Seagate extends magnetic storage

Demand for data storage keeps going up, even while consumers expect the cost per bit to keep going down. However, the magnetic-recording materials used in today's hard disks are reaching their storage limits and will probably max out within five years, writes Technology Review.

To compete with newer technologies such as flash, the companies that make them need something new.

Now researchers at Seagate have demonstrated the feasibility of a new technology that could extend the capacity of magnetic data recording for many years more. Called heat-assisted magnetic recording, it involves blasting the magnetic regions of a disk with heat to make it possible to use more stable recording media.

Bioamber, a joint venture between DNP Green Technology and ARD, has been awarded the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation Award in the global bio-renewable chemical market, for its efforts to commercialise bio-based succinic acid, writes FoxBusiness.

Bioamber has developed and patented a novel green process that promotes the use of renewable feedstocks and minimises the carbon footprint.

The chemical industry has recognised the potential of bio-renewable chemicals and more particularly the importance of succinic acid as a building block for different specialty and commodity chemicals.

A company called Lilliputian Systems wants to replace heavy laptop and mobile phone chargers with a small fuel cell system that runs on butane cartridges, according to Technology Review.

The system can store 5 to 10 times more energy than lithium ion batteries, and recharging it is as fast as swapping out the cartridge.

The company, which has been operating largely in secret for several years, has started showing its first product to potential customers and says it plans to have them on the market by the middle of next year.