Name: SONY Liblog Station VGF-HS1
Category: server
Price: Open price (about JPY60,000, or JPY80,000 for 1.5TB)
Release date in Japan: May 17, 2008

SONY is set to release a new home server with either 1TB (that's 1000 gigabytes) or 1.5TB of storage for your digital media. The "Liblog Station" falls under the "Extension Line by VAIO" line, and takes the flat, round white shape of recent SONY PCs.

As a home server, the VGF-HS1 acts as a big external hard drive for networked PCs in your home or accessed via the Internet. (Remote server access sounds mighty business-like, but SONY suggests personal uses as well, such as viewing your home-stored photos from a friend's home.) Naturally, it boasts extensive convergence with SONY products. One touch of a button on the server will download video from a SONY video or still cam. The DLNA-based "Sony Room Link" function connects the device to additional products, such as the BRAVIA TV and NETJUKE audio system. Finally, the server will accept SONY's MediaStick card media, as well as SD/SDHC and CompactFlash media.

Who's the target market for a home server? SONY notes that over 30% of PC-owning households have two or more machines, with 70% of those multi-PC owners connecting the machines by LAN; these are the prime users who can make use of a home server. Sharing PC files is only the start of the modern household's concerns, though; SONY touts the DNLA standard, found in over 700 electronic devices sold in Japan, as the key to getting all of your gadgets talking to each other under the convergence umbrella. (DLNA, or Digital Living Network Alliance, is an international industry effort toward interoperability among PCs, consumer electronics, and mobile devices.)

Other details: 3 USB ports, 10Base-T/100Base-TC/1000Base-T Ethernet, 27cm diameter x 7.1cm height, 3.1kg. Works with Windows XP/Vista PCs.

More info: http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/Products/HS1/ (Japanese)

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