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Seagate DAVE: Digital Audio-Video Experience Wireless Hard Drive

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Cell Phones, Design, Storage, Videos, Wireless / WiFi

In the latest episode of The ScobleShow, we got our first look at DAVE from Seagate. DAVE stands for “digital audio-video experience” and is a tiny 10 or 20 GB hard drive. Tiny as in 3.5 x 4.7 x .47-inches. The best part, though, is that this thing gives you the ability to share content by way of the built-in Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. So you can browse the devices with a cell phone, transfer content to other Bluetooth devices or DAVEs, and it has 10 hours of battery life. Expect it to retail for about $200 USD in May or June. For the full scoop, check the video above.

Microsoft Dismisses 100 GB, Chip Design Rumors

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Rumors, Xbox 360

Microsoft has officially denied the latest rumors regarding the release of a 100 GB hard drive add on for the Xbox 360. In addition, the company also clarified their investments in chip design research to GameDaily. Microsoft’s official stance on the 100 GB add-on is that “Microsoft currently has no plans to release a 100 GB HDD.” The spokesperson was unclear about where the image originated.

In addition, the New York Times recently speculated that Microsoft’s investment into chip design research signaled that the company may be seeking to create its own chip for the next iteration of the Xbox. While any research that Microsoft develops may in fact show up in future versions of the console, Microsoft stated that officially, the company is mainly interested in investigating hardware architecture from a research standpoint.

New 32GB Solid State Drive from TDK

Posted by Brian Viele Categories: Design, Peripherals, Storage

TDK has developed the world’s largest capacity small form factor solid state drive. The drive is 20% smaller than a 2.5” laptop disk drive and includes all the driver chips necessary for ATA communications. A total of 16x16Gbit NAND flash chips cover the circuit board giving the drive a storage capacity of 32GB. That’s fairly impressive for a solid state drive in that form factor. The GBDriver RA5 NAND controller which provides the ATA interface to the flash, supports UDMA33 giving the drive a maximum transfer rate of 33.3MB/second. No details are given about the drives sustained data speeds however.

No released date for this device has been given. I fully expect to see similar form factor drives in the near future from Samsung, possibly utilizing their new Charge Trap Flash technology to compliment their already released 2.5” plug in laptop hard drive line. Begun the solid state drive war has!

New Tsunami Warning System Analyzes Hard Drives

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Cell Phones, Internet, Science

tsunami alarm Ever since the 2004 tsunami, scientists have been searching for a better method to detect and warn us of upcoming earthquake-generated tidal waves. Austrian Michael Stadler may have devised an answer. Stadler has developed a program that accesses and analyzes data that comes from hard drive vibration sensors. Once the data is analyzed, it can be shared with other computers.

The program can ignore minor vibrations and differentiate between normal seismic and tsunamic activity. When “the big one” is about to occur, the system sends warnings to the other connected computers. Unfortunately, there is so much interest in the freeware download that his site seems to have crashed (no pun intended). Hang onto the link and try again in a day or two, or visit his suggested site of Dr. Eduard Heindl. Dr. Heindl has also created a warning system that can alert you by cell phone through a GSM network in any country at a price of EUR 9.95 (~$12.60) for a 1 month trial or EUR 29.95 (~$38.00) per year subscription.

Nintendo DS Hard Drive Hack

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Mods/Hacks, Nintendo DS

DS Hard drive hack For those Nintendo DS homebrew developers out there looking for just a little more space for their projects, Natrium42, creator of the PassMe homebrew enabling device has a new hardware hack on his blog. By hacking a GBA Movie Player CompactFlash interface, Natrium42 was able to add a 40 GB hard drive to his Nintendo DS. Now, the solution is hardly an idea portable solution with all the extraneous equipment and power required, but this is an interesting hack. Sure, people could buy the 4 GB Max Media Player for the DS, but this hack is a whole order of magnitude larger.

Kenwood Announces 1-Din USB Mass Storage Compatible Car Stereos

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Music, PC / Laptop, Portable Audio / Video, Storage, USB

Kenwood has released 6 new car radios that allow connections to your USB hard drive or MP3 player. The radio then detects and replays digital audio files that are stored in WMA, ACC, or MP3 formats. Four of these 1-Din models, KDC-W534UA, KDC-W5534U, KDC-W6534U, and KDC-W7534U, connect through the rear while the other two, DPX501U and DPX701U, have their connections in front. There is even a supplied USB cord and an optional iPod adapter. So far there is no word on product availability or price. In the meantime, we’re going to work on getting our PC’s into the passenger seat.

Read More | Kenwood Home Page via Coolest-Gadgets

New from Fujitsu: 2.5” Perpendicular Hard Drives

Posted by Brian Viele Categories: PC / Laptop, Storage

No, this isn’t just a hard drive turned on its side, it’s a new technology called perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR). This new technology allows for higher data storage density on the drive by stacking the storage “bits” vertically and more densely. The new MHW2 line using PMR achieves up to 160GB in capacity in a compact 2.5” form factor.

Perpendicular storage isn’t the only update to these drives. Engineers also incorporated new anti-shock and power saving technologies allowing the device to withstand up to 300g’s of mechanical shock and energy efficiency as good as 3.8milliWatts/GB, both of which are industry best according to Fujitsu. The 80GB and 160GB versions of the drive will be available October of this year.

Bleeding Edge Byte 025: Melting Hard Drives With Thermite

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Breakin' Stuff, Short Bytes, Features, Mods / Hacks, Science, Storage, Videocasts

We know many people who are wary of discarding their old hard drives, especially after the drives have died without offering the option to reformat. We know people who have opened them up and scratched up the platters manually, and others who just have a drawer full a bunch of drives. At Gear Live’s Seattle Mind Camp, Pablos of the Shmoo Group asked everyone to bring their old hard drives so that we could give them a proper burial. The result? An 8,000-degree hard drive meltdown, thanks to a little thermite.

Here’s how to get the show:
Subscribe: iTunes iPod / H.264 | iTunes MPEG-4 | RSS iPod Feed | RSS MPEG-4 Feed

IMPORTANT: We are surveying the viewers of our show to see what it is that people like, and more importantly, what they don’t like. It is anonymous, and just takes a couple of minutes. If you have the time, we would appreciate it! As always, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.

Bleeding Edge Byte 025: Melting Hard Drives With Thermite

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Mods / Hacks, Science, Storage, Videocasts

We know many people who are wary of discarding their old hard drives, especially after the drives have died without offering the option to reformat. We know people who have opened them up and scratched up the platters manually, and others who just have a drawer full a bunch of drives. At Gear Live’s Seattle Mind Camp, Pablos of the Shmoo Group asked everyone to bring their old hard drives so that we could give them a proper burial. The result? An 8,000-degree hard drive meltdown, thanks to a little thermite.

Here’s how to get the show:
Subscribe: iTunes iPod / H.264 | iTunes MPEG-4 | RSS iPod Feed | RSS MPEG-4 Feed

IMPORTANT: We are surveying the viewers of our show to see what it is that people like, and more importantly, what they don’t like. It is anonymous, and just takes a couple of minutes. If you have the time, we would appreciate it! As always, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.