Reprinted from a Western Digital press release:

Western Digital® today announced that it has commenced volume shipments of its 9.5 mm high, 2.5-inch notebook hard drive with 640 GB capacity. The WD Scorpio® Blue(TM) 640 GB hard drives utilize 320 GB-per-platter technology and are designed for mainstream notebook computers. The WD Scorpio Blue 640 GB is the highest capacity 2.5-inch hard drive available today in the industry-standard 9.5 mm, 2-disk form factor.
The new WD Scorpio Blue 640 GB drive has a 30 percent reduction in overall power consumption from the previous generation WD Scorpio Blue drive to achieve best-in-class power and performance(1), making it an ideal solution for notebook computers and other portable devices that require extended battery life and cool, quiet operation. Read the rest of this entry »

The good folks over at Gizmodo had a recent post about a cool new gadget that looks interesting for video makers: Brando’s SATA HDD Multi-Media Player Adapter.

The $69.00 device is a multimedia interface for SATA hard drives (Both 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch), SDHC cards, and USB devices, that displays your video files via composite, component, or HDMI out.

Simply plug in your naked hard drive or card, and any MPEG, AVI, MP4, VOB, or DiVX file, will be playable on your HDTV.

This seems like a great way to show off your HD videos to family and clients, that’s portable, inexpensive and doesn’t require burning a Blu-ray disc, or lugging your laptop around.

I can see a wide range of uses ranging from viewing dailes to a cheap digital signage solution. It even comes with a remote control!