Just in September this year, Toshiba proudly announced a 1.8-inch HDD with 160GB capacity, which was pretty impressive already (their new SSDs aren’t too shabby either). But today, not even two months later, Toshiba unveiled another 1.8-inch HDD with 320GB capacity [press release in English].

Toshiba just announced their latest advancement in CMOS technology, the BSI (back-side illumination) sensor. The BSI sensor is designed to improve high ISO (or low light) photography by decreasing the amount of noise that appears on images taken under these conditions.

Toshiba has been announcing fuel cells for home use for ages now, but it seems the announcement [press release in English] they made today is really serious. The company has unveiled the Dynario today, a mini fuel cell that can charge mobile devices on the go. Japanese mobile gadget geeks can already order the fuel cell on Toshiba Japan’s online store (where it’s available exclusively).

Japan is the world’s second biggest nation in terms of patent application filing, but which company is leading the race in the country that’s home to world class tech firms like Sony, Toshiba and Thanko? Tokyo-based Patent Result thinks it has the answer: According to them [JP], the quality and quantity of Panasonic’s patents (filed in the past fiscal year) is unparalleled in this country.

Toshiba announced a number of laptops [JP] for the Japanese market today, with a high-spec Qosmio and two powerful netbooks among them. But the company is also ready to roll out two new models in the Dynabook TV and three models in the TX series, with (almost) all of them coming with a Blu-ray drive.

Toshiba’s 18-4-inch laptop Qosmio G60, which the company announced today, is quite cool, but at $3,200, it may be a bit too pricey for most of us. And sometimes, a smaller laptop does the job, too. So it’s good to know Toshiba has some (relatively) affordable netbooks among the dozens of new computers the company announced today for the Japanese market.

Toshiba Japan has announced a slew of new and updated notebooks today, and one of them [JP] is a monster of a notebook (more will be posted later). The Qosmio G60/97J is basically a high-end computer, digital TV and Blu-ray player rolled into one.

While Sony is prototyping a single-piece flexible OLED netbook, Toshiba is going the modular route with their L01 series netbook thingie. A 7-inch display is paired with a separate QWERTYkeyboard, giving you something akin to a traditional laptop experience. Or you can leave off the keyboard and use the L01 as a digital photo display, if that’s your thing.

Boy howdy could I use this thing at CEATEC today. Running on a Windows Mobile handheld, Toshiba has a real-time voice translation demonstration. It worked quite well. How much longer until we get the Star Trek universal translators? Video inside!

Fuel cells, those electrochemical conversion devices, which are supposed to make the lives of gadget freaks easier, are still a hot topic in the alternative energy sector even though the technology hasn’t penetrated the mass market yet. Toshiba, for example, has been experimenting with fuel cells for quite some time now. And the company has now announced the development of a fuel-cell based cell phone that’s just 22mm thick.

Deftly dodging the netbook moniker, Toshiba has announced its line of Satellite T100 ultra low voltage machines. They’ll be available on October 22nd with 11.6-inch or 13.3-inch displays and over nine hours of battery life.

Toshiba today announced it has developed mini SSDs (pictured on the right hand side) that are just a seventh of the size of existing 2.5-inch drives. The Toshiba drives will features a mini-SATA (aka mSATA) interface connector, as specified by the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) just yesterday. The new specification is designed for notebooks and similar portable devices.

Toshiba announced a new wireless docking port station. It’s designed to provide a connection to a full size keyboard, mouse, and monitor, docking stations previously required users to physically place their laptop or notebook computer on a connection.

Just eight days have passed since Toshiba announced its new 2.5-inch HDD that boasts a 640 GB capacity, and today the same company announced another “record-breaking” HDD in Tokyo. Their new 1.8-inch PATA [press release in English] holds 160GB of data, which is the highest capacity in the industry.

Toshiba has reportedly developed a pedestrian detection technology for use in vehicles that helps to warn drivers of nearby people with an accuracy of more than 99% during the day. It’s about time tech companies become active in the car safety area: The National Safety Council recorded 39,800 motor vehicle-related deaths in 2008 in the USA alone.

The Toshiba JournE Touch is the iPod Touch for, presumably, the folks who don’t want to buy an iPod Touch. It is a thinly disguised Windows CE device – who on earth still uses CE – and will apparently have its own app store.

I predict they sell maybe two.

Yeah, I wasn’t too excited when the Toshiba JournE Touch launched yesterday, but after watching this hands-on video, I want. 14-hours of battery when web browsing?! Yes, please. There seems to be sufficient pros to make up for the Windows CE OS. That’s for sure.

Although the pocket-cam market (Flips, Zi8s and such) is blowing up, these compact handhelds really have the upper hand in image quality and storage. I switched my primary camera for reviews and such from the Zx1 to a Sanyo because of the better low-light and close focus abilities, and I’m sure these new Toshibas enjoy the same advantages.

John noted them briefly in the Toshiba press conference, but the new lineup is worth a closer look. Details are a bit fuzzy due to Toshiba giving these things the same names as some of their projectors (hello?!).