Sunday, December 14, 2008

Seagate 1.5 Terabyte Desktop and Terabyte Notebook Hard Disk Drives

Seagate presents next generation of computing with their massive Barracuda 7200.11 1.5 TB and Momentus 1/2 TB storage hard drives, including world's first 1.5 Terabyte desktop PC and half Terabyte notebook/laptop hard drives to meet the explosive worldwide demand for digital-content storage in home and business environments.

1.5 Terabyte Desktop Hard Disk Drive

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, the first 1.5 terabyte desktop hard drive to hit the market. The debut of the Barracuda® 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive, - a half-terabyte increase from the previous highest capacity of 1TB is the eleventh generation of Seagate's drive for desktop PCs, marks the single largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives.

Technical Details

The Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive combines the capacity and speed required for today's most demanding desktop PC applications. The drive packs 1.5TB on just four platters and its fast Serial ATA 3Gb/second interface delivers an industry-leading sustained data rate of up to 120MB/second for fast boot, application startup and file access. The 3.5-inch drive is also offered in capacities of 1TB, 750GB, 640GB, 500GB, 320GB and 160GB with cache options of 32MB and 16MB.

The Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive combines proven PMR technology, components and expert manufacturing to provide 1.5TB of reliable storage for mainstream desktop computers, workstations, desktop RAID, gaming and high-end PCs, and USB/FireWire/eSATA external storage.

½ Terabyte Notebook PC Drive

Seagate's 2.5-inch half-terabyte 5400 and 7200 rpm drives - Momentus® 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 - deliver the best combination of capacity, mobility and durability for mainstream and high-performance notebook computers, external storage solutions, PCs and industrial applications requiring small form factor.

Technical Details

Momentus 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 hard drives are the fourth generation of Seagate's laptop family to use PMR. The Momentus 5400.6, a 5400 rpm drive, combines a powerful Serial ATA 3Gb/second interface and capacities ranging from 120GB to 500GB with an 8MB cache. The Momentus 7200.4 hard drive, with its 7200 rpm spin speed and a Serial ATA 3GB/second interface, delivers true desktop performance.

Shock Resistance

Both Momentus drives are built tough enough to resist up to 1,000 Gs of non-operating shock and 350 Gs of operating shock to protect drive data, making the drives ideal for systems that are subject to rough handling or high levels of vibration. For added robustness in mobile environments, the Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 are offered with G-Force Protection, a free-fall sensor technology that helps prevent drive damage and data loss upon impact if a laptop PC is dropped. The sensor works by detecting any changes in acceleration equal to the force of gravity and parks the heads off the disc to prevent contact with the platter in a free fall of as little as 8 inches and within 3/10ths of a second.

Power Efficient

Seagate's new Momentus drives are low on power consumption, allowing notebook users to work longer between battery charges, and are virtually inaudible thanks to Seagate's innovative SoftSonic™ fluid-dynamic bearing motors and QuietStep™ ramp load technology.

Warranty

All Momentus and Barracuda drives are backed by Seagate's leading five-year warranty.

Article source: ezinearticles.com

Free wi-fi with your Pret duck wrap















Today you can wander into any large branch of Pret A Manger, pull out your laptop or your iPod Touch and enjoy a free wi-fi connection along with your latte. It really is free, not “buy something and then have free wi-fi” or free for half an hour. You do not even need a password.

While some independent cafés have been offering their customers free wireless internet as an added perk for several years, most of the big retail chains have been slower to catch up. Preferring instead to sign up with expensive internet providers and foist the charge on the consumer, Starbucks and Caffè Nero, for example, have deals with T-Mobile and BT Openzone, respectively, which charge as much as £5 for an hour's surfing.

This model, however, appears to be changing. Pret A Manger is one of a growing number of retailers that has decided it is worth footing the bill themselves, making the vision of widespread free wi-fi — which had been fading in the midst of expensive hotspot tariffs — once again a possibility.

After trialling the service for six months in some of its regional stores, Pret A Manger has struck a five-year deal with The Cloud, the wi-fi company, and will now roll out free wi-fi at about 170 of its 190 outlets across the UK from today.

Pret A Manger follows McDonald's, which teamed up with The Cloud to offer free wi-fi in all its restaurants in October of last year and Coffee Republic, which launched free wi-fi in its outlets in conjunction with Commsport.com in May.

Steve Nicholson, chief executive of The Cloud, says that the company is running many more trials with retailers and he expects more to start offering free services soon.

Pret's service has no restrictions. Simon Hargraves, the chain's food and communications director, says: “You don't need a pin number, you don't need to buy anything and there's no restriction on how long you can be online. We trialled it at a couple of our big regional stores and found people did not take advantage of it — they did not treat it like a library.”

Pret A Manger decided to offer wi-fi after customers wrote in asking for it. The company has not yet carried out research to see if it makes people buy more or increases footfall but decided it was worth it as an added extra.

Mr Hargraves added: “This will not be the saviour of Pret A Manger through the recession, if we have one next year. It is just something nice to have.”

The rapid take-up of 3G mobile broadband and dongles, which plug into the side of a laptop to offer internet over the mobile network wherever you are, is one of the catalysts that has changed the wi-fi business model.

Ian Fogg, principal analyst at Forrester Research, the technology analyst says: “Now you can get cheap deals for mobile broadband it has made it very hard to charge for wi-fi in cafes.” Fernando Elizalde, an analyst at Gartner, added: “Somebody will have to pay for it but it is becoming less likely to be the end user.”

In addition, more people now have laptops and wi-fi technology has spread to mobile phones, MP3 players and games consoles, meaning people increasingly want wi-fi connections wherever they are.

Mr Hargreaves added: “We wondered whether we should charge or not. It seemed a bit mean to charge to be honest. It is a surprisingly cost effective extra service to offer customers. There is an installation fee of about £300 to £400 per store, and then there is a monthly charge of £100 per store. Given we have 1.5 million customers across the UK each week that is good value.”

He hopes the service will attract people to the store outside the morning and lunchtime rush-hour. “wi-fi opens up Pret A Manger as a place to hold meetings outside lunch times. We hope it will encourage people to come in the down times.”

Although Mr Nicholson forecasts “a plethora of companies coming out with free deals” in the near future, like so many other areas of business, the credit crunch has taken its toll and has forced some businesses to reconsider.

He now expects to see a mix of business plans alongside totally free access, such as an offer of free wi-fi only when customers make a purchase and possibly for a limited time. He said: “We have had a number of retailers trialling free wi-fi, though some plans have been hit by the economic climate.”

Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Lithium Ion Battery Maker Boston Power Snags HP Deal

Boston Power, a three-year-old startup that makes rechargeable lithium ion batteries for laptops, has secured a major laptop customer: Hewlett Packard. In the deal HP will sell Boston Power’s more energy efficient, longer-lasting batteries as a premium upgrade for its laptops. Boston Power wouldn’t divulge how much the added cost would be for the greener battery — called Sonata technology, and branded “HP Enviro Series” for HP — but HP told the WSJ that it would be around $20 or $30 extra.
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Boston Power thinks the upgrade will be well worth it for customers. The company says Sonata lasts for 3 years, runs for about 4-hours on a charge and that the charge fades less than comparable lithium ion batteries. HP’s massive marketshare is a game-changing win for such a young company, and Boston Power CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud tells us that the last three years of hard work are culminating in this deal.

While this is Boston Power’s first major deal, Onnerud hopes that potentially next year the Sonata batteries will be the standard option sold for laptops with other partnerships. Onnerud also said that the startup recently created a transportation division to explore how the lithium ion batteries could be used for vehicles. Boston Power is backed by a total of $70 million from Oak Investment Partners, Venrock, GGV Capital, and Gabriel Venture Partners.

Source: www.nytimes.com