Computers & Technology

SanDisk Corporation announces the availability of its smallest USB flash drive to US and Canadian consumers. The SanDisk Cruzer Blade is about the size of a standard size paper clip and weighs approximately the same as a penny, creating a tiny footprint that fits easily on a keychain or mobile phone dongle. Despite its small size, the USB flash drive packs high-capacity storage at an affordable price.
Available in capacities ranging from 2 gigabytes (GB) to 16GB, the SanDisk Cruzer Blade lets consumers take their favorite digital content with them wherever they go. A 4GB flash drive can store 1,000 songs, 1,200 high- resolution photos, or 8 hours of 768kb/s video.

Perhaps youve heard: social games maker Playdom was acquired by Disney a few days ago for a deal potentially worth north of $750 million. Playdom CEO John Pleasants took the stage today at our Social Currency CrunchUp in Palo Alto, to talk a bit about the deal and the future.

Samsung Electronics Co plans to introduce tablet computers this quarter based on Google's Android operating system, joining a growing list of firms seeking to challenge Apple's popular iPad.


Global handset vendors and PC makers including Nokia, LG Electronics and Hewlett-Packard Co are moving into the new category of devices, between traditional PCs and smartphones, taking a cue from Apple.

Federal regulators lifted a cloud of uncertainty when they announced it was lawful to hack or jailbreak an iPhone, declaring Monday there was no basis for copyright law to assist Apple in protecting its restrictive business model.

Jailbreaking is hacking the phones OS to allow consumers to run any app on the phone they choose, including applications not authorized by Apple.

Users can share information, but the network only sees encrypted data.

Researchers at Microsoft have developed mobile social networking software that lets users share personal information with friends but not the network itself.

When a Contrail user updates his information on the network, by adding a new photo, for example, the image file is sent to a server operating within the networks' cloud, just as with a conventional social network. But it is encrypted and appended with a list that specifies which other users are allowed to see the file. When those users' devices check in with the social network, they download the data and decrypt it to reveal the photo.

A study finds problems, but also offers software fixes that could help cell phones last significantly longer between charges.

Some simple changes to the software running on Wi-Fi access points could significantly extend or even double cell phone battery life. That's the finding of a study that investigated why using Wi-Fi on a cell phone, and on some other portable devices, sucks up power so quickly. It found that a protocol designed to reduce Wi-Fi power drain often doesn't work effectively.

The search company hopes an extra click will forestall cancellation of its license in China.

Google's ability to operate any kind of Internet business in the world's largest market hangs in the balance as China weighs whether it will renew Google's Internet license, which officially expired June 30.

The Gateway One ZX6900-01e is a great deal thanks to its 23-inch display, Blu-ray drive, and speedy performance. It has a few annoying shortcomings; a lack of an HDMI-input, in particular, keeps it from greatness, but overall we'd recommend this desktop to anyone in the market for a well-rounded all-in-one PC. more...

Microsoft certainly pulled a rabbit out of the hat with Windows 7, but given its traditional one-good-one-bad release schedule we're somewhat cautious about Windows 8...

Consequently it is a pleasant surprise - though not entirely unexpected given Microsoft's Swiss cheese security - to see official company slides leak this week detailing numerous features for the impending OS.

There have been 3TB external drives on sale before, but none from just a single drive...

The big news is Seagate has released the world's first three terabyte hard drive, just one month on from announcing the existence of this gargantuan HDD.
Perhaps inevitably its first port of call is as an external storage drive in the form of the '3TB FreeAgent GoFlex' and it couples its immense capacity with USB 3.0 compatibility and a FireWire 800 connection.