Are you ready for yet another memory card format? Dubbed XQD, the medium was first announced by Sandisk, Sony and Nikon in November 2010. And after the the CompactFlash Association finalized the specifications last month, Sony took the wraps off the world’s first XQD cards today.

Two versions of the card will be available, in addition to an XQD-compatible card reader (USB 3.0) and an ExpressCard Adapter. Here are some details from Sony America:

• QD-H16 card, 16 GB, $129.99
• QD-H32 card, 32 GB, $229.99
• Card Reader, MRW-E80, $44.99
• ExpressCard Adapter, QDA-EX1, $44.99

Sony says that the cards boast data transfer rates of up to 1Gbps/125MB/s write and read. From the press release:

Using the XQD memory cards, XQD compatible high-end DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera users can capture up to approximately 100 frames in RAW format in continuous shooting mode. In addition to outstanding high-speed data transfer capability, the new cards are highly reliable to protect users’ data and images.

Sony is planning to roll out the XQD memory cards, the reader, and the adapter next month.

Amazingly, someone is still making MP3 players for the mass market. I’m pleased to present the $70 Sandisk Sansa Clip Zip, a tiny, portable media player that comes in 4 GB and 8 GB varieties (the 4GB model costs $50).

The Clip Zip comes in 7 colors including red, blue, and orange and is compatible with almost any audio format. It also has a microSD slot so you can expand the player to 32 GB. It also has a teeny tiny LCD screen and a simple interface.

Way back in the old days, SanDisk was fairly famous for its fully featured MP3 players but those days are long gone. However, if you’re looking for a simple player for a kid or grandparent this might be the way to go: it’s idiot proof, rugged, and isn’t quite as expensive as a Zune or iPod.

Project Page

The SanDisk booth rep seems rather excited to show it off in front of the camera and runs through nearly all its functions in the 4:49 video. Overall the device seems to have changed very little since we played with it at its launch back in February. The biggest improvement seems to be the response time. It wasn’t exactly slow before, but it seems downright snappy now.

The Touchpad is set to hit retailers sometime this month and previous leaks, mainly from Walmart, stated that the tab will come in 32GB and 64GB flavors at a starting price of $599. But the SanDisk rep in this video clearly states that there will be a 16GB version, which will hopefully fill the $499 price point.

Flash memory storage solutions provider SanDisk has acquired Pliant Technology, a developer of enterprise solid state drives, the company announced this morning.

Under the terms of the agreement, SanDisk will pay approximately $327 million in cash and provide certain equity-based incentives.

Pliant Technology offers SSDs that integrate into enterprise information systems. The company has approximately 80 employees and is based in Milpitas, California.

The company raised over $50 million since its founding in 2006.

The transaction, which has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory review and approval, and it is expected to close by the end of SanDisk’s second fiscal quarter.

Related: SSD Storage Company Kaminario Raises $15 Million

While the 45MB/s speeds are great, the UHS-1 transfer mode supports up to 104MB/s and there’s even a UHS-II mode that triples that rate to 312MB/s. This first-gen version however should probably be a righteous overkill for your Nikon D5000, though. That is if you can justify spending $100 to $299 for cards ranging from 8GB to 32GB when your Newegg-special SD card is working just fine right now.

It’s time for a new standard for memory cards – according to Sony, Nikon and chip maker SanDisk. The three companies jointly developed a set of specifications for a next-generation memory card for digital cameras and digital video cameras and proposed the specs to the CompactFlash Association.

While existing solutions achieve data transfer speeds of up to 167MB per second, the next-generation memory card has been enhanced about three times, achieving speeds of up to 500MB a second.

The new card apparently allows for “continuous burst shooting of massive RAW images”, enables much faster transfer (obviously) of HD video data and lowers power consumption, essentially extending battery life.

Theoretically, this new type of compact flash can store slightly more than 2TB worth of data.

Adventures in miniaturization have led SanDisk to creating some extremely small “iSSD” modules that could easily be placed on a motherboard and provide up to 64GB of storage right off the bat. Perfect for a system drive — and then you could have all your media and games on externals or even networked drives.

Obviously this solution is already available in mobiles and some tablets, but moving it up to desktops and laptops would save a lot of space and simplify cabling and power arrangements. The speeds are quite decent, too: 160MB/s read and 100MB/s write (sequential) — better than the 3.5″ HDDs we’ve had our OSes mounted on for the last couple decades.

It will raise the price of the motherboard, of course, but it’s probably a cheaper solution than the NAND flash you find in mobiles or fully-integrated internal SSDs. SanDisk is likely still pitching this to mobo makers, though, so I wouldn’t expect it for quite a while yet.

The chip has 160MB/sec sequential read and 100MB/sec sequential write, which is pretty darn fast, and you can chain these things together to make huge drives. They connect via a standard SATA interface.

Not quite available to the masses but it looks like an exciting development.

via Giz

Flash memory prices have continued to fall in the recent months. With the advent of HD video and now HD movies on SLRs, having enough space has always kept us mindful.

Yearning for some fast flash memory for my new T2i, there couldn’t be a better time for some incentives. There are some good rebates, for both SanDisk Extreme SDHC and CF. The rebate works by offering anywhere from $10-30 cash back for single card purchases and $30-90 for two. Sure, there are cheaper alternatives on Newegg, but these are some of the best and fastest, if you demand it.

Head over to Adorama for the pricing breakdown.

In addition to the cards being only able to be written to once, they’re intended to last for 100 years. Now, I’ve taken some pretty good pictures (going to Yosemite this weekend in fact) but I don’t know for certain that I’d have any desire to keep any of my pictures that long. Sandisk suggests using them for evidence collection and so on — as long as they’re adequately protected, a write-once, tamper-proof card could be an important tool in court.

The new cards aren’t yet available for purchase, but no doubt Sandisk will have them available at some point in the near future.

Nice, 32GB. Thanks, SanDisk! Now we can all shoot RAW just as carelessly as we shoot JPEG, for the low, low price of $200. Huzzah!

Right, so SanDisk will release a 32GB microSDHC card next month. That doubles the capacity of its top-end cards.

There’s very little else to say. What do you currently use these cards for? OK, now imagine being able to do that for twice as long. There you go.

In other news, Leo Messi is the greatest footballer on the planet. It’s a shame this card didn’t come out last week. Then photographers from AFP, AP, Reuters, etc. could have taken even more photos of this insane goal. /le sigh

It’s beginning to look like Expensive Speed Day here at CrunchGear, what with the USB 3.0 products and now this solid state drive from SanDisk. The G3 SSD is a solid-state drive available in 60GB and 120GB capacities for around $230 and $400, respectively.

All that dough will get you a drive that “opens files up to twice as fast as a 7,200 RPM HDD,” according to SanDisk. Read speeds reach up to 220 megabytes per second while write speeds top out at around 120 megabytes per second. The drive “can endure up to 80 teraytes of data written to it over its lifetime,” which is either a lot or a little depending upon what you’re planning to do with this drive.

SanDisk G3 Solid State Drive [SanDisk.com]

Press Release

I suppose people shooting high-definition video might find these useful. You’d have to have a bunch of them in array, though, because data throughput is pretty limited right now (the SanDisk one goes at a poky 9-15MB/s). But at $350 per card, you’re paying way more per gig than you would if you just got a 1.8″ SSD or two — and they’ve got fantastic write rates. Plus, again, you’d probably run out of battery before you ran out of space, even shooting at 4K or something.

There’s really no market for these right now, unless I’m overlooking something. Not that I don’t think it’s cool — I mean, it’s totally sci-fi that I could carry around my entire music collection in the coin pocket of my jeans, but right now there’s really no reason to. Give it a year, though, and these things will be looking much more practical.

Update: Ahh, I thought of one use. Storage in a small form-factor computer like a tablet. Can always use more space there. Still too expensive for that, though.

Here’s a wheel of a deal on SanDisk’s answer to the original iPod Shuffle, the Sansa Clip. It’s tiny, yet has a screen and menu system, features 2GB of storage, drag and drop music management (you can also use Windows Media Player), and 15 hour battery life.

File support includes: MP3, WMA, Secure WMA, WAV, and Audible files. It works with subscription-based music services and there’s an FM tuner and voice recorder for good measure. Shipping adds $5 – works with Windows only.

Sandisk Clip 2GB MP3 Player [Woot.com]

If you thought that anything with EXTREME in the title meant that it was the absolute best of its kind, think again! SanDisk’s Extreme CompactFlash cards have just been karate-chopped by its own newly-announced line of Extreme Pro cards. Extreme… PRO!

The cards come in capacities between 16GB and 64GB and feature maximum read/write speeds of 90MB/s, “doubling the performance from previous SanDisk high-end camera memory cards,” according to the company’s press release.

That 90MB/s transfer speed is on par with many solid state drives, so maybe we’ll start seeing some super slim systems featuring these new cards from enterprising modders in the coming months.

They’re not cheap, though. Not… at… all. The 16GB version has an MSRP of $300 while the 64GB model tops out at a wallet-exploding $800. The cards are shipping out now and should hit retailers in the near future. If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative, SanDisk also announced availability of spec-bumped Extreme cards. They’ll do up to 60MB/s and will be available in capacities between 8GB and 32GB, priced from $130 to $375.

“We are no longer planning to pursue the acquisition as there has been no progress since we withdrew our offer as of Oct. 22, 2008,” said Samsung, the world’s top maker of memory chips, in a filing with the Korea Exchange.

The control pad’s now square instead of round and there’s a microSD expansion slot included for good measure, so you’ll be able to add up to 16 extra gigabytes if you like. At around 15 hours, battery life seems to be about the same as before and there’s still a built-in FM tuner, voice recorder, and extended file support (MP3, FLAC, Ogg, Audible, Rhapsody, etc.). The player also supports SanDisk’s new slotRadio initiative.

The Clip+ will be available starting tomorrow in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB for $40, $50, and $70, respectively.

Product Page [SanDisk via CNET]

HTC may have won the morning, but SanDisk also dropped a bit of news that may interest you. Its got a 32GB SDHC cards, which is due for release this August, that is said to be the world’s fastest, with speeds topping out at 30MB/s.

The card, which has been available in capacities of 4, 8, 16GB for a little while now, is being launched with an eye toward the new MacBook Pro. And now that all these digital SLRs are coming out with support for HD video! See, there’s plenty of use for an SDHC card so fast.

No word yet from SanDisk on how much it wants for this 32GB model. The 16GB model goes for $195, so expect to pay a lot.

As king of the hill, Apple has nowhere to go but down. They need to continue to improve on their core offering, which will make them necessarily averse to taking too many risks with new product features or functionality. SanDisk, on the other hand, can afford to be a little more freewheeling — if not outright unconventional — with their features and functions, because they have room to move up the totem pole.

The Sansa line isn’t even SanDisk’s core product: that would be their flash memory business, from which they earn substantial revenues from patent licensing. So SanDisk has even more latitude to get funky in the portable music player market. Sometimes being #2 ain’t so bad.

Via CNN Money.