WD® MAKES IT EASY TO DISCOVER, ENJOY AND PROTECT DIGITAL CONTENT ON WINDOWS 8

New WD App Provides Easy Access and Sharing of Videos, Photos and Music for Windows 8 Devices

SINGAPORE – Nov. 29, 2012 – WD®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) company, and a world leader in external storage and solutions for today’s connected life, announced today comprehensive support for new storage features in Windows 8 and an app for the new Windows user interface that makes it easy to discover, enjoy and backup digital media and files.

The WD app for Windows 8 automatically discovers digital content on connected WD direct attached storage solutions and showcases those photos, videos and music on a live tile on the Start screen. Within the app, customers can easily find and enjoy their digital content as well as share their media via email and social media sites with the Share charm. Windows 8 automatically installs the WD app for certified WD products or it can be downloaded from the Windows Store.

Additionally WD products simplify the process of computer backup through support of the new File History feature within Windows 8. File History is a file backup application that makes it easy to schedule automatic backups to any hard drive attached to the computer or on the network, such as WD’s My Passport® and My Book® Live™ products. This simplified process of performing automatic, periodical back up of personal files stored in Libraries, Desktop, Favorites, and Contacts folders ensures peace of mind that important files are backed up.

WD drives also fully support the new Windows 8 Storage Spaces feature, which allows customers to make multiple external hard drives appear as a single storage volume.Customers can use Storage Spaces in conjunction with File History to create redundant backups for enhanced security.

“From our cool new WD app for Windows 8 and our comprehensive products for easy Windows 8 backup, to our recent addition of SkyDrive cloud storage into our WD 2go mobile app, we are excited about delivering a seamless storage experience across the Windows 8 ecosystem to help customers easily protect and enjoy their precious digital content,” states Craig Davis, general manager for WD’s connected life solutions group.

Availability and Pricing

The WD app for Windows 8 is currently available in the Windows Store. WD products included above are currently available select distributors and resellers.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc plans to sell and lease back its campus in Austin, Texas, to raise cash and fund its chipmaking business as it diversifies beyond the struggling PC industry into new markets.

AMD expects to sell the 58-acre site for between $150 million and $200 million and close a deal in the second quarter, company spokesman Drew Prairie told Reuters on Tuesday.

The chipmaker’s move to sell its campus, reported earlier by the Austin American-Statesman, comes as the company and its larger rival Intel Corp struggle with slowing personal computer sales.

AMD’s cash declined $279 million in the third quarter to $1.48 billion. AMD said it was reducing its “optimal” cash target to $1.1 billion from $1.5 billion due to the business’ now smaller size.

Shares of AMD rose 0.5 percent on Tuesday to close at $1.88.

Source Reuters

According to a report on SemiAccurate, it is said that the upcoming Broadwell will not come in an LGA package, so no removable CPU. The news was leaked from Japan PC Watch.

So what is the impact ? Most end users might not feel much of a difference as most users still buy a processor + motherboard bundle anyway. The difference is that you can’t really choose which processor to pair with your board as they come soldered on.

Enthusiast who are always changing processors as fast as changing underwear will find themselves shut off in a way. Web sites that leaks information will find themselves shut off too as it would be difficult for some sources to ‘smuggle’ Engineering board with solder processors out.

One of the nightmares will be inventory control. Distributors will have to stock up massive amount of stocks (board with CPU integrated).

The worst nightmware for mainboard manufacturers is that they might be forced out of the competition in a way. The reason is simple, Intel might be having their own brand boards with CPU integrated and will compete head to head with their products. This might also force such manufactuers to divert their attention to the other processor maker, AMD which still remains attractive in terms of price/performance.

Actually, we already expected this day to come. First, the industry consolidated and killed almost all the chipset makers. The chipset makers ended up making South bridges and on board DVB tuners. Now they probably have to give up making south bridges as SATA 6Gbps or USB3 controllers are all integrated into the single chipset.

Next was the integration of higher quality graphics into the chipset, with that you don’t even need an external graphics card unless you are crazy over 3D games.

Everyone out there is having their own game plan. Look at Apple, and Microsoft now making their own hardware and software. If they can increase their market share and profit margin, do you think they will care about whether mainboard manufacturers in Taiwan will survive ?

In fact we spoke to a number of people about this matter. We somewhat agree that Intel might do that low to mid range notebooks and motherboards. They willleave the higher end boards with socketed designs. By doing so, they might not be pushing customers away to AMD. In fact, AMD Hudson E350 are all socketed designs but their Trinity series (FM2) and 990FX boards which are considered the higher end are still socket design.

If Intel goes for soldered design and flood the market with thier own brand boards, the OEM manufacturers will stand to gain for more orders. 3rd party manufacturers like ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS, Biostar, ASRock might have serious problems if they can’t get hold of processors (for soldering onto their boards). If our prediction is right, the higher end boards might still adopt socketed design but how many percent of their revenue of the motherboard manufacturers comes from the expensive boards?

Secondly, the other mid range board makers will still continue to compete with socketed designs. They will also deliver some high end boards but that might not sell that well either. They might end up selling more AMD. Perhaps a third group might evolve making ARM based boards one day.

So at the end of the day, motherboard manufacturers will be here to stay. It is just that how will they will channel their resources into socket or non socketed boards.

Comments

iMac Available on 30 November

CUPERTINO, California―27 November 2012―Apple® today announced the all-new iMac® will be available on Friday, 30 November. Featuring a stunning design, brilliant display with reduced reflection, faster processors and an innovative new storage option called Fusion Drive, the new iMac is the most advanced desktop Apple has ever made. The 21.5-inch iMac will be available through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com/sg) and select Apple Authorised Resellers. The 27-inch iMac will be available for order through the Apple Online Store and will begin shipping in December.

Redesigned from the inside out, the new iMac packs high performance technology into an aluminium and glass enclosure that measures just 5 millimetres thin at its edge and features a reengineered display that reduces reflection by 75 per cent. The new iMac includes 8GB of 1600 MHz memory, a 1TB hard drive, third generation quad-core Intel Core i5 processors that can be upgraded to Core i7, and the latest NVIDIA GeForce graphics processors that deliver up to 60 per cent faster performance. Fusion Drive is an innovative new storage option that gives customers the performance of flash and the capacity of a hard drive by combining 128GB of flash with a standard hard drive to create a single storage volume that intelligently manages files to optimise read and write performance.

The 21.5-inch iMac is available with a 2.7 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.2 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M for a suggested retail price of S$1,788 inc. GST; and with a 2.9 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.6 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M for a suggested retail price of S$2,088 inc. GST. The 27-inch iMac is available with a 2.9 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.6 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M for a suggested retail price of S$2,488 inc. GST; and with a 3.2 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.6 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX for a suggested retail price of S$2,788 inc. GST.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Every quarter, we will see the telcos unbid one another to secure more customers. This is not the first and will never be the last. At Hall 5 of Singapore Expo, you would probably see the three main telecom operators sitting side by side at Singapore Expo, luring customers with the freebies and super low price.

So which operator has the best deal for Fibre Broadband and package deal ? Let’s take a look at them one by one.

M1

First is M1. To date, M1 has the best Fibre Broadband no frills package that will attract most users who just want plain 100Mbps fibre connection and nothing more. Priced at S$39 per mth with a 24 months contract, it also throws in a Mobile Broadband mData 1GB (up to 7.2Mbps HSPA SIM card alone) and Home Fixed Voice Service. The Optical Networko Terminal installation is FREE. Upgrade to 200Mbps at S$49/mth, just $10 more is you really need 2X the speed for the poor local contents.

They also have the bundle offer of 100Mbps with the same as above but comes with a FREE Acer Aspire V5 Touch notebook worth S$1398. The price is tagged at S$75/mth or you can choose to get a ValurSurf+ mobile plan or Value+plan with another $10 more.

Something which is not mentioned is that M1 does not provide you with a Wireless Router. So, you have to purchase you own. Price ranges from S$52-$209 from Cisco or ASUS.

M1 also has very cheap Mobile Broadband offers starting from $12/mth (3G) or $24/mth (LTE) for 2GB bundle. There is also a free 3 mth mData+ subscription if you sign up for 24 mths.

Singtel

Singtel doesn’t seem to have standalone Fibre broadband plan. Instead, it bundle their Mio TV service with a 100Mbps at S$69.90 or 300Mbps at S$99. For the price, you get a Wireless Router worth S$188, 10 GB online storage, Fixed Home Line and Mio TV Family+ with 44 channels. In addition you get 10% discount for additional mio tv contents. Those with Singtel mobile lines also enjoyu annual mobile handset upgrade and multiline users can get up from 10% to 25% discount for their Singtel mobile lines. Latest : They are throwing in one year of Fox Movies (you have to pay from the 13th month at S$16 in addition to the S$69.90). They also throw in a 1GB data SIM free.

The Mio TV package seems rather attractive for those who wants to catch the latest News and Education programmes in HD. Entertainment wise there is Starworld HD, Fox HD. Unfortunately there is no CNN, BBC or CNBC on this platform.

Something that is not mentioned is the installation charges. So, do check before you commit the 24mths contract.

Starhub

Starhub has a number of bundle deals giving away notebooks. All deals comes with free 1 GB data SIM card free. The most appealing is the 200Mbps Fibre broadband plan at S$128/mth. They are giving away a MacBook Pro worth S$1688 for a 2 yrs contract. Alternatively, you can go for ASUS R405CA notebook with 100Mbps at S$89.90/mth. Cable broadband wise, they have a 50Mbps cable broadband plan at S$77.90/mth, comes with free Toshiba Satellite M840.

If you want just plain vanilla broadband, 150Mbps + 1GB mobile broadband and wirles home gateway is yours for S$49.90/mth. There are small prints below the brochure which indicates the installation charges.

As for Starhub TV bundle, it has a S$73 Home Ultimate which gives you 100Mbps Fibre, Home Gateway, 37 channels of Starhub TV, Home phone line, Tv anyway and up to 30% off mobile subscription and 1GB data SIM. This plan is comparable to the Singtel offer at S$69.90/mth.

Viewquest

Viewquest also has something up on it’s sleeve. It is promoting it’s Fibrenet Raptor 200 giving you 300Mbps at S$79.95. In addition, the first 50 sign up per day get a free Apple TV. It ia also throwing in a 1mth trial and 3 months freedom VPN for you to access overseas contents. There is no mention of free installation on it’s brochure.

MyRepublic

MyRepublic seems to be one of the more aggressive new players. They offer 2 plans – Pure Plan is S$59/mth at S$100/mth and Gamer Plan is S$69/mth at 150Mbps.

It is offering free service installation. You can choose to have free 6 mths Fire Broadband or take home a free Acer ASpire S7 worth $1898  (plan is $109.90/mth) or Acer Iconia W510 worth $1198 (plan is S$88/mth).

One thing good about MyRepublic is that you can have a Fix IP address for S$50 more, Home Voice isn’t free thought. You can to pay S$49/mth for installation and equipemtn charge. So Pure plan works out to be S$44.25/mth and Gamer plan at S$51.75/mth. Just like M1, you have to purchase your own ASUS router from S$69 to S$209 onwards.

Verdict

If you are a user who just wants plain internet surfing without free notebooks or whatsoever, the M1 plan remains the King among the 5 players. MyRepublic is slightly more expensive than M1 but it’s Home Fixed line service isn’t really free and it is limited in a way. Secondly, it doesn’t provide a free mobile 1GB data plan.

If you want TV content to be bundled, I think the Singtel Fibre plan would be worth the money but do take note you have to pay an additional $16 for the Fox movie channels (it’s free for the first year). The Starhub TV is good but you have to pay extra for HD contents.

As for the other Viewquest, it’s quest for gamers market might not work out too well. As for VPN option it is indeed a good option for exptraites who missed their home channels. As for locals, most people will use their means to download them over P2P network.

So the choice is up to you. Which operator will you go for ? Check out the brochures here

Discuss here.

Sitex 201at starts tomorrow and we have scanned the price. There are some good bargains for IT products and one of those is the Nexus 7 32GB version for SGD 399. Microsoft windows 8 tablet notebook would also be the main focus of this show. Do expect a price war. Check out the link below for more price list updates :

http://forums.ocworkbench.com/forumdisplay.php?f=82

WD^® OFFERS MAC USERS USB 3.0 CONNECTIVITY WITH NEW

MY BOOK^® STUDIO™ EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE

4 TB Capacity; Premium Aluminum Enclosure and Hardware-Based Encryption That Protects Against Unauthorized Access to Valuable Content

SINGAPORE. – Nov. 19, 2012 – WD^®, a Western Digital company (NASDAQ: WDC), and a world leader in external storage and connected life solutions, today announced a new version of the My Book^® Studio™ external hard drive. USB 3.0 capability is now extended to this family of My Book Studio hard drives and provides data transfer speeds up to three times faster than USB 2.0. WD has also introduced the addition of a massive 4 TB capacity in a single-drive configuration making it a perfect solution for backing up large amounts of digital content. The My Book Studio drive is designed with a premium aluminum enclosure and will be available in 1 TB, 2 TB, 3 TB and 4 TB capacities.

The My Book Studio drive’s features and benefits have made it a favorite among creative professionals and Mac computer enthusiasts, including working seamlessly with Apple^® Time Machine, for protecting and backing up their valuable professional and personal content. The My Book Studio external hard drive includes WD Security™, which allows users to password protect their drive along with 256-bit hardware-based encryption for added security against unauthorized access to the drive and its contents.

“WD’s My Book Studio with USB 3.0 delivers extreme transfer speeds while maintaining the standard USB and FireWire connections computer users prefer,” said Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager of WD’s branded and CE products. “Its large capacity, combined with a premium aluminum enclosure, hardware-based encryption, and compatibility with Apple Time Machine, provide Mac users with a fast, secure and complete system for preserving their valuable content.”

Pricing and Availability

The My Book Studio external hard drive comes with a 3-year limited warranty and is available on the WD store at www.wdstore.com and at select retailers and distributors. MSRP for My Book Studio 1 TB is $209.00 SGD; the 2 TB is $249.00 SGD; the 3 TB is $309.00 SGD and the 4 TB is $399.00 SGD. WD will continue to offer its My Book Studio drive with USB 2.0 and FireWire^® 800 connectivity for legacy systems.

Kingston Ships Next-Gen SSDNow V Series
 New SSDNow V300 Solid-state Drive Provides Consumers with High-performance, Cost-efficient Upgrade Solution
 Customized LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processor Solution

Hsinchu, Taiwan – November 15, 2012– Kingston, the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is shipping the next generation of its most cost-effective SSDNow V Series solid-state drive. The Kingston SSDNow V300 is a powerful upgrade solution for cost-conscious consumers looking to upgrade their existing desktop or notebook PC.

The new SSDNow V300 is 10x faster than a 7200RPM hard-disk drive†. It is powered by an LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processor (FSP) solution customized for Kingston, and optimized for industry-leading 19nm NAND Flash memory to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 450MB/s. Using best-in-class components, SSDNow V300 combines quality, performance and affordability from two leading SSD brands that are affordable for first-time SSD users or anyone looking to upgrade an existing system.

“LSI worked together with Kingston to deliver a customized high-performing solid-state drive solution for their cost-effective SSDNow V Series,” said Kent Smith, senior director of product marketing, Flash Components Division, LSI., LSI SandForce. “Our award-winning SF-2281 Client FSPs provide Kingston’s customers with enterprise-class features and an enhanced everyday computing user experience, especially for first time SSD users.”

“Kingston is committed to delivering SSDs at the best price to performance ratio as possible. We achieve this again with our next-generation SSDNow V300,” said Nathan Su, Flash Memory Sales Director, APAC Region, Kingston. “The SSDNow V300 is the best cost-efficient upgrade for users who want their existing systems to perform faster. They will experience faster boot up and shutdown times, and will also see much better system performance when multiple applications are open.”

The SSDNow V300 is available as a stand-alone drive or as an upgrade kit containing cloning software and other accessories for a desktop and/or notebook system. SSDNow V300 is backed by a three-year warranty, free technical support and legendary Kingston reliability.

Kingston is celebrating 25 years in the memory industry. The company was founded on October 17, 1987, and has grown to become the largest third-party memory manufacturer in the world. The 25th anniversary video can be found at here as well as more information including a timeline of Kingston’s history. In addition, HyperX memory is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The first HyperX high-performance memory module was released in November 2002.

† Based on PCMark Vantage, Advanced Edition HDD Test Suite. Test system: Dell XPS 8500, Intel H77 Chipset, Intel® Core™ i7-3770 CPU, 8GB System Memory. SSD tested as primary drive with results based on “out-of-box” performance. This SSD is designed for use in desktop and notebook computer workloads, and is not intended for Server environments.

Kingston SSDNow V300 Features and Specifications:
 Form factor: 2.5″
 Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) – with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0
 Capacities1: 60GB, 120GB, 240GB
 Sequential Reads2: SATA Rev. 3.0 — up to 450MB/s
 Sequential Writes2:
SATA Rev. 3.0 — up to 450MB/s
 Maximum Random 4k Read/Write3
60GB — up to 85,000/up to 60,000 IOPS120GB — up to 85,000/up to 55,000 IOPS240GB — up to 85,000/up to 43,000 IOPS
 PCMark® Vantage HDD Suite Score
60GB — 39,000
120GB — 49,000
240GB — 57,000
 Power Consumption:
0.640W (MAX) Idle / 1.423W (MAX) Read / 2.052W (MAX) Write
 Storage temperatures: -40°C ~ 85°C
 Operating temperatures: 0°C ~ 70°C
 Dimensions: 69.8mm x 100.1mm x 7mm
 Weight: 86g
 Vibration operating: 2.17G Peak (7–800Hz)
 Vibration non-operating: 20G Peak (10–2000Hz)
 Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF
 Warranty/support: three-year warranty with free technical support
 Total Bytes Written (TBW)4
60GB — 32TB120GB — 64TB 240GB — 128TB

1 Please note: Some of the listed capacity on a Flash storage device is used for formatting and other functions and thus is not available for data storage. As such, the actual available capacity for data storage is less than what is listed on the products. For more information, go to Kingston’s Flash memory Guide at kingston.com/flash_memory_guide.
2 Based on “out-of-box performance” with ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.41. Speed may vary due to host hardware, software, and usage.
3 Based on “out-of-box performance” with IOMeter.
4 Total Bytes Written (TBW) refers to how much total data can be written to an SSD for a given workload before the drive reaches its endurance limits.

Kingston SSDNow V300 Solid-State Drives††

Part Number Capacity and Features
SV300S37A/60G 60GB Stand-alone V300 SSD
SV300S37A/120G 120GB Stand-alone V300 SSD
SV300S37A/240G 240GB Stand-alone V300 SSD
SV300S3D7/60G 60GB Desktop Upgrade Kit
SV300S3D7/120G 120GB Desktop Upgrade Kit
SV300S3D7/240G 240GB Desktop Upgrade Kit
SV300S3N7A/60G 60GB Notebook Upgrade Kit
SV300S3N7A/120G 120GB Notebook Upgrade Kit
SV300S3N7A/240G 240GB Notebook Upgrade Kit

SAN FRANCISCO A A report that Advanced Micro Devices Inc. was exploring its options lit up the chip maker’s stock in late trading, but investors might want to watch what happens first.

AMD (AMD) issued a statement after the market closed on Tuesday stating that it “is not actively pursuing a sale of the company or significant assets at this time.” Earlier, Reuters reported that the company had hired investment bank J.P. Morgan, a move that potentially could lead to a sale of the company or some of its assets. Read more about AMD’s statement.

The chip maker’s assertion that it was “not actively pursuing a sale” may be telling, because it could mean that it did already considered this option, or looked at the sale of some of its intellectual property, and decided against any such action.

It could be an acknowledgment that AMD would have a tough time finding a merger partner. The company’s biggest rival is Intel Corp. (INTC), the world’s largest microprocessor maker. Both companies are seen as behind in the mobile-device market — while their biggest partner, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), embraced technology by rival ARM Holdings PLC (ARMH), by developing the new Surface tablet for its chip designs.

It’s not clear at all which company might actually want to acquire AMD. So investors who were cheering the potential of a merger or asset sale might want to rethink the whole scenario.

Source : Marketwatch

The latest version of Microsoft’s Web browser is now available to the vast audience connecting to the Internet on personal computers running on the Windows 7 operating system.

The redesigned browser, Internet Explorer 10, made its debut last month when Microsoft released Windows 8, which makes dramatic changes to an operating system that has been powering PCs for decades.

Internet Explorer 10 initially is being introduced Tuesday to Windows 7 users in a ‘‘preview,’’ or test, mode. The new browser isn’t compatible with XP, Vista and any other older Windows version.

Download from here http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Info/Downloads/Default.html

Link

Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo
bluetooth 6 Nov 2012

The hot topic on the PC world is the Thunderbolt connectivity on the new motherboards. In fact, for the Mac users, Thunderbolt isn’t something new. If you have a new generation MacBook or Air, you will most likely have it prebuilt on your notebook.

While USB is still the preferred way of storage, the lightning fast interface of Thunderbolt might just slowly take away the shine this old standard. With Thunderbolt, you can transfer a full-length HD movie in under 30 seconds or thousands of MP3 songs in mere minutes. Thunderbolt™ I/O technology gives you two channels on the same connector with 10 Gb/s of throughput in both directions. Data moves to and from drives up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0 and up to 12 times faster than with FireWire 800, providing more than enough bandwidth to daisy-chain multiple high-speed drives without using a hub or switch.