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Disney to Cram Movies onto SD Cards, Does Anyone Care?

Paul Lilly — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:35:45 -0500

We've seen some third-party USB makers toy with adding movies to USB sticks -- PNY being the first by adding Ghostbusters to a 2GB USB thumb drive -- and now Disney is looking to do the same thing, only with microSD cards.

According to news site TGDaily, Panasonic and Disney have inked a deal to distribute Disney movies on microSD cards, the first of which will be the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy this November. Looking longer term, Disney plans to release future titles on DVD and microSD at the same time.

Buyers will be able to view the movies on car navigation systems, mobile phones, and other portable media players with a microSD card slot, as well as some existing Panasonic TV sets that come with card readers already built in.

There are a couple of caveats, however. First, the card/movie bundles will only be available in Japan, at least initially. And secondly, the $53 price tag and included copy protection may scare off some potential customers.

Image Credit: cutiegadget.com

LaCie DataShare Turns Puny SD Cards Into Burly Thumb Drives

Andy Salisbury — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:32:33 -0500

You’ve got a digital camera, you’ve got a cell phone, and along with these you’ve probably got a few SD cards laying around that you just don’t use anymore. It looks like someone at LaCie had the very same issue, and decided to turn them into an extremely easy to use flash drive.

The LaCie DataShare is compatible with all SD and MicroSD cards currently on the market (SD/SDHC/Class 1 to 6), and comes with two separate sides, that let you discern your private data from your public data.

If this looks like something you could make use out of, be sure to check it out on LaCie’s site here, where it’s currently on sale for $9.99.

Image Credit: LaCie

Toshiba's SpursEngine will Beautify Streaming Video

Pulkit Chandna — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:41:16 -0500

Toshiba had last year chosen its Qosmio range of notebooks to lift the curtain on its SpursEngine chip, which is a co-processor based on the Cell Broadband Engine found in the PS3. SpursEngine-powered Qosmios are capable of some impressive graphical feats like real-time graphics processing and video upscaling (SD to HD).

Toshiba’s new Qosmio laptops, which bear the might of its quad-core SpursEngine chip, will arrive in Japanese stores on Friday with the promise of enhancing internet video. Two previous iterations of the Qosmio used the immense power of the SpursEngine at their disposal to upscale DVD video, but left streaming video untouched.

The SpursEngine co-processor will now be used to beautify video from websites like Youtube, though its corrective effect will only become evident in full screen mode. There is another strange caveat: this feature will only work with Internet Explorer. The new Qosmios include the 18.4-inch G50 ($3,421) and the 15.4-inch FX ($2,119). A U.S release is certainly on the cards but no one has the slightest whiff of exactly when it will occur.

Image Credit: TechGadget

New Spec for SDXC Foretells 2TB Memory Cards

Andy Salisbury — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:15:34 -0600

The SD Association recently announced a new card spec called SDXC (short for extended capacity) that will be able to support up to 2TB of memory with read/write speeds of 104MB/second.

If what they say is true, then that means that one of these SD cards will be able to store 100 high-def movies, 60 hours of HD recording or 17,000 high-resolution photos on a portable device.

Keeping in mind that this is still simply a spec, not an actual product, it’s feasible that we’ll see products based off of this as early as next year. And with memory of this capacity in such a small package, it’s possible that this could help the industry as a whole.

Image Credit: SD Association

DSLR Compact Flash Users, Get Into the SD/SDHC (and Eye-Fi) Game with CFMulti

Mark Edward Soper — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:32:52 -0500

If you're a Compact Flash user, life's not been fair to you lately. You've seen CF stalwarts like Nikon and Canon turn their backs on this longtime favorite in favor of the new kid on the block, SDHC, in their newest DSLRs. Buy a new camera, and you make your collection of CF cards obsolete. Meanwhile, you've watched SDHC and its kid brother, SD, dominate the deals in your favorite big-box electronics superstores' weekly tabloids. And, just to add a cherry on the top of your cake of frustration, you've been thinking about how cool it would be to use wireless file transfer with Eye-Fi cards, but Eye-Fi is also in the tank for SD. Oh, and did I mention that "Compact" Flash is now the bulkiest flash memory format?

For all these reasons, Synchrotech's introduction of the CFMulti CompactFlash Type II to Eye-Fi + Multi-Card Adapter has come at a very good time. While CF adapters for SD cards have been around for awhile, the CFMulti also supports newer flavors such as SDHC and MMC+ as well as SD and any old MultiMediaCards (MMC) you have floating around. Plus, it's the first adapter to support Eye-Fi cards, albeit with a reduction in range. See the CFMulti and Eye-Fi FAQ for details and a list of tested cameras.

In addition to enabling some CF-based cameras to use Eye-Fi cards, this adapter will be helpful to users of Nikon and Canon DSLRs that use a mixture of CF and SD/SDHC cards. At $28.00, it takes some of the sting out of making the move from CF-based cameras such as the Canon Rebel XTi or Nikon D70 to SD/SDHC-based cameras like the Canon Rebel XSi, Rebel XS or Nikon D90. You can still use high-speed UDMA Compact Flash cards when you need the absolute best speed on your CF-based cameras, but you can now take advantage of numerous deals on easier-to-tote SD and SDHC cards. Sweet!

Hit Comments to tell us if CFMulti's going to make your digital photography life easier.

CFMulti illustration courtesy of Terry White's Tech Blog.

Eye-Fi Gets Twittering, RSSing with New Manager Update

Mark Edward Soper — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:40:30 -0500

The Eye-Fi line of Wi-Fi enabled SD cards just keeps getting more social. The October update of the Eye-Fi Manager, in addition to adding à la carte support for geotagging, webshare, and hotspot access service updates, also adds support Twitter and RSS integration. You can use Twitter to tell your contacts when you have new photos posted on line, and RSS support enables you to publish pictures in real-time to your preferred RSS aggregator.

Eye-Fi now offers cards through its online store as well as at an ever-growing list of retailers.

RSS logo courtesy Variawa.co.za.

Eye-Fi Wireless SD Cards Get More Social, Easier to Buy

Mark Edward Soper — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:05:47 -0500

We first looked at the Eye-Fi wireless SD flash memory card back in February, and liked its easy uploading and support for photo-sharing sites like Flickr. This week, Eye-Fi announced new partnerships with Nikon's my Picturetown, Adobe's Photoshop Express, and made its cards available at Circuit City. Here are the details.

Nikon and Eye-Fi

While Nikon already supports wi-Fi wireless uploading to my Picturetown from its Coolpix S50c, S51c, and S52c, the built-in support in Eye-Fi Share and Explore cards enables users of any Nikon camera that uses SD media to transfer pictures automatically to my Picturetown.

Nikon has also worked with Eye-Fi in the design of its new D60 DSLR camera. The D60 adjusts its power levels when using an Eye-Fi card for better wireless uploading.

Shoot Them and They Will Come (to Your Favorite Sites)

Eye-Fi Share and Explore cards now support Adobe Photoshop Express as well as over 20 other photo sharing sites, including Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, Snapfish, Windows Live, and many others.

Easy to Use, Easier to Find

Eye-Fi Share cards are now available at Circuit City stores and the Circuit City website.

Eye-Fi by the Numbers

In our original February review, we reviewed the Eye-Fi Share card, but Eye-Fi actually make three different lines of 2GB SD cards with Wi-Fi radios:

The entry-level Eye-Fi Home card ($79.99 MSRP) connects wirelessly to Wi-Fi-equipped home computers or the user's iPhoto account.
The Eye-Fi Share card ($99.99 MSRP) connects wirelessly to Wi-Fi-equipped home computers or the user's choice of photo sharing websites.
The Eye-Fi Explore card ($119.99 MSRP) adds geotags to your pictures and supports uploading from over 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots

Easy Photo Transferring and Sharing - What's It Worth to You?

Eye-Fi cards command a hefty price premium over standard 2GB SD cards, but they can save you a lot of time and effort. What say you? If you're already using Eye-Fi cards, tell us how they're doing for you. If you're new to the idea, let us know if you think the features are worth the money.

SanDisk Launches SD Media with WORM (Write Once Read Many)

Paul Lilly — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:23:28 -0500

Usually when a company releases a product containing with a worm, it's not a good thing. But when that WORM comes in all caps, the nomenclature takes a whole different meaning. In this case, SanDisk has developed a card that can be written to only one time, after which it becomes a read-only card. That's not something that will appeal to home users, but SanDisk's WORM (Write Once Read Many) media means police and courtrooms no longer need to reject SD cards as evidence for fear of tampering.

Potential uses for WORM cards include police witness and suspect interviews, cash registers, electronic voting, security cameras, in-flight 'black boxes,' medical devices containing patient information, and anything else where a permanent one-time write would be desirable. Once written to, SanDisk claims the new cards will retain the data for up to 100 years. "As digital media volume has grown and surpassed traditional analogue media such as film and audio cassettes in the consumer market, law enforcement agencies and other professionals are facing rising costs and lack of supply," said Christopher Moore, director of product marketing for OEM memory cards at SanDisk.

The SD cards currently come in 128MB versions, but beefier WORMs are expected later this year. Yummy.

Image Credit: Seawear.com and SanDisk