Americans in Love with "Terabyte Lifestyle"; Study Finds Nearly all Own Products with Digital Technology

Lifestyles of American adults are becoming increasingly "digital," with fully three-quarters owning computers, and large majorities owning multiple electronics products - ranging from cell phones to entertainment devices to cameras - all using digital technology*. The ravenous consumer appetite for these devices has been fueled not only by advances in consumer electronics, but also by a transformation in hard drive storage.

"Technology advances that enable smaller, higher capacity, more stable storage solutions are allowing consumer electronics manufacturers to develop products with greater functionality," said Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate Technology, one of the industry's leading providers of digital storage solutions. "The convenience, reliability and huge capacity of hard drive storage is enhancing applications as diverse as digital audio players, gaming devices, DVRs, HDTVs, automobiles, cell phones, PDAs, and a host of other products. Ground-breaking storage solutions are helping to drive the adoption of a digital lifestyle."

A recent survey conducted by Opinion Research Corporation's CARAVAN poll found that three-in-four American adults (76%) own a computer and two-thirds (67%) own a cell phone. Other consumer products found in American households include a digital camera (47%), an Xbox or a similar video game console (38%), TiVo or something similar - such as a digital video recorder (27%) - a home security system (19%), and an IPod or something similar, like an MP3 player (17%).

Storage providers are increasingly offering solutions designed specifically for consumer electronics, with Seagate leading the industry in those development efforts. Some of the diverse storage offerings the company has recently announced include its breakthrough hard drive designed specifically for use in automobiles; the industry's first 1-inch hard drive with 8GB storage capacity for handheld applications; the first 2.5-inch hard drive designed specifically for consumer electronics devices; and the industry's highest capacity drive - a 500GB model - for DVRs (digital video recorder) and home entertainment systems.

* According to an Opinion Research Corporation's CARAVAN study conducted in June, 2005

Related stories:

An 'electric' future for Formula 1 gearboxes?
Bristol University student, Niall Oswald, has won the e2v Award for the Best Electronic Engineering Student at the 2008 Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Awards for his final-year research project, 'A "More-Electric" Formula 1 Gearbox.'
Toshiba's 400GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
Toshiba Storage Device Division has announced a 400GB USB 2.0 external drive with 8MB buffer. This drive weights only 6 ounces and measures 5 inches high, 3.2 inches wide and .65 inches thick.
Not enough space: The dicey game of storing, backing up files
About five years ago, a technical disaster struck Fernando Santos: His computer hard drive failed. The San Francisco resident lost everything on it and had to reformat his drive. "I lost a lot of nice pictures," said Santos, 20.

Transcend Introduces their 64GB Jet Flash V20 USB Flash Drive
Transcend Information, Inc. is a leading manufacture of flash memory products. The V20 is small enough to fit into your shirt pocket and has semi-transparent color-band that lights up when in use. With 64 GB of storage space, the V20 makes it ideal for backing up music files, videos, digital photos and just about anything else that you may need to backup.
Hitachi Shows Technical Feasibility Of Perpendicular Magnetic Recording At 610 Gbit/in2
Hitachi, Ltd. announced today that it has demonstrated the technical feasibility of magnetic recording at 610 Gbit/in2. This considerably exceeds the previously demonstrated capabilities of current perpendicular recording technology found in mass-production hard disk drive (HDD) products. These results hold the potential for a 2.5x increase in the storage capacities of current-generation HDDs.
Toshiba Launches 400GB 2.5-inch HDD Introduces New Line-up of 7,200rpm Drives
Toshiba today announced a new line-up of high performance 2.5-inch HDDs, including a low-noise flagship model that boosts areal density to 477Mbit/mm2 (308Gbpsi) to achieve a capacity of 400GB on just two platters, plus five drives that bring new levels of performance and 7,200rpm rotational speeds to the company’s full range of storage capacities.
Hitachi Delivers New Power-Efficient Terabyte Hard Drive
Hitachi Global Storage has announced today the Deskstar 7K1000.B, the world’s most energy-efficient 7,200 RPM one terabyte (1TB) hard drive.
Intel, Micron First to Deliver Sub-40 Nanometer NAND Flash Memory Device
Today Intel Corporation and Micron Technology, Inc. introduced the industry's first sub-40 nanometer NAND memory device, unveiling a 34nm 32 gigabit multi-level cell chip. This process technology was jointly developed by Intel and Micron and manufactured by the companies' NAND flash joint venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT).

News discussion:

Technology news