Freecom, an award-winning manufacturer of external hard drives and portable storage devices, launched the 'ToughDrive Sport', a durable, shock-resistant, 2.5" external hard drive designed to endure even the toughest conditions. This latest addition to the ToughDrive family is perfect for heavy duty users that want to carry their data on the move, from backpacking around the world to cycling up mountains.

The ToughDrive Sport features a handy loop in one corner enabling easy attachment to bags or belts - allowing people to carry their data hands-free. The drive can also withstand falls of up to two metres and is fully protected against adverse weather conditions associated with outdoor pursuits.

The ToughDrive Sport has an outdoor sports design and an integrated USB cable designed to look and feel like a climbing rope - this makes the drive extremely portable as no external power adapter is required for charging. Ideal for mobile use given its size and robustness, the internal anti-shock mechanism insulates the hard drive against unforeseen shocks that could cause damage and result in the loss of masses of data.

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Mushkin Enhanced, one of the leading manufacturers for High Performance Computer announces the availability of his first SSD-series called “Europe”. The capacities are 32, 64, 128, 192 and 256GB in a noble aluminium housing  and captivating with aggressive pricing.

“Once, Zeus felt in love with the beautiful Europe, now, every speed enthusiast can do the same.” smiles Steffen Eisenstein, CEO of Mushkin Logistic GmbH and looks on the aluminium dressed SSDs. But like always for Mushkin, the inside value is one of the finest: With 150MB/s read and 90MB/s there is a convenient working guaranteed, no stuttering in games for loading, no vibration in your case and no annoying clicking for reading and writing. Due to the integrated Mini-USB 2.0 connector, you can also use the new SSD as an external storage without additional power supply.

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The NPD Group released its annual Digital Music Study this week. According to their research, the number of people purchasing music online climbed from 28 million in 2007 to 36 million in 2008. As a result, purchases of digital downloads increased by 29% and now account for 33% of all music sales. Their research also found that there were 17 million fewer CD buyers in 2008 which led to a 19% decline in CD sales.

According to The NPD Group, the leader in market research for the entertainment industry, the number of Internet users paying for digital music increased by just over 8 million in 2008 to 36 million Internet users. Purchases of online digital music downloads increased by 29 percent since last year; they now account for 33 percent of all music tracks purchased in the U.S. NPD’s Digital Music Study, an annual tracking study covering the music industry, also revealed that there were nearly 17 million fewer CD buyers in 2008 compared to the prior year.

The decline in CD buyers cuts across all demographic groups, but was particularly focused on teens and consumers age 50 and older. “Rising incidence of paid downloads is a positive development for the industry, but not all lost CD buyers are turning to digital music,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group.

NPD also reported that there were 13 million fewer music buyers in the U.S. last year, compared to the prior year. The decline in music purchasing was led by a 19 percent drop in CD sales. Only 58 percent of Internet users reported purchasing CDs or digital music downloads last year, versus 65 percent in 2007.

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Fusion-io, the leader in solid-state architecture and high-performance I/O solutions, today announced the ioDrive Duo, which doubles the slot capacity of Fusion-io’s successful PCI Express-based ioDrive storage solution. The new ioDrive Duo is the market’s fastest and most innovative server-based solid-state storage solution.

With the ioDrive Duo, it is now possible for application, database and system administrators to get previously unheard-of levels of performance, protection and capacity utilization from a single server. Performance for multiple ioDrive Duos scales linearly, allowing any enterprise to scale performance to six gigabytes per-second (Gbytes/sec) of read bandwidth and over 500,000 read IOPS by using just four ioDrive Duos.

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