Samsung has announced a new portable DVD writer designed for users of ultraportable and notebook computers that don’t have internal DVD drives. The new Samsung portable DVD writer is called the SE-B18AB. It has a metallic finished surface that looks like brushed aluminum to match with many of the notebook computers on the market today. […]
Long term data storage is tricky. Hard discs and magnetic tapes
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Pioneer has unveiled a cool new product that claims to be the world’s first Blu-ray drive that’s wireless. The drive is called the Pioneer BDR-WFS05J and is fully compatible with Windows from XP up to 8 and Mac OS. The drive is designed to connect to your computer wirelessly. Without a wire running between your […]
It’s unknown why, at the moment, the teams at Sony and Panasonic have decided they’d like to keep the standard-sized optical disk (CD-sized, that is) alive, but they’ve announced just that this morning. In an effort to create next-generation professional-use disks with capacities of at least 300 GB, these teams will join forces here and now. Their aim is to create this new media by the end of 2015.
This announcement comes after the next-newest advancement in disk technology – the Blu-ray – has been on the market since 2003. That’s ten years since the first prototype Blu-ray player was released, and another three years before that when the first Blu-ray was prototyped. Sony and Panasonic aim to take this size and format into the future with its full collection of strengths from the format itself and both companies’ unique solutions living in the same storage universe.
Panasonic’s contribution comes in the form of the LB-DM9 series optical disk storage device, made to house twelve 100GB optical disks in a dedicated magazine coming in at a thickness of 20.8mm. Meanwhile Sony’s solution came back in September of 2012 with their file-based optical disk archive system working with technology created for its XDCAM series of broadcasting products.
Each of Sony’s system’s disks (all twelve of them) were held within a single compact cartridge, each of them coming in at 25GB capacity. Storage capacities between 300GB and 1.5TB were offered, while Panasonic’s solution worked with 90 magazines with a storage capacity of 180TB in all.
We’ll be seeing this one solution, this one disk with storage capacity of 300GB or more by the end of 2015 complete with the good bits that’ve been with disks for several generations. Water resistance, humidity resistance, and ease in storage will live on.
Now we’ll get to see how the companies that’ve moved well beyond the disk universe will respond. Can we expect a return to drives? Or will Sony and Panasonic concentrate on the professional end alone?
SOURCE: Sony
Sony teams with Panasonic for 300GB optical disks – the slot lives on! is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It’s being reported that Sony is closing Optiarc Inc., its company subsidiary that manufactures optical disc drives for PCs. Officials are quoted as saying that “fierce competition” forced prices down, causing the business to operate at a loss despite controlling roughly 15 percent of the market. Operations will be wound up by March of next year, with around 400 employees being offered early retirement and others being moved to other parts of the business. Don’t worry about the future of your Blu-Ray and DVD player just yet though — the company will continue to manufacture both as part of its Device Solutions Division.
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Sony getting out of PC optical drive business due to ‘fierce competition’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 05:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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LG Electronics has found itself at the center of quite a few patent lawsuits in recent years (both as a plaintiff and defendant), and it’s now kicked yet another one off. As Bloomberg reports, LG has today filed suit against Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology, alleging that the Toshiba / Samsung joint venture violated a number of patents related to DVD+RW and DVD-RAM technology. In the complaint, LG further alleges that TSST is knowingly infringing on the patents as they were previously licensed to Toshiba itself (and TSST as an affiliate company) as part of a deal that expired in 2010. LG is asking for a jury trial to sort things out, and demanding that TSSC pay “no less than a reasonable royalty” along with some unspecified damages. You can find the complaint in full at the link below.
Filed under: Storage
Toshiba / Samsung joint venture hit with lawsuit by LG over DVD+RW/RAM patents originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The optical drive may be making its exit in the world of personal computing, but at least it seems to still have a place in artistic architecture. Aram Bartholl — the man behind New York City’s infamous USB dead drops — has installed a DVD burner into the side of the Museum of the Moving Image to promote HOT, an art exhibition described as “a group show about video that is not video.” Passersby who pop in a blank DVD-R will be rewarded with a digital copy of the show and the satisfaction of finally having something to do with their aging stash of unused optical media. Just how do you install PC hardware in a museum wall? Drill an enormous hole, of course — check out a video of the installation for yourself after the break.
Filed under: Storage
New York artist fashions dead drop from dying hardware, mounts DVD burner in city wall originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple refreshed its line of notebooks at WWDC in June, but the Mac Pro and iMac were left out of the festivities. Apple later confirmed that updates for both machines were on the way, and now Apple Insider has discovered references to new models after digging around inside some configuration files. When examining the Boot Camp files, references to several unreleased Mac Pros and iMacs were discovered, with the specific model numbers listed in a place that indicates they may not come with optical drives.
Two models in the Boot Camp files point to the MP60 (MacPro6,x) and IM130 (iMac13,x), the sixth-generation Mac Pro and 13th-generation iMac. Apple Insider references Tim Cook’s email to a customer regarding the future of the Mac Pro, speculating that Apple could remove optical drives entirely to shift professional customers into new high-speed solutions like USB 3.0 and ThunderBolt.
The iMac is also due for a refresh, although the iMac 13,2 model has cropped up before in Geekbench benchmarks. That reveal a machine sporting Intel’s latest desktop Ivy Bridge processor along with 4GB of RAM. The benchmark result could have been fabricated, however. John Poole, a curator of user submitted scores to the service, says that some results have come through in the past from Hackintoshs bearing the iMac 13,2 number.
Apple Insider notes that the removal of the optical drive from the iMac makes more sense, allowing additional space inside the machine for components, or letting designers slim down the chassis. According to sources, Apple is said to have worked on two models internally that slim down the current design, bringing them closer to modern day LED TVs. Overall the move away from optical drives makes sense: the company doesn’t include an optical drive with the MacBook Air, and dropped the optical drive on the next-generation MacBook Pro in order to slim down the laptop.
New iMac and Mac Pro models could ditch optical drives is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Despite the fact that optical drives are probably on the way out, the European Commission has announced that it suspects thirteen manufacturers of being involved in a five-year bid-rigging cartel in an attempt to keep prices artificially elevated. More »
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