Get a Bit of Storage Bling

Flashy jewelry is known by its street name “bling,” and now Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is showing off its new “bling” for digerati. Hitachi introduced the industry’s smallest one-inch and lightest 1.8-inch hard drives in concept earlier this year under the monikers Mikey and Slim. Hitachi anticipates these two hard drives will play key roles in the emergence of high-capacity smart phones, multi-function audio/video players and other handheld consumer devices.

Mikey is officially called the Hitachi Microdrive 3K8. It is available with 6GB and 8GB of storage capacity. It is nearly 20 percent smaller and consumes 40 percent less power than its predecessor. Hitachi is deploying drop-sensor technology on the new Microdrive, which protects against data loss in the event of a drop. Acting like a sixth sense, Hitachi’s ESP or Extra Sensory Protection technology works by immediately parking the read-write head safely away from the surface of the disk when it detects a fall, preventing head/disk contact which may cause data loss.

Travelstar C4K60 Slim is Hitachi’s newest 1.8-inch drive. The Slim sports a profile that’s 30-percent thinner than its predecessor, measuring a mere 5mm on the one-disk model. With its new physique, Slim is tougher and lighter than any other 1.8-inch drive on the market, for a total volume advantage of 10 percent. Slim offers an upper capacity of 30GB to 60GB of storage on the one- and two-disk model, respectively. Slim features a 20-percent improvement in operating shock tolerance and offers the highest shock rating in its class.

A Way to Excel on SAT Exams

A pioneering learning program for ESL (English-as-a-second-language) students has been proven effective in testing at the Katy Independent School District (ISD), west of Houston, Texas. Students showed Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) score gains after using ESLreadingsmart.com, a subscription-only, web-based program certified this summer by the California Department of Education.

The ESLreadingsmart.com program helped increase SAT 9/10 Reading and Language scores of Katy ISD ESL students (Grades 6-11) who completed 10 or more lessons. Sixty-four percent of these students (or 31 percent of the district’s total ESL population) increased their SAT scores on the Reading section, while 52 percent (26 percent of the total ESL population) raised their SAT scores on the Language section. The trend of increased SAT 10 scores continued during the 2004-2005 school year.

Accessible by subscription at www.ESLreadingsmart.com, the online program is designed to fully support English-language learning — from listening comprehension and speaking proficiency to multilevel reading and language arts skills. The program includes lesson plans and printable materials for diverse learning styles, reading levels and interests.

Stainless Steel Gives Drives New Look

US Modular has introduced a new look for the company’s mini drives. All Monstor and Dragon Drives, with storage space ranging from 2GB to 120GB of storage, will now ship encased in stainless steel.

The palm-sized drives are slim and compact, but large enough to hold tens of thousands of data files, music, pictures and more on the go. With the onboard USB 2.0 port, file transfers are fast and easy and completely portable. Ideal for MP3 or video files, important jpeg files or even redundant storage for irreplaceable data, the Monstor and Dragon Drives require no external power and are both Mac and PC compatible. The drives are priced from $99 to $399.

Next-Generation Blogging Service

Softcom Technology Consulting Inc, owners of mail2web.com, have made available their MediaBlog service. This service goes beyond traditional web logs or blogs by providing support for any file type a member may want to upload and share through a personal, customizable space on the mediablog portal (http://mediablog.mail2web.com).

In addition, the mail2web.com MediaBlog supports making blog posts directly from popular mobile phone applications such as Nokia’s Lifeblog, included on most of Nokia’s latest handsets as well as support for Apple iTunes Podcasting. While traditional blogs only support images, mail2web.com’s MediaBlog product allows members to upload any file size or type, from a Powerpoint Presentation to a MPEG4 video file.