Fujitsu breaks 200 GB barrier for laptops

Five years back, the IT administrator at the place I worked refused to increase my hard disk capacity from 512 MB to 1 GB because he felt:
a) All my data could fit in to the current hard disk; and
b) The management would never approve such wasteful expense on things just because they hold someone's fancy

It would have been okay if I was some floozie on the newsdesk, but I was the Content Head of one of India's most visited news websites, and part of my responsibilities included storing masses of data, including video and audio files.

I did not know whether to laugh at the administrator or at the management (in any case I laughed at both, and sent the administrator's email to Scott Adams who collects the world's funniest corporate emails to write books and earn millions. I later sent another funny corporate email to Adams, which you may find at the end of this post).

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that the world, thankfully, has progressed enough. Fujitsu, which along with rival Hitachi, has belied physics to such an extent that it regularly breaks its own records, has plans to introduce the 200 GB laptop hard drive by the end of Q3. Good going.

Last year, Hitachi had introduced the Deskstar series of which the 500 GB model was the largest. With data consumption rising by the day, my guess is that those days of 30 GB laptops and 120 GB desktops will soon be history. Next stop? Quantum Computing? Reversible Computing?

And as promised here is the email I once received from the finance head of the place I worked. Laughter is a guaranteed side-effect.

"Dear Colleagues,
It has come to our notice that our Internet usage is eating into precious bandwidth. To prevent further misuse, I propose to ban all websites that belong to the following categories:
1) Pornography
2) Gambling, and
3) Games

However, we also appreciate that some of you may need such sites for business purposes. If that is indeed the case, the colleague in question should approach me or the IT head to ask for exemption from the ban."

I swear I am not making this up.