DDRdrive releases superfast, superexpensive SSD

You've heard that solid-state drives, such as the Intel X-25M, are significantly faster than traditional hard drives. However, they are still nowhere near as fast as the DDRdrive X1 introduced on Monday. This is the first storage device I've seen that comes in the form of an expansion card. At a glance, it looks very much like a video card or a modem and it is compatible with any PCIe expansion slot.

Unlike other SSDs that use a flash memory called NAND, the X1 uses two types of memory: NAND and DRAM. The latter is commonly used as system memory. DRAM (or RAM in generally) is very fast. However, information stored in RAM is volatile and destroyed when the computer is powered off. This is where the NAND part of the X1 comes into play by retaining the information when the computer is not in operation.

The drive has the same amount of DRAM as it has of NAND, which is only 4GB. This combination is designed for optimum input/output operations per second and, according to DDRdrive, the X1 indeed offers superfast performance and can be backed up or restored in its entirety in less than a minute.
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Google launches apps for sharing Latitude location

Google has two new applications that let users of its Latitude service share their location with people who are not using the service.

The first, for Google's Talk service, will update your chat status with your location (at a city level) every time you check in with Latitude. The other is a badge you can stick on your blog or social-networking profile that shows precisely where you are.

It looks like this:


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Get more productive with USB display adapter

Having a second monitor doesn't just make your office space look more serious, it also helps you boost your productivity. Unfortunately, most computers don't come with a video card that can handle more than one display at a time. This is when you need to resort to one of the USB ports for the second display.

Other World Computing announced recently its USB 2.0 display adapter that helps you easily add additional monitors to your computer. The adapter is basically a bus-powered USB external video card. All you need to do is plug it into an available USB 2.0 port and then plug a monitor (not included) to it, just like you would to the regular built-in display output of the computer.


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Western Digital's WD TV gets a firmware update

If you are an owner of a WD TV (and I really believe you should be one if you already have an LCD or plasma TV), I have some good news.

Western Digital just released Friday an update for the device's firmware, to version 1.02.07. The main improvement in this the addition of built-in codecs and better audio support for the MKV file. This is the file format that's popularly used to store compressed high-definition content such as that of Blu-ray movies, much similar to the DivX format that's used to store compressed DVD movies.

The WD TV is the only computer-agnostic player I know that supports the MKV file format well. You can view the complete list of improvements in this update here (PDF file).

The update process is simple; you just download the update provided in the ZIP file, decompress it and put the firmware file onto a USB external hard drive. Plug the drive into the WD TV, turn it on, then use the remote control to navigate to the "Settings" section of the device. The rest is self-explanatory.

The new version 1.02.07 firmware update of the WD TV can be downloaded for free here.

Via CNET Crave

HP's new MediaSmart Server is smarter, smaller, and greener

I just got my hands on the details of Hewlett-Packard's upcoming MediaSmart Server, the LX195. Originally, HP had planned on announcing the new network storage server on May 5, but as a retail vendor accidentally leaked the information about its availability, you all get to hear about it now.

The LX195 is in some ways the successor of the MediaSmart Server ex475 and its variants, which HP launched more than year ago. However, the LX195 packs some major changes.

The new MediaSmeart Server now is powered by Intel's Atom 1.6 GHz Processor (instead of the AMD Sempron that's in the ex475) with 1GB of DDR2 RAM. This means it will use less energy than the previous models while remaining as, if not more, powerful than the earlier model.
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