Seagate announces 1TB encrypted hard drive

About a month and a half ago, Seagate officially unveiled its 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 3.5″ hard drive. The drive squeezes a terabyte of capacity onto four platters that spin at 7,200RPM, all complemented by a hefty 32MB buffer. Seagate has now announced a new 1TB Barracuda hard drive, this time featuring the encryption technology it introduced with its Momentus 5400.2 FDE mobile hard drive over a year ago.

According to Seagate, the Barracuda FDE series will be the world’s first 3.5″ hard drive lineup to feature native AES encryption technology. In systems powered by the drive, logging on “requires a pre-boot user password that can be buttressed with other layers of authentication such as smart cards and biometrics.” Barracuda FDE drives will have 7,200-RPM spindle speeds and will launch in 2008 with capacities up to 1TB.

In addition to its terabyte FDE disk, Seagate also intends to roll out new Momentus 5400.4 2.5″ mobile hard drives. Those drives won’t have encryption functionality, but they’ll combine capacities of up to 250GB with 5,400-RPM spindle speed and 300MB/s Serial ATA interfaces.

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Dell Reveals Barcelona Performance

Dell has no intention of reversing its decision last year to start using AMD processors in its product line. The company wanted to give customers a variety of choices and also because it wanted to guarantee for itself a steady supply of electronic components.

Dell expects AMD to introduce its quad-core chip, code-named Barcelona, next week and, comparing it with Intel’s Clovertown quad-core processor, the company would like to offer customers a choice of either product. “If you look at floating point instructions, Barcelona is about 30 percent faster than Clovertown. However, if you look at integer instructions, Clovertown is about 30 percent faster than Barcelona,” Dell said.

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Motorola Begins Selling RAZR 2

While the now $399 Apple iPhone will dominate the news Thursday, Motorola has chimed in to remind everyone that its RAZR 2 is now available through wireless carriers across the United States. But its $299 to $349 price tag won’t likely bring out long lines.

The RAZR 2 V9 is offered by AT&T while the CDMA V9m is sold by Verizon, Sprint and Alltel. T-Mobile will likely sell the RAZR 2 V8, but the phone is not yet listed on the carrier’s Web site. Motorola is hoping to bring back the glory days of the original RAZR by adding features such as Windows Media Player, 2GB of on-board memory and a full-HTML browser. But the company faces stiff competition from LG, Samsung and now Apple.

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HP Announces New Gaming PCs, iPaqs

Hewlett-Packard Co. Wednesday introduced a new line of gaming PCs and iPaq PDAs (personal digital assistants).

HP’s new gaming PC, the Blackbird 002 LCi, is made from aluminum and is liquid-cooled to enhance performance. The Blackbird was created by designers of VoodooPC Inc., which HP acquired last year. The Blackbird 002 Dedication Edition will be released September 15, and come with a pre-set configuration. Users will be able to buy customized Blackbirds from Oct. 1, each of which will be hand-built in HP’s Calgary, Alberta facility. The machines retail for US$2,500 to $7,100.

The company also announced five new iPaq models. The iPaq 900 Series Business Messenger is a 3G (third-generation) phone with a QWERTY keyboard; the iPAQ 600 Series Business Navigator is also a 3G phone and with a built-in GPS (Global Positioning System) and navigation functions; the iPaq 300 Series Travel Companion is a PDA with built-in GPS, with additional graphics and 3-D mapping capability; the iPaq 200 Series Enterprise Handheld is designed for business users; and the iPaq 100 Series Classic Handheld offers Wi-Fi connectivity and easing synching with a PC. HP did not offer suggested pricing for the new iPaq models.

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Intel readies Penryn chips, may release Silverthorne early

Following the launch of Intel’s quad-core Xeon 7300 processor on Wednesday, the company’s efforts are now focused on preparations for the rollout of its first Penryn chips later this year. And there are signs the company is planning an early 2008 release of its Silverthorne chip for ultramobile PCs and handheld devices.

Intel confirmed plans to release a server version of Penryn before the end of this year, but the company is releasing little information about its plans for mobile and desktop versions of the chip. Penryn will offer better performance than Intel’s current processors, and the company is counting on them to hold off any gains rival Advanced Micro Devices makes with the release of its quad-core Barcelona chips next week.

“So far what we’ve said is that we intend to ship a broad family of 45-nanometer processors by the end of the year,” said Nick Jacobs, an Intel spokesman in Singapore, referring to the technology used to produce the Penryn chips.

Movie download service Vudu launches

Silicon Valley startup Vudu will start taking orders tomorrow for its proprietary set-top box, which will allow users to stream or download up to 5,000 movies onto their TV sets over a broadband Internet connection.

The box is priced at $399 through www.vudu.com and Amazon.

Vudu operates similar to a peer-to-peer service. In a P2P network, movies or other large files are downloaded from a number of fellow P2P users with a computer connected to the Internet that already have the file on their computers. This means files can be sent faster than those downloaded from one central server.

On Vudu’s service, files will be transferred across a private network. Vudu will send bits of files of popular movies to different users’ Vudu boxes. When a user clicks to watch a movie, the file is then sent from those other Vudu boxes. Since the files are sent between Vudu boxes only, the company says they can provide better copy protection and ensure a file is sent with the pieces in order so the user can watch right away.

The Highlights of Apple’s New iPods

A hands-on look at some of the distinctive features of the iPod Nano and iPod Touch.

Palm-sized Nano

Leading up to Apple’s grand unveiling of its refreshed iPod line, the chatter was all about the so-called “phat” iPod Nano. Turns out the “phat” Nano is anything but: Sure, it’s wider than the previous slim Nano stick; but, its form is actually svelte, stylish, and lightweight. The new Nano is packed with more capabilities–namely, video playback and casual gaming–than its music-only predecessor. Plus, it carries a rated battery life of 24 hours for audio, and 5 hours for video–about enough to get you through the first two installments of The Pirates of the Caribbean series.

How Far We’ve Come?

In early 2005, the second-generation 6GB Apple iPod Mini, seen at left, shipped. That model sported a 1.67-inch monochrome display, weighed 3.6 ounces, and measured 3.6 by 2 by 0.5 inches. At the time, its size was considered fairly compact. Fast forward more than two years later to the new iPod Nano (the first Nano replaced the Mini in Apple’s lineup), seen at right. The tiny Nano is a marvel, with a 2-inch color screen and less than half the Mini’s weight and half its depth. The Nano weighs just 1.7 ounces, and measures 2.8 by 2.1 by 0.26 inches.

Stack o’Colors

The new Nano comes in 4GB and 8GB capacities, and carries an attractive price of $149 and $199, respectively. The Nano ships in five colors: The 4GB model only comes in silver, while 8GB model ships in the full color spectrum of metallic teal and metallic pale green, silver, black, and Apple’s socially conscious (Product) Red. Notice the Nano’s remarkably slim profile in this view: It’s barely more than a quarter-of-an-inch thick.

iPod Touch

The iPhone’s most innovative features characterize the best of the iPod Touch: The 3.5-inch multi-touch display for slide-and-glide and pinch-and-squeeze navigation; Cover Flow music navigation; an accelerometer that automatically detects the device’s position and orients the screen accordingly; integrated YouTube; 802.11b/g wireless and the full-on graphics of the Safari Web browser. Even better, it does so in a device that’s lighter and thinner than the iPhone–the Touch is just 0.3 inches thick. The 8GB version will sell for $299; the 16GB version will sell for 16GB.

Choose Your Own Headphones

The iPod Touch uses a standard 3.5mm headset jack, which means you can use the headphones of your choice with this model, no adapters required. This is an improvement over the iPhone, which has the headset jack inset into the unit, and requires an awkward dongle in order to accommodate a headphone other than the one the unit ships with. You may want your own headset of choice for all that music you’ll be listening to: Apple rates the Touch for up to 22 hours of audio play, and 5 hours of video play.

Coming Soon

The iPod Nano and the newly dubbed iPod Classic (80GB for $249, a gargantuan 160GB for $349) will ship soon. The Nano could be in stores by Friday, this weekend–or even Monday. According to Apple’s online store, a Nano ordered today would ship out for delivery on Monday, at the earliest. The iPod Touch is expected to be available by September 28.

Sharp’s Blu-ray player loads discs in 10 seconds

There are a whole bunch of Blu-ray players being announced at CEDIA, but for the most part there’s not too much to differentiate them. Sharp’s new Blu-ray player, the BD-HP20U, the company’s first ever and while it’s mostly the same as other players, the press release claims that it will load Blu-ray discs in ten seconds. For those of you not used to the sluggish speeds of high-def media, that’s very fast — we’re used to it taking closer from 40 seconds to well over a minute on other high-def players.

We definitely love the Quick Start mode, but we’re disappointed that the BD-HP20U doesn’t offer bitstream output for DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks. On the other hand, the $550 price tag is pretty attractive, considering the only other $500 standalone Blu-ray player we’ve reviewed–the Sony BDP-S300–was extremely sluggish.

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Toshiba announces 160 GB 1.8" CE-ATA hard drive

Coinciding with the release of a 160 GB iPod, Toshiba today announced a 160 GB 1.8″ hard drive, which will be available with a CE-ATA interface later this year.

Toshiba’s new MK-series 160 GB drive is the highest-capacity drive announced in the 1.8″ segment so far, but is also the firm’s first hard drive to integrate a CE-ATA interface, which has been developed for consumer electronics applications.

The MK series comes in two versions, as a PATA 1-platter 80 GB versions as well as the CE-ATA 2-platter 160 GB model. The storage density is 228 Gb/square inch in either case. The PATA model is rated at a slightly higher performance (66 MB/s data transfer rate) than the CE-ATA version (52 MB/s), but the CE-ATA model is promised to be more power efficient (0.002 watt/GB compared to 0.004 watt/GB in the PATA version – which means that both drives are rated at the same power consumption overall).

The 160 GB “MK1626GCB” is also slightly higher at 8 mm, as compared to the 5 mm height of the 80 GB “MK8022GAA”, which is interestingly about the same difference that is listed by Apple for the new iPod Classic models.

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PS3 + Linux + Firefox = Office 2.0 computing

Sony and a technology site are using a conference to show off a confluence of next-generation, monopoly-bypassing technology: a Sony Playstation 3 videogame console running Linux and Firefox as a foundation for Web-based “Office 2.0″ applications.

IT|Redux, a site run by blogger and tech adviser Ismael Ghalimi, is showing off the system at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. IT|Redux is the show organizer.

Sony called the conference a great opportunity to “showcase the PS3 system’s computing power and productivity capabilities.”

“Installing Linux and Firefox on the PS3 enables Sony customers to not only enjoy games and entertainment in the living room but also take advantage of some of the Web browser-based office productivity applications available online today,” said Oliver Marks, a senior manager for Sony Computer Entertainment America.