Eyefi doesn’t believe the instant gratification of automatic photo sharing should be limited to smartphone photographers, and Eyefi Cloud is the way it aims to give that same satisfaction to … Continue reading
SanDisk just announced an absurdly fast card that can go almost three times faster than the previous champ. Why do you need all that horsepower? To chomp 4K video, of course.
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Security researchers Andrew “bunnie” Huang and Sean “xobs” Cross have recently described a new way that nefarious hackers could steal data from users by infecting memory cards with new software. … Continue reading
An SD card isn’t just a dumb chunk of memory; it’s a dumb chunk of memory with a built-in brain, a microcontroller. And at this year’s Chaos Computer Congress, enterprising hackers showed off exactly what those brains can be used for: cheap hardware for makers or malware machines for malcontents.
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The hardware hacker Bunnie Huang gave a talk at the Chaos Compute Club Congress where he offered some good news and some bad news. The good news? SD cards contain powerful, handy micro controllers that are useful to hackers and hobbyists. The bad news? SD cards are woefully insecure.
In a detailed and readable post, Huang describes the exact problems with Flash memory. In order to reduce the price and increase the storage space, engineers have to fight a never-ending form of internal entropy that slowly but surely scrambles the data on every Flash drive.
Huang writes:
To take up arms against these errors, SD cards are essentially over-engineered to ensure an acceptable level of data retention. They also contain firmware that can, for example, change the visible available space on the card without changing the actual available space. This means you could sell a 2GB card as a 4GB card – your computer wouldn’t notice a difference until it started filling up that fake space. You can, incidentally, check your cards with this tool.
Here’s the worse news: because these cards contain firmware, this firmware can be updated. Huang reports that most manufacturers leave this update feature unsecured. In other words, don’t ever assume a Flash device is empty after you wipe its contents. For example, the card could make a copy of the contents in a hidden memory area or it could run malicious software while idle.
And the good news: Huang also notes that these cards could be reprogrammed to become Arduino-esque open source microcontroller and memory systems. “An Arduino, with its 8-bit 16 MHz microcontroller, will set you back around $20. A microSD card with several gigabytes of memory and a microcontroller with several times the performance could be purchased for a fraction of the price,” he writes.
So, in short, destroy your SD cards if you have any dirty info on them and keep your eyes peeled for ultra-small, ultra-fast Arduino hacks.
If you worry that your SD cards just can’t keep up with the pace, fret no longer. Toshiba has the world’s fastest SD cards, in the shape of the new Exceria Pro SDHC series, to deal with your ridiculous data acquisition needs.
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Toshiba is coming out with an ultra-fast series of SD cards that they’re calling Exceria Pro, and the company is claiming that the new SD cards are the fastest around, with speeds hitting as fast 240 MB/s. These cards are aimed at professionals, such as photographers who need photos saved quickly.
The card will come in 16GB and 32GB variants and will offer crazy-fast write speeds that are about as fast a typical solid state drive, thanks to the UHS-II standard that the new cards are using. They don’t have any other fancy features, though, like WiFi transferring, but many photographers and videographers should get a kick out of just the speeds alone.
Besides the Exceria Pro cards, there will also be some regular Exceria SDXC cards that will have capacities of 32GB or 64GB. These will also operate under the UHS-II standard, but they’ll have a maximum write speed of 120 MB/s, which is still pretty darn quick if you ask us, so we wouldn’t count those out just yet.
Toshiba hopes to have these bad boys out by October, with the regular Exceria SD cards releasing in November. Prices have yet to be announced, but it’s said that the 64GB Exceria SDXC card will cost around $250. That’s certainly not cheap change, and we don’t expect point-and-shoot operators to carry these cards around on their person, but if you’re in the media business and need a fast memory card, these will probably do.
VIA: PC World
Toshiba Exceria Pro SD card touted as “world’s fastest” is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Eye-Fi, provider of SD cards that allow users to wirelessly transfer images, did some research and discovered two things: the first is that people want to wirelessly transfer photos from their camera to their mobile device, and the second is that they would more often use their camera if they could do this. Such data compelled Eye-Fi to create the Mobi card, which it has just announced.
Eye-Fi says the Mobi card replaces a digital camera’s standard SD card, and that after inserting it two more “simple steps” are required before users can wirelessly transfer images from their camera to their iOS or Android mobile device. It doesn’t specify what those steps are, although we’re guessing one of them is downloading the Eye-Fi app from your respective app store and installing it, and the other is virtually identifying your device so the camera knows where to send things.
The Eye-Fi Mobi is aimed at being simple to use, with that being hailed as one of its best features. Users are not required to create an account or to have a computer, and cloud usage isn’t needed. Once the app is downloaded and the card is paired with the app, images can be transferred to your mobile device of choice. Likewise, there is no limit on the number of mobile devices you can pair with the Mobi card, meaning your smartphone and tablet and any others you have can all receive images.
Obviously, the full quality of images and videos that are stored on the Eye-Fi Mobi are transferred to the mobile device, something that is done automatically, no fiddling necessary. The Mobi will hit shelves soon, but is already available online in 8GB and 16GB capacities for $49.99 and $79.99, respectively.
Eye-Fi’s CEO Matt DiMaria said: “Unfortunately, smartphones fall short for life’s many moments that require zooming, high-speed shooting, low light and other features that make digital cameras superior. Mobi is our simplest card yet, designed to provide photo lovers a no-compromises solution: the great quality pictures and videos of a digital camera and instant access on the smartphone to enjoy and share.”
SOURCE: Eye-Fi
Eye-Fi Mobi allows photographers to wirelessly send images to iOS and Android is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Waterproof, Shockproof, Anti Magnetic, X-Ray Proof, Freeze proof, here you are Panasonic new SDHC and SDX Cards!
Announced for an early September launch these new SD cards comes in two different flavors with the SDAB Series offering a 95MB/sec reading speed and 80MB/sec writing speed with capacity ranging from 8 up to 32GB and the SDUB Series also available in 8, 16 and 32GB but also in a 64GB SDXC version that offer however a 90MB/sec reading speed and a 45MB/sec writing sped.
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