So we did flips for the open source Neo1973, now we’ve got a simplified software platform. Trolltech has introduced the Qtopia Phone Edition for the Neo1973.

The Qtopia Phone Edition is fully accessible under the open source GPL verison 2 license and supports the Greenphone reference platform for mobile development.

Up until now, Qtopia has been ported onto 90 different devices, including 25 phones. There are over 9 million Qtopia-based handsets in the market that also includes mobile devices from Motorola, ZTE and Cellon.

Source: TechGadgets photo via Flickr

Toshiba, like SanDisk, found a grand jury subpoena in their mail late last week. The allegations are related to flash memory NAND price fixing.

The probe comes from the highest level and considering the purchase of M-Systems by SanDisk along with the other big hitter of flash memory makers is Samsung, it’s very possible flash memory price fixing could have taken place.

Toshiba claims no wrong doing, but the filing implicates 23 other companies, who most likely source their NAND flash memory from SanDisk or Samsung, in the allegations.

At this time, the officials from Samsung were not available for comment.

Source: Ziff Davis News

Gizmodo did a fun little pictorial about relative size of a SDHC card last week. This is what the new Toshiba 32GB SDHC card looks like when compared to the more common 1GB SDHC card. Good thing technology doesn’t work this way. I’d have one hell of a big cell phone just to accommodate more memory - then again, I don’t think I’ll need 32GB of data on my phone anytime soon.

Source: Gizmodo

Several days ago two leaders in memory manufacturing announced a partnership in development of solid state memory hard drives. PQI (Power Quotient Int’l) and TDK will be holding hands all the way to the bank.

The new company will

focus on storage solutions for industrial and commercial use PCs/Systems. Its initial capital is for PQI 40% and TDK 60%.

The specific terms of the agreement are confidential. As long-term partners, TDK and PQI have always provided excellent and quality industrial solutions to customers around the globe.

To further strengthen this relationship, TDK seeks to comprehend their patented technologies as their competitive advantages. PQI, on the other hand, will utilize their industrial storage research & development with their channel and sales capabilities to expand SSD from industrial to commercial use.

Strip away the USB connector, slap on some plastic with IDE pins and create yourself an 8GB IDE flash drive.

This configuration makes for some additional storage for embedded systems, medical instruments and crazy mods. Having the memory module connect via IDE is not new, but Transcend is now offering the largest size at 8GBs. Sizes trail off to 32MB. I can’t find 32MB USB flash drives so not clear on why such a small IDE flash module. Don’t the manufacturers use the same size silicon and limit the size via hard-coated code anyway. (more…)

With the recent announcement from The CompactFlash Association (CFA) to develop an SATA interface for CF memory is another positive sign that solid state memory for laptops and computers will become the normal.

Despite the fact of Mr. Shigeto, chairman of the CFA board, indicates this move is to further solidify CompactFlash memory as the primary memory storage for non-consumer, embedded and single board products, I think the writing is on the wall for gaining a larger market share of the PC market.

So what is the advantage of SATA interface? Speed. Currently the PATA specification is about 133MB/second and having SATA interface will greatly increase that speed(althogh no target speed was given - just “faster”).

With CompactFlash card slots are in over 360 digital cameras, over 165 handheld/palm-size PCs and over 705 other electronic platforms including embedded systems, single board computers, data recorders, heart monitors, defibrillators, etc. the faster transfer speed will ensure performance to the user with out a bottle-neck of memory.

Press Release: SATA Interface to Compact Flash

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

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.

For the guys in Europe and Australia who already have a copy of HotPXL handy, we’ve got something for you. The game’s official site is announcing they’ve just released a download pack containing 70 extra mini-games for your playing pleasure. This is how you make the grab:

• Download the zip file “HotPixel_70OnlineGames_PSP” (15.1 MB)
• Connect the PSP via USB cable to your PC and select USB Mode on your PSP Menu
• Check that you have a memory stick with enough space available (15.1 MB)
• Unzip the file “HotPixel_70OnlineGames_PSP.zip”, it contains the folder “ULES00642DOWNLOAD”
• Copy the folder “ULES00642DOWNLOAD” in the folder “PSP/SAVEDATA” of the PSP™ memory stick
• Launch HOT PIXEL and in the main menu select “WWW PLAYLISTS” or “WWW GAMES”

That’s the latest update from Atari and zSlide’s minigame for the PSP. More details should be available in the read link below (the Hot PXL site). Hot PXL for North America is expected to land later on this year. (more…)

Having trouble accessing files on your microSD card from the Blackberry 8800 or 8100 Series? The MultiPlay utility can help.

The MultiPlay utility gives you the ability to access files on your Blackberry. It’s a utility that can function as an entertainment, productivity and system application suite.

Free to download and use!

Features:

• Media Player module – can play media files, create and play playlists.
• vNotes module – can create voice memos and save to memory.
• txtNotes module – can create ASCII text files and save to card storage. Also can save/retrieve notes to/from memopad application
• File Explorer module – can manage the blackberry file system by copy, move, rename and deleting files, view properties, create folders.