Storage giants form hybrid drive club

With Flash memory continuing to fall in price and increase in density, the future looks good for hybrid drives. Fujitsu, Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate and Toshiba certainly think so, announcing the formation of the Hybrid Storage Alliance. This is intended to 'promote and educated industry enablers and influencers about the benefits and advantages of Hybrid HDDs', according to the Alliance's website, which can be found at www. ...more

FSP launches cool kit with hot looks

Aimed at those concerned with keeping their PCs cool and quiet, the FSP Group has announced the UK availability of its 'Cooling Kit'. For the colour conscious, the Cooling Kit consists of a 400W power supply (Maximum output 450W) with a dual colour coating (blue and yellow), a golden coloured fan guard and the FSP 120mm fan, which is illuminated with red, green and blue LED's. There are also two 80mm system fans available, for both Intel and AMD compatibility - the kits support Intel P4s up to 3. ...more

FairUse4WM crackers threaten Microsoft DRM defence

No sooner had Microsoft closed a hole in its PlaysForSure DRM technology than the FairUse4WM crackers opened another one. Last week Microsoft issued a patch to PlaysForSure clients, such as Napster, to disable the ability of the FairUse4WM software to strip the DRM from music files. Inevitably the release of the patch prompted a swift response - a new hack was released which not only works round the Microsoft update but includes additional DRM-stripping features into the bargain. ...more

Orange and 3 bring TV to 3G mobiles

TV broadcast to mobiles has arrived in the UK, as Orange and 3 launch new channels. Big Brother is the flagship product that the operators hope will win them a new audience for their TV channels. Due to start within a week or so, the annual excruciating insight into the lives of the dull and desperate will be available 24/7 on 3G phones running the new TV services. ...more

Optical discs face obsolescence

Research from Forrester predicts that online entertainment services will cut hard into revenues from physical media from 2005. 'On-demand services are the future of entertainment delivery. CDs, DVDs, and any other forms of physical media will become obsolete,' said Josh Bernoff, principal analyst at Forrester. ...more