Australia has been in the news repeatedly this year as the country as a whole works to improve internet speed and quality for all of its citizens. Not only are companies all over Australia concentrating on rolling out better existing technologies, Australian companies have been willing to experiment with new technologies (like the good but flawed BPL network). Now Digital Sense is tackling Australia’s high density data centers.

If you live in Australia and have an Officeworks superstore nearby, I discovered a can’t-miss deal that only lasts until January 15 – a hi-speed, brand name 1Gb flash drive for less than AUD $30!

The rumours are flying thick and fast that Apple is set to introduce two new iPhones at the US Macworld expo in early January, and it’s threatening to change the world of mobile phones and music as we know it.

Sick of not being able to send big emails to friends, family and colleagues? Finally, a new web service lets you send email attachments of up to 1Gb in size. It’s simple and it’s free!

Got a new digital device such as a digital camera, mp3 player, laptop computer or other device that can take the new SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) memory card standard?

Sure, you can burn a DVD at 20x speeds now, mere seconds faster than with the three month old 18x DVD burner. Still, fast burns can mean discs that could end up as coffee coasters, so while this advance is nice, it’s hardly earth-shattering.

Promised for an October time frame, Apple just manages to meet this deadline by annoucning on October 31 (US time) that the Shuffle will be available worldwide on Friday 3 November.

Flash drives keep on getting bigger and bigger. In the early days, we dealt with flash drives in sizes of a few megabytes and larger, but today 1Gb flash drives and cards are common. Now a 32Gb model has finally landed, with the promise of a 64Gb version coming soon… but have you seen the price?!

                  

Flash drives keep on getting bigger and bigger. In the early days, we dealt with 8mb, 16mb, 32mb and larger versions, until we got to 512mb, 1Gb, 2Gb and larger. Now a 32Gb model has finally landed, but what an amazingly expensive price!

A whole series of red coloured and red themed products are on the way to consumers in support of (PRODUCT) RED, an organisation set up by Bono to fight AIDS in Africa, with a range of red or red-themed products designed to catch the eye, to show your support and to raise money for the project. So what other red products will join the new nano?

Before the iPod, the iPaq was the “i-word” on many people’s lips. It started as a line of Pocket PCs by Compaq, and were known for their stylish design and multimedia capabilities thanks to Windows Media Player. Yet despite their small size, advanced touch screen, large software base and clever computing capabilities, the iPod instead is arguably the world’s most well known new technological gadget, even though digital cameras outsell iPods and mp3 players two-to-one and Pocket PCs have been around for much longer.

For months, images of Microsoft’s upcoming mp3/photo/video player with FM radio, the Zune (AKA the iPod-killer they hope it becomes), have been splashed across the web. Finally some official information has been released by Microsoft.

On September 13, 1956, the hard disk drive was born. It’s interesting to note that TV and the Hard Disk Drive are both 50 years old, and in 2006 they are finally coming together as never before.

New iPods, new software and new accessories are finally here, and as always, it’s amazing to see what the rumour mill gets right and what it gets wrong. While we’ve all speculated about widescreen iPods and iPod phones which, as it turns out, haven’t arrived this time around, there’s still a lot to be happy about with Apple’s latest harvest - and thankfully, that’s whether you’re buying a new iPod or not! Let’s take a look in some more detail below, in the longest post I’ve written! Don’t worry, you’ll read through it all quickly…

BWU-1000A Sony Blu-Ray burner and player
$1399
www.sony.com.au

Want to store up to 50Gb of data on a single Blu-Ray disc at home or in the office? Son’y new Blu-Ray Disc rewriteable drive has arrived and lets you do just that with single layer 25Gb discs and double-layer 50Gb discs.

Maxtor One Touch III Mini
$299 RRP for 100Gb, $199 RRP for 60Gb
www.maxtor.com.au

Sandisk 1Gb MicroSD
$82.25 RRP (1Gb card), $45.95 RRP (512mb)
www.sandisk.com

Dual-layer DVD writers

With DVD burners and blank DVDs becoming more affordable, it’s time to upgrade your old CD burner or slow DVD burner and take advantage of the high speed and features of the latest models.

An explosion in the need for bigger portable storage has seen a battle emerge between flash memory and the ever shrinking hard disk drive. Alex Zaharov-Reutt explains and compares both types of data storage, shows us the types of devices they’re used in today and where these duelling data devices are headed in the future.