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Posted on 12 December, 2017 in BLOG

“Meet The Team” – Issue 1

In a new series of articles, we will look at the individual roles of a cross-section of different FTI employees. For our first issue of “Meet The Team” we speak to Mr. Vishal Sharma.

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Posted on 22 October, 2017 in BLOG

What is sound mastering and why is it important for professional media duplication?

Modern sound recording industry as we know it today is a result of almost a century of continuous development and technical progress. We very often perceive it to be something that was around forever, and the high-quality FM broadcasts and live concert sound became something that is heard every day. Bot not many do actually think about the volume of work that stands behind that sound quality level. The professional sound recording is a complex and multi-stage process that employs tens, and sometimes even hundreds of qualified professionals. One of the most important stages of this process is called mastering. You probably heard this term before. But what is sound mastering and why is it so important?

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Posted on 11 October, 2017 in BLOG

How National Archives are Going Digital

Paper was one of the humanity’s earliest means of data storage. Since its invention in China almost two thousand years ago, it is still one of the most important materials that we use in our daily activities: it is used as means of payment in form of cash, many important documents are still signed on paper, paper books are still more popular than the electronic ones and at the end of the day, don’t you still scribble your notes on the business meetings in a paper notebook?

Nowadays the technical progress allows us to archive the information in a more safe and simplified way: through digitalization and electronic archiving.

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Posted on 18 September, 2017 in BLOG

Next Generation of Optical Media is coming with the Archival Disc

Next generation of the optical disc is announced to be launched in the nearest future. The maximum data storage capacity on a single optical disc that is available on the market now is up to 500 GB, and the new format is going to be able to store twice of that. The discs are called ‘Archival disc’ and it is claimed that the storage unit can retain its data for more than a 100 years. Higher capacities in optical storage are made possible due to smaller sized pits and marks and shorter wavelength lasers and improved drawing rates. In the case of the ‘Archival Discs’ alternative approach is used: extra data is recorded on the land areas between grooves that are traditionally unused.

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Posted on 03 September, 2017 in BLOG

Meet all new 9.5-mm Optical Disc Drive by Silverstone

Nowadays the vast majority of audiovisual content (games, music, movies, etc.) is distributed digitally via services like iTunes, Netflix, Origin and Steam. Partially due to this reason, a number of ODD makers and optical media manufacturers reduced production levels and focused on other markets. However, a lot of people still own large collections of CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs which need something to access the media. Moreover, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats still offer the highest quality 1080p and 4K movies due to massive bitrates that streaming or digital download services do not offer, due to network restrictions for most. As a result, while demand for ODDs, in general, is not high, it exists and there are people willing to pay for such drives.

From SilverStone’s point of view, these are people who buy its SFF PC cases, SFX PSUs and coolers for home theater PCs and then go to other suppliers for optical drives. From a business perspective, it makes a lot of sense for SilverStone to offer its customers premium ODDs in addition to what it already sells them.

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Posted on 29 August, 2017 in BLOG

PRESS RELEASE – Falcon Technologies International to begin official roll-out of Verbatim products in the Middle Eastern region.

Falcon Technologies International (FTI) will begin their roll-out of Verbatim-branded data storage, computer peripherals and accessories to the Middle Eastern market on August 29th 2017. The roll-out follows the announcement of an exclusive agreement with Verbatim back in May 2017 to distribute Verbatim products to countries in the Middle East.

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Posted on 21 August, 2017 in BLOG

The future of archiving

Broadcasters, production companies, and other content holders are not only handling large and growing quantities of daily content, but are also much concerned with digitising the massive VTR assets currently sitting on shelves. As it becomes increasingly possible to effectively manage and rapidly search these materials via shared networks, new potential is discovered for the reuse of such assets.

As data volumes rise, so do storage costs – making it essential to implement storage systems that distinguish between hot (frequently accessed), warm (occasionally accessed), and cold (infrequently accessed) data, and se-lecting the best storage media for each. The main obstacle for content owners is to ensure the ability to preserve, access, and re-use their valuable assets without incurring repeated investment, and huge running costs.

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Posted on 06 August, 2017 in BLOG

When buying Professional Optical Media, pay attention to these points

Choosing the right product is always challenging. With all this competition on international markets, we may find a wide variety of options on the shelves out there: it is always about choices we make. But what defines our choice: is it price, quality, logo, recommendations of friends? Normally it is a combination of many factors that define our choice.

Choices that consumers make are driven by different types of triggers, but when you are purchasing something very specific and technical, it is necessary to be rational, as your choice can actually influence many things in future. It is very true for the market we operate in - data storage and informational security.

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Posted on 23 July, 2017 in BLOG

FTI Partners: River Pro Audio

At Falcon Technologies International we firmly believe in lasting and mutually beneficial partnerships. During the last decade we have managed to establish a number of such relationships, resulting in strategic market partnerships on the global scale. One such partnership that has helped us to gain a significant market share in Europe is with UK-based company River Pro Audio.

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Posted on 09 July, 2017 in BLOG

From floppy disks to deep freeze: what’s the best way to store data?

A New York-based team of volunteer archivists and preservationists are working to transfer old VHS videotapes into digital formats. Volunteers meet weekly in a Tribeca loft filled with “racks of tape decks, oscilloscopes, vectorscopes and waveform monitors” to painstakingly digitize cassettes from the 1980s and 1990s. As they note, transferring video isn’t plug-and-go; much tweaking and troubleshooting can be required to get it right. That’s why they’ve only managed to transfer 155 tapes so far – a very small percentage of the total analog format archive.

The group partners with artists, activists, and individuals to lower the barriers to preserving at-risk audiovisual media – especially unseen, unheard, or archived works.

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Posted on 18 June, 2017 in BLOG

Back To the Future: XXth Century Formats are Coming Back

We all get nostalgic every now and then. Depending on the age, one may remember the “good old days” of his, which may be 90s, 80s, 70s or even earlier. Every decade of the last century had its own unique features, which are carefully kept in the memories of those who saw them and possibly even was a part of them. And those good old days had good old things, which we sometimes miss so much. From vintage cars to costumes, we love things that take us back to a far simpler era.

Music is perhaps the best example for our longing for simple things. The rapid onset of computerization meant that music was easily digitized – put in the form of ones and zeroes. Hence the term “digital”. On the other hand, music was recorded and reproduced in “analog” form until then.

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Posted on 03 June, 2017 in BLOG

Meeting the archiving and data storage needs of modern broadcasting industry

Broadcasters and video producers across the world are rapidly moving to computer-based platforms. As they do, access to any content, anytime, anywhere, is becoming a critical success factor.

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Posted on 29 May, 2017 in BLOG

PRESS RELEASE – Falcon Technologies International and Verbatim sign exclusive distribution agreement for the Middle Eastern region.

Falcon Technologies International (FTI) has announced the signing of an exclusive agreement with Verbatim, the storage media giant owned by Mitsubishi Chemical Media, to distribute Verbatim products to countries in the Middle East.

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Posted on 21 May, 2017 in BLOG

How smartphones became our personal portable data banks

During last couple of decades, it is stating the obvious to say that mobile telecommunications has entirely changed the world we live in. Over this period we have gradually switched from handwritten paper contact notebooks to electronic contact records in our mobile phones, however it is not only the phone numbers we store in our phones anymore: with the development of smartphones, they became or own personal data banks.

Alongside the contacts, our small electronic friends now store so much data (passwords, photos, music, sometimes even medical records and biometric parameters etc.) that losing our device would most likely be a total disaster for one’s day-to-day routine. Some people even don’t remember their passwords from social media accounts, because their phones keep them securely stored in their memory.

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Posted on 07 May, 2017 in BLOG

High-resolution audio: everything you need to know

High-resolution audio (HRA) has emerged as arguably the ultimate sonic selection for digital music fans, but what's it all about, what do you need and how can you get it?
In the last couple of years, high-resolution audio (HRA) has hit the mainstream sound recording and distribution, due to the release of more devices and services that support the new format.

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Posted on 25 April, 2017 in BLOG

The shiny, plastic memory of the compact disc: when the new format was introduced.

Many people still remember the time when we had to listen to the favorite music from the cassette tapes, or, if you are old enough, even the vinyl records. The least ones seem to gradually come back into our houses, with the introduction of the latest re-invented record players, and there are even some signs of the cassette tape revival that are periodically observed here and there.

But what about the CDs? We kind of heard that they recently migrated from the consumer market to some niche industries like data archiving and medical IT, however there are still some implications of that media on the mass market as well (gaming consoles are still mostly operate on optical discs, as well as offline media distribution).

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Posted on 11 April, 2017 in BLOG

Falcon Technologies International hosts International Customer Seminar on April 4th and 5th

Falcon Technologies International recently hosted its international customer seminar in the stunning Ritz Carlton Al Wadi Hotel, which is located in a unique desert environment within our home Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. We were delighted to welcome approximately 50 delegates who travelled from diverse locations such as France, Germany, Japan, USA and the UK, to discuss the latest developments, opportunities and innovations that make optical media the exciting and progressive industry that it is today.

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Posted on 26 March, 2017 in BLOG

Cartridges Mean Nintendo Switch Games Will Always Cost More

If you're old enough to remember the original PlayStation launching, then you'll know how big of a deal switching to optical media was. Rather than shipping an expensive cartridge full of chips, games were burnt on to less expensive compact discs. It didn't take long for other home consoles to follow and discs have been the preferred media for home consoles ever since.

With the launch of the new Switch console, Nintendo is reverting back to cartridge media for a home console. Nintendo handhelds have stuck with cartridges ever since the Game Boy launched, but there wasn't really any alternative. For a home console, though, it poses a big problem in the form of pricing.

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Posted on 12 March, 2017 in BLOG

20 Years Later: DVD format today and where will it go?

It was 20 years ago this month that consumer electronics companies Sony and Toshiba launched a new home video format called Digital Video Disc, or DVD. The format promised a four-fold increase in resolution over VHS and the permanence of music CDs, in that the video would not degrade as you played it.

The DVD had a lot of promise. It would be a new optical format for PCs, since the CD-ROM format had reached its capacity rather quickly, and it would also be used as a new format for music, called DVD-Audio. But the launch in the U.S. on March 19 was centered around home video.

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Posted on 26 February, 2017 in BLOG

Exploring the History of Archiving: Exhibit Examines the Evolution of Technology Used to Record Memories

Before we typed on PCs, touched smartphone screens and wrote on paper, people in the past carved into rocks and clay or wrote on trees and even animal bones.

It’s the instinct to record that perhaps set us apart from other species.

It also is through documentation that our memories can expand beyond what our brains can remember and that we can pass down memories to the next generations.

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Posted on 13 February, 2017 in BLOG

Stop Worrying And Love The Compact Disc, the format that refuses to lie down…

When the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) released its final figures for 2016, commentators immediately seized upon certain tropes, a few recurring patterns. Vinyl was back, they said – accounting for some 3.2 million album sales. Downloading was over, it followed, with streaming becoming the de facto means of listening to music in the digital environment.

Yet despite 47 million album sales the compact disc was rarely – if ever – mentioned. Sure, the humble CD may have recorded an 11% year on year drop, but let’s put it this way: despite virtually no media attention, despite technology overtaking it, despite record shops remaining out-of-the-way places, the compact disc ratcheted up 47 million sales. That’s almost one per person across the whole of England. That’s a lot of music that nobody talks about.

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Posted on 29 January, 2017 in BLOG

At the Dawn of the Computer Age: Memories of the “Informational Revolution” Pioneers.

Do you remember your very first computer? Pretty much everyone does; most of the people in their mid-30s, early-40s can still remember these noisy big white boxes with huge square screens and clicking dial-up modems that took ages to download a plain-text news article or even a basic e-mail with no attachments. Well, it took almost 40 years for the technology to get to that point, and there are still alive today witnesses to how it all started in the basements of the world famous universities and colleges.

Joyce Wheeler is someone who saw it all in those early days. She also can still remember her very first computer, and one of the reasons for that is because it was one of the first computers anyone used.

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Posted on 15 January, 2017 in BLOG

Bitcoin: Financial Rebellion or Future of Capital Markets?

Without a doubt, the financial markets drive the world economies to emerge, grow and sometimes collapse. One of the best examples of their negative influence on the world economy is 2008’s World Financial Crisis that was caused by the regional US subprime mortgage market crisis. One may ask: how could one small financial segment failure cause the entire world economy recession?

Everything is interconnected in our heavily globalized world nowadays: a small local market failure or inability to pay against liabilities may trigger a domino effect that will be able to overthrow entire financial systems. Maybe that vulnerability was the main emergence cause of a revolutionary, yet quite questionable financial tool of recent years: the crypto currency called Bitcoin.

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Posted on 10 January, 2017 in BLOG

How to Let Your Media Speak for Itself?

Even though we live in the era of flash-memory, hard disc drives and cloud storage solutions, optical disc still remains number one choice for the offline data distribution and long-term information storage and archiving.

Just like a good old book, an optical media disc also has a cover that contains the summary of what is recorded on it - otherwise it would be impossible to distinguish two absolutely identical glowing circular pieces of pressurized polycarbonate from each other. A disc printable layer (sometimes called simply “label”) is something that gives a disc personality, lets it speak for itself and identifies what is recorded on it. It is important for this label to be vibrant and colorful to replicate the design that was initially tailored by the publisher, so that the end consumer will be able to understand what type of content is on the disc from the very first glance.

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Posted on 18 December, 2016 in BLOG

CEO of Falcon Technologies International LLC participated in the panel discussion during the Ras Al Khaimah Finance and Investment Forum

Michael Gutowski, CEO of Falcon Technologies International LLC participated in the panel discussion on the importance of innovation in business during the Ras Al Khaimah Finance and Investment Forum on December 13th and 14th.

During the panel discussion Mr. Gutowski emphasized that currently FTI holds the status of the best professional optical media producer globally, which has been achieved for a number of reasons, one of them being the constant implementation of small innovations on a daily basis and continuous improvement of the production processes.

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Posted on 12 December, 2016 in BLOG

Critical Role of Data Archiving for the Financial Institutions

Finance is an excessively regulated industry, with many moving parts and data that must be monitored and reported in order to stay protected and compliant with all regulations. One of the most important aspects of regulatory compliance for banks and financial organisations is record keeping and archiving electronic communication data. With the right tools and plans in place, archiving compliance does not have to be a daunting task.

Brokers, dealers, investment advisors, lending agents, futures and transfer agents, and businesses like mortgage companies, credit unions, banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, exchanges, commercial and retail banks, lenders and insurers, payday lenders, foreclosure relief services and debt collectors are all required to capture, monitor and archive business related communication data for review, audits, eDiscovery, litigation, and compliance.

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Posted on 27 November, 2016 in BLOG

Russia passes ‘Big Brother’ anti-terror laws, telecom providers now have to store huge volumes of data for minimum 6 months.

Earlier this year Russia’s parliament has passed harsh anti-terrorism measures law, which is mostly related to the online sphere. The regulations package is known as “Yarovaya law”, named after Irina Yarovaya, Russian MP who is known for previous legislative crackdowns on protesters and non-governmental organizations.

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Posted on 16 November, 2016 in BLOG

Falcon Technologies International LLC Celebrates 11th Anniversary

Falcon Technologies International LLC have celebrated its 11th anniversary on November 13th, 2016. Since the company launch in 2005, we have managed to build a great team of specialists to develop and manufacture the highest quality of optical media products available in the market today. Marking the beginning of second decade on the global market, FTI is looking forward to further development and growth of its worldwide presence and remaining at the cutting edge of product development and quality assurance in the field of optical media.

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Posted on 14 November, 2016 in BLOG

blog-WHERE CAN I GET SOME

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour,

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Posted on 14 November, 2016 in BLOG

blog -Contrary to popular belief

Falcon Technologies International LLC have celebrated its 11th anniversary on November 13th, 2016. Since the company launch in 2005, we have managed to build a great team of specialists to develop and manufacture the highest quality of optical media products available in the market today...

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Posted on 13 November, 2016 in BLOG

What Every Consumer Should Know About Big Data

While “Big Data” may sound like nothing more than a buzzword, many companies are using it for a wide variety of online applications; for instance, to target marketing efforts to customers more effectively. But what is big data, really?

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Posted on 30 October, 2016 in BLOG

The need for innovation and longevity in technology

Thirteen seems to be the unlucky number for Apple, with a decline in iPhone sales leading to the first revenue decline in 13 years. This has been attributed in part to the struggling Chinese economy, still the second-largest market in the world for Apple products behind the USA. The iPhone accounts for nearly two-thirds of Apple’s revenue. However the company sold 16% fewer iPhones than it had during the same period in 2015 and made 18% less profit from them. The total tally for the device was $32.9bn from 51.2m phones sold; the year previous Apple brought in $40.3bn from 61.2m phones.

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Posted on 23 October, 2016 in BLOG

GITEX Technology Week in Dubai

This 5 day event opened its doors from Sunday 16th October, 2016. It was the largest ICT exhibition in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, that took place at Dubai world trade centre. The event was inaugurated by Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council.

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Posted on 16 October, 2016 in BLOG

Powerful computing and storage implications

Technology has come a long way. We see constant development and growth in terms of computing hardware, software and storage. Although some technologists say, those gains are stalling, perhaps limited in by the physical boundary of raw materials that are used in central processing units.

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Posted on 09 October, 2016 in BLOG

Internet of Things: The Next Stage of Social Development

Recently we started to hear the term “Internet of Things” more often. Some say that this is a phenomenon that will take humanity to the next level of development. At the same time, some have never even heard about it. And this is typical for the brand new concepts.

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Posted on 03 October, 2016 in BLOG

Cloud Storage Leaks – A Serious Issue Affecting Personal Data Security.

Smart cloud-based storage technologies such as Apple’s iCloud, Google’s Drive, Dropbox and many others available out there have become part of our daily activities, both in our personal and professional lives. It is certainly very convenient to have all your files stored somewhere “in the cloud” and accessible from al the devices connected to the Internet (well, literally any device – everything is hooked up to the web nowadays - right?) It is certainly a great technology that makes our life so easier, but in the euphoria of excitement we maybe forgot about one of the major issues with “clouds” – their security. The area where most of the consumer-oriented cloud-based storages is still very vulnerable.

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Posted on 26 September, 2016 in BLOG

The Importance of Quality Control: Observations from Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Case

Two weeks ago, Samsung had no other choice but to create one of the biggest global handset recalls in the world. This was caused by 35 registered cases of exploding phones, or phones catching fire during charging. Galaxy Note 7 was launched on August 19th, and as of today, nearly 2.5 million phones are to be returned to the manufacturer - a major drawback for the Korean technological giant, that severely undermines its effort to push its phone up the value chain.

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Posted on 18 September, 2016 in BLOG

Data Archiving Architecture: Finding a Perfect Balance of Storage Mediums.

Data archiving has always been a challenge both for the enterprises and manufacturers of data storage solutions. The basic laws of thermodynamics tend to have the effect of deteriorating data storage capacity in the long run, so it is important to understand the needs of each individual data archiving project to be able to choose the right storage system based on the appropriate technology under the proper environmental conditions. That should be also combined with relevant migration and replication practices to improve the safety and accessibility for the extended periods of time.

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Posted on 12 September, 2016 in BLOG

Headphone Jack: Reliable Technology or a “Wired” Alien in the World of Wireless Technology?

People who are used to hooking headphones up to their smartphones could soon find themselves searching for a non-existent connector. Rumour had it for more than 6 months now, and finally it was confirmed to be true: Apple presented an all-new iPhone 7 last week, and guess what? Engineers from Apple's home in Cupertino said “Fare thee well!” to the 3.5 mm audio jack connector.

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Posted on 05 September, 2016 in BLOG

Do’s and Don’ts in Optical Media Data Archiving.

We all have some data or information that we want to preserve for as long a period of time as possible: whether it is family home videos or photo albums, precious memories of the past, or something that has the magical ability to recreate the best moments of our lives. As we wrote in one of our previous blog articles, many of us still have our old video archives stored on VHS tapes. When it comes to the photographs, it is very often the same story: how many of you still remembers Grandma’s old photo-albums with black and white photographs in them?

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Posted on 29 August, 2016 in BLOG

Brand New Sound Enriching Premium CD Player to be Launched in September

Music is life - and therefore good quality sound is like pure fresh air. This is the kind of philosophy that inspires Marantz, a recognized world leader in advanced audio technologies, that is ready to prove one more time that there is no better sound than the sound recorded on optical media and played on the Premium-class CD player.

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Posted on 21 August, 2016 in BLOG

Recovering Old Files: Challenge or Lesson to Study?

Informational technology is developing so fast that data we stored only a few years ago is often stuck on old disks with very few drives that are able to read them. Computer forensics experts can uncover old files, sometimes solving crimes along the way.

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Posted on 08 August, 2016 in BLOG

5D Glass Disc – Future of Optical Media?

As we move forward and the evolution of Informational Technology goes on, the challenge of constantly increasing data arrays storage becomes more obvious. Flash-memory, HDDs and SSDs have their limits: both in volume and reliability. The natural question “What’s next?” – sounds relevant in this context. The University of Southampton believes that the answer is Five-Dimensional (5D) Glass Discs.

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Posted on 01 August, 2016 in BLOG

End of the VHS-era: How Home Video Shaped The Media Industry.

Rewind your memories and just take a moment to realize that the entire era has just ended this summer; the last-known company that was still producing video cassette recorders (also known as VCRs) has officially announced that it has finalized production of the last unit.

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Posted on 24 July, 2016 in BLOG

Media Duplication: How to Determine Your Needs

Thousands of business organisations and enterprises both from the public and private sectors use CDs and DVDs as the primary means to distribute important content, and with good reason: CDs and DVDs are inexpensive to produce and user-friendly for even the least tech-savvy viewers and listeners — whether they’re at home, in the car or at the office.

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Posted on 18 July, 2016 in BLOG

Alternative Data Storage Solutions: are HDDs and Cloud-based Backups the Only Ones Out There?

Data storage and backups are becoming a more important, even essential, part of operations for virtually all businesses. Third-party, cloud-based storage solutions have become very popular in recent years with many industries that operate with large volumes of data, such as sound, video and graphics. But are these solutions so secure and trusted as they are marketed to be?

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Posted on 10 July, 2016 in BLOG

Healthcare Information Technology Market is Expected to Grow

A recent industry report’s findings confirmed the projected growth of the global Radiology Information System (RIS) market and estimated it to reach a value of $980.2 million by 2024. A large segment of major scientific findings and technological advancements go hand-in-hand with the continuously growing demand for Healthcare InformationTechnology (HIT), which makes it one of the key driving forces of the market growth.

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Posted on 04 July, 2016 in BLOG

What makes Optical Media better in Data Archiving?

Paper hard copies and handwritten memorandums are gradually being replaced by digital file storage solutions used by corporations to archive all important information. Data storage and regular back up became a significant task for all sorts of private and public business enterprises.

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Posted on 27 June, 2016 in BLOG

Facebook’s optical media cold storage systems will be launched on the mass-market

Recently Facebook revealed to the media that it was transferring enormous volumes of its content archives to more cost-efficient storage: new archival solution architecture, based on optical media. Later on, after successful implementation of the technology, some of the biggest optical media industry players announced that the technology would be marketed for other businesses and new optical storage devices are being developed to carry even bigger volumes of data.

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