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- Optical Storage
Royal Philips Electronics N.V. has reached consensus with each of CMC Magnetics Corporation and Ritek Corporation on long term patent licensing agreements for CD and DVD recordable and rewritable discs. The licensing agreements will not only settle the past use disputes between Philips, the patent holder, and Ritek and CMC, two Taiwan-based leading optical disc manufacturers in the world, but also covers the use of the relevant Philips’ patents until 2012. The parties also have agreed to stop all legal actions against each other.
Ben Beune, Senior Vice President from Philips says: “We are encouraged that the joint efforts of the Taiwan industry leaders and Philips over the past one year and a half can finally bring a positive result. Philips never gives up the hope to work with the manufacturers to find a win-win solution. The new agreements not only serve both parties’ interests but also mark the start of a renewed relationship. We believe this is a positive and healthy development for the industry going forward and we highly appreciate the frankness and sincerity shown by CMC and Ritek in the negotiations.”
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- Flash Memory
Micron announced this week that ithas worked with Sun Microsystems to developa new single-level cell (SLC) NAND technology that dramatically extends the lifespan of flash-based storage. With this new technology, the companies have produced devices capable of achieving one million write cycles.
Micron Technology, Inc., today announced it has worked with Sun Microsystems, Inc., to develop a new single-level cell (SLC) enterprise NAND technology that dramatically extends the lifespan of flash-based storage for enterprise applications. The result of the collaboration has yielded production devices capable of achieving one million write cycles, a milestone that will help prepare the industry for new uses in solid state storage set to come from Sun, Micron and others. The new technology delivers the highest write/erase cycling capability of any NAND technology available on the market.
"Micron is pleased to work with Sun on this landmark achievement, enabling the use of flash in new applications that were previously not possible because of the inherent write/erase cycle limitations of standard SLC and MLC NAND," said Brian Shirley, vice president of Micron’s memory group. "We expect this technology to revolutionize the enterprise storage hierarchy and be adopted by a wide range of transaction-intensive applications, including solid state drives and storage systems, disk caching, as well as networking and industrial applications."
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- Flash Memory
Toshiba sent out a press release this morning, announcing the launch of its new family of 1.8 and 2.5-inch solid state drives (SSDs) based on 43 nanometer (nm) Multi-Level Cell NAND flash memory. Available in capacities up to 512GB, these new drives utilize an advanced MLC controller which allows them to reach read and write speeds of 240MB/s and 200MB/s, respectively.
Toshiba Corp. (Toshiba) and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC)*, its subsidiary in the Americas, today announced the expansion of their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512-gigabyte (GB)(1) SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSDs based on 43 nanometer (nm) Multi-Level Cell NAND. The new drives provide a high level of performance and endurance for use in notebook computers, gaming and home entertainment systems, and will be showcased at International CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 8 - 11, 2009.
In addition to the 2.5-inch, 512GB drive, the 43nm NAND SSD family also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules. Samples of the new drives will be available in the first quarter (January to March) of 2009, with mass production in the second (April to June) quarter.
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ASUS EEE PC 4G 701 Netbook @ Bigbruin.com
AMD Phenom X4 9850BE Processor @ Rbmods
DFI LANParty JR P45-T2RS Motherboard @ Hardware Zone
ECS GF9300T-A Black Series Motherboard @ Virtual-Hideout
EVGA X58 3X SLI Core i7 Motherboard @ HotHardware.com
Jetway NC92 Atom IPC Motherboard @ Phoronix
Kingston DataTraveler Mini Slim 4GB USB Drive @ ASE Labs
Logitech Alto Cordless Notebook Stand and Keyboard @ ThinkComputers.org
M-Rock Zion 525 Camera Backpack @ Futurelooks
MSI GX720 and MSI GT735 Gaming Notebooks @ InsideHW
Noctua NH-C12P INTEL/AMD Heatpipe CPU Cooler @ Tweaknews.net
Samsung 10.2" Digital Photo Frame with UbiSync USB Monitor @ Everything USB
TeknMotion PulseWave PC Gaming Headset @ OCModShop
TOM BIHN Checkpoint Flyer Laptop Briefcase @ Futurelooks
Toshiba Portege R600 @ Hardware Zone
VIZO Armada II vs Thermaltake RamOrb @ BCCHardware
ZOTAC NITRO VGA Overclocking Controller @ Futurelooks
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- Flash Memory
Patriot Memory, a global provider of premium quality memory module and flash memory solutions, today announced their 256GB Warp SSD v3. Patriot's newest Warp version boasts read and write speeds up to 240MB/sec and 160MB/s, respectively.
"Our new 256GB Warp SSD v3 now gives the consumer the fastest data-transfer rates plus all the storage space large enough to quench their multimedia thirst," says Meng Jay, Flash Product Manager for Patriot Memory. "It wasn't long ago that SSD's maxed out at 64GB with read speeds of 130MB/s, now with the Warp v3 we literally 'Warp' into capacities that most consumers demand and speeds far faster than current conventional hard drives.
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- Software
Roxio has announced a new online service that allows consumers to create and share multimedia slideshows on professionally produced DVDs. The new Roxio PhotoShow DVD service leads users through the process of creating a DVDin three easy steps.
Just in time for the holidays, Roxio is introducing a new online service that enables consumers to create and share stunning multimedia slideshows on professionally produced DVDs. A perfect solution for last-minute shoppers, the new Roxio PhotoShow DVD service allows consumers to quickly turn personal photos and video clips into an expressive multimedia slideshow. Users can also create personalized disc and cover artwork based on a pre-designed style. Finalized projects are then produced, tested, packaged and shipped from a professional DVD production facility. The service is available today at www.roxio.com. DVDs usually cost $29.99; however, for a limited time, Roxio is offering a special savings coupon code (DVDOFFER) worth $10 off the purchase price.
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- Optical Storage
Just in time for Christmas, Verbatim will present a recordable BD-R 2x Dual Layer with 50GB of storage capacity with 2x burning rate. The new Verbatim Blu-ray Disc is suitable for recording films in high definition, backing up large amounts of office data and the long-term archiving of photos and music. The Verbatim BD-R 2x DL 50GB is now available in stores in a 5-pack jewel case and a 10-disc spindle.
Verbatim’s new Blu-ray disc offers, with 50GB of storage capacity, space for up to 270 minutes (MPEG2) of entertainment in HD-quality for the whole family. The burning time takes 93 minutes. Those BDs are exceptionally resistant because of the Verbatim specific HardCoat-technology: Its superior anti-static and anti-scratch properties protect the BD data layer, that is close to the surface of the disc, against scratches, fingerprints and dust particles. “Thanks to the hard coat protective layer and recording technologies developed by our proprietary company Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, customers can be confident they have media of the highest quality”, says Torsten Leye, Marketing Manager Optical at Verbatim EUMEA.
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- Flash Memory
Toshiba and SanDisk announced this week that they will be temporarily cutting back the production of NAND flash memory by 30% at their manufacturing facilities in Yokkaichi, Japan. The two companies decided to cut production due to the decreased demand for flash memory caused by the recent recession and slowdown in consumer spending.
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) today announced temporary cuts to its Flash wafer production in its joint-venture manufacturing facilities in Yokkaichi, Japan. Production in Fab 3 and Fab 4 will be temporarily halted from December 31 to January 12. Following this shut-down, joint venture production will resume at approximately 70 percent of current capacity. The duration and extent of this reduction in fab output will depend upon market conditions. These steps will result in higher wafer cost due to underutilization of capacity; however, they are expected to better align SanDisk’s captive output in 2009 with the projected demand in the current global economic slowdown.
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- Hard Disks
With the rising popularity of netbooks, PC vendors are under pressure to reduce costs by all means possible. In response to these cost reductions, Seagate, Western Digital and Hitachi have begun to develop low-cost 2.5-inch hard disk drives. By minimizing the cost of drive ICs, magnetic platters, and pick-up heads, these new models are expected to be priced 40-50% less than existing entry-level 2.5-inch hard drives.
Seagate Technology, Western Digital and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, in response to the calls for cost reductions from PC vendors, are developing low-cost 2.5-inch hard disk drives (HDDs) for use in netbooks and other low-cost PCs. The HDDs are targeted to be 40-50% less expensive than existing 2.5-inch entry-level HDD models. Availability could start as early as the second half of 2009, according to industry sources in Taiwan.
As the consensus among PC vendors is that low-cost PCs will dominate the global market in 2009, they are under pressure to reduce production costs by all means possible, the sources indicated. For netbooks, the cost of key components including CPUs, LCD panels, optical disc drives and batteries mostly fall between US$20 and US$25 each while a 2.5-inch HDD can cost as high as US$43-45, thus making them the target for cost reduction, the sources pointed out.
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- Flash Memory
Advanced Media, Inc., manufacturer and marketer of the popular Ridata brand of recordable DVD, flash media, electronic storage products, and digital accessories, is adding photo recovery software to its new 300X SLC based and 233x Lightning Series of CompactFlash® cards. Although the professional's choice 233X card boasts less than a one per cent return rate, Ridata is adding a photo recovery software download on its site accessible after product registration that will recover up to 80 per cent of lost photos due to a variety of hardware or card issues.
"Photographers make their livelihood through photographs. As memory card products become more sophisticated by offering higher speeds and more capacity, we need additional safeguards to ensure each and every photo is accurately recorded," commented Harvey Liu, president of Advanced Media, Inc. "To that end, our photo recovery software will correct user, hardware or in the worst event, memory card problems. In today's digital, flash media world, dependability matters and Ridata has it."
Most photo storage problems occur when battery power is running low or the user turns off the camera while it is still writing data to the card. Ridata's photo recovery software can effectively recover lost, deleted, corrupted or quick formatted photos.
