Western Digital Announces 20TB My Book Duo RAID Desktop Storage System

Western Digital has announced the 20TB My Book Duo, the company’s highest-capacity desktop hard drive ever. The storage system comes with proprietary RAID 0/1 support offering speeds of up to 360MB per second sequential reads, as well as auto management of drive operations to help ensure read/write cycle data integrity.

The My Book Duo also comes with a USB Type-C port with all cables included for universal compatibility (USB 3.1 Gen 1/3.0/2.0), and two additional USB Type-A hub ports to allow for additional accessories, including drones, action cameras, card readers, keyboards, mice, USB drives or phone syncing and charging.

Available in 20TB, 16TB, 12TB, 8TB, 6TB and 4TB capacities, the storage system also comes with password protection and 256-bit AES hardware encryption with WD Security software built in.

The drive is Formatted NTFS for out-of-the-box compatibility with Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8.0 or Windows 7, and therefore requires reformatting to work on OS X and macOS.

The My Book Duo includes a three-year limited warranty and is available now from wd.com and at select retailers and distributors, retailing at $799.99 (20TB), $599.99 (16TB), $419.99 (12TB), $329.99 (8TB), $289.99 (6TB) and $259.99 (4TB).

Tag: Western Digital
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WD’s My Book Duo storage box puts 20TB on your desktop

Western Digital has unveiled the 20TB My Book Duo, its highest-capacity storage system yet, and it’s a good example of the pluses and minuses of spinning hard disks compared to SSDs. The system works at either RAID 0, which offers the maximum speed but no backup protection, RAID 1, for full data protection but lower speeds and JBOD (just a bunch of disks). At RAID 0 levels, it offers decent 360 MB/s speeds, enough to do video editing and other disk-intensive chores.

WD says it uses RAID-optimized WD RED drives, which spin at 5,400 RPM, though it doesn’t specify how many. The box includes a USB 3.1 Type-C interface port and two USB 3.0 Type-A ports that can be used to connect flash drives and other accessories to your PC. They can also charge up your smartphone, letting the drive do double-duty as a USB hub (it comes with a USB-C to USB-C and USB-A cable in the box). The My Book Duo also supports 256-bit AES hardware encryption.

The base 4TB model costs $280/£270, while the top end 20TB configuration will set you back $800/£620. As a point of comparison, Samsung just unveiled its portable T5 SSD that costs $800/£760, but you get one-tenth the storage — 2TB. However, you also get a lot more performance, with 540 MB/s from a single drive and the greater reliability of SSDs. In other words, price is the lone advantage left to mechanical disks and the reason why WD is so anxious to keep its relationship with flash storage manufacturer Toshiba.

Watch more than 1,000 humanoid robots dance their way to a world record

Why it matters to you

It may look like a robot army preparing for an assault, but rest assured, these bots are just for boogying.

Someone in China recently had an idea to attempt a world record for most robots dancing simultaneously. If you think that’s an odd thing to try, then bear in mind that Guinness World Records also has listings for the heaviest weight lifted with an eye socket (16.2 kg), the fastest 100-hundred-meter-hurdle run wearing fins (14.82 seconds), and the most nails hammered with the human head in two minutes (38). Best you don’t try that last one at home. Or anywhere, for that matter.

The dancing robot record seems tame in comparison, but Guangzhou-based WL Intelligent Tech clearly felt it’d be an excellent way to bring some attention to its “Dobi” humanoid robot. And it was absolutely right.

On a large plaza somewhere in the city last week, company staff diligently set up more than one thousand of the 18-inch robots to attempt the dancing record.

You’ll be pleased to know that the team achieved the feat, with a total of 1,069 Dobi robots strutting their stuff in sync with one another, and as a consequence delighting the Guinness World Record officials who’d traveled to Guangzhou to verify the effort.

If you’re wondering why the company didn’t round off the number of robots to 1,100, the answer is they did, but 31 of them toppled over while attempting to pull some of the trickier dance moves, disqualifying them from the final count.

Dancing robots is evidently a thing in China, as the last record for the same feat was held by another Chinese outfit, Ever Win Company, with a total of 1,007 robots (so that’s why WL Intelligent Tech didn’t round it down to 1,000).

Currently aimed at the Chinese market, voice-controlled Dobi retails for around $250. It’s clearly a versatile contraption, with the multi-jointed robot able to quickly get on its own two feet from a lying position.

The android’s battery keeps Dobi going for about 40 minutes, and you’ll know when the juice is running low because its eyes will turn from blue to red.

You can command Dobi to turn left or right, or tell a story (in Chinese). It’ll also pull some kung fu moves if you ask it to, though mellower types may be happier watching it in yoga mode.

And of course, command it to “have a dance” and Dobi will happily boogie on the spot, whether or not 1,099 other Dobis are dancing along with it.

Samsung may release a Galaxy Note 8 with 4GB of RAM in China

Samsung could be aiming for an $800 price point with the 4GB Galaxy Note 8.

Samsung usually reserves its highest-specced phones for the Chinese market — the country was the first to pick up a 6GB version of the Galaxy S8 — but it looks like the manufacturer is set to launch a Note 8 variant with 4GB of RAM in the country. That’s according to TENAA’s certification page for SM-N9508 and SM-N9500, the country-specific variants of the Note 8 destined for the Chinese market.

Given that the standard version of the Note 8 with 6GB of RAM retails for $930, Samsung is likely looking to roll out a base model that will be priced at around $800 – $850 in China. According to Gear India, the 4GB model will be available alongside the standard 6GB editions, with the variant offering 6GB of RAM and 64GB storage set to retail for ¥6,288 ($945) in the country. Samsung will also launch a model with 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage, which will end up retailing for ¥7,088 ($1,065).

Aside from the decrease in memory, the 4GB variant of the Note 8 is unchanged from the standard model — it has a 6.3-inch Super AMOLED Infinity Display, Snapdragon 835, 64GB of storage, microSD slot, dual rear cameras, and a 3300mAh battery. The fact that the 4GB Note 8 variant is certified by TENAA means that a launch is on the cards.

There’s no official word as to when the Note 8 will make its debut in China, but rumors point to an unveil on September 13, with availability kicking off from September 23. It’s unclear if the 4GB model will make its debut at the same time as the standard editions, but with the launch a few weeks away, we should know more soon.

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‘The Evil Within 2’ is better because it spaces out the scares

The Evil Within 2 is weird, gross and scary, but that’s okay. It balances all that with exploration and figuring out what the hell is going on. I can then get back to fleeing disgusting buzzsaw creatures — or occasionally stabbing them in the chest — at my leisure. The Evil Within was never about cheap jump scares, but the game was so consistently tense and bleak that many found it pretty hard to play through. The sequel, playable at Gamescom this year, looks to be a refinement of the original, making it altogether more playable, even if there’s still usually something trying to kill you at every turn.

I sat down with John Johanas and Shinji Mikami to talk about what’s changed. Resident Evil creator Mikami is now the producer and creative supervisor, as Johanas takes up the director role for The Evil Within 2. Both noted that, with the sequel, the emphasis was on expanding the world and fleshing out the sometimes hard-to-understand story of the original. “We decided to go back to [the protagonist] Sebastian. This is his tale of discovery, of redemption,” said Johanas. “Everything is based on that.”

To that end, the gameplay and controls haven’t changed in any major way, just some refinements from player feedback. There’s a greater focus on how much you get to understand about Sebastian Castellanos — the detective whose life was ruined by the events he survived in The Evil Within. What motivates him now is the chance that his daughter, thought dead, could be alive. In order to rescue her, he has to go back into the messed up STEM world — that’s where all the faceless creatures and messed-up monsters are. Fantastic.

Bethesda

While the original game was relatively linear, The Evil Within 2 offers more exploration, bigger areas and more chances for independent thought and play. I got to test out the second and third chapter. The first half of my playthrough was a relentless chase from some stitched-together monstrosity. I fumbled the controls and managed to get the former detective maimed twice before making it to the next chapter, where the tempo completely changes.

Castellanos discovers he’s on the outskirts of a village, and after tackling a demonic mom that’s force-feeding her soon-to-be-dead ‘son’, he makes his way into a suburb overrun with more zombie types.

After fending off a few demons and striking an uneasy alliance with a bloodied survivor who’s terrible at handling a gun, I was left to make my own way. My communicator gadget offered some directional guidance to the main quest in the form of radio static, but also hinted at side quests I could undertake to either even the odds, or just add more opportunities to forage for materials, weapons and magical goo to improve my own skills. (Green liquid is occasionally dropped by monsters, you just need to shove a hand inside the corpse to pull some of it out.)

After crafting some bullets at my new safe house, I heard someone’s voice coming from inside the new church. As the last lucid human turned out to be helpful, I thought I might find another recruit. A priest inside was praying to the cross on the altar. There was already a corpse skewered on said cross. As I approach, demonic light burst from his mouth and he’s transformed into.. something bad. Suddenly, a monster appears behind me, while another crashes through the church window. By the end, I’d used up all of those just-made bullets.

I had time to creep around at my own volition, but there was also enough going on, even in this early area, to keep me busy and, well, tense enough. Horror-action games can often be a bit too much for me, and many noted that the original Evil Within suffered from an often on-the-rails sense of relentless scares and horrors. Johanas says that they paid particular attention to both the pacing and to encourage more exploration in-game.

With expanded game areas, and attempting to offer gamers a deeper insight into what motivates the protagonist and even the unhinged antagonists, it all adds up to a bigger creative task than the original. For Mikami the biggest challenge was time, and lack of it. Johanas added: “Delivering the more abstract ideas and notions of the mind: these kind of puzzles take time to make. I wish we’d have been able to make more of those.”

I asked him if there was anything too graphic, too messed-up that they simply couldn’t put into the sequel. “Not really. In the first game, the player was handling brains in order to solve a puzzle. Once you’ve done things like that, there’s not much we can’t do,” quipped Johanas. The game is set to arrive October 13th on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

Follow all the latest news live from Gamescom here!

Google might announce the next-gen Pixels on October 5th

If you need to see Google’s next-gen Pixels before deciding whether to get the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, don’t worry — you might only need to wait for a few more weeks. Evan Blass, known for his accurate mobile leaks, has tweeted that Google will be revealing the second generation of its Pixel handsets on October 5th. He also said that both regular-sized and XL versions will be powered by Qualcomm’s upgraded chip, the Snapdragon 836, which HTC hinted at in its FCC filing. According to previous reports, HTC made the smaller model, while Google put LG in charge of the larger one.

If the older leaks about the devices are true, then you’re waiting for rather basic-looking phones with HTC’s border squeeze controls. They reportedly don’t have dual cameras like most new releases these days, and it’s believed that Google took cues from the latest iPhones and removed their headphone jacks. Other possible features include 1440p screen resolution, 4GB of RAM and up to 128GB of storage. The photo you see above, which was obtained by Android Police, shows what the devices could look like. No point in guessing its features and looks at this point, though — if the date Blass tweeted is spot on, we’ll get to know them real soon.

Google’s second-generation Pixel handsets, powered by Snapdragon 836 SoC’s, will be unveiled on October 5th.

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 24, 2017

Via: CNET

Source: Evan Blass (Twitter)

You can use your own iPhone to get Virgin’s $1-a-year plan

Looks like Virgin Mobile is on a mission to sign up as many iPhone users as it can. The carrier has just announced that you can now bring your own iPhone and enjoy its $1-a-year subscription offer. When the company began exclusively catering to iPhone users in June, it only offered that deal to a limited number of people buying their devices from the carrier itself. According to Virgin CEO Dow Draper, though, the carrier has expanded the offer’s scope, because it understands that “many love their current phones or don’t want to upgrade yet.”

Virgin’s $1 plan comes with unlimited talk, text and data, though your connection may slow down after you’ve used 23GB within a month. What happens to your plan after a year? Well, you’ll have to start paying a more standard amount — $50 a month — though you can get six more months of service for a buck if you get a new phone.

If you’re on the fence, don’t wait too long to decide: the sub-Sprint carrier is only offering the deal for “a short period of time.” Take note, however, that Virgin Mobile’s “Inner Circle” SIM for the iPhone only works for the 5s and newer models. You can check your device’s eligibility on Virgin Mobile’s website, though you’ll most likely have to buy a new one if you have an older model. Once you’ve confirmed that your model is compatible with the plan, you can order Virgin’s Inner Circle SIM. As a nice bonus, you can get the SIM for free until September 29th, after which one will cost you $25.

Via: CNET

Source: Virgin Mobile

California continues to lead the US in renewable energy

In 2006, California adopted aggressive legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and boosting renewable energy production throughout the state. And since then, the state has been tracking its progress through its annual California Green Innovation Index report. The ninth report was just released this week and it shows that the state has made some major progress towards its renewable energy goals while hitting a bit of a bump in regards to its emission reductions.

Between 2010 and 2015 solar energy generation increased by over 1,700 percent and renewable electricity accounted for almost 22 percent of all of the state’s electricity generation in 2015. From 2014 to 2015, renewable energy generations increased by over eight percent overall with solar power rising by over 40 percent. But because of the drought, hydroelectric energy generation decreased over six percent.

Importantly, the report also shows that with a push towards renewable energy, job and economic growth aren’t hampered. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Since California’s climate law was passed in 2006, the state’s GDP has increased by nearly $5,000 per person — which is double the increases the US achieved as a whole. Job growth in California was also stronger than the rest of the country by about 27 percent. These achievements were accomplished all while reducing per capita emissions by 12 percent and carbon-intensity by 4.5 percent.

However, while the report shows that the state is doing very well in some areas, it also notes that reductions in greenhouse gases have stalled, falling just 0.34 percent between 2014 and 2015. And those numbers have been leveling out for the last few years. The report attributes the lack of progress in this particular area to cheaper gas prices and increased commute times — which rose nearly three percent — as residents are forced to move further away from their jobs due to the rising housing costs in urban areas. “Transportation sector emissions vastly outweigh other carbon-producing areas of California’s economy, and the recent spike should alert policy-makers that despite our best efforts, more must be done,” Adam Fowler, an economist at the research firm that put the report together, said in a statement.

However, while there’s still some work to be done, the progress the state has made shows that its efforts are largely working and should be seen as a standard for other states and the country as a whole. “The data in this year’s Index shows that developing cleaner transportation options presents both a great challenge and a great opportunity for the state moving forward,” said Noel Perry, the founder of the nonprofit group Next 10, which released the report. “Finding a way to reduce emissions by 5 percent each year in the coming decade will require innovation. Fortunately, that’s something California has proven it knows how to do.”

Source: Next10 (1), (2), (3)

Nikon’s D850 DSLR blends speed with insane resolution

Nikon recently teased a full-frame D850 for its 100th anniversary, hoping it would fulfill the wish-lists of pro photographers. It has now unwrapped the DSLR and seems to have wildly succeeded with that goal. The D850 is entering medium-format territory, resolution-wise, with a 45.7 megapixel sensor, and can push those images through the camera at 7 fps, or 9 fps with the optional battery grip. And this time, Nikon didn’t leave videographers out, as it can handle 4K video at 30 fps.

The D850’s sensor is a pretty big jump in resolution over its predecessor, the 36.2-megpixel D810, and Nikon says it has an “unprecedented combination of resolution, dynamic range, ISO and processing power.” It’s the company’s first DSLR to boast a back-side illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor, and eschews optical low-pass filter (OLPF) to preserve maximum sharpness. Nikon didn’t mention who built it, but Sony uses a pretty similar sensor on its 42-megapixel, full-frame Alpha A7R II.

ISO ranges from 64 to 25,600, but is expandable from 32-102,400. It borrows the D5’s rapid-fire 153-point, multi-cam 20K autofocus, with 99 cross type sensors. Thanks to a new Expeed 5 image processor, you can buffer up to 51 frames of 45.7-megapixel 14-bit RAW imges, or 170 frames at 12-bits, making the higher frame rates more useful. The D850 also has a “silent shooter” mode, so you can operate in “complete silence” using Live View and the electronic shutter — handy for shooting sensitive events.

Video-wise, you’re looking at 4K UltraHD (3,840 x 2,160) resolution that uses the full width of the sensor at 16:9, “to increase lensing options and provide a true field of view,” Nikon says. You can also capture 1080p video at up to 120 fps. Timelapse freaks get 8K images using the built in intervalometer, or 4K in-camera.

UltraHD video can be captured to the D850’s memory cards (XQD or SDHC II). However, higher-quality 4:2:2 8-bit uncompressed video (no 10-bit, sorry) is only available via the HDMI output to an external recorder — which is very similar to how Sony’s A7R II works, by the way. Videographers also get focus peaking, zebra stripes, and inputs (3.5mm, but still) for headphones and a microphone.

As for the rest, there’s a tilting, 3.2-inch touchscreen, radio flash control, three sizes of RAW files and a battery that offers 1,840 shots at full resolution or 70 minutes of video on a charge. You’ll also get dual card slots, illuminated buttons, focus stacking and WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The magnesium body is weather sealed.

Nikon’s D850 should really please landscape, event and portrait photographers, and even sports shooters, to a lesser extent. Though it can’t quite keep up with the D5’s 12fps shooting speed, the much higher resolution will give you more cropping options and better overall quality.

In that sense, it’s also a pretty good response to Fujifilm’s $6,500 GFX 50S, a medium-format 51.4-megapixel, $6,500 camera. In fact, Nikon specifically mentions the term “medium format” several times in its press release, likely in response to Fujifilm (and Hasselblad). Nikon also reminds of us its much more comprehensive FX lens collection compared to its medium-format rivals.

It’s also got to at least keep up with Canon’s 50.2-megapixel 5Ds — it doesn’t match that model’s resolution, but it waxes it in nearly every other way. As for the Sony A7R II, that mirrorless model has very similar specs and is much lighter, but plenty of pro shooters still prefer a real optical viewfinder, and again, Nikon’s lens selection is inarguably better. The closest rival to the D850 might actually be Sony’s A99 II SLT, which can actually shoot a bit faster at 12fps and costs nearly the same.

Speaking of, you’re going to pay a lot for Nikon’s new model, but the price seems fair for what you get. The D850 costs $3,300 for the body only, and the MB-D18 Multi Power Battery Pack adds another $400. It’ll arrive sometime in September, 2017.

Roku now accounts for 37 percent of all streaming players

With a variety of models on offer, Roku now accounts for 37% of the streaming box market.

As more and more consumers look to cut the cord and get away from their cable companies, consumer electronics companies like Apple, Google and Amazon are more than happy to sell these users on an Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV or Fire TV. However, it seems more users are choosing a Roku streaming player.

Parks Associates reports the breakdown of the streaming box market, and Roku leads the rest with 37% of the market, up from 33% at the beginning of 2016. It’s not hard to see why: the $30 Roku Express is $5 cheaper than a Chromecast, but still features a physical remote and a full user interface. Roku doesn’t try to get users into one ecosystem over the other and has access to every streaming service except for Apple content. For users who have a nicer TV and want to play back 4K content, the $110 Roku Ultra will do just that, and there are plenty of models between those two points for users who need different features. There are even TV sets with Roku built in for those who don’t want to waste an HDMI port.

The rest of the space breaks down with Google (encompassing both Chromecast and Android TV), Amazon and Apple hovering around 20% each, with an “others” category making up the remainder. There was no mention of the Playstation 4 nor the Xbox One. I, myself, use an Xbox One as my smart TV system, but I understand the omission given how much more expensive these consoles are compared to a normal streaming box.

Which streaming box do you prefer? Let us know down below!

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