Remember the Linksys Media Hub that the company announced back at CES? Well, it’s coming to Australia in March, although getting your hands on one may be harder than you’d want.
Linksys’ new Wireless Home Audio system is very similar in function to Sonos’ streaming home audio system, and on specs alone, manages to out spec the latter in some areas.
The Gadget: Linksys’ Media Hub seems like a server, since it backs up data, gathers your media files automatically, and streams media over IP, but it’s more like a super functional NAS drive.
You probably won’t remember the WRT610N router from Linksys – even Linksys found it hard to remember. As a quick reminder it’s the first dual-N band wireless router, sending and receiving data over both the 2.4GHz network and the 5GHz network, letting you transmit even more data faster.
Well, it’s finally launched in Australia. It’ll set you back about $350 bucks, but it’s available. When the US guys reviewed it, they thoroughly enjoyed its ease of use and solid data speeds, so if you’re in the market for a new router, this could be a solid option.
Full press release, for those release junkies out there, is below.
If you love R/C toys, this Wi-Fi router monster truck is definitely a project worth tackling. In a nutshell, a guy named Jonathan Bennet managed to rig a very hackable Linksys WRT54GL router to a $US5 R/C monster truck so that it could be driven via the internet from up to 500 meters (1640 feet) away. Although not designed to be a how-to guide, there is more than enough information on the project page for someone with some knowledge to put one together at home. [JB Projects via Boing Boing Gadgets]
The Gadget: Linksys’ Dual-N Band Wireless Router just became official, giving users simultaneous 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands so 802.11N users and 802.11G users can coexist without N users having to use the crowded 2.4GHz space. Also, since it’s dual N-band, two N users can connect (one to each frequency) without interfering with the other. It’s styled in Linksys’ new form factor, which helps emphasise that Linksys is more for consumers (especially compared to their parent company Cisco).
Linksys’ upcoming WRT610N Ultra Rangeplus Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router may look great and perform great, but it’s got one of the most ridiculous names we’ve ever seen. Don’t take it from us, take it from Linksys’s own Mani Dillon, who can’t manage to get the name out without looking at the box. And even then, not so much luck. The money shot comes at 1:05. We love ya Mani!
Linksys today announced EasyLink Advisor setup wizard for Mac OSX 10.4 and up, available for download in support of WRT310N, WRT160N, WRT110 and WRT54G2. New routers will ship with a disc containing both Mac and Windows setups. The other good news is that Linksys and parent company Cisco will now support Mac users when they call for tech support. As a fan of Linksys and Macs, all I can say is, “It’s about freakin’ time.” [Linksys]
After almost destroying the internet as we know it (ha!), Linksys have decided to embrace nature by revolutionising their product packaging.
Here’s what they’ve done:They’ve ditched the sleeve inside the box that tells you all about the product – all that info is now written on the box itself The size of each product’s box has been reduced (which must mean that the sleeve information is in a tiny font, I guess) All the packaging is going to be recyclable or bio-degradable Everything’s printed on recycled paper with eco-friendly inks made from vegetable and soy (yum!) Plastic bags are being eradicated wherever possible
Apparently all this ecofriendly effort has resulted in more than 40% reduction in waste materials. Which is a lot. If every tech company put in this kind of effort, we could be living in a sparkling utopian vision of the future after all.[Linksys]
I’m a huge fan of home media servers, but the enduring problem with them is that the available network media streaming appliances have, by and large, sucked. The Xbox 360 recently received a firmware update that improved its capabilities, but a hacked Xbox running Xbox Media Center (XBMC) is still probably the best product available for the job.
CNET, however, has recently published a review of the Linksys DMA2200 that might have me changing my mind on that. It supports all the codecs that people are actually interested in using (Divx, Xvid, Windows Media, H.264 and MPEG1, 2 and 4), which is not something that can be said of, say, the Apple TV. It can stream and control live TV from a PC, effectively turning your PC into a remote PVR. It also supports 802.11n networking, which is enough to do HD over wireless.
Anyway, if you’re interested in knowing more, just follow the link. [CNET]
