All round vision

In the June 2006 issue of LCGC Europe we featured a display wall that may be the future for molecular modelling. Here we preview another possibility — an interesting helmet from electronics manufacturer Toshiba that enables the wearer to experience a full 360° view on a 40 cm dome-shaped screen. The full-faced helmet, known as the Head Dome Projector, weighs 3 kg and exhibits a wide viewing angle of 120° horizontally by 70° vertically without head tracking and 360° × 360° with head tracking.

USB multimedia controller

Griffin Technology (Nashville, Tennesse, USA) has come up with a useful device for scrolling through long documents or editing films or your next video demonstrations. The PowerMate USB multimedia controller is an assignable controller that can be programmed to do virtually anything that you want it to in any application.

It functions as a convenient volume knob and mute button for listening to music on your PC or Mac. It is preset to work with iMovie, FinalCut Pro and GarageBand.

In a scientific context, it's the fastest way to scroll through research papers, web pages or spreadsheets. With a flick of the wrist you can get to the bottom of a chromatogram in record time.

For more information visit www.griffintechnology.com

Smart chip

U3, a software platform company based in Redwood City, California, USA, has created an innovative technology that transforms USB flash drives from simple storage devices into U3 smart drives. These enable you to carry your software applications and data, personal preferences, favourites, profiles, bookmarks, on-line identity profile, in fact everything that provides you with a familiar computing experience, and access that personal information on any computer. The U3 smart drives are highly portable and secure so when you're ready to move to another PC everything goes with you without any personal information being left behind.

If you run U3 smart software on a U3 smart drive, this improves your computing experience as you can access and interact with your personal digital universe. The software is compatible with a Windows 2000 or XP computer. The technology is particularly useful if travelling as you can use your personal applications and data on a public computer without worrying about loss of privacy.

For more information visit www.u3.com