Earlier this year, Seagate promised to flip the 2.5-inch HDD industry upside-down, but it wouldn't do so by using an SSD in sheep's clothing. Rather, it'd be doling out a new breed of hard drive, one that actually has a pinch of pure, unadulterated NAND inside for picking up the pace in certain scenarios. The idea of a hybrid hard drive isn't totally new, but the Momentus XT is one of the first hybrid HDDs to actually make it out of the lab and into the hands of consumers. The most intriguing aspect of the drive is the price -- at around $130, it's just under half as pricey as Seagate's conventional 500GB Momentus 7200.4. That uptick in price isn't nothing, but it's still far less than what you'd pay for a 2.5-inch SSD with half the capacity. We've already shown you the benchmarks, so we figured we'd slap this bad boy in our main rig for a few weeks to see if we actually noticed any real-world performance increases to justify the cost. Head on past the break for our two pennies.

Continue reading Seagate Momentus XT hybrid hard drive review

Seagate Momentus XT hybrid hard drive review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Clearwire has long said that they have the technology, spectrum, and expertise to move from WiMax to LTE if necessary, and a press released today seems to reiterate that. Clearwire announced that it would: “conduct 4G LTE technology trials [...] in the U.S., and [...] test multiple coexistence scenarios between LTE and WiMAX radio technologies.” The release goes on to state that Clearwire, “expects the technical trials to demonstrate that Clearwire’s 4G network can deliver significantly higher performance using LTE technologies than any other operator,” and that they plan to “conduct the tests in collaboration with Huawei Technologies.” Huawei is the company that provided the infrastructure to the world’s first commercial LTE network in Europe. Who’s ready for a Verizon Wireless v. Clearwire LTE speed war! Hit the read link for the full release.

[Via Phone Scoop]

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When the news officially broke that HP had put in a winning bid for Palm, it all seemed so simple. HP, a company that has long had its smartphone ambitions beset by poor hardware and execution, seemed to simply be the only company that was really intent on purchasing the troubled company based in Sunnyvale. But according to a recent SEC filing from Palm, what really took place in weeks leading up to HP’s successful bid was a five company bidding war. Click through to get all the facts straight from the horse’s mouth.

On February 17th, Palm CEO John Rubinstein put together a committee charged with investigating what options were at Palm’s disposal. The committee looked into scenarios which included the outright sale of the company, selling all of its IP, and licensing the rights to webOS. Then on the 25th of February — the very same day it slashed its guidance numbers — Palm began talking to 16 companies to gauge their interest in a potential buyout. Of those 16, only 5 entertained the possibility of a deal. HP was one of those companies. In the SEC filing, the names of the four others were withheld and were referred to as Companies A, B, C, and D. Companies A and B as well as HP were interested in the outright acquisition of Palm, while Companies C and D were merely interested in buying its patents. D shortly dropped out of contention for reasons unknown.

As early as March, and with four potential suitors, Palm’s board had concluded it would be best to sell the entire company. The reason for this was that Palm feared backlash for investors as any other deal could easily have devalued the value of its IP. Discussions with the four companies continued. On March 19th, Palm’s stock was devalued to $0 the day after it announced its Q3 2010 results. Four weeks later, April 13th, HP entered a bid of $4.75 per share. Two days later Company A entered a bid of $600 million, while Company C tested the waters with a stock offer. With three potential offers on the table, Palm instructed HP to up the ante. HP refused, but to its luck, Companies A and B withdrew their bids.

Company C entered a new bid worth $6 to $7 per share on April 18th. The next day, Palm sent it and HP draft merger agreements. The 20th and 21st of April saw Palm and HP try and hammer out a deal. On the 22nd, HP raised its offer to $5 per share. Company C, for whatever reason, dropped its offer to $5.50 per share on the same day and asked Palm to agree it would pay a $60 million penalty if they agreed upon a deal only to see it fall through. For the next three days, Palm and Company C tried to resolve their differences to no avail. While the two were in talks, HP raised its bid by 70¢ per share. Company C was warned that if it did not match the bid, all discussion would end. Company C countered with $800 million in exchange for all of Palm’s IP. Palm refused, and Company C walked. From that point on, it took HP and Palm until the 28th of April to get to the point where both companies would put ink to paper.

That, friends, is how Palm was acquired by HP. As we mentioned earlier, the identities of Companies A through D remain a secret, although we think we know how four of them are are: Dell, Huawei, HTC, and Lenovo.

[Via Engadget]

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The Chumby One, much like the original, is an interesting beast. For all intents and purposes, it's a mod-friendly box that sits on your nightstand and pushes out real-time information that it pulls down from the web. That said, the inbuilt display may be too small to be considered "glanceable" in some scenarios, and if you're ferociously nodding your head up and down in agreement, we've a hack you should probably see. One xobs recently discovered that a composite video output could be added to the Chumby One, enabling it to output its information onto any display with such an input. Granted, the device can only support a single display at a time, but hey, who ever said you could have your cake and eat it too?

Chumby One gets composite video output via marginally difficult mod originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's been far, far too long (read: four months) since we've heard a peep from the gentle souls over at Pixel Qi, but it looks like the long, heart-wrenching wait for the hybrid display that's bound to revolutionize Western civilization is nearing an end. According to the startup's CEO herself, Mary Lou Jepsen, the primetime-ready 3Qi display should make its glorious debut on an undisclosed tablet to be announced next month. For those out of the loop, this transflective display contains both e-ink and LCD properties, one for outdoor reading scenarios and the other for multimedia viewing. The amazing part is that toggling between the two is as simple as flipping a switch, which obviously means great things for battery life on whatever device it's shoved into. We'll be keeping our eyes peeled for more, but do us a favor and cross your fingers for good luck. Toes too, por favor.

[Thanks, Tom]

Filed under: Displays

Pixel Qi e-ink / LCD hybrid display to debut on tablet next month? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Efforts to drag our military's cybersecurity into the 21st century are well underway, but John Arquilla, professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, wants more: A preemptive international hacker force, which would cripple enemies before they even become a problem.

Existing plans for a new online defense strategy don't seem particularly bad, except for that first part: defense plans. The professor's idea is to deploy a much more proactive attack strategy:

[Arquilla would] like the US military's coders to team up with network specialists abroad to form a global geek squad. Together, they could launch preemptive online strikes to head off real-world battles.

Armies (even guerrilla armies) are so dependent on digital communications these days that a well-placed network hit could hobble their forces. Do these cyberattacks right-and openly-and the belligerents will think twice before starting trouble. Arquilla calls his plan "a nonlethal way to deter lethal conflict."

The strategy makes the assumption that digital communications are completely vital to enemies big and small, which is generally true, and putting cyberwar directly before more traditional measures like sanctions could have a huge effect: If guerrilla groups can't organize, they won't be too effective; if governments can't use their vital defense networks, they're basically toothless. Wired's posted a few scenarios of how this could actually out, and even if they sound a little naive—they do—they're satisfying cinematic, for whatever that's worth. [Wired]