Western Digital (WD) on August 22 unveiled two new models of its VelociRaptor hard drive series, the WD3000HLFS (with a storage capacity of 300GB) and the WD1500HLFS (150GB), for immediate launch in the Taiwan market at recommended retail prices of NT$9,999 (US$319) and NT$6,999 respectively, according to WD Taiwan.The two hard drives feature a SATA 3Gb/s interface, 16MB cache, 10,000-rpm spindle speed as well as the WD-developed heat-dispersing technology IcePack that encloses a 2.5-inch drive chassis in a backplane-ready 3.5-inch enterprise-class mounting frame with built-in heat sink, WD Taiwan indicated.Western Digital's new VelociRaptor hard drivePhoto: Company

Micro-Star International (MSI) recently showcased a self-developed robot, the TGR-W1, at the Taipei International Robot Show. The company said it is also planning to launch an entertainment-based robot at a later time.MSI said the basic cost of constructing the TGR-W1 starts at around NT$1 million (US$32,000) and the company is planning to start offering a customization service, meaning final pricing will depend on the size and type of individual orders. The robot was mainly designed for the service industries, to greet guests and act as a tour guide.MSI is also planning to launch a home entertainment and security robot, the 101-C, between the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009.The 101-C will initially be sold through IT channels and MSI is considering offering it on an ODM or white-box basis. Since the 101-C targets the consumer market, its price will be set between US$599-699.MSI's TGR-W1 robot is designed to greet guests and act as a tour guidePhoto: Ninelu Tu, Digitimes, August 2008MSI's 101-C robot is designed for home entertainment and interactivityPhoto: Ninelu Tu, Digitimes, August 2008

Japan-based Buffalo, on August 20, debuted the HD-CEU2, its series of 3.5-inch external hard disk drives, which will launch in the Taiwan market in late August 2008, according to its Taiwan subsidiary Buffalo Technology (Taiwan).HD-CEU2 features power saving through the automatic detection of a connected PCs power-supply status, support for Buffalo-developed TurboUSB technology and a high data transfer rate of 38MB/second, and will be available in five storage capacities of 320GB, 500GB, 640GB, 750GB and 1TB, Buffalo Technology indicated.

Forworld Electronics, a Taiwan-based maker of optical disc players, is selling a self-produced Blu-ray Disc (BD) player under its own brand Pony in the Taiwan market at NT$9,990 (US$319), much lower than prices for BD players offered by Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer and Samsung, according to the Chinese-language newspaper Economic Daily News (EDN).Forworld uses Sony-produced loaders and SigmaTel-made chipsets for the player, EDN pointed out. In order to further reduce production costs, other Taiwan-based makers plan to use loaders for BD-ROM drives produced by Lite-On IT and chipsets produced by MediaTek to produce white-box BD players, EDN indicated.

At the ongoing Intel Developer Forum (IDF) (August 19-21) in San Francisco, Hynix Semiconductor announced that it is using MetaRAM's new DDR3 technology in its next generation R-DIMMs, including the world's first 16GB 2-rank DIMM (HMT32GR7AER4C-GD. The new 16GB and 8GB (HMT31GR7AER4C-GC) 2-rank DIMMs can triple DDR3 memory capacity in servers and workstations, enabling the world's highest memory capacity per channel without degrading performance, the company noted.Intel will demonstrate the world's first 16GB 2-rank DIMM from Hynix, using the MetaRAM DDR3 chipset at IDF. Intel will also demonstrate a server with 160GB using Hynix DDR3 R-DIMMs and Meta SDRAM technology, Hynix said.DDR3 MetaRAM is similar to the previous generations of DDR2 technology that enable significantly more memory in a server. An added benefit of the DDR3 MetaRAM technology is that enables larger memory capacity without negatively impacting the operating frequency of the DDR3 memory channel. It is the only technology that has been demonstrated to run 24GB of DDR3 SDRAM in a channel at 1066 million transactions per-second (MT/s). Using 3 of 16GB DIMM, users can achieve 48GB per channel running at 1066 MT/s, while other competing solutions max out at 16GB per channel at 1066MT/s.Along with its earlier DDR2 technology, the DDR3 MetaRAM technology enables Hynix to introduce cost-effective, high capacity R-DIMMs by using mainstream 1Gb DRAMs.Hynix 16GB DDR3 R DIMM using MetaRAM technologyPhoto: Business Wire

Arbor has launched the Gladius G0710 full-featured tablet PC which has passed IP-54 certification and met the Military Standard 810F tests for vibration, crash shock and transit drop, according to the company. The PC features an Intel Atom CPU.The G0710 comes with a 7-inch sunlight-readable LCD touch screen supporting a resolution of 1024×600. The G0710 is equipped with 2-megapixel CCD camera, microphone, Bluetooth module and Gb LAN. In addition, the G0710 provides one serial port and two USB 2.0 ports for expansion, eight function keys for operation, one 1.8-inch hard disk drive and 1-4G USB DOM for storage.Arbor Gladius G0710 tablet PCPhoto: Company

VIA Technologies announced the Epia N700 Nano-ITX board, designed as a complete solution for compact industrial PC and embedded automation devices. Featuring a 1.5GHz VIA C7 or 500MHz VIA Eden processor, the VIA Epia N700 is the first Nano-ITX board to feature the latest VIA VX800 media system processor, offering system designers a balance of miniaturization and uncompromising functionality.The VIA Epia N700 uses additional onboard ports to make system design of compact PCs easier; two S-ATA ports, a Gigabit LAN port, a COM port, two USB 2.0 ports and a VGA port are provided, with additional COM, LVDS and IDE support available through onboard pin-headers. With the VX800 offering an integrated DirectX 9 graphics core and excellent hardware accelerated video playback, this compact, low heat, power-efficient board is the ultimate solution for designing low heat, compact systems.The addition of onboard VGA, USB, COM and Gigabit network ports on this compact board helps to reduce cluttered cabling, adding improved air-flow for enhanced stability in always-on systems and a further reduced system foot-print. The VIA Epia N700 requires only a single 4-pin power cable, which can save space, while the external CMOS battery allows flexible, efficient placement within the chassis.The VIA Epia N700 is equipped with the latest VIA VX800 media system processor, an all-in-one, highly integrated digital media IGP (integrated graphics processor) chipset featuring the latest video, graphics and connectivity performance in a single chip. Measuring just 33x33mm, the VIA VX800 features an integrated VIA Chrome 9 graphics core with full DirectX 9 support and the VIA Chromotion video engine.Security can be augmented by enabling the VIA PadLock Security Engine, a hardware based security technology that provides the latest military-grade encryption and protection with the world's fastest x86 security engine.The VIA Epia N700 board is available now for developers, and will be available through authorized distributors by mid-September. VIA EPIA N700 Nano-ITX board specifications Item Detail Model VIA Epia N700-15 VIA Epia N700-05E Processor 1.5GHz VIA C7 processor 500MHz VIA Eden ULV processor Chipset VIA VX800 unified digital media IGP chipset System memory 1 x DDR2 533/667 SODIMM socket Up to 2GB memory size VGA Integrated VIA Chrome 9 Expansion slots 1 x Mini PCI slot Onboard IDE 1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66/33 pin header (2.0mm/44P) Onboard LAN 1 x VIA VT6130 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet controller Onboard audio 1 x VIA VT1708B high definition audio codec Onboard I/O connectors 3 x serial port headers (RS-232) with one 5V/12V select jumper 2 x SATA port connectors 2 x fan connectors for CPU and system fans 1 x USB pin header for 2 additional USB 2.0 ports 1 x LVDS connector, for 24-bit dual channel LVDS panel 1 x backlight control connector for inverter power and brightness control 1 x CF (Compact Flash) type I connector (shared with IDE) 1 x SMBus pin header 1 x SPI pin header 1 x digital I/O pin header 1 x KB/MS pin header 1 x front audio pin header 1 x front panel pin header 1 x system temperature reading pin header 2 x +5V power header for 2.5'' SATA HDD 1 x +12V power connector 1 x power mode select connector Back panel I/O 1 x serial port with RS232/422/485 support 1 x VGA port 1 x RJ-45 LAN port 2 x USB 2.0 ports Operating system Windows XP, Linux, Win CE, XPe System monitoring & management CPU voltage monitoring, system temperature reading, fan speed monitor wake-on LAN, keyboard power-on, timer power-on, watch dog timer system power management, AC power failure recovery Form factor Nano-ITX (12 cm x 12 cm) Source: Company, compiled by Digitimes, August 2008VIA Epia N700 Nano-ITX boardPhoto: Company

Micron Technology announced introduction of its latest e-MMC embedded devices in 32GB of memory density, which are composed of 34nm multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash chips. Customer samplings are expected in late August with mass production expected in the second half of 2008.Micron highlighted that it greatly simplified its e-MMC system design by removing the requirements of the host memory controller to support NAND software drivers and complex NAND management techniques, including error correction code (ECC), wear leveling, and bad block management – replacing all of this complexity with a simple and ubiquitous MMC interface.In addition to the impressive storage and feature options, Micron is providing e-MMC products qualified at extended temperatures, which makes them ideal for in-dash applications like navigation systems and other automotive applications that require a more robust operating range. Further, the JEDEC-standard interface minimizes the need for host software to accommodate process node migrations."Ultimately, because Micron manufactures NAND, we are able to capitalize on our outstanding process technology, well-established IP, and a deep commitment to forwarding NAND memory to bring products like this to market. In fact, we also have the capability to pair e-MMC devices with low-power DRAM in multi-chip packages (MCPs). Ultimately, our recent move to the 34nm process was a major accomplishment and these product lines directly benefit from that innovation," said Graham Robinson, director of segment marketing at Micron.

Lanner Electronics has announced the launch of the FW-7570 network appliance, a high-performance compact rackmount appliance built on the Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor with QuickAssist Technology system-on-chip (SoC). The system is designed as a platform for a wide range of network communication applications such as gateway security, antivirus, anti-spam, load balancing and unified threat management, highlighted the company.At the core of FW-7570 is a 1.2GHz Intel SoC, which provides improved efficiency and lower power consumption as well as a smaller footprint, and includes an onboard encryption engine that offloads security functions from the core, further reducing the load on CPU resources."Intel's integration of security accelerators in their new SoC has provided Lanner with excellent performance and power efficiency versus multi-chip solutions for our latest FW-7570 security appliance, providing many capabilities such as bulk encryption, hashing and public/private key generation," said Will Chen, CTO, Lanner.The Lanner FW-7570 supports up to eight Gigabit networking ports, two DDR2 sockets to support up to 4GB of memory, and one 3.5-inch or two 2.5-inch SATA drive bays. It also comes equipped with multiple I/O interfaces and expansion slots including PCIe, mini-PCI, two USB 2.0 ports and one RJ45 administration console port.The FW-7570 is available today, further product information is available at the Lanner website.Lanner FW-7570 network appliancePhoto: Company

AMD announced its latest high-end ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, delivering 2.4 teraflops of processing power. Also announced today is the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 graphics card.These cards comprise the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series, combining two ATI Radeon HD 4800 series GPUs (graphics processing units) with a more advanced cross-GPU connection based on the PCIe 2.0 standard, plus two gigabytes of memory.Based on an advanced 55nm design and DirectX 10.1 support, the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series delivers engineering elegance and the industry's most compelling feature set. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is immediately available from vendors worldwide priced at US$549, while the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 is scheduled to be available in September at an estimated price of US$399.The ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series provides support for ATI CrossFireX. Enthusiast gamers can now run the most demanding games smoothly in at the highest settings, enabling modes that were not playable before. With the efficient use of all four GPUs in a dual ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossFireX configuration, gamers will enjoy more than 3 times the performance of a single ATI Radeon HD 4870 card in many games.The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 features 2GB ultra-high bandwidth GDDR5 memory and clocked at 750 MHz, with a combined 1600 stream processors.Setting a new performance standard in graphics cards priced under US$400, the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 provides the power to play today's most demanding titles at ultra-high settings. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 features 1600 stream processors, and two GPUs clocked at 625MHz. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 features 2GB of GDDR3 memory.Asustek EAH4870X2 series graphics card with ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 GPUPhoto: CompanyGigabyte GV-R487X2-2GH-B graphics card powered by ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 GPUPhoto: CompanyGeCube GC-HD4870X2-G3 graphics card with ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 GPUPhoto: Company