Yes, you read it correctly.  Ricky Martin and Kingston Technology have teamed together to bring one of the first music albums to the microSD format.

The Ricky Martin microSD card comes with exclusive preloaded music is a 1GB size that features 2 free songs, a video clip and photos from Ricky Martin’s Black & White tour.

The microSD card includes a USB reader so users can instantly access the card from a host computer or laptop, or connect the microSD card directly into their MP3 compatible phone or PDA.

Comment from Ricky Martin:

“I am very excited by the new avenues for sharing music that technology continues to provide,” said Ricky Martin. “I enthusiastically embrace these new formats. They mean global growth for not only my music — but for all music — and that’s why I’m very happy to form this alliance with Kingston.”

Comment from Kingston rep:

“The microSD Ricky Martin Live Card from Kingston is an innovative way for savvy consumers to enjoy Ricky Martin’s music,” said Seth A. Schachner, Vice President, Digital Business Latin America, Sony BMG Music Entertainment. “It’s also a terrific, versatile product to boot.”

The 1GB Ricky Martin microSD card is available at Amazon for only $11.  Ricky Martin fans rejoice!

While forecasting strong sales and profitability in 2008, Silicon Motion projects that demand for low-density NAND flash will beat that for the high-density segment, driven by demand for microSD cards and embedded memory, said company president and CEO Wallace Kou.

Silicon Motion guides that annual sales will grow by 25-35% on year with gross margins to stay in the range of 52-53% in 2008. Although memory makers strive to migrate NAND flash applications to higher density under sales and profitability concerns, that makes no difference for controller makers, Kou said. For a controller IC design house, he stressed that memory density has no relationship on controller sales, given that any NAND flash application (such as USB drive or memory card) only requires one controller, regardless of memory density.

In light of global economic trends, Kou said demand for low-density NAND flash products should be better, partially due to sales spurred by the bundling of memory cards with handsets. Demand for microSD cards will continue to expand in 2008, Kuo said. Out of the 96.3 million units of controllers shipped in the fourth quarter, 89.3 million were for memory cards and USB drives, he detailed.

KoolSpan is offering up an encryption solution for cell phones, PDAs, smartphones and the like for end-to-end security. For mission critical applications, say government or defense contract work, a simple and convenient security system for cell phones is serious business.

KoolSpan has made encrypted cell phones simple. With any device that has microSD support the KoolSpan system will work. The solution is simple - just dial the number. If the other phone is KoolSpan enabled, then both phones automatically go [256bit] secure.

The KoolSpan encryption process is based off their TrustCenter management center. Here administrators can create security groups and permit / deny users based off security clearance protocols. All the necessary authentication keys, identity codes and crypto algorithms are pre-loaded into the KoolSpan TrustChip™. From that point on, mobile devices find each other through normal phone calls, and then transparently and automatically authenticate and encrypt sessions for secure end-to-end communications.

The KoolSpan encrypted cell phone solution is plug-n-play with the microSD TrustChip with no further configuration required. The TrustChip runs about $300 USD and isn’t clear on whether a monthly service is required.

KoolSpan TrustChip product page.

Update: More info here

The other day (literally) a fellow blogger and I where talking about why cell phones are so damn proprietary and if someone could develop a phone with the same open-source mindset as say WordPress (this blogging platform) than our world would be much better off. Well apparently I’ve been living under a rock.

From OpenMoko comes the Neo 1973 open-source cell phone based off the Linux kernel.

We selected chips that have complete documentation publicly available, such as the ARM-based Samsung S3C2410 SOC. We added a debug port with complete access to JTAG and a serial console. This phone is designed for open-source development.

With a sporty 640×480 LCD that holds a beautiful 283 dpi the visual from the Neo 1973 should be amazing.

Unlike the first version of the iPhone the Neo 1973 will have 128MB RAM with 64MB NAND flash and an expandable microSD slot (bonus 512MB card ships with the phone).

So hackers, gadget hounds and side project guru’s I think this is worth a closer look. At just $300 - what a deal.

This first run of release units is more geared towards developers so don’t expect any retail phones to hit BestBuy just yet.

OpenMoko Neo 1973 home page

Samsung is in collaboratin with Beyonce on their SGH-F300 Ultra Music phone where she will heavliy promot the product in spot TV commercials, ads and concert tours. Not a bad move for Samsung as teaming with Beyonce gains some serious followers. The deal also gives F300 owners an exclusive and embedded sound track, “Irreplaceable” pre-loaded on the cell.

The F300 is a unique device with two faces. A large display for viewing pics, videos and movies and on the back side, a smaller display for phone entry and dialing. With the ultra slim design and expandible microSD card, it’s a very attractive deal. Not available everywhere, but with Beyonce on-board it will be soon. (more…)

Here is a step-by-step on making your microSD card read as a mass storage device. This Blackberry hack will allow you to transfer files to and fro without using the Blackberry Desktop Manager software.

1. Go to the Options icon on your Blackberry 8800 and select the Advanced Options
2. Select Media Card
3. Choose the following options. (more…)
   

Shiro VE is a personal video player with some nice lines and curves. Large 2.4 display with MicroSD slot and 4GB of internal memory. PC interface is USB and plays a limited WMV and AVI files along with limited JPEG and BMP picture files. But as will all things gadget these days you can bank on the voice recorder and FM radio.

Two other models also available the Shiro MK and Shiro ME. If only the girl came with it. She looks clueless, perfect.

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Research In Motion announced the 8800 BlackBerry today and there are a long list of features, but where’ the camera? Wasn’t the camera feature the top requested feature? Our only conclusion is BlackBerry devices make it into enough highly secure environments RIM got heavy pressure to keep a camera off the device to eliminate sneak peaks of company secrets from getting out.

Moving on, the BlackBerry 8800 is the slimmest yet, trackball navigation, enhanced software for out-of-the-box compatibility, built in GPS to instantly send maps via email, (more…)

Remove the fact one must reside in Japan for the following post, it appears only the trendy cool kids will be getting the Napster branded MicroSD card for the new Napster direct-to-mobile download service. AT $82USD for a 512MB MicroSD card, when any will work, is pricey for storage. The Japanese Napster direct-to-mobile service does require a MicroSD card for sync functions - would you care? Probably not.

Napster direct-to-mobile service is offered through NTT and uses DoCoMo phones.

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MP3 players are getting so small your fingers can’t navigate the playlist. Take the wicked small Sansa Express MP3 Player from SanDisk. Ya it looks great but damn, it’s small.

Stores 1GB of music (about 250 songs) BUT has a MicroSD slot to expand to another 4GBs. With USB port and earphone connection it’s sleek, it’s slim, it’s sweet. Four-line OLED screen gives you plenty of info like play list, genre, artist, album…all the ID3 tags. At just $59 bucks screw the iPod, make your kid happy with the SanDisk Sansa Express.

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