Gizmodo Australia » blue

WD Scorpio Blue Drive Is First 1 Terabyte Mobile Drive Ever

Jesus Diaz — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:05:38 +0000

I seriously need the new WD Scorpio 1 terabyte drive. I want to be able to tote around all my desktop data, without any external drives hanging around, and $US250 seems like a little price to pay for that.

LAKE FOREST, Calif., July 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — WD (NYSE: WDC) today announced two new mobile hard drives that reach new capacity extremes. The highlight is a one terabyte model — the industry’s highest-capacity 2.5-inch drive available. Industry-leading 333 GB-per-platter technology enables the new WD Scorpio® Blue(TM) SATA 2.5-inch hard drives to offer mobile storage device and notebook users an enormous 1 TB capacity. A 750 GB WD Scorpio Blue model also will be available.

The WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB and 1 TB hard drives have a 12.5 mm form factor(1) and are ideally suited for use in portable storage solutions, such as the newly released My Passport(TM) Essential(TM) SE Portable USB Drives. Other applications include select notebooks and small form factor desktop PCs, where quiet and cool operation are important. Both WD Scorpio Blue drives deliver high-performance with a 3 gigabits per second (Gb/s) transfer rate.

“The convergence of the growing mobile computing and digital media trends produces demand for desktop-like capacities in portable devices,” said Jim Morris, senior vice president and general manager of client systems at WD. “Our new WD Scorpio Blue drives enable people to take even more of their digital collections with them wherever they go and, realizing the value of their data, back up their notebooks on their My Passport drives.”

WD Scorpio Blue hard drives offer high-performance, low power consumption and cool operation in portable applications. They are designed with WD features to be reliable and shock resistant while also delivering industry-leading capacity and performance.

WD Scorpio Blue Features

WhisperDrive(TM) – WD’s exclusive WhisperDrive technology combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to produce one of the quietest 2.5-inch drives available.

ShockGuard(TM) – Leading-edge ShockGuard technology combines firmware and hardware advancements to meet the highest combined shock tolerance specifications required for mobile and notebook applications.

SecurePark(TM) – Parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface, resulting in improved long-term reliability due to less head wear and improved shock tolerance.

Price and Availability

WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB drives (model WD7500KEVT) are available now through select distributors and resellers; the 1 TB capacity (model WD10TEVT) is available now configured into My Passport Essential SE USB drives. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) for the WD Scorpio Blue 1 TB drive is $US249.99 USD and for the 750 GB version it is $US189.99 USD. WD Scorpio Blue hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty. More information about WD Scorpio Blue mobile hard drives may be found on the company’s Web site at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=685.

Make a Blue Laser Gun Out of the Corpse of an HD-DVD Drive

Gizmodo US Edition — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Instructables has posted a guide for how to yank the blue diode out of a dusty Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and attach it to a (fake) gun to create…. a laser gun! It’s a pretty easy little mod, if you have the equipment lying around (and a laser gun sight you don’t use), and when you’re done, you’ve got a blue laser pistol powerful enough to light a match or pop a balloon. [Instructables]

South Koreans Discover ‘True Blue’ Material for Better OLED Screens

Jack Loftus — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:30:00 +0000

OLED screens are pretty awesome all around, but they have more than a few Achilles Heels to overcome before they’re accepted into the mainstream. That said, one of the hurdles has allegedly fallen this weekend, thanks to new research out of South Korea. According to the AP, South Korean scientists have developed an efficient “true blue” material that, while sounding like a 1991 Madonna album, is actually a pretty important step forward for OLEDs.

You see, OLEDs, for all their potential greatness, have a heck of a time producing the blue light necessary to produce great images (red, green, blue light makes TVs happy!). Red and green light works fine, but blue remained elusive. That’s where the South Koreans come in.

The discovery was the work of Pusan National University chemistry professor Jin Sung-Ho, who said the discovery was an important one for advancing the energy efficiency of OLEDs. For gadget lovers, it’s yet another piece of the puzzle that, when completed, will mean powerful, beautiful OLED TVs are a mainstay in homes across the world. [AFP]

BLUE Bowl Shines Light on Your Fruit to Stop the Rot

Gizmodo US Edition — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:36:00 +0000

This design concept from Ahmet Bektes, Koray Gelmez & Eda Kose uses “Action Fresh Blue” technology—apparently used in “many new refrigerators”— to keep your fruit fresh. It seems that this tech is essentially a blue light, which shines down from the bowl’s handle, killing bacteria. Hmmm: I’m sceptical. But at least it’s rechargeable, and has a nifty blue halo all around when it’s in action so your kitchen looks all 21st Century. If it really works, it might be useful if you’re like me: buying a lot a fruit when on a health-kick, and then just leaving it in the bowl to go mouldy. [Envee Apparel via Home Tone]

Nintendo DS Lite Now in Black and Blue, We Think It’s the Sexiest One Yet

Benny Goldman — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:45:16 +0000

Circuit City has a cobalt blue/black DS Lite for preorder on their website. Considering three minutes have passed since the last time the DS got a costume change, this makes perfect sense to us. No word on the release date, but as always, it’s US$130. Get it now to complete your collection and make Nintendo a few more dollars. [Circuit City] —Thanks, Klaus!