Samsung releases an EcoGreen 1.5 TB HDD, uses 45% less power

 Samsung has developed a 1.5 TB three platter hard disk drive (500 GB per platter) which consumes 40% less power at idle, and 45% less power when reading/writing than other comparable drives. Dubbed F2EG EcoGreen, the drive is comparably priced to high-power consuming drives.


Samsung's "EcoGreen" name employs what they call an Eco-Triangle methodology for the drive's construction, which is "low-power, low-heat and low-noise operation." The drive contains 500 GB platters which, compared to other drives, allows for more data on less surface area.

Said Andy Higginbotham, Samsung's director of HDD sales, "Lower platter count means less power to start the motor, less power to continuously spin the motor and a lighter head-stack which takes less power to seek. With fewer heads and disks, the F2EG hard drive has a lower probability of head-disk failures, enabling customers to build more reliable systems."

The F2EG drive contains a 16 MB or 32 MB buffer, 3.0 Gigabits per second interface and comes in 500 GB, 1 TB or 1.5 TB versions. The 1.5 TB model sells for $149.

Sony X1000 OLED Walkman to Hit UK Next Month for ~$300

Sony's slick-looking X1000 Walkman line popped up for preorder on Amazon UK with a release window of 2-5 weeks. That means we should be seeing the touchscreen, OLED player before the end of March.

The 16-gigabyte NWZ-X1050B will cost £214 (~$300) and 32-gigabyte NWZ-X1060B will cost £283 (~$400). Looking forward to the X1000 making a stateside appearance sometime soon. 

Supposed photo of new Apple Mac mini leaked

Has the right ports, but no new design It's that time again, another Apple rumour and another semi-blurry picture of what is meant to be a new piece of hardware that will be out "soon". The rumour about a new Mac mini has been going on for months now with some pictures turning up online just ahead of Mac World back in January, but this time around, the design doesn't seem to have changed. What have changed is the ports on the back, as the pictured Mac mini in this case has had a fairly radical upgrade (in Apple terms at least). It comes with five USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, a mini DVI and more interestingly a mini DisplayPort, as well as an Ethernet port and two audio jacks. There was of course some spec's listed as well and in this case we're talking about a mobile Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB of L2 cache and a clock speed of 2GHz. There's also meant to be 2GB of DDR3 1,066MHz memory as standard, which we highly doubt, as the cost of DDR3 memory is still very high and Apple wouldn't stick more than 1GB in the system because of this if its past records are anything to go by. The "Super Drive" is meant to have a SATA interface rather than IDE as with the current Mac mini. Fact or fiction? You can make your own mind up by taking a look at the picture here

Apple buys more flash memory

Another iPhone coming 

The dark satanic rumour mill has been churning out a yarn which suggests that Apple might be planning to release another iPhone.

The rumour comes on the back of news that Apple has cleaned out Samsung's supply of flash memory in recent weeks. AppleInsider claims that the outfit has also asked Toshiba and Hynix to step up with more flash memory. This means, the rumour says, that Apple is planning to release a new iPhone.   

It makes sense as Apple's bottom line suffers that it hopes that the same people who bought the iPhone 3G might be dumb enough to want a replacement.

In January, Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller hinted that Apple has settled on a midyear refresh cycle for iPhones, after launching the original iPhone in late June and the iPhone 3G in July.

Apple kills 20-inch Cinema Display

It's official. As of today, the 20-inch Cinema Display is no more, reducing Apple's display lineup to the 30-inch model (that works with all Macs) and the recently introduced 24-inch LED-backlit Cinema Display featuring a DisplayPort interconnect and works only with unibody MacBooks. Whether the product's removal is the sign of hardware refresh that will transition 20-inch models to DisplayPort or, as some think, indication of a new 28-inch Cinema Display that would nicely complement previous rumors of the new top-of-the-line 28" iMac model, remains to be seen. All we know is that Apple told its partners that the 20-inch model has reached end-of-life status, effective immediately -- adding that all backlog will be canceled.

Apple quietly removed the 20-inch Cinema Display from its online store today. In addition, the company has informed resellers that the product has reached "end-of-life" status, warning that "all backlog will be cancelled and there is no automatic order conversion." Apple allegedly stopped manufacturing the display at the end of last year and was selling just channel inventory. Sources have immediately deciphered the move as a sign of hardware refresh with an updated product of the same design, meaning the LED-backlit display and DisplayPort technology found in the 24-inch Cinema Display overhauled last October.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said during the unibody MacBook introduction (last September) that DisplayPort will find its way into every computer Apple makes. "We're building it into everything we make," he said. And Apple fans surely welcome the first signs of action from Cupertino, following an unusual period of silence that brought no refreshes to the company's hardware lineup since the 24-inch Cinema Display last October. The latter model replaced the previously sold 23-inch Cinema Display, having ditched the DVI interconnect in favor of DisplayPort.

Is Apple killing the 20-inch Cinema Display entirely?

Some Apple watchers are not convinced the removal of the 20" model means there is hardware refresh around the corner. Instead, they suspect Apple might have killed the 20" display in order to bring an alleged 28" display into the view. The move would fall nicely in line with previous rumors of a new top-of-the-line 28" iMac model that is also allegedly in the works.

The oversized iMac model would, according to these voices, sport the fastest processor and graphics architecture, catering to creative professionals who find Mac Pro too pricey but require more performance and screen real estate than the current top-of-the-line 24" iMac brings to the table. Readers should note that the 28" iMac rumor was based on unnamed sources, so it quickly fell in oblivion and has not been corroborated by reliable sources to lend it some credence.

DisplayPort confusion

With the removal of 20-inch model, Apple's current Cinema Display lineup consists of the 30-inch model (introduced in June 2004) and the24-inch LED-backlit Cinema Display with DisplayPort, meaning it can only be used with the latest unibody MacBooks equipped with the latest VESA-backed interconnect standard. Given Jobs' comments, the company will eventually update the largest 30" model to DisplayPort technology as well.

Apple's miniaturized DisplayPort variant, dubbed Mini DisplayPort and used in unibody MacBooks, has been officially approved and will become a part of the upcoming industry-backed DisplayPort 1.2 specification. Users should pay attention to compatibility issuesbetween non-DisplayPort-compatible Mac computers and DisplayPort-compatible devices like the 24" LED-backlit Cinema Display. The company is expected to refresh its iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro line with DisplayPort later this year, as well as its Apple TV set-top box.

By bringing DisplayPort technology to both its computer and display products Apple will eventually make life easier for new users, while owners of older displays or computers will have to resort to additional converter boxes to make their equipment work with the new standard. However, it is likely Apple will make this a relatively easy transition as well.

TRANSITION TO THE DISPLAY PORT
Apple began transitioning to DisplayPort interconnects with the new unibody MacBooks unveiled last October. The company soon replaced 23-inch Cinema Display with the new 24-inch LED-backlit model and its DisplayPort interconnect, meaning it can only be used with unibody MacBooks.

MINI DISPLAYPORT NOW PART OF DISPLAY PORT 1.2 STANDARD
Mini DisplayPort, Apple's own miniaturized variant of DisplayPort, can drive 30-inch Cinema Display via "Mini DisplayPort to dual-DVI" converter box and is just one tenth in size compared to the regular DVI interconnect. Mini DisplayPort will become part of the upcoming industry-backed DisplayPort 1.2 specification.

Sony Ericsson shows of media tastic phone

Codename Idou, with 12.1Megapixel camera

Despite everyone expecting Samsung to be the first company to announce a 12.1Megapixel camera phone, it turned out that Sony Ericsson managed to beat them to it with the introduction of a handset that is currently going under the code name of Idou.

This handset is quite different from what we've seen from Sony Ericsson in the past and it focuses on the multimedia features more than anything else and as such, it has a 16:9 3.5in touch screen with a somewhat disappointing 640x320 resolution, as this isn't as good as some other recently announced media savvy handsets. It looks like Sony Ericsson has also borrowed the UI, at least in part, from the PS3, although it doesn't show on the pictures below.

This is also the first Sony Ericsson handset based on the Symbian Foundation platform to be officially revealed. Other features include built in WiFi, GPS, a forward facing camera for video calls, a Xenon flash and an M2 memory card slot. As for the rest, we'll just have to wait and see and it's a long wait, as Sony Ericsson has only given a very vague 2H 2009 launch date. If Samsung hurries up, they might be the first to market with a 12.1Megapxiel camera phone at this rate.