SanDisk has been toying with this for eons, but it seems the pieces finally fell in place for the firm to kick out its very first write-once memory card. The cleverly titled WORM (Write Once Read Many) SD card will predictably be aimed at industries where unalterable content is vital, such as police investig……

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Launching 6 and 12GB SDHC cards seems a little boring at this point, especially when your company has already gone way, way larger. Which is why Panasonic's got the 6 and 12GB RP-SDM06G and RP-SDM12G class 4 (10MBps) SDHC cards which are apparently “designed for HD recording.” Love when they do that…….

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SanDisk has been toying with this for eons, but it seems the pieces finally fell in place for the firm to kick out its very first write-once memory card. The cleverly titled WORM (Write Once Read Many) SD card will predictably be aimed at industries where unalterable content is vital, such as police investig……

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The long delay until Sony launched its video download service (actually more like a few hours), is over. HD and SD rentals, and SD purchases from an assortment of movie studios is now available in the Playstation Store by selecting the video button at the top left. Need to know what's available in your r……

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A solid-state drive is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data. Unlike flash-based memory cards, an SSD emulates a hard disk drive, thus easily replacing it in most applications. There are two kinds of SSDs: flash-memory based ones and SRAM or DRAM based ones (often called RAM-drives). The RAM-drives data persistence can only be guaranteed thanks to a battery, but for a limited time.

It’s called solid-state drive because it uses semiconductor devices, and it doesn’t have any moving parts, unlike hard disk drives which consist of a motor, rotating platters with magnetic surfaces, and mobile read/write heads.

- left: hard disk drive. center & right: solid-state drive from above & under -

Comparison with hard disk drives:

+ Faster start-up (no mechanical delays);
+ Fast random access for reading (no read/write heads to move);
+ Low read/write latency times;
+ No noise (no mechanical movements), except for some high-capacity models which have cooling fans;
+ High mechanical reliability (no moving parts);
+ File fragmentation has almost no impact on performance, since the seek time is almost constant and is not dependent on the physical location of the data;
+ For low capacity SSDs, lower power consumption and heat production;
+ For low capacity SSDs, lower height and size.
- Price (as of mid-2008, around USD 3.50 per GB for flash memory, and around USD 0.40 per GB for mechanical drives);
- Capacity (currently far lower than that of usual hard drives, but predicted to swiftly increase, with experimental SSDs of up to 1 TB);
- High vulnerability to certain effects, such as abrupt power loss, magnetic fields, electric/static charges…..
- Limited write cycles (but the problem is improved all the time. Today’s SSDs can last up to 20 years with average usage). SSDs based on DRAM do not suffer from this problem;
- Slower write speeds (except for SSDs based on DRAM);
- Lower storage density (but is expected to rapidly increase in the near future);
- Higher power consumption (SSDs also take more power per GB).

The advantages of SSDs are interesting for mobile computing and are becoming increasingly popular in markets such as notebook PCs, Ultra-Mobile PCs, and electronics sectors. The capacity currently varies from 12GB to 256 GB. Decreasing prices in raw flash material costs, and in the mean time increasing capacities make SSDs tend to be the next hard disk drive generation.

More information on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

The new Nexcopy software runs with a USB dongle.  This means the duplicator software & system can be loaded [and ran] from ANY production machine.  The previous software could only be installed on one machine. 

The new software also includes:

• bit-for-bit copy from a master device
• full verification function [before just check-sum, which is still there]
• “job wizard” to guide you through the process and the user can select mulitple tasks to be performed with a single click (ie:  delete, format, copy, verify, volume name on single click)
• 10% increase in code optimization for better performance
• complete new look and feel

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When we first heard D-Link was sending its new DSM-210 Internet Photo Frame our way, we’ll admit we had some pretty Star Trekkian visions of what it might entail. The device — which is a 10-inch, 800 x 480 LCD display with built-in WiFi and ethernet connectivity — promises to upgrade the familiar stati……

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We’ll be mighty pleased when MTI Micro gets off its high horse and actually delivers something to the consumer electronics realm, but for now, we’re being forced to inhale even more fluff as we wait for an end product. The latest outfit to dive into a partnership with MTI is NeoSolar, as the two glee……

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Matrox just announced er, last week, its new M-Series of graphics cards powered by the industry’s first QuadHead GPU. All the PCIe X16 cards offer 512MB of graphics memory and support up to 4x widescreen monitors (DVI or analog) simultaneously as one large desktop or as independent resolutions. The cards……

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Well, we can finally put the D700 rumors to bed. The beast that houses Nikon’s newest monster (near) full-frame FX format 12.1 megapixel CMOS (not dissimilar from that found in the D3) is officially announced tonight, and it takes UDMA CompactFlash, and comes packing with a live view 3-inch display, 51 p……

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