DSLR owners feeling limited by their old and slow Compact Flash card will be happy to know that the Compact Flash Association has finalized the specifications for CF 5.0. The new CF5.0 specifications offer some notable improvements for this popular form of storage including:

• 48 bit Addressing which will allow capacities up to 144PB
• Efficient data transfer supporting 32MB per transfer versus 128K per transfer
• Improved Data Set Management Command/Trim to allow for more efficient cleanup of unused space on memory card (LBA’s)
• Identification of Device CFA Specification Version Number which will make it easier for host to determine card capabilities
• Performance Control that provides a quality of service framework for card performance (optional)
• Video Performance Guarantee that provides a quality of service for video capture applications to ensure quality recordings with no dropped frames (optional)

The new specifications can be downloaded from the CFA’s website for a small fee and interested manufacturers can begin the process of building the next generation of CF storage media and compatible photographic equipment. No word on when CF5.0 compatible products will begin to make their way into the retail marketplace; until then, we will have to dream of all the things you could do with a CF5.0 card in the next generation Canon 7D.

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[Via PocketLint]

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Ever since the iPhone and iPod touch were released, it seems like a trend that its memory capacity doubles every single year: 8GB, 16GB and 32GB for the iPhone and twice that for the iPod touch. Now that Toshiba can pack 64GB of NAND flash memory onto a single chip, it’s easy for us to imagine this technology finding its way into the next generation iPhone and iPod touch. If you’ve been one of those people holding off on buying an iPhone or iPod touch because of your massive iTunes library, your decision might get a little easier this coming summer.

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Mac users, rejoice – the cloud storage solution to end all cloud storage solutions is finally ready for public beta on OS X and trust us when we tell you, you’ll want to have a look. The Syncplicity founders might have Microsoft pedigree but that certainly doesn’t mean they can’t bang out a Mac build as full-featured and capable as the Windows client, and that is exactly what the Syncplicity team has done. For those completely unaware of the service, allow us to bring you up to speed. Syncplicity allows you to mirror any folder on your computer with an always-in-sync online copy, “in the cloud”. What’s more, Syncplicity can sync files and folders across multiple computers and folders can even be shared amongst different Syncplicity users. Folders can be designated for remote syncing in just two clicks from your right-click menu and anytime a file is altered in any synced folder, on any computer, the changes will automatically be synced across Syncplicity’s servers along with all other computers where the file is present. Oh, and did we mention you’ll also have access to all of your synced files and folders from any web browser on any computer or mobile phone? Recap: Any folder, anywhere, everywhere, automatically.

Syncplicity has been hard at work on its private Mac beta for some time now and we’ve been enjoying every minute of it. Nearly all of the functionality found in the Windows application has been integrated at this point and the team has even thrown in a few extra spices like Growl integration for notifications. Just like the Windows client, overlay graphics appear on all synced folder and individual file icons to display sync status at all times. Mac users also have access to the the same web interface for file and folder access, or to recover an unlimited number of file revisions. Each time a file is changed and saved, a historical copy remains on Syncplicity’s servers in the event you or a collaborator makes an unwanted change. Since we obviously have a particular affinity for the mobile space here at BGR, we’ll also mention that all files can be accessed while on the go from an iPhone-optimized or standard mobile site. Files can easily be downloaded to your handset and supported file types can even opened right in your browser.

Syncplicity really does trump competitive options in so many ways. Beyond the ease of use and versatility already covered, the company uses an open API which will allow third-party development to expand upon its offering in any way imaginable. To kick things off, web-based services such as Google Docs, Sribd, Picnik  and Zoho Writer are integrated, allowing you to easily open and edit a document or image by right-clicking the file on your computer or choosing to open the file in your web app of choice from within the web interface. Syncplicity is also integrated with Facebook, allowing you to designate a folder to sync photos with your account automatically. In other words, any time you drop a new photo in the designated folder it will automatically be uploaded to your Facebook account. Create a new folder within your designated folder and it will automatically become a new album on your Facebook account, allowing you to keep everything as organized however you’d like.

There’s plenty more to cover but we doubt you’ve even made it this far into the post without clicking over and checking out Syncplicity for yourself. If you’re still here however, we’ll wrap things up with the nitty gritty details. First and foremost, Syncplicity offers a free account with 2GB of remote storage which can be increased to 5GB if you invite three friends (one extra GB per friend). Free accounts have access to each and every feature Syncplicity offers – the only restriction is storage. Once you’ve maxed out on your free space, upgrade options are offered at a flat rate with each 50GB block of space costing $99 per year (or $9.99 per month if you pay monthly). So 50GB of storage is $99 per year, 100GB is $198 per year, 150GB is $297 per year, etc.

If you’re worried about security, as you should be, know that Syncplicity uses SSL encryption while moving everything from log in credentials to file syncing and backup – absolutely no data is exchanged without being encrypted. Within the Syncplicity data center, all stored files are encrypted with military grade (AES-256) encryption. Syncplicity has plenty more cooking for the near future including a Business Edition complete with large-scale deployment capabilities and monitoring / reporting features for IT Managers. In the meantime, Mac users should definitely hit the read link and check this service out – as should Windows users for that matter. A quick note for Windows users: While official support obviously can’t be proclaimed until the OS is officially released, Syncplicity works seamlessly with currently available Windows 7 betas.

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We told you it was coming, folks. It’s finally here, approved by the almighty Apple gods, and ready for your download. We’ll keep this short and sweet; we standby our previous article where we said this is hands down the best IM application for the iPhone. So go check it out and report back, we know you’ll be pleasantly surprised after the disastrous duo of IM+ and Palringo.

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Netbooks are neat little computers and are making internet tablets obsolete. The only problem with these little laptops is that, well, they’re little and that doesn’t allow for much in terms of power, memory, and hard drive space. Well, Toshiba has answered the call for the latter and will be making 256GB solid state drives. Pretty soon, spinning hard drives will likely be phased out in favor of more reliable, not to mention faster, SSDs. The Toshiba SSD is expected to have a read and write speed of 120MBps and 70MBps, respectively, and will use an SATA 3.0-Gbps interface. Small, lightweight, and power-packed, these drives are perfect for increasingly shrinking computers such as the Dell Mini 9 and Asus Eee PC.

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It looks like the much anticipated 16GB microSD card is now available from SanDisk, but they haven’t started advertising it at all. Finally you can have all that space to waste on any smartphone that will support that capacity, and hey, the cost isn’t so bad either. These little buggers will run about $60 – 80 on most sites and that’s a damn good deal, just don’t lose the thing! Expect to see these everywhere soon with a formal announcement from SanDisk themselves.

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In addition to being rather elusive, the Nintendo Wii has also proven to be relatively hack proof. The little console that could has resisted most attempts at homebrew alteration, and has stymied those that have tried to rig it up to access remote discs. The long road of sorrow and failure, however, may soon be over. An enterprising hacker has figured out how to dump the Wii into a special recovery mode, allowing it to access backup discs and run homebrew code. The process is a bit unclear at the moment, but appears to involve the use of a special modified GameCube memory card. Impressed? We sure are, though we’ll have to wait until we can get our hands on the hack to pass further judgement.

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Think about what you could do with a terabyte of storage. Hundreds of thousands of photos and audio files, weeks of p0rn, the possibilities are endless. The upcoming M70 from Asus will make your mobile-pirating fantasy a reality and cram all of that hard disk space into a multimedia-centric notebook PC. Hitachi GST has announced that the upcoming Asus M50 and M70 laptops will feature their Travelstar 5K500 hard drives. The latter of the two models will be available with a dual-drive configuration totalling 1TB of space. Asus’ new multimedia notebook series will be aimed at HD audio / video and there is no question that they’ll have the room to for it. Other features will include a full-sized keyboard and dual-mode touchpad, a high-quality LCD cover made by exclusive ASUS Infusion technology and premium integrated speakers to allow for a better multimedia experience. Don’t worry about the speaker vibration harming your hard drives as the 5k500 make use of Hitachi’s Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) technology to "mitigate any adverse impact on system performance from unexpected vibrations or shocks to the system enclosure." That’s right, your p0rn is safe…

[Via I4U]

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You say Gibi, and I say Giga, you say Tebi and I say Tera. Let’s call the whole thing off….

Say someone goes around telling you that a certain part of them is a certain size. Then what is going to happen when they finally show it off, and it turns out to be considerably smaller than what you expected? Do they 1.) Get extremely embarrassed, because you called them on it, or 2.) Argue the size they told you was correct, but it’s the measuring system that is wrong.

Guys, take a lesson, there is only one right answer – and its no.2. At least that’s the case, when you’re in the data storage industry.

For some time buying a storage unit of a certain amount of gigabytes, meant coming home to find out that your computer was telling you, you had around 10% fewer gigabytes than it said on the box. This has irritated us, but it irritated a group of people in California enough to seek justice in the court.

So the industry made a move that would make any used car salesman proud; they tried to explain that those gigs were missing on purpose, since all of us and our computers were just using the wrong measurement. See inside a computer a terrabyte is 1,099,511,627,776 bytes, because it’s binary. But inside a cardboard box that you find on a shelf in a computer store, a terrabyte is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, because it’s decimal. Now when you take the content out of the cardboard box and put it inside you computer, presto, it tells you that you have around 900 gigabytes available. And that’s because you’re an idiot. You should have bought a tebibyte, if you wanted a terabyte for your computer. How does that not make sense?

Well, the court in California is just old men in robes, and apparently they aren’t hip and down with it, like the industry. So the lawyers huddled and cuddled, until they decided on a settlement paying some of the litigating customers a 5% refund, and all of them a 10% discount for the respective online stores. All because those dumb customers had bought their hardware under the pretext that 1 gigabyte = 1 gigabyte. An appeal of that settlement has now been rejected, and it seems to be the end of the case for good.

Are you as confused, as we are? Probably. So here is the scheme: you want a terabyte for your computer, you need to buy a tebibyte. If you want a gigabyte, you need to buy a gibibyte. We done? Good.

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It’s always good to see big companies playing nice with each other, especially when the customers reap the benefits of their cooperation. Today, Nokia, Samsung, and several other companies announced their approval of a new specification currently before the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association. Even Sony, who seem to always roll out proprietary memory formats just to make us squirm, are behind this cause in the form of their Ericsson division. The format, called Universal Flash Storage (UFS) will allow for larger memory capacities and faster access speeds. According to Nokia, the three-minute access time for a 4 GB file using today’s standards would be reduced to just a few seconds with UFS.  Don’t hold your breath on a release date though; the standard isn’t expected to be finalized until 2009.

Via [PhoneScoop]

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