For a few years now consumers have been bombarded with claims of how glorious HD programming is, and how the “True” experience starts at 1080p. Surely the same sort of hype surrounded the introduction of color to black and white television programming; nothing could ever be better – right?

The advancements in film entertainment over the last several decades have been quite astounding. Within a single century we’ve gone from the first mechanical televisions systems (1907), to an astounding 30 lines of resolution (1927), to the first TV commercial (1930), to the introduction of cable television (1948), to the first color standard (1950), to the first practical remote control (1956), to the introduction of Dolby Surround to average consumers (1982), to the first real format war between VHS and Betamax (1986), and to the sale of the billionth television set (1996). Of course, let’s not forget the start of the digital revolution with the introduction of DVDs in 1996, and the current fuss over the best HD resolution. The advancements listed are only a minute fraction of all the discoveries and innovations that have befallen the industry over the years, and there seems to be no slowing down. So, what’s next?

Over the last year there has been steady push towards marketing the highest resolution and scan rate currently possible, namely 1080p; but who ever said that it had to stop there? The developers over at the Red Digital Cinema Camera Company (try saying that three times fast) certainly have no intention of stopping at a mere 1080 vertical lines of resolution. Hell, they’re striving for an astonishing 4520 lines of progressive scan with their current camera project. With his new camera, named the “Red One,” the company’s founder, Jim Jannard, hopes to offer a comparatively low-budget, high-resolution camera capable of recording resolutions up to 4520 x 2540 at 60fps.

Jim Jannard, the same guy who founded Oakley, was deeply disappointed with the quality and price of existing studiograde cameras and was convinced that he could do a better job himself, so he founded his own company to do just that. Not only is the Red One capable of delivering 12 megapixels worth of moving imagery, getting one (and probably more) won’t break the bank. Unlike other professional solutions, such as Sony’s HDC-F950 which goes of a lax $115,800, the Red One is available for mere $17,000.

Now, at this point you might be thinking, “Hey, this is great and all, but my TV doesn’t even do 1080p…” Well, don’t worry; mine doesn’t either. Anything higher than 1920 x 1080 probably won’t appear any time soon in commercial TV sets. The infrastructure simply doesn’t exist to broadcast such hi-fidelity content. Interestingly enough, there aren’t even any “True HD” broadcasts available. The HD programming being pumped into my set from Comcast right now consists mostly of 720p with a dash of 1080i, and all of it is high-compressed and full of artifacts. The only 1080p sources that are available today are a limited selection of overpriced HD DVDs and Blu-Ray discs – and, of course, there’s always the Playstation 3 with its meager selection of decent games that actually support it. Hopefully, though, the movie theater industry will realize the full potential for the extreme resolutions that the Red One is capable of and overhaul a few auditoriums.

More specs on the camera:

Sensor: 12 Megapixel Mysterium™

Physical Size: 24.4mm x 13.7mm (Super35mm)

Active Pixel Array: 4520 (h) x 2540 (v)

Full Pixel Array: 4900 (h) x 2580 (v)

Dynamic Range: > 66dB

Depth of Field: Equivalent to 35mm Cine Lenses (S16mm with windowed sensor)

Acquisition Formats: 2540p (4k+), 4K, 2K, 1080p, 1080i, 720p

Frame Rates:

RAW output:

Video Outputs:

Digital Media Magazine:

REDCODE codec:

Audio: 4 channel uncompressed, 16 / 24 bit, 48KHz

Monitor: Flex mounted High Resolution LCD, High Resolution color EVF (optional)

Weight: Around 9 lbs (without lens, battery and external viewfinder)

Construction: Aluminum alloy

With the intent of possibly saving the nation a lot of money, Congress decided in 2005 that they would extend the period of daylight savings by three weeks in the spring and another week in the autumn. The change may seem quite trivial in nature and plenty of notice seems to have been given, but for many large scale businesses the change may cause some frustration.

While the average computer user may not notice much of a problem, the early rollback might seem very reminiscent of the whole Y2K scare to many IT professionals across the country. Even though the implications of this “March Madness” are far less than those of the Year 2000 bug, there is still the possibility that mission critical IT systems might fumble, or even drop, the ball.

Many corporations have complex IT networks which consist of a wide range of equipment and operating systems, both new and old. Most of the equipment purchased after the congressional announcement should have no problem with the switch, as the developers should have already programmed the change into the systems. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of systems and software packages in use whose origins predate the announcement. Certainly, the systems that have wide userbases, like Windows 2000 and XP, will be supplied with automatic, hassle-free updates from their manufacturers, but not all software in use today enjoys that luxury.

There are plenty of companies that use software packages that many in the tech-world would consider ancient. A lot of this software, which could very well suite the needs of the client perfectly, might not be supported by the developers anymore. Similarly, there are plenty of companies that user custom written operating systems and software packages that only they use and know how to operate. In essence, this means that hordes of IT professionals will have to divert themselves from their regular tasks to tend to what should be a very trivial transition.

A lot of gadgetry, like certain smart phones, will not automatically update themselves, and the task of manually setting these and other devices to the correct time will probably fall on the IT departments of various businesses. Resetting certain systems isn’t always as simple as applying a supplied patch, due to all of the compatibility concerns that might arise. Take Microsoft Exchange, for example: Microsoft has pushed out patches for Outlook and Entourage mail clients, as well as for Windows and Exchange servers, but all of these patches need to be applied in a very specific order, and within a certain, rather narrow timeslot to avoid any potential screw-ups.

Even if a Windows machine receives the update in time, all might not be well. That little clock in the bottom right of the desktop may read the correct time, but it’s possible that users might still receive appointment notifications an hour late because the corporate server didn’t update correctly, or because the internal application clock in packages like Lotus Notes may not have updated at all.

The range of possible problems is practically endless. The early transition might not only mess with your thermostat or doctor’s appointment, but it can also wreak havoc for other time-sensitive operations: arrival and departure times in the transportation industry might be off; payments might be late because of delayed transactions; automated stock market sales and purchases might occur at inopportune times. These are only a few of the possible problems.

As noted before, the last transition that caused some trouble was Y2K, which cost the global economy an estimated $21 billion. The early day light savings transition is undeniably no where near the scale of the Y2K debacle, but the potential of lost revenue is definitely there. If a particular system were to take a drastic hit, it’s not out of the question that some companies may face slight revenue losses for a day or two.

If this day light savings transition is to be anything like the Y2K issue, then a lot of businesses and professionals will probably wake up the next morning to find that they were really making a lot of fuss about nothing, and that everything worked out as it should have. One transition down, one more to go…

During the second day of MacWorld, Apple announced it’s highly anticipated new multi-media device, named the iPhone.The name seems real original, real Apple-esque, right?

Well, the name is actually what might bring the entire project down before it even takes off. The problem is that the name “iPhone” is in fact not that new and that Apple may not be the rightful trademark owner.

A mere day after the official announcement of the iPhone, Apple’s lawyers already had their hands full with a lawsuit from Cisco Systems, Inc. Cisco not only owns the trademark, but also has their own product called the iPhone as well.

The very first mention of an “iPhone” can be traced back to a trademark filed by Infogear Technology on March 20th, 1996. The trademark has been officially owned by Infogear since 1999, one year before the company was to be bought out by Cisco Systems. After the acquisition completed in 2000, everything that was formerly Infogear was then to be Cisco, including the iPhone trademark.

The trademark not only existed on paper, but also in practice; the name has been used twice since its filling. In 1997, Infogear launched a desktop phone called the iPhone. Incidentally this device also had a touchscreen and the ability to browse the web. And, late last year, Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, launched a VoIP (Voice over IP) phone using the iPhone name once again.

There is some speculation that Cisco may have released their VoIP phone under the “iPhone” name so as to not loose the rights to the trademark as soon as Apple introduced theirs. The fact that Apple was going to release a product named the iPhone wasn’t as much of a surprise to Cisco as it was to the general public, since Apple had already been in contact with Cisco’s legal department regarding the trademark since 2001, and they have “approached [Cisco] several times over the past year,” according to Mark Chandler from Cisco.

Over the years, the two companies have negotiated over the trademark issue several times, and Cisco, according to Chandler, was confident that the two companies would be able to work out their differences, and maybe even partner up. Chandler also noted that the negotiations felt like they were drawing to a close, when Apple decided to announce the name for their new mobile device: the iPhone. After the announcement, Cisco gave Apple the chance to return to the negotiation tables immediately, but no response was heard, so a lawsuit was filed.

Contrary to popular belief, trademarks can in fact be lost and need to be actively protected in order to remain valid. According to Harvard law school:

“The rights to a trademark can be lost through abandonment, improper licensing or assignment, or genericity. A trademark is abandoned when its use is discontinued with an intent not to resume its use. Such intent can be inferred from the circumstances. Moreover, non-use for three consecutive years is prima facie evidence of abandonment. The basic idea is that trademark law only protects marks that are being used, and parties are not entitled to warehouse potentially useful marks”

The iPhone trademark that Cisco owns has been dormant for roughly six years, before they re-instituted it with the 2006 release of their VoIP phone. This was clearly before Apple recent announcement at MacWorld. It should be interesting to find out if, and when, Apple filed their patent for the “iPhone” name. If they did so before the release of Cisco’s phone, then they might very well have a decent chance at winning the lawsuit, as they should be able to prove that the trademark had been abandoned by Cisco Systems.

However, if this is not the case, Apple might lose and will most likely have to change the name of the product as well as pay damages to Cisco Systems.

• Please note that I am not a lawyer, and have no legal experience; therefore, don’t quote me on the legal proceedings to come.

After almost a year of wild speculation about the next generation iPod and the possibility of a phone, Apple, Inc. has finally announced the real iPhone.

The new Cingular only device seems to have taken the best of both worlds. That is, the widescreen form-factor that was widely rumored to be what the next generation of iPod was going to look like seems to have been paired with a very stylish and capable phone.

In keeping with the traditional Apple minimalist design, the iPhone features a very sleek and clean looking design. On the front of the device there’s a vibrant 3.5” multi-touch screen wedged between what’s called the “Home” button on the bottom and a speaker on the top. The widescreen display features a maximum resolution of 320 by 480 pixels at 160 pixels per inch, and also doubles as the primary input device. The screen does not require a stylus to be used properly; it will ignore unintended touches, and even supports multi-fingered gestures.

The beauty about the touch screen interface is that with the help of its operating system, OS X, the phone is able to completely change the button layout from application to application. So, what might be a nice, big keypad in one application, will completely disappear as soon as it’s no longer needed, and can be replaced with something like a click-wheel in another program.

Using a simple finger gesture, you’ll be able to do everything from flipping through photos to zooming in on a particular section of a web page or photo. Need to send e-mails? No problem, with the iPhone’s predictive QWERTY keyboard, typing up e-mails, documents, and SMS text messages is as easy as ever.

The iPhone is also capable of playing music, video, sharing images, web browser, e-mailing, and a lot more. With OS X, you’ll have a true desktop experience in your hand – or so they claim. A lot of the desktop applications have been ported over to the mobile device, such as Safafi, Notes, and even some of the most popular Widgets. Other neat applications include Visual Voicemail, Address Book, and Google Maps.

As a possible iPod replacement, the iPhone will allow you to literally “touch your music,” browse through your collection faster than ever before, admire the cover art, and much more. If you elect to only play music on the iPhone, the battery should last you about 16 hours – with everything else that you might want to do on the device, a few hours seems far more realistic.

For those of you looking to completely replace your iPods, be forewarned that the iPhone currently only features a choice between 4 and 8GB of internal flash memory. On top of that, the iPhone won’t exactly be cheap either. The 4GB model will go for around $499, and the larger 8GB model should retail for about $599.

All that media capability is great….but this is still a phone, right?

Well, yeah, and as a phone, the device also comes with a lot of features. The iPhone supports three different network frequencies: 850Mhz, 900Mhz, 1800Mhz, 1900Mhz – from there the term “Quad-band.” It also fully supports Wi-Fi (802.11b & G), Cingular’s EDGE, and also fully conforms to the brand new Bluetooth 2.0 specifications. And, like any modern phone on the market, it also sports a 2.0 megapixel camera.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on this thing, I’m sorry to disappoint, but you’ll have to wait a little longer, since it won’t be available until June of this year.

For More Information:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

It’s January. That means that it’s once again time for the Consumer Electronics Show and MacWorld, two high-profile conventions that together will cover almost anything to do with computing and gadgetry.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been organized on an annual and semi-annual basis since 1967, which would make this year’s iteration the 40th anniversary. In accordance with the new tradition, CES will once again be held in the lively city of Las Vegas; more specifically, in the gigantic Las Vegas Convention Center, which features well over three million square feet of showroom floor space. In the past, CES has been used to debut some landmark products and services, like the Compact Disc, Nintendo Entertainment System, DVD, HDTV, and everyone’s favorite: Pong.

The convention will run from Monday, January 8th, to Thursday, January 11th. The event kick-off, however, will be held on Sunday, and will consist of several pre-show keynote presentations from industry gaints, like Bill Gates. Other notable keynotes will be by Motorola’s chairman/CEO Ed Zander, Robert Iger from Walt Disney, and Michael Dell, the founder of Dell, Inc.

This upcoming week will also be the week of MacWorld, an Apple only convention for anyone, anything and everything Mac. The first MacWorld has held back in 1985, in the Brooks Hall in San Francisco. In 1993, the convention moved to the Moscone Center, which allowed for more floor space. The high-light of the event has always been the keynote presentation from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Some of the most well-known product announcements, such as that of the original iMac, as well as that of iTunes, have been made at MacWorld.

Like CES, MacWorld will last several days and start on Monday, January 8th. Some of the rumors suggest that Jobs might be announcing the device that was formally known as the iPhone, but we’ll just have to wait and see…

Apple’s iPod has been around since late October, 2001, and has since then saturated the market with well over 60 million units worldwide. With so many units in circulation, countless problems have arisen over the years, and getting the thing repaired can be almost as expensive as buying a new one. I recently got my hands on two iPods that Apple customer support deemed beyond repair, but yet I managed to fix them and pretty easily, I might add.

Case One

The first iPod I got to fix had died after about a month of use. This iPod was actually one that my friend, Natalie, had received from Apple after she had sent in her first one because it, too, had stopped working. A few weeks after she had sent in her first iPod, she received a replacement fourth generation iPod at no cost to her, since the incident occurred under warranty. This second iPod stopped working after a mere month of use, after which it started displaying the infamous dead iPod symbol. At this point the warranty had run out, and so had her patience with Apple.

A few weeks ago a couple of friend and I were talking about portable entertainment and this issue with the iPod came up. After hearing about the problem and that the warranty had expired, I asked her if could get my hands on it to tinker with. Since it was already dead, she didn’t have much more to lose, so she handed it to me a few days later.

Case Two

Upon hearing that I was busy trying to fix an iPod for a friend, another friend of mine came up to me and asked if I would be willing to take a look at his iPod as well, since it had failed to function correctly as well.

He told me that his third generation iPod would power on, and that the hard drive would start to spin, but would then stop, start back up again, stop, and so on, until it finally displayed the same error symbol as Natalie’s iPod.

I told him that I would take a look at his iPod as well, but that I could not guarantee anything, since this problem sounded far more severe than the first. Initially, I expected the hard drive to be corrupt, since it behaved awkwardly, but the answer turned out to be a lot simpler than that.

Opening an iPod

No matter that the cause of the malfunction was I would have needed to open up the iPods in either case to figure out if I could do anything to remedy the devices.

It would turn out that the hardest part of fixing these two devices would end up being getting them open without scratching or otherwise damaging them. So, after a little research, I came up with the following procedure, which at took some time the first time through, but I quickly got the hang of it with the second one.

The white top of the iPod case is made out of acrylic and the base is obviously a metal, probably aluminum. Both of these materials are not exactly what you might call scratch resistance — as many of you have probably figured out by now. The two case components are attached to each other with a series of hooks that extend out from the acrylic top and latch onto a matching set of metal clips. So, in order to open the iPods, the hooks needed to be pushed inward slightly in order the separate them from their counterparts.

So as to not scratch the edges of either the base or the top, it is crucial to use a thin, soft plastic tool, like a guitar pick or an (old) credit card, to carefully split apart the two case components, before going in with the big guns. After the guitar pick was inserted, I moved it back and forth a couple of times along the edge of the iPod to create a very slight separation between the base and top. Next, move the plastic tool to the bottom of the iPod and get out a sturdier tool with which to actually start opening the enclosure. I opted to use the flat head screwdriver tool on my Leatherman Super Tool, because, unlike most of the screwdrivers that I had lying around, it had a very flat, broad tip, making it ideal for the task.

Insert the screwdriver, or whatever tool you deem fit, into the split created by the guitar pick and push down slowly and carefully as shown in the pictures below. If you are going to try this yourself, then make sure that you are actually in between the acrylic hook and the metal clip, and not in between the clip and the metal base, as you will bend the metal base out of shape this way. Again, look at the pictures to see what I mean.

After carefully pushing down, I eventually heard a pop, which was the hook slipping loose from under the clip and part of the acrylic top coming loose. After this it was be pretty easy to repeat the procedure and actually open up the iPod in its entirety. Be careful once the iPod is open, as some parts of the internal components are actually mounted on the metal base and you wouldn’t want to tear apart the connection between the two.

The Fix

As it turned out, both of the iPods had the same problem, and thus required the same fix. The cable that connected the 1.8” Toshiba hard drive to the motherboard was loose in both instances. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but upon careful examination it turned out that the cable in Natalie’s iPod (the one from the first case) was not in deep enough for any of the pins to make a decent connection. In the second case, the pins on the very same cable were only partially disconnected, which allowed for the hard drive to receive enough information to start up, but not enough information to do anything else, which explained its erratic behavior.

I was astonished at how easy the problem was to fix and how easily the entire problem could have been avoided on Apple’s end with a little design modification. Since the iPod was intended to be a portable entertainment device, one would think that Apple would have thought of properly securing the major components inside the enclosure. By simply adding another hook and clip to the cable and hard drive cable, like is done on many internal power supply cables for PCs, the problem could have been avoided.

Obviously, most people aren’t aware of exactly how fragile their iPods are – the Nano and the Shuffle being less of a problem, as they employ flash memory instead of actual hard drives, which use vulnerable moving parts. I have seen countless people actually run and jog with their full sized iPods. Such activity simply cannot be good for the hard drive and, as it turns out, for the cables connecting the hard drive to the rest of iPod.

It’s the holiday season, which means it’s also the time for sharing, so with that in mind I present you with a list of my top 10 free, open source applications. All of these programs have been developed and tested by a large community of individuals all dedicated to bringing you the best in free software. So, without further ado:

1. Mozilla Firefox

Here’s one that everyone should be familiar with by now. Firefox takes the cake from Internet Explorer in almost every category, especially security and customizability. Due to its open source nature, there is an unbelievable number of plugins and extensions available that will allow you to do almost anything under the sun. All major platforms are supported, including the Mac.

2. VLC Media Player

So you want to play a media file, but Windows Media Player is acting up because it can’t find the proper codec? Why not say bye to Microsoft once again, and try the VLC Media Player. It will even play Apple’s QuickTime codecs and lots more.

3. Open Office

What is it with replacing Microsoft products? I’m not sure, but it’s fun, so let’s keep going. Here another good one: Open Office. As you might have guessed, it’s the open source version of Microsoft Office. Open Office comes with six well designed applications. With it, you’ll be able to edit: documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, and easily create and present mathematical equations.

4. Mozilla Thunderbird

If you’re tired of wrestling with Outlook, but don’t want an online service, than Mozilla has the answer in the form of Thunderbird. Like Firefox, Thunderbird is secure, reliable, and also has loads of available plugins. Plus, it also doubles as a feed aggregator for all of your RSS needs.

5. KeePass

Nowadays it seems that with every new service that you sign up for you need yet another password. Using the same password over and over simply isn’t all that smart, but having to remember upwards of a hundred passwords is a pain – if not impossible. Well, here’s a great little application that will help you securely note down all of the passwords that you have, and where they belong to.

6. Gaim

Let’s face it: the standard AIM client sucks. If, like me, you’re fed up with those nagging ads and the inadequate interface, then Gaim is definitely worth a shot. Not only does it support the AIM protocol, you’ll also be able to chat with your friend on the Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber, ICQ, and Trillian networks.

7. TrueCrypt

If simply keeping your passwords secure isn’t enough, then check out True Crypt. Using the industry’s best encryption algorithms, True Crypt will keep your most valuable data so secure that, given a thousand years, even the NSA couldn’t get to it. At its core, TrueCrypt is an on-the-fly (a.k.a. real-time) encryption program that will allow you to create multiple virtual encrypted drives, and you can even use it to encrypt portable media, such as USB drives. Just make sure not to forget the password…

8. GIMP

It’s not exactly a Photoshop killer, but the GNU Image Manipulation Program gets pretty darn close. Its interface may be quite different from Photoshop’s, but a vast majority of the tools are all there and ready to make your favorite pictures look a whole lot more professional.

9. Synergy

This one is rather specific, but great nonetheless. If you’ve ever tried to work on two computers at once (say, your laptop and your desktop), then you know that it can be quite a hassle to have to switch from one computer’s keyboard and mouse over to the other. Synergy solves that problem. This neat little app will let you utilize your network so that you can use a single keyboard, or any other interface device, will multiple computers. It’s also a great way to use you laptop monitor as an extension to your main system.

10. Notepad++

Last, but definitely not least, I’ve chosen to include Notepad++, a nifty little text and code editor. It was a very simple tabbed interface, and has language support for close to 40 different languages; anything from classic C all the way to XML. It’s lightweight and fast, which makes it great if you want something with a little more horsepower than Notepad, but not a full blown version Word or Visual Studio.

Since there are so many open source applications out there, I can’t possibly find and test all of them. So if you know of any more great applications, feel free to post links to them in the comments section.

Imagine never again having to plug-in your cell phone, laptop, or iPod to recharge it. Imagine being able to get rid of those cluttered power strips, or that wire mess behind your computer. Well, the solution to these grievances may be coming soon.

Assistant Professor Martin Soljacic from the MIT Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, together with grad student Aristeidis Karalis and Professor John Joannopoulos have developed a new system to wirelessly transmitting power to electronical devices, such as phones, handhelds and laptops.

The underlying concepts behind the system have been around for since the 1800’s, and there have been many experiments of varying success in an attempt to create a safe and useful system. Even Nikola Tesla experimented with the concept of wireless power, but failed to yield any practical results. There have also been other attempts using directional energy transfers with lasers, and induction based systems (which are used to charge electric toothbrushes).

The electromagnetic resonance system that the MIT researchers are working on is pretty similar to a radio antenna, except for a few differences: their system is not omni directional and transmits at a very low frequency, 4 to 10 megahertz. One very important element of any such system that might one day be used in a home or office environment is that it conserves as much energy as possible, which is what the MIT system does by keeping the energy close to the transmitter until it can be sent to a receiver. Most of the unused energy would be re-absorbed by the antenna and recycled.

The system doesn’t transmit, until another object with the same resonance frequency gets within its range of about 4 to 5 meters. Once the frequencies are synced the system causes the power to “tunnel” from one object to another, minimizing the loss of energy. Non-resonant objects, such as humans and pets, would not be affected by the system, making it very eco-friendly.

The applications for the MIT system are practically endless. The researchers are currently gearing their work towards home and small office use. Ideally, each room would be equipped with a transmitter to provide coverage of an entire building, and then any receiver equipped object within range, such as a laptop, cell phone, or iPod would have all of the power it needs to run.

The system could also alleviate many common nuisances of everyday living. For example, imagine that that your vacuum cleaner was cordless, or that your home telephone could never die because you forgot to put it back on the charger, or that you could get rid of all the cabling in your home theater or computing setup.

The basic gist to the story is that it all depends on how you count your bytes and how you define prefixes like kilo-, mega-, giga-, and so on.

There really is no discrepancy between the advertised capacity versus the “actual”; they both describe the exact same amount of data. The size of the volume can be denoted as both 80GB (eighty gigabytes), which is what the HDD manufactures typically use, as well as 74.5GiB (seventy-four point five gibibytes), which is what operating systems typically use. The perceived difference stems from the method of notation: SI prefixes versus binary prefixes.

When the first multi-million byte capacity hard drives appeared in the late 1950s, companies started to use the prefix “kilo” to describe 2^10, or 1024, units of storage. Later on, when the SI prefix system was introduced to the industry, 1024 was deemed to be close enough to 1000, as denoted by 10^3, so nothing was changed.

Windows, like many other operating systems, will most often denote the size of a volume using the binary interpretation of the prefix as opposed to the SI interpretation, resulting in a perceived discrepancy. Windows, however, will also display volume size using the decimal system, depending on where you look.

It would seem that the user is losing storage space, which he or she might have been able to use to store more songs, photos or data, but this is incorrect. Sure, this might seem to be the case if the storage capacity of the volume is measured using one definition and the size of the songs were to be measured with the other definition, which, unfortunately, is often times the case. But, if both the file size and storage capacity were to be measured using the same definition, either binary or decimal, then everything would work out fine, mathematically speaking. This is to say that as long as the same definition is used to measure all factors, the exact same number of songs should fit on the volume in question, and there is no “lost” space for an extra 1000, or so, songs.

In short, OEMs will often define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes, while operating systems like Windows, Macintosh, and Linux consider a megabyte to be 1,048,576 bytes, resulting in an apparent loss of about 4.5% of the advertised capacity.

So, if this problem is known, why don’t the manufacturers tell the consumers how big their hard drives “really” are. Well, the answer is actually really quite simple: it’s all about marketing. Suppose, that one company were to suddenly decide to be more OS friendly, then their products would appear to be smaller than those of their competitors, which is obviously not the case. Since the average consumer does not know about this counting discrepancy, it makes very little sense for any company to change what they are doing.

Is this false advertisement on the part of the HDD manufacturers? Maybe, maybe not. This all depends on who you talk to, since this whole issue comes down to a matter of opinion. Mathematically speaking, both are right. However, if you really want someone to blame then I would argue that the entire industry is at fault for letting this slide in the first place…