News Bits: Fujitsu Intros 320GB Notebook Drive, Notebooks with Blu-Ray to Grow in '08

Fujitsu introduces 320GB notebook hard drive

Fujitsu today announced its 2.5-inch MHZ2 BHseries hard drives with capacities ranging from 40GB to 320GB. The drives are designed for notebook use and will go on sale in February of next year. The new drives feature a SATA 3.0Gbps interface and have a 5,400RPM rotational speed.

Read More (Laptoping.com)
Fujitsu Press Release (Fujitsu.com)


Notebooks with Blu-ray drives to have 10% market share in '08

According to sources at Matsushita, the market share of notebooks with Blu-ray drives is expected to reach 10% in 2008 from 1% this year. Notebook manufacturers will more willing to include less expensive Blu-ray combo drives. However, sources at Quanta Storage say that the market share of notebooks with Blu-ray optical drives will still stay small because although the drives will drop in price, they will still be expensive.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)


Compal dedicates team to MID development

Compal Electronics will dedicate an entire team in its PC department to Mobile Internet Device (MID) development in January of next year. The company sees a lot of potential in the idea and realizes that ultra mobile Internet access is a growing consumer want. Compal expects the MID market to grow quickly in 2008.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)

Special thanks to forum member Amol for submitting this bit


Google developing online file storage service

Google is reportedly planning tostart offeringnext year a service that will allow users to easily store files of all types on a remote hard drive.At this point the focus is primarily on integrating with Microsoft Windows, but Google hasrecently beenworking hard to allow smartphone users to access its services.

Read More at our sister site, Brighthand.com


Matias introduces iRizer notebook stand

Matias today introduced the iRizer, an ultra-slim notebook stand that the company claims helps prevent neck and wrist strain. It is height adjustable, allowing users to bring the notebook's keyboard and screen to the most comfortable level.
The iRizer is available now from Matias.

Product Link (Matias.ca)

 

Blu-ray in laptops will grow by 10%? But what about HD-DVD. A lot of laptops ship with them.

I agree on the combo players, though. I think people will be more inclined to go the HD media route if they can have universal compatibility. The majority of people don't want to invest in HD/Blu and find the media obsolete a year, two years later.

 

40GB hard drive what is the purpose of that? Is it SSD? Anyway blue ray owns the HD DVD thats why no body talks about them, seriously 50GB on one CD is crazy. Right there on 1 CD you have more then that harddrive.

 

They're mainly for corporations, not consumers. At my job, most of our workstations have 40 and 80GB drives in our desktops. I've got two 160GB WD Passports that I carry with me that, combined together, have more storage space than almost all the machines in my office put together (7 PCs!).

The government and corps looove to buy these things in bulk. Cheap, efficient and easily replaceable, which is why the 40GB drive lives on. Not that any of us would mourn its passing.

That, and Sony is probably buying tons of them lately. No idea why.

 

I never even thought of that all is holds is an O.S. Then when upgrading the computers you do not have to transfer all those files, to the new computer plus external drives are very cheap. Perfect idea!

 

Great news about the Google remote drive. I've been wishing for such a thing for a long time. Gmail is great but it has restrictions on how big each e-mail can be. If this remote online drive becomes a reality, I would use this frequently.

 

I have to wonder what Matsu****a is smoking. A 9% jump in a year is crazy. I think they severely over-estimate the willingness of people to adopt Blu Ray. Right now the movies are way overpriced and there's still bugs to be worked out.

Google seems to be going places too.

 

Blu-Ray/HD-DVD readers are all well and good... but where are the burners!? I really won't care until I can burn my own!