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Data Storage Hardware

A New Global Memory Card Standard 221

Posted by kdawson from the coming-this-year dept.
Lucas123 writes "The MultiMedia Card Association has approved a new memory card standard called the Multiple Interface Card (miCard). The card will make transferring pictures, songs, and other data between electronic gadgets and PCs easier. Twelve Taiwanese companies are preparing to manufacture the new miCard. 'The compatibility with both USB and MMC slots means most users won't need separate card readers anymore. MMC cards fit most consumer electronics, while USB connections are built into a wide range of IT hardware...'" Initial cards will hold 8 GB; the maximum the standard supports is 2,048 GB.
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A New Global Memory Card Standard More

A New Global Memory Card Standard

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  • But does it have DRM? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Would the RIAA and MPAA approve of this ease of use? And would SONY approve?

    • Re:But does it have DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ozmanjusri ( 601766 ) <.moc.liamtoh. .ta. .bob_eissua.> on Saturday June 02, 2007 @10:01PM (#19367893) Journal
      And would SONY approve?

      That's a better question than you probably intended.

      This new memory card format marks a major shift in who's leading and shaping the market for electronics. The companies involved in setting this standard are all what used to be second-tier manufacturers - companies like Asustech and BenQ. In the past, it's been Sandisk, Sony, Siemens et al who've decided what shape our storage cards will be.

      I think it's pretty revealing that this group of second-tier Taiwanese manufacturers has come up with a unifying design instead of fragmenting the market even more, as has been the habit of Sony et al. Your DRM comment becomes more relevant when we realise it's this same group who've been providing us with inexpensive DVD players that support way more standards, with less restrictions than the old guard Euro/America/Japanese based electronics companies.

      It's probably a good sign for those of us who despise DRM.

  • Finally.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by rustalot42684 ( 1055008 ) <.fake. .at. .account.com.> on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:17PM (#19365859)
    A new standard that will unify ALL the others... where have we heard this before?

    • Re:Finally.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by samtihen ( 798412 ) * on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:23PM (#19365911) Homepage
      I found an image showing what these things apparently look like:
      Link to Image [chinareviewnews.com]

      The image shows that they can be used with an adapter to fit an existing SD card slot.

      Can these things just be stuck strait into USB slots?

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The image shows that they can be used with an adapter to fit an existing SD card slot.

        Or probably more accurately, an existing MMC slot. MMC is an older spec that SD is compatible with. The form factor is nearly identical [wikipedia.org].

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by ricera10 ( 932325 )
          So you didn't bother to look at the image the parent posted? Apparently all of these cards can be plugged into USB ports, unlike special SD cards that need to have an internal USB plug.

          • He meant MMC vs. SD. (Score:5, Informative)

            by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) * <slashdot...kadin@@@xoxy...net> on Sunday June 03, 2007 @12:06AM (#19368439) Homepage Journal
            So you didn't bother to look at the image the parent posted? Apparently all of these cards can be plugged into USB ports, unlike special SD cards that need to have an internal USB plug.

            No ... the parent was talking about the difference between an MMC (that's "MultiMediaCard") and SD ("Secure Digital") cards and slots.

            Many people think that they are the same, but they are slightly different. MMC came first, and was a pretty neat format, but Sony and the other big music companies decided they hated it, because it didn't have built in features that made it DRM-friendly. So they "upgraded" the format and made SD, which includes an extra pin on the connector, an area of the card's memory that's not user-accessible (for storing the media keys, according to some never-widely-implemented DRM scheme they were cooking up), and a lock/unlock switch. They somehow got the manufacturers to kill MMC, by not producing many large-capacity cards for it, and replace it with SD.

            From a consumer's standpoint, we got a lock/unlock switch, higher prices for a while, and lost some capacity to the key-escrow area. (The latter is hardly noticed now, but it really sucked back on 32MB cards). MMC seems to have come back from the grave lately, though, mostly because of the reduced-size card implementations. (Maybe it's easier to implement in hardware and software than SD? I'm not clear on that.)

            These new memory cards are compatible to both USB and MMC, not SD. However, most SD card slots are backwards-compatible (IMO, that's a misnomer; SD was hardly a step "forwards" for anyone except the content monopolies) to MMC, so to the consumer it's "same difference."

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Moochman ( 54872 )
              Only possible diff it could make is if you have an exposed slot on the outside of a device that is built for SD. In that case it's probably wiser to go with SD, since it is thicker than the MMC and thereby more likely to block out dirt from getting inside the slot. This is exactly the case I had to consider when buying a new expansion card for my Cowon D2.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by whitis ( 310873 )
              Manufacturers produced SD cards that were more or less upwards compatible with MMC (there are some slight differences in initialization) some older devices need a firmware upgrade) in 1 bit SPI mode. SD also allowed the option of thicker cards so cards don't necessarily
              fit in older MMC slots. But it is possible to support add SD card support, without licensing fees, to a device by basically treating it as an MMC SPI device and using the newer sockets but speed is reduced (though fine for cameras, MP3

      • Can these things just be stuck strait into USB slots?

        Seems like that is the idea [extremetech.com]. Would be very neat, no longer any hassle with memory-card readers supporting a zillion different standards.

      • Link to Image [chinareviewnews.com]
        The image shows that they can be used with an adapter to fit an existing SD card slot.
        Thank you very much, this is exactly what I wanted from this thread :)
        That article was useless without it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by whiteknight31 ( 744465 )
      Well the obvious advantage here is USB support.
    • One Card to rule them all, One Card to find them, One Card to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them?
    • "2,048 Gb should be enough memory for anyone"... where have we heard this before?

    • A New Global Memory Card Standard
      Wait.. I thought we were supposed to hate globalization. Remember? No big, evil, multi-nationals for us! Yessiree! No ExxonMobil, Haliburton, Microsoft, Red Cross, Greenpeace, Teamsters, or any other global masters.

      Gotta update my /. memes.
    • Yeah, we can't let this go through. The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lpq ( 583377 )
      LOTR? 1 Ring? to unify them all?

  • pictures ? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:18PM (#19365861)
    computerworld could use some of these, so they can store some pictures:
    http://images.google.com/images?q=miCard [google.com]

  • "Compatibility", or "planned obsolescence"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pla ( 258480 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:21PM (#19365881) Journal
    The compatibility with both USB and MMC slots means most users won't need separate card readers anymore. MMC cards fit most consumer electronics, while USB connections are built into a wide range of IT hardware...'" Initial cards will hold 8 GB; the maximum the standard supports is 2,048 GB.

    ...Of course, since most older MMC card devices can't read anything over 4GB, you'll still need to upgrade either your storage or your devices (or both).

    I applaud the direct USB compatibility and the increased capacity, but don't kid us with claims of backward compatibility. Everyone already has 2-4GB MMC/CF/SD/XD cards in all their devices nowadays, and the industry needs to find an artificial reason to upgrade. Nothing more, nothing less.

    • Licensing saves big bucks. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:44PM (#19366093) Homepage Journal

      Of course, since most older MMC card devices can't read anything over 4GB, you'll still need to upgrade either your storage or your devices (or both).

      Why? Have your old devices stopped working? Mine have not and I've got more than enough flash cards for the forseeable future. Time marches on, sometimes things get better. My six year old CF based Cannon camera is still a champ, but it shipped with a 16MB card! 64 MB cards were just enough for a weekend, 256MB cards were nice and the 1GB card I have is strictly overkill. My newer of the same takes MMC and I knew it's limitations when I bought it. 1GB cards are enough to get as much video as the device has battery. I'm looking forward to HD video devices that will tax this new card.

      The big reason to move seems to be licensing. FTFA:

      Officials expect local companies to save $40 million in licensing fees thanks to the card, in addition to profiting from sales. Taiwanese companies will not have to pay royalties to make miCards or related technology.

      Slam, that's a lot of money. Hopefully, they see the same logic for OGG and friends. I'd really like it if my next camera did not come with a CD full of Windoze shit and that everything worked out of the box.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by leenks ( 906881 )
        Maybe with your devices. My camera will shoot several 1GB cards on a single charge, more if I use the right lenses (ie no image stabilisation, or if I am careful about how I use auto focus). A 1GB card gives me around 90 8-megapixel shots, which can be enough for a month or enough for an hour, depending on what I'm shooting and why I'm shooting.

        I can imagine professional gear will already start to tax these cards - Hasselblad already attach a hard drive to their cameras...

    • you're confused (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nanosquid ( 1074949 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @06:22PM (#19366711)
      This is the upgrade of the MMC standard to beyond 8G. That was "planned obsolescence" in the sense that everybody knew that eventually, we'd need a new standard for that. But every other flash standard has done the same because it didn't make sense to design a standard for 4G+ cards in the days of 8M and 16M cards.

      "Backwards compatibility" means that you can use your old cards in new devices conforming with the new standard. They also gave you a small card format and direct USB compatibility. Those are nice features; if they didn't care about backwards compatibility, they could just have chosen a new, small format that was incompatible with all your old cards.
  • Please, lets do something other than FAT.
    • FAT is ubiquitous and can be read by nearly all operating systems, so it is hard to displace. However, given such a high capacity, these cards will have many video recording applications and hence something besides FAT is needed because of the 4GB limit. I doubt the format is a problem because you'll be able to just format it to whatever you need.
      • Anything newer than Windows 95 OSR2 (with the irritating exception of NT 4) supports FAT32, including most Free operating systems. This allows partitions of 64GB or more, although starts to have quite a large minimum allocation unit size at these sizes.
    • There's always RAW. But personally I prefer to have my meat trimmed and cooked.
    • udf is the closest thing to a more modern universally supported fs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Disk_Format [wikipedia.org] The only big issue is that XP can't write to it. (Mac, Linux and many other OS's can read and write udf, atleast MS is finally coming to the party with read write in Vista.)

    • Re:Yes, but does it have a 30 year old file system (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pchan- ( 118053 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @08:31PM (#19367425) Journal
      Many posters are commenting here that FAT works across all operating systems and that's why it's being used. If these manufacturers came out with a new file system specification (say, based on BSD UFS), I doubt it would be a big deal for Microsoft, Apple, and the Linux Kernel developers to include it in there.

      The reasons we are stuck with FAT is:
      1. Simplicity. This is huge for embedded devices (IE, the things that do the writing to all of these cards). A read-only FAT driver can be implemented in a few kilobytes of (compiled) code. It requires trivial amounts of memory to operate (only a few hundred bytes). I've written a bootloader for an embedded product that could load an OS from a FAT partition and it was under 10 kilobytes. A read-write implementation is not much bigger and the memory requirements are similarly trivial. No other major file system out there can claim this. Particularly, modern file systems like NTFS require huge amounts of memory (comparatively) due to the complex structures they need to maintain, and have massive, complex code to read and write.

      2. Reliability. I know this seems counterintuitive for such a lousy file system, but FAT is fairly resilient both to power failures (or card yanks), and more subtle corruption such as bad drivers or media defects. Sure, it may corrupt and lose your file, but it very rarely destroys the entire file system and lose the rest of the files on there. This is again because of the simplicity of the structures and the fact that very little needs to change on disk when a modification is made. Remember how many times Windows 95 crashed? How many times of that did you get major FS damage? Compare and contrast with Ext2.

      So, yes, FAT is a terrible file system compared to modern ones. But there's a reason everyone uses it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jgrahn ( 181062 )

      Please, lets do something other than FAT.

      And please let's not confuse that with the media itself. These cards should just be block devices in Unix-speak.

      Sadly, this issue is completely under Microsoft's control. If Windows doesn't support it, it doesn't exist.

      I wonder if Joliet or other intended-to-be-read-only file systems would work?

  • Obligatory question (Score:3, Funny)

    by GaryOlson ( 737642 ) <slashdot@NOSPam.garyolson.org> on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:22PM (#19365897) Journal
    Is that a 2048GB miCard of porn in your pocket; or are you just glad to see me?

    Anyone know what the physical form factor specifications are?

  • What does this do that previous ones don't? Why is this so much better than existing technology that it will supplant it?

    The USB interface is a nice feature, but a USB nub is pretty clunky, and is, in and of itself, bigger than competing media cards. XD and microSD are both smaller than a USB connector. Every format is flatter (CF, XD, SD, MMC, MemoryStick). How is this going to be better than any of those? If it doesn't have a standard USB nub, then is it going to need an adaptor, therefore defeating

    • Re:Yet Another Media Card Format (YAMCF). (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:37PM (#19366037) Homepage Journal
      This one looks smaller than XD. It looks like it is about the same size as the piece of plastic inside the shell of a USB connector. It might be the same as MicroSD, I don't know. It's not the first card to offer USB compatibility. There are standard SD cards that can fold in half to present a USB connector to the user, but that's not a standard.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jrumney ( 197329 )
        More like a thicker version (presumably to fit nicely between the contacts and the edge of a USB slot) of a mini-SD I think. I have a micro-SD here, and it is not only much thinner, but much narrower as well. SD adapaters for micro-SD have their own contacts, with the micro-SD fitting inside. This one appears to just be plastic to fill the gap, so presumably you could use it without an adapter in a pinch, if you have a steady hand.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tmack ( 593755 )

      What does this do that previous ones don't? Why is this so much better than existing technology that it will supplant it?

      The USB interface is a nice feature, but a USB nub is pretty clunky, and is, in and of itself, bigger than competing media cards. XD and microSD are both smaller than a USB connector. Every format is flatter (CF, XD, SD, MMC, MemoryStick). How is this going to be better than any of those? If it doesn't have a standard USB nub, then is it going to need an adaptor, therefore defeating the while "card reader not required" argument?

      Actually, I dont know either, since MMC/SD cards with built-in USB connectors already exist. See Here [engadget.com]. I know microcenter around here has been carrying them for quiet some time now. Basically, you fold the card in half and the tab that sticks out has the contacts for a USB plug. Its not a full USB plug form-factor, just a card large enough to hold itself in place against the USB jack's contacts. Maybe they are making the interface the same so that there is only one "plugin" side, and it can determine if

      • Is it just me, or have they stopped producing storage media that will actually stand up to a little bit of punishment. Currently for my data I'm using SD cards with a USB adapter. The adapter is nice because it' protects the card inside. I don't mind carrying around something a little clunkier if it means my data will be there when I need it. I hate that CDs don't have protection like Minidiscs, and I think that it's likely that these tiny things could snap off in the USB port, or you could drop them, a

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by adolf ( 21054 )
          It's not just you. I wish the concept of caddy-loaded CD-ROMs would have caught on more than it did.

          However, I've found SD to be at least a little bit resilient.

          Anecdote: A few months ago, I had a 256MB Sandisk card and USB card reader sticking out of the front USB port on a computer, which was of course sitting on the floor. I kicked it rather hard (quite by accident), which scattered the combination across the room in several pieces.

          So I cursed and swore and made some noise about the pain in my foot,

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by itzdandy ( 183397 )
      the make this clear, the USB interface does not have the plug casing and is therefore very small. this is the same thickness as an sd/mmc card. it is electronically compatible with sd/mmc via contacts on the card as well as with USB by a seperate set of contacts. this is essentially MMC2.0(it is lacking the 'secure' part of the SD name, no 'write protect' switch) and looks to use the same type of logic for memory access as mmc rather than sd. the idea here is that this card will fit in a modern digital

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:30PM (#19365965)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Thank goodness (Score:3, Interesting)

    by teknokracy ( 660401 ) <teknokracy AT telus DOT net> on Saturday June 02, 2007 @04:32PM (#19365989)
    I think it's great that SD/MMC has taken hold as a "standard" of sorts. CF was once the king, but is too big by today's standards. SDMMC is good because it's not TOO small (i.e., I'd expect my own mother to lose a microSD card but not an SD card), and it has a wide range of applications like SDIO cards for wi-fi and other uses. And, the adapters for micro/miniSD make sense too.

    Now, if only they can convince Sony to at least stop making their OWN formats obsolete...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Above ( 100351 )
      Actually, I think the market has fractured. Those who need ultra high speed or ultra high capacity still look to CF as there's more space for cutting edge stuff. CF has become the professional standard, and SD the consumer standard. Looking at most digital camcorder product lines tends to validate my statement.
      • Indeed, CF has, and always will have its own niche.

        Plus, if you have the need to swap cards between devices, I think that CF's large size actually makes it *more* convenient. miniSD, and now this new miCard business are great for cell phones and all, but for all practical concerns, they're far too small to be practical in general use (ie. you'll lose them).

        Also, CF has pin-for-pin compatibility with normal 40-pin IDE/PATA devices, which is just plain cool. It's not unheard of to use a CF card as a solid-s

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by adolf ( 21054 )

          Also, CF has pin-for-pin compatibility with normal 40-pin IDE/PATA devices, which is just plain cool. It's not unheard of to use a CF card as a solid-state disk in a router or other linux-embedded device.

          A very handy feature, indeed. I do wonder, though, if the SD-to-CF adapters are sufficiently compatible with IDE so as to accomplish the same trick.

          But embedded Linux routers? I'm not very impressed. I've got Windows XP running 24/7 on a 2-gigabyte CF card.[1][4]

          [1]: No, I'm not kidding. It works fine.[2]
          [2]: Yes, even the swapfile is on flash.[3]
          [3]: With wear-leveling being performed by card, I don't anticipate this being a problem within my lifetime.
          [4]: I'd switch the box over to Linux in an in

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyno01 ( 573917 )
        SD cards are getting faster, theyre not as fast as CF cards yet, but they're getting up there, also many newer DSLR cameras shipping with SD card slots.

  • Christ, Not Another One (Score:4, Insightful)

    by segedunum ( 883035 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @05:20PM (#19366335)
    We already have to put up with different memory card formats when we switch devices and phones, Mini SD, SD, XD, MMC etc. etc., and these people are creating a totally new format that we can all call a standard and not have to worry about it all any more?!

    Forgive me for being a tad sceptical at that logic.
  • And of course, MMC has already been stillborn for years. It's used by experimenters because the standard is slightly easier than SD to implement, but with dedicated chips to handle the grunt work [sparkfun.com], there's again no use for MMC. CF is slipping because the zillion-pin connector is too bulky. SD is still going strong with the introduction of SDHC, though the fact that the original standard puked at the 2GB mark is pretty embarassing.

    However, USB's speed limit is going to become an issue pretty soon. What would

    • And of course, MMC has already been stillborn for years.

      Really? I must have missed that. I carry around two devices that take RS-MMC and none that use other flash formats. I own a couple of things that use CF as well (small form factor PCs that use CF instead of a hard disk), but nothing portable. The only thing anyone I know owns that uses SD is a Linux-powered hand-held console - hardly a mass-market device - although a few people have Sony devices that use their own Memory Stick format because Sony just love to be different (and charge people for it).

  • Don't need another "standard" (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @05:38PM (#19366457) Journal
    We don't need another standard. A few days ago at Wal Mart I saw Wii-branded product that is really slick. It is an SD card, but the back of the card has been notched out so that the last few millimeters are the width of the little PCB that is in the connector part of USB. So the card fits in SD slots as normal, and the back side can be directly plugged into a USB slot.

    Here it is. [walmart.com]

    Here is a similar product [engadget.com] with a slide on sleeve. I assume that might be needed for physical compatibility with some SD slots?

    Here is a SanDisk combo SD / USB memory card [engadget.com], but I don't like it as well because it has moving parts which can break.

    These products are pure genius. Personally, I think the SD standard should be updated to increase supported capacity, so we can use a ubiquitous form factor long into the future. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have these worthless PCMCIA memory cards lying around, which I replaced with now worthless CF memory cards, which I've now replaced with SD. I don't want another change, and we don't need anything smaller than Micro-SD. So only bandwidth and capacity need to increase, which the SD standard can be modified to support (while maintaining backwards compatibility) as the technology improves.

    Dan East

    • I don't know about the rest of you, but I have these worthless PCMCIA memory cards lying around, which I replaced with now worthless CF memory cards, which I've now replaced with SD.

      I only had one old PCMCIA card, which I'm now using as the hard drive in my firewall.

      I have several CF cards, and I stubbornly avoid buying devices that won't take them. SD/MMC cards are twice as expensive as a CF card of the same capacity, and until that changes (as it did with PCMCIA) I'll continue to stick to CF. It's as sm

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by imsabbel ( 611519 )
        SD cards are CHEAPER than CF cards of the same capacity, and have been so for at least a year.
        Thats because few companies bother supplying that dying market anymore.

        Add to this the fact that (HD)SD cards are now at 8GByte ($80, cheaper than compareable SD).

        Result: THe only people buying it are those contrained by legacy hardware, and dumb suckers like you.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cwerdna ( 572424 )
      I know... this is nuts that there such a needless proliferation of standards. Some have hypothesized is that one a particular format becomes cheap enough and commoditized, the powers that be (flash memory card makers) have to come up w/a new standard so that they can turn profits again (to make $ on the higher initial standards).

      So far, for memory cards, we've had PCMCIA, CF, SmartMedia, MMC, SD, XD, miniSD, microSD, the various Memory Stick formats and now this??? A lot of the oddball SmartMedia camera m

    • These products are pure genius. Personally, I think the SD standard should be updated to increase supported capacity, so we can use a ubiquitous form factor long into the future. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have these worthless PCMCIA memory cards lying around, which I replaced with now worthless CF memory cards, which I've now replaced with SD. I don't want another change, and we don't need anything smaller than Micro-SD. So only bandwidth and capacity need to increase, which the SD standard

  • The important part (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tribbin ( 565963 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @06:35PM (#19366779) Homepage
    Although it's sort of a technical duplicate; it looks simple and sturdy. But more important:

    "Officials expect local companies to save $40 million in licensing fees thanks to the card, in addition to profiting from sales."

    If enough companies use this, it will be the standard for, say, at least ten years. So everybody complaining 'great, just wat we need; another standard'; please think again.

  • ahh so... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @07:32PM (#19367069)
    I wonder how long it will be before Sony release their "similar enough to fill the same needs except more expensive and totally incompatible with anything except Sony hardware" version.
  • That is the question.

    Or rather: is that 2 TB in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

  • Ok so I have SD cards for my camera, XD cards for a second camera, Memory stick duo pro for my PSP, My ipod has it's own propriety format, and my Wii can read SD cards.

    So exactly why do we need another format? First off if this is a format to end all formats I'm going to have to go out and buy a version of everything I mention that uses this format, except they don't have a PSP, they don't have an Ipod and then don't have a Wii version of it and never will. Why is that? Why couldn't they just use Flash o
    • MMC cards are the predecessor to SD cards, and share a similar interface. SD is basically MMC with extra features, including support for an early DRM scheme, thus the name 'secure digital'. SD cards are usually slightly thicker than MMC cards, so MMC would go in SD, but not vice versa.

      So you ask why they don't use CF or SD; in effect they ARE using the SD form factor, or at least its compatible predecessor. Anything that reads SD or MMC should read the new micard format, though SD has a 2GB limit IIRC. Depe

  • Will this be propriatory just like SD, MMC etc? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @10:56PM (#19368157)
    What the industry really needs is a memory card standard that is totally open with absolutely no fees required to produce memory cards, card readers or software for it (unlike SD where you need to pay license fees). Or failing that, develop a standard where you only need to pay license frees if you are producing the physical hardware (i.e. the memory card or socket) and where the software is totally open. Motorola for example were caught between a rock and a hard place a while back because they had released a phone with a driver for the included SD slot built into the linux kernel instead of being a module and were stuck between "GPL violation" and "violating the SD association NDAs" (at the time they had to choose "GPL violation". It was all cleared up when the SD card people were convinced to release the "simplified specs" and Motorola could release the code in question)

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