Yes, We can Change

On Friday, both companies confirmed the move, which they had previously communicated to their distributors . Seagate is reducing warranties to as short as one year, while Western Digital will now guarantee its Caviar Blue, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue drives for two years, as opposed to three. "Seagate is standardising its warranty terms to be more consistent with those commonly applied throughout the consumer electronics and technology industries," the company said in a statement. "The new warranty periods apply to some of Seagate's internal hard drives designed for laptops, desktops and consumer electronics devices. There is no warranty change to mission-critical enterprise drives or Seagate-branded external solutions," it added. Western Digital is buying Hitachi Global Storage Technologies — one of its main competitors — while Seagate recently acquired Samsung's disk-drive division . With this consolidation, the hard-drive industry is increasingly led b...

UK consumers are increasingly seeing the Internet as a resource for obtaining all manner of goods and services, according to the latest market survey by communications regulator Ofcom. The survey found that more than a quarter (27%) of UK Internet users watch TV online every week, an increase of three percentage points from one year earlier, and higher than any of the other countries surveyed (France, Germany, Italy, US, Canada, Japan, Australia, Poland, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Brazil, Russia, India and China). The UK also saw the largest growth in digital video recorder (DVR) take-up out of the countries surveyed, with over a third (36%) of homes now owning a DVR - a four percentage increase from 2009. Among the six countries surveyed, the UK is now second only to the US in terms of DVR ownership.Overall TV viewing in the UK increased by 7.6% in 2010 compared to 2009, with the average person watching just over four hours of TV per day (242 minutes). This was the highest y...

The cloud system allows users to pay a fee and have their music libraries scanned by Apple, who then replace songs with higher quality versions which can be accessed from other Apple devices such as iPods. The service, which will seemingly allow Apple to make a profit from illegal downloads, was launched in the US in November but was only made available in the UK yesterday (December 15). Users must pay £21.99 per year to use iTunes Match, but in return will be able to replace any illicit downloads or songs ripped from CDs with better quality tracks. Figures within the music industry have welcome the launch, with Universal Music UK director of digital music Paul Smernicki telling the BBC : Explaining why Apple had been able to launch the service and gain permission from record labels so quickly, meanwhile, independent digital analyst Mark Mulligan said: "The reason why this can happen is because Apple essentially owns the music industry’s most valuable customers – the ones spending...

The co-pilot of an RAF helicopter that crashed during a "jolly", killing the pilot and two others, has avoided jail. Ex-Flt Lt Robert Hamilton was on board the Puma when it crashed at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, in 2007. Hamilton, 29, who was left paraplegic, pleaded guilty at an earlier court martial to neglect in flying likely to cause loss of life or bodily injury. Vice Judge Advocate General Michael Hunter imposed a sentence of 16 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years. A further charge of wilful neglect was left on file. Cockpit recorder The pilot, Flt Lt David Sale, 28, from Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees, crew man Sgt Phillip Burfoot, 27, from Cardiff, and Army recruit Pte Sean Tait, 17, from Glasgow, who was serving with the Royal Regiment of Scotland, all died. The helicopter, which was on a trooping exercise, had three RAF personnel and nine soldiers on board. The hearing listened to extracts from the two-hour cockpit voice recording, during which...