Bike taillight outshines others
Bicycle taillights were among the first products in which conventional light bulbs were replaced by light-emitting diodes. The diodes’ relatively low power consumption allowed manufacturers to use smaller and lighter batteries.
At first, LED taillights suffered from being somewhat dim. But that is not a limitation of the DiNotte Tail Light (www.dinottelighting.com). The lamp, which vaguely resembles a short, fat lipstick tube, contains a three-watt LED, making it more powerful than many bicycle headlights. On full power, the light projects a large beam of red light well behind the bicycle. The effect is a bit like carrying a red emergency flare.
The light, with a suggested price of $129, uses four AA batteries (rechargeables are recommended), and it runs for three hours on high power or 12 hours while blinking or on low, a setting that is still significantly brighter than other taillights. It attaches to any bicycle seat post quickly with an industrial O-ring, while the batteries have a separate case and Velcro attachment.
The aluminum casing is not just for style. LEDs get hot, so the casing acts as a heat sink to dissipate that energy.
– Ian Austen, The New York Times
Hardware to fight online thieves
It is phishing season. While Forrester Research predicts that online shopping will top $132 billion this year, with a substantial portion of that happening this holiday season, the threat of phishing and other forms of identity theft is also on the rise.
Zone Labs was one of the first companies to provide personal firewall software to help prevent hacking, spamming and virus attacks. The company has entered the hardware field with the ZoneAlarm Secure Wireless Router Z100G, which includes all the software needed to help protect your home network from intrusions.
The unit itself is a standard four-port hub with an 802.11 b/g wireless access point. It also has a built-in print server for sharing a printer over the network.
But the real advantage of the Z100G is the software, which defends against standard attacks and updates automatically to handle new ones. The unit, available at www.zonelabs.com, is priced at $200 but is now on sale for $150. Updates are free for the first year and $69 a year after that.
The router includes several functions that are usually found only on models intended for businesses.
– Stephen C. Miller, The New York Times
