Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The über crypto-geeks in the house just raised all kinds of eyebrows with the announcement of Toshiba’s new physical random-number generator, which can pump out 2 megabits per second of random output in a 1,200 square micron circuit size. You’re a unique kind of person if this stuff gets your motor running — or if you actually need 2Mbps of random data on the go. May we suggest Kabbalah, or perhaps a game of Go?

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Filed under: Storage

Although we have hope that the format war is shuddering to a close, it’s probably still wise to hedge your bets just a little — and Plextor’s got you covered with two new SATA Blu-ray / HD DVD combo drives. The new PX-B920SA writes to BD-R at 4x speeds, DVDs at 16x, and CD-Rs at 40x, and reads HD DVD, while the lower-end PX-B300SA drops the BD-R capabilities and just writes to DVD and CD. Plextor says both drives will be available at the end of the month, but sadly we don’t have any pricing information.

[Via NordicHardware]

Read – PX-B920SA
Read – PX-B300SA

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Hosts: Steve Gibson with Leo Laporte

Our regular mailbag episode with questions and comments from our listeners.

For 16kpbs versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve’s site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

Security Now is brought to you by Astaro Internet Security.

Bandwidth for Security Now! is provided by AOL Radio.

Running time: 1:44:05

It made a lovely bedfellow, we must say. As you’ll see from our video, you’re able to download the latest movie releases, well before iTunes movie rentals launches in the UK. One-nil Archos.

You can surf the web wirelessly on your widescreen telly, thanks to the nifty palm-sized remote control, which boasts a mouse and a full qwerty keyboard.

There’s also a full electronic programme guide (EPG), enabling you to record directly from your set-top-box, and in turn transfer to your television to your media player. Nice.

The TV+ has a neat interface to play all of your music, watch your favourite shows and host all of your pics on a choice of 80GB or 250GB boxes.

Of course there’s the basic old streamer making those somewhat dubious torrent files you’ve downloaded viewable on the telly.

Sadly, the TV+ does not support HD content. Could this prove a fatal oversight akin to Steve McLaren leaving Beckham out of his first England squad? With Apple TV supporting beautiful Hi-Def that certainly levels things up at 1-1 for now. Apple still have the advantage, but Archos look ready for a spot of giantkilling

Filed under: Laptops

While Everex continues to bungle the launch of the CloudBook, Paul C. Kim is already spilling details on the next iteration, providing an already troubled launch with problems of Osborne proportions. Due to be released later this year, the upcoming CloudBooks should feature an SSD option, “female colors,” and possibly even a 22-inch option. Also under consideration is mobile broadband. Already announced were the touchscreen and 9-inch versions which we should be seeing in a couple months — leaving you absolutely zero reason to buy a CloudBook now unless you’ve already been suckered into pre-ordering one; which it seems everyone has already done, so we suppose the point is moot.

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