According to LaCie, one of the two storage companies that’s involved in the introduction of the Thunderbolt standard, two Thuderbolts will be introduced at the NAB Show 2012: the Little Big Disk SSD and the 2big Thunderbolt.

These may not be new, but it will be the first time they will be demoed in Mac and Windows.

The Windows counterparts have the same space as the original Mac’s. This means that you don’t have to have new ports and cords to use it.

The identity of the lucky Windows computer that will be used for the demo is still unknown. Though it is said to run on Intel’s Ivy Bridge chipset.

This is the also a first because of USB 3.0. This demo may prove to be a momentous since it showcases a Windows computer both on Thunderbolt and USB 3.0.

This is a hint that Macs may be on USB 3.0 in the near future as well.

Can’t wait to see it for yourself?  Check out LaCie’s demo at NAB Show, which starts tomorrow in Las Vegas and lasts until April 19.

via: geeky gadgets

Hard drives are getting bigger and faster every year, but they’re just barely keeping pace with the rate at which our data are expanding. A new service called Bitcasa wants to be the last hard drive you ever need, by offering seamless and infinite (infinite!) cloud-based storage for all of your data.

Bitcasa is a simple concept: a little piece of software lives on your computer and creates a virtual drive by connecting to Bitcasa’s servers. Every time you save something to that drive, it goes off to live in the cloud, and you never run out of drive space. Bitcasa will figure out what files you use most often and keep them local for fast access, but in general, you’re simply not storing any data on your computer.

The idea, though, is that you’ll never be able to tell that this is going on: browsing through your Bitcasa drive is just like browsing through a local hard drive, and with a fast enough network connection, you’ll never notice that all of your data are actually streaming. At the same time, Bitcasa is acting as a backup and recovery service, since most of your data is stored somewhere else, insulating you (to some extent) from viruses, theft, natural disasters, and evil robots. Not bad for $10 a month.

I know, this sounds wonderful and you’re totally into it, but let me preempt a flood of angry comments by pointing out a few of the potential downsides of this service:

• Most of your data is somewhere else, and if that somewhere else goes out of business, you’re screwed.
• Most of your data is somewhere else, and if that somewhere else gets hacked, you’re screwed.
• Most of your data is somewhere else, and if you need a lot of your data all at once, you’re screwed.
• Most of your data is somewhere else, and if you go over your bandwidth cap trying to access it, you’re screwed.
• Most of your data is somewhere else, and if you lose your Internet connection, you’re screwed.

So there’s a lot of ways to get screwed here, even more than I mentioned, but the nutshell is that you’re giving someone else control over your data, which is always a dicey thing. I’m betting that before you use Bitcasa you have to check a box that says that they can feed your data through a wood chipper without assuming any responsibility whatsoever, which is kind of part for the course with services like this, but unlike cloud backup and syncing services, Bitcasa wants to be your one and only hard drive. I’m a big proponent of cloud storage, and I like the idea of a virtual drive with infinite storage and infinite accessibility, but to be honest, this makes even me a little bit nervous.

via:dvice

DRAM that acts like flash, flash that acts like DRAM and everything in between. It could happen in the future. They (the researchers) are working on it now. The research is taking place in North Carolina State University. I could mean speedy computer memory that doesn’t lose its data when the power goes off. , may, just be the next big thing. Whereas the single floating-gate variety is currently responsible for the flash memory in your USB keys and SSDs, the second floating gate lets bits of data stay in an active, ready state, but the computer can also apply a higher voltage to “freeze” them in place. Looks like the memory can switch between static and dynamic modes in a single cycle and the data never disappears in between. The new tech could lead to instant-on computers.