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!

We tried to escape the iPhone buzz, but recent information came to light after some folks unscrewed the iPhone to see what’s inside. This is what flash memory they found.

The Apple iPhone flash memory is comprised of two technologies. NAND flash and NOR flash. Without knowing how Apple used these technologies we can easily conclude (without certainty) how the flash memory is being used.

Since NAND flash memory is best suited for re-write and allows an operating system to view the flash memory as a hard drive type storage space, the iPhone most likely uses NAND memory to store MP3 files, photo’s, video and other ‘come-n-go’ files.

The NOR flash memory is best suited for storing code where re-writes aren’t as frequent. NOR would be used for storing application information, such as web browser, OS, Viewer files and other ’stable’ code which wouldn’t change too often.

It was also reveled that Samsung is supplying Apple’s iPhone with the main microprocessor chip and NAND flash memory. Intel is supplying the NOR flash memory to the iPhone.

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…)

In the US many states are adopting a no-cell phone road policy to help reduce driving accidents. Well, to fly in the face of that effort is the BlueTraks BT-211, a device that helps communicate in a hands-free environment.

Conceptually, it’s a good idea but it also interfaces with your iPod making it simple to view video while driving. Just what we need, loading up The Office re-runs while driving at 75mph. Although in Los Angeles, where I am, it’s really only 15mph about 99% of the time, so maybe the BlueTraks BT-211 isn’t that bad after all.

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A report from Prudential Equity Group indicates Apple would be smart to shift from HHD to flash memory for the larger iPods. Although the cost-per-gigabyte would be more, the user experience and product logevity would improve. Currently only about 3.5 hours of juice are available for iPods when running video you don’t want to lose power at the climax.

Switching to flash memory reduces power consumption and extends video play to 5.5 hours, as significant improvement. With current iPod sizes at 30GB and 80GB and the largest flash memory (at a decent price for CE products) at 32GBs it’s a fairly easy decision to make.  By the time all solid flash memory devices are ready to hit the market we are looking at a high-end capacity range of 120GBs. (more…)

So it appears Toshiba and Oakley have teamed together to bundle one hell of a cell phone package. Take the Toshiba 911T multimedia slider cell phone and integrate Softbank’s OS for Bluetooth communication with Oakley glasses, this is what you get.

Digital TV, 3.2pm anti-shake camera with auto-focus, 3 inch wide VGA screen (480×480) MicroSD slot for another 2GB of storage on-top of the already liberal 1GB of internal storage and MS office reader for docs, pdfs etc. Thanks Toshiba! BUT, I don’t know what looks more ridiculous, sunglasses with earphones hanging down, or sunglass with a Bluetooth headset off on one ear. You decide. (more…)