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1" Hard Drives in Cellphones on the Rise

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue Jan 03, 2006 08:41 AM
from the coming-to-the-tipping-point dept.
Data Storage
Tomo Hiratsuka writes "The imminent 10Gb 1-inch hard drives we've been hearing about have been well covered but the maker, Cornice, reckons its product could end up in over 70 million cellphones by 2009. Kevin Magenis, one of the company founders, isn't shy about pointing out that this is 30 million units more than predicted DAP sales."
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  • define: DAP (Score:5, Informative)

    by Caspian (99221) on Tuesday January 03 2006, @08:46AM (#14383864)
    I had to think about this for a moment. "DAP" means "Digital Audio Player". (e.g. iPod, etc.)

    I believe this is the first time this term has appeared in a SlashDot article. (Perhaps a SlashDot Glossary would be a good idea?)
    • Those of us who own Distributed Array Processors agree with you. Mod parent +27.5 "Really Intelligent"
    • Perhaps a SlashDot Glossary would be a good idea?

      Perhaps Slashdot editors could do what every professional editor on the planet does, and define what an acronym means the first time it's referenced in every article.

      This is common sense. I will grant, due to Slashdot's subject matter there are some acronyms that are common enough that they don't need to be defined (GNU, MS, RIAA) but if, as you suggest, this is the first time the term 'DAP' has appeared in a Slashdot story summary, the reader is owed a defi
      • Perhaps Slashdot editors could do what every professional editor on the planet does, and define what an acronym means the first time it's referenced in every article.

        That would be nice, but you always have the option to, you know, RTFA.

        Slashdot covers many esoteric subjects, so it's not likely that you will know every acronym or the name of every obscure language, technology, or application. Many times I have had to go into the threads to get more info about what the article was about, and many times I have
        • That would be nice, but you always have the option to, you know, RTFA.

          That's the attitude of someone who has no respect for other peoples' time. You're allowed, but I expect better of Slashdot's editorial staff. What is their function if not to save readers from unnecessary effort?
  • This is the sort of thing that would've been profitable to be in the correct social circles and invest in the company about 1-2 years ago.

    Imagine the donations you could make to sf.net and debian.org after a windfall like that hits.
  • With so much space in average cellphone I imagine that lots of people will try to run linux on them.

    Maybe finally with dosbox on an average cellphone (not something extra expensive like treo) I'll be able to play elite2, and adom. Just some perfect entertainment on may way to work :)
        • Is it supposed to mean you are trying to be funny? Or maybe you just haven't realised, that some people, instead of bringing everywhere tons of gadgets, with backpack full of different rechargers for each of them, prefer to have only one; which could provide phone, internet, digital-camera, entertainment in the form of MP3 player, games, video, act as place to store notes and reminders, and provide all kind of different services at the suitable time when you choose to use them (hint: not necessarily all at
  • I do not want a harddrive in my phone. My phone gets more abuse than any other gadget I have. Granted its cheaper than using flash but hell I would rather pay for something that isn't going to possibly be toast when it bounces once off the pavement.

    • Re:whats the fascination with stuff that breaks? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sketch2 (678894) on Tuesday January 03 2006, @09:02AM (#14383949)
      I agree totally with not wanting a hard drive in my cell phone, but... has anyone tried to buy a cell phone *without* a camera in it lately? I don't want a camera in my cell phone either, because I work in the defense industry and I cannot take my phone into many buildings due to security restrictions. But, when I tried to purchase a cell phone without a camera, I found my only choice was a klunky offering that was too big for me and looked like it was several years old in design. I fear that the idea of having a hard drive in one's cell phone will "catch on," and shortly after, one will not be able to find a cell phone without one. Sigh! smp
    • My clunky old Nokia 6310 lasted 2 weeks without a recharge, but my new super-fantabulous 6230i with colour screen, mp3 playback and movie capture barely lasts four days - without even using any of that crap!

      What's a hard drive going to do to already crappy battery performance? Bring us back to the 90's routine of charging every single night?
    • Very small drives are ... a little different. You're probably thinking of Z-axis damage, where the heads "slap" into the media after the drive is dropped "face down". What's kewl about these tiny drives is that everything (including the head or heads) is smaller and lighter, with less mass, which means less momentum, which translates into fewer chances for this kind of damage. Another way to prevent damage is use an accelerometer which the embedded F/W will use to sense impending doom and park the heads on a non-data portion of the media, or to remove the heads from the media entirely (ramp loading).

      But in the end, you're right - Flash [wikipedia.org] is much more tolerant of these kinds of environments. Yes it's expensive, but there's that Moore's Law thing [wikipedia.org] that, for a few years now, has given us smaller, denser, and cheaper circuitry. There's also the limited number of rewrite cycles, but in the sub 1.8 inch drive arena, I think (MHO) Flash will be the ultimate winner. Until then, those of us using micro drives thank those of you who fork out the Really Big Bucks for Flash-based products (like the Nano [wikipedia.org]) - you're helping drive down the cost for us all.

      • Another way to prevent damage is use an accelerometer which the embedded F/W will use to sense impending doom

        I love that! What we really need is some sort of device that makes it jump up in the air and levitate at around 5 feet whilst beeping and flashing some bright LED's so we can find the little buggers when they get lost. Just an idea though. Anyway, back to the drawing board.

    • Wishlist for a mobile phone for people who really use the thing professionaly:
      1. Can call with it and has good sound
      2. Carkit/headset
      3. Good battery life
      4. Sturdy
      5. Address book: Plain simple, no big screen with lots of info. Just the seeing the name of the person in the list is enough.
      6. Normal size and lightweight

      Wishlist according to mobile phone manufacturers:
      1. Portable data storage
      2. Possibility to open you documents on the phone so while you are calling you can read the numbers of a spreads

  • A little more info (Score:3, Informative)

    by dcsmith (137996) * on Tuesday January 03 2006, @08:58AM (#14383922) Homepage
    This article [com.com] has a little more info, including a projected price of $18.50/GB.
  • Make up your mind, is it imminent or could it be something else?

    Coming soon: An mp3 player with a cell phone in it.
  • The maker of a product that nobody currently uses boasts that it will be the next iPod in half a decade.

    Quick! Someone get this guy a job at Napster.

  • Cornice?!? I've never heard of them. It seems they did not exist before 2000 [corniceco.com], but now, just a few years later, they sound like a serious player. Too bad their privately held...might make a decent investment.

  • Of course he's going to predict that (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrSbaitso (93553) on Tuesday January 03 2006, @09:12AM (#14383994)
    I read an article about Cornice a while back (upon further googling, here [inc.com] it is). They were approached by Apple to be the exclusive supplier of HDs for the iPod Mini. They ended up turning Apple down in order to focus on the phone hard drive market. Time will tell how smart of a decision that was, but if there's one thing you can say about their CEO it's that he's got some brass ones. I think it was a pretty stupid move, but then Apple would be done with this tech by now (only flash in the Nano, bigger HDs in the 5G iPod) so maybe they will sell a lot of phones with hard drives and become rich.
  • This is what competition (in this instance, between flash memory and tiny hard drives) is all about - better products for less money.

    $18.50 a gigabyte is pretty nice for such a small device. Flash isn't near that currently, but probably will be in 6 to 12 months time. Of course flash pushers will come up with other advantages for their side I'm sure ...

    What's more interesting is that these drives are so thin - under 4mm thick! That's kinda sexy. Would I want it in a battered cell phone? Dunno. Do I need 10G

  • "... by 2009..." (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Slartibartfast (3395) * <ken&jots,org> on Tuesday January 03 2006, @09:17AM (#14384020) Homepage Journal
    Huh? Why, in the world, have a 10 GB HD, when -- by 2009 -- you'll be able to have (for a slightly higher premium) 8 GB of flash? Lessee:

    Flash uses less energy
    Doesn't need to spin up
    Won't "crash" [flash can have its own problems, but the heads ain't one of 'em]
    Can be easily extracted and plugged into external devices
    Etc.

    I love hard drives, but the super-duper-really-small stuff has never (and, IMHO, will never) catch on; flash has that pretty much sewn up.
    • Because by 2009 the HD capacity will be 100 GBs and cost less than your 8 GB flash card. And by that time we'll all be bitching about the uselessness of 8 GBs of storage. Batteries will likely have significantly higher capacity by then so we won't care as much, the hard drives will surely have some energy saving optimizations and the hard drives will surely be every bit as pluggable as compact flash. And if the phone/PDA/MP3 player has a GB or 2 of memory built-in (which it surely will by then), the devi

  • MiniSD is already better (Score:5, Informative)

    by michaelmalak (91262) <malak@acm.org> on Tuesday January 03 2006, @09:19AM (#14384028) Homepage
    It is already possible to get (I've had one for a month) 1GB of RAM in the mini-SD [sandisk.com] format, not to be confused with SD, which itself is smaller than CompactFlash. The miniSD is about the size of a fingernail, and that adapter you see at the bottom of the sandisk.com page is a slipcase to bring the miniSD up to the size of SD.

    By 2008, the projected release date of the 1" hard drive, I'm sure miniSD's will be up to at least 4GB if not 8GB, without the power drain of spinning platters, without the seek and latency, and in a much smaller form factor.

    We can see from IBM's CompactFlash hard drives how limited the market is -- basically photographers who can't afford the time to change their "film". But the trend is to smaller and more personal devices, and the market for tiny hard drives will be even smaller in 2008.

    • By 2008, the projected release date of the 1" hard drive, I'm sure miniSD's will be up to at least 4GB if not 8GB, without the power drain of spinning platters, without the seek and latency, and in a much smaller form factor.

      I know a few professional photographers, and the thinking amongst them is to limit themselves to 1 gig compact flash drives. Anthing more dense is percieved as unstable.

      Personally my 2 gig USB flash drives work just fine. However, what I do is not very I/O intensive. The most I'
  • This all assumes that people will want ginormous all in one electronic devices that are phones, PDAs and MP3 players. Probably that's not a safe bet. It's been tried before and people generally don't want the cost and complexity of an all in one. The transition costs for the consumer are quite high. If you for example get a new phone/MP3 player what do you do with the iPod you just paid 300 bucks for?

    And how much will the consumer get screwed by the cell phone company which will of course charge a huge prem
  • This is obviously targeting the whole "convergance device" market, but I have to wonder, will the battery life be able to keep up? I personally don't like these "all in one" type wonders because a)the interface usually sucks(possibly fixable, but we humans aren't changing form factor any time soon) b)if the battery dies, I not only lost my mp3 player, but I lost my phone, my video game machine, my address book etc. and c)(somewhat related) if the device gets lost/stolen then I am not only out my phone but
  • That's all very cool, but many people are not so careful with their phones as with their other equipment. How many g's can these drives take? Can I drop my phone on a concrete floor without losing data?

  • battery life (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stud9920 (236753) on Tuesday January 03 2006, @10:39AM (#14384522)
    moving parts is just what my anemic battery needs.
  • With a platter spinning at such speeds in a lightweight handheld device, would there be any gyroscopic effects when holding the phone?

    • Re:What do I need a hard drive on my phone?? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dionysus (12737) on Tuesday January 03 2006, @08:59AM (#14383927) Homepage
      The drives shows up as USB storage devices (at least they do in the newer Nokia models). You can just access them that way and copy the music or whatever over. That's what I do.
      • But before you can play the music, you must cripple it with some stupid program to let the phone read it - it won't read plain .mp3, but some proprietary Nokia format which is essentially encrypted mp3. Supposedly to make copying mp3s using your phone harder. Practically, making it suck a big time because the program is a huge uncomfortable "media manager" that scans your whole harddrive and creates an encrypted copy of every single mp3 file it finds before you are able to upload a single song to the phone.
      • I have a Nokia 7610 / Symbian OS v7.0 / Series 60 with a rather nice 512 MB of RAM thanks to the expansion slot. I know the latest Symbian OS (v 9) does show up as a universal mass storage device and I would really, really love it if my phone did this too -- so I don't have to carry around a thumbdrive all the time.

        Does anyone know of a Symbian app that will simulate the phone as a mass storage device, or, failing that, does anyone know a way to upgrade a 7610 to the latest Symbian version?

        Cheers,
        Daniel

    • So, tell Verizon where it can shove it.
      Switch to a GSM operator.
      Buy a GSM phone off the web and not tied to a specific operator.
      Stick your new GSM SIM card into your GSM phone and start talking.
    • RAID5 could be good with these puppies, they're weeny!

      Sort of review here (it's in a USB enclosure: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28642 [theinquirer.net]

      But what I really like the look of is this solid state "drive": http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28647 [theinquirer.net]
      Seems to be lacking a battery though..?! Nice idea all the same :)
      • hmmm... DDR hard drive needs external power supply. So, basically the idea is to use RAM as a HDD by never turning it off? Nice. 'Cause power outages never happen.

        Although, seeing as how I have to reformat my windows box once a year or so, this would make that process really fast.

        Also, is there any validity to that device? Links to an article with no meat (manufacturer mentioned as "the firm"), and it only points to a webpage with an email address and the same graphic in the article.. My guess is

        • if you fronted it with an archived storage system such as Venti [bell-labs.com] then it would be far more attractive.

          see also :

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_(file_system) [wikipedia.org]

          They act as a archive/cache type system so that only recently used data needs to be on the HD and archive older files but keep them available on the same filename AND you can also see all the versions of the file you've ever had :

          ------
          To access a snapshot, one would connect to a running fossil instance ("mount" it) and change directory to the desir

    • Re:What's interesting about this... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Smidge204 (605297) on Tuesday January 03 2006, @09:39AM (#14384144)
      I hope that post was a troll. I don't know what's worse... the fact that none of what you said makes sense or the fact that apparently people think it's correct.

      For the mods who rated that post "informative" and "interesting":

      Microwaves have wavelengths measurable in centimeters. This makes them very bad for data storage. The whole reason the industry is trying to move to Blu-ray and similar technologies is because blue colored light has a much SHORTER wavelength than the traditional red colored lasers used in established data storage devices. The "size" of the bit being stored (and therefore the number of bits you can store in a given area) is directly proportional to this wavelength.

      The wavelength of the microwave radiation emitted by the phone is roughly 35 centimeters. The wavelength of light used in CD drives is roughly 0.000078 centimeters. That's nearly 13000 times larger! So you'd think you could store 1/13000th the data in the same spot using microwaves than you could fit using regular CD laser tech.

      All this ignores some other very serious technical issues, of course... like how the unfocused microwave energy emitted by the antenna (or anywhere else in the phone) is directed and focused towards the HD platter, and how the microwave energy is able to interact with the platter to read and toggle magnetic bits considering microwaves bounce right off metal surfaces.

      ------------------

      The size of the R/W heads is NOT a limiting factor.It is easy enough to use MEMS technology to make them only a few billions of a meter wide, so they can be built plenty small enough. The real limiting factor is how closely you can back the magnetic regions that encode the data before they interfere with each other and lose the ability to retain their state.

      I need another cup of coffee...
      =Smidge=

    • Re:Who would need this? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dcsmith (137996) * on Tuesday January 03 2006, @10:48AM (#14384591) Homepage
      Who has that many friends that they need a 10GB hard drive to store all their phone numbers?

      Yeah, becasue no one wants to use their phone for anything except making and receiving phone calls. Except taking photos. And surfing the internet. An sending e-mail. And, these days, watching streaming video. Besides that, nothing at all. Except for rest of the stuff I missed.

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