However, optical media itself is not dead yet - far from it, mostly thanks to Blu-ray. So perhaps the headline should have read "optical drives in computers are not really all that important anymore, but Blu-ray is doing well." But that wouldn't have been as catchy.

For those who read beyond headlines, the Techcrunch article makes a valid point - it's no longer as necessary to include an optical drive in a computer, especially one designed for maximum portability, because the USB drive will often suffice for transferring files to and from computers.

But to proclaim that this makes the "CD, DVD and every other optical disc obsolete" is a stretch. (Well, at least for the DVD, that is.)

For some time, music CD sales have been tanking, down by mid-2010 by about 50% of their peak. But for the DVD, there's a different story. Because of Blu-ray, the HD video viewing format, DVD is still a somewhat popular choice for consumers in certain markets.

DVD sales vs. Blu-Ray

The movie studios are fretting that less people are choosing to buy movies on DVD, but some media execs are giving mixed signals on current trends in this area. As recently as this August, Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes said that trends are improving when it comes to DVD sales, but Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger, however, said the market will remain "challenged." (As reported by the WSJ.)

Obviously, digital distribution will impact the industry and optical media. Streaming options like those from Netflix and a realm of new media center devices and connected TVs will do the same. But "kill" it? Not entirely. Not yet.

Blu-Ray Sales: A Collection of Stats

• Some sources reported Blu-ray and DVD sales declined globally in 2009, only experiencing either positive or flat annual revenue performance in 33% of international markets. But sales were expected to increase in 2010, by nearly 70% across key markets.
• And when you look at just stats surrounding Blu-ray, the numbers aren't so bad. In 2009, recordable Blu-ray discs reached 44 million, a 244% increase over 2008. Global demand was pegged to expand 7-fold from 2009, going up to 310 million discs by 2012, according data released by Japan Recording-Media Industries Association (JRIA).
• By Q1 2010, European sales had doubled, topping 150 million Euros, according to one source. However, the consensus now is that the European market overall isn't doing so well (except for Germany). In fact, Screen Digest believes DVD and Blu-ray sales will drop 3.5% each year through 2015 in Europe.
• But in the U.S., Blu-ray adoption is at 17% - and about 20 million U.S. households own both a Blu-ray player and DVD player. Avatar helped with this. Blu-ray households rent and buy discs in greater numbers than DVD households, and the format appears to be the format of choice for younger, wealthier households with children.
• According to hardware maker Singulus Technologies, the 1st half of 2010 saw sales of Blu-ray discs at 5 million, an increase of 153 % compared with the 1st half 2009. In addition to the 2 % rise of DVD sales to 45.7 million units (following 44.9 million units in the 1st half 2009), the new record level is primarily due to the constantly increasing Blu-ray market, it said.
• In the U.S., market researchers Swicker & Associates found that sales of Blu-ray discs increased by 112 % in the 2nd quarter compared with the same quarter one year ago.
• By 2014, research company Futuresource estimates 40% of homes in the US, Western Europe, and Japan will have a 3D Blu-ray player, recorder or home theater. And they predict the format will even see 5 years of growth thanks to 3D.

In other words, Blu-ray, a DVD format - yes, an optical format - is not dead yet, at least in key markets like the U.S. And if Blu-ray proves popular for some time going forward, a slice of the computer-buying audience will want a Blu-ray optical drive in their computers. I know I do.

And that's my opinion. I'd like to hear yours.

*Note: this article is not meant to give a comprehensive overview of DVD/Blu-ray sales or the industry, only provide some examples of optical media trends. If you want to share stats you know about, please do so in the comments.

Now, in advance of its launch in "late October/early November," Boxee has published a show-and-tell video starring the company's design head, Zach Klein. (He's the one with the headband and made of meat.) The box and remote are functional finals, right off the assembly line of the manufacturers, Taiwan's D-Link.

The first Boxee Box arrived from the D-Link Factory from Zach Klein on Vimeo.

Also, they have a fireplace from a 1970s den in their office? Does that strike anyone as fair?

That tech industry mainstay, the conference, was the first element affected. One of ReadWriteWeb's writers had his trip to Funconf rescheduled.

Although the damage to the airline industry might well be in the billions of dollars, and the damage to fruit and flower growers also significant, what about the delivery of high tech hardware to, from and through Europe?

Most companies employ what's called just-in-time inventory and delivery strategy. The positive is they save money, especially on storage. No warehouses either at the source nor at transit points or points of sale see smartphones and laptops gathering dust. Instead, they're sped in at the last moment. But when the transportation industry is compromised, just-in-time becomes where-the-hell-is-everything?

We wrote about Apple's delay in opening international sale of its iPad tablets. Will this geological tour de force force the delay further?

Reuters reports that high-tech hardware manufactured in Asia has bottlenecked.

"Across Asia, freight forwarding firms and exporters faced stalled delivery of goods typically transported by air, including mobile phones, high-tech consumer electronics, luxury fashion items and advanced Asian electronics components critical to production lines in Europe."

Slashgear reported a delay in the delivery of the first 1,000 Pandora open-source handheld gaming consoles.

"That volcano has brought all Pandora and iControlPad shipments to a standstill," Tweeted Pandora dev Craig Rothwell."A bloody volcano is the latest delay, crazy"

If anyone in the ReadWriteWeb community knows of other delivery delays or conference cancellations (alliterating like a Saxon), let us know in the comments.

Photos by Frid Geirsson

Although still a ways off from commercial viability (and availability), the lithium-sulfur batteries promise advances like 80% more capacity, 10 times the power density and, theoretically, the ability to last four times as long as modern batteries.

An Always-On Mobile Web

With these sorts of improvements, lithium-sulfur batteries could lead the way in the next phase of the mobile revolution. They could allow us to fully enjoy the web from anywhere in the world, without having to worry about dying batteries, access to power outlets or having to carry around battery replacements when planning long-lasting mobile computing sessions.

Far more than just a convenience, better battery technology would impact how our mobile devices are designed and how they behave. For example, Apple currently imposes numerous restrictions on members of their mobile device lineup for the sake of battery performance. On Apple iPhones, iPod Touches and the forthcoming iPad, applications aren't permitted to run in the background and Adobe Flash technology has been banned altogether, supposedly for its CPU usage which rapidly drains battery juice. Other mobile smartphone makers, while not necessarily as restrictive as Apple, still have to weigh the benefits of providing these same types of features with the performance hit their gadgets will take if they do so. And as anyone who regularly fires up their smartphone web browser knows, too much Internet surfing during the day means a phone that dies out before nightfall.

Another example of the technology's potential impact: e-Readers. Today, if you want to pack your Kindle or Nook device to take with you on vacation, you still have to go through the thought process: how long will I be gone? Will my battery last? Should I pack the cord? Now imagine that you could just throw your e-Reader into your bag without a second thought, just as if you were packing the paperback novel or newspaper these sorts of gadgets aim to replace. Would that encourage more people to make the switch from the analog formats to digital?

The Impacts of Better Batteries

What if, in the future, concerns like these were no longer a worry? What if phones, netbooks, e-Readers and other mobile devices could be used for days on end without the need for a charge? That would radically impact the way we think about and use our mobile devices.

There are a million other use cases that could benefit from this technology change, too, including sensor networks, computing from remote areas, faster news dissemination from areas impacted by disasters (either natural or man-made) where power outages have occurred, gadgets for hikers, campers and other explorers who spend weeks away from civilization and, therefore, away from electricity, mobile location-based services that run in the background on smartphones and other personal mobile gadgets and - OK, we'll admit it - the ability to Twitter all day long without a recharge.

For the nitty gritty technical details about this new battery technology, MIT's Technology Review explains everything from the cathodes to the conductivity as well as the challenges still ahead for this breakthrough technology. Most notably, the scientists still need to figure out how to maintain capacity. After five discharge/recharge cycles, the batteries lost one-third of their initial storage capacity and after 40 to 50 cycles, they ceased to function altogether. However, if the researchers can overcome that final hurdle and a few others, the new technology could one day become commercially viable. It's too soon to know if that will actually occur, but as gadget lovers ourselves, we're hopeful.

Steve Jurvetson, one of the best-known technology investors in the world, has posted an updated version of Kurzweil's visualization of the history of exponential growth in computing. In his thought provoking discussion of the phenomenon, Jurvetson calls this "the most important chart in technology business."

"What Moore observed in the belly of the early IC [integrated circuit] industry was a derivative metric," Jurvetson writes, "a refracted signal, from the bigger trend, the trend that begs various philosophical questions and predicts mind-bending futures."

What will be the next big leap in computing technology? From a hardware perspective I won't even venture to guess, but it sure is exciting to think about what those technologies will enable. Many things we'd love to see done today remain too processor intensive, from advanced Augmented Reality implementations to broader real time services and machine learning. Ultimately, we can only make clumsy guesses about the killer apps of an exponentially more powerful computing platform - that's the point.

When calculations per second increase exponentially, fundamentally new things become possible. It's one of those fascinating quantitative changes that cross the threshold of creating qualitative change.

For every frontier explored there is baggage brought from home, of course. About this chart, Union Square Ventures associate Andrew Parker asks "how much does a newer medium pull from an older medium in terms of design paradigms?" (That makes us want to cry for the poor limping US Patent Office, now facing layoffs of all things!)

Mind bending is right. What does this chart, that Jurvetson calls the most important in the technology business, bring to your mind - innovation loving readers of ReadWriteWeb?

Linux Makes Netbooks Even More Affordable

In the rest of the computing world of desktop computers and mainstream notebooks, you're typically choosing between Windows Vista or Mac OS X, but in the world of netbooks, it's Linux or XP. Those two operating systems are perfect for netbooks thanks to their lower CPU and power requirements.

For those pinching pennies (and who isn't these days? ), the Linux netbooks are even more affordable than their XP counterparts, typically falling into the $300-400 range. If you're already doing most of your computing in the cloud - that is, you use webmail, create and edit documents using a service like Google Docs or Zoho, store your photos online at a site like Flickr, and, most importantly, don't need to run a bunch of software programs on your desktop, the Linux computer is now looking more like a viable option than before - and one that saves you a bit of change too. Just look at these prices: the Acer Aspire One ($399), the HP Mini 1000 ($379), the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 ($349), and the MSI U90X ($369).

Breaking Into Mainstream

As any Linux fan will tell you, the beauty of this OS is its stability. These Linux machines don't crash, boot quickly, and are generally known to be all-around reliable computers.

However, there are still a few folks out there who are going to go with the XP option for familiarity's sake. There's comfort in knowing that your peripherals will work and that you could run Windows-only desktop software if you needed to. Although there are tons of open source alternative software programs out there, an average computer user isn't likely to know what those are or how to find them.

Those issues still stand in the way of mainstream adoption, and have led some buyers to return their PCs to the manufacturers. An MSI executive, Andy Tung, recently reported on the high return rate of the Linux machines, saying: "Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don't know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it's not what they are used to. They don't want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks."

The Linux PCs may also end up getting a run for their money when Windows 7 is released to the wild as that OS is netbook-ready and easy on the CPU, memory, and battery use, according to the news coming out of this year's PDC.

Linux Gets A Foothold

That being said, this move to netbook computing is offering Linux a foot in the door of mainstream computing in a way that may have never been possible before. Without the economic crisis to factor in to people's spending decisions, people probably wouldn't have considered the Linux option as strongly as they're doing today. When every dollar saved counts, the decision to go Linux may be more about cost savings than anything else, but that might be what it takes to get people to try the OS computer geeks have been raving about for years.

Are you going to buy a Linux or XP netbook? If so, tell us which ones you like and what's factoring into your decision.

This is not the first time that Apple had issues with its power adapters. In August, Apple announced that it was investigating issues with its MagSafe power adapters for the MacBook and MacBook Pro line. According to some users, these adapters tend to overheat, short out, and burn.

With millions of iPhone 3G phones sold in the last few months, this is a major undertaking for Apple. The only advantage for Apple is that these power adapters are relatively inexpensive. Currently, replacement adapters retail for $29, though Apple's actual cost is surely a lot less. Apple will probably take a small financial hit from this, but the real question will be if the image of the iPhone will be tarnished by this recall - especially after so many users have already complained about other problems with the phone.

This is Part 1 of a 5-part series in ReadWriteWeb's Enterprise Channel. Part 1 covers everything from a physical perspective. What, ideally, you need to have to make the digital office run. In subsequent parts, we will cover browser, web apps, mobile, and more.

LAPTOP

Recommendation: The Mac Book Pro

Why?: Primarily, OS X - arguably the best operating system out there. In terms of hardware however, the MBP's form factor, strength, wireless connectivity, long battery life, speed, memory, improved graphics card, multi touch trackpad and decent sized hard drive all wrapped up in a beautiful metallic case should be enough to convince you.

Asus U2E, Sony Vaoi TZ31MN, Macbook, Macbook Air, Asus EeePC 900

PHONE

Recommendation: Blackberry Bold

Why?: Let me be clear. I'm an iPhone user and I'll openly admit I have yet to use the blackberry bold. However, I have used almost every previous blackberry and from reviews by gizmodo, engadget and a number of gadget sites - this is the best blackberry ever. However, the main reason I have selected the Blackberry Bold over the iPhone is because of the downfalls of the current 3G iPhone rather than the excellence of the Blackberry Bold. Running your digital office you need to ensure you have access to your email, contacts and a solid long lasting battery - the iPhone is still not reliable enough on both of these points. If this post was more about the Social Media Guru's device list... yes, the iPhone would definitely be my phone of choice. Although of course, with an external battery attachment! We are, however, discussing the digital office and the iPhone is not there yet and won't be until battery life is extended, bugs are ironed out, multifunctionality between local apps is implemented and yes, email and connectivity issues are corrected.

Alternatives: iPhone, Treo Pro, Nokia E66 / E71, HTC Touch Cruise

MOBILE BROADBAND

US: Sprint / AT&T

UK: O2 / T-Mobile / Vodafone / 3

The Should Haves

EXTRA BATTERY FOR MOBILE & LAPTOP

EXTRA CHARGER FOR MOBILE & LAPTOP

WIRELESS MOUSE

Recommendation: Logitech VX Nano Cordless

Why?: Stylish, small but not too small, super precise and smooth maneuvering. Very convenient to just need the small usb plugin which can be left in your laptop all the time. Above all though, it's very very cool.

Price: $45.00

Alternatives: Apple Mighty Mouse, Logitech MX Revolution

WIRELESS KEYBOARD

Recommendation: Apple Wireless Keyboard

Why?: Elegant design. Sturdy and durable. Works superbly well. Extremely accurate, (very) small and lightweight, feels wonderful as you glide your fingers across the keyboard. On top of all that, seamless operation with Leopard, Tiger AND Vista.

Price: $80.00

Alternatives: Logitech diNovo Edge, Logitech Cordless Desktop S510

EXTERNAL HARDDRIVE

Recommendation: Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB

Why?: Uprecedented amount of space for it's weight and size. It's pocket size, flawless performance and very practical - all at a fair price.

Price: $120

Alternatives: Toshiba 320GB Portable External, Iomega eGo Rugged Portable 320GB

USB DRIVE

Recommendation: Kingston DT100/8GB Data Traveler

Why?: 8GB on a usb drive! Above all, convenient, easy to use, small and reliable.

Alternatives: iPhone, HP 8GB USB Flash Drive

Price: $30

BAG

Recommendation: Incase nylon sling pack

Why?: Comfortable, solid protection and padding for your laptop, feels very well made. Lightweight and very slim - so no more smacking into people as you turnround. Works with laptops up to 17 inches. Features a lovely integrated fur compartment for your laptop as well as plenty of space for your iPod and other accessories.

Price: $80

Alternatives: Mobile Edge MEEN01 Express Tote ($30)

MOBILE PRINTER

Recommendation: Canon Pixma iP90v Photo Inkjet Printer

Why?: Small, dinky and portable. Prints pages at a decent speed and color photos come out very well if you're using it for that. Set up is a peice of cake however one drawback, make sure you have a usb cable and buy a few spare ink cartridges as they run out faster than your normal sized ones. Also, a superb price as it is currently on sale at Amazon!

Price: $200+ (currently on sale at Amazon for $151)

Alternatives: Canon iP100, HP Deskjet 460c Mobile Printer

MOBILE SCANNER

Recommendation: Canoscan LiDE 90 (PC/MAC)

Price: $90

Why?: Great value. Just over A4 in size and about 2cm in depth Completely USB powered, extremely convenient and lightweight. Resolution is up to 2400x4800 dpi and scan speeds of approx 15 seconds. Works well with both PC and Mac.

Alternatives: Scansnap USB 10PG Adf Mobile Scanner (pc/mac), Pentax DSmobile 600 Scanner (pc)

WEBCAM

Recommendation: Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000

Price: $80

Why?: Hassle free installation with XP and Vista. Superb picture quality. The Right Light function works very well even in the dullest conditions. If you want a good webcam for Skype, this is it!

Alternatives: Philips SPC900NC PC Web Camera

BLUETOOTH HEADSET

Recommendation: NoiseAssassin-Jawbone II

Price: $110

Why?: Easy to setup, slick to look at, comfortable to wear (at least in my ear). Works well with all bluetooth enabled phones and computers. Definitely does a superb job with controlling levels of background noise - just make sure the headset is actually touching your jaw or else it doesn't do it's job properly.

Alternatives: Plantronics Discovery 925

PORTABLE CAMCORDER

Recommendation: Sanyo Xacti HD1010

Price: $700

Why?: Easy to use out of the box. Brilliant quality image. Practical. Beautifull little camera. Video quality is vivid and crisp. Perfect if you want something you can pull out fast and record.

Alternatives: Samsung mx 20 "YouTube" Camcorder, Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD700

PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYER

Recommendation: iPod Touch

Price: $400

Why?: It's not perfect however you'd be hard pressed to find a better all round device at this size out there. Glorious screen quality and device build. Setup is elegant and straight forward as you would expect. Navigation is equally impressive. Youtube is so easily accessible, accessing e-mails works flawlessly, battery lasts well to listen to music but runs low fast when on the youtube or internet. For such a small thing it can do so much: Games, Calendar, Mail, Internet, Music, Movies, Apps... What are you waiting for? The only real competition in my mind is the iPhone.

Alternatives: Archos 605 Wifi, Microsoft Zune

HEADPHONES

Recommendation: Shure Se210 Sound Isolating Earphones

Price: $130.00

Why?: Perfect to travel with and maybe even miss your flight! Shure's Se210 are in a completely different league. Having used a variety of high spec headphones over the years, Shure stands well above the crowd. An amazing piece of ingenuity. The clarity is astonishing, hearing notes I previously did not. The mid's and high's are exceptional, and the bass is perfect.

Alternatives: Sennheiser CX 95, Klipsch Image

USB HUB

Recommendation: Any Brand

Price: -

Why?: Frankly, I have personally bought a number of USB hubs from ebay over the years and have yet to have one problem. I highly recommend going for the cheapest option which ever that may be. If you're a brand fan and looks are a very high priority however, the two options below should suit you fine

Alternatives: Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 7-Port Mobile Hub, Cables To Go 7 Port USB

3 PLUG ADAPTOR

Recommendation: Monster 4 Outlet Mini Power Strip

Price: $15.00

Why?: Handy. There is always a shortage of power points when you need one. This compact power strip is a perfect for travel and obviously a doddle to use.

The Unnecessaries but Oh So Cool

LIVESCRIBE SMART PEN

What is it? A smart pen that digitally records everything you write and hear. You do however require special paper embedded with thousands of almost invisible dots for the pen to work - these are only $5 for a set of pads though. The recordings are transferred to a computer through a USB docking cradle. Notes can even be shared online and Livescribe gives 250 MB of storage space for free.

Price: $149 for the 1 GB version or $199 for the 2 GB model.

APPLE AIRPORT EXPRESS

What is it? A tiny adaptor size device whicn you plug it into your room's socket, plug in the hotel's Ethernet cable and voila, you have wifi.

Price: $80

Alternative: Linksys WTR54GS

AMAZON KINDLE

What is it? Essentially, an e-book reader launched by Amazon. It uses an electronic paper display and reads Amazons propriertary Kindle format (AZW) and downloads ebooks directly from Amazon.com.

Price: $359

Alternatives: Sony Reader

Next in the Series

Part 2: The Browser. How the browser will increasing play a vital part in the development of digital office. This post will be a run down of tips, tricks and features to make the browser work for you and your team.

Part 3: Web Apps, Desktop Apps & Integration. This will revisit the deskapp to webapp conundrum and the recent developments which have quite possibly sealed the argument.

Part 4: Tools & Services both Online & Off. An illustration of the best tools and services out there which combine to create the digital office.

Part 5: Portability, the iPhone & Mobile Web. This will cover portability and the mobile web, in putting the finishing touches to the new work way.

Top image credit: moriza

The server, called the IBM iDataPlex, is a blade server running Linux and utilizing Intel's quad-core Xeon processors. The system is designed to directly compete with the "white box" servers that are commonly used by internet companies.

In addition to being extremely powerful, the iDataPlex also introduces what can be considered "green" features. That is, the sever uses 40 percent less power thanks to its efficient cooling system and unique form factor.

Traditionally, cooling systems blow air over servers back to front, and, as servers go deeper, more energy is needed to cool them. With the iDataPlex, the server is wider, but smaller - only 15 inches deep instead of the typical 25, which lets the fans run at a lower velocity, saving "about 67 percent on the fan energy alone," said Gregg McKnight, CTO of IBM's modular systems group, in an InfoWorld article about the system.

Additionally, an optional liquid cooling system allows the iDataPlex to run at room temperatures, no A/C needed. This will be a big help to the companies whose servers run out of these massive data centers today - often spending 10 - 30 times more on energy costs per square foot than a typical office building due to the need to power the servers and cool them.

Even without watercooling iDataplex is still at least 20% cooler then the conventional rack approach. This photo (above) was taken in IBM's Thermal Lab, showing the iDataPlex without the liquid cooled door (red) and with it (blue)

A Change for IBM

Typically, IBM and other server vendors produce expensive, high-end machines that have high levels of redundancy, but for Web 2.0 companies, that level of redundancy is not needed. If a server drops off, it just stays dead while the rest of the cloud picks up the slack seamlessly. In companies the size of Google, for example, dead machines are just left on the rack.

It's clear that IBM sees the writing on the wall - the enterprise datacenters of the future are going to be all about virtualization, green IT, service management, and cloud computing. As part of IBM's "Blue Cloud" initiative, the iDataPlex is a sign of IBM's commitment to the emerging cloud computing platform.

You can learn more about the new iDataPlex servers from this YouTube video: