Samsung Electronics has begun shipping a flash memory-based solid state disk drive (SSD) that offers better performance than many of the flash drives currently available, the company said.
The 64G byte drive has a SATA II interface that can support data reading at speeds of 100M Bps (bytes per second) and writing at 80M Bps. That makes it 60 percent faster than SATA I drives of the same type and two to five times faster than conventional hard-disk drives, according to Samsung.
SSDs use flash memory rather than magnetic storage, which means faster reading and writing of data, lower power consumption and zero noise. They've been around for several years although it is only recently, after flash memory chip prices fell, that they have become practical for use in laptop computers.
The drives were announced back in November when Samsung started supply samples of the drives to PC makers. Commercial versions of the drive are now available and will be offered as options on some Dell and Alienware laptops in the coming weeks, said Samsung. Prices were not announced.
Samsung is also planning to target the enterprise server market and other applications that demand high-speed data transfer.
Despite their advantages over hard-disk drives, SSDs are only taking off slowly because they are much more expensive. To get around this problem Samsung showed a 128G-byte SSD based on MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash, at the recent International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It's a cheaper but not as powerful or efficient version of flash chip than the SLC (single level cell) used in most SSDs drives until now. The SLC-type memory chips last about 10 times as long as MLC chips.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Sony hits greenhouse gas emission cuts target early
Sony is beating its own target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and will begin promoting a sustainable lifestyle to consumers through its products, its chief executive said Friday.
On this topic
Green Grid lays out ambitious action program
Tech CEOs push for green computing
Greenpeace applauds MacBook Air
Deploying Residential Wi-Fi Wireless LANs: RF Repeaters for Coverage and Reliability
Get practical tips, IT news, how-tos, and the best in tech humor.
"Sony alone has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 9 percent to date, exceeding our original target of a 7 percent reduction by 2010," said Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony, at the World Wide Fund for Nature's (WWF) Climate Savers conference in Tokyo. The conference was held at Sony's new headquarters in Tokyo, which itself has helped the company to achieve its goal. Greenhouse gas emissions from the building are 40 percent lower than at equivalent conventional buildings.
Sony is one of 12 companies that has joined the WWF's Climate Savers initiative, under which they pledge to an aggressive cut in greenhouse gas emissions. Tech companies Hewlett-Packard and Nokia are also members as are Allianz, Catalyst, Collins Companies, Nike, Novo Nordisk, Sagawa Express, Spitsbergen Travel, Tetra Pak and Xanterra Parks and Resorts.
At the conference the companies signed a declaration that recommitted themselves to action and expanded their work to include partnering with business partners to further cut emissions, the promotion of a low-carbon lifestyle to their customers and greater transparency of their carbon footprint and environmental activities.
"For Sony this means we will proactively look to expand our emissions reductions beyond our sites to include logistics and other parts of our business," said Stringer. "We must also continue to improve the energy efficiency of our products, particularly televisions which consume the most energy of all our home electronics products. Yet while the trend is towards larger screens and more sophisticated functions that inevitably consume more power Sony's televisions are already among the industry leaders in terms of energy efficiency."
Stringer said Sony expects the operating power of electronics products to be reduced to half their existing levels in a few years.
"I am confident that our engineers can meet these expectations," he said.
And just as the company has created products like the Walkman Stringer said Sony will now look to promote and help people adopt sustainable lifestyles through its products.
For companies like Sony one of the greatest inefficiencies in their products comes from the standby power that is consumed continuously when the device is not in use. It's not a great deal of power per product but the number of such devices has multiplied in recent years so the total amount of energy used in this way is now becoming quite large.
"Standby power is a huge and growing share of electricity use because those things are plugged in 24/7 but nobody when they buy a computer buys it based on its efficiency in using standby power," said James Leape , director general of WWF International, at a Tokyo news conference. "You're thinking about a hundred other things when you buy your computer and so the market doesn't work. And so standards are crucial and the industry can lead on that by defining norms but its a place where government action can be quite important."
Many of the largest PC makers have joined together under the banner of the Climate Savers computing initiative and have pledged to reduce power consumption of computers by 50 percent by 2010. The companies plan to highlight some of their advances and technologies at the Cebit exhibition that will take place in Germany in March.
Energy use by IT equipment is growing fast. The recently published report, "An Inefficient Truth," found about 10 percent of energy consumption in the U.K. is by IT equipment -- equivalent to the output of four nuclear power stations.
On this topic
Green Grid lays out ambitious action program
Tech CEOs push for green computing
Greenpeace applauds MacBook Air
Deploying Residential Wi-Fi Wireless LANs: RF Repeaters for Coverage and Reliability
Get practical tips, IT news, how-tos, and the best in tech humor.
"Sony alone has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 9 percent to date, exceeding our original target of a 7 percent reduction by 2010," said Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony, at the World Wide Fund for Nature's (WWF) Climate Savers conference in Tokyo. The conference was held at Sony's new headquarters in Tokyo, which itself has helped the company to achieve its goal. Greenhouse gas emissions from the building are 40 percent lower than at equivalent conventional buildings.
Sony is one of 12 companies that has joined the WWF's Climate Savers initiative, under which they pledge to an aggressive cut in greenhouse gas emissions. Tech companies Hewlett-Packard and Nokia are also members as are Allianz, Catalyst, Collins Companies, Nike, Novo Nordisk, Sagawa Express, Spitsbergen Travel, Tetra Pak and Xanterra Parks and Resorts.
At the conference the companies signed a declaration that recommitted themselves to action and expanded their work to include partnering with business partners to further cut emissions, the promotion of a low-carbon lifestyle to their customers and greater transparency of their carbon footprint and environmental activities.
"For Sony this means we will proactively look to expand our emissions reductions beyond our sites to include logistics and other parts of our business," said Stringer. "We must also continue to improve the energy efficiency of our products, particularly televisions which consume the most energy of all our home electronics products. Yet while the trend is towards larger screens and more sophisticated functions that inevitably consume more power Sony's televisions are already among the industry leaders in terms of energy efficiency."
Stringer said Sony expects the operating power of electronics products to be reduced to half their existing levels in a few years.
"I am confident that our engineers can meet these expectations," he said.
And just as the company has created products like the Walkman Stringer said Sony will now look to promote and help people adopt sustainable lifestyles through its products.
For companies like Sony one of the greatest inefficiencies in their products comes from the standby power that is consumed continuously when the device is not in use. It's not a great deal of power per product but the number of such devices has multiplied in recent years so the total amount of energy used in this way is now becoming quite large.
"Standby power is a huge and growing share of electricity use because those things are plugged in 24/7 but nobody when they buy a computer buys it based on its efficiency in using standby power," said James Leape , director general of WWF International, at a Tokyo news conference. "You're thinking about a hundred other things when you buy your computer and so the market doesn't work. And so standards are crucial and the industry can lead on that by defining norms but its a place where government action can be quite important."
Many of the largest PC makers have joined together under the banner of the Climate Savers computing initiative and have pledged to reduce power consumption of computers by 50 percent by 2010. The companies plan to highlight some of their advances and technologies at the Cebit exhibition that will take place in Germany in March.
Energy use by IT equipment is growing fast. The recently published report, "An Inefficient Truth," found about 10 percent of energy consumption in the U.K. is by IT equipment -- equivalent to the output of four nuclear power stations.
Report: Toshiba halts HD DVD production, mulling future
Toshiba has halted production of HD DVD players and recorders and is close to making a decision on whether to throw in the towel on the high-definition movie disc format, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported Saturday evening.
he decision, which NHK said will likely cost the company several tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars), is being made in the face of flagging support by movie studios and major U.S. retailers.
"We are making considerations following the impact on sales of Warner's announcement but we haven't made any decision," said Keisuke Ohmori, a spokesman for Toshiba, when reached on Saturday evening. He was referring to the January decision by Warner Bros to stop issuing movies on HD DVD and go solely with Blu-ray Disc.
Other local media reports on Saturday said an official announcement from Toshiba is likely in the coming week.
HD DVD has been battling Blu-ray Disc for just under two years to become the defacto replacement for DVD for high-definition video. HD DVD is backed by Toshiba and a handful of other companies including Microsoft and Intel but Blu-ray Disc counted a larger number of consumer electronics heavy hitters. The main backer of the format is Sony and other supporters include Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung, LG and Philips.
Both formats delivered a similar audio and video quality and the main difference comes down to the movies available on each format. Most movie studios have taken one side or the other so consumers are left with a difficult decision. As a result many have walked away from stores with neither an HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc player and the market has performed poorly.
The Warner Bros decision in January has been seen by many as the beginning of the end for HD DVD. With Warner pulling out HD DVD only two of the major Hollywood studios, Paramount and Universal, are left backing the format.
In the weeks since the Warner announcement things have gotten worse for HD DVD. In the last week Netflix, an Internet-based movie rental company in the U.S., said it would cease supporting HD DVD and then on Friday Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the U.S., said it would stop selling HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray Disc.
he decision, which NHK said will likely cost the company several tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars), is being made in the face of flagging support by movie studios and major U.S. retailers.
"We are making considerations following the impact on sales of Warner's announcement but we haven't made any decision," said Keisuke Ohmori, a spokesman for Toshiba, when reached on Saturday evening. He was referring to the January decision by Warner Bros to stop issuing movies on HD DVD and go solely with Blu-ray Disc.
Other local media reports on Saturday said an official announcement from Toshiba is likely in the coming week.
HD DVD has been battling Blu-ray Disc for just under two years to become the defacto replacement for DVD for high-definition video. HD DVD is backed by Toshiba and a handful of other companies including Microsoft and Intel but Blu-ray Disc counted a larger number of consumer electronics heavy hitters. The main backer of the format is Sony and other supporters include Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung, LG and Philips.
Both formats delivered a similar audio and video quality and the main difference comes down to the movies available on each format. Most movie studios have taken one side or the other so consumers are left with a difficult decision. As a result many have walked away from stores with neither an HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc player and the market has performed poorly.
The Warner Bros decision in January has been seen by many as the beginning of the end for HD DVD. With Warner pulling out HD DVD only two of the major Hollywood studios, Paramount and Universal, are left backing the format.
In the weeks since the Warner announcement things have gotten worse for HD DVD. In the last week Netflix, an Internet-based movie rental company in the U.S., said it would cease supporting HD DVD and then on Friday Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the U.S., said it would stop selling HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray Disc.
Microsoft offers patent protection for Office binaries
Microsoft on Friday said it has added Office binary formats to a list of technologies that are protected against patent-violation claims, answering criticism from some involved in the Office Open XML (OOXML) file-format standards process.
The OOXML format is being considered as an international standard by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization), but translation between the original Office binaries and OOXML is necessary for there to be seamless document exchange between older versions of Office and Office 2007. Corporate developers and makers of other office productivity products need access to the formats in order to write converters between Microsoft's format and the possible standard.
Microsoft has listed binary file format specifications for Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- that is, .doc, .xls and .ppt -- under the Open Specification Promise (OSP). These file formats are the defaults in pre-Office 2007 versions of Office; Office 2007 was the first version to use OOXML as its default file format.
Microsoft published the OSP in September 2006 as a promise that it would not take any patent-enforcement action against people who want access to the specs for technologies it has developed. Since then Microsoft has been periodically adding to the list of OSP-protected specs, which can be found on the company's Web site. In a press statement, Microsoft said that adding the Office binaries to the list is to "promote interoperability between the binaries and Open XML, and make Office Open XML accessible to an ever-wider group of users and developers."
The move came out of discussion in the ISO around OOXML, as national standards bodies requested more open access to the Office binaries, said Brian Jones, an Office program manager, in a posting on a company blog last month.
According to Jones, the specs for the binaries already had been available royalty-free via e-mail to anyone who requested them, as outlined in an article in Microsoft's Knowledge Base. But since the national bodies were concerned with the steps someone had to take to get access to the binary formats, Microsoft -- working with an Ecma International technical committee, Ecma TC45 -- decided to make it easier for people to get them, he said.
Microsoft has been working to fast-track OOXML through the ISO approval process through Ecma, another international standards body, since November 2005. Ecma approved OOXML in December 2006, but approval by the ISO has been more problematic. A final vote on ISO is expected in March after an ISO ballot resolution meeting for the OOXML format, scheduled for Feb. 25-29.
To help companies build connectors between the binaries and OOXML, Microsoft on Friday also went live with an open-source project on SourceForge to create software tools, guidance and show how a document written using the binary formats can be translated to the current ISO spec for OOXML, ISO/IEC DIS 29500. The resulting translators will be available under the open-source Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, and members of the community are free to use the translators, submit bugs and feedback, or contribute to the project as they wish, Microsoft said.
Translators already exist between the Office binary formats and OOXML's rival file format, Open Document Format (ODF), which already is an approved ISO standard. For example, the Sun ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Office enables conversion between Microsoft Office documents to and from ODF.
The OOXML format is being considered as an international standard by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization), but translation between the original Office binaries and OOXML is necessary for there to be seamless document exchange between older versions of Office and Office 2007. Corporate developers and makers of other office productivity products need access to the formats in order to write converters between Microsoft's format and the possible standard.
Microsoft has listed binary file format specifications for Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- that is, .doc, .xls and .ppt -- under the Open Specification Promise (OSP). These file formats are the defaults in pre-Office 2007 versions of Office; Office 2007 was the first version to use OOXML as its default file format.
Microsoft published the OSP in September 2006 as a promise that it would not take any patent-enforcement action against people who want access to the specs for technologies it has developed. Since then Microsoft has been periodically adding to the list of OSP-protected specs, which can be found on the company's Web site. In a press statement, Microsoft said that adding the Office binaries to the list is to "promote interoperability between the binaries and Open XML, and make Office Open XML accessible to an ever-wider group of users and developers."
The move came out of discussion in the ISO around OOXML, as national standards bodies requested more open access to the Office binaries, said Brian Jones, an Office program manager, in a posting on a company blog last month.
According to Jones, the specs for the binaries already had been available royalty-free via e-mail to anyone who requested them, as outlined in an article in Microsoft's Knowledge Base. But since the national bodies were concerned with the steps someone had to take to get access to the binary formats, Microsoft -- working with an Ecma International technical committee, Ecma TC45 -- decided to make it easier for people to get them, he said.
Microsoft has been working to fast-track OOXML through the ISO approval process through Ecma, another international standards body, since November 2005. Ecma approved OOXML in December 2006, but approval by the ISO has been more problematic. A final vote on ISO is expected in March after an ISO ballot resolution meeting for the OOXML format, scheduled for Feb. 25-29.
To help companies build connectors between the binaries and OOXML, Microsoft on Friday also went live with an open-source project on SourceForge to create software tools, guidance and show how a document written using the binary formats can be translated to the current ISO spec for OOXML, ISO/IEC DIS 29500. The resulting translators will be available under the open-source Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, and members of the community are free to use the translators, submit bugs and feedback, or contribute to the project as they wish, Microsoft said.
Translators already exist between the Office binary formats and OOXML's rival file format, Open Document Format (ODF), which already is an approved ISO standard. For example, the Sun ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Office enables conversion between Microsoft Office documents to and from ODF.
Amazon's S3 storage service down for several hours
Amazon's data storage service was down for several hours on Friday morning, leaving businesses that rely on the service offline.
As of around 9 a.m. on the West Coast of the U.S., the issue had been resolved, according to an Amazon employee posting on a user group forum. "This morning's issue has been resolved and the system is continuing to recover," wrote Kathrin, the Amazon employee, on the forum.
She said that the company plans to post technical information about what exactly happened, but that the priority is to make sure the system is stable.
Companies use Amazon's Simple Storage Service, known as S3, to store and quickly retrieve large amounts of data, often to run Web sites and services.
A press spokesman said that one of three geographic locations for the service was unreachable for about two hours, but that it was operating at 99 percent of normal performance before 7 a.m. on the West Coast. "We've been communicating with our customers all morning via our support forums and will be providing additional information as soon as we have it," said Drew Herdener in a statement.
Many customers appeared not to have gotten that communication. They complained on the forum about a lack of information from Amazon about the outage and when it would be fixed. One suggested that Amazon could have at least posted a message on the front page of the Web services site, so that customers would be aware that the problem wasn't on their end.
Others wrote about the problems that the outage was causing their businesses. "It's becoming very embarrassing for us here," one wrote. "We desperately need an update... it's a huge hit on our reputation."
Many of the users said that the service was down for around three hours.
Gustavo, a user in Brazil, said that his company hosts more than 30,000 images from a large television station in Brazil. "Now we are having several problems because of this S3 issue," he wrote. "My company chose to work with Amazon because of its reliability."
Late last year, Amazon introduced a new service level agreement for S3 that guaranteed 99.9 percent uptime each month. If the service slips below that level, the company promised to provide service credits to certain users.
As of around 9 a.m. on the West Coast of the U.S., the issue had been resolved, according to an Amazon employee posting on a user group forum. "This morning's issue has been resolved and the system is continuing to recover," wrote Kathrin, the Amazon employee, on the forum.
She said that the company plans to post technical information about what exactly happened, but that the priority is to make sure the system is stable.
Companies use Amazon's Simple Storage Service, known as S3, to store and quickly retrieve large amounts of data, often to run Web sites and services.
A press spokesman said that one of three geographic locations for the service was unreachable for about two hours, but that it was operating at 99 percent of normal performance before 7 a.m. on the West Coast. "We've been communicating with our customers all morning via our support forums and will be providing additional information as soon as we have it," said Drew Herdener in a statement.
Many customers appeared not to have gotten that communication. They complained on the forum about a lack of information from Amazon about the outage and when it would be fixed. One suggested that Amazon could have at least posted a message on the front page of the Web services site, so that customers would be aware that the problem wasn't on their end.
Others wrote about the problems that the outage was causing their businesses. "It's becoming very embarrassing for us here," one wrote. "We desperately need an update... it's a huge hit on our reputation."
Many of the users said that the service was down for around three hours.
Gustavo, a user in Brazil, said that his company hosts more than 30,000 images from a large television station in Brazil. "Now we are having several problems because of this S3 issue," he wrote. "My company chose to work with Amazon because of its reliability."
Late last year, Amazon introduced a new service level agreement for S3 that guaranteed 99.9 percent uptime each month. If the service slips below that level, the company promised to provide service credits to certain users.
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