPhone 4S (or a new iPad) owner and often find yourself spending time searching for misplaced keys or other such items, Logitec's new Bluetooth 4.0 accessory - the LBT-MPVRU01 "Burutag" (which translates to "vibrating tag") may just be the solution you've been looking for.

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I-O Data has extended its optical drive portfolio once again with the release of its BRP-U6C series of Portable Blu-ray XL Drives. The drives run dimensions of 140 x 147 x 19 mm (WxDxH) with a weight of about 300g.
 

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Memory card readers built into notebooks are generally not the fastest ones around and if you happen to own a notebook with USB 3.0 connectivity, you're definitely going to want to invest in a USB 3.0 card reader. Kingston's new MobileLite G3 USB 3.0 reader might just fit the ticket, at least as long as you only use SD or MS cards with your camera.

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Back in January Etron announced its USB 3.0 flash controllers at CES, but only now has the company started to ship the ICs. The company is aiming to bring lower cost USB 3.0 flash drive to the market with its now controller, while still offering decent performance.

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What can only be called a very recent addition in the world of peripheral IC makers, ASMedia has quickly made a name for itself, thanks to in to small part to its USB 3.0 host and device controllers as well as its SATA 6Gbps controllers. Now the company is said to be aiming to product solutions that are compatible with Intel's Thunderbolt standard.

Updated with a correction from ASMedia

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If you're a regular VR-Zone reader you might remember our massive USB 3.0 host controller test that we did back in August last year. As the first of Intel's new 7-series motherboards are starting to appear, we thought we'd do a quick test of Intel's native USB 3.0 host controller and compare how it stacks up to some of the best discrete controllers.

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One area where SilverStone appears to be spending a lot of resources is in PC accessories and no, we're not talking about mice and keyboards etc. but rather about various add-in cards and other interesting little trinkets. At CeBIT the company was showing off some new USB 3.0 host controllers and some internal USB 3.0 card readers that we took a quick look at.

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A Japanese company by the name of RATOC has just unveiled its "REX-USB3HDMI" display adapter which provides a single HDMI output via connection to a USB 3.0 interface. Connecting over USB 2.0 is also possible, but one should expect less than smooth results in this instance.

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If you're a regular reader you might remember that VIA Labs announced its USB2Expressway technology back at CES, but it wasn't really clear as to how it worked. Well, we've now had a chance to sit down with the company for an explanation and it's actually a lot simpler than it seemed.

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The aptly named Targus USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Dual Video Adapter does exactly what the name suggests; it adds option to add up to two displays via a USB 3.0 adapter. It's based on DisplayLink's new DL-3900 chipset which allows for a pair of display to be driven over USB 3.0.

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One of the drawbacks of USB, no matter the version is the limited range of 5m, not an issue for most home users, but known to be a big problem when it comes to a lot of vertical markets. With USB 2.0 it was easy enough to extend the connections over an Ethernet cable with the help of some signal boosters, but USB 3.0 required a different solution and VIA Labs seems to have come up with a solution to the problem with some help of fibre optical cable.

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Although Intel will be incorporating USB 3.0 support in most of its 7-series chipsets and AMD already having support in its A75 chipset, we're still a long way from ubiquitous USB 3.0 support and both Intel and AMD won't be offering more than four ports as standard. As such third party USB 3.0 host controllers aren't going anywhere for the time being at least and Etron has upped the game by launching two new four port host controllers.

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