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To streamline the operation of machine rooms and cut down on hosting fees, many enterprises adopt compact 1U rack servers for a smaller machinery footprint, decrease in cost and increase in processing speeds. The purpose is to achieve a more efficient management on the part of IT personnel. With this trend going mainstream, and after having garnering the Taiwan Excellence Awards for its compact SATA modules, Apacer has added a new series of SDM4 mini industrial SSDs to the lineup.
Tailored for the 1U server, the new series boasts upgraded speeds and a doubling of capacity. The minimum height is only 30.35mm, enhancing the air ventilation inside the 1U chassis. With the SATA connector on the left or right side of the PCB and with different types of casings, the SSD is available for customers' diverse choices. In this way, it meets the needs for various setups and is suitable for system startup/booting as a high-stability storage solution.
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Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Laboratories Limited today announced the development of the PC industry's first recycling system that collects used CDs and DVDs at Fujitsu Group recycling centers and reuses the plastic in the bodies of notebook PCs. Fujitsu began using this recycled plastic for part of the front panel of its LIFEBOOK P772/E notebook PC for enterprise customers, a model in its summer 2012 lineup.
To avoid the risk of contaminants being mixed into the recycled plastic, the new recycling system performs quality control based on a chemical substances risk management database developed by Fujitsu Laboratories, thereby ensuring that notebook PCs and other ICT devices comply with legal requirements for chemical components. Compared to conventional notebook PC manufacturing processes, this system is expected to reduce the amount of newly produced plastic used by 10 tons per year while cutting CO2 emissions by approximately 15%.
Going forward, Fujitsu plans to expand the use of this system to other notebook PCs and products as a way to reduce its environmental footprint and resource consumption. The Fujitsu Group is proud to promote the recycling of end-of-life ICT products in Japan and around the world to help create a recycling-minded society.
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Creative Technology Ltd today announced its new ultra high-performance Z-Series of Sound Blaster PCI-Express sound cards, elevating the standards of technology and performance for the future of gaming and entertainment on the PC. Creative will preview the new Sound Blaster ZxR, Sound Blaster Zx and Sound Blaster Z at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany from 15-19 August 2012.
“The audio landscape for gaming and entertainment on the PC has changed. As content creation and consumption evolves with the interactivity of the Internet, our vision is to enable the best listening experiences for music, video and games, and to transcend the basic concept of sound quality as a specification with enabling technologies that allow users to completely customise their PC audio,” said Low Long Chye, Director of Product Marketing for Audio. “For audio playback, we use studio-grade components to deliver outstanding fidelity, and then greatly enhance the listening experience by implementing our SBX Pro Studio™ suite of audio technologies. This enables complete customisation of audio playback, uniquely catered to suit individual tastes. Our mixture of outstanding components and proprietary technologies also enables us to provide the highest quality recording experience for audio creation, which today expands beyond just music recording to include user interaction and creation with YouTube, eSports, and more.”
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Other World Computing announced today the OWC Mercury Aura Pro as the industry’s first high-performance Solid State Drive upgrade for 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display (rMBP) computers. Available in 480GB capacity, the 6G (6Gb/s) SandForce Driven Mercury Aura Pro offers rMBP owners 87.5 percent more capacity than the factory 256GB model. Additionally, customers buying the $579.99 MSRP Aura Pro direct from OWC until September 30, 2012, will later receive the OWC Envoy Pro USB 3.0 bus-powered portable enclosure (a $59.95 value) for re-tasking the rMBP’s factory flash module as an external drive at no additional cost.
When introduced this past June, the MacBook Pro with Retina display base model offered a 256GB SSD configuration with no upgrade option. Now, instead of being “factory locked”, rMBP owners can add 87.5 percent more capacity with a 480GB Mercury Aura Pro SSD. The only other and far more costly and time-intensive option for rMBP owners, as discovered by The SSD Review.com, is to upgrade the SSD through an authorized dealer. Making this an even less desirable option is the fact that the original 256GB flash module is retained and sent back to Apple.
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Toshiba’s Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the Canvio Desk Desktop External Hard Drive and the Solid State Drive (SSD) PC Upgrade Kit, both available now on Toshiba Direct starting at $119.99 MSRP and $109.99 MSRP, respectively.
“With personal storage becoming increasingly prevalent, the need for varying solutions grows and we’re proud to introduce new devices that help round out our already robust line-up,” said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of product marketing and development, Branded Storage Products, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. “Our new desktop drive and SSD Upgrade Kit are providing our users with the high level of power and performance they’ve come to expect from Toshiba storage solutions.”
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Imation Corp., a global scalable storage and data security company, today announced the expansion of its secure USB hard drive line with capacities of up to 1 terabyte (TB), optional biometric fingerprint authentication, and a uniquely comprehensive set of options for secure USB hard drive management.
“Enterprise and government organizations increasingly need manageable USB devices in order to provide mobile workers with the tools necessary to work where and when they want, and access the data they need in the most secure way possible,” said Lawrence Reusing, Imation’s general manager for Mobile Security. “People are increasingly turning to USB hard drives to transport large data sets. Our expanding secure hard drive offerings are in response to our customers needing increased capacity without compromising control over the devices and data.”
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Great news NAS lovers, a new high-value 7-bay NAS is now available on the market! Thecus put their hands together and added a new tower to the Vision series. Equipped with an Intel Atom processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, HDMI output and offering incomparable data protection with the McAfee antivirus, this NAS will offer lots of power and lots of storage capacity without spending lots of money. With the 2-bay N2800, 4-bay N4800 and N4510U and the 5-bay N5550, the 7-bay N7510 completes the Vision series of Intel Atom NAS from Thecus.
As it is already been prove with the N5550 and N4800, the Intel Atom CPU performs like a real Olympian athlete! As they are more energy efficient and are design to work without a fan, their energy consumption and associated cost are greatly reduced for the benefits of the user. This will dramatically reduce NAS noise and power consumption, making it a bit more ecofriendly.
With the Intel Atom processor, multi-tasking is something you won’t have to worry about. Multi-users environment (+64), web hosting, intense backup, data encryption, application serving, heavy RAID computations (mode 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, JBOD and up to3 multiple RAID mode supported), and HD multimedia streaming, this processor can take it!
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According to The NPD Group, a leading market research company, rentals of physical DVDs and Blu-ray discs (BDs) from kiosks, brick-and-mortar retailers, and Netflix Movies by Mail accounted for 62 percent of movie rental orders during the first half of this year. Digital movie rentals – including subscription streaming, pay TV VOD, and Internet VOD – accounted for the other 38 percent.
NPD’s “VideoWatch VOD” report also revealed that overall movie rentals through all of these sources declined 10 percent since last year. Rentals of physical discs, while dominant, are becoming less so; in fact, year-over-year disc rentals from all sources declined by 17 percent, as digital movie rentals increased by 5 percent.
Within the physical disc market, kiosks continued to extend their lead, with rental orders growing 5 percent over last year. Kiosk rentals accounted for 45 percent of the physical market, as rentals from brick-and-mortar stores continued to fade. DVD and BD subscriptions also declined, due to Netflix’s focus on digital-video streaming.
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ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash storage application products, today launched the DashDrive HV610 external hard drive, which combines a unique picture puzzle design concept with a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface. A removable smart cover provides a convenient and novel way to store the transmission cable.
The exterior of the HV610 body comes in choice of two attractive monochrome patterns, each with interlocking shiny and matte puzzle piece lines, and a matching USB cable stored in the cool ice-blue cover, demonstrating the most eye-catching street fashion style.
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CyberLink Corp., an innovative solution provider for the connected digital lifestyle, today announced its flagship products are now certified and optimized to run on the Microsoft Windows 8. The certified products include PowerDVD 12 – the No.1 Blu-ray and media player, PowerDirector 10 – the world’s fastest video editor, Media Suite 10 – a collection of 11 of CyberLink’s industry-leading multimedia software offerings, PhotoDirector 3 – a complete photo workflow solution, and YouCam 5 – a comprehensive webcam software.
The mission of Microsoft’s certification is to improve customer satisfaction by driving for quality products that work well with Windows. CyberLink’s solutions comply with Microsoft’s technical requirements and ensure compatibility and stability for customers running the software on Windows 8 PCs. As a result, customers will be able to take advantage of a variety of new performance enhancements designed to accelerate the digital media creation process and create a more dynamic media consumption experience.
"We are honored to receive the Windows 8 logo certification for our flagship products," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. "CyberLink is at the forefront of digital media innovation, and being among the first to support the new Windows 8 platform demonstrates our commitment to enhancing the performance of our multimedia software solutions."
