Cruschgear

Seagate 1.5 Terabyte Desktop HD

Seagate has unveiled the industry’s first 1.5-terabyte desktop hard drive - as well as half-terabyte notebook hard drives - in order to meet what it says is “explosive worldwide demand for digital-content storage in home and business environments”.

The Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive, the eleventh gen of Seagate’s flagship drive for desktop PCs, marks the single largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives - a half-terabyte increase from the previous highest capacity of 1TB.

This leap is down to the capacity-boosting power of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, says Seagate.

Seagate’s new 2.5-inch half-terabyte 5400- and 7200-rpm drives, the Momentus 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 are aimed at high-performance notebook computers, external storage solutions, PCs and industrial applications requiring small form factor.

Shipments of the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB are set to begin August 2008 while Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 hard drives are to begin shipping in Q4 2008.

GPS collar for dogs

Garmin has announced the DC 30, a GPS dog tracking collar for use with its Astro GPS Dog Tracking System.

The DC 30 collar’s main housing sits below the dog’s neck, while a small, low-profile GPS antenna is integrated into the collar strap and positioned on top of the dog’s neck, claiming to provide a clear view of satellites with minimal rotation.

Garmin says that used in conjunction with the Astro 220 receiver, the system pinpoints exactly where your dog is and what he’s doing - running, pointing, or treeing - even in dense cover, up to 7 miles away, depending on terrain.

Astro can track up to ten dogs per receiver at once, and the collar gives location updates every 5, 10, or 30 seconds. More »

Computing Technology Industry

We can’t get away from them - computers are everywhere, from the washing machine to the car it seems everything is now run by a computer and with the exponential rate they are advancing there is probably more computing power in the average mobile phone than NASA used to put a man on the moon.

And that has always been a problem for industry, as unlike other areas that computers have to function in, such as the home or office, computers in industry have to be manufactured to a robust standard and have to deal with all sorts of hostile environments from dust filled warehouses and baking hot furnaces to soaking wet production lines and deep freeze lockers. More »

Black Knight: Unmanned Combat Vehicle

We now know that there are robotic cars smart enough to drive themselves around a city. The next step: give those vehicles automatic weapons, of course.

Enter the Black Knight — a very early prototype of an “Unmanned Combat Vehicle,” developed by arms-maker BAE Systems for the U.S. Army. From the outside, the Knight doesn’t look all that different from the armored vehicles used by the American military in combat zones around the world. But soldiers can also get out of the nine-and-a-half-ton Knight, and control the vehicle from afar — including a custom, one-off 30mm gun and coaxial machine gun.

Or the troops can stay just chill out, and let the thing drive itself. The Knight uses “advanced robotic technology for autonomous mobility,” according to BAE. “This capability allows the Black Knight to plan routes, maneuver on the planned route, and avoid obstacles - all without operator intervention.” More »

24: The Unaired Pilot in 1994

Do you imagine how far we’ve come … back in 1994 the state of the art technology was America Online 3.0, pagers, dot matrix printers and 56K modems. Thanks to College Humor, here’s how Jack Bauer would’ve fought terrorism in 1994. Enjoy.

Banana-shaped USB drive spotted

Unlike most novelty USB offerings, the fruity incarnation does at least offer a decent 8GB capacity…

Hantat(www.hantat.com) presented its banana shaped USB flash drive ‘HK8093’ during China Sourcing Fairs at AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong, organized by Global Sources(NASDAQ: GSOL). Featuring its rubber case, it supports up to 8GB capacity.

Flying Penguins April Fool - The Making

In relation to flying penguins posted at Views and Blogs, a behind the scenes look at how the BBC created the BBC iPlayer trail for April Fools’ Day, featuring a colony of flying penguins.

You can watch the April Fools’ video here and the behind the scene below.

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