It’s safe to say that microSD media is the smallest physical device which holds the most memory. Just look around your house or office and think of all the things you could stuff a microSD card into. Here we have a microSD card playing hide-and-seek inside a nickle.
Sure there is no technological advancement within this post, but it does remind you of the possibilities.
For the DIY folks out there, save yourself a boat load of money getting the right gear to slice a nickle and pony up the $30 to get the pre-fab’d microSD card inside a nickle at Spy-Coins.com.
Source:Â The Gadgeteer.
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Wouldn’t it be nice…a 2 Terabyte Sony Memory Stick? It just might replace my trusted 8GB flash drive I use obsessively. Bummer it’s not a real product [yet].
Sony put out a specification for this new Memory Stick Format Series for Extended High Capacity on the oss-formats.org website earlier today. The new series uses the exFAT format to reach these higher capacities, but still offers up poor transfer speeds of 480Mbps [60MBs per second]. That translates into a data load of about 555,555 hours – WOW – is my math wrong?
The Memory Stick XC format series should deliver a maximum capacity of 2TB, 60 times larger than the company’s Memory Stick Pro, currently at 32GB. What’s even more interesting is that, at least on paper, the XC series will have the same form factors as Sony’s current PRO series.
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I’ve heard plenty of stories about fake flash sellers on eBay. Typically we see counterfeits with crooks changing the VendorID and ProductID of an ultra cheap brand to something premium for USB sticks [say a Sony MicroVault] but the thieves are also getting into SDHC cards, SD, CF and other media types.
What is amazing, is the willingness of these crooks to make good and show their good will towards a “bad situation” while all the while sticking it to you.
I recently found a website called SOSFakeFlash which documents many of these situations.
Take a quick read – it’s interesting to see what these crooks are up to – but at the same time know this:
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Yesterday GetUSB.info reported about a USB duplication service company that can remove partitions on a USB drive. USBCopier can remove Read Only USB partition and remove CDROM USB partition through some sort of software they have. They company can also remove those partitions for large numbers of drives. I guess that makes sense if you are in the business of flash duplication.
As GetUSB mentions, there is a utility out there to remove the partition of a U3 drive, but that only works for a specific model of flash drive. We know many times, the promotional drives you get from trade shows have the partition with the companies information on there, and more often that not, it’s a CDROM partition with an autorun. The autorun gets very annoying because continually launches upon connection. It would be nice to remove the CDROM USB partition so you could use the full capacity of the drive without the autorun.
Source: GetUSB.info.
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Elan is launching an adapter to connect any USB stick to your mobile device via the microSD slot.
Elan is a UK based company who developed the “Mobidapter” for mobile power users. The connector does not require drivers and will allow any USB device to be seen by the mobile host. Further, the Mobidapter doesn’t require a PC, so important tasks like backup, sync or accessing files will be much easier.
Unfortunately, there is no word on price and expected ship date is mid June 2009.
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Intel and Micron are two of the primary NAND flash memory makers and are partners in such manufacturing. Earlier this month they announced new technology capable of 3-bit per cell storage which is based off 34-nanometer technology.
The 3-bit per cell concept allows for more storage in the same realestat of flash memory. This imporvement yields larger storage capacity of flash drives and SSD at a lower price.
However, the new technology doesn’t come without some draw backs. According to Kevin Kilbuck, Director of NAND marketing at Micron indicates the 3-bit per cell technology isn’t as stable as they’d like.
For example, Kevin indicates the 3-bit per cell NAND technology will be found in less mission critical devices like USB flash drives, SD memory and CF memory. The technology will not find it’s way into SolidState Disks until the manufacturing process is perfected.
“The companies explained that they need more experience in production volumes before they will be confident to position it as a chip suitable for the high-write environment of the SSD”
You can expect the 3-bit per cell to hit the streets sometime in Q1 of 2010.
However, as with most technology, it’s on the way out before it’s ever even in; SanDisk and Toshiba disclosed in February that they had developed 4-bit-per-cell technology, which the two companies said was the highest-capacity flash memory technology in the industry.
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Samson just released a great looking product, the Q3. It’s a hand held video recorder and what is particularly nice about this unit, is the huge microphone perched at the top. Now it’s easier than ever to capture that perfect moment – in both video and audio.
In addition to the well positioned microphone, the Samson Q3 also has an expansion slot via SD card for additional memory capacity. Up to 32GBs to be exact. Thus the title of the article.
The Samson Q3 also has VGA output so you can easily connect the device to your TV for instant viewing.
Use HandyShare to edit and share video on your favorite websites including YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. You can connect the video recorder to your computer via USB connection.
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30 years ago this week Sony launched the first Walkman, the TPS-L2. This product changed the world for how people listened to their personal music. The TPS-L2 was a sleek package with small footprint that allowed people to easily carry their cassette tapes and listen to their music on the go.
The TPS-L2 originally sold for $200 and was called the “Soundabout” but the company quickly turned the company brand into the Walkman by the end of that same year. Sony never looked back…well, not until the iPod came out 23 years later.
With the introduction of digital music Sony lost their step in being the lead provider of personal audio players.
Now Sony is sporting their flagship Walkman the
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MacWorld posted an article about a French website getting the MacBook Pro to boot from a SD card in the SD slot. Not a huge feat, but I think it’s an indication that laptop manufacturers, both PC and Mac, will continue going down the road of being Optical-less [if that’s a world].
If you are a MacBook Pro owner and interested in this bootability, please visit the following link: here.
The MacWorld article also mentioned a new SD format of SDXC which is based off the new Windows exFAT format for extended FAT and FAT32 sizes. I’ll dig up some research on this and report back.
Source: MacWorld.
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The TASCAM’s DP-004 Digital Pocketstudio is based on 30 years of easy-to-use cassette Portastudios, and updated with four tracks of CD-quality digital recording. Like those groundbreaking Portastudios, a row of knobs set levels and pan instead of a list of menus.
The DP-004 can record two sources at once to the included 1GB SD Card. A built-in stereo condenser microphone makes it simple to record anywhere you go, perfect for concerts, rehearsals and songwriting inspirations. A pair of 1/4″ jacks on the rear panel allow you to connect your own microphones or sources. You can even switch the inputs to guitar level for recording.
You can connect to the Pocketstudio via two 1/4″ mic line inputs, switchable guitar input, headphone line out or USB 2.0 connection.
For recording options you have four track digital multitrack recording with 44.1kHz/16-bit WAV recording. The unit records directly to SD cards with autopunch, repeat and record undo functions. You can also have a dedicated stereo mixdown track.
As for power, just a couple AA batteries will keep this going for nearly 8 hours.
Street price is right at $200 bills.
TASCAM Pocketstudio product page.
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It’s safe to say that microSD media is the smallest physical device which holds the most memory. Just look around your house or office and think of all the things you could stuff a microSD card into. Here we have a microSD card playing hide-and-seek inside a nickle.
Sure there is no technological advancement within this post, but it does remind you of the possibilities.
For the DIY folks out there, save yourself a boat load of money getting the right gear to slice a nickle and pony up the $30 to get the pre-fab’d microSD card inside a nickle at Spy-Coins.com.
Source:Â The Gadgeteer.
Continue Reading
MacWorld posted an article about a French website getting the MacBook Pro to boot from a SD card in the SD slot. Not a huge feat, but I think it’s an indication that laptop manufacturers, both PC and Mac, will continue going down the road of being Optical-less [if that’s a world].
If you are a MacBook Pro owner and interested in this bootability, please visit the following link: 