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FRENCH MANUFACTURER Lacie has launched its 5big Backup Server running Microsoft’s Windows Home Server.

Lacie has already come out with several different flavours of its “big” server range for larger networks. But its 5big Backup Server is the first time we’ve seen Lacie opt for the Vole’s Windows Home Server and put it on a unit destined for smaller businesses.

The 5big Backup Server can store up to 10TB on five hot-swappable, lockable storage bays with four USB ports and an eSATA port for additional external storage. The server uses an Intel 1.6GHz D410 processor, has centralised file sharing and can backup and restore ten PCs, Lacie claims.

According to We Got Served, the 5big will support up to 25 Macs and is compatible with Cupertino’s Time Machine. It also supports the Appletalk networking stack for legacy apps.

“For small businesses, backing up data is vital. Until now, storage solutions that efficiently protect and manage heterogeneous environments have been cumbersome, cost-prohibitive and difficult to configure” said Erwan Girard, Lacie solutions business unit manager.

“LaCie has partnered with industry-leading companies to provide a full-featured professional backup server that will automatically configure and back up PCs and Mac computers for a fraction of the cost.”

Not one to miss out on hijacking a free press airing, the Vole’s minions took the chance to extol the virtues of its operating system running on Lacie’s server.

“The combination of Lacie’s 5big Backup Server and Microsoft’s robust Windows Home Server platform allows users to take mission-critical technology and use it for their small business to store, protect and access important data without the need for large IT budgets or specialized environments,” said a Microsoft director of product management.

The Lacie 5big Backup Server is out now for around £892. µ

JAPANESE MANUFACTURER Panasonic has unveiled a camcorder that captures full HD 3D videos.

It seems that consumer electronics makers have gone into depth perception overdrive. Panasonic already has 3D plasma TVs and 3D Blu-ray players and now it is adding the HDC-SDT750 camcorder to its list.

Panasonic’s magic trick is pretty simple. In essence, the HDC-SDT750 is a 2D camcorder but its 3D capability comes courtesy of a conversion lens. It allows anyone to create 3D images by attaching the conversion lens that comes with the camcorder.

The camcorder has an effective motion image pixel count of 7,590,000 pixels and it records in 1080p at 60Hz for NTSC or 50Hz for PAL5 for US and European punters.

It has noise reduction technology to enhance dim images in low-light conditions and an optical image stabiliser. The HDC-SDT750 also has a ring for manual shooting options.

There’s no price listed yet but Panasonic suggests combining the 3D camcorder with its 3D TV and 3D Blu-ray player so you can have all of your entertainment as well as family memories in 3D. By our calculations that’s going to be expensive.

The HDC-SDT750 camcorder is coming out on 20 August in Japan first and will be rolled out to other countries this autumn. µ

CHIPMAKER Intel has announced a breakthrough in optical communications in the form of the first silicon based 50Gbps laser transmitter and receiver parts produced in its labs.

The company said that within five years this milestone development will lead to low-cost optical links inside computers that might scale to speeds up to 8Tbps or higher.

Chipzilla’s silicon photonics data link is still being developed in the lab, but the firm predicts it will deliver semiconductor chip manufacturing economies of scale to realise low-cost optical communications in PCs, consumer electronics and datacentres.

Dr Mario Paniccia, the director of Intel’s photonics technology lab said that the industry is reaching the limits of copper wiring, with speeds above 10Gbps requiring more energy to transmit beyond short distances. Using photonic communications over optical fibre solves the problem, but existing technology is too expensive.

“Because of the cost, because of the bulkiness, the costs are still limiting use only for telecoms. It is very difficult to drive use of optical in the PC or in and around everyday devices,” said Paniccia.

Intel’s technology uses a hybrid silicon laser integrated into the transmitter chip along with other components such as the modulator and multiplexer to combine several laser beams as separate channels for transmission over optical fibre. The design enables Intel to fabricate the transmitter and receiver using processes similar to those it uses to manufacture CPU chips.

“What could happen if we take the benefits of silicon manufacturing, the ability to do high-volume low-cost, highly-integrated silicon processing, and combine that with the laser? We can now start driving optical communications anywhere, everywhere, to any place,” Paniccia said.

The transmitter and receiver can also be integrated into equipment using standard circuit board assembly methods. Intel said it has developed a low-cost passive connector to attach the fibre optic cable.

The photonic data link prototype Chipzilla has developed uses four 12.5Gbps channels, multiplexed to create a 50Gbit/s link, but Paniccia claimed it can scale up to 25, 40 or 100Gbps channels and scale out to eight or more laser channels on a chip. He said this means that 1TBps optical links are easily within reach.

Paniccia speculated that high-speed photonic data links will revolutionise high-performance and cloud computing. Compute and storage elements will not need to be located close together, for example, but could be far apart. “This is just the beginning,” Paniccia predicted.

Intel said products based on this revolutionary technology might be produced within three to five years. µ

THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT has cooked up a touchscreen laptop pitched at students.

The low cost device, which naturally runs Linux, is being readied for production with India’s Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal saying that “The motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around , including memory, display, everything.”

While is pretty impressive, even for a nation that is known for cutting costs, according to Sibal, the aim is to bring the cost down to just . While the minister pointed out that the system would have many of the same amenities found on more expensive machines, he also mentioned that the hardware was designed to accept new components should user’s needs change.

It seems the Indian Government felt it was necessary to go it alone, even with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Intel’s Classmate on the market. Those machines do cost significantly more and given the growing technological prowess of India, it’s little surprise that a home grown design is about to out do more mature rivals.

Sibal said that the Indian Government is looking for hardware manufacturers to make its design a reality. µ

TEASING APPLE’S FANBOIS, T-Mobile has announced its prices for the Iphone that you can’t buy from it online, the now legendary Iphone 4, or Flaw as we like to call it.

If you want a handset with a dodgy antenna, software that shows incorrect signal strength bars, a screen that might have yellow blotches and a proximity sensor that will shut off calls then the Iphone 4 is for you. And if you have an Ipad, forget about swopping the micro-SIMs that both it and the Iphone 4 use because Apple made sure they were not compatible, so you have to get two contracts. A fact for which the network operators no doubt secretly praise Steve Jobs.

For those who find the Iphone 4 irresistible, T-Mobile’s prices range from £259 for the 16GB model at £25 a month, with 100 minutes, 100 texts and 500MB of data, to £99 for the 32GB version at £60 a month. This provides 3,000 minutes, 500 texts and 1GB of data. All contracts are for 24-months and T-Mobile’s “flexible booster” is also available. This allows customers to add minutes, data allowance and texts.

On pay as you go the Iphone 4 16GB can be purchased for £499 with £10 a month “top up” for free texts but the 32GB model is not available. T-Mobile announced its prices three weeks after Orange, which it is merging with to become the provider called Everything Everywhere.

However the handset is nowhere to be seen for anyone trying to purchase either model from the network’s website. It is still asking for customers to register their interest two weeks after the 24 June official launch of the product. And while the website shows both white and black models you still can’t buy a white one anywhere on planet Earth. µ