Hasta La Gadget!

The kind folks at OCZ Technology’s CeBIT booth told us that they expected the forthcoming Z-Drive to be priced between $1,500 and $2,000, and unfortunately for consumers, they were obviously just talking about the starting tag. Today, the much-hyped PCI-Express SSD card — which strings a few blocks of flash memory together on a wicked fast PCI-E pipeline — has been listed at Amazon, and the asking prices are downright eye-popping. The drive is slated to ship in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB flavors, with Amazon demanding $1,561.30, $2,450.50 and $3,368.99 for each in order of mention. We know read rates up to 500MB/sec and write rates of up to 470MB/sec are appealing and all, but damn.

[Thanks, Gary]

Read – 250GB Z-Drive listing
Read – 500GB Z-Drive listing
Read – 1TB Z-Drive listing

Filed under: Storage

OCZ’s Z-Drive priced at Amazon: $1,561 and way up originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 May 2009 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Due to the intrinsic limitations of machine translation, it’s hard to say exactly what makes Fujitsu‘s latest supercomputer the “world’s fastest,” but we’ll hesitantly believe for the time being. We’re told that the SPARC64 VIIIfx (codename Venus) can churn through 128 billion calculations per second, which supposedly bests the current champ — a chip from Intel — by 2.5 times. An AP report on the matter states that Fujitsu shrunk the size of each central circuit, which in turn doubled the number of circuits per chip. ‘Course, this beast won’t be ready for supercomputer work for several years yet, giving the chip maker’s biggest rivals plenty of time to sabotage its moment in the limelight.

[Via Physorg]

Filed under: Desktops

Fujitsu’s supercomputer-ready Venus CPU said to be “world’s fastest” originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 May 2009 16:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look, we’re not going to try and convince you that you need carry yet another device to maintain your connected lifestyle. And at 6.2 x 3.5 x 1.1-inches, the LonMID M100 is too chunky to join your smartphone in the trouser pocket while being a bit too cramped compared to the netbook or laptop carried in your shoulder bag. Still, we can appreciate the effort required to pack this much technology into such a tiny QWERTY device. On the back of the main 4.8-inch (800 x 480) display, the dual-purpose M100 features a dedicated keypad, SIM, and 2.4-inch display for making jumbo-sized calls when the mood strikes. Otherwise, it’ll help you consume, and lightly create content under the direction of a MIDinux OS riding an 800MHz Atom Z500 processor with Poulsbo chipset, 1GB of DDR2 memory, and 4GB SSD with microSD expansion. Bluetooth, USB, and 802.11b/g WiFi? Yup, it’s in there. Fortunately, it’s only a prototype so you can put off all the hard decision making until later.

[Via Pocketables]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

LonMID M100 is a giant smartphone or tiny netbook, you choose originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 May 2009 05:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been keeping an eye on Shinoda Plasma’s curved PTA (plasma tube array) technology since 2007. What started as a single 43-inch prototype grew to 125-inches in 2008. Now, Shinoda is showing off a 145-inch diagonal prototype consisting of six PTA panels stitched together in a 2-meter x 3-meter matrix. The 960 x 720 pixel resolution might not impress you until you consider the weight: just 7.2-kg (15.8-pounds) thanks to the slim PTA panels measuring just 1-mm thick. Impressive compared to 108-inch LCDs that weigh in at 196-kg (430-pounds) and the original Osborne 1 “laptop” that weighed 24.5-pounds. With any luck, these giant displays will be commercialized for signage so we can all simulate crushing motions with two hands.

Filed under: Displays

Shinoda’s giant curved plasma weighs less than your father’s first laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 May 2009 03:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know that 3D bandwagon you’re still hesitant to jump on? We get the feeling that this year’s NAB show may just push you over the top. Shortly after hearing of Fujifilm’s newest P2 memory cards comes this, a conceptual camcorder in which to eventually slot ’em in. Currently, Panasonic’s 3D Full HD Camera Recorder is merely a prototype, but it’s made clear that the company intends to bring this to market as soon as possible. Essentially, the device will boast a twin-lens system for capturing 3D footage natively in 1080p, and all of the video streams will be stored on Panny’s professional P2 cards. It’s hard to say if this would even be useful for 2D shooting on the side, but with practically every major studio at least considering (if not committing to) 3D production, we’d say it’s a solid investment on Panasonic’s part either way.

Filed under: Digital Cameras, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Panasonic developing 1080p twin-lens P2 camcorder for native 3D captures originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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