News about what is happening in technology today!

TiVo and satellite provider DirectTV said Wednesday that they will continue their relationship for another three years.

TiVo, whose PVR boxes compete with those offered by rival carriers, such as Comcast’s cable business, will continue to offer the DirectTV TiVo service to existing DirectTV TiVo subscribers. The two companies also agreed not to file a patent suit against the other for the duration of the agreement.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with DIRECTV that will allow us to continue to provide our service to the more than 2 million DIRECTV TiVo households,” said TiVo chief executive Tom Rogers, in a statement. “As the pioneer in the DVR market, we have created a service that is highly valued by consumers because of our technology, the wide range of our unique features and the unparalleled ease of our user experience. This agreement reflects TiVo’s popularity among DIRECTV subscribers and importantly respects the value of our intellectual property as well.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the companies said that the “recurring monthly economics” would be about the same as the existing deal.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1948798,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

MILAN, Italy — The Codex Trivulzianus, one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s oldest notebooks, is out from under lock and key, offering the world a rare look into the mind of a genius.

Normally hidden away in a library at Sforzesco Castle and reserved for scholars’ eyes, the 55-page collection of sketches and writings is on public display for the first time in nearly a decade. It includes character studies, drawings of church domes and military machines, and even a self-improvement guide.

For all the larger-than-life ideas it contains, the Codex Trivulzianus is actually quite small. It measures 8 inches by 5.5 inches — about the size of an average paperback — and looks every bit its 519 years old.

The ongoing success of Dan Brown’s powerhouse potboiler The Da Vinci Code (a movie based on the novel is scheduled for release later this year) may have helped convince Milan to break out the slim volume.

Ever since the 2003 publication of Brown’s best seller, tourists have flocked to the city to gaze at Da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper and see for themselves whether the figure depicted in the painting sitting just to the right of Jesus is Mary Magdalene or an effeminate apostle John.

Once a series of 62 unbound pages, the Codex Trivulzianus dates from Da Vinci’s first stay in Milan between 1487 and 1490. Some of the pages were lost for a time; once found, they were numbered and bound. What you’ll see at the exhibit depends on the curator’s choice of the week.

- Nicole Martinelli

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70537-0.html?tw=rss.index

I know that on my laptop I’m always looking for more disk space. What a sweet prospect Fujitsu is bringing to the table, a 200GB drive.

Fujitsu has launched a 200GB Serial ATA 2.5in hard disk drive designed for notebook computers, the most capacious of its kind, the company claimed today. It said the drive’s size makes it ideal for vendors who want to equip their laptops with PVR functionality, or for anyone producing “digital home appliance” products.

The MHV2200BT spins at 4,200rpm and provides average read and write times of 12 and 14ms, respectively. It’s got 8MB of cache memory. The drive can withstand 300G of operating shock and 900G of non-operating shock, Fujitsu claimed.

The drive typically consumes 1.6W, the manufacturer said, falling to 0.5W or even 0.13W in its two ’slumber’ modes. Fujitsu said the drive complies with Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations.

The drive is due to ship around the world at the end of May.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/03/28/fujitsu_200gb_notebook_drive/