An increasing number of devices such as digital cameras and camcorders are using higher resolutions, requiring the transfer of larger amounts of data over the same period of time to memory devices. Due to this increasing need, SanDisk and Sony partnered on improving the Memory Stick Pro product and created the Memory Stick PRO-HG.

The Memory Stick PRO-HG format increased it’s transfer speed by using an 8-bit parallel interface, replacing the 4-bit parallel interface in the Memory Stick PRO. This resulted in a transfer speed of up to 3 times faster to cater to real-time recording of high-resolution video and images.

The Memory Stick PRO and Memory Stick PRO-HG will be allowed to be used interchangeably, so that you can use the new, faster memory in older host devices that take the regular Memory Stick PRO, and new devices that are …

Today scientists from IBM, Macronix and Qimonda unveiled a new type of memory with the intention of possibly being a replacement for flash memory which is used in many electronic gadgets today.

The new memory announced today is called “phase-change” memory. The memory would have the same applications as flash memory, but with a a couple key advantages. First of all, the phase-change memory has shown to be faster than flash memory; up to 500 times faster. It would also only consume about half the power that flash memory does, even with the greater speed. Secondly, the phase-change memory is smaller. A cross section of the new memory prototype measures only 3 x 20 nanometers.

“These results dramatically demonstrate that phase-change memory has a very bright future,” said Dr. T. C. Chen, Vice President, Science & Technology, IBM Research. …

Add some Christmas spirit to your flash memory thumb drive with this Limited Edition PD3 Christmas Disk from A-Data. With this PD3 disk you even can add some merry Christmas look and feel to your digital multimedia.

The drive comes in 5 different holiday patterns including Santa, a sleigh with reindeer, a decorated tree, a Christmas stocking and a snowman. Each drive comes with all the patters that are interchangeable, so buying one gives you the option to change the look whenever you want. The drive also comes in five different capacities from 512MB up to 8GB.

If you are looking for a great stocking stuffer Christmas gift idea for your favorite geek, flash drives are always handy and this one makes a great holiday gift.

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bioMETRX has a few products that are secured through a finger activated technology that only allows the owner to access the data it contains. The smartSTICK is one of these devices which happens to be portable USB drive.

It holds data and works like any other thumb drive, but in this case your thumb can actually be used to give you access to the drive. By simply sliding your finger over the sensor you can set and gain access to the drive contents.

The drive can save up to 10 users and comes in storage capacities as much as 1GB. It also comes with a number of software applications to aid in storage, including storing medical records, school work, personal PC settings, email addresses, IM buddy lists and other productivity applications.

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Lexar has released an advanced security USB drive for use in enterprise organizations to enhance the level of data security when using thumb drives to transfer data.

The Lexar Safe PSD S1100 uses a multi-layer security platform to allow users to safely store and transfer secure data and lessen the risk of loss or theft. The USB memory device has something called PSD-Lock that provides device-access control technology to keep those out that do not have the right password.

It also has some “off-line” defenses to protect the theft of data from the device itself. It uses an internal 256-bit EAS encryption algorithm, and has a housing designed in such a way that makes it very evident if it has been tampered with. This keeps someone from removing or replacing the contents without it being visibly obvious.

Moving data to and from the Safe …

A-DATA Technology makes some pretty cool stuff, and this Turbo SD Duo flash memory card is one of them.

The SD card works like any other SD card, and comes in capacities of 512 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB, and it complies with the SD 1.1 standard.

What makes this SD card cooler than the others is that it is two-faced, or two-interfaced I should say. This is a dual interface SD card that also connects to a USB port while complying with USB 2.0 standards, too.

An inconvenience I have always found with SD cards is that you need a reader, and sure there are many different “78 in 1″ card readers out there but in this case you don’t need any card reader with you when you want to get data off of you card, just a USB port.

Card …

SanDisk Corporation recently announced the 12 and 16GB SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash cards. This announcement makes these new cards the highest capacity cards in the world. The new large-capacity cards are targeted towards professional photographers who shoot RAW or high-resolution JPG files and need the performance and capacity to capture these massive files.

The new cards will have minimum write and read speeds of 20 megabytes per second (MB/sec.). The cards are expected to ship to photo retailers by the end of the year. The announcement was made at the Photokina trade show where SanDisk is demonstrating products in Hall 6, Stand D78/E79.

SanDisk Extreme III cards are available in CompactFlash, Memory Stick PRO Duo and SD card formats. Suggested retail prices for the two new capacities are $779.99 (USD) for the 12GB and $1,049.99 for the 16GB model….

Samsung has released new 32GB NAND flash memory with smaller circuit elements of only 40 nanometers wide. The company said this new design enables them to scale better to continue to make larger and larger memory cards and continue to keep the overall size down and performance up.

What this means for the rest of us is the ability to hold over 64 hours of DVD movies or over 1300 hours of MP3 songs on one small flash drive of up to 64 GB. Some may say that this is a little much, but I remember years ago thinking that my 3GB harddrive was more room that I would ever use!

Along with scalability, Samsung says that the reliability of the memory will be increased as well due to the new structure. Reliability becomes increasingly important to me at the same rate as …

The Sony Micro Vault with Virtual Expander is a flash memory device with a USB 2.0 compatible interface. They are tiny little devices with memory ranges from 256MB up to 2G. (Early press releases state memory up to 4G but I was unable to find any Micro Vault’s that actually have 4G for sale anywhere.)

They come in a handfull of different flashy colors and you can also get a small carrying case that hooks on a keychain or on to a notebook with a clip.

The Virtual Expander software is utility that compresses and decompresses data that is placed on the device, sometimes to as little as 1/3 it’s original size. This makes a 2G drive potentially able to hold 6G of compressed data.

Tiny USB drive gadgets like this are extremely handy to carry data with you, such as any spreadsheets or …