After that sun-seeking planter robot, I figured you guys could use something a little drier. So without further ado: it seems that SanDisk and Toshiba are “reallocating” the output of a couple fabs (Fab 3 and Fab 4 if you must know). Essentially, it comes down to SanDisk selling off 30 percent of a joint venture in manufacturing flash memory to their partner, Toshiba. I don’t think that SanDisk is in dire straits, exactly, but generally the wholesale selling off of assets like the factories that make your goods isn’t seen as a sign of solvency. You can get a better idea by reading their quarterly financial results, which basically show a decline in revenue. Well, that certainly was dry, wasn’t it? Here’s a unicorn! → Read More
My good friend Peter Ha isn’t sold on the Sandisk SlotMusic hoopla (see his post here). I think it’ll work, though. You have to approach it from the mindset of the casual consumer for it to make sense. Think of the player like a Walkman or a Discman and MicroSD cards as blank tapes or CDs. Then remember that entire albums used to be sold on tapes and CDs and that for many people, there’s a certain comfort in being able to drop a piece of media into a hardware player and have it just work. → Read More
You hear that rumble? That’s the purring of hundreds of thousands of handsets around the country, aching to gobble up one of the 16GB microSDHC and M2 cards just announced by SanDisk this morning. This announcement lifts the bar from the previous 8GB limit, allowing handsets which rely on microSDHC/M2 as their primary user memory to go gig-for-gig with handsets carrying 16GB internally, such as the iPhone and Nokia N96. If you’ve got a device that works with the 4 and 8 gigabyte microSDHC cards already on the market, you should be able to swap one of these in without issue. The timing couldn’t be much better for the G1, N79, and the gaggle of other high-capacity ready handsets set to launch over the next few months. The 16GB microSDHC will set you back $99.99, while the M2 will go for $129.99. Both models will begin shipping come October. → Read More
SanDisk and the RIAA sure do hope y’all aren’t “finished” with physical media-based music playback. If you are, then this whole slotMusic venture will end up being a waste of everyone’s time. SlotMusic, actually written slotMusic, is the name of Sandisk’s new line of music-filled microSD cards. The thinking behind slotMusic is that consumers, what with their music playing cellphones, still lack an easy way to load and listen to their favorite songs. So, you walk into a Best Buy or Wal-Mart (slotMusic will initially be sold there), grab the latest pop sensation-loaded slotMusic, then stick it in your phone and off you go. Again, that’s the thinking. That the iPhone doesn’t accept microSD cards is one minor issue. That consumers are more comfortable with downloading music (from iTunes) and may have completely written off physical media is another. It’s worth pointing out that the songs loaded onto slotMusic cards will be DRM-free MP3s. Specific bitrates and encoding methods? ::shoulder shrug:: And yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how this affects that whole Samsung-Sandisk talk. UPDATE Some more info has trickled out, in the form of the official press release. The slotMusic cards weigh in at 1GB, and the MP3s are encoded at 320 kbps. All the big record labels are here, too. Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner are all part of the scheme. Click through if you want to read the full press release. Maybe you’re bored? → Read More
Forget buying an album on a USB stick, SanDisk just convinced the big labels to release (DRM free, thankfully) music on a 1 GB 15mm x 11mm x 1mm microSD card. And then they convinced Best Buy and Walmart to sell these things. Check out slotMusic for more.
I wish wish wish I could see the power point presentation SanDisk used to pitch everyone on the idea.
The New York Times says a source puts the album price at $7-$10, which is amazing given that the retail price of the SanDisk microSD card alone is currently about $8.50. Included with every purchase is a USB converter, which adds more to the price. Sure, profit margin is built into that price, but it still doesn’t leave much for the labels. My suspicion is the price will be higher, perhaps even more than actual CDs. → Read More
While I’m never the first to jump on Vista for this or that problem (I’m guessing it’ll be a great OS in a couple years), this is pretty dumb. Larger capacity solid state disks are in the works and, being more complicated internally, will require a more sophisticated controller. You don’t think about your hard drive controller that much, and that’s probably because hard drive technology has been in the same generation for practically 20 years. And you expect a company like Microsoft to future-proof their OS so that the next wave of technology will work best on Windows — what a selling point it would be if SSDs just worked better on Vista, right? But Vista isn’t a forward-thinking OS, it’s a retrospective OS, the last and largest in a line of dinosaurs. And Sandisk says Vista isn’t ready for the next generation of SSDs. They’re gonna get zapped on this. → Read More
Looking for an inexpensive MP3 player to use for working out, showing off to tourists, and/or other general merriment? Buy.com has the SanDisk Sansa Shaker for the low, low price of $14.99, which includes free shipping. Being that it’s a SanDisk product, there’s an SD slot that you can use to expand upon the 1GB of storage that comes standard. The Shaker has a built-in speaker, two headphone jacks, and song changing is handled simply by shaking the device. You can also change tracks and regulate the volume by twisting the white bands on the top and bottom of the device. The regular price for the Shaker is around $50, so this deal might not last all that long. SanDisk Sansa Shaker 1GB [Buy.com] via FatWallet → Read More
Yes, indeed, SanDisk has a vested interest in people buying removable storage cards, seeing as how the company makes its money by selling memory. However, SanDisk’s Jan Hauer – director of product marketing – made an interesting prediction in London earlier today. Hauer predicted that, eventually, MP3 players won’t be outfitted with memory at all. They’ll all use removable storage cards. So will most other devices that play music, too. So you’d be able to take your memory card between your MP3 player, your computer, your car, and your home stereo, for instance. Granted, you can already do that with many devices nowadays, but Hauer’s prediction is that you’ll be able to do that with all devices someday. Thanks to Moore’s Law, you’ll be able to keep doubling your storage for the same price every year without having to buy all new gadgets because they’d all just take the same removable media. SanDisk also announced that its Sansa Clip and Fuze players would be getting Ogg Vorbis and FLAC file support via a soon-to-be-released firmware upgrade and that all SanDisk digital audio players from now on would contain FM radios. via The Register → Read More
Remember MusicGremlin? The WiFi based music player? No? Well, SanDisk bought them for an undisclosed sum. Full release follows. → Read More
SanDisk’s TakeTV — the thing where you plugged a thing into your computer, dragged over movies, and then schlepped them to your TV — is dead along with its content site, FanFare. I probably could have told you that while the concept was solid there was one hole in the plan — that whole schlepping part. Imagine countless exchanges like this: Customer: So I put the movies on here and then… Best Buy Guy: You walk to your TV and… Customer: Walk? Best Buy Guy: Really? What’s this whole Windows Media Center thing about? → Read More
You may have seen our review of the Kingston DataTraveler HyperX high-speed thumbdrive. If so, you’ll remember how it proved itself far superior to the peasant drives I put it up against. Well, it’s far from the only high-speed USB key on the market, so we got our hands on a couple other leading offerings from Corsair (the Voyager GT) and SanDisk (the Cruzer Contour) and have evaluated them thoroughly. Find out which of these handy little things comes out on top by reading on. → Read More
Apparently there’s a need for “premium” micoSD cards (and the like), otherwise SanDisk wouldn’t bother producing them. The company has just revealed premium models of microSD, microSDHC and Memory Stick Micro (M2) flash cards, all featuring faster transfer speeds than conventional, non-premium cards. If you’re asking yourself, “That’s all that makes these cards premium, faster transfer speeds?” Well the answer is yes, that’s all it means. The cards, which come in 2, 4 and 8GB capacities, should be in stores by early June. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
