Here’s something that you might not have thought of as something you need, but once you think about it, maybe you do. LaCie has introduced the LaPlug, a network-attached box that gives you wireless access to your USB devices. Or just think of it as a wireless USB hub. A really handy one that lets you wirelessly stream multimedia from a USB drive to your Wi-fi devices, give you wireless access to an attached printer, or turn your simple USB drive into your personal cloud-based storage bin.

It’s all pretty simple. The LaPlug is a compact black box that features four USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and Wi-fi connectivity. With the LaPlug, you can give friends remote access to files stored in a USB thumb drive after sending them a custom web address, or share files locally among computers in your home network. The device also supports UPnP and DLNA network features, so you can use this to stream movies stored in an external drive to a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

The LaPlug also comes with wireless backup software for PCs and Time Machine support for Macs.

The LaCie LaPlug costs $75, and should be available soon from LaCie’s online store and retail partners.

Here’s something that’s definitely different: a Wi-fi router that looks like it’s as slim as, well, a glass panel–or at least it looks like it from this angle (most of the important bits are found on the other side). Named the RT-N56U, it features a design that should appeals to… well, people who need (or want) routers that look pretty. As far as the spec goes, nothing much has been revealed, except that it’ll feature dual band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) support and will feature Asus’ own EZ UI interface for easy setups. No word on price and availability yet (which is typical of Asus), but this is definitely something that won’t go unnoticed when it starts shipping.

Source: Gizmodo

It’s set up as a pair: the first unit plugs into an existing router or gateway, while the other unit plugs into your other home theater devices. This allows for a more flexible home network setup without having to worry about performance. In the simplest terms, this kit will let you slip in a Blu-ray movie into the player in the den, and enjoy Blu-ray HD quality videos in the bedroom upstairs.

The kit is listed to work with just about any Ethernet-ready device, including DVD players, HDTVs, gaming consoles, TiVo HD, Apple TV and Slingbox devices, digital IPTV set-top boxes, and Netgear’s own Digital Entertainer products, among others. It uses a 5GHz band that shouldn’t get in the way of your other wireless devices, and connects using an 802.11 n connection for faster wireless speeds.

The Home Theater Kit also allows for expansion through the use of more adapters, letting you connect additional devices (such as, say, a big-screen HDTV in the basement) wirelessly to an existing wireless network.

Pricing hasn’t been announced, but it’s expected out by the third quarter of 2010 in paired kits and single adapters.

It’s a pretty simple setup: this compact device turns a 3G mobile data signal into a Wi-fi connection for everyone else to connect to. It comes with a USB connection for plugging in a 3G USB dongle, a power button for broadcasting that signal quickly enough, and a rechargeable battery that allows for up to 5 hours of remote use. Up to ten people can connect to the Wi-REACH, and it’s built like any simplified Wi-fi router that allows for secure wireless links.

Pretty nifty, right? That’s a mobile office that lets you work with your team from anywhere you can get a signal. Unfortunately, that also means it’s a potential mobile office that won’t give you an excuse to skip working from anywhere. The Wi-REACH costs $99 if you’re interested.

If you’re one of those people who relies heavily on networked equipment at home (desktops, laptops, consoles, net-connected appliances such as set-top boxes and HDTVs), Asus was thinking of you when they introduced this kit, a consumer-level server called the Home Server TS mini, to give you a centralized place to dump and retrieve the data across different devices.

It might look like a simple network-attached storage box, but comes with a little bit more brains than the average NAS kit. Of course, its primary function involves acting as a centralized storage drive, but it also comes with an Intel Atom processor, 2GBs of memory, and a Windows Home Server platform for doing “smarter” tasks.

It can do automated backups of up to ten computers daily (as well as perform file restoration), and serves up multimedia content across various devices within the house, or from out of town with the Remote Access feature. This makes it somewhat worthwhile: using your WindowsLive account, you can access the TS mini and whatever’s stored in it to load up a movie that you can watch when you’re away (as long as you have an internet connection, of course).

The TS mini comes with up to 4TBs of internal storage (via its two drive bays), plus 500GBs of online storage. It also sports a Gigabit Ethernet connection, six USB ports, and two eSATA ports for expanding the storage capacity.

That’s the long and short of it. It gives you flexibility without the cable clutter. It’s like one-way Wi-fi for your TV.

To make it all work, the Gefen box comes with a pair of sender and receiver units. You plug in your HDTV to the receiver, while the set-top box (in our case, the Blu-ray player) plugs into the sender unit. The user—that would be you, if you’re interested—powers on both units and pairs them using dedicated reset buttons, and that’s it. The kit can stream 1080p HD video with 8-channel digital audio, and can connect to other displays like computer monitors with resolutions of up to 1920 x 1200 via a DVI connection.

The price for neat, cable-free, wireless HD connections? $1,000. (Ouch.) The potential to configure an awesome home entertainment system? Pretty good, with the way you can hide stuff from view, leaving only the HDTV in front of the couch.

As promised last month, McDonald’s restaurants have begun dropping their $2.95 Wi-fi charge (yes!), offering the free service to a significant number of their US-based locations. According to the report, 11,500 out of McDonald’s 14,000 locations in the US now offer free Wifi. If you need a quick meal and free internet access, just look for signs of overweight geeks then follow the trail of greasy laptop keyboards and iPhone screens. That means you’re pretty close to one.

The EVA9100 still keeps its predecessor’s basic stream-and-play capabilities though, allowing it to pull content from the internet (for movies and TV shows from Hulu, Netflix, CBS, etc) as well as from the home network (from connected computers, portable devices, and network-attached storage devices, which it detects and organizes into a media library) for instant playback on an HDTV via an HDMI connection. It’s limited to a wired Ethernet connection, but users can opt to pick up Netgear’s EVAW111 wireless USB adapter to give it wireless capability.

The two routers, the MBRN3000 and DGN2200M, aren’t your regular DSL internet-slingers; the $150 MBRN3000 is a mobile broadband router that comes with a USB port for plugging in a mobile 3G/4G or WiMAX modem The router then shares the mobile data connection to multiple users through a Wi-fi 802.11n connection.

Avoid long network cables: These HomePlugs will let you setup a network using your house's electrical wiring.

The DGN2200M adds to the previous router’s feature set, featuring a dual WAN connection that allows it to share an internet connection from both ADSL and 3G/4G/WiMAX. This makes sure you’ll always be connected, relying on the standard ADSL connection as its primary source, while giving the option to connect through a mobile network as a backup. The $180 DGN2200M also uses an 802.11n connection.

Finally, Netgear has also unveiled a pair of HomePlug kits called the PowerLine 200 AV and the Powerline 200 AV+. Both are standard HomePlug kits that allow you to establish network connections using a building’s existing electrical wiring (which is really nifty; especially when two points are too far away and a wireless connection isn’t a viable option—imagine a PC in the basement and a router way up along a far corner of the second floor). Both connect PCs with a 10/100 Ethernet connection but have slightly different form factors; the Powerline 200 AV model is a basic compact plug that sells for $150, while the AV+ adds a pass-through socket for $170. Both kits ship with two adapters.

Sprint has come out with an update to their U300 USB 3G/4G modem that’s decked out in a more compact black shell. Tagged as the U301, the new wireless modem now adds Mac OS X support that gives Mac users running either Leopard or Snow Leopard operating systems the ability to connect to the network’s mobile broadband service. Other than the new look and the added support for Apple’s operating systems, the U301 is pretty much identical to the original U300; it offers 3-6Mb/s speeds within Sprint’s WiMAX-covered areas, 600Kb/s on a typical mobile 3G connection and a built-in GPS receiver.

The U301 is currently offered to business users for $50 with a 2-year contract.

McDonald’s has just announced that they’ll be dropping their Wi-fi fees next year, and will be offering the service for free by January 2010. Previously priced at $3 for two hours, McD’s now gives you another reason to stay longer for coffee and cakes other than to wait for your kids tire themselves out at the Playplace. See that, everyone-else-who-still-charges-for-Wifi? Now we all think you’re just being greedy.