Nintendo has cut the price of the DS handheld console in the US by $20, bringing the price down to $130.
The new price kicks in on August 20 at the same time as the Nintendogs virtual pet game that has proved popular in Japan.
There’s no news yet as to whether Nintendo will also cut the price of the DS in Europe to coincide with the release of the Sony PSP.
Nintendo has also revealed more details about the Gameboy Micro, essentially a normal Gameboy in slimline clothing. It will retail for £69 in the UK, and is expected to go for $99 in the USA.
August 17th, 2005
Toshiba claims to be the first manufacturer to bring a product to market featuring Perpendicular Magnetic Recording.
The new 1.8-inch HDD, used primarily in consumer electronics devices, enables up to 10,000 songs or 25,000 photos on a single 40GB platter.
The MK4007GAL HDD 1.8-inch HDD packs 40GB on a single platter - the largest single-platter capacity - yet achieved in the 1.8-inch form factor. This breakthrough technology sets new benchmarks for data density with the highest areal density currently on the market at 206 megabits per square millimeter (133 gigabits per square inch). The 1.8-inch PMR HDD is now shipping in Toshiba’s new Gigabeat F41, enabling the MP3 player to store up to 10,000 songs.
“Toshiba has started an exciting new frontier for the HDD industry by leading the race to achieve this revolutionary technology, which has been the industry’s aim for more than 20 years,” said Scott Maccabe, vice president, Toshiba Storage Device Division. “PMR opens the door to products we haven’t even begun to imagine, by removing the technical barriers inherent to packing more data on an HDD. Providing greater storage capacity on mobile disk drives allows Toshiba to give system OEMs the tools they need for next-generation digital information and entertainment devices.”
The 1.8-inch HDD form factor has been a critical component for consumer electronics products from MP3 players to handheld GPS systems and ultra-portable PCs. To date, Toshiba has shipped more than 14 million 1.8-inch HDDs since its introduction in mid-2000. The addition of PMR technology will increase capacity options for product designs beyond those currently on the market today, especially as Toshiba introduces an 80GB 1.8-inch HDD with PMR later this year.
Toshiba is the first company in the storage industry to commercialize PMR, providing unsurpassed recording density and high-operating reliability on its 1.8-inch HDD platform. The technology is based on a new magnetic disk structured to support perpendicular recording, a new high-performance perpendicular magnetic head, and disk and head integration technology that maximizes their combined performance.
Conventional longitudinal recording stores data on a magnetic disk as microscopic magnet bits aligned in plane. Although advances in magnetic coatings continue to improve data recording densities on HDD, when the densities become too extreme, the magnetic bits repulse each other due to in-plane alignment. Squeezing more bits on to a disk will eventually reach a point in which crowding degrades recorded bit quality. As such, HDD manufacturers face fast-approaching limits on storage capacities.
By standing the magnetic bits on end, perpendicular recording reinforces magnetic coupling between neighboring bits, achieving higher and more stable recording densities and improved storage capacity.
Toshiba is currently shipping the 40GB MK4007GAL to OEM and channel partners. The company plans to apply PMR technology to its 0.85-inch HDD in 2006, increasing capacity to 6GB-8GB per platter and supporting Toshiba’s efforts to pioneer the market for ultra-small form factor drives.
August 17th, 2005
AMD has released a mobile 64 bit processor, the Mobile AMD Athlon 64 4000+, which it is targeting at the power notebook arena, including portable media center PCs.
Fujitsu Siemens and VoodooPC will be the first manufacturers to use the new processor, which enables a powerful computing experience in both 32-bit and 64-bit environments. The Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processor 4000+ also offers Enhanced Virus Protection (EVP), an advanced security feature designed to prevent the spread of certain malicious viruses.
It also features AMD PowerNow! to enable on-the-go computing through extended system battery life and HyperTransport for improved overall system performance. The new mobile processor is compatible with the latest wireless solutions such as wireless LAN 802.11a,b and g.
“Since 2003, AMD has been leading the way to pervasive 64-bit mobile computing, offering open-standard AMD64 technology for a diverse range of high-performance mobile PCs,” said Chris Cloran, director of the Mobile Division for AMD’s Microprocessor Solutions Sector. “The new Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processor 4000+ provides a foundation for building the fastest, most feature-rich 64-bit notebooks available today.”
The Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processor 4000+ is priced at $382 in 1,000-unit quantities and is available immediately.
August 17th, 2005