While most Taiwanese media manufacturers have been reluctant to mass produce Blu-ray Discs, Ritek has begun to invest heavily in the format. According to DigiTimes, Ritek is currently upgrading one of its DVD production lines to produce Blu-ray Discs. The company also plans to set up a third production line which will bring its total capacity up to 750,000 discs a month.
Ritek has an existing BD production line capable of turning out 250,000 discs a month and thus its total monthly capacity will increase to 500,000 units when the second one starts operation, the company indicated. The upgrading of a DVD production line for BD production is much cheaper than installing a new line, Ritek emphasized.

The expansion of BD production capacity is because Ritek has received increased orders from existing clients, with the increased demand mainly attributable to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Ritek pointed out. In expectation of growing demand, Ritek plans to set up a third production line to increase its total monthly capacity to 750,000 discs at the end of 2008, the company indicated.
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Memorex sent out a press release this morning, announcing a 500GB version of its Ultra TravelDrive. This new portable hard drive also sports an ocean and onyx black finish as well as a blue LED that illuminates when it is plugged into a computer's USB port.
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To meet the mobile users' demand for higher capacity portable storage, Memorex, a portfolio brand of Imation Corp. (NYSE: IMN), brings a new look and greater capacity to its award-winning Ultra TravelDrive(TM) line of USB hard drives. The compact, high capacity, ruggedly designed Ultra TravelDrive now delivers up to 500 GB of capacity for significant storage and back up capacity for data, photos, music and video. A cool blue LED light illuminates when the drive is plugged into any computer's USB port and flashes during data transfer, so you always know when the drive is in use.

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Kanguru Solutions announced today that its latest encrypted flash drive, the KanguruDefender, has been added to the FIPS 140-2 Pre-Validated list. The drive offers a number of key features such as hardware AES encryption, admin free setup, a rugged aluminum design and remote management capabilities.
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Earlier this week, we reported that Prodisc had filed for corporate restructuring and would be shutting down its optical disc business. According a new report by DigiTimes, the company is currently in negotiations with lending banks so that it can continue production of optical discs.
Prodisc Technology asserted that it will continue producing optical discs following its request with a local court for corporate restructuring and emergency measures, according to company chairman Ming-fa Lin.

This is the clarification Lin made in response to a rumor that Prodisc will stop production of optical discs due to its financial difficulties.
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Kingston Technology announced its new line of small and stylish USB flash drives this week. The DataTraveler Mini Slim comes in your choice of black, blue or pink and is available in both 2GB and 4GB capacities.

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Buffalo Japan has announced a new external 20x "Super Multi" drive based on the Pioneer DVR-116. The DVSM-SL20U2 features a "Turbo USB" interface and is capable of 20x DVD±R, 10x DVD±R DL and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds. The drive can also upscale standard DVDs to 1080p using the bundled PowerDVD software. Here are some of the specs:

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Panasonic has officially announced its new 8x Blu-ray Disc writer, the LF-PB371JD. This new drive features 8x BD-R, 8x BD-R DL and 2x BD-RE writing speeds as well as a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 8x. Here's part of their press release, translated from Japanese.
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Back in July, Pioneer announced that it had developed the world's first 16-layer optical disc with a capacity of 400GB. Following new research conducted by its engineers in Japan, the company has now announced that a 20-layer 500GB disc is feasible.

A 20-layer optical disc is now viable, following research by our team of engineers at Pioneer HQ, Tokyo. Each layer of the disc can store 25GB of information to provide a mammoth 500GB of storage.

The news follows the International Symposium on Optical Memory (ISOM) and Optical Data Storage, held during July in Hawaii, where Pioneer Corporation presented its research, defining draft specifications for the 500 GB disc.

The ISOM had previously outlined the industry objective of creating a 20-layer disc to be available between 2010-2012.

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Antec Twelve Hundred Case @ HardwareLogic
Creative Aurvana X-Fi @ InsideHW
MSI Wind U100 Sub-Notebook @ Futurelooks
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Micron recently announced its next-generation RealSSD solid state drives (SSDs) for enterprise computing and notebook applications. The enterprise-class RealSSD P200 is available in capacities up to 128GB and is capable of sequential read and write speeds of 250MB/s. The client-focused RealSSD C200 is available in 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch form factors in capacities up to 256GB.

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