Toshiba’s new 1.8-inch hard-disk drive can store 100GB of data using perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology to secure the highest areal density of any 1.8-inch HDD in the market. This is an improvement from 1.8-inch drives with only 20GB storage space. The drives are about the same size as a PCMCIA Card and are commonly […]

An analysis of online discussions on next generation DVD formats HD DVD and Blu-Ray gives the early edge to HD DVD. Cited as reasons are the lack of consumer trust in Sony, as well as gamer displeasure with selling Blu-ray in association with PlayStation 3. Cymfony, a market influence analytics company, issued a Consumer Opinion […]

Indian Student Sainul Abideen of Muslim Educational Society Engineering College develops an eco-friendly, paper-based storage system called “Rainbow Versitile Disc” that can store 90 to 450GB on a single disk. The data is converted to so-called Rainbow Format made up of various geometric shapes that can be printed onto a piece of paper; that can […]

Chipmaker Broadcom announced on Thursday that it has developed a system-on-a-chip that combines the competing Blu-ray and HD DVD optical disc formats. The chip was designed for future generation media players that support both disc formats, as well as other home entertainment and network applications.

External hard drives don’t have to be dull. Just ask LaCie, which has produced the Brick desktop hard drive, which looks not unlike those Lego building bricks you had as a child. Designed by “world famous designer” Ora-Ito, the LaCie Brick Desktop Hard Drive (as it’s officially known) hooks up to your computer via USB […]

According to Digitimes, US Court has upheld a patent infringement charge made by Philips against Taiwan optical disc makers Gigastorage and Princo concerning six Philips CD-R patents. A hearing will now be scheduled to determine damages, according to Philips Taiwan. Philips filed the complaint in early 2002, with the court delivering a summary judgment in […]

An obvious step forward for all consumer camcorders was unveiled at CEATEC in Japan. Hitachi had on display three new models of ultra portable HD camcorders. One of them actually uses mini Blu-ray discs. The other two use HDD and flash memory, respectively, as their recording media. I_m sure we_ll see more from Hitachi soon […]

Three employees at Warner Bros. have filed a patent application for a “multilayer dual optical disk” that would be able to carry both Blu-ray and HD DVD content on one side, and standard DVD or CD on the opposite side, NewScientist.com reported. The multi-purpose disc wouldn’t tip the scales in the next-generation DVD format war […]

With Sony’s Blu-Ray recorders maxing out at 2X and Panasonic at 4X, it seems Hitachi has a speed demon under its sleeves a BD recorder which will be the fastest at 8X. Though there is still no official announcement from Hitachi a prototype was displayed at the company’s booth in Ceatec.

Hitachi took storage to the next level with its SVOD (Stacked Volumetric Optical Discs) technology. It all starts with super slim DVD discs which are just 92 micrometers thick and these double sided discs hold 9.4GB. Pack 100 of these discs in a 6.4cm catridge and you have 940 GB of storage. Now the Japanese […]

We had earlier reported on TDK developing a six layer Blu-Ray disc with a capacity of 200GB almost 4 times than the current 50GB dual layer disc. TDK has managed to increase the layer capacity from 25GB to 33GB and by adding six layers the disc packs in 200GB of storage. Though still in development […]

CustomFlix, a unit of Amazon.com that provides on-demand distribution of CDs and DVDs, announced on Tuesday the launch of a new CD on Demand service for independent musicians and record labels. CustomFlix will manufacture and ship CDs as customers place orders from either CustomFlix or Amazon.com. Santa Cruz, Calif.-based CustomFlix recently launched a similar DVD […]

Toshiba will be showing the first HD-DVD recorder drive, the SD-L902A, for laptops on Oct. 3rd at CEATEC Japan. The drive will be 12.7 mm thick with a buffer capacity of 8 MB.

TDK showed off its 32GB NAND Flash memory drive. The 32GB drive is aimed to replace the hard drive, which is 80% the size of a standard 2.5-inch notebook hard drive. TDK said the drive supports data transfer rates of up to 33.3MBps and promises to use less power than regular hard drives. TDK did […]

The U.S. Justice Department recently announced its first conviction on criminal copyright infringement charges related to the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing network. Scott R. McCausland, 24, of Erie, Pa. pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement in violation of the Family Entertainment Copyright Act. McCausland […]