SanDisk has announced the availability of its Cruzer Contour USB flash drive.What especially sets apart Cruzer Contour, with its glossy black top and silver metallic body, is the drive's unique sliding USB connector. Using a thumb to slide the top of Cruzer Contour back and forth brings out or hides the connector. There's no visible switch, and no cap to lose. Available in 4GB and 8 GB capacities, the Cruzer Contour features a slider that requires nothing more than two flicks of the thumb. Moving the top back and then forward brings out the connector, while moving the top forward and then back pulls in the connector. When Cruzer Contour is connected to a computer, blue LEDs illuminate the word "Cruzer" on the drive's top. Cruzer Contour delivers a write speed of 18 MB/sec, double the performance of SanDisk's previous top-of-the-line retail model. Read speed for Cruzer Contour is two-thirds faster at 25 MB/sec. Cruzer Contour also supports the ReadyBoost feature in Microsoft Windows Vista, which taps unused storage space on USB flash drives to improve system performance.Cruzer Contour offers U3 technology for running applications directly from the drive, without those applications having to be installed on the computer. U3-compatible software provided free with the drive includes the PC phone service Skype, SanDisk's own CruzerSync for synchronizing files between a PC and the drive, the password manager program SignupShield Passwords from Protecteer, and a trial version of anti-virus software. Just for fun, there are two titles from Big Fish Games: Sudoku and Mahjong Towers Eternity. Cruzer Contour provides password protection through U3, backed by AES hardware encryption. With password protection turned on, Cruzer Contour owners have less to worry about if the drive is lost or stolen.SanDisk Cruzer ContourPhoto: Business Wire

Samsung Electronics announced that it has begun mass producing 1.8-inch solid state drives (SSD) in 64GB capacity for mobile computing applications.This 64GB SSD consists of 64 8Gb single-level cell (SLC) flash memory chips, which are fabricated under a 51nm process. Samsung highlighted that the circuitry size of 51nm-made flash is only 1/2500 of the width of a human hair. Besides greater reliability, faster boot times and faster application start-up times than hard disk drives, Samsung said SSD can also improve battery life by up to 20% in notebooks. Company flash marketing director Jim Elliott highlighted that Samsung is seeing sharply increasing interest in SSDs among OEMs worldwide amid a growing push to launch premium SSD-based notebooks, particularly in the ultra-mobile category. Over the next three years, 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SSDs will also gain a great deal of momentum for widespread use in standard notebooks and desktop PCs, respectively, the company noted.Rapid expansion of the 1.8-inch SSD market will spark demand for even smaller SSD formats to be used in mobile consumer electronics. The miniaturization of SSDs will give rise to new types of digital products. Samsung has already introduced 32GB SSDs into ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPCs). Besides PC, the company sees SSD demand also coming from server applications and other digital consumer products such as camcorders, PDAs and printers, which can now be equipped with SSDs ranging from 4GB to 64GB. Samsung expects that sales of SSD units will increase rapidly industry-wide between now and 2010 by 270% to become the largest growth segment in the NAND flash industry. Samsung already shipping 64GB SSD in volumePhoto: Company

Biostar has released its T-Series TF560 A2+ motherboard which supports AMD's upcoming socket AM2+ CPUs. Although socket AM2+ CPUs will not launch until later in the year, the socket is backwards compatible and is able to support both AM2 and AM2+ CPUs, according to the company. The TF560 A2+ adopts the Nvidia nForce 560 media and communications processor (MCPs) which includes support for MediaShield RAID 0, 1, 0+1 or 5 configurations, FirstPacket network optimization technology, and nTune system performance and optimization manager, noted Biostar. The TF560 A2+ will be available in the US on June 29 and in Europe at the beginning of July with a price of US$80, according to the company. Biostar TF560 A2+ specifications Item Description Chipset Nvidia nForce 560 Socket AM2+/AM2 PCI Express x16 1 PCI Express x 1 2 PCI 3 LAN Realtek RTL8110SC - Integrated 10/100/1000 Transceiver SATA 3Gb/s 4 RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 Integrated Audio Realtek ALC888 8+2-Channel HD Audio Source: Company, compiled by Digitimes, June 2007 Biostar TF560 A2+Photo: Company

Albatron Technology, Biostar, and Walton Chaintech have each announced low-cost graphics cards based on Nvidia's new GeForce 8400GS GPU.Positioned to target the entry-level market, the 8400GS-based cards feature 450MHz core speeds and 64-bit 256MB DDR2 video memory. Additionally they support Shader Model 4.0 rendering technology, high-resolution DirectX 10 gaming, Microsoft Windows Vista graphics, and HD DVD and Blu-ray video playback.Walton Chaintech GSV84GSPhoto: CompanyAlbatron 8400GSPhoto: CompanyBiostar Sigma Gate V8402GL26Photo: Company

Nvidia has announced a new class of processors based on a new graphics processing unit (GPU). Under the Nvidia Tesla brand, Nvidia will offer a family products that will place the power previously available only from supercomputers in the hands of every scientist and engineer. Today's workstations will be transformed into personal supercomputers, claimed the company.The Nvidia Tesla product line includes new GPU processors, deskside supercomputers and servers:Nvidia Tesla GPU computing processor, a dedicated computing board that scales to multiple Tesla GPUs inside a single PC or workstation. The Tesla GPU features 128 parallel processors, and delivers up to 518 gigaflops of parallel computation. The GPU computing processor can be used in existing systems partnered with high-performance CPUs.Nvidia Tesla deskside supercomputer, a scalable computing system that includes two Nvidia Tesla GPUs and attaches to a PC or workstation through a PCI Express connection. With multiple deskside systems, a standard PC or workstation is transformed into a personal supercomputer, delivering up to eight teraflops of compute power to the desktop.Nvidia Tesla GPU computing server, a 1U server housing up to eight Nvidia Tesla GPUs, containing more than 1000 parallel processors that add teraflops of parallel processing to clusters.Computing on Nvidia Tesla is now available to any software developer through the world's only C-language development environment for the GPU. Nvidia Cuda is a complete software development solution that includes a C-compiler for the GPU, debugger/profiler, dedicated driver, and standard libraries. Cuda simplifies parallel computing on the GPU by using the standard C language to create programs that process large quantities of data in parallel. Programs written with Cuda and run on Tesla are able to process thousands of threads simultaneously, providing high computational throughput to enable the GPU to quickly solve complex, computational problems. The Nvidia Cuda development environment is currently supported on the Linux and Microsoft Windows XP operating systems, noted the company.Nvidia Tesla productsPhoto: Company

Samsung Electronics has announced its one terabyte (TB) F1 series hard disk drive (HDD), which features the highest recording density in a 3.5-inch HDD using only three disks. The new Serial ATA 3.5-inch F1 series drives are designed to be a large capacity, low power and high performance solution for enterprise applications, personal video recorders, desktop PCs or external storage, said the company.Samsung's F1 drives employ proprietary technologies to achieve low power consumption and high performance. Quiet operation is ensured via Samsung's NoiseGuard and SilentSeek technologies, which reduce overall noise and vibration emanating from the drive, claimed the company, while optimized electronics and power saving modes reduce power consumption and resulting heat dissipation, making the F1 the coolest operating 1TB drive on the market.PMR recording with Samsung's Flying on Demand (FOD) head technology ensures improved recording stability over changing temperature ranges. Samsung's drive offers a higher predicted reliability versus competitive drives that require five disks to achieve similar capacities, noted the company.The F1 series drive features a 334GB per-platter capacity, a 7200-rpm spin speed, a 32MB cache, and up to a 1.2 million-hour MTBF. The F1 series offers high reliability for enterprise requirements and is optimized for RAID applications. It features a SATA 3Gb/s interface with NCQ and additional SATA features. The F1 series offers improved performance with SHOS based firmware, vibration tolerance with a rotational vibration sensor and lower power consumption with an optimized SOC.Samsung's SpinPoint F1 series is currently shipping with a US$399 MSRP.

OCZ Technology Group has announced its PC2-6400 Platinum Vista Performance Edition 4GB (2x2048MB) dual-channel kit. These new modules feature enhanced timings for gamers transitioning their high-performance systems to Windows Vista, noted the company.For enthusiasts shifting to Vista and who need the performance of high speed memory, the PC2-6400 Platinum 4GB kit is the ideal upgrade from the standard 2GB of RAM, according to OCZ, adding that the OCZ PC-6400 Vista Performance series was developed to provide a superior computing experience that ensures the best possible gaming and productivity on Vista systems.As part of OCZ's Platinum series, the PC2-6400 4GB modules run at 800MHz with 5-4-4 timings, according to the company.OCZ Technology's PC2-6400 Platinum Vista Performance Edition 4GB (2x2048MB) dual-channel kitPhoto: Company

Seagate Technology announced its Cheetah NS hard drive, developed for mission-critical enterprise network storage applications with low power consumption requirements.Leveraged from the same platform as the 15K-rpm Cheetah 15K.5, the Cheetah NS is a new 10K-rpm hard drive that delivers best-in-class capacity, energy savings and performance when compared to standard 3.5-inch form factor 10K-rpm enterprise drives, according to Seagate.The Cheetah NS features up to 33% more capacity at 400GB along with a 33% reduction in power and cooling requirements, stated the company. This additional capacity and reduced cooling profile in the data center means that the Cheetah NS ultimately delivers the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) for a wide range of mission-critical enterprise network storage applications, said Segate.The Cheetah NS delivers higher IOPS performance when compared with standard 10K-rpm drives, according to Segate, noting that with a seek time of 3.9ms, and operating at 10K-rpm, random performance is increased by 10% while sequential performance is improved by as much as 23%. The Cheetah NS is also available in the most advanced interfaces, 3Gb/sec Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or 4Gb/sec Fibre Channel, noted the company.Seagate's PowerTrim technology is a set of proprietary features that together reduce the Cheetah NS drive's overall power consumption in the enterprise, said Seagate, adding that using PowerTrim technology, the Cheetah NS helps energy-constrained data centers maximize efficiency with power consumption rated as low as eight watts, resulting in a drive that delivers a best-in-class 34% reduction of power at idle as well as a 33% reduction in operating power compared to other standard 10K drives.Designed for the demanding workloads of the enterprise, the Cheetah NS is rated with a mean time between failure (MTBF) of 1.4 million hours and is backed by Seagate's trusted five-year warranty. Seagate is now shipping the Cheetah NS to leading OEM customers. The Cheetah NS is expected to be available to the worldwide distribution channel during the third quarter of 2007.Seagate's Cheetah NS network hard drivePhoto: Company

Thermaltake Technologies recently announced the addition of its NBcool series of coolers to its notebook cooler offerings. The T500, T1000 series of the NBcool line support up to 15-inch notebooks and use fans ranging from 70mm to 120mm to provide the best cooling with efficiency and silence improving performance of the notebook, according to the company.Thermaltake's NBCool T500 is black accented with racing inspired lines, noted Thermaltake, adding that cooling on the T500 is accomplished with two 80mm fans that produce little noise.The NBCool T1000 utilizes one 120mm LED fan operating at low speed for silence and emits a cool blue light for visual effect, stated Thermaltake.The NBCool T2000 is only half the size of the T1000 but works just as well with two 70mm fans blowing onto the notebook and also elevating the notebook to increase air flow and discharge heat from the bottom of the notebook, said the company.The NBCool series is powered through the USB port of the computer, reducing the need to carry around any bulky AC adapters, noted Thermaltake. The ergonomic design of the series lets the wrist align naturally when typing and increases comfort to the user, according to the company.The Thermaltake NBcool T2000 notebook coolerPhoto: Company

Following Asustek Computer's step into the PSU (power supply unit) market, Gigabyte Technology is also preparing to cut into the market this year, according to sources at Gigabyte.Although the PSU market is getting mature, recent rapid increases in PC performance have raised the demand for high wattage PSUs accordingly, noted the sources. Gigabyte is optimistic over the future of the PSU market, they added.Gigabyte has shipped six new PSUs; Gigabyte Odin GT in 800W, 680W and 550W versions, and Odin Pro in 800W, 680W and 550W in the channel market, and will launch the 1200W Thor series in the near future. The Odin GT series includes P-Tuner monitoring software to allow users to check the total and peak watt usage of the PSUs, added the sources.Gigabyte Odin GT seriesPhoto: CompanyGigabyte Odin Pro seriesPhoto: Company