Find Our Latest Video Reviews on YouTube!
If you want to stay on top of all of our video reviews of the latest tech, be sure to check out and subscribe to the Gear Live YouTube channel, hosted by Andru Edwards! It’s free!
Latest Gear Live Videos
Bleeding Edge 078: CES 2007 Video: SlingCatcher Profiled by Sling Media
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Broadband, CES, CES 2007, Features, Home Entertainment, Movies, PC / Laptop, Storage, Videocasts, Videos,
|Download| - iPod-formatted H.264
|Download| - Apple TV High Resolution
|Download| - MPEG-4
|Download| - Windows Media
Read More 
| The Bleeding Edge
Gallery: Bleeding Edge 078: CES 2007 Video: SlingCatcher Profiled by Sling Media
Advertisement
CES 2007: HP MediaSmart Server
Posted by Chris Cardinal Categories: CES, CES 2007, Features, PC / Laptop, Storage,
HP’s MediaSmart Server was announced as part of Bill Gates’ keynote last night. It looks rather dashing, and runs Windows Home Server, a variant of Windows Server 2003. The box has a few USB ports and a network port and that’s about it. It comes with an install disc that lets you interface to it through the network, allowing you to configure which media is shared, and how. It includes a neat psuedo-RAID, psuedo-JBOD (just a bunch of discs) approach, that allows file- and folder-specific replication at your choosing, and hot swapability, to boot. (Heh.) They don’t have the full launch config specs down, but we’re guessing 700+ GB, 2GB RAM and probably not terribly expensive, since you don’t have a pricey SLI graphics solution to include. It’s ready to launch, Q2 2007.
Gallery: CES 2007: HP MediaSmart Server
While we’re on the subject of saving energy, Sanyo’s N-SC1S Solar Charger can recharge their eneloops in about 2.5 hours and also features a USB port, enabling you a DC 5V and 500mA output. Eneloops internal lithium ion batteries can be utilized on your iPod, cell phone, PSP, or MP3 player, although it will take an agonizing 6 days to reach a full charge. The Solar Charger was developed as a part of Sanyo’s ongoing “Evolution Project” and will be available in Japan in November for ¥20,000 (~$170.)
Read More | Sanyo (Translated) via engadget
Gallery: Sanyo’s Solar Charger Saves Juice
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!
Read More | Tech-On
Gallery: New 32GB Solid State Drive from TDK
Samsung has announced that it has produced the first 40-nanometer (nm) memory device. This new 32Gb 40nm flash device incorporates “Charge Trap Flash” (CTF) architecture, which improves both performance and manufacturing efficiency. This new architecture greatly decreases inter-cell noise by replacing the normal floating gate technology with what Samsung calls “TANOS” which is comprised of tantalum (metal), aluminum oxide (high k material), nitride, oxide and silicon. The lower noise levels will allow the technology to be further scaled to as small as 20nm.
Samsung’s 32Gb devices will be used in devices ranging from 4GB to a tremendous 64GB! That’s up to 64 Hours of DVD quality video or over 1,300 Hours of MP3 audio. Expect to see the new more efficient CTF devices begin to replace current floating gate systems over the next year. With these new chips expected to potentially hit 256Gb meaning up to 512GB memory cards, this is a huge step towards PC’s with purely solid state storage drives.
Read More | Samsung
Gallery: Samsung Announces 32Gb 40nm Flash
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
Gallery: Kenwood Announces 1-Din USB Mass Storage Compatible Car Stereos
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.
Read More | Fujitsu
Gallery: New from Fujitsu: 2.5” Perpendicular Hard Drives
Plextor PX-B900A Blu-Ray Disc Drive
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: HDTV, PC / Laptop, Storage,
Just in time for the holidays, Plextor announced today that their PX-B900A Blu-Ray Disc drive will be released to distributors in North and South America this October. This new multi-function drive promises to support the next generation of optical storage data technology.
The PX-B900A can burn more than 9 hours of HD video (about 23 hours of SD) on a dual-layered 50 GB disc. Compatible with Windows software, it works with write speeds DVD-RAM, Dual Layer DVD, Double Layer DVD, DVD±R/RW, and CD-R/RW. The drive comes bundled with a rewritable 25GB BD-RE media disc and software WinDVD BD, Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus, DVD Movie factory, BurnNow, Data-Add, and BD-DiscRecorder. Also included in this package is a 1-year full warranty and unlimited toll-free tech support.
As an early fan of Plextor, I am hoping that Santa is passing out lots of these, because at an MSRP of $999.99, it’s more than a tad over my budget.
Read More | Plextor Corporation
Gallery: Plextor PX-B900A Blu-Ray Disc Drive
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
|Download| - iPod-formatted H.264 (Mirror)
|Download| - DivX (Mirror)
|Download| - MPEG-4 (Mirror)
|Download| - PSP (Mirror)
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.
|Download| - iPod-formatted H.264
|Download| - MPEG-4
Gallery: Bleeding Edge Byte 025: Melting Hard Drives With Thermite
Sony Releases 50GB Dual Layer Blu-ray Recordable Discs
Posted by Nino Marchetti Categories: Storage,
Sony said today they’ve begun U.S. shipments of 50GB dual layer Blu-ray Disc recordable (write once) media. It is priced at around $48.
The Sony 50GB Blu-ray Discs offer a special technology on them which reportedly offers features like “scratch guard, archival reliability to prevent data/image corruption and deterioration, stable writing that reduces fluctuation as the disc spins, and temperature durability to prevent warping during severe changes in temperature and humidity.” Sony expects to ship 50GB dual layer rewritable BD media later this year.
Read More | Sony 50GB Blu-ray Disc Product Info
Gallery: Sony Releases 50GB Dual Layer Blu-ray Recordable Discs
Advertisement
© Gear Live Inc. {year} – User-posted content, unless source is quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. Gear Live graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, videos, articles, blogs, forums, scripts and other service names are the trademarks of Gear Live Inc.