hub

With the plethora of USB devices available, such as iPhones, iPads, iPods, digital cameras, and printers, many machines do not have enough ports to keep everything connected. Fortunately, USB hubs are readily available and can provide much-needed USB port additions. However, some hubs may not respond well when your Mac wakes from sleep.

According to a recently updated knowledge base article from Apple, some USB hubs may disconnect after your Mac wakes from sleep. This can cause system instability, resulting in unexpected performance from your machine and your connected devices.

Just as when you disconnect an external hard drive before … Read more

Western Digital announced today that it has released a firmware update that adds TuneIn Radio, the world's largest Internet radio guide with more than 30,000 free radio stations, to its WD TV players, including the WD TV Live, WD TV Live Plus, and WD TV Live Hub media center.

In addition, the update gives the WD TV Live Hub media center access to Deezer, a personalized on-demand music service that was already available on the WD TV Live and WD TV Live Plus.

The new firmware update, depending on the specific player, also offers better support for media … Read more

HubSpot, a company that makes a number of software products to help small and medium-size businesses handle digital marketing esoterica like search engine optimization and social media, announced today that it has raised $32 million in a Series D funding round from Sequoia Capital, Salesforce.com, and Google Ventures. A report two months ago in TechCrunch suggested that the company's valuation may be north of $200 million now.

"We agree with HubSpot's belief that search engines, social media, and mobile devices have fundamentally changed how businesses should market themselves," Google Ventures partner Rich Miner, who joined … Read more

Given the fuss about Demand Media--its IPO, its controversial business model, the fact that Google seems to be hellbent on clearing its "content farm" brethren out of front-page search results--it's no surprise that companies are pitching themselves as the "anti-Demand Media." In other words, they're hoping there's a space for a mass producer of online content that improves rather than pollutes (as some critics of Demand have suggested) search engine results.

One of them, HubPages, plans today to formally unveil an advertising program it says will bring "premium" advertisements to … Read more

Lazy eaters, stop simply searching for restaurants to call for takeout. The GrubHub and Seamless Web apps for iPhone and Android go one step further to place your delivery order.

Seamless what? Seamless Web is a nonsequitor of Web nomenclature for sure, but the app and its GrubHub rival do a decent job walking you through the ordering process. Of course, you are limited to the establishments displayed in each app and the apps may not serve every U.S. city. Still, if you use either Web site, or are looking for a new way to find and secure food, … Read more

eBay said yesterday that it has bought Critical Path Software, a mobile-app developer that had already been working with the auction site for the past couple of years.

Helping to design several eBay mobile apps, Portland, Ore.-based Critical Path has partnered with eBay's mobile group to create eBay for the iPhone and eBay Classifieds. Critical Path and eBay also teamed up to develop StubHub, a ticket-buying app, and Shopping.com, a shopping comparison app.

The acquisition is part of eBay's move to focus even further on the growing mobile market. The auction site has also been busy … Read more

In the digital-media box market, it seems like Apple and Roku have been getting the most attention lately, but companies like Seagate and Western Digital are trying to differentiate their boxes from the rest by offering tie-ins to their companies' portable hard drives. However, in the case of the WD TV Live Hub ($199.99), Western Digital has taken things a step further and built a networked 1TB hard drive right into the unit itself.

With that embedded hard drive, this box is bigger than the Apple TV and the latest crop of Roku players, but it is still relatively … Read more

Wireless charging stations for electronics have been a hot topic ever since the introduction of the Powermat and the universal wireless charger standard was established. These methods, however, require the battery-operated devices to be compliant with the wireless charging standard they use. This means other products, namely the majority of all electronics, won't be able to take advantage of them.

The ElectroHub, which will debut at CES 2011, is a new wireless charging station that's designed to work with virtually all electronic devices. Though the details are still a little sketchy, basically this new charging station works similarly … Read more

In case a name and phone number on Fido's dog tag aren't enough to bring him home from his wanderings, a new tag from online pet community PetHub includes a Fido-centric URL that is scannable by smartphone.

One side of the laser-etched tag displays a human-readable Web link to information on your pet. The other shows a two-dimensional QR bar code that can be scanned by any iPhone or Android phone with the free code-scanning software NeoReader installed.

When scanned, the code automatically navigates a browser to PetHub to display an animal's information.

By default, PetHub shows … Read more