Google Increases Patent “War-Chest”

Google has purchased 1,023 patents from IBM in a play the search engine giant says will protect its Android operating system against numerous patent lawsuits. According to the blog SEO by the Sea, which initially broke the story, Google acquired the patents in mid August. The patents acquired are fairly broad are not specific: Java scripting, wireless technology, circuit design, parallel database systems and architecture, and user authentication were amongst the intellectual property acquired.
Google declined to comment on the acquisition cost of the patents, but says the purchase was necessary because of a “hostile, organized campaign” against Android by rival smartphone manufactures such as Apple and Microsoft. Google’s acquisition of 1,030 patents from IBM in July and recent purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings were also done as a protective measure.
Google’s general counsel, Kent Walker, told the Wall Street Journal that patent-infringement litigation was being used by corporations to “block competing products or profit from the success of a rival’s new technology.”
David Drummond, Google’s Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer blogged that “[Google’s] competitors are waging a patent war on Android and working together to keep us from getting patents that would help balance the scales.”

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Intel Announces New SATA Solid-State Drive for the Data Center

Intel Corporation announced today its latest solid-state drive (SSD), the Intel Solid-State Drive 710 Series, a purpose-built Multi-Level Cell (MLC) data center SSD and replacement for the Intel X25-E Extreme SSD. While the Intel X25-E was based on more expensive but highly reliable Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND flash memory, the Intel SSD 710 uses compute-quality Intel 25-nanomenter (nm) MLC NAND flash memory with Intel High Endurance Technology (HET) to deliver the endurance and performance necessary for data center, financial services, embedded, Internet portal, search engine and other demanding storage and server applications, but at a greater value.
“The Intel SSD 710 Series gives enterprise data center and embedded users extreme endurance and performance, enabled by Intel’s High Endurance Technology based on Intel 25nm MLC NAND technology,” said Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. “Intel SSDs are widely deployed in the data center due to their performance, reliability and value. Our latest SSD product family offers more than 30 times the write endurance of our current MLC SSDs, plus improved performance and new features, such as power-loss data protection and surplus arrays of NAND for enhanced reliability.”
The Intel SSD 710 delivers nearly the same endurance as SLC-based NAND SSDs, yet utilizes the higher capacity and more cost-effective MLC NAND. It achieves write endurance out-of-the-box of up to 1.1 Petabytes (PB) and comes in 100-Gigabyte (GB), 200GB and 300GB capacities. Targeted for I/O-starved applications, the Intel SSD 710 achieves a 4K random write performance of up to 2,700 input/output operations per second (IOPS) and 4K random read performance of up to 38,500 IOPS across the full span of the drive, making this a suitable replacement to an SLC SSD or multiple enterprise-grade hard disk drives (HDD). In addition to performance, the Intel SSD 710 can replace many power-consuming HDDs with a single SSD to help reduce data center energy costs.
Cisco and Intel teams have worked closely, looking at the requirements for servers in the data center – IT organizations today more often run out of memory, and need memory density as well as capacity and performance,” said David Lawler, vice president of product management for Cisco. “The Cisco UCS B230 M2 server offers the highest density memory capacity, and is one of the highest-density two-socket, half-width form factors powered by the Intel Xeon E7-2800. Cisco will offer the Intel SSD 710 Series to further increase the performance and storage capacity in the UCS B230 with two local drives offering 100GB each in September and up to 300GB each in the fall.”
The Intel SSD 710 also includes increased reliability and security features. These include enhanced power-loss data protection to reduce potential data loss during a power failure; added data security with surplus NAND flash memory to provide system protection should a NAND die fail; Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with 128-bit pre-configured encryption technology to protect the data from an external threat or internal system issues and Temperature Monitoring and Logging containing an internal temperature sensor that can be monitored using two self-monitoring analysis and report technology (SMART) attributes to prevent downtime.
Positioned for high write usage models, the drive can also be over-provisioned by the user to achieve up to 80 percent greater write endurance, creating an outstanding storage value. Intel HET combines NAND silicon enhancements and unique SSD NAND management techniques to extend the write endurance of MLC-based SSDs. Intel HET comprises Intel-developed firmware, controller and high-cycling NAND for optimized endurance and performance for the heavy loads of data crunching and writing experienced in 24/7 data centers or scientific, financial or other high-intensity usage models. Firmware enhancements from Intel include optimized error avoidance techniques, write amplification reduction algorithms and system-level error management beyond the normal industry Error Correction Code (ECC) standards.
Providing a better dollar-per-GB value than its previous-generation Intel X25-E SSD, the Intel SSD 710 Series is priced at $649 for the 100GB version, $1,289 for the 200GB, and $1,929 for 300GB, all based on 1,000-unit quantities. It is backed by a 3-year limited warranty.

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SAPPHIRE Announces HD 6870 Dirt 3 Edition Graphics Card

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new model in its successful HD 6800 series of graphics cards – the HD 6870 1GB Dirt3 Edition with Dual fan cooler and a voucher code for the full game in the package. The SAPPHIRE HD 6870 Dirt3 Edition has the same internal architecture as the standard model, with 1120 stream processors and 56 texture processing units, but clock speeds are increased to 920MHz for the core and 1050Mhz (4.2Gb/sec effective) for the 1GB of GDDR5 memory giving users a boost in performance. The new SAPPHIRE exclusive cooler design has Dual fans to keep this model cool and quiet even when under load conditions, keeping even extreme gamers happy! This new design has two 90mm fans with thin impellers that can move the same amount of air at 10% lower rotation speeds than conventional fans, keeping noise low, and their special dust repelling bearings contribute to high reliability. Enthusiast users can tune up performance even more with SAPPHIRE’s dedicated VGA overclocking tool TriXX, which is available free for anyone to download from the SAPPHIRE website, www.sapphiretech.com – just follow the TriXX buttons! Eyefinity and APP acceleration The SAPPHIRE HD 6870 Dirt3 Edition has the versatile output configuration of two DVI, one HDMI and two mini DisplayPort connectors, and can support a VGA monitor with the dongle supplied. Using two of the DVI/HDMI outputs together with the two DisplayPorts enables this card to support up to four monitors in Eyefinity (SLS) mode. The third generation UVD (Unified Video Decoder) in the SAPPHIRE HD 6870 supports MVC (Multi-view Video Coding) for the smooth decoding of Blu-Ray 3D with reduced CPU load as well as other file formats. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio are supported, and HDMI capability has also been upgraded to HDMI 1.4a. This provides deep colour, enhanced high resolution output for Digital Theatre applications and 3D stereoscopic support as well as 7.1 high bit-rate audio. The multiple stream processors of the HD 6800 series can be used to accelerate other applications such as video transcoding. The latest generation of web browsers can be GPU accelerated, and this is also supported for enhanced productivity in Microsoft Office 2010. Second Generation DX11 support The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series features the second generation of graphics technology from AMD designed to support all the features of Microsoft DirectX 11 and DirectCompute 11. These GPUs are built in AMD’s 40nm process to deliver high performance with low power consumption. Advanced hardware features include an enhanced Tessellation unit, dedicated HDR Texture compression, multi-threaded communication with system CPU cores, embedded support for many of the DirectCompute 11 instructions, 3D stereoscopic support, HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2. The SAPPHIRE HD 6800 series is supported by AMD’s DirectX 11 WHQL certified graphics driver which delivers support for all of the key DirectX 11 features required for enhanced gaming experiences as well as GPU acceleration of supported applications.

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Kingston Digital Seeks Designers and Ideas for Game Incorporating Wi-Drive

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is holding a contest for game designers that incorporates the recently released Wi-Drive™ portable, wireless storage solution for Apple iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch® devices. The contest is open to Canadian residents only and is void in Quebec. The grand prize is a 64GB iPad2 with 32GB Wi-Drive, plus promotion of the game globally.
Kingston® seeks game designers between now and October 31, 2011 to weave in elements of Wi-Drive’s features and functionality. Contestants are asked to develop a game idea and use any tools necessary such as software or online game-creation services. To enter, contestants need to have the game hosted on a Web site of their choice and then follow the steps outlined on the Kingston’s Canada Facebook page.
Wi-Drive allows users to stream videos, access music or share files with other Apple device owners. The distinctively designed, pocket-sized Wi-Drive utilizes Flash-based technology to store data from USB-compatible PCs. Files on Apple devices are easily retrieved via Wi-Drive’s built-in wireless transmitter, eliminating the need for cables or an Internet connection. Three users can simultaneously use different file types from a single Wi-Drive without any performance disruption.
A total of 11 prizes will be given out ― six for game creation and five for game ideas. The game ideas must be under 200 words and must describe the main objective of your game. The grand prize is a 64GB iPad2 with a 32GB Wi-Drive, and the second-prize winner receives a 16GB iPad2 with 16GB Wi-Drive. Other prizes include Wi-Drive devices, Kingston SSDNow solid-state drives, and HyperX® memory.
For more information and complete rules and regulations, visit www.kingston.com/canada/widrivecontest. The contest is open to Canadian residents only and is void in Quebec.

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Intel Demonstrates Sandy Bridge E Liquid Cooler at IDF

Liquid cooling solutions for PCs are almost always after market, and rarely ever manufacturer stock. Intel hopes to change this with their Sandy Bridge E processor, as the company on offering a liquid cooler stock with these chips.
This new liquid cooler is made in collaboration with Asetek and will work with the upcoming Sandy Bridge E CPUs but also with the LGA 1366, 1155 and 1156 sockets.

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Western Digital Delivers The Personal Cloud

Western Digital, the world’s leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its WD 2go and WD 2go Pro mobile apps for its My Book Live personal cloud storage solution. WD’s My Book Live drive connects to the home network creating shared storage that users can access within and outside the home. Secure remote access to the My Book Live is available on any computer through www.WD2go.com, while the WD 2go apps provide mobile access to files stored on the drive using an iPad®, iPhone®, iPod touch® or Android™ compatible mobile device.
Combining the benefits of both public and private cloud solutions, My Book Live personal cloud storage allows users to keep media and files safe at home on their own physical drive and yet access them over the Internet with any PC or Mac® computer or on tablets and smartphones through WD’s mobile apps. Using My Book Live, users can share files, stream media, and access content anywhere with no monthly fees and secure in the knowledge that their data resides in their own home under their exclusive control. In addition, the WD 2go Pro app enables private sharing of files with friends, family and colleagues. Almost any file can be shared, from pictures and personal videos to work documents and presentations.
WD 2go web access marks WD’s second generation of remote access technologies that leverage a peer-to-peer connection between the My Book Live and remote PCs or mobile devices to maximize the speed and throughput.
“Consumers demand the anywhere, any device access they can get from ‘the cloud,’ but don’t want to pay monthly fees or lose control of their personal data. They want access to all their files without worrying about what files are synched to what device,” said Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager for WD’s branded products and consumer electronics groups. “With the new WD 2go mobile apps and WD’s My Book Live personal cloud storage, consumers now have a simple and fast way to securely store, share, and access all their digital content from their mobile devices wherever they are.”
The WD 2go apps add to WD’s vision of providing secure storage and access to digital content on any screen, on-the-go or at home. The app supports a variety of media file formats for streaming movies and music or accessing files such as Microsoft® Office documents. In addition to all of the features currently available in the free WD 2go app, the WD 2go Pro app includes several advanced features, including:
Clipping: Users can clip files, photos, songs, videos or folders to download a copy from the My Book Live drive to a mobile device, enabling subsequent access even without an Internet connection.
Automatic sync: New or modified files added to the My Book Live automatically sync to mobile devices.
Content sharing: The WD 2go Pro app allows users to email files, share files as a link, print and open files with third party apps.
Additional security: Users can leverage an additional layer of security by locking mobile access to the My Book Live drive with a 4-digit pass code.
In addition to remote and mobile access to the personal cloud, WD’s My Book Live features a built-in media server that streams music, photos and movies to any DLNA-certified multimedia device such as a WD TV® Live™ network media player, Blu-ray Disc™ player, Xbox 360®, PlayStation® 3, and connected TV.
Capacity and Compatibility
My Book Live personal cloud storage is available in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB  and 3 TB and is compatible with Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7, Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard, or Lion, as well as DLNA/UPnP enabled devices.
Price and Availability
WD 2go (free download) and WD 2go Pro ($2.99 USD) are currently available for download from the iTunes® Store and Android Market. My Book Live personal cloud storage is available at select U.S. retailers and online at the wdstore.com. MSRP is $159.99 USD for 1 TB, $199.99 USD for the 2 TB, and $249.99 USD for 3 TB.

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Kingston Digital Launches First SandForce-based Business-Equipped SSD

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is shipping the SSDNow KC100, the company’s first SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) business-equipped SSD. KC100 utilizes the latest award-winning SandForce controller. This powerhouse SSD delivers exceptional performance and instantly boosts the productivity of any client system.
KC100 is backed by a five-year warranty to match the industry average for product refresh cycles in the enterprise. Utilizing SandForce’s DuraClass technology, KC100 delivers world-class data integrity protection. Corporations can rest assured their data is safe as the drive offers advanced wear leveling and garbage collection to maintain optimal endurance and performance. Data integrity protection runs transparently in the background so it never disrupts daily business.
KC100 is the only business-equipped SSD to offer enterprise-level S.M.A.R.T attributes. The SSD’s usage statistics, health and life stage can be monitored with industry standard and publicly available S.M.A.R.T monitoring tools. This provides peace of mind for IT departments knowing their employees are taken care of as the KC100 client-side SSDs are reliable and running optimally.
“Kingston is thrilled to offer the new business-equipped KC100 SSD to enterprises,” said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager, Kingston. “Data integrity is important to every company and the KC100 is sure to deliver the highest standards of data protection on the client systems in which it is installed. Users can rest assured that with the combination of its endurance, reliability and performance, KC100 will become a very important asset in the workplace.”
The new KC100 self-encrypts to provide full and immediate client-level data encryption. With two embedded encryption engines, running in both AES-128 and AES-256, encryption is performed at the drive level without draining host system resources and slowing down data transfer rates. KC100 is also backwards-compatible with current SATA 2 systems so investments are future-proofed for the next client system upgrade.
SSDNow KC100 ships in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities, as a standalone or as an upgrade bundle kit. It is backed by a five-year warranty, 24/7 tech support and legendary Kingston reliability.


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Club 3D Unveils GeForce GTX 560 Ti Green Edition

Club 3D today unveiled GeForce GTX 560 Ti Green Edition model, powered by Nvidia’s GF114 GPU.
According to the press release, the GeForce GTX 560Ti Green Edition is up to 10% more efficient than the standard reference card because of energy efficient hardware components.
Club 3D’s GTX 560 Ti also has a dual-slot cooler featuring a newly-designed CoolStream fansink, 384 CUDA Cores, GPU/shader clocks of 822/1645 MHz, a 256-bit memory interface, 1GB of GDDR5 memory set to 4000 MHz, 2-way SLI support, and three display outputs – two DVI and one mini HDMI.
It supports Mini-HDMI 1.4a including GPU accelerated Blu-ray 3D support, x.v.Color, HDMI Deep Color, and 7.1 digital surround sound. The card also supports NVIDIA’s new 3D vision surround.
The GeForce GTX 560 Ti Green Edition should be available in late September.

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Microsoft Promises Record Breaking Boot Times For Windows 8

Microsoft released a video this week that demonstrated how fast Windows 8 can boot on standard PC hardware. The company claims that when testing a computer running Windows 8 against a computer running Windows 7, the Windows 8 machine usually booted 25%, and sometimes up to 75% faster.
“Few operations in Windows are as scrutinized, measured, and picked apart as boot. This is understandable—boot times represent an effective proxy for overall system performance,” wrote Windows division president Steven Sinofsky in a Thursday blog post. “Boot times represent an effective proxy for overall system performance and we all know the boot experience is an incredibly important thing for us to get right for customers.”
A video that Microsoft provided, which can be found below, shows Windows 8 booting on a modern HP laptop in approximately 7 seconds. The reason why Windows 8 is able to boot so fast is because it hibernates the kernel as opposed to closing it, which has been the norm in other iterations of Windows.
Sinofsky explains that “compared to a full hibernate, which includes a lot of memory pages in use by apps, session 0 hibernation data is much smaller, which takes substantially less time to write to disk.”
In addition to kernel hibernation, another new feature that Microsoft has incorporated into the Windows 8 boot process is the simultaneous loading of drivers with the hibernated files, which makes the entire process more efficient when used with a multi-core processor.
“Another important thing to note about Windows 8′s fast start-up mode is that, while we don’t do a full ‘Plug & Play’ enumeration of all drivers, we still do initialise drivers in this mode,” Gabe Aul, a director of program management in Windows wrote in the same blog post. “Those of you who like to cold boot in order to ‘freshen up’ drivers and devices will be glad to know that is still effective in this new mode, even if not an identical process to a cold boot.”
Microsoft promises that hybrid boot mode will result in a faster start-up time regardless whether a machine is using a traditional hard-disk drive or an SSD.
More details are expected at Microsoft’s BUILD conference, taking place next week in Anaheim, California.

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AMD Achieves New World Record CPU Frequency

We bet you weren’t expecting to see this headline today, but it’s true – AMD’s yet to be released FX processors have already achieved a significant overclocking world record.
About 2 weeks ago, we had the opportunity to fly down to Austin, Texas in order to get briefed on the finer points of AMD’s upcoming and highly anticipated Bulldozer (Zambezi-FX) processors. While we still can’t reveal any particular details about the CPU’s themselves, we can now tell you about this new milestone.
Now AMD have only been testing the extreme overclocking capabilites of the FX processors for about a month, but they were quickly able to determine that these new chips did not appear to have any cold bugs under liquid nitrogen, and this opened the door to something a little more extreme – liquid helium (LHe). The hope was that by improving conductivity and decreasing operating temperatures to a few degrees above absolute zero, they might be able to achieve something amazing with their new microarchitecture…and they did.
With a bunch of media in attendance, some quickly binned processors, and whole lot of liquid helium a supremely capable group made up of Sami (Macci) Mäkinen, Brian (Chew*) McLachlan, Aaron Schradin, Pete Hardman, and Simon Solotko pushed an octo-core FX-8150 (with two cores enabled) to new heights and achieved a new CPU frequency world record of 8429.38 MHz at 2.016V. This surpasses the current record by 119.44 MHz, a Intel Celeron 352 LGA775 chip clocked at 8308.9 MHz, and finally ends the streak of lowly “Cedar Mills” Celerons that have consistently held the title of world’s highest CPU frequency.

This demonstration was somewhat reminiscent of an event at CES 2009 during which Sami Makinen, Sampsa (Sampsa) Kurri, Petri (SF3D) Korhonen, and Pete Hardman used liquid helium to push a just launched Phenom II X4 940 to 6.5GHz, while also casually setting a new 3DMark 05 world record. However, this particular overclocking endeavour was even more important for AMD, because due to this new milestone the AMD FX processor is actually going to be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records. I am convinced that 8.34GHz is just the tip of the iceberg though, these AMD FX processors are going to break the 8.5GHz mark once the manufacturing process improves further. But in the mean time, all that is left is for AMD to actually launch these chips!

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Bulldozer Ships

Today AMD announced that the first of their Bulldozer chips, the server targeted Interlagos, has begun shipping to OEMs and retailers with a targeted availability of October. AMD claims that Interlagos is the world’s first 16-core x86 processor. While AMD’s press release claims that Interlagos is a 16-core processor, the reality is this is claim airs on the side of PR-sophistry. Interlagos has 8 Bullzoder modules: a module contains two independent integer processors, but only one FPU as well as shared fetch/decode/execute units. In the traditional sense each module has more than one core, but it isn’t quite the two as advertised. “This is a monumental moment for the industry as this first ‘Bulldozer’ core represents the beginning of unprecedented performance scaling for x86 CPUs,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, AMD Products Group in a press release. “The flexible new ‘Bulldozer’ architecture will give Web and datacenter customers the scalability they need to handle emerging cloud and virtualization workloads.” Berman had no answers, however, about the fate of Bulldozer’s desktop iteration, the 8 core Zambezi CPU. Semi-confirmed rumors have it that Zambezi cannot reach a clockspeed that would make it competitive with Intel’s Core i7 chips. X-bit labs claims that AMD has cancelled its Komodo and Corona products in favor of focusing on Vishera desktop chips next year, Zambezi’s successor.

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Google Chrome Hits 15.5 Percent Market Share

On the eve of the web browser’s third birthday, industry-monitoring group Net Applications announced that Chrome has captured 15.5 percent of the browser market.
These numbers shouldn’t surprise anyone, as doing the past few years as Firefox has lost both market share and critical support while Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9, though vastly super to its predecessors, has failed to make any significant market share gains.
Outside of the United States, Chrome’s ability to capture market share has been even more impressive. According to Statcounter, Chrome currently has a 20.7 percent global market share. Within South America, as a whole, it is the number two-web browser, commanding 33.2% of the market. In Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay it is the number one web browser, usurping that title from Internet Explorer.
In celebration of Chrome’s birthday, and this important market-share milestone, Google has put together an interactive info graphic using HTML5 that tracks the growth of Chrome, and highlights the evolution of web browsers.

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Samsung CEO: We Will ‘Never’ Buy webOS

Earlier this week, Hardware Canucks reported on the rumors that Samsung was interested in purchasing orphaned mobile operating system webOS. As Samsung is also apparently interested in purchasing HP’s PC division, buying their mobile operating system property also made sense. We weren’t the only ones to think so, as many industry analysts also shared our sentiment.
Now it turns out that we were wrong.
Choi Gee Sung, Samsung’s Chief Executive Officer, told reporters at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin that the company would “never” pursue such a deal as they are simply not interested.
“It’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion,” Choi told reporters.
Samsung is instead ramping up development on their own operating system, Bada, a process which Choi says is “harder than people outside think”.
Other potential suitors for webOS include HTC, though the company declines to comment on any queries.

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Samsung Unveils Slim Portable Blu-ray Writer Drive for Mobile PC Market

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, announced today its new slim portable Blu-ray Writer, the SE-506AB optical disk drive (ODD). SE-506AB features a slim and sleek design with a hi-glossy anti-scratch surface. It is 12 percent smaller than Samsung’s conventional Blu-ray drive to accommodate today’s hectic mobile lifestyle. The slim form factor is also supported with a USB power interface that eliminates the need for a separate electrical outlet.
The SE-506AB drive is compatible with all major operating systems, including Win7 and Mac OS. In addition, the drive features Buffer Under Run technology to prevent errors that may result from writing speeds that exceed data transfer speeds, while also enabling PC multitasking.
Samsung ODD’s exclusive AV connectivity technology is featured on the new SE-506AB allowing users to easily connect and play content via AV connectivity function on multimedia TVs with an available USB port.
The drive also improves upon previous ODD models, which only recognize the first sub-directory and 1000 files. The new SE-506AB model now recognizes and allows access to the fifth sub-directory and more than 3000 files.
The external drive provides a variety of speeds across different data media types featuring BD Quadruple layering. Specific speeds include: 6X BD-ROM, 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-RW reading and 6X BD-R, 6X BD-R Dual layer, 4X BD-R Quad layer, 8X DVD±R, 5X DVD-RAM, 6X DVD+R Dual layer, 6X DVD-R Dual layer, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-RW recording.
As an eco-friendly product, the drive offers low-power consumption and lead-free soldering technology, a design that complies with international environmental regulations that limit the use of hazardous materials.

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Toshiba Extends USB 3.0 HDD Range with STOR.E CANVIO and BASICS

Toshiba Europe Storage Peripherals Division, today announced a new series of USB 3.0 external hard disk drives (HDDs) that meet the high capacity, fast access storage demands of the data-hungry digital generation. The new STOR.E HDD series offers two products, the STOR.E BASICS and the STOR.E CANVIO, with (500GB, 750GB, 1TB) capacities to provide users with flexibility according to their digital needs. Along with high capacities, the USB 3.0 interface delivers fast transfer rates of up to 5 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps), ensuring the quickest access times to your data. Both HDDs come fully equipped with an Internal Shock Sensor and Ramp Loading Alert, which are essential features to protect data against accidental knocks whilst carried around in bags or pockets. The drives come in a range of exciting STOR.E CANVIO colour options, including black, red, green, and blue.
In today’s IT/CE environment, data is being produced at a frenetic rate, with 1.8 zettabytes expected3 to be created this year alone, so it’s essential that irreplaceable photos, videos and music are backed up and easy to access.
The STOR.E BASICS HDD can accommodate even the biggest digital libraries and is ultra simple to use, with no need to install any STOR.E BASICS software. Weighing just 150 grams (500GB and 750GB model) and 180 grams (1TB model) respectively, its sleek post-card size with plugand play functionality and a simple user interface make it perfectly suited to the digital media needs of users on the go. For users with more demanding storage requirements, the STOR.E CANVIO enables the transfer of large media files at blazing fast speeds, whilst providing peace of mind with full system backup and recovery, offering a practical way to keep large amounts of precious data safe. Sleek and compact, like the STOR.E BASICS, the STOR.E CANVIO HDD is ultra-portable. Its unique pre-loaded software available on STOR.E CANVIO enables data to be backed up seamlessly, so provides additional peace of mind. The pre-installed NTI Backup Now EZ software scans your computer and recommends the best storage options. You then decide between backing up your files to the STOR.E CANVIO HDD, or to online storage in cloud, or choose both for the most comprehensive coverage.
The 1 Terabyte (TB) HDD is an ideal storage solution for media hoarders. It’s capable of storing up to 285,000 digital photos4, 263,000 digital music files5, or 820 downloaded digital movies6. The STOR.E CANVIO’s Drive Space Alert monitors the drive and indicates when it’s getting close-to-full. Arnaud Bonvarlet, Director EMEA, Storage Peripherals Division, said: “The new STOR.E HDD range provides an easy storage solution for backing up valuable data and freeing up storage space on overloaded laptops, PCs or games consoles. The extension of our 3.0 USB external HDD range demonstrates our commitment to delivering cutting-edge storage solutions. Toshiba’s new STOR.E 3.0 portable hard drive range makes backup fast and simple, with a digital safety net against system failure.” The HDD range will be available in Europe from early forth quarter 2011 and comes with a two year warranty. A demonstration of the
STOR.E CANVIO HDD series can be seen at this year’s IFA in Berlin, Germany, 2-7 September 2011, the global trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances.

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NEC Display Solutions Adds 20-inch EX201W to Ultra-Slim MultiSync EX Series

NEC Display Solutions of America, a leading provider of commercial LCD display and projector solutions, announced today the addition of the 20-inch widescreen MultiSync EX201W to the award-winning MultiSync EX Series.
Joining the 23-inch MultiSync EX231W with TN panel and MultiSync EX231Wp with premium-grade PVA panel, the EX201W ultra-thin (16.4mm bezel depth) desktop monitor offers extensive viewing angles (176°H/170°V) and contrast ratio (25,000:1 dynamic, 1000:1 typical). The ultra-slim design and lightweight portability (4.9 lbs. without stand) make the EX201W ideal for business users on-the-go and small-to-medium-sized business client meetings and presentations. The LED backlighting allows a low power consumption of 21W, which helps customers looking to lower their total cost of ownership.
Two new accessories are now available for use with the MultiSync EX Series products that are especially beneficial to traveling business users. After using the quick-release button to detach the display from the regular stand, customers can easily attach the portable, foldable stand (ST-EX2023-BK) to prop the display. Its 10° fixed tilt with rubber feet provides stabilization for the monitor during meetings. The stand and display easily fit into an available carrying bag (SC-EX20 and SC-EX23), which boasts a compact design for exclusive use with the MultiSync EX Series. Its soft inner lining and Velcro straps provide protection during travel, while the adjustable shoulder strap and padded handle offer comfort to the user. Large-sized pockets store your peripheral cables, power cords and other accessories with a zipper-secured lid. Both accessories are compatible with the EX201W, EX231W and EX231Wp.
“The success of the MultiSync EX Series has been phenomenal, and we’re excited to introduce a new size category into this series with the 20-inch, widescreen MultiSync EX201W,” said Lynn Gu, Product Manager for NEC Display Solutions. “Most customers are finding the minimalist design and LED-backlight power efficiency to be beneficial. Smart technologies like the human sensor and ambient light sensor automatically detect human absence and ambient light intensity and brightness to save a significant amount of power for corporations with large rollouts.”
The MultiSync EX201W includes the following features:

• Ultra-slim, 20-inch, widescreen (16:9), LED-backlit monitor
• 1600 x 900 resolution
• 25,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
• Advanced connectivity with DisplayPort and DVI-I inputs
• USB port for easy webcam or thumb drive access
• Quick-release stand
• Ergonomic stand with 110mm height-adjust, tilt, swivel and pivot
• Touch-sensitive On Screen Display (OSD) controls
• Ambient light sensor and human sensor
• ECO Mode, carbon footprint meter and cost meter
• Dynamic Visual Mode enhances video and images with real-time optimization of brightness, color and contrast (standard, text, movie, game, photo and dynamic)
• External power supply via mini AC adaptor
• 21-watt power consumption (typical)
• ENERGY STAR 5.1 and TCO 5.2 compliance
• EPEAT Gold compliance
• Optional accessories include portable stand kit and carrying bag

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Details Leak on Acer’s Ultrabook S3

Intel, and its industry partners, are hoping that their new class of portable computers known as Ultrabooks will win back some of the market share that has been lost to tablet-culture and the Macbook Air.
Earlier today Notebook Italia posted the first concrete details about the Ultrabook class of notebooks when they discovered that a Italian computer retailer, MonClick, had published a product page listing one – the Acer Ultrabook S3 – a bit too early.
MonClick lists the Acer Ultrabook S3 as having a Intel Core i5-2467M, 4GB RAM, a 320GB hard drive and a 20GB SSD.
The listed price that MonClick has is $786 Euros, which works out to about $1,100 canuck-bucks. However things tend to have a higher retail price in Europe than they do in North America, so this will likely be in the sub-$1000 price range when it hits shelves in Canada.
What do you think? Is this the Macbook Air killer than Intel purports it is?

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ZOTAC Announces ZBOX Nano AD10 Mini-PC

ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world’s largest channel manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and mini-PCs, today debuts the palm-sized ZBOX nano AD10 series mini-PCs. The new ZOTAC ZBOX nano AD10 series shrinks the standard ZBOX form factor and adds more home theatre PC friendly features for your digital media needs.
Powered by the AMD “Brazos” E-350 APU Platform with Discrete-Class AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics, the ZOTAC ZBOX nano AD10 series packs plenty of performance with hardware video decode acceleration technologies for popular high-definition video formats, including Blu-ray and Adobe Flash, into a miniature 127mm x 127mm x 45mm form factor that fits in the palm of your hand.
“The ZOTAC ZBOX nano AD10 series is our smallest mini-PC,” said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International. “Despite the miniature size, the ZBOX nano AD10 series has nearly all the same features as our award-winning ZBOX and ZBOX Blu-ray series, and even introduces a couple new features.”
New to the ZOTAC ZBOX nano AD10 series is an integrated infra-red receiver with bundled Windows Media Center compatible remote control – a USB IR receiver is also bundled.
“There was a lot of demand for a bundled remote with our mini-PCs so we listened and engineered a solution that would work for all home theatre PC installation scenarios,” Mr. Berger added. “Our dual IR receiver solution enables use of the remote control with all placements, including hidden and wall-mounted installations.”
Customizing the ZOTAC ZBOX nano AD10 series remains easy with two thumb screws that unlock the internals. A DDR3 SO-DIMM slot and space for a 2.5-inch SATA 6.0 Gb/s hard drive or SSD is available in the ZOTAC ZBOX nano AD10 while the ZBOX nano AD10 Plus ships with 2GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive preinstalled.
A new VESA 75/100 mount for monitor or wall mounting installations is included with all ZOTAC ZBOX nano AD10 series mini-Pcs and enables users to attach the mini-PC in four different orientations for improved flexibility.
It’s time to play with the ZOTAC ZBOX nano AD10 series.

 

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MSI Announces A55M-P35 Socket FM1 Motherboard

Internationally renowned mainboard and graphic card manufacturer MSI has launched the brand new A55M-P35, equipped with the AMD A55 chipset for AMD Llano platforms. Extending the tradition to MSI Llano mainboards, the A55M-P35 is equipped with the MSI-exclusive OC Genie-II one touch overclocking technology – boosting system performance by 110% with the push of a button. Requiring neither complicated nor difficult OC tuning, the MSI A55M-P35 is the most convenient and value-oriented OC solution for the AMD Llano platform.
The A55M-P35 also supports Click BIOS Concept, based upon the UEFI architecture for users to configure their system with a mouse. Additionally, the use of high-quality all solid capacitors allows users to enjoy outstanding system performance as well as a longer product lifespan. Along with the exclusive Winki 3 and i-Charger features, the A55M-P35 from MSI will surely be the best choice of AMD users.
OC Genie-II: Tool for One-second OC
All AMD A55 mainboards from MSI are equipped with the latest OC Genie II technology. Both advanced users familiar with running OC from the BIOS Setup page and novice users can directly run OC Genie II from the Control Center to enjoy the benefits of one-second OC. By simply clicking one button, users can immediately boost system performance to over 110%, without the need of any complicated procedure or difficult-to-understand OC knowledge. OC Genie II brings both novice and advanced users to the world of worry-free OC.
Click BIOS: Operating BIOS Setup with a Mouse
The AMD Llano mainboards from MSI supports the Click BIOS Concept, based upon the UEFI architecture. For the first time, users can utilize their mouse to make BIOS setup simpler and more convenient. Also, with BIOS support for hard drives over 3TB, users can enjoy massive storage from the AMD Llano mainboards from MSI.
High-quality All Solid Capacitors
MSI builds the A55M-P35 with aluminum solid capacitors to enhance system stability. When working at full-load for a long time, high system stability is maintained. Also, aluminum solid capacitors deliver a lifespan of more than 10 years, and users will not need to worry about system failure or lag as a result of overheating.
Simple-to-use Winki 3 Utility
To provide consumers with convenient solutions is always the ultimate goal of MSI. Therefore, the AMD Llano mainboards from MSI are all equipped with the Winki 3 utility. This simple-to-use utility allows users to instantaneously connect to the Internet, word-process reports, and communicate and chat with friends with any IM. More importantly, the Winki 3 allows users to restore the system from contents previously backed up in the hard drive when the system crashed, making the Winki 3 an ideal, multifaceted and free operating environment.
i-Charger for charging iPad anytime
MSI Llano mainboards are equipped with the i-Charger function for users to safely and conveniently charge their iPad or tablet PCs faster and conveniently.

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Potential HP Spinoff Leads to Mixed Messages

The announcement that Hewlett Packard intends to spinoff their Personal Systems Group has lead to mixed messages emerging from the corporate community.
Tom Bradley, the current VP of HP’s Personal Systems Group, told Reuters in an interview that he expects HP’s PC arm to remain the largest in the world post spin-off and this play will bring the “best value” to HP shareholders.
“Regardless of what happens, we’re the largest PC company in the world,” Bradley emphasized. “We need everybody energized, and while this isn’t business as usual, we need people to go out and sell products every day.”
Bradley also mentioned that selling the PC division outright to a rival like Lenovo or Acer isn’t a desirable alternative as he says “the numbers don’t support that that strategy works.”
In contrast to Bradley’s cautious optimism, Tom Perkins, a former member of the HP Board of Directors says that the company is committing “corporate suicide”.
“I didn’t know there was such a thing as corporate suicide, but now we know that there is,” Perkins told the New York Times in an interview. “It’s just astonishing.”
Perkins joined the HP board in 2001 after the company merged with Compaq. He served as head of research, in addition to having a role as a board member, but resigned in 2006 when it was revealed that HP had been spying on board members to try and determine who was serving as a mole for the press.
Perkins joins a cacophony of voices that have become increasingly critical of current HP CEO Leo Apotheker.  Under Apotheker’s regime HP missed earnings estimates in early 2011, and had to lower them again in May. The firm’s stock has dropped from a high of $53 in early 2010 to a current value of approximately $25.
“H.P. was the epicenter of Silicon Valley, geographically, culturally and historically,” an executive at another tech giant who preferred to go unnamed told the New York Times. “Is there any analogy for an institution so respected that has fallen so far so fast? I can’t think of one.”
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LG Unveils New High-End Monitor Line

LG Electronics (LG) will be taking the wraps off its new high-end monitors – the ultra-slim, vivid picture-quality E91 and D237IPS – at IFA 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The E91’s 7.2 mm depth and luxurious acryl finish are sure to make it a hit with style savvy consumers while the D237IPS boosts LG’s market-leading Film Pattern Retarder (FPR) 3D display technology on IPS panels, for even clearer, brighter 3D images.
“These monitors aren’t just for work and internet browsing, they were designed to be the center of entertainment for any bedroom, study or dormitory,” said Havis Kwon, President and CEO of LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company. “The E91 and D237IPS combine elegant design and unique technology to look great in any room and still be able to deliver exceptional images and videos.”
Innovative Design, Brilliant Technology
With its super slim, 7.2mm depth and thin bezel, the E91 takes up the minimum of space while adding a stylish touch to the décor of any interior. With a bezel measuring just 4.35mm, the E91’s screen looks expansive and almost borderless. The E91’s hanger-type hinge design makes it easy for users to adjust the monitor to the exact viewing angle they need, ensuring it is always comfortable to watch.
The E91’s SUPER+ Resolution ensures the highest picture quality for any digital content. SUPER+ Resolution prevents any decrease in resolution during format upgrades, while sharpening blurry edges and adding new life to dim colours. The E91 also delivers an exceptionally crisp and vivid picture thanks to a contrast ratio of more than 10,000,000:1. What’s more, the E91 is highly energy efficient.
More Realistic 3D with Wider Viewing Angles
The D237IPS uses state-of-the-art 3D technology to deliver the ultimate in top quality, comfortable 3D viewing. The D237IPS boasts “Flicker-Free” certification – from European quality assurance agencies TÜV and Intertek – and lower crosstalk, ensuring less dizziness and headaches that users commonly experience with conventional 3D monitors. With a brightness of 100nits, more than twice that of competing 3D monitors, the D237IPS offers a clearer 3D picture to help reduce eyestrain. And LG’s battery-less, ultra-light 3D glasses provide an extremely comfortable 3D viewing experience for longer periods of time.
The D237IPS ensures there is no colour shift regardless of the angle from which the monitor is viewed and consistent colour and brightness also keep the 3D in perfect focus. The 3D IPS monitor broadens the viewing angle so that viewers can enjoy 3D from a far wider range of positions. Ensuring viewers always have plenty of 3D content to watch, the D237IPS also features an excellent 2D to 3D conversion function.

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KINGMAX Unveils 128 GB High Capacity USB 3.0 Flash Drive KINGMAX Unveils 128 GB High Capacity USB 3.0 Flash Drive

KINGMAX, a renowned leading memory and flash drive manufacturer, has recently unveiled 128GB huge capacity USB 3.0 flash drive, the ED-01. With huge capacity, the ED-01 flash drive not only meets the market’s demands for large media file storage and transferring, but also transports the user to a super-speedy experience that every second counts.

The ED-01 sports a sleek contoured design that stands out from its competitors and wins design award from media. It has a delicate read/write LED indicator to display the flash drive’s status while in use and the unique Clip-Cap design that prevents the cap from accidental drop-offs or loss. Besides, made with durable plastic combined with a special finishing procedure, the leather-like texture of the ED-01 is warm and smooth to the touch. Its elegant, low-profile design will demonstrate your taste for luxury and that you appreciate and use only the latest in technological advances.
When the era of USB 3.0 comes, the demands of super speed and huge capacity storage device increased. Using USB 3.0 full-duplex bidirectional synchronization data transfer technology, the ED-01 read speed at 66 MB/sec and write speed at up to 41 MB/sec. Moreover, its capacity upgrades to 128GB and backward-compatible with USB 2.0. Whether data is HD movies, photos or large presentation files with rich media, the ED-01 will transfer and storage large data in a short period of time.
The ED-01 USB 3.0 flash drive is fully compliant with the European Union’s RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive) standards. It also passed CE certification in the EU, met the United States’ FCC criteria and was awarded the latest Windows 7 certificate that guarantees its compatibility with operating systems. All KINGMAX products are manufactured under the most stringent quality control measures and rigorous tests, to ensure each and every product meets the highest standards for quality. The ED-01’s product warranty further ensures consumers that they’ve purchased a reliable and reassuring experience.
Specifications:

• Interface: USB 3.0
• Storage: 8GB/16GB/32GB/64GB/128GB
• Dimensions: 74.5 x 20 x 9 mm (L x W x H)
• Weight: 10.5 g
• Color: Black

Features:

• Compatible with USB 2.0
• LED light indicator
• Clip-Cap design to prevent cap loss
• 5-year product warranty

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Avexir DDR3 Memory Products Start Shipping

Avexir may be an unknown brand in these areas of the world, but is already present in the market since 2006. The products of the memory specialist are available immediately at Caseking. The assortment currently consists of four series – the “Green”, “Budget”, “Standard” and “Blitz” which range from 2 GB to a monstrous 16 GB, but will be expanded considerably in the near future.
As a consumer oriented company, Avexir Technologies Cooperation always listens to the continually growing fan base, taking their suggestions and wishes seriously. From the affordable “Budget” and “Standard” series to the “Blitz” family of memory, you will find something for everyone from Avexir.
The “Blitz” series is perfect for the needs of the gaming community, but also enables smooth and worry free productivity when using it in a professional environment. For this, these modules office offer various XMP-Profiles which allow the user to choose what suites their needs through the system BIOS. On top of this, the “Blitz” series ships with high quality heatspreaders made of solid Aluminum.
To offer a constant quality base, Avexir hand tests 100% of all components used to produce the memory. The “Blitz” series is no exception and also offers a stylish design perfect for enthusiasts. The first „Blitz“ modules run at 1333 MHz with up to 12 GB capacity, while additional, faster modules will follow shortly.
Even with the extra quality and performance benefits, the memory modules offer an excellent price range. This is further underlined by the “Standard” series from Avexir. These turn out to be potent units also viable for the overclockers. The assortment currently ranges from 4 to an amazing 16GB kit which utilizes two high-capacity 8GB modules.
The “Green” series offers the perfect balance between price and energy efficiency, while still managing the best possible performance and reliability. These modules run at their rated speed with a mere 1.35 Volt instead of the standard 1.5 Volt and are available from 2 to 4GB.
The “Budget” series is ideal for entry level systems, which are intended for office applications or surfing the web. Regardless of the name, the modules still offer the same compatibility and reliability as the bigger brethren and should be a perfect fit for System Integrators. The “Budget” series is also available in 2 and 4 GB capacities.

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