California firm creates 400-gigabyte hard drive

Digital media hogs can celebrate.

A new, whopping 400-gigabyte hard drive from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies can store up to 400 hours of standard television programming, 45 hours of high-definition programming or more than 6,500 hours of digital music.

Previously, the largest such drive available was a 300-gigabyte product from Maxtor Corp., said Dave Reinsel, industry analyst at IDC.

San Jose, Calif.-based Hitachi said it designed the monster drive, the Deskstar 7K400, for audio/video products.

Yankee Group, a Boston-based research firm, predicts the number of households with DVRs will increase to nearly 25 million by 2007, from about 3 million today.

Survey

Spam filters increasingly catching legitimate mail

As spam-fighting tools become increasingly aggressive, e-mail recipients risk losing newsletters and promotions they’ve requested.

A new study attempts to quantify missed bulk mailings. Return Path, a company that monitors e-mail performance for online marketers, found that nearly 19 percent of e-mail sent by its customers never reached the inboxes of intended recipients.

The figure, for the last half of 2003, is up 3.7 percentage points from the same period in 2002.

Manufacturing

Computer desktops rough on environment

Thinking of buying a new computer? Think again, a U.N. study warns.

The study from the Tokyo-based U.N. University urges people to be aware of environmental issues when buying and disposing of computers.

Manufacturing one desktop computer takes more than 530 pounds of fossil fuels, or about 10 times its weight, the study says. By contrast, the amount of fossil fuels needed to make cars and refrigerators is roughly equal to their weights.

The study also found that making a desktop requires 48 pounds of chemicals and 3,300 pounds of water.

Rather than being resold, refurbished or recycled, the study says, older models are most often stored in warehouses or homes and eventually end up in landfills.