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Continuing its commitment to helping people preserve, protect and enjoy their digital content, Seagate today introduced a new backup appliance that completely eliminates the need to manually learn, manage, or dedicate any time to the backup process. Unlike most backup utilities, the new Seagate® Replica™ backup appliance is a complete PC backup system, which automatically and continuously stores up-to-date copies of everything on a PC, including installed applications, operating system, e-mail, pictures, music, movies, Internet bookmarks and settings. Available in two configurations, the Seagate Replica solution delivers seamless backup for either a single PC or multiple PCs in a household.
“The computer continues to become an indispensable family tool for homework, e-mail, storing digital photos and downloading Internet videos,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst, Parks Associates. “As consumers today continue to amass increasing volumes of digital content, having an easy, time-efficient way to backup computers in the home will become an imperative.”
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Sans Digital, a leading provider of high performance storage subsystems, is introducing the MobileSTOR MS1CT, a newly designed portable 1-bay storage unit with four of the most popular host interfaces. Aside from the common USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces, the MS1CT also utilizes Firewire 400 and 800 for ultimate flexibility. The quad-interface design conveniently allows the integration of the MS1CT with standard expansion ports on both PC and MAC platforms without the need to purchase additional host bus adapters.
The MobileSTOR MS1CT enclosure utilizes a fan-less design for ultra quiet operation, and lightweight aluminum for effective heat dispensing as well as contemporary design. The MS1CT features a removable hard drive tray that is compatible with other Sans Digital MobileSTOR, MobileRAID, and MobileNAS storage units. With host computer support, the MS1CT allows hot-swapping, where a tray with hard drive could be taken from a larger Mobile series unit and placed in the MS1CT for portability. Additional hard drive trays could be purchased separately with a protective leatherette case to shield the hard drives from physical damage. When combined with the InstaRAID IR12TB, the MS1CT is capable of achieving RAID 0 stripping and RAID 1 mirroring in the size of a 3.5” enclosure.
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NEC Electronics Corporation, Renesas Technology Corp., NEC Corporation, Hitachi, Ltd., and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation today agreed to enter into negotiations to integrate business operations at NEC Electronics and Renesas.
NEC Electronics was established in 2002, separating from NEC, and Renesas was established in 2003, integrating semiconductor units at Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric. Both as leading semiconductor companies, NEC Electronics and Renesas provide a wide variety of semiconductor solutions, primarily specializing in microcontroller units (MCUs). In light of fierce global competition in the semiconductor market, NEC Electronics and Renesas have agreed to explore the possibility of business integration in order to further strengthen their business foundations and technological assets while increasing corporate value through enhanced customer satisfaction.
By integrating the world’s two largest MCU suppliers, the new company will provide one of the most competitive MCU product lineups throughout the world.
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Philips has scored another win in their ongoing legal battle with Princo. According to DigiTimes, the Taiwan Intellectual Property Court (IPC) has determined that Princo shall pay a total of 7.606 billion yen (US$77.6 million) to Philips for CD-R royalty fees and interest due to delay in payment.
The Taiwan Intellectual Property Court (IPC) on April 23 determined that Princo, a Taiwan-based maker of blank optical discs, shall pay a total of 7.606 billion yen (US$77.6 million) to Royal Philips Electronics for CD-R royalty fees and interest due to delay in payment, according to the court.
Because Princo defaulted on CD-R royalty payment for the period from the fourth quarter of 1997 to the fourth quarter of 1999 (Philips terminated CD-R licensing in the first quarter of 2000), Philips launched legal proceedings against Princo at a district court in northern Taiwan to claim the payment, according to industry sources.
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Verbatim is now assembling external hard disk drives in Europe, enabling it to respond more quickly and with greater flexibility to European market demands. The assembly is being undertaken by Rhenus AG & Co. KG in Duisburg Germany and since starting production in December 2008 has been assembling and shipping up to 60,000 units every month.
Rhenus Logistics, which is situated on the Logport Park in Duisburg, has provided the European central distribution warehouse for Verbatim since 2006. With a capacity of 40.000 pallet bays, goods are packed within 24 hours of receipt or order, with orders placed before 4 pm ready for shipment the same day. More than 800 different Verbatim products can be shipped at any time and around 315,000 orders are processed by Rhenus for Verbatim each year.
On December 1st 2008, two new assembly lines were set up at Rhenus for Verbatim, to meet the increasing external HDD market requirements in Europe. 42 new jobs were created, trained staff work in two shifts to assemble 3,5-inch external hard drives on a customised basis in response to orders from Verbatim’s customers. The supplied hard drives are formatted and installed into the enclosures, then checked and packaged. Previously, these services were only performed in Asia.
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Lite-On announces today that their next generation of external slim DVD-writers will be equipped with a smart USB power detection feature.
The eSAU108 external DVD-writer from Lite-On is a USB powered drive. Users don’t need a power adapter to operate the drive, as it will get its power directly from the computer through a USB cable. Most notebooks deliver enough power to operate the drive through a single USB port, but for some notebooks an extra USB port is needed to get sufficient power.
Smart USB power detection is a feature that helps users to determine whether they need one or two USB ports to operate the drive. After plugging in the main USB connector in the computer’s USB port and the mini USB connector into the drive’s port, a LED indicator on the drive will light up. BLUE means that the drive is ready to operate, while RED means that a second USB connector is needed. As the drive is equipped with a USB Y-cable, a cable with two USB connectors and one mini USB connector, a second USB connector can be plugged into the computer very easily.
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NVIDIA today announced that NERO has released an update to its Nero Move it software that reduces video encoding time by up to five times by utilizing NVIDIA's CUDA computing architecture built inside select NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). NVIDIA CUDA technology dramatically reduces the time it takes to transfer video files to portable devices, while freeing up the CPU to perform other tasks.
Nero Move it is designed to allow consumers to effortlessly convert and share digital media content among a variety of popular entertainment devices. It is a complete software solution for collecting, organizing, transferring, and publishing digital media files from one device to another, as well as for uploading digital content to online communities. By using CUDA technology to tap the massively parallel processing power of NVIDIA GPUs, Nero Move it converts videos in a fraction of the usual time, reducing the length of time to perform such tasks as customizing an HD video for an iPod, from hours to mere minutes.
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OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and computer components, today unveiled the Z-Drive, a PCI-Express based SSD solution designed to meet the stringent demands of enthusiast computing environments and high-end workstations. First debuted at Cebit 2009 in Germany, the Z-Drive is the latest premium solid state storage solution from OCZ.
“It is our goal to deliver tailored SSD solutions for the complete spectrum of high performance applications,” said Eugene Chang, Vice President of Product Management at the OCZ Technology Group. “Designed for ultra high performance consumers, the Z-Drive takes the SATA bottleneck out of the equation by employing the ultra fast PCI-Express architecture with a RAID controller and four Vertex controllers configured in four-way RAID 0 within an all-in-one product, making this solution ideal for applications that put a premium on both storage performance and maximum capacity.”
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Pioneer Japan sent out a press release this morning, announcing its new slim, portable DVD writer, the DVR-XD08. This USB bus powered drive is capable of 8x DVD±R, 6x DVD±R DL, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 5x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 8x. The DVR-XD08 also includes features like Pioneer's PowerRead and PURE READ technologies as well as a software bundle from CyberLink. The DVR-XD08 is scheduled to ship in early May and is expected to cost about 15,000 Yen ($153US).
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Warner Home Video has launched a new program that will let HD DVD fans trade in their movies for the Blu-ray version. To do so, send in the cover art to Warner's processing center, pay a small $4.95 upgrade fee (as well as $6.95/$8.95 for shipping) and in 4-5 weeks, you'll receive the Blu-ray version of the same title. While you are limited to one copy of each movie and a total of 25 titles total per household, most people will probably be more than happy to rid themselves of the defunct format. Full details can be found at Red2Blu.com.
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