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- Home Entertainment
Sharp Electronics Corporation is shipping all three of the 3D wireless Blu-ray Disc™ (BD) players it introduced at CES in March. Each model offers full HD 1080p/24 fps video output, the maximum picture resolution available, for superior 3D and 2D home entertainment experiences, as well as advanced installation and control features. In addition to 3D Blu-ray discs, the BD-HP75U, BD-HP35U and BD-HP25U provide consumers access to content from a wide variety of Internet sources, including Netflix®, VUDU™, Pandora® and YouTube via Wireless LAN. (The BD-HP25U requires optional Wireless LAN dongle VR-WL25). These models also enable consumers to take advantage of the latest surround sound formats such as Dolby® TrueHD, with lossless 7.1 channel audio reproduction that is bit-for-bit the equivalent of the master recordings, and DTS®-HD Master Audio.
Each new model plays standard-definition DVDs and files stored on USB drives, as well as AVCHD, DIVX Plus HD, JPEG and MP3 files. The HDMI® upscaling capability of each model even enhances the picture quality of standard definition DVDs by upconverting content to 1080p pixel-by-pixel, not just frame by frame as is the industry standard through Sharp Super Picture function.
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- Other
Renesas Electronics Corporation, a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the availability of its two new SuperSpeed Universal Serial Bus (USB 3.0) xHCI host controllers (part number, µPD720201 and µPD720202) for electronic devices such as PCs and digital TVs that feature faster effective data transfer speeds and reduced power consumption in low power mode.
The µPD720201 and µPD720202 devices make it easier for system designers to build electronic devices combining high-speed data transfer, compact size, and extended battery life. In addition, Renesas Electronics device drivers for Microsoft Windows® with a proven track record, and device drivers with Linux® support, are available for the µPD720201 and µPD720202 host controllers at no cost.
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- Flash Memory
Panasonic is pleased to introduce new SDHC UHS-I Memory Cards with read and write speeds of up to 95MB/s and 80MB/s. The new Gold cards, compliant with the SD Memory Card Specification Ver.3.01 (UHS104), are the ideal media for digital SLR cameras which requires high-speed write performance. The new cards will be globally introduced in April, 2011 with 8 GB, 16 GB, and 32 GB capacities.
With the highest-level writing speed of up to 80MB/s, the new cards are perfect for high-speed consecutive shooting in HD quality with digital SLR cameras. When the new SDHC UHS-I Memory Cards are used with UHS-I supported digital still cameras, the number of consecutive shots will be increased to be twice of that of the current Gold models. The cards also allow for quick data transfer to a PC and can transfer data approx. 4 times faster than the current Gold SDW series.
The new cards are also highly reliable and durable. Super Intelligent Controller (SICS) provides Power Failure Protection to protect data from sudden power failure, Refresh Function to extend the archival life over 10 times, and Smart Data Writing to minimize defect risk caused by intensive writing. They are also equipped with “Proof 5” feature (water-, shock-, magnet-, X-ray-, temperature-proof) to withstand severe conditions.
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- Software
Rovi Corporation, today launched Roxio Toast 11 Titanium for Mac. Toast 11 is a major update that helps extend Mac OS and iLife applications with new capabilities and feature enhancements for capturing, copying, converting and enjoying personal digital media and entertainment. Toast 11 serves as a powerful media hub that makes it simple to take virtually any piece of digital media - regardless of format or where it resides - and share and enjoy it practically anywhere and on any device.
Toast 11 has been redesigned from the ground up and showcases a new interface that we believe users will find modern and intuitive. More importantly, the overhaul of this long-time Mac standard offers refined workflows along with built-in video tutorials that make it easier for existing Toast users and those new to the program to quickly complete a broad range of media tasks.
From personal photos and home movies, to streaming Internet radio and user-generated content on YouTube, people are enjoying media in many forms and from a variety of sources," said Corey Ferengul, EVP of Products at Rovi Corporation. "The pain often comes when attempting to move a piece of media between devices or platforms. This is where Toast really shines - it gets the media you love where you want it, effortlessly."
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- Network Storage
The new XXX line of Thecus NAS is leading the way in catering to your needs. With Xtreme Power, Xtreme Function, and Xtreme Value, these Thecus NAS deliver. Whether it be a strong product for a budget price or a high-powered NAS for the tech-savvy, each model is extremely geared towards fitting you. From an extremely speedy 2-bay for your home office to an extremely powerful 8-bay rackmount for even the most demanding enterprise, Thecus XXX NAS are ready for you.
Remember those three letters, it’s the new Thecus product line and they are going to make you reconsider the way you see the NAS world. We took our best products and pumped them up with all the latest components: Intel Atom processors, DDR3 memory, and many more. Designed to work seamlessly with our new firmware V5, the amount of software features of the XXX Series make every cent you put into your NAS worth the investment: New module design, Thecus’s revolutionary Piczza!™ photo server, ThecusShare™, Web Disk, FTP server, Web server, Incremental backup, and iSCSI thin provisioning among many others.
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- Network Storage
Buffalo Technology today announced the TeraStation Pro WSS Storage Server family, built on the next generation TeraStation Pro platform and utilizing Windows Storage Server 2008 R2. Buffalo’s newest network storage solution family is optimized to deliver the most robust file server experience, and in addition to offering dependable, seamless domain integration, the TeraStation Pro WSS provides advanced features such as centralized management, DFS replication and, on select models, data Deduplication (SIS) and Read-only Domain Controller (RoDC) support. The TeraStation Pro Windows Storage Server family provides businesses a reliable and scalable solution that is not only cost-effective, but easy to deploy and administer into Windows workgroup or domain environments.
The TeraStation Pro WSS family incorporates the powerful Intel® Atom™ D510 Dual-Core Processor, providing exceptional performance during file transfers and everyday NAS functions. Buffalo’s TeraStation Pro WSS also features hot-swap SATA hard drives, dual gigabit Ethernet for automatic failover, dual USB 3.0 ports for backup and accessories and redundant RAID technology, providing a dependable and cost-effective storage solution for businesses of all sizes. With native Active Directory and NTFS support, the new TeraStation Pro WSS family is a highly cost-effective solution for SMBs and beyond.
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- Flash Memory
Active Media Products, a leader in DOMs and small form factor SSDs, today announced a new 64GB Mini PCI-E SSD designed specifically for Dell Inspiron® Mini 9 upgrades that delivers substantially more storage space and dramatically faster performance than the Mini 9's default drive, as shown in the benchmark results below.
The SaberTooth AA SSD scored about 100% faster than the default SSD in Read speeds, and up to 9x faster in write speeds. The SaberTooth AA is one of the first available 64GB upgrades for the Mini 9, making it the highest density storage solution in this form factor. "This SSD answers the demand from many netbook users for bigger and faster storage options. We were able to reach the 64GB density by using the newest high capacity flash chips," stated Active Media Products VP of Sales, Jerry Thomson.
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- Flash Memory
Transcend Information, Inc., a worldwide leader in memory and storage products, today announced a new addition to its SSD family, the SSD18C3 Portable Solid State Drive. The new portable SSD combines the benefits of USB 3.0 with all the performance and durability advantages of solid-state technology, providing unparalleled speed and stability that conventional portable hard drives cannot compete with.
The new USB 3.0 SSD18C3 is a true Solid State Drive, based on high quality NAND flash memory. It includes an innovative device driver engineered to dramatically enhance USB transfer speeds. Once installed, the SSD will switch into Turbo mode, boosting data transfer speeds up to an incredible 260MB/s when connected to a USB 3.0 port. This exceptional performance makes the SSD an ideal storage solution for read-intensive applications; even an entire DVD movie takes a mere 15 seconds to process. Also compatible with USB 2.0, the SSD18C3 ensures that users will be able to transfer files on computers not yet equipped with a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port.
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- Hard Disks
Western Digital and Hitachi, Ltd. announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby WD will acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $4.3 billion. The proposed combination will result in a customer-focused storage company, with significant operating scale, strong global talent and the industry's broadest product lineup backed by a rich technology portfolio.
Under the terms of the agreement, WD will acquire Hitachi GST for $3.5 billion in cash and 25 million WD common shares valued at $750 million, based on a WD closing stock price of $30.01 as of March 4, 2011. Hitachi, Ltd. will own approximately ten percent of Western Digital shares outstanding after issuance of the shares and two representatives of Hitachi will be added to the WD board of directors at closing. The transaction has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close during the third calendar quarter of 2011, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. WD plans to fund the transaction with a combination of existing cash and total debt of approximately $2.5 billion.
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- Flash Memory
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today unveiled its next generation TeraDrive. Featuring the 2nd generation SandForce controllers, a SATA III 6Gbps interface, and the new ONFi Double Data Rate NAND flash, these new drives promise to deliver twice the performance of their predecessors.
At 3 Gbps, the SATA 2 interface posed a bottleneck to existing SSD designs but little performance was to be gained by changing to SATA3. That just changed. As double data rate (DDR) NAND becomes available, SSD performance stands to double overnight. Since the new 2nd generation SandForce controllers support both SATA3 and DDR flash, we are now able to unleash the performance of these new designs.
