drives

Want to curb texting and driving? Turn it into a joke

There's nothing worse than a senseless death.

Not that any death makes sense, of course. But it's easier to accept someone dying of sheer old age than a 16-year-old being crushed in a car because she was texting Polly about the dimples on Charlie's cheeks.

This week, advertising's loudest are meeting at the Cannes Advertising Festival. One campaign doing absurdly well is an absurdist effort from Australia that tries to stop people doing stupid things around trains.

Called "Dumb Ways to Die," it takes the silliness of how people die around trains and raises … Read more

Samsung mass-producing speedier solid-state drives

Apple's new MacBook Air has adopted faster solid-state drives made by Samsung. But Apple won't be the only beneficiary.

Samsung announced Monday that it has started mass-producing new PCIe solid-state drives aimed at the next generation of ultrabooks. SSDs that use a PCIe connection offer faster speeds than those outfitted with SATA (Serial ATA) connections.

As one example, Samsung's XP941 SSD can read data sequentially at 1,400 megabytes (1.4 gigabytes) per second, the highest speed offered by a PCIe 2.0 interface. In the real world, that means the drive can read 500GB of data … Read more

Google creeps up on Microsoft at HP: Now office apps

Hewlett-Packard is now a Google Apps reseller, as it continues to lean more on Google-related products and tries to make itself more relevant in the age of the mobile device.

Those mobile devices now include the Google-software-based HP SlateBook x2, HP Chromebook, and HP Slate 7.

Now add HP SMP IT in a Box to that mix, which HP defines it as its "entry into the Google Apps Reseller program."

The program will "leverage" HP hardware, including PCs and printers, with Google Apps for Business.

"More than 5 million businesses currently run on Google Apps … Read more

White House petition seeks to ban men from driving

Forget texting or driving with Google Glass. A petition on the WhiteHouse.gov "We The People" site is going after the true menace behind the wheel -- men.

Full disclosure: I'm also a man, and have been for nearly 15 years in the eyes of the law (although according to certain cultural traditions, I've got more like 13 years of official manhood under my belt, and folks who know me well tell me I'll never actually achieve the title).

The official demand of the petition is to "Prohibit Straight Men From Driving," although there's also a reference to include "men of other sexual orientations who are attracted to women" under the proposed ban.… Read more

Bill would force you to give police phone after accident

You may feel that everyone wants to peek inside your cell phone just at the moment.

Please, therefore, allow me to make you a little more insecure.

State legislators in New Jersey would very much like to make it easier for the police to go through your cell phone, should you be in any way involved in an accident.

The wording of their proposal -- Bill S 2783 (PDF) -- is quite precise in its breadth:

Whenever an operator of a motor vehicle has been involved in an accident resulting in death, bodily injury or property damage, a police officer … Read more

Intel intros low-cost enterprise SSD for data centers

Intel today introduced the DC S3500 series solid-state drive, which brings enterprise performance at a cost that general consumers can afford. The new drive is optimized for read performance, which is important for data centers, or storage servers.

The new drive supports the SATA 3 (6Gbps) standard and is available in both 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch designs. The former is available in 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 240GB, 300GB, 480GB, 600GB, and 800GB capacities, while the latter is available in 80GB, 240GB, 400GB, and 800GB capacities. Both designs are 7mm thick.

Intel says the new SSD uses its 20nm NAND flash … Read more

Brilliant special effect shocks men in bar bathroom

How can you get a tipsy man in bar not to drive his car home?

One thought might be to shock him so much when he goes to the bathroom that he has to rush (on foot) in the direction of the nearest ER to have his heart-rate reduced.

This highly entertaining PSA shows a bathroom in an unnamed British bar. It was created on behalf of the U.K's Department of Transportation.

Many Brits like to drink more than they eat. And with many bars still having very limited opening hours many men (and an increasing number of … Read more

Get a 1TB portable USB 3.0 hard drive for $59.99

The other day I asked if it still made sense to buy a mammoth hard drive. For my money, the smarter buy is a compact, portable, smaller-capacity drive that's fast, affordable, and USB-powered.

Like this one: While supplies last, TigerDirect has the Western Digital Elements SE 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive for $59.99, plus around $4 for shipping. That's after redeeming a $10 mail-in rebate (PDF). It sells elsewhere (Newegg, Staples, etc.) for at least $80.

Compatible with Windows and Mac systems alike (though you'll need to reformat it for use with the latter), the … Read more

Does it still make sense to buy a big hard drive?

Today only, over at Rakuten.com, you can buy a Seagate Expansion 4TB USB 3.0 hard drive for $139.99 shipped when you apply coupon code 5419C15 at checkout.

Four terabytes. For $140. That's quite possibly the best storage deal I've ever seen, at least in terms of price per terabyte.

On the other hand, what on earth would a person do with that much space? Sure, if you use your PC as a media center and record a lot of high-def TV shows and movies, this would be great. (Flip side: If you're hoarding 4TB … Read more