With the threat of cheap, Chinese manufactured Blu-ray players looming on the horizon, companies like Sony, Samsung and LG have begun to reduce the price of their entry-level Blu-ray Disc players. According to DigiTimes, retail prices in the US have by dropped by an average of 25%, bringing the price of BD players below $300. Add a comment
Lexar sent out a press release earlier today, announcing its new FIPS validated USB flash drive. Available in 2GB and 4GB capacities, the JumpDrive Solo Vault offers security features such as 256-bit AES encryption and a FIPS-approved algorithm for securely deleting files.
lexar jumpdrive solo vault .png
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Kingston announced this week that its DataTraveler 400 and 100 USB flash drives are now available in 16GB capacities. The company also introduced the DataTravaler 101 which sports bright colors, a swivel design and capacities up to 8GB.

kingston datatraveler 101 400.png

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Samsung announced this week that it is adding a new, more affordable model to its line of Blu-ray equipped "home theater in a box" (HTiB) systems. According to Twice, the $799 HT-BD2E features an integrated BD 1.0 Blu-ray player as well as five small satellite speakers, a passive subwoofer and 800 watts of RMS power. Add a comment
Buffalo has announced a new series drives based on Panasonic's 8x Blu-ray Disc writer, the SW-5584. The internal BR-816FBS and external BR-816SU2 feature 8x BD-R, 8x BD-R DL, 2x BD-R LTH and 2x BD-RE writing speeds and a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 8x. Here are some of the specs:
buffalo br-816fbs-bk 400.png
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Western Digital sent out a press release earlier today, announcing its new enterprise-class 2.5-inch SATA hard drives. The WD VelociRaptor offers 300GB of capacity and features a 10,000 rotation speed, SATA 3 Gb/s interface and 16 MB cache.

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Over the last year or so, there has been a lot of hype surrounding solid-state drives (SSDs). Unfortunately, in many cases, they've come up short in regards to performance and power consumption. During SanDisk's second-quarter earnings conference call, Chairman and CEO Eli Harari blamed Windows Vista for many of these shortcomings, stating that the OS is not optimized for SSDs. Add a comment
Sony Creative Software has announced the availability of its new multi-codec video encoder. The BAE-VX1000 is 30% faster than Sony's previous model and offers a number of enhancements including support for all Blu-ray formats. Add a comment
Blu-ray Disc is quickly gaining popularity in Japan. According to PC World, shipments of Blu-ray players and recorders hit a record 122,000 units in June. The demand is expected to be even higher for the month of July due to the mid-year bonus that Japanese workers receive as well as the Olympic games in August. Add a comment
Acer P243WAid 24" LCD @ Phoronix
ASUS P5E64 WS Professional X38 Workstation Motherboard @ ThinkComputers.org
Axiom Audiobyte Audiophile Computer Speakers @ BCCHardware
EagleTech N-Series Pro External HDD Enclosure @ Virtual-Hideout
HIS HD 3650 512MB IceQ Turbo Videocard @ HardwareLogic
Kingston HyperX PC3-14400 2GB Memory Kit @ TweakTown
Logitech Quickcam Vision Pro @ ASE Labs
Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000 WebCam @ Benchmark Reviews
Sapphire Radeon HD4870 @ High Tech Reviews.com
Speedlink VOIP Mouse @ Rbmods
Zalman 1000W Modular Heatpipe Cooled PSU @ BCCHardware Add a comment