firmware

I reviewed Iomega's StorCenter ix2 NAS server four months ago and complained that it didn't offer any remote-access solutions. Now that has changed.… Read more

Hard Drive Inspector Professional keeps all of your system's attributes and hard disk health information in one, nicely wrapped package. However, we found a minor discrepancy with the information it provided us.

The user interface is beautifully designed, with large command buttons at the top for saving and sending data reports, and configuration options. Tabs organized the diagnostic information into three categories: Health Summary, Technical Info, and S.M.A.R.T. Details. From the Health Summary window, we got a brief summary of the amount of available space left on our hard disks, our disk model, and the … Read more

Apple has released a minor firmware update for Apple TV, taking the unit from version 2.3 to 2.3.1. The changelog has yet to appear on Apple's site, but Apple Insider users are discovering just very minor feature changes, such as the inclusion of a built-in bandwidth monitor. (Unfortunately, we got the error message pictured when we tried to use it.)

Otherwise, the only big achievement of the 2.3.1 update is to cripple the Boxee installations that some enterprising users have added to their Apple TV. (Boxee, a popular software package that allows easy access … Read more

I don't typically write about firmware updates on Crave (it is, after all, a tech gadget/gear blog). But this is for one of my favorite cameras from last year--the Canon Powershot SD880 IS--and the combo of settings that causes the problem that the update fixes is just funny. Especially since Canon refers to it as a "phenomenon" in the announcement. So here we go:

This firmware update corrects a phenomenon that when the following settings are used in combination, if the shutter button is pressed halfway to focus during shooting (AND the AF frame … Read more

Apple has released a minor iPhone firmware update that is supposed to help improve the stability of its Safari browser.

The update should be popping up Tuesday if you connect your iPhone to iTunes. Update 2.2.1 is the first tweak released since Apple added Google's Street View to the iPhone's software back in November with the 2.2 release.

Despite the brief list of new features and fixes, this update is just as big as that release, weighing in at 246.4MB. As a result, it's taking awhile to download and install. I'll let … Read more

After releasing a bug-fixing firmware that actually caused havoc by potentially rendering some drives seemingly dead, Seagate on Thursday offered this statement:

Seagate has isolated a potential firmware issue in limited number of Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives and related SATA drives based on this product platform, manufactured through December 2008. In some unique circumstances, the data on the hard drives may become inaccessible to the user when the host system is powered on.

While we believe that the vast majority of customers will not experience any disruption related to this issue, as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, … Read more

Seagate on Tuesday released a fix to a bug in its current generation of drives that caused them to become undetectable by a computer. Users have found, however, that the fix breaks 500GB drives--the fix has since been retracted.

A member of Seagate's community forums raised the issue in November, with Seagate taking close to two months to offer a fix.

The bug affects a significant portion of not only Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 drives, but Barracuda ES.2 SATA and Maxtor DiamondMax 22 drives. Forums across the Internet have been filled with warnings not to buy drives that feature the SD15 revision of firmware; however, Seagate's own documentation shows that SD16, SD17, SD18, and SD19 are also affected within certain model numbers.

This is not the first time Seagate has had a firmware issue with the 7200.11 series of drives. The SD04 and SD14 firmware revisions were found to be under-performing because they weren't accessing the full cache of the drives, and were replaced with version AD14 to fix this.

The new SD1A firmware was meant to be preventative only, but some users have found success updating and reviving already dead drives, according to Seagate's forums.

Users of Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 500GB product, however, have found that the update "bricks" their drives--terminology used in the tech industry to mean the unit is dead.

Seagate has since removed the firmware update, claiming it is "in validation."

U.S. customers have been offered free data recovery should the firmware bug have resulted in data loss.

The affected drives are listed below. … Read more

The top two SLR makers have released relatively minor firmware revisions for three cameras, Nikon's higher-end full-frame D3 and D700 and Canon's prosumer-grade EOS 40D.

The fixes generally address rare and unusual problems. One notable fix for the D3 and D700 is for a problem which, as Nikon describes it, "in extremely rare cases, resulted in noticeable black dots in images captured with Long exp. NR (long exposure noise reduction) in the shooting menu set to On." Canon fixed a black-dot issue of its own with the EOS 5D Mark II earlier this month, but Nikon's issue sounds rarer.

Forthwith, the release notes: … Read more

So it looks like the PlayStation 3 is about a couple years away from becoming self-aware, taking over the world, and making us all its human slaves--if a few of us aren't already.

Sony announced that the v2.60 firmware update for the PS3, released Wednesday, will include many enhancements to the system's media capabilities.

The key feature, according to Sony, is the new photo gallery app, which allows your digital pictures to be organized by criteria including the camera used; event date and time; colors in the photos; and the number, ages, or facial expressions of the … Read more