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- Optical Storage
Buffalo Japan has definitely been on a roll lately. The company not only introduced the industry's first 10x Blu-ray Disc writers, they've now announced a portable unit that can write at 6x. The BR-PX68U2-BK is capable of 6x BD-R, 6x BD-R DL, 4x BD-R DL, 2x BD-RE and 2x BD-RE DL writing speeds and a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 6x. The drive is also backwards compatible with all DVD and CD formats and can be powered off a computer's USB bus or the included AC adapter. The BR-PX68U2-BK is expected to ship in early November for a suggested retail price of 31,700 Yen ($350US).
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Moser Baer, the global technology manufacturing company, has launched Print Max, a BDR White Inkjet Printable media, a product for Primera Technology, Inc. to work with the US-based company’s range of products. Full surface printable BDR discs are made using utmost care and advanced technology at Moser Baer’s optical media manufacturing plant in the suburbs of New Delhi in India and also at OM&T, Moser Baer’s Netherlands-based subsidiary.
BDR full surface printable discs are available for the entire range of BDR discs offered by Moser Baer India: BDR 1-4x, BDR 1-6x & BD RE 1-2x.
The sharp images and bright colors enhance the aesthetic appeal of these discs and make the Blu-ray full surface printable discs from Moser Baer a “must have” for professional duplicators.
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- Home Entertainment
Roku, Inc., maker of the popular and award-winning Roku player, announced today for immediate availability two new models. The new Roku SD and Roku HD-XR expand the product lineup to three models. Now customers have a variety of features and price points ($79.99, $99.99, $129.99) to fit their needs. All players continue to deliver instant entertainment from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand and MLB.TV. With today’s announcement, customers can now purchase a Roku player for as little as $79.99 at www.roku.com or www.amazon.com. For a limited time, customers purchasing through either Roku or Amazon will receive free shipping, making it even more affordable to get started with a Roku.
“We’re introducing a breakthrough price point with the launch of our Roku SD player,” Anthony Wood, founder and CEO of Roku, Inc said. “Additionally the Roku HD-XR is the first Netflix-streaming device to embed next generation 802.11n dual-band wireless connectivity, making it easier and more reliable than ever to start enjoying movies, TV shows, sports and the best online content available, all on the living room TV.”
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ASUS today announced a range of enhanced motherboard solutions that deliver true USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s data throughput performance. The ASUS Xtreme Design P7P55D-E Series motherboard has onboard support while the ASUS Xtreme Design P7P55D Series utilizes the ASUS U3S6 PCIe x4 expansion card to deliver the latest USB and SATA data transfer capabilities. Equipped with the Intel® P55 Express chipset, the P7P55D-E / P7P55D Series supports the latest LGA 1156 socket for Intel® Core™ i7/Core™ i5 Processors. Additionally, they also feature exclusive Hybrid Technology—Hybrid Processor, Hybrid Phase, and Hybrid OS—to give users intelligent performance enhancement, active cooling, and rapid online access.
Faster than Ever—True USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s Performance with Bridge Chip
ASUS’ unique expansion bridge* design fully unleashes USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s transfer rates for both the P7P55D-E Series and the U3S6 expansion card. This specially-designed onboard IC doubles the bandwidth of the PCIe interface from Gen 1 to Gen 2, delivering ten times faster USB 3.0 throughput compared to the previous USB 2.0 standard. Additionally, by eliminating transmission bottlenecks, the expansion bridge increases hard disk read and write speeds by up to 50%**. Transferring a 20GB HD movie now takes less than 70 seconds, while a 4MB song requires less than 0.01sec. Similarly, by inserting the ASUS U3S6 PCIe x4 expansion card into P7P55D Series motherboards, users can achieve the same rapid throughput with the latest USB 3.0 devices and SATA hard disks.
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A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd., the worldwide leader in DRAM memory and Flash application products, announced today its industry-leading SSD S596, a 2.5” SATAII SSD designed specifically for PC enthusiastic, multi-task and heavy-graphic users to perform assorted applications five times faster!
Tie the loose end and deliver high performance truly
Delivering sequential read and write speed up to 250 MB/sec and 180 MB/sec, the S596 eases the bottleneck conventional HD causes. The S596 utilizes the next generation of Flash technology and DDR2 SDRAM cache buffer to provide an amazingly fast boot-up time at 20 seconds on platforms running Windows 7, a 40% performance improvement compared to platform equipped with ordinary SSD.
Designers and heavy PC users liberated
Ever wonder why a system equipped nothing but grade A components never quite keep up with one’s expectation? Simply put, the HD running averagely between 30-50MB/sec is choking the process. With A-DATA’s S596, one can multi task and switch between graphic-editing software such as Photoshop, illustrator, AutoCAD, or 3D max gracefully with only one fourth (1/4) of the original processing time. No more tiresome waiting!
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- Duplicators
Primera Technology, Inc., the world’s leading manufacturer of CD/DVD and Blu-ray Disc Publishers, today announced its PTPublisher for Mac software.
PTPublisher for Mac is a new, easy-to-use yet fully-featured burning and printing software program written specifically for use with Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard®) and 10.6 (Snow Leopard®). It is powered by the popular Roxio® burn engine and works with any of Primera’s Bravo-Series Disc Publishers (DP-Series Disc Publishers in Europe, Scandinavia and Middle East).
Features of PTPublisher for Mac include:
- Intuitive user interface for multiple job types, including audio, video, data and copy jobs
- Wizard-style navigation
- Integrated DiscCover™ Label Design Software for direct-to-disc printing
- Media levels and robot status monitored on-screen and in real time
- Automatic updater (active Internet connection required)
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According to various reports, the U.S. Justice Department has begun to look into possible violations of antitrust law in the optical disc drive industry. Along with Sony Optiarc America, Hitachi and Toshiba have now received subpoenas from the DOJ which is seeking information about the companies' optical disk drive businesses.
Japanese technology giants Hitachi Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday that, like Sony Corp., their optical disk drive operations in the U.S. have received subpoenas from the Department of Justice in a widening investigation into potential antitrust violations.
According to a person familiar with the investigation, the Justice Department started a criminal antitrust probe into the market for optical disk drives in recent months, investigating disk-drive makers for possible price-fixing, bid-rigging and allocation of markets. As well as featuring in personal computers, optical disk drives are used in everyday consumer products like DVD and Blu-ray disk players.
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- Flash Memory
On the heels of the Microsoft Windows 7 introduction, Intel Corporation today announced the availability of the Intel® Solid-State Drive (SSD) Toolbox, with Intel® SSD Optimizer and firmware update, for its 34nm Intel® X25-M Mainstream SATA SSDs. The latest tools are designed to help better manage and retain the out-of-box performance of Intel SSDs.
An SSD is built to replace a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) with added performance, lower power consumption and higher reliability. The Intel SSD Toolbox allows users to more effectively monitor and manage the SSD’s health. The firmware upgrade and Intel SSD Optimizer use the Windows 7 ATA Data Set Management Command (known as Trim) to help keep the Intel SSD running at continued high performance. In addition, the SSD Toolbox and Optimizer also allow the respective enhancements to work with Windows XP and Vista operating systems.
“Fast and reliable access to data is critical for our SSD users,” said Pete Hazen, director of marketing, Intel NAND Solutions Group. “The latest firmware and toolbox upgrade for Intel 34nm SSD users provide a host of new management, information and diagnostic tools to help SSDs retain out-of-box performance. We are encouraging our 34nm customers to download the new firmware update today. Not only will Windows 7 users receive the performance enhancements of the Trim command, but so will our Windows XP and Vista users.”
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DivX, Inc., a digital media company, and MediaTek Inc., a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, today announced the DivX Plus(TM) HD Certification of MediaTek's MT8530 chip. This chip is designed to enable Blu-ray players to playback DivX Plus HD video based on H.264 technology and using the MKV container, providing consumers with a true cinematic media experience at high-definition resolutions up to 1080p.
DivX Plus HD Certification is the highest level of certification available from DivX and supports the playback of all content created with DivX® software. Available on www.divx.com, DivX software allows users to create and playback H.264 video in a .mkv file container. DivX Plus HD Certified devices will playback previous versions of DivX video, premium Hollywood content in the DivX format, and DivX Plus HD video files with the .mkv file extension and AAC audio created with third-party tools. Known for great performance, visual quality and interoperability on any DivX Certified® device, DivX provides consumers with a comprehensive digital media solution supporting the majority of high-quality Internet video on their TVs or other consumer electronics devices.
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Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of the SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive, the latest addition to its V (Value) family of solid-state drives (SSD). The Kingston® SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to accelerate any desktop's boot, shutdown and application load times. It is available for as low as $84.99 after rebates (U.S. only) at e-tailer Newegg.com at launch.
"The SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive offers instant performance enhancement coupled with reliability and lower power consumption at a fraction of the cost of a new system," said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager, Kingston. "The 40GB Boot Drive is the latest offering in our V Series SSD line. It provides a low-cost upgrade solution that complements the installed hard-disk drive to extend the life cycle of existing desktop computers and workstations in homes and offices."
