Don’t ask us how they know, but SanDisk claims that its new 128Mb Write Once, Read Many times (WORM) SD memory card will store data for up to 100 years. If true and they’re on pretty safe ground from warranty claims — that’s a definite improvement on current technology. Data on rewritable cards and drives can start to deteriorate in as little as 5 years, though most manufacturers reckon they’re good for between 10 to 25 years.
Potential applications for the new WORM card includes storing evidential data used in police investigations, medical data, company records and so on. WORM cards can also be used for archiving photographs and home videos, in fact anything that you would like still to be around in 100 years time, though the big question with all these things is, will there be anything that can read SD cards in just 10 years, let alone in 2108…
How about playing the Wii without the Wii? As intriguing as it may sound, we have the technology and it has already been put to good use for those that want an alternative to Nintendo’s Wii console. The cheaper alternative to the wireless gaming console is named CamSpace, and comes under the form of an executable that can be installed on Windows platforms.
The application boasts with allowing you to play any computer game without abusing the mouse and keyboard, as long as you are also the possessor of a webcam and of the game you want to play. Sounds like a Sci-Fi movie but it is as real as can be and, although it is currently in beta stage and not available to the general public, it is in continuous development - right now, the fifth beta is out. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re a gadget fan and have nothing better to do for a few minutes head over to the Chinavision website, where you’ll find some of the coolest-looking, and cheapest electronic gizmos on the planet. Actually this is a wholesale website, offering some of the best (and worst) of what China’s electronics industries have to offer, and if you want the best prices you have to buy in bulk (and don’t forget the import duty) but it looks like they’ll sell one-offs if you’re willing to take a punt. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s not often that Microsoft comes up with an interesting looking peripheral, and it has been responsible for its fair share of horrors in the past but that might all be about to change with the Arc Mouse. The curved, crescent shape doesn’t look very promising but by all accounts it is very comfortable to use. The best bit is that it folds up, reducing its size by around a half, making it idea for notebook users and those with limited desktop space. Arc Mouse will be available in red or black and it goes on sale in the US in a couple of months for around £30. That’s a bit steep when you can get a perfectly decent standard mouse for a tenner but if it turns out to be as comfortable and easy to use as some early testers claim then it could well be featuring on many Christmas pressy lists.
I am so old that I can remember when PC’s boasted having one kilobyte (1kb) of storage and I can still recall placing a special order, and waiting weeks for 1Mb hard disc drive, which I was convinced that I could never fill in my lifetime… So it is with a world-weary shrug that I learn than Hitachi is planning to market a 5 terabyte hard drive, probably within the next 18 months.
What makes this particularly interesting, not to say a bit spooky, is that Hitachi’s Dr Yoshihiro Shiroishi reckons that just two of them will be need to match the storage capacity of the human brain, which he estimates around 10Gb. Frankly I find that hard to believe; a lifetime of memories in a mere 10Tb, when a 2–hour movie swallows up 5 gigabytes? There must be some pretty impressive compression involved… Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t ask us how they know, but SanDisk claims that its new 128Mb Write Once, Read Many times (WORM) SD memory card will store data for up to 100 years. If true and they’re on pretty safe ground from warranty claims — that’s a definite improvement on current technology. Data on rewritable cards and drives can start to deteriorate in as little as 5 years, though most manufacturers reckon they’re good for between 10 to 25 years.
