no, its not firmware and whatever. its because 1 gb=1024 mb, 1 mb=1024 kb, and 1 kb=1024 bytes. therefore, 1 gb = 1,073,741,824 bytes. however, when apple advertises their ipod as having 30 gb, they say 1 gb = 1000 mb, 1 mb = 1000 kb, and 1 kb = 1000 bytes, or that 1 gb = 1,000,000,000 bytes...