Toshiba says 0.85-inch hard disk drives by end of 2004

Earlier this year reports of Toshiba's ultratiny 0.85-inch hard disk drives (which consume half the power, are roughly 80 percent smaller, and can withstand more than twice the impact than the 1.8-inch drive Toshiba makes currently that is used in the iPod) sparked the usual speculation about all the fancifully small new gadgets it could eventually turn up in, like in cellphones or an even more mini iPod mini. Now they're getting down to business and say that they'll be throwing into mass production before the end of the year, which is actually a tiny bit ahead of schedule. They haven't said what the capacity of the drives will be (probably 2GB or 3GB), but do expect a flurry of "world's smallest hard drive-based MP3 players" sometime early next year.