News

Techtree: F-Secure has said its “Internet Security 2007″ will provide consumers with advanced protection against new and unknown threats.

The company said the new product features remarkable new features to help further strengthen its leadership in the data security market.

Speaking about the new product, Ari Alakiuttu, Vice President of Product Marketing, F-Secure, said, “Consumers have a right to data security products that offer them protection at every possible level of interaction with the online world. We believe at F-Secure that the latest version of F-Secure ‘Internet Security 2007′ incorporates world class features, and will set the standard for all other data security products serving the home and small office segment.”

“Internet Security 2007″ has the new F-Secure DeepGuard technology, which will not only analyze new programs once they enter the system, but will also persistently monitor the behavior of software in real-time mode, scanning for suspicious program behavior, and stopping activities that might pose a risk.

And unlike most competing proactive detection technologies, F-Secure DeepGuard uses advanced real-time heuristics, and works quietly in the background.

It is also learnt that F-Secure has improved its detection rates and removal capabilities by adding another spyware engine solution to F-Secure “Internet Security 2007″. The integration has been enhanced to include target scanning, in addition to real-time scanning, and manual system scans.

Furthermore, F-Secure “Internet Security 2007″ has three different Parental Control Profiles, including Child (White listed sites only), Teenager (Content Based Filtering), and Parent (Full Access). Anything falling outside of the parameters set by these profiles is automatically blocked. And as before, parents can also exercise their discretion over the time used by their children on the Internet using the Time Lock feature.

TechTree: Epson has announced the launch of the Epson Stylus CX6900F, its newest AIO (all-in-one) printer with integrated PC-less fax function.

With the printer’s 33.6Kbps color fax modem, Auto-Redial function, and speed dial memory with a capacity of up to 60 numbers, sending and receiving faxes is a breeze. Besides, the CX6900F can function as a stand-alone printer without being tethered to a PC.

The Contrast Levels setting allows users select the precise fax print quality that they need. Unwanted faxes can be held at bay by simply tapping on ‘on’ or ‘off’ on the Auto Answer mode.

The Stylus CX6900F features a one-line LCD screen fitted snugly onto a one-touch control panel for selection and confirmation of tasks. The printer can connect to PictBridge devices, and its card slots accept all the common memory cards.

With scanning resolutions of up to 1200dpi, documents and images can be captured in a crisp quality. A simple copy function lets users choose between black and color-rich copying - with a tap on the one-touch button.

The combination of DURABrite pigment inks and Epson’s proprietary Micro Piezo print head technology produces superior quality black and white and color prints. The DURABrite inks come in INKdividual cartridges, making for a reduction in operational costs.

TechTree: SanDisk has introduced a 32-gigabyte (GB), 1.8-inch solid-state drive (SSD) as a drop-in replacement for the standard mechanical hard disk drive.

The company said that SanDisk SSD, which initially aimed at enterprise users as the first step towards mass consumer adoption, offers field-proven durability to keep mobile PCs working in the toughest of conditions, and improves the overall user experience.

Talking about the product, Eli Harari, Chief Executive Officer of SanDisk, said, “The 32GB SSD that we are announcing today represents the fifth generation of flash-based solid state drives developed by msystems, which we recently acquired. The 32GB SSD has been made commercially viable through SanDisk’s technology leadership coupled with msystems’ tremendous experience and IP, which are captured in the high-performance, low-cost system controllers that distinguish this product.”

“Once we begin shipping the 32GB SSD for notebook PCs, we expect to see its increasing adoption in the coming years, as we continue to reduce the cost of flash memory. When these SSD devices become more affordable, we expect that their superior features over rotating disk drives will create a new consumer category for our retail sales channels worldwide,” Harari said.

Using NAND flash enhanced by SanDisk’s patented TrueFFS flash management technology, SanDisk SSD delivers two million hours mean time between failures (MTBF). Besides, it achieves a sustained read rate of 62 megabytes (MB) per second, and a random read rate of 7,000 inputs/outputs per second (IOPS) for a 512-byte transfer, which is more than 100 times faster than most hard disk drives.

Betanews: Hitachi introduced the first commercially available one-terabyte hard drive on Friday, delivering on a promise made nearly two years ago. The drive uses perpendicular recording technology in order to store data.

The Deskstar 7K1000 is slated to beginning shipping in the first quarter of this year at a retail price of $399 USD, or about 40 cents per gigabyte. In addition, Hitachi will also release a version of the 1TB drive, called the CinemaStar, aimed at the burgeoning DVR market.

Putting the size into perspective: 500 full-length standard definition movies would fit, or 250 hours of HD programming, or even 250,000 hours of digital music.

The milestone also comes at the 50-year anniversary of the hard drive itself, and comes some 15 years after the industry was able to break the 1-gigabyte barrier.

“In the 51st year, Hitachi is leading a new era for hard drives — not only providing large amounts of affordable storage, but also customizing and optimizing hard drives to deliver products that are smarter, more durable and more useful to the consumer,” chief marketing officer Shinjiro Iwata said.

Hitachi beats Seagate, who is also developing a similar drive, to the 1TB level by several months. Seagate said late Thursday that it planned to have its own drive available within the first half of 2007, also based on perpendicular recording technology.

BBCNews: Taiwan’s new high speed train service - which begins commercial operations on Friday - is expected to herald the start of a transport revolution on the island.

The service could change the way people work and live along Taiwan’s densely populated western corridor, which is home to more than 90% of its 23 million population.

Travelling on the sleek white and orange trains at speeds of up to 300km/h (186 mph) will see journey times between the capital, Taipei, in the north, and Kaohsiung, the island’s second largest city in the south, slashed from more than four hours to just 90 minutes.

“With the opening of the high speed rail, Taiwan island will become Taiwan city,” predicts Hank Huang, at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research.

He has been studying the economic impact that the world’s largest BOT (build-operate-transfer) project, costing nearly $15bn, is likely to have.

“Travel times and costs will dramatically decrease, communications between cities will be far easier, and Taiwan city can compete with the top Asian cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai,” Mr Huang said.

  I have the confidence that the more people ride on this train, the more confidence they will have

Ou Chin-der
THSRC chief executive officer

In the first phase of operation, 19 trains will run return journeys each day.

The operator, the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC), hopes to attract 150,000 passengers per day.

The company hopes to quickly expand services to full capacity of 88 round trip journeys per day.