Toshiba Launches 256GB Solid State Drives with MLC

Toshiba Corp. (Toshiba) and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC)*, its subsidiary in the Americas, today announced enhancements to their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the addition of an industry-leading 256-gigabyte (GB)(1) SSD and the launch of small-sized Flash Modules for netbook computers, ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) and other mobile and peripheral applications. The new drives will be showcased at CEATEC in Makuhari, Japan, from September 30 to October 4.

Samples of both the 256GB SSD and the Flash Modules are available now, with mass production following in the fourth quarter (October to December) of the year.

Toshiba's new high density SSD brings 256GB of capacity to a 2.5-inch drive form factor with an advanced Multi-level Cell (MLC) controller that achieves higher read-write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling to optimize performance, reliability and endurance. Alongside this, Toshiba provides support for the growing market for small, netbook computers, UMPCs and other personal equipment with the launch of small SSD Flash Modules supporting 8GB, 16GB and 32GB densities.

The new 256GB SSD mounts NAND flash memory on a 70.6mm (L) x 53.6mm (W) x 3.0mm (H) platform. The drive offers performance characteristics essential for today's mainstream notebook PCs: highly reliable, high density data storage and support for fast data transfer rates, with a maximum read speed of 120MB per second (MBps)(2) and maximum write speed of 70MBps, via a SATA 3.0Gb per second (Gbps)(3) interface.

Flash Modules are fabricated on a 50mm x 30mm platform, and offer maximum read and write speeds of 80MB and 50MB per second(2), respectively. Flash Modules are also compatible with the SATA interface and will support continued development of the fast growing market for netbook PCs, UMPCs and mobile and peripheral applications by offering developers a wider range of SSD for integration in differentiated products.

Toshiba will continue to promote innovations that widen the horizons of the NAND Flash market and support its continued leadership in that market. The company will spur demand for SSD in notebook PCs, laptops and digital consumer products by enhancing its lineup, offering products with different densities and interfaces in a range of packages, while advancing device performance.

LG KC780 Slider mobile phone with 8 Megapixel Camera

LG KC780 is the next LG cameraphone that will have an 8 megapixel camera. While it's exciting to see yet another high-res cameraphone, it seems LG have not put a lot of effort in making its design stand out.

The KC780 is a slide phone that, as seen in the photo, really doesn't have that certain something to make you go “wow.” Come to think of it, it actually looks kind of ordinary. As revealed on the FCC website, it has already gone through the paces and was approved for GSM1900 and Bluetooth emissions.

Other features of the phone, as put together from various other sources, include quad band GSM/GSM/GPRS and EDGE connectivity. No 3G on this one, it seems. It will also support a microSD card, which should add pretty nicely to the existent 140 MB of internal memory, and USB 2.0 connectivity, along with Bluetooth 2.0.

Features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity
• 8 megapixel camera with autofocus
• Red eye reduction
• Face recognition
• 30fps video recording
• 140MB internal memory
• Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0 connectivity
• microSD memory card slot

Verizon Wireless Quietly Launches Flash-Based Storefront

Verizon Wireless has quietly released Dashboard, a new storefront found on its phones using Adobe's Flash technology, mocoNews has learned. So far, Dashboard has launched on the *LG* Chocolate 3, and more phones are expected by the end of the year, making it one of the largest mobile implementations of Flash in the U.S., both Verizon Wireless and Adobe confirmed. Todd Murphy, Verizon Wireless's director of digital media programming, explained to us the platform stands alongside the carrier's Get It Now platform, and is designed to be an easy place for consumers to find both content from Verizon's deck, but also links that take you to the mobile Web, "It's a dynamic real-time store. It's one click up on the Chocolate 3. We have a system on the back end that allows you to merchandise and change things every couple of hours."

he launch of Dashboard comes just before Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen keynoted at CTIA, where he pleaded for more standards in the industry, so that content can be developed once and published across many mobile devices and also the Internet and TV. However, operators in the U.S. have been slow to adopt Flash, even though it's embedded in a lot of handsets. Lack of Flash is a constant complaint about the iPhone. Verizon has been one of the more aggressive companies on that front, providing a Flash Lite extension to its Brew platform, which features content from game companies, such as Smashing Ideas and Mobitween, but also videos from MTV's Atom Entertainment. Anup Murarka, Adobe's director for technical marketing, who also appeared at CTIA, told us: "In terms of Flash Lite, Japan has been the first and foremost, and then Europe and now it is gaining in the U.S." For instance, little do people know that Flash is used on some of the popular phones, including the LG Shine, Venus and Voyager. "We can enable these experiences to be richer, or more engaging, and the end-user doesn't even know it...You'll see additional examples over the next six to nine months."

With one click, a user with the right handset can launch the Dashboard, which features a number of widgets or channels, such as news, entertainment, music, ESPN Fox Sports, Weather, games and search. Each channel has an animated ticker that scrolls across the screen, detailing more information about the channel. Murphy said this will not replace anything they currently have, but will compliment both the browser and Get It Now. "Flash is a powerful programming language, but it's not as powerful as J2ME and Brew as a run-time development. You couldn't do a deep application—you couldn't build VZ Navigator."

Murphy said the key is the user interface. It provides one place where you can feature links to both Get It Now and links to the mobile Web, which "is a significant achievement for us...There's

" For example, when you click on the Comedy Central widget, a user might have the choice of Joke of the Day and other features, but then also links to wallpapers and other content for sale. "Now you can merchandise mobile Web stuff right next to Get It Now stuff." Dashboard also has a search feature where people can find content by keyword, or if Verizon is featuring a sponsorship with Lil' Wayne, for example, they can provide a link, which would return a list of results for everything Lil' Wayne, from news to wallpapers and to ringback tones. That service is being provided by Medio Systems, which will be part of Verizon's overall search strategy going forward with Google but also has a downloadable search application on Get It Now.

The ultimate strategy is to have a platform that can run across all of Verizon's three screens: mobile, TV (via FiOS) and Internet. "We are part of the Open Screen Project, and we are very dedicated to working with them on getting a consistent run-time of Flash across all of our technologies...We aren't at that point where there's consistent run-times—they are fairly different—but Adobe is starting to scale the production of the tools."

ASUS Eee PC 901 3G-enabled in October

ASUS is planning to sweeten the offer for its 8.9-inch Eee PC 901 model by adding a 3G card. The improvement is going to allow Eee PC users to download and upload stuff on the Internet at speeds of up to 7.2 and 2 Mbps, respectively. Eee PC users will only need to subscribe to a mobile broadband service, which they will be able to use with their favorite small-sized netboook system.

The news comes to confirm that Eee PCs and other netbooks should provide a better support for an Internet connection, including 3G. The ASUS Eee PC 901 equipped with the 3.75G card will offer users an alternative to all those standardly equipped netbooks, which only provide support for 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

Frequent travelers will particularly welcome the timely addition of 3.75G support, which comes as service providers around the globe are ramping up their adoption of 3.75G High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA). This means that they will be assured of a reliable, high-speed mode of Internet access in many destinations around the world.

Features an 8.9-inch LCD screen, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage space, based on a NAND flash-based solution. In addition, the Taiwanese manufacturer is also going to equip the netbook with a Windows XP operating system. The 3G-enabled Eee PC should become available sometime in October.