A researcher at North Carolina State University is warning of an Android 2.3 security vulnerability that gives attackers access to your personal information, further proof that Gingerbread isn’t all sugar and spice (to be fair, that SMS issue has since been remedied). According to Xuxian Jiang, the bug allows malicious websites to access and upload the contents of a user’s microSD card, including voicemails, photos, and online banking information to a remote server. The flaw apparently resembles a similar bug in previous version of Android, thought to have been addressed with Gingerbread. However, as Jiang points out, that fix is easily bypassed. Apart from removing the microSD card, disabling JavaScript, or switching to a third-party browser, Android 2.3 users have little recourse in squashing the bug. The folks at eWeek reported that Google is working on a solution to the problem, but there’s no word on when we can expect to see an update.
Lexar. It’s Where Memory Matters. And it’s also the only game in town to introduce a Class 10 microSDHC card. For those currently using an Android phone with a user-accessible microSD slot, you’ve probably gritted your teeth on a number of occasions waiting for your current Class 2 or Class 4 card to catch up with your demands. It’s one of the downfalls to removable storage, but thankfully, the device you see above looks to us like a glistening solution. The 32GB Class 10 microSDHC card promises a minimum sustained write speed of 10MB per second and a read speed of nearly 20MB per second, which should all but eliminate any lag from loading up your favorite playlist. Lexar plans on shipping this guy with preloaded software to manage and sync stored images and videos, and speaking of shipping, it should be available right now on Amazon for $149.99.
The Samsung Focus‘s microSD slot has always been an odd little blip on the spec sheet, since it’s only kinda-sorta supported by Windows Phone 7, and now it looks like it’s causing more trouble than it’s worth: Paul Thurrot says AT&T’s telling employees not to install anything in the slot because of reliability issues, and that Microsoft is working on the problem. Now, we’ve had mixed experiences using the microSD slot ourselves, and we’ve been told by numerous sources that AT&T and Samsung added the feature without too much encouragement from Microsoft, which told us at MIX that expansion wouldn’t be supported by WP7 at all. We’ve also been told by reliable sources that the problem is primarily to do with microSD speed and reliability — apparently only the fastest cards will work well, and current microSD class ratings aren’t accurate or meaningful enough to be useful. We’d bet Microsoft and Samsung get together and put out a line of Focus-specific cards before this is all over — but wouldn’t it have been easier to just build in 32GB of storage from the start?
Update: Tipster Jon points out that Microsoft’s own WP7 support docs specifically call out SD class ratings as not being accurate determinants of whether or not a card will work — and further say that only OEMs or carriers should swap out cards. Here are the relevant passages:
The SD card slot in your phone is intended to be used only by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) that built your phone and your Mobile Operator (MO). These partners can add an SD card to this slot to expand the amount of storage on your phone.
[...]
Determining whether an SD card is Windows Phone 7 compliant is not a simple matter of judging its speed class. Several other factors, such as the number of random read/write operations per second, play a role in determining how well an SD card performs with Windows Phone 7 devices.
Sounds complicated — and it also sounds like Microsoft needs to call Samsung or SanDisk and kick out a line of WP7-certified cards, like, now.
Man, Microsoft really isn’t keen on having you swap out the microSD card that ships within its Windows Phone 7 devices, eh? After finding that the HD7′s card could be replaced if you threw caution entirely to the wind, we’re now seeing that the same is true with HTC’s 7 Mozart. But unfortunately, you’re still facing the same dilemma — should you seriously risk destroying your phone forever just to get a capacity bump from 8GB to 32GB? One Andy Hamilton answered that with a definitive “yessir,” and in the source link below, he proceeded to initiate an iFixit-level teardown in order to unearth the deeply concealed 8GB SanDisk Class 4 microSD card. He made a few mistakes along the way that you’ll want to pay attention to if you end up tossing your own mobile on the operating table, but seriously, watch where you slide that X-Acto knife.
We thought the Samsung Focus was the only Windows Phone 7 launch device that could replace its external storage, but the HTC HD7 can apparently do the same — there’s an SD card slot under that Windows Phone logo, and The Unwired managed to replace it while dodging the dreaded “There’s a storage error” screen. What sort of black magic did the publication cast to make it recognize the new card? They’re not quite sure themselves, but several factory resets and physical reinsertion of the chip seemed to do the trick, if only for an 8GB card. If you’re in a daring mood, let us know if it works for you in comments below!
Update: HTC tells us that this particular surgery’s a risky one, not only for your warranty but the connectivity of your phone. Here’s what you’re getting yourself into, according to a senior company rep:
While this is not technically impossible, one thing that is important to know is that the process of removing the cover to access these components is actually very tricky – and in many cases, will result in the antenna section being irreparably detached from the circuit board (rendering the phone unusable). Additionally, to actually replace the card, a few reasonably important parts have to be forcibly removed. So, just a good warning to anyone thinking of attempting this maneuver is that the possibility of bricking is extremely high, and will, of course, void the product warranty.
Update 2: But if you do throw caution to the wind, you may be able to get it to work with a 32GB card.
Digital SLR cameras generally save their images to one of two different types of memory card: the majority support CompactFlash (CF), while others such as Nikon’s D3000 and the Canon Rebel XS write data onto Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. The latter are inexpensive and favorable for their smaller form factor and better physical contact surface instead of fragile pins. Some DSLRs, however, have dual card slots, such as the Canon Digital EOS 1D Mark II N or the Nikon D300s. Last time around, we reviewed number of UDMA-6 high performance CompactFlash cards on the world’s fastest DSLR, the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, and we promised to put some Class-10 SDHCs through the same tests. That day has come, so read on to find out how Class 10 SDHCs stack against UDMA-rated CF on the Mark IV.
Introduced about a decade ago, the multi-media card (MMC) based SD card has evolved from Standard 1.1 (SD), 2.0 (SDHC) to 3.0 (SDXC) slowly but surely, with capacity and speed improving from 2GB with a minimum sustained read/write speed of 2.2 MB/s to a whooping 2TB of storage space at a maximum transfer speed of 104 MB/s. While we have not seen such cards on the market with that capability, Version 4.0 is already in development and intends to reveal the full potential of SDXC, tripling data throughput up to 300MB/s.
So far, devices supporting the standard are limited and only one DSLR is known to support it, the Canon EOS Rebel T2i. Though SanDisk has recently shipped a slower-speed Ultra II SDXC 64GB, the speed is fairly basic at 15MB/s. However, Toshiba showcased its first SDXC memory card at CES 2010 earlier this year with read and write speeds of up to 60MB/s and 35MB/s respectively. With video recording on DSLRs becoming increasingly popular – and not requiring much faster – write-speeds – SDXC is an interesting prospect both in terms of capacity and ability to boost performance when needed.
If you have prior experience with SDHC, you’ve probably guessed that backward compatibility for the SD format can be a hassle. Unlike CompactFlash, where cards supporting improved standards are often backward compatible, SD can be more reluctant to play along. Your host devices must support the newer standard, and it’s often been our experience that mismatching such standards could cause permanent damage to the storage card.
SDHC read and write performances
For this review, we repeated the same tests previously performed on the CompactFlash cards to record time consumed to write data onto the same camera and computer – Canon’s EOS 1D Mark IV and a Mac Pro with a 1TB Western Digital Black Caviar HDD – with six Class-10 SDHC candidates from SanDisk, PhotoFast and Lexar Media.
The SDHC reader used to calculate read speed was the SanDisk ImageMate All-In-One media reader with an advertised maximum speed of 30 MB/s read and 27 MB/s write respectively.
Lexar Professional 133x 8GB SDHC, Class 10, minimum sustain write speed of 20MB/s, $60
PhotoFast 4GB SLC SDHC, Class 10, minimum sustain write speed of 22MB/s, $69**
PhotoFast 32GB MLC SDHC, Class 10, minimum sustain write speed of 18MB/s, $179
SanDisk Extreme 8GB SDHC, Class 10, maximum write speed of 30MB/s, $50
SanDisk Extreme 16GB SDHC, Class 10, maximum write speed of 30MB/s, $99
SanDisk Extreme 32GB SDHC, Class 10, maximum write speed of 30MB/s, $190
Pricing based on Amazon online. **Manufacturer pricing.
From our last test, we’ve seen that top-tier CompactFlash cards could reach 58MB/s on the Mark IV; disappointingly, though, the camera performed around 3 times slower with the SDHC cards. Results are fairly consistently among the cards, data generally being written at 20MB/s with the exception of the 32GB PhotoFast, which trailed around 5MB/s behind the pack.
Oddly, while read benchmarks are normally significantly faster than write rates, the SDHCs on test performed just slightly faster than their write speeds. Again, no significant performance differences were observed among the cards.
As we found in our last review a UDMA card can help in clearing out the DSLR’s frame buffer, managing up to 30-31 frames before hitting the wall. Take the 32GB version of SanDisk’s Extreme Pro CF and Extreme SDHC 30MB/s for comparison. The former held 31 frames and took 10.33 seconds to clear; the latter only managed 27 frames but took as much as 25.17 seconds to clear. To put the numbers into perspective, it extends buffer depth by adding four frames more in continuous burst mode and writes 2.5x faster to clear the queues onto the card and be ready for the next burst.
In addition, if you’re accustomed to formatting your memory card before you start shooting – as you should, allowing your camera to initialize the file system and help prevent write errors – you would have to wait longer with the SDHC cards. The Mark IV camera formatted the SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash in 1.4 seconds but took up to 5.1 seconds on the Extreme SDHC card.
If your priority is camera performance, taking uninterrupted still images of action sequences, you would want to stick with UDMA enabled CompactFlash, preferably a mode 6 card. Our tests show that, right now, DSLRs and card reader compliant with the UDMA standard write and read data far better than with SDHC. Having fast media storage allows for quicker image access, both for capture as well as when formatting. However, with HD video recording increasingly a standard feature for today’s DSLRs, video cinematographers would probably prefer the largest media available, such the upcoming SDXC cards with an outrageous 2TB on offer. Take the Mark IV video recording rate for example: at 5.5MB/s Full HD recording, it would fill a 64GB card in 192 minutes. That’s fine for short interviews, but you’d probably need to pack a few cards to record, say, a short-feature film. Still, for now at least, CompactFlash is ahead of the memory card competition in term of raw performance.
When we last saw the AirStash, it was keeping its mystique about it and refusing to disclose any salient details beyond the fact that it’ll function as a wireless SD/SDHC card reader. Today, the fog of war is lifted with the news that the AirStash is now officially on sale for $99.99, and will come with a battery good for five hours of continuous data streaming. Marketed primarily at iPhone OS devices, it creates a wireless network that allows any WiFi and browser-equipped computer to access the storage cards within it. The UI is built around HTML5 and recharging is done via a USB connection, which also turns the AirStash into a simple SDHC card adapter when plugged in. Check out our hands-on with it from CES over here and look for a full review coming up shortly. We do care so very deeply our portable storage.
While some camps are pumping out larger microSDHC cards, Kingston‘s done the world a favor by working on speed instead. The result is this Class 10 16GB microSDHC card — possibly the world’s fastest of its kind (at a minimum data transfer rate of 10MB/s). Who would need this, you ask? Well, there’s the speed freak in your own self that you’re trying to suppress, for starters, and don’t forget all those snazzy phones that can do 1080p video recording. As with most nice things in life, this blistering card will cost you a fair bit — $138 for the card sans adapters. Oh, go on, it’s totally worth your liver.
