The hard drive turns 50
A lot has changed in the 50 years since the Random Access Method of Accounting and Control (Ramac), the first IBM computer with a piece of storage technology called a hard drive, was officially announced on 13 September 1956, reports CNET News.
The Ramac weighed one ton and stored 5MB of data on 50 spinning platters, 24 inches in diameter.
Manufacturers now sell drives that hold 750GB, or 150 000 times more data than the Ramac, but they weigh only a few ounces and measure just 3.5-inches across. Drives that can hold a terabyte will be announced late this year or early next year.
Software pirate ordered to pay $5.4m
The owner of an American software piracy Web site has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison, says Wirednews.com.
Nathan Peterson, 27, of Los Angeles, sold products copyrighted by companies such as Microsoft and Adobe Systems at a huge discount on his site, iBackups.net, prosecutors said. The site began operating in 2003 and was shut down by the FBI in February 2005.
In addition to Friday`s 87-month sentence, US district court judge TS Ellis III ordered Peterson to pay restitution of more than $5.4 million and to forfeit the proceeds of his scheme, which included homes, cars and a boat.
DVD/ HD-DVD combo announced
Memory-Tech and Toshiba have developed a one-side, three-layer disc for both DVD and HD-DVD formats, says TJ Daily. The new technology will pave the way to higher capacity hybrid storage on a single disc.
The new disc is an addition to Toshiba`s existing DVD TWIN format, which supports both DVD and HD-DVD storage types.
The three-layer discs will allow for either two HD-DVD layers and one DVD layer, or two DVD layers and one HD-DVD.
Europe gets glimpse of HD future
Japanese scientists have shown ultra-high-definition TV (U-HDTV) for the first time in Europe, says BBC News.
The TV was on display for the first time in Europe at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam.
U-HDTV has a screen resolution of 7 680 x 4 320 pixels, approximately 16 times that of normal HDTV. However, it is unlikely to be available to the public for at least 25 years.
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