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53
www.TELE-satellite.com —
12-01/2012 —
TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
100 for the first time here in
our test center, we looked
all over for the signal re-
ceiver but had no luck in
finding it; we thought at
first that Karmacom might
have forgotten to put it in
the box.
But that was far from the
truth: The USB receiver is
extremely small and is real-
ly only just a little bit larger
than a standard USB plug.
It is stored in a small open-
ing in the side of the key-
board and therefore can‘t
be lost. When the WLK-100
is to be used, the USB re-
ceiver is simply taken out
of its ‚garage‘ and inserted
into the USB port of the
Alien receiver.
Since the Amiko Alien
only operates with a free
USB port, effective imme-
diately the software now
supports the connection of
a USB hub or Y cable so that
multiple USB devices can be
used at the same time.
To top it all off, the WLK-
100 also comes with an
integrated laser pointer
that can be used, for ex-
ample, during the course
of a presentation. And let‘s
not forget the fact that the
WLK-100 can also be used
with a Windows XP, Vista or
Windows 7 PC or laptop. All
you need to do is to connect
the signal receiver to a free
USB port on the PC or lap-
top and you‘re ready to go.
But in order to take ad-
vantage of all the new ca-
pabilities of the WLK-100,
a software update for the
receiver was necessary and
Karmacom included in this
update an assortment of
new features.
When we first tested the
Amiko Alien (see TELE-
satellite issue 05-06/2011),
we were already quite im-
pressed with the stability
and functionality of the ex-
isting software in the re-
ceiver. But for Karmacom it
wasn‘t enough; while work-
ing on adapting the Alien to
the new WLK-100 two-in-
one wireless keyboard, they
also decided to include a
wide range of new features
at the same time.
But in order to enjoy all of
these new features, the re-
ceiver first has to be updat-
ed to the latest software.
This can be done either
through a direct Internet
connection or, as was the
case with us, with a USB
stick on which the latest
version of the software was
copied from the Internet.
As soon as the USB stick is
plugged in and the Update
process is accessed from
the menu, the receiver rec-
ognizes that new software
is available and asks the
user to confirm the update.
Once the update process
is started, the user just
needs to sit back and re-
lax since the receiver takes
care of this process fully
automatically. After just a
few minutes and a restart,
the Amiko Alien is once
again ready to be used.
The first and most im-
portant new feature in the
update is the integration of
the WLK-100 wireless two-
in-one keyboard. The key-
board itself has a specified
range of about 10 meters;
in our tests it was actually
quite a bit more. It really
doesn‘t make any sense to
use the keyboard to control
the various receiver func-
tions; for this purpose it‘s
better to use the Alien‘s
exceptional remote con-
trol. But later on, when you
access Karmacom‘s inte-
grated Opera web browser,
that’s when the WLK-100
keyboard first comes into
play.
We appreciated the fact
that Karmacom kept in
mind those users that don‘t
have a WLK-100 keyboard
and must continue to rely