The Galaxy S III may rock an impressive battery life, but if Panasonic has its way, even greater benchmarks could be on the horizon. The company is ready to start making samples of a new ReRAM microcontroller, and — like Sharp and Elpida — it could start mass production as soon as next year. Here’s a little refresher: ReRAM is a new kind of memory with re-write speeds far superior to NAND because it doesn’t need power to hold onto information. Panny’s chip will initially be used in simple devices like fire alarms, but the tech could eventually find its way into our TVs and even smartphones and tablets. But seriously, are we even capable of living in a NAND-free world?

Panasonic preps samples of next-gen ReRAM devices, NAND preps for early retirement originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 13:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Western Digital has completed its FTC-ordered handover of assets to Toshiba in order to buy Hitachi’s HDD business Viviti. The wedding of the year was halted when regulators, citing monopoly concerns, demanded WD hand over a bundle of IP, R&D materials and production line gear to Tosh. In exchange, Western Digital will take over Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand), the arm of the company that was devastated in the recent flooding. It’s WD’s aim to integrate the remaining assets into its own local operations — you can read the official line in the land of pure imagination below.

Continue reading WD grits teeth, hands over the goodies to Toshiba to regulators and dentists’ delight

WD grits teeth, hands over the goodies to Toshiba to regulators and dentists’ delight originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 08:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Let’s say you’re embroiled in an international tale of espionage and intrigue, and you’ve got hard drives filled with incriminating evidence and top secret information. You could dispose of that potentially dangerous data by manually wiping each disk with multiple passes of a disk erasing app or, you could pop them in the Data Killer and be done with it in seconds. Platform of Japan demonstrated the information obliterating devices at the Information Security Expo. A large powerful magnet realigns the bits on the surface of the drive’s platters eliminating all trace of the data that existed before, without physically damaging the hardware. With just the push of a button a Data Killer can wipe practically any magnetic media, including tapes or an aging floppy disk. The data disposals even come in different sizes, allowing you to kill just a single 3.5-inch disk or up to 14 at a time. The larger models can even accept an intact laptop. Check out the video after the break to see it in action.

Continue reading Data Killer turns hard drives into blank slates with the push of a button (video)

Data Killer turns hard drives into blank slates with the push of a button (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 10:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Big Dropbox fan are you? Got plans for the weekend? Cancel ‘em. Dropquest 2012 begins right now. If you’re unfamiliar — it’s the storage company’s internet scavenger hunt that involves a series of puzzles, challenges and, erm, origami. If you complete the game, you’ll get 1GB of extra space for free, but if you come in first place, you’ll get 100GB free for your entire life, while 10 second-placers get 20GB for life and so on. You’re not allowed to ask for help on the company’s support forum (you’ll get disqualified) and you’re competing against at least half a million other fans of the service, but if that hasn’t daunted you then head on down to the source link and get puzzling!

PSA: Dropbox Dropquest begins right now! originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 May 2012 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thunderbolt’s 10-gigabit interface is only just making its way to Windows after spending more than a year as a Mac-only feature, so it’s not surprising that a lot of questions surround how well the Apple- and Intel-developed connection works for those of a Microsoft persuasion. A thorough test at AnandTech of one of the first motherboards to support the spec on Windows PCs, an Ivy Bridge-ready board from MSI, has shown some positive signs along with a few flies in the high-speed ointment. The good news? Most general storage devices will work as expected with a minimum of fuss, and you can even get some features of Apple’s Thunderbolt Display working if you’re willing to accept a lack of pre-supplied software brightness controls and USB support. The bad news comes mostly in the absence of true hot-plugging like on the Mac: if a device isn’t plugged into the Thunderbolt port on boot, Windows won’t see it. Professionals who need everything to be just perfect will want to wait, then, but bandwidth lovers will still find something to like if they’re willing to build Thunderbolt-equipped PCs themselves.

Thunderbolt on Windows gets hands-on, lacks Mac’s hot-swapping originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 May 2012 01:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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