We're taking a break from testing this week to catch up on some of the latest news . . .

Axis launches megapixel network camera

Axis Communications last week announced the Axis 206M network camera, which it says is the world's smallest network camera with megapixel resolution. Aimed at indoor surveillance applications, the 206M supports resolutions up to 1,280 by 1,024 pixels, can produce an image in HDTV 16:9 widescreen format and transmit images at a rate of up to 12 frames per second. The $399 device comes with the company's Axis Camera Explorer software to let users view and record images from the camera.

It also supports Universal Plug and Play; and includes a built-in Web server and the Axis Internet Dynamic Domain Name Service, which provides a Web name for the camera instead of an IP address. The camera is expected to be released next month.

Buffalo jumps to 125M bit/sec wireless

Buffalo Technology recently announced a 802.11g wireless LAN router that includes a 125M bit/sec high-speed mode.

The wireless cable/DSL router (Model WHR3-G54) includes four Ethernet ports for other computers, and uses Buffalo's AirStation One-Touch Secure System for a quick one-button setup of the network's security and configuration settings. The high-speed mode, when used with similar high-speed mode equipment from Buffalo, offers about 36M bit/sec of wireless throughput (the 125 figure is without overhead) across the LAN, the company says.

Other features of the $130 router include security support for Wi-Fi Protected Access, Temporal Key Integrity Protocol, Advanced Encryption System, 802.1x and 128/64-bit Wired Equivalent Privacy. Intrusion detection, media access control address registration, a privacy separator, and dynamic packet filtering also are included. Other high-speed mode equipment includes a PCI adapter (Model WLIT-PCI-G54S) and notebook adapter (Model WLI-CB-G54S), priced at $100 each.

Kanguru lets users double their storage

Kanguru Solutions has a new built-in data compression feature that lets the KanguruMicro Drive 2.0 reach up to 8G bytes of storage capacity.

The KanguruGuard Compression feature will be available on all the company's USB flash drives, effectively doubling the storage available on the devices. For example, a user who buys a 128M-byte KanguruMicro Drive gets 256M bytes of space with the compression function enabled.

Drives also are equipped with 128-bit encryption; and DES, Triple-DES and Blowfish encryption methods are available on request, Kanguru says. The drives are priced starting at $30 for the 32M-byte version and go up to $1,700 for the 4G-byte model.

Lexmark launches new desktop laser printers

Lexmark last week launched a new set of desktop laser printers that include space consolidation and paper-feeding design improvements.

The E232, E232t, E330, E332n and E332tn monochrome laser printers are aimed at home offices, and small and midsize businesses.

The $200 E232 and $300 E232t are geared at personal and home-office use, and offer speeds up to 22 pages per minute, with a first-page speed of up to 8.5 seconds, Lexmark says. The $400 E330 has a 200-MHz processor and prints up to 27 pages per minute; and the $500 E332n includes an internal network adapter. The $600 E332tn comes with a second 550-sheet paper drawer.