D-Link’s SharePort Unwires USB Gadgets

By Nick Mokey October 3, 2008

Giving home Wi-Fi users one less reason to buy expensive Wi-Fi-ready gadgets like printers and storage drives, D-Link rolled out its SharePort technology this week, which makes it possible to share ordinary USB accessories on a home network by simply plugging them into a router. A free firmware upgrade will enable the functionality in all of D-Link’s existing 802.11n routers, plus its new DIR-825 Xtreme N router.

Using new USB over TCP/IP technology, a single USB port on the back of the router can be accessed from any computer on the network, making it possible to share devices that never came with Wi-Fi functionality. A standard external storage drive, for instance, becomes a network storage drive that any user can read and write to, or a USB multi-function printer can print from and scan to any computer on the network.

The DIR-825, also introduced this week, uses dual-band transmission to create two networks simultaneously: one at 2.4GHz and one at 5GHz. D-Link claims this allows it to split up tasks between the two bands, like pushing VoIP traffic on one and game connections on the other, with different intelligent settings for prioritizing traffic.

The DIR-825 is available immediately for $200, while the DIR-655, DIR-855, DGL-4500 and DIR-628 can all be upgraded to include SharePort functionality for free.

Editors' Recommendations

Managing Editor

As Digital Trends’ Managing Editor, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team delivering definitive reviews, enlightening…

Computing

Finally, you’ll soon be able to use 3D avatars on Teams calls

Laptop sitting on a desk showing Windows 11's built-in Microsoft Teams experience.

Microsoft is planning to roll out a new feature for Teams and Zoom that will allow you to substitute your live camera feed for a 3D avatar when on a video call.

The new feature is set to launch in May, according to Microsoft's product road map. The 3D avatars will be available in many "customizable body types, skin tones, hair colors and hairstyles, clothes, and facial features, as per prior announcements from Mesh for Teams," according to Ars Technica.

Computing

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D vs. Intel Core i9-13900K: only one choice for PC gamers

AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X3D inside of its packaging.

The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Intel Core i9-13900K are undoubtedly two of the best processors you can buy, but they aren't equal. We threw both of the CPUs on the test bench to answer the age-old question: is AMD or Intel better?

Based on our testing, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D wins this bout, mostly on the back of the excellent gaming performance AMD's 3D V-Cache technology brings. Intel's Core i9-13900K still holds up, particularly in productivity apps, but Team Red takes the win this time around.
Pricing and availability

Computing

Why DisplayPort 2.1 could become a big deal for PC gaming in 2023

Cable management on the Samsung Odyssey Neo G8.

DisplayPort 2.1 became a much bigger talking point than expected when AMD revealed its upcoming RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT GPUs. It's the latest standard from DisplayPort, a revision to the 2.0 spec released in 2019, and it's a natural inclusion for next-gen GPUs. There's just one problem -- Nvidia's behemoth RTX 4090 still uses DisplayPort 1.4a.

Although the 1.4a spec is still more than enough for most people, the inclusion of DisplayPort 2.1 does give AMD an advantage this generation. No, I'm not here to sell you on 8K gaming -- in some parts of the world, 8K may not even be possible -- but for a crowd of competitive gamers and VR enthusiasts, DisplayPort 2.1 could mark a major shift.
An update four years in the making
The EVGA RTX 3050 XC Black includes three DisplayPort connections and a single HDMI. Jacob Roach / Digital Trends