Buffalo Technology has announced the MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0 portable hard drive, the latest generation of SuperSpeed external storage solutions which deliver interface speeds up to 5 Gigabits per second. Designed for mobility and equipped with USB 3.0 technology for extreme transfer rates, MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0 can quickly store or back up massive amounts of high-resolution graphics, digital audio and video files, photos and other assets, in a compact and lightweight form, perfect for travel.

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“Buffalo continues to deliver on the promise of producing high quality, high performance storage solutions that push the technological envelope,” said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. “With the new MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0, we are continuing a tradition of innovative, high-speed storage solutions that consumers have come to rely on year after year.”

Delivering interface speeds 10 times faster than USB 2.0, the MiniStation Cobalt HD-PEU3 can store and move tons of photo, video, music and data files at speeds previously unavailable to USB portable storage. Additionally, the Cobalt USB 3.0 is backward-compatible with USB 2.0 and it works with PC and Mac®, so you can access your files from nearly any computer.

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Synology Inc. today launched the Synology DX510, an expansion unit to increase the capacity of Synology DS1010+ and DS710+ on the fly.

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When the Synology DS1010+ or DS710+ is running out of capacity, the Synology DX510 scales up its capacity by an additional 5 hard drives immediately. The RAID volume on the Synology DiskStation can be expanded directly without having to reformat the existing hard drives, ensuring the Synology DiskStation continues its service during the capacity expansion. When created as a separate volume, the Synology DX510 provides a great solution for backing up the Synology DiskStation.

The Synology DX510 is connected to the Synology DiskStation using an eSATA cable with custom-designed connectors on both ends, ensuring a reliable connection and maximum throughput. The eSATA 3.0 Gb/sec definition allows the hard drives in the connected Synology DX510 to operate as they are the internal ones of the Synology DiskStation.

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sandisk 32gb microsdhc.jpgSanDisk Corporation today announced that it has begun shipping the world's highest-capacity removable memory card for mobile phones – the 32 gigabyte (GB) SanDisk microSDHC™ card. The new microSDHC card offers consumers an unprecedented level of freedom and flexibility in how they store, send and enjoy digital content.

"With the large volume of photos, videos and music that consumers create and carry around, a high-capacity memory card is a must-have component of today's smartphone," said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief operating officer, SanDisk. "This is the highest-capacity card of its type, and SanDisk is pleased to be the first to ship such an advanced product. This marks yet another important first in our innovative history in the flash memory industry."

Smartphones have evolved far beyond the simple phone call. They serve as mobile offices, music players, movie theaters, cameras, video recorders, GPS devices and gateways to the mobile Internet. The highly-versatile 32GB SanDisk microSDHC card delivers immediate memory expansion that lets consumers enjoy the storage-intensive features of their advanced handsets. For example, the 32GB SanDisk microSDHC card can store enough music to outlast 35 round-trip flights between San Francisco and New York before repeating a single song.

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Active Media Products, a leading manufacturer of SSDs and USB drives, today launched eSATA (external SATA) Flash drives that boast sequential read and write speeds up to 100 and 55 MB/sec respectively, about three times faster than the fastest USB 2.0 flash drives. "There are millions of laptops out there with eSATA ports that can take advantage of this performance." commented Jerry Thomson, VP of Sales at Active Media Products.

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Active Media Products builds these drives with either 16GB or 32GB of MLC NAND flash. With no moving parts, they offer the same outstanding reliability as SSDs. "eSATA flash drives are a great storage solution for people who need faster transfer speeds than USB 2.0 can offer, yet still need the portability of a USB flash drive." Mr. Thomson added. Because many computers don't have an eSATA port, these drives also feature a Mini USB 2.0 port, so they can be used in virtually any PC or desktop.

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LSI Corporation today announced it is sampling a PCI Express (PCIe)-based solid-state storage (SSS) solution to OEM customers. The LSISSS6200 PCIe SSS card provides a high-performance storage solution with enhanced reliability and industry-leading storage density for enterprise servers. For easy system integration and management, the card uses the industry-standard SAS protocol and widely deployed LSI SAS software. The card is designed to maximize transactional I/O performance for applications such as Web serving, data warehousing, data mining, online transaction processing and high-performance computing.

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Offering high performance with low latency and a low CPU burden, the small form factor PCIe card delivers up to 200,000 4K sequential I/Os per second (IOPS) and up to 150,000 4K random IOPS. It achieves bandwidth of 1,500MB/s sustained sequential I/O and 1,200MB/s sustained random I/O, regardless of read/write mix. Storage capacity of up to 300GB can be configured in a single PCIe slot with no external power requirement. Using industry-standard LSI software drivers, the card provides support for all major operating systems and helps OEM customers achieve a faster time to market.

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Synology America Corp. today introduced the new DS410 DiskStation, a four-bay network attached storage server for workgroups and small businesses who need a reliable and economical solution for file sharing and backup.

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Built on the company's award-winning DiskStation Manager firmware, DSM 2.3, the new DS410 is faster than the DS409, it's predecessor and offers many more features like encrypted file sharing, automatic backup to the cloud, desktop and network backup, multi-media streaming, surveillance, email and web hosting and more. The DS410 is the perfect solution to replace older pc servers, outdated tape backups and multiple other devices in the office or around the home.

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cyberlink powerdvd 10 box.jpgCyberLink Corp. today released CyberLink PowerDVD 10, an advanced universal media player for the PC that upgrades and delivers the best playback experience via a range of TrueTheater technologies.

Enabling Full HD and 3D Blu-ray playback, CyberLink PowerDVD 10 features TrueTheater 3D technology, upgrading the movie experience with 3D movie playback for DVD discs and video files. Meanwhile, the improved version of TrueTheater HD, optimized for the latest CPU/GPU acceleration technologies, enables the upscaling of both DVD movies and video files to HD.

With the initial release of PowerDVD 10, consumers will enjoy Full HD Blu-ray movies, plus the new media-enhancing features of CyberLink’s advanced suite of TrueTheater technologies: TrueTheater 3D, TrueTheater HD, TrueTheater Noise Reduction, and TrueTheater Stabilizer. What’s more, with a “Mark II” scheduled for release this summer, consumers can add Blu-ray 3D playback and 2D-to-3D video file conversion to their software. Mark II will be free for consumers who already purchased PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D.

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DivX, Inc. today announced that the latest version of the Company's flagship video software package, DivX Plus™ Software, is now available as a free download for Windows 7, Vista and XP on the Company's website.

The completely redesigned DivX Plus Software offers users an uncluttered and easy-to-use interface for the playback of DivX video on the desktop and in the browser, including DivX Plus HD video, which supports up to 1080p HD H.264-based videos in the popular MKV file format.

The DivX Plus software package is comprised of four individual products: the DivX Plus Player, the DivX Plus Web Player, the DivX Plus Codec Pack, and the DivX Plus Converter. The DivX Plus Player includes the all-new DivX To Go feature, which makes it easy to transfer videos from the computer to any of the 250 million DivX devices that have shipped worldwide from major brands, including DVD players, Blu-ray players, digital televisions, gaming consoles and mobile phones.

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superspeed usb.jpgNEC Electronics today announced that it plans to double production of its USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) certified SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) host controller (part number µPD720200), the world's first, and is expecting to reach monthly production of two million units starting April 2010.

The µPD720200 device is a host controller for PCs and other digital consumer devices and is based on the Intel xHCI specification, supporting SuperSpeed USB transfer speeds of up to 5 gigabits per second (Gbps) of data, which is up to 10 times faster than previous Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0) transfer speeds. NEC Electronics' host controller is the first commercially available SuperSpeed USB product certified by the USB-IF, and mass production began in September 2009. To meet the increasing market demands for USB 3.0-compatible PCs, NEC Electronics already has shipped three million units of its µPD720200 host controller. Thanks to USB-IF's strong commitment and promotion for the adoption of SuperSpeed USB , this milestone was achieved just six months after the availability of this device, while the company's USB 2.0 host controller took approximately one and a half years to reach 3 million shipments, by comparison. NEC Electronics expects industry adoption of its USB 3.0 host controller to accelerate, and therefore decided to boost its production volume sooner than planned to address the increasing demand.

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At ShoWest 2010, Dolby Laboratories, Inc., announced it is working with Walt Disney Pictures® and Pixar® Animation Studios to deliver a new audio format, Dolby® Surround 7.1. Disney® and Pixar have stated that Dolby Surround 7.1 will be launched in select theatres with the release of Toy Story® 3 in 3D this June.

“For 40 years Dolby has not only provided content creators with the tools to create a more realistic audio experience, but has also enabled the exhibitor to deliver audiences the ability to experience the content as the creator intended,” said Page Haun, Senior Director, Marketing, Cinema Market Segment, Dolby Laboratories. “The release of Toy Story 3 in a discrete 7.1 mix will raise the bar for movie theatre owners and their patrons.”

Dolby Surround 7.1 brings a more exciting sensory experience to audiences for 2D and gives content creators control over audio placement in a theatre when mixing 3D movies. The ability to compose audio with visual elements of 3D allows content creators to immerse the audience deeper into the movie with dramatic realism.

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