Isn’t it cool when the far-off technology you see in movies or on TV eventually becomes a reality? The Xbox 360’s Kinect is making those crazy gestural interfaces seen in Minority Report feasible, and now Elecom is applying some of the science fiction seen on South Park to their USB peripherals. Specifically, Dr. Mephesto’s ground-breaking research into multiple asses.
I mean that’s clearly what inspired Elecom to create this SD card reader that’s capable of holding not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 SD cards, including the SDHC and SDXC varieties, at one time. So users of professional DSLRs that can hold and write to a couple of SD cards at one time don’t have to worry about them fighting over their old card reader’s single slot. It’s yet another one of those devices that’s readily available to buy if you live in Japan, but if you’re anywhere else you’ll need to deal with an importer and their considerable markup, like Geek Stuff 4 U who wants ~$48(¥3,980) for it.
In the post apocalyptic future of photography your normal SD card will be the storage device at the bar getting beat up by the Raw Steel SD card. Hoodman’s Raw Steel card has the protective power of metal imbedded in the front to make it extremely robust.
In addition to having a metal plate on the front of the SD card to make it survive impacts and stuff, the thing is also built using epoxy so it is waterproof. That means it can survive the elements when you are shooting outdoors better than your camera will.
The full on specs for the Raw Steel cards are not offered. What we do know is the thing has 16GB of storage and is a speed class 10 card. It should be quick enough for you to shoot all the bursts you want. The ship date is pegged at the middle of the month at an undisclosed price.
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.
When it comes time to buy a memory card, many people just grab up the largest capacity card they can afford without thinking too much about the speed of the memory card. Speed is an important factor though, especially if you are shooting images with a camera that can take fast bursts.
The SD Association has unveiled a new memory card design for much faster SDHC and SDXC memory cards. The new design uses dual-row pin design that will allows a bus speed of up to 300 Mbps in both formats and is backwards compatible.
The new interface will be offered in full size and micro form factor cards and will not change the physical size of the memory cards. The new dual-row pin design is part of the coming SD 4.0 specification expected in early 2011. Current UHS-I technology allows for transfer rates of up to 104 Mbps.
The Eye-Fi Pro X2, which debuted at the beginning of this year, offers “endless memory” by deleting pictures off of itself after wirelessly uploading them to your computer and/or online photo storage service using built-in 802.11n WiFi. Not unexpectedly, such a useful feature isn’t cheap, with the 8 gig Eye-Fi Pro X2 costing a staggering $150.
Eye-Fi has just released two more SD cards in the X2 series with the endless memory feature, the Eye-Fi Connect X2 and the Eye-Fi Explore X2. The Connect X2 holds 4 gigs of stuff (not like it matters that much with the endless memory), while the Explore X2 is 8 gigs and includes lifetime geotagging of dubious quality and a year of hotspot WiFi access. The best news is that the Connect X2 is only $50, which is way more than a regular 4 gig SD card but way less than the $150 Pro X2 or even the Explore X2, which costs $100. If you don’t have an Eye-Fi card yet, the Connect X2 is definitely the one to get. If you’re looking for justification to upgrade to the Explore X2, if you travel a lot, Eye-Fi would also like you to know that their WiFi hotspots now include Starbucks and BP gas stations.
Incidentally, at CES Eye-Fi told me that the card’s ability to delete pictures off of itself is a hardware thing, not a software thing, so it’s not something that they can add to older cards with a firmware update or something like that. Sad, but sometimes, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
You can find Eye-Fi cards at Best Buy, Amazon.com, Adorama, and B&H among other places.
In a totally obvious move that has only taken years to implement (thanks Apple!), ZoomMediaPlus has released an SD card adapter for the docking port on iPhones and iPod Touches that allows you to transfer content between an SD card and the device. This is a useful accessory for a whole bunch of reasons… Carry it along with your digital camera to be able to view and upload pictures on the fly, for example. Or stuff a bunch of movies onto a big SD card for traveling. Using the zoomIt app, you can transfer files in both directions, which gives you the option of bypassing iTunes’ ludicrously draconian file sharing restrictions.
Personally, I hate iTunes. It’s slow, it’s bloated, and it makes it exceptionally difficult to do even the most basic things. I’d love to use the zoomIt’s accessory to be able to transfer, say, a couple songs onto my iPhone without having to suffer through iTunes. So obviously, the big outstanding is going to be file compatibility. The zoomIt website says that you can “view, listen to, and share all of your photos, music, video and files” which also includes PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and PDF files. If this works as advertised, I’d be more than willing to pay $50 (with a $10 pre-order discount) not to have to rely on iTunes ever again. Available in April.
I’m not quite sure how they do it, but Eye-Fi manages to keep on cramming feature after useful into their wireless memory cards. This time around, they’re introducing a new tier of card (above Pro), the Pro X2. It costs $150, but at least read about what it does before you scoff at the price… The X2 is an 8 gig SDHC card with a built-in 802.11n antenna. N! N means faster uploads at greater distances, so that’s definitely good. And more storage is good too. But the most useful feature of the X2 is the option to have the card delete pictures after it uploads them, giving you an infinite amount of memory (provided you’re near some source of WiFi) while sharing and backing up your pictures real time. The card won’t delete anything until it’s confirmed that the upload was successful, but hypothetically, you can just stop worrying about whether or not you’re running out of space when taking pictures (or videos).
The X2 also comes with all the rest of the awesome Eye-Fi features, like RAW support, geotagging, ad-hoc WiFi connections, and Wayport WiFi access. Unfortunately, from what I can tell from the press release, the infinite memory option will be available on the new X2 cards only. This is a bit of a disappointment, since previous useful firmware upgrades were made available to all of the cards. But, I guess it’s probably somewhat unrealistic to expect to keep getting free goodies, and for you heavy shooters, the additional SDHC space and the potential for never having to worry about space again may make the X2 a worthwhile upgrade.
Look for the Eye-Fi X2 on Amazon and the Eye-Fi website.
In the post apocalyptic future of photography your normal SD card will be the storage device at the bar getting beat up by the 
By Evan Ackerman