SandForce will be showing off their new SF-2000 range of SSD processors at the Storage Networking World Exhibition next week. The chip features a 6Gbps SATA interface and the industry’s first sustained, sequential read and write performance of 500MB/sec. Most drives only reach half of this figure.

The controller has a 60,000 sustained random read/write IOPS rating and it supports SAS interfaces, along with single-level, multi-level, and enterprise multi-level cell SSDs. It also supports 128-bit and 256-bit AES encryption and can control current and future 30nm and 20nm flash drives with the right interfaces. We don’t know when the first SSDs running the SF-2000 controllers will be available for purchase on the market.

It’s about time. I can’t tell you how many times I have wished that I could grab a bar of gold from an ATM machine. But now Florida and Las Vegas residents will be able to do just that, as they are getting hundreds of these ATMs installed next year.

They will spit out smaller bars, not Fort Know sized bars. We’re talking 1 and 5 gram sizes; 10 gram and 28 gram (1 ounce) bars, and international coins from countries like South Africa, Australia and Canada, with the gold price being checked six times an hour.

Rumors had been circulating that AOL, who owns Engadget and Webblogs Inc were about to purchase Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch, and it now looks like those rumors were true as AOL has just announced that they have purchased TechCrunch.

AOL has also purchased all other sites in the TechCrunch network, which includes MobileCrunch and Crunch Gear. No details on the purchase price have been announced yet, but Business Insider is reporting that it was sold for $25 Million.

Here’s more great news for PS3 and Xbox 360 owners. Disney, Sony and Warner are close to testing a system that would give Internet access to movies before they’ve reached Blu-ray or DVD. Disney would be the most aggressive and would allow viewers watch movies on any web-connected device and possibly the PS3 and Xbox 360 as well. Disney would likely be cautious at first, trying one movie under the plan in an early 2011 trial.

We aren’t sure if Apple would be involved, but Steve Jobs sits on Disney’s board of directors. In Demand, a partnership between Comcast, Cox and Time Warner, said through CEO Bob Benya that the collective is in talks for a similar option through cable TV and maybe online.

The current owner of Segway died yesterday after he rode off a cliff and into a river in England. They found Jimi Heselden’s body yesterday at 11.40am yesterday by the River Wharfe in North Yorkshire, with his X2 Adventure with him.

Jimi was 62. Police think it was just a weird accident. The man was worth $262m though. And Segways don’t go so fast that he wouldn’t see the cliff coming. Well, however it happened, it’s a sad turn of events.

We’ve been expecting this one for a long time and now it’s official. Blockbuster has initiated “pre-arranged” chapter 11 proceedings. Under this plan, Blockbuster’s debt would be reduced from $1 billion to about $100 million when implemented.

Blockbuster is currently evaluating its US store portfolio as part of the recapitalization process. All 3,000 stores will remain open for now, but up to 1,000 could be gone before things are said and done. They want you to know that Blockbuster is still open and that it’s business as usual during the restructuring.

This credit card will help keep your wallet thin. It can turn several credit cards and debit cards into one. This new technology is from Dynamics Inc. in Pennsylvania. It’s a single credit card that hides your account number and allows access to multiple cards, all at the same time.

It is called Card 2.0 and can be used in various applications since it features the world’s first fully card-programmable ‘Electronic Stripe’ in place of the usual magnetic stripe. It’s thin, flexible and durable and it’s battery charge lasts for three years. Sounds great.

Word is that a Verizon senior federal sales executive has told executive IT managers that the carrier is planning to launch its LTE service in 30 NFL cities by the end of 2010. That should make NFL fans very happy. Which specific cities weren’t mentioned, so your guess is as good as ours.

The carrier is also planning to cover the entire country in LTE by 2013. However, it should be noted that LTE phones will not be launched in conjunction with this 30 city rollout because of the limited models available.

Speed bumps are so last century. That’s why the Canadian city of Vancouver is experimenting with a speed control solution that uses an optical illusion to trick you into thinking there is a child in the road. I’m sure that will slow people down and give some people heart attacks too.

The program is being piloted near École Pauline Johnson Elementary School, where they use a very lifelike painted optical illusion that looks like a little girl chasing a ball into traffic.

The UK take their apps seriously. The government is reportedly saving millions of Pounds (about $350 million US dollars) just by developing iGovernment apps that help citizens. The Local Government Association (LGA) implemented the apps to allow iPhone users to get information on road conditions, pay for parking and lots of other stuff.

They can send in complaints or inform the government about any issue they want. One app allows users to send in hygiene ratings of local restaurants, another is used to complain about vandalism, snap a picture and send it in as a report.

This is a great idea. Take your worn out, chewed to death wad of gum, you know that old ABC gum(Already Been Chewed) and put it to good use, instead of under a table or on the sidewalk. Britain has launched a program to recycle your tired worn out chewing gum and “repurpose” it into tires, childrens toys and even mobile phone covers.

This government initiative runs from August 18th through September 15th and encourages people to toss their used chewing gum into special Bins at locations throughout twelve towns in the UK.

If anyone ever needed some entertainment, it is people stuck in a mine. It helps to take your mind off the fact that you are in an enclosed space and trapped there for months. At least for a few moments anyway.

Just in case you have been in a mine of your own, there are 33 miners trapped in a collapsed mine shaft in Chile right now, and they are going to be down there for a long time. Maybe three to four months. Thank god for video games.

We use a ton of oil to create plastics for everything from watches to bicycle helmets. It hasn’t been easy to find a replacement material that can be just as tough, versatile and easy to produce, but German inventors have developed a new material that has a lot of promise. It could replace everything plastic using something as natural as wood.

It looks like wood and feels like wood. The material is called Arboform and is produced after combining lignin, a discarded element of regular wood with natural resins, flax and fiber. Arboform is ideal since it can be molded into any object form which is normally made using petroleum products.

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. That’s some sound advice that you can apply to everything in life. Especially when it comes to internet “offers”. And there’s a sucker born every minute. Messages on Facebook or Twitter which offer a free iPad, are bait for these gullible people.

You should avoid these at all cost. since this scam spreads through hacked accounts and will ask you to check out a website that offers to send free iPads to everyone who responds. Twitter and Facebook are aware of the situation. Facebook is sending out password resets to hacked individuals.

Plastics are an important part of our lives, but there are some environmental issues. That’s why the Japanese have come up with a machine that is capable of turning plastic back into oil that can be used to create gasoline, diesel, or kerosene.

That’s big time recycling there. The process can turn 1kg of plastic back into 1l of oil, which isn’t to shabby and it doesn’t even create any CO2 during the process. With this technique we can get far more out of our resources.