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- Home Entertainment
Western Digital, the world's leader in external storage solutions and maker of the acclaimed WD TV® media player family, has added streaming movie service VUDU, as well as several additional new sports and entertainment services to the WD TV Live™ and WD TV Live Hub™ media players, adding to the media player family's current content offerings from Netflix®, Hulu Plus™, Blockbuster®, CinemaNow®, Spotify™, Pandora®, YouTube®, Facebook® and many others. In addition to VUDU, new services include SnagFilms, XOS College Sports, SEC Digital Network, Comedy Time and Watch Mojo.
Additionally, the new WD® TV Remote™ app improves the navigation experience for WD TV Live and WD TV Live Hub users by turning their iPhone®, iPod touch®, iPad®, or Android™ compatible mobile device into an advanced feature remote control for their WD TV. The WD TV Remote advanced features allow users to more easily navigate the wide variety of digital media WD TV users enjoy on their television, from leading entertainment services to personal video, photos or music.
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- Optical Storage
The DVD6C Licensing Group (DVD6C) consisting of nine leading developers of DVD technology and formats — Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd., JVC KENWOOD Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Toshiba Corporation and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. — today announced that it is revising its worldwide patent licensing program to offer a reduced royalty rate for DVD Read-Only Discs to licensees in good standing.
Specifically, the revised licensing program provides for a reduced rate – from US$0.04 to US$0.0375 per disc – for Read-Only Discs (DVD-Video Discs, DVD-ROM Discs, and DVD-Audio Discs) for licensees in good standing, i.e., licensees who have no overdue or incorrect royalty reports or overdue or underpaid royalties (including back royalties) and are otherwise in compliance with their license agreement with DVD6C. This reduced royalty rate will be available to such licensees for Read-Only Discs sold or otherwise transferred during any reporting period beginning on or after July 1, 2011, provided that the licensee was in good standing as of the due date for payment of royalties for the immediately preceding reporting period or, to qualify for the reduced rate for the second half of 2011, that the licensee entered into a new license agreement incorporating the revised royalty terms and was in good standing as of January 31, 2012. Licensees shall not be considered in good standing for any period for which an audit has revealed an underpayment of royalties of greater than 3%.
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- Hard Disks
Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions, today announced the closing of the transaction to acquire the hard disk drive (HDD) business of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology.
Under the terms of the transaction, Seagate has gained select elements of Samsung's HDD business, including assets, infrastructure and employees that enable Seagate to drive scale and innovation. These assets include Samsung's leading M8 product line of high-capacity, 2.5-inch HDDs. Samsung employees joining Seagate include a number of senior managers and design-engineering employees from Samsung's Korea facility, who will focus on development of small form-factor products for the mobile compute market. N.Y. Park, senior vice president and general manager, will oversee Seagate's product development activities in Korea and serve as country manager of the Korea design center, reporting to Bob Whitmore, Seagate's executive vice president and CTO.
"Together, Seagate and Samsung have aligned our current and future product development efforts and roadmaps in order to accelerate time-to-market efficiency for new products and position us to better address the increasing demands for storage," said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO. "It is an exciting time in the industry with rapidly evolving opportunities in many markets including mobile computing, cloud computing, and solid state storage."
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- Flash Memory
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash storage solutions, today announced the Storage POD Mini, a portable SSD that will change how you think about external storage.
External hard disk drives have made it easy to back-up important data and move data from one machine to another but its performance was limited and always slower than an internal hard drive. Thanks to USB 3.0 and SSD technologies, it is now possible to create a USB storage solution that is smaller, lighter and more rugged than a traditional HDD. A blue anodized, all-aluminum enclosure enables this drive to be both lightweight and rugged yet measure a mere 110 x 68 x 10 mm (roughly the same size as an internal 2.5” HDD; without the enclosure) It fits easily in your pocket and requires no power adapter. It’s the perfect travelling companion.
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- Flash Memory
Panasonic Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SanDisk Corporation, Sony Corporation and Toshiba Corporation today announced that they have reached an agreement in principle to collaborate on a new content protection technology for flash memory cards such as SD Cards and various storage devices. Under the “Next Generation Secure Memory Initiative,” the five companies will start preparing for licensing and promotion of HD (high-definition)-capable security for SD Cards and embedded memory for use in advanced consumer applications such as tablets and smartphones.
This content protection solution will be robust enough to protect HD content. A high level of content security will be realized through the use of the initiative’s technologies, including unique ID (identification) technology for flash memory and robust copy protection based on public key infrastructure.
The five companies believe this technology will enable various HD content applications such as HD network download, broadcast content to go and HD Digital Copy/Managed Copy from Blu-ray Disc media. With these applications, users can enjoy HD content on a wide range of devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, TVs and Blu-ray products.
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- Other
NTI announced today "NTI Cloud," a simple solution to establish a multifunctional online storage. NTI Cloud debuts intuitive GUIs on PC platform through a secured login domain (www.NTIcloud.com) and the App made available for Android and iOS devices. For as little as $4.99 a month, users can enjoy the fun and convenience of storing data in their own personal cloud and the peace of mind with access to their data anytime, anywhere they are internet connected.
"While personal cloud service is getting more popular today, the users would never get to find one that does it all." said Bill Yao, President/CEO of NTI. "What makes NTI Cloud outstanding from the competitions is not only the simplicity we were able to create for the users, but also our unique experience in backup methodology; our users can rest assured that their data is just as safe as stored in their own PC hard disks".
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- Flash Memory
Addonics Technologies today announced the Addonics 2.5 inch Flash Drive, a family of drive kit solutions that enable common flash memory cards to be used like 2.5 or 3.5 inch SSDs. The new family of Addonics flash drive kits comes in three different models to work with cards such as CF, CFast media or mSATA SSD.
For example, the Addonics 2.5 inch mSATA Flash drive turns a regular mSATA SSD into a 2.5 inch SSD. The drive frame and the connector mimic the exact size and connector location of a 2.5 inch SATA hard drive. Once the mSATA SSD is mounted inside this 2.5 inch mSATA Flash drive, it can be used just like a standard 2.5 inch SATA hard drive.
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- Optical Storage
Plextor, a leading brand of high-performance storage and digital media solutions, announces plans to differentiate its ODD portfolio by offering a stand-alone optical storage device under the name of PlexEasy (PX-650US). With the PlexEasy, Plextor largely wants to target a new audience that is less familiar with PC but have a need to make backups of their precious data. The PlexEasy will be a compact 8x DVD writer that can be used without a PC, it will feature a built-in SD card reader and USB port which allows end users to make direct backups from data that is stored on SD Cards or on digital devices like tablets, smart phones, hard disks, flash drives, camcorders, and digital cameras.
PlexEasy is meant to provide an easy and intuitive way for lesser- or lightly skilled end users to make reliable backups of their data without having to use a PC. It will support mass storage devices and the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP), an image transfer technology integrated into many models of cameras and smartphones. For users, this means that PlexEasy can be used for burning photos directly from a camera (point-and-shoot or DSLR) or smartphone (iOS, Android, Blackberry etc.). The drive’s compatibility with mass storage devices enables the connection of MP3 players, flash drives, and external hard disks. Users are able to transfer videos, music, or other data from a device to DVD or from an SD card to an external storage device.
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- Flash Memory
PNY Technologies is considered a leading designer, manufacturer and a worldwide leader in RAM Memory and Flash Memory products, and authorized partnership with HP since 2008. December 2011 PNY has introduced its popular line-up - the HP v240b/v240g, which is a tiny but elegant designed drive targeting mainly business people. The drive comes in no-nonsense plastic casing in classic blue and green colors. The clean design is meant to symbolize tidiness and a coherent professional feeling at the workplace.
The drive comes with a cap to protect the USB plug from dust and water. In fact, the drive is not only rugged, it is also dustproof and waterproof, with the strong polymer lending it durability and resistance to shock. The cap has a keyhole to attach a lanyard, useful to attach it to your purse, keychain, belt, etc. The COB packaging helps achieve such a small dimensions of 7 mm x 16 mm x 31 mm and just 4.2 grams, thus giving it ultra-portability.
Even though it appears tiny, it comes in sizes as large as 32 GB. Thanks to its large capacity, you can share and transfer your digital documents, pictures, video clips and music files. With a USB 2.0 interface, this drive sports read speeds up to 18 MB/s and write speeds up to 8 MB/s. The drive is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7, and even on Mac OS 10.3 and above.
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- Optical Storage
Three Korean Hitachi-LG Data Storage Inc. (HLDS) executives have agreed to plead guilty and to serve prison time in the United States for their participation in a series of conspiracies to rig bids and fix prices for the sale of optical disk drives, the Department of Justice announced today.
According to the felony charges filed today in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Young Keun Park, Sang Hun Kim and Sik Hur, aka Daniel Hur, conspired with co-conspirators to suppress and eliminate competition by rigging bids for optical disk drives sold to Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) and/or fixing prices for optical disk drives sold to Microsoft Corporation. The three HLDS executives participated in the conspiracies at various times between approximately November 2005 and September 2009. Under the plea agreement, Park and Kim each have agreed to serve eight months in prison and Hur has agreed to serve seven months in prison. Each has also agreed to pay a $25,000 criminal fine. HLDS is a joint venture between Hitachi Ltd., a Japanese corporation, and LG Electronics Inc., a Republic of Korea corporation.
“Today’s plea agreements demonstrate the Antitrust Division’s continued commitment to protect competition in the high tech industry,” said Sharis A. Pozen, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “The division will continue to pursue and prosecute those who participate in bid-rigging and price-fixing conspiracies that harm businesses and consumers in the optical disk drive industry.”
