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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hueyone who wrote (20498)	6/29/2001 2:04:24 PM
From: Jim Greif	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

A bit of encouragement. Jim Friday June 29, 10:00 am Eastern Time Forbes.com Ten O'Clock Tech: Stamp-Sized Storage By Arik Hesseldahl For a little piece of silicon surrounded by a plastic casing no bigger than a postage stamp, the Secure Digital memory card, also known as the SD card, certainly got a lot of attention at this week's PC Expo trade show in New York. If you've never heard of it, you will. From the Palm to the PC to the digital camera and other devices, the SD card will start showing an increased presence on the consumer electronics stage in the coming months--and for more than just removable storage. The SD card is a successor to the MultiMediaCard, or MMC card, that is used in several models of digital cameras. SD cards are almost the same physical size as the MMC cards, but they can do a lot more. First, they can transfer data at a rapid 10 megabits per second. But they can also be used to store data securely, hence the name. That security could one day make SD cards as common a medium for distributing digital content as the compact disc is today. Secure, prerecorded digital music for portable MP3 music players is only one obvious application. Software for handheld devices like the Palm is another example. Map publisher Rand MacNally this week previewed a road atlas software product for the Palm m500 series of handheld. An entire road map of the lower 48 states could be stored on a 16-MB SD card. Software loaded onto the card would let you create point-to-point driving directions and would also contain information on points of interest and 10,000 highway exits. The whole program will be available in October for about $40. With so much information packed onto only a 16-MB card, who knows what kinds of applications might show up on a bigger card? Among the other SD card-related announcements from this weeks show was word from SanDisk that it has introduced a 128MB card. That's enough storage space to hold up to four hours worth of digital music or 40 minutes of video. The cards will be available next quarter for about $200. Give the manufacturers a few years, and they'll pack a gigabyte or two of available space onto a card still no bigger that a stamp. And you'll be able to share information across devices too. A photo shot on your digital camera and stored on an SD card could be displayed on your PC or on a handheld Palm device or Pocket PC. The same goes for MP3 songs and other types of files as well. The other exciting development is not just the card themselves, but the capabilities of the SD card slot that is appearing on devices like the Palm m500 and m505. You can also use the same slot to expand the device's capabilities--already Palm has developed a Bluetooth wireless module that fits into the SD card slot. And several companies had concept and prototype devices that envisioned digital cameras and global positioning system expansion devices that would fit into the SD card slot. One downside? The same thing that makes them convenient: the card's physical size. They measure 32 millimeters wide by 42 millimeters long and only 2 millimeters thick. That makes them easy to lose in a junk drawer--as we did with a nonfunctional prototype card sent to our offices a few months ago. But the format has a lot of momentum behind it: There are already 50 products on the market that support the SD card format--from digital cameras to music players to PC drives--and there are 275 member companies in the Secure Digital Association who are actively promoting it as the next standard for removable storage. So far it seems to be working. Related Links at Forbes.com