The Chinese-language newspaper Economic Daily News  recently reported (via DigiTimes) that Lite-On has been developing Blu-ray Disc players and plans to begin production in the third quarter of 2009. Instead of selling them under their own brand, Lite-On will initially focus on production for ODM clients and may supply BD player loaders instead of finished products.

Lite-On IT, the largest Taiwan-based maker of half-height optical disc drives (ODDs), has been developing Blu-ray Disc (BD) players and plans to kick off volume production in the third quarter of 2009, according to the Chinese-language newspaper Economic Daily News (EDN).

Lite-On adopts BD pick-up heads supplied by Hitachi and chipsets by MediaTek, aiming to minimize the production cost of BD players to reach a retail price of US$150, EDN pointed out.

Today LaCie announced that it has doubled the speed at which its high-performance, large-capacity LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive burns discs to eight times (8x) standard data writing rates. The increased speed to burn files applies to both single and dual-layer discs. LaCie also has upgraded the authoring and backup software that ships standard with the product.

The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive packs up to 50 GB of data, or four hours of high-definition video, on a single Blu-ray disc – making it an ideal tool for video professionals and anyone who wants to backup and store significant amounts of data on reliable removable media. It sports both FireWire and USB 2.0 interfaces for high-speed throughput between the drive and a PC or Mac.

As a globally renowned manufacturer of computer peripherals and optical drives, ASUS is constantly at the forefront of cutting edge technologies, providing users with innovative solutions for everyday computing. In pursuing this philosophy, the new ASUS External Slim SDRW-08D1S-U utilizes user-centric design in the Scenario-Based Design model to better address the needs of the user. By integrating these needs into its development and creation, the ASUS External Slim SDRW-08D1S-U combines both aesthetics and practicality.

Sporting an elegant stand design and high glossy appearance showcasing excellent craftsmanship and quality, the ASUS SDRW-08D1S-U brings together high-speed data access technology and style with its attractive, vertical external DVD burner. A user-friendly software interface allows users to easily burn discs; allowing users to simply drag and drop data into the thumbnail layout when they are burning documents and media into a new disc. Drawing power from the computer and harnessing the transmission speeds of a USB 2.0 port, users can experience high-speed data transfer speeds while utilizing little power, perfect for the modern computing era.

Seagate today introduced its Constellation(TM) family of new enterprise storage solutions for Tier 2 nearline storage applications. The two new drive models, the 2.5-inch Constellation and the 3.5-inch Constellation ES hard drives, include a combination of features that enable high capacities, increased power efficiency, enterprise-class reliability, and data security. Both drives also include PowerChoice(TM) from Seagate, which decreases power consumption by up to 54% for record power savings in enterprise environments.

"The need for greater storage capacity will continue to expand in multiple directions and dimensions, but there will be an increasing scrutiny of all storage system purchases, with an eye to decreasing power consumption, footprint, and cost per GB in unprecedented ways," said John Monroe, a research vice president at Gartner. "Performance will not be ignored, but a flexible balance of capacity, cost per GB, power and speed will become more crucial in fulfilling end-user storage demands at varied price points."