Toshiba plans cheaper HD-DVDs

Toshiba has unveiled a plan to produce write-once 15GB HD-DVD-R disks to rival 20GB rewritable disks that will be available around the launch of HD-DVD recorders and PC drives next year, reports PC World.

Although pricing has not been announced, the write-once Toshiba disks are expected to provide a cheaper alternative to 20GB rewritable disks.

HD-DVD is competing with the Blu-ray Disc format to become the next-generation DVD technology. Blu-ray backers Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial promote Blu-ray`s high storage capacity as its main advantage, but according to Toshiba and NEC, HD-DVD will be much cheaper because it can be made on the same equipment used to manufacture DVDs.

Seagate Technology has unveiled its 2005 product line, which includes hard disk drives (HDDs) up to the half‑terabyte level, reports eWeek.

Seagate says it will unveil 12 new products this year that will incorporate the company`s shift to perpendicular recording, which is a technique of aligning the magnetic grains within the drive to increase its storage density.

Seagate expects increased demand for higher capacity drives as more computer users seek to preserve family memories using digital multimedia.

Microsoft is standing firmly behind a new tablet designed by IBM and supplied by China`s Lenovo Group because it has an obvious stake in the success of the tablet, says News.com.

The new X41 Tablet Series (X41T) is the first offering by Lenovo following its purchase of IBM`s PC business earlier this year. The device is expected to be available next week.

This week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off one of the first of the new convertible ThinkPads during his keynote speech at Microsoft`s TechEd development conference in Orlando, Florida.

Microsoft has been working with PC makers such as HP, Toshiba, Gateway and Motion Computing to help seed the industry with tablet PCs in support of its Windows Tablet PC Edition operating system.

Cryptographers have discovered a security flaw in implementations of Bluetooth that allows hackers to hijack Bluetooth-enabled devices, reports The Register.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel have come up with an exploit that allows hackers to pair with devices without alerting their owner. The technique involves forcing the pairing process by masquerading as a device already paired with a target by initiating a fresh pairing session. Once a connection is set up, an attacker could eavesdrop on data transmitted between a target device and a PC, or potentially take control of someone`s Bluetooth device.

Weeks after promising tabs in its upcoming IE 7 release, Microsoft has made the long-awaited browsing feature available for IE 6 through its MSN toolbar, reports News.com.

The report says a new version of the MSN Search Toolbar gives IE 6 the ability to open numerous Web pages within a single window, each selectable by a small tab at the top of the window.

The feature has long been offered by IE competitors like Opera, Safari and Firefox, spurring demands from IE users.