This week Toshiba revealed what it deems as the industry’s highest-capacity 2.5-inch high performance enterprise-class line of drives. Called the Toshiba MK01GRRB/R, it uses an SAS 6 Gb/s interface, spins at 15,000 RPM and offers a top capacity of 300 GB. But Seagate already beat Toshiba to the market with a similar line earlier this year, the Savvio 15K 2.5-inch hard drives which offer the same spin speeds and capacity.
According to Toshiba, its new third generation 2.5-inch 15,000 RPM enterprise drives leverage an enhanced power condition state that reduces drive spin in idle states, significantly lowering power consumption. That means less heat generated, less power consumed overall, and extra cash in the company’s pocket. Business owners can also rest assured that data will be protected thanks to the new line’s self-encryption technology which is designed to the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) “Enterprise SSC” specification.
“SED technology provides simple and complete data security throughout the drive’s usable life cycle – with no performance impact – and enables organizations to crypto-graphically erase protected data securely, enabling the ability to return, service, repurpose, or retire drives without lengthy data overwrite operations or physical destruction of the drive,” Toshiba said.
The new line is expected to go live in Q1 2012 with the launch of four models: the 300 GB MK3001GRRB (without encryption) and MK3001GRRR (with encryption), and the 147 GB MK1401GRRB (without encryption) and MK1401GRRR (with encryption). All four will have an average seek time of 2.7 ms (read) and 3.0 ms (write), an SAS 6 Gb/s interface, and a 15,000 RPM rotational speed. However the 300 GB drives will consume 4.5 watts whereas the smaller 147 GB drives will consume 4.3 watts.
“Toshiba small form factor enterprise drives deliver the performance, capacity and security features IT administrators require for today’s mission critical server, storage and cloud appliance markets,” Toshiba said.
Die-hard World of Warcraft fans with a little cash in their pocket will get a chance to own a piece of the MMORPG’s history next week. Starting Monday, October 17, Blizzard will be auctioning off server-blade hardware that once played host to World of Warcraft’s virtual realm in its earliest days. The net proceeds from the auction will benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, one of the world’s premier centers for the research and treatment of pediatric cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases.
“World of Warcraft realms are like the virtual neighborhoods of the game’s community — they contain the spaces where millions of players have made friendships, forged friendly rivalries, and created lasting memories,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Each winner in this auction will own a small monument to those collective experiences. The best part is that this auction benefits a great charity doing tremendous work in helping children from the U.S. and around the world.”
According to the company, approximately 2,000 of the original HP BladeSystem server blades from about 500 different World of Warcraft realms will be auctioned. The server blades will also be prettied up for the occasion, crammed inside a custom windowed case featuring the World of Warcraft logo and an additional commemorative plaque signed by the World of Warcraft team so that onlookers peeking in know it’s not just a piece of discarded junk.
Thursday Blizzard said that the HP server blades were preserved after a series of World of Warcraft infrastructure upgrades. They will now be offered in batches over the next four weeks, starting Monday. The auctions will take place on eBay and will be managed by online auction specialist Kompolt. For more information on the auction schedule as well as a detailed FAQ, head here.
Today, Nvidia is taking the wraps off its 3D Vision refresh, dubbed 3D Vision 2. While the functionality remains identical to the original, the update includes hardware optimizations that address some concerns with the 2.5+ year-old standards. You can check out our full 3D Vision 2 review on Monday morning, complete with performance benchmarks vs. AMD’s competing HD3D product. For now, here are the important points:
This latest version comes with new glasses, new hardware, and some new tech behind enjoying 3D games and Blu-ray movies. Nvidia sees its 3D products as a major success thus far, with half a million 3D Vision kits sold, over 70 compatible products (monitors, laptops, all-in-ones) and a 3D games library with over 550 titles, so a refresh after roughly two years is to be expected.
Because 3D Vision uses active shutter glasses for the 3D effect, a significant amount of light is lost before the picture hits your eyes. The original standard suffers from relatively dark monitor output in conjunction with difficulty seeing through the glasses to see peripherals such as the keyboard. This problem has been successfully addressed with Nvidia 3D LightBoost, a collection of display technologies that include an LED monitor backlight that pulses twice as brightly and increasing the amount of time that the shutter glasses remain open. Nvidia says LightBoost will make 3D Vision 2 roughly 30 percent brighter than its predecessor.
You’d think that a racing team that was about to seal up the Formula One World Championship would be focused entirely on the task at hand. But not Red Bull. That team’s got resources to spare, and was relaxed knowing that its own Sebastian Vettel already had the Driver Champion title, as well as their team having the Construction Champion title. So while Vettel and the rest of the team were driving around, the team’s demo squad were in India for another feat.
Neel Jani, a Swiss driver of Indian ancestry, drove the 2005 RB1 that was converted for use by the demo team up Khardung La. The Tibetan mountain pass through the Himalayas is widely regarded (but often debated) as the highest-altitude drivable road in the world, so, suffice it to say, it made for different conditions than those to which F1 teams are accustomed.
The route took Jani and the RB1 up the hill more than 7,000 feet – from 11,000 above sea level to 18,830 – passing along the way the famous Thiksey Monastery and the Shanti Stupa shrine – both iconic sites to Buddhists around the world.
The ongoing severe flooding in Thailand appears to have impact on the availability on the overall supply in the region. According to a report published by Forbes, more than 200 factories have been closed due to flooding.
Honda, Microsemi, ON Semiconductor, Hutchinson Technology, Canon, and Western Digital confirmed plant closures at this time, while Nikon, Pioneer, Toyota and Sony reported that either supply disruption or water damage to their facilities has occurred. Seagate said that supply of components for its products will be “constrained” due to the flooding.
There were no details from the tech industry just how severe the supply constraints will be. We know, however, that Toyota produces about 630,000 vehicles (Camry and Corolla models) in its Thai plants – about 8 percent of its production.
Millions of people in Thailand have been affected by the flooding, 281 people were confirmed dead as of Thursday.
Fancy segregating EV charging stations by vehicle manufacturer? No? A slew of major automobile firms didn’t like the idea much either, and have agreed on a combined charging system to use as an international standard. Audi, BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche and Volkswagen now support a single-port fast charging system that integrates all charging configurations — from spiffy quick charging setups, down to modest Level 1 rigs. The new system also crowns HomePlug Green PHY as the standard communication protocol, allowing charging stations to hook compatible EVs to Powerline Smart Grid applications. Where do all these fancy features leave you and your Leaf? Charged, of course — the new “harmonized electric vehicle charging solution” promises to be backward compatible with current industry standard J1772 connectors.
Well, it’s finally happened — Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype has just been finalized, a little more than five months after it was first announced. Under the $8.5 billion deal, Skype CEO Tony Bates will be named president of the new Skype Division of Microsoft, and will have to report directly to Steve Ballmer. Many Skype employees, meanwhile, will stay onboard at offices around the globe, including at outposts in Estonia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, the UK, Luxembourg, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US.
In a post on the Official Microsoft Blog today, Bates seemed unsurprisingly enthusiastic about the acquisition, describing it as a marriage of two “disruptive, innovative, software-oriented companies.” The exec was less specific about the role his company would play within Redmond’s new architecture, but assured that Skype would be at the forefront of future communications initiatives across a variety of platforms.
“Microsoft is committed to the ubiquity of the Skype experience – communication across every device and every platform will remain a primary focus,” Bates wrote. “And we’ve only scratched the surface.”
The ongoing severe flooding in Thailand appears to have impact on the availability on the overall supply in the region. According to a report published by Forbes, more than 200 factories have been closed due to flooding.
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