Chinese Manufacturers To Support Dolby High-Definition Audio Technologies In Future Blu-ray Products
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- Home Entertainment
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: DLB), announced today that it is enabling and supporting consumer electronics makers in China to develop Blu-ray Disc™ products. Three digital entertainment companies in China—TCL Technoly Electronics (Huizhou) Co., Limited (TCL), MIT Technology Co., Limited (MIT Technology), and Lite-On IT Corporation (Lite-On IT)—have agreed to license Dolby® TrueHD, a lossless compression technology, and Dolby Digital Plus, which delivers up to 7.1 channels of surround sound for future Blu-ray Disc products.
The world’s leading studios and content creators have embraced Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus to enhance the experience delivered from Blu-ray Discs. Nearly 70 home audio systems and 50 Blu-ray Disc players from 30 companies around the world use Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, or both. Today’s announcement demonstrates Dolby’s continuing commitment to help expand the market for high-definition entertainment and support the efforts of digital entertainment companies in China.
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- Hard Disks
Freecom, an award-winning manufacturer of external hard drives and portable storage devices, launched the 'ToughDrive Sport', a durable, shock-resistant, 2.5" external hard drive designed to endure even the toughest conditions. This latest addition to the ToughDrive family is perfect for heavy duty users that want to carry their data on the move, from backpacking around the world to cycling up mountains.
The ToughDrive Sport features a handy loop in one corner enabling easy attachment to bags or belts - allowing people to carry their data hands-free. The drive can also withstand falls of up to two metres and is fully protected against adverse weather conditions associated with outdoor pursuits.
The ToughDrive Sport has an outdoor sports design and an integrated USB cable designed to look and feel like a climbing rope - this makes the drive extremely portable as no external power adapter is required for charging. Ideal for mobile use given its size and robustness, the internal anti-shock mechanism insulates the hard drive against unforeseen shocks that could cause damage and result in the loss of masses of data.
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Today, LaCie announced a merger with Caleido AG, the creators of the innovative online storage service, Wuala.
Luzius Meisser, Co-Founder of Caleido said, "Wuala is an exciting technology that builds its reliable and secure cloud storage by harnessing idle resources."
Wuala assembles centralized and distributed storage; the result is a reliable and scalable service. Once files are placed in Wuala, they are securely encrypted before being cut into several redundant fragments disseminated and stored on a cloud of computers.
"Users will gain online storage while trading disk space; that way, they will securely protect their valuable data. They can access it from anywhere and easily share files with selected peers. As privacy tends to be a major issue when talking about digital life and data management, everything is encrypted and a robust rights management system protects files from unauthorized access," said Dominik Grolimund, Co-creator of Wuala, "We will also bring this technology to enterprises and professional customers, who will soon take advantage of our services with both cloud and data center-based storage."
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- Home Entertainment
The NPD Group released its annual Digital Music Study this week. According to their research, the number of people purchasing music online climbed from 28 million in 2007 to 36 million in 2008. As a result, purchases of digital downloads increased by 29% and now account for 33% of all music sales. Their research also found that there were 17 million fewer CD buyers in 2008 which led to a 19% decline in CD sales.
According to The NPD Group, the leader in market research for the entertainment industry, the number of Internet users paying for digital music increased by just over 8 million in 2008 to 36 million Internet users. Purchases of online digital music downloads increased by 29 percent since last year; they now account for 33 percent of all music tracks purchased in the U.S. NPD’s Digital Music Study, an annual tracking study covering the music industry, also revealed that there were nearly 17 million fewer CD buyers in 2008 compared to the prior year.
The decline in CD buyers cuts across all demographic groups, but was particularly focused on teens and consumers age 50 and older. “Rising incidence of paid downloads is a positive development for the industry, but not all lost CD buyers are turning to digital music,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group.
NPD also reported that there were 13 million fewer music buyers in the U.S. last year, compared to the prior year. The decline in music purchasing was led by a 19 percent drop in CD sales. Only 58 percent of Internet users reported purchasing CDs or digital music downloads last year, versus 65 percent in 2007.
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- Flash Memory
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced that it is now shipping both the UltraDrive ME and UltraDrive LE families of Solid State Drives (SSDs).
Super Talent’s 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB UltraDrive LE and 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB UltraDrive ME are immediately available in production volumes. The UltraDrive LE is rated for a maximum sequential read speed of 230MB/sec and a maximum sequential write speed of 170MB/sec. The UltraDrive ME is rated for a maximum sequential read speed of 200MB/sec and a maximum sequential write speed of 160MB/sec. The drives also showed outstanding IOPS performance in internal testing including Sequential Read IOPS of over 13,000, Sequential Write IOPS of nearly 16,000, Random Read IOPS of nearly 7500 and Random Write IOPS of nearly 6000. Performance varied between models; for a full summary of Super Talent’s performance benchmarking see the whitepaper on the Super Talent website.
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- Flash Memory
Mushkin Enhanced, one of the leading manufacturers for High Performance Computer announces the availability of his first SSD-series called “Europe”. The capacities are 32, 64, 128, 192 and 256GB in a noble aluminium housing and captivating with aggressive pricing.
“Once, Zeus felt in love with the beautiful Europe, now, every speed enthusiast can do the same.” smiles Steffen Eisenstein, CEO of Mushkin Logistic GmbH and looks on the aluminium dressed SSDs. But like always for Mushkin, the inside value is one of the finest: With 150MB/s read and 90MB/s there is a convenient working guaranteed, no stuttering in games for loading, no vibration in your case and no annoying clicking for reading and writing. Due to the integrated Mini-USB 2.0 connector, you can also use the new SSD as an external storage without additional power supply.
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AMD Phenom II X4 810 @ InsideHW
Antec Fusion Remote Max HTPC Enclosure @ Metku.net
ANTEC True Power 750 Watt (TP-750) Power Supply @ Futurelooks
Apple iPod Shuffle @ Hardware Zone
Cooler Master Sniper Case @ DV Hardware
Cooler Master V10 Hybrid Heatpipe/T.E.C. CPU Cooler @ Tweaknews
Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC3-12800 6GB Memory Kit @ HardwareLogic
G.Skill Titan 128GB SATA SSD FM-25S2S-128GBT1 @ Benchmark Reviews
GLOW Audio Amp One @ Madshrimps
Icy Dock MB881US-1S-1 External Hard Drive Docking Station @ Tweaknews
In Win NA 3.5" External HDD Enclosure @ Virtual-Hideout
Kodak Zi6 Pocket Camera @ Rbmods
Maxtor Central Axis Business Edition NAS Server @ HotHardware.com
VIA ARTiGO A2000 Storage Computer @ ThinkComputers.org
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A-DATA Technology, a worldwide leader in high performance DRAM module, memory card, USB Flash Drive, and Data Storage, announced today its new 2.5” SATAII SSD 300 Plus, a next generation Solid State Drive with performance significantly increased.
Highly durable with performance dramatically enhanced
Adopting the latest breakthroughs in SSD technology and new controller design, the new 300 Plus SSD dramatically increases the performance on data-reading speed by 40% while writing by 60% at least when comparing with a regular SSD!! Unlike ordinary SSD, the new 300 Plus SSD utilizes a special mobile SDRAM to achieve a sustained read rate at 250MB/sec and write rate at 160MB/sec. The mobile SDRAM serves the function of cache buffer where frequently used data are stored so that the system does not have to fetch data from the main storage area each time it’s called.
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According to the complaints, Lenovo offers in the United States and Germany products, such as desktop computers, laptop computers, Blu-ray Disc® drives, DVD drives and software, which use patent protected MPEG-2 methods without having entered into licenses with the individual patent holders or a portfolio license that includes these patents offered by MPEG LA.
The suit seeks, among other things, monetary damages and an injunction prohibiting Lenovo from using MPEG-2 patents in its products and from offering, marketing, or importing them.
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- Flash Memory
Fusion-io, the leader in solid-state architecture and high-performance I/O solutions, today announced the ioDrive Duo, which doubles the slot capacity of Fusion-io’s successful PCI Express-based ioDrive storage solution. The new ioDrive Duo is the market’s fastest and most innovative server-based solid-state storage solution.
With the ioDrive Duo, it is now possible for application, database and system administrators to get previously unheard-of levels of performance, protection and capacity utilization from a single server. Performance for multiple ioDrive Duos scales linearly, allowing any enterprise to scale performance to six gigabytes per-second (Gbytes/sec) of read bandwidth and over 500,000 read IOPS by using just four ioDrive Duos.
