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MPEG LA, an organization that licenses digital video technology patents on behalf of their owners, has announced terms for using a 3D video encoding technology called MVC.

MVC (Multiview Video Coding) is used in Blu-ray disc players, personal computers, video cameras, software, and other situations calling for 3D video. It's what's known as a codec, a specification for encoding and decoding video so it can be stored more compactly or streamed more efficiently across networks.

MPEG LA debuted the MVC license agreement terms at the Asia-Pacific 3D Standards & IP (Intellectual Property) Forum in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday. … Read more

LaCie, one of the first companies out of the gate last year with storage using Intel's fast Thunderbolt interface, introduced a dual-drive system called the 2big today at CES.

The 2big can be configured with two drives paired for high performance and capacity (RAID 0) or for high reliability by mirroring (RAID 1). Some people will appreciate fast backups, no doubt, but it seems likely that those willing to spring for Thunderbolt will be more inclined to take the performance route.

In addition, LaCie introduced its eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series. eSATA is an external version of the usual internal … Read more

Ralph de la Vega has a lot to say about Microsoft-Nokia and Windows Phone. Except for the name of the actual device.

Due to a quirk in the conference schedule, AT&T couldn't actually talk earlier today about the big, new 4G LTE smartphone from Microsoft and Nokia, the Lumia 900 (also known as Ace). The companies are planning to formally unveil the device later today at a conference hosted by Nokia.

As a result, de la Vega was left touting the benefits of the phone in an interview with CNET, without actually specifically naming it.

"The … Read more

Thunderbolt, the high-speed port technology from Intel that so far appears only on Apple computers, just got a shot in the arm from Elgato with new portable solid-state drives.

At the CES show today, Elgato announced two models of its new Thunderbolt SSD. The $429.95 120GB model and the $699.95 240GB model will ship in February, the company said.

The drives can transfer data at 270MBps and will work with both Macs and Windows machines. They draw power from a computer over the Thunderbolt cable itself, with no need or ability to get power on their own.

SSDs … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If LaCie's Little Big Disk Thunderbolt is, well, too little for you, get ready for this!

LaCie announced today at CES 2012 that its new LaCie 2big external hard drive now features a Thunderbolt connection. Originally, the 2big series only offered USB 2.0, FireWire, and eSATA for Macs. There's also a version that offers USB 3.0, which is geared toward Windows users.

The fact that the LaCie 2big features dual-volume, allowing for RAID 1 and RAID 0, means that Mac users now have another option, other than the Promise Pegasus, to have a fast external storage device that also offers data security. LaCie's other Thunderbolt drive, the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt, only comes with a single internal drive, hence it's susceptible to disk failure.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you have a Thunderbolt-enabled computer but just can't afford Thunderbolt storage, LaCie has something that will ease the pain.

The company showed off at the start of CES the first Thunderbolt hub that also supports an eSATA connection, called the eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series.

This is a device about the size of a portable external drive that comes with two Thunderbolt ports and two eSATA ports. Users can connect up to two eSATA drives to the hub and it will instantly make them work with a host computer via one Thunderbolt port. With the other port, you … Read more

The uptight can sometimes not understand the liberal.

Some feel that's why some Americans don't understand the French. Yet who can possibly understand how it was that the French clothing retailer La Redoute managed not to notice a naked man in an ad featuring children?

The way the BBC exposes it, the picture was there for all to see for almost a day before someone realized that there, in the water behind the happy little kids, was a happy old chap, naked as the day is long.

Because most people in the world have nothing better to do … Read more

Streaming game service OnLive is coming to iPad, iPhone, Android tablets, and even the Kindle Fire, thanks in part to a new universal wireless controller.

Previously, the service was available on PCs (Windows and OS X), as well as TVs, via a standalone interface called the MicroConsole (there was also an iPad app that allowed you to watch games being played on the service, but not play them yourself). The new wireless controller, an updated version of the previous PC/MicroConsole OnLive wireless controller, uses Bluetooth to connect to iOS and Android devices, working hand-in-hand with a dedicated OnLive app for each platform.

If you're not familiar with the OnLive streaming game service, it's essentially cloud-based PC gaming. The original PC client allows nearly any laptop or desktop to play high-end PC games by offloading the CPU- and GPU-intensive tasks of actually running the game software to a remote render farm, then beaming the gameplay back to you as a streaming video.

The game library mixes a handful of new, hit games with some older, casual, and indie games, and most of the 200-odd titles will be playable on Android tablets, the iPad, and even smartphones. Some of these devices, such as the Kindle Fire, can play only a smaller subset of games via onscreen controls, as they currently lack any way to connect the wireless controller (and the Nook Tablet is not supported yet). OnLive will also work over AT&T and Verizon 4G LTE networks, on devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Motorola Xoom, and HTC Jetstream.… Read more

For virtually anything to happen as expected in our daily life, computer storage is needed. If you think that's a grand statement, you, like most of us, have been taking storage for granted.

Despite the massive recent flood in Thailand that affected many storage vendors, hard drives, the most common form of computer storage, are still generally affordable (and abundant in terms of capacities). However, not all other forms of storage applications share the similar pricing as hard drives. And they can get progressively pricier the faster and the cooler they get.

Here's a list of storage devices … Read more