NanoSSD Plugs Directly Into SATA Slot

Elecom Japan is launching two nanoSSDs in a few weeks that can plug into a SATA motherboard slot.

This seemed like utter coolness: an SSD that can plug directly into a SATA motherboard slot. Announced earlier today in Japan, Elecom's two new nanoSSDs--the ESD-IDSAA series--measures 25 x 39 x 6.5 mm, and could serve as a startup drive on a main system, or could even serve as a primary drive on a compact Mini-ITX system.

However, with the small size comes an even smaller storage capacity: 8 GB and 16 GB. Still, the drives offer decent read/write speeds, with read rates of up to 75 MB/sec. and write rates of up to 30 MB/sec. Unlike HDDs, the nanoSSDs feature minimal cooling requirements and are virtually quiet as a mouse.

The drives won't hit Japanese store shelves for another few weeks, and Elecom hasn't revealed pricing, however pre-orders are already underway. Akihabara News said that GeekStuff4U.com is scheduled to start selling the drives online in a couple of days.

Source : http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nan...SATA,8538.html

ISRO loses contact with Chandrayaan, aborts; Nair hails it as a success

India’s grandest venture yet into the final frontier has drawn to a close, as the Chandrayaan-I lunar probe mission has been aborted by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) after a communications malfunction.

Contact was lost with the probe two days ago and scientists at the ISRO were unable to restore communications, state-run broadcaster Doordarshan reported. The craft began orbiting the moon last November.

A malfunction in computers on board the spacecraft led to the failure in communications, which will be probed by a committee of scientists.

ISRO tried to send the commands but the space vehicle was not able to respond. “The power signals which go to the computer systems failed. We tried to recover the communications for the entire day yesterday.”

The mission was abandoned early on Saturday shortly after radio contact with the craft was abruptly lost at 0130 HRS.

“We don’t have contact with the spacecraft and we had to terminate the mission,” said a visibly disappointed ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair.

A NATIONAL TRIUMPH

Nair was still optimistic in his outlook and assessment of the whole mission, saying: “The mission was a great success. We survived for 315 days, which is a good record. Many such experiments have burnt within a month in the past.”

The scientist reported that 95 per cent of the Chandrayaan-I project’s objectives had been completed.

“We have found that all the instruments on the spacecraft worked satisfactorily and entire scientific instruments have performed that is how we could collect large volume of data,” Nair said.

The team was disappointed with the development, but the ISRO chief said the focus should be on the fact that they managed critical objectives, including sending the lunar probe, capturing 70,000 images of the moon and collaborating with US satellites.

The satellite is now likely to crash onto the moon’s surface. Meanwhile, ISRO is getting ready for their next project, Chandrayaan-II, scheduled to be launched in 2012.

Sources: DD, Bloomberg

[Hands-on Preview] Need for Speed: Shift

The Need For Speed series gets trifurcated from this year into arcade, simulation and free-online-play titles. And the first out of the new series to zoom out of the garage is the sim-based Shift, set to hit the PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PSP on 17th September 2009.

The good for simulation racing fans is that NFS: Shift has been developed by Slightly Mad Studios, who were responsible for games such as GT Legends and GTR 2.

I got my hands on the PS3 version of the game at the EA India showcase, and the first change from the last NFS title (Underground) that I noticed was that new down-to-earth sim takes the races off the streets and onto circuits for a more realistic experience.

While I appreciate the effort, the gameplay does not quite live up to expectations. While the controls have stayed the game, the handling of cars has gotten kind of tricky. Turning at high speeds, especially, does tend to make you lose control of the car and cause you to naturally drift and bang right into the turn itself.

The graphics are top-notch, with real-time damage showing an effect on the car. While racing in perspective view, be careful about banging into someone as the glass will crack immediately!

Overall, the game is good, graphics are great, racing is more challenging and intense; but there are downsides to all this.

First, the storyline is non-existant, and admit it, we have all come to love (and expect) the deceit, betrayal, increasing street rep, taking over territories and other such elements in our racers.

And well, do you really want to slam the brakes while driving in an NFS game? I think I’ll wait for the arcade title, Nitro, to be released in November.

- Kumar Jhuremalan