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Credit Card sized 5GB HD to arrive late this year 331

Posted by CmdrTaco from the here's-hoping dept.
An anonymous reader writes "PC World reports in this article: "The card actually has moveable parts inside its thin shell," says Bill Heil, vice president of StorCard. A spinning wheel made of Mylar is engaged when the card is inserted into a StorReader, a USB-connected drive or PC Card that reads and writes to the StorCard. The reader is expected to retail for under $100 and the cards for under $15 each, Heil says. The StorCard and StorReader are scheduled to become available in the second half of 2003."
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Credit Card sized 5GB HD to arrive late this year More

Credit Card sized 5GB HD to arrive late this year

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  • Brings new meaning to (Score:5, Funny)

    by yatest5 ( 455123 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:10AM (#5126383) Homepage
    filling up your credit card with hard disks...
  • Rather odd grammatical construction, no?

  • size .. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jest3r ( 458429 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:10AM (#5126386)
    so the drive itself is actually the size of a PC card at the minimum .. as you need the media and the reader together to constitute a drive ..

    • Re:size .. (Score:5, Funny)

      by dizco ( 20340 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:27AM (#5126533)
      Er, and you need a PC card reader to put the pc card in.. and a computer to put that in.. and some way to power the computer.. hell, this thing ain't that small. It barely fits in the back of a pickup.
  • This thing doesn't have much mass but it's going to have a huge rotational inertia. I can see somebody carrying this in a laptop and walking around a corner only to be flung to the ground. I guess if they installed two, one upside down the angular momentum would cancel and they could be hauled around safely. Assuming the cases were strong enough not to crush each other.

    • Re:Not for use in a laptop? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GlassUser ( 190787 ) <{ten.resussalg} {ta} {todhsals}> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:29AM (#5126554) Homepage Journal
      I usually appreciate your insight, but this is not one of your better trolls. Mylar is so light it's used to make solar sails, but so flimsy they have to deploy it in space, becase gravity will tear it. I don't think you'll be able to spin the disc ("platter"?) fast enough to gain significant rotational inertia.
    • Picking nits here, i know, but rotational inertia is a property of the object (I=(MR^2)/2 i think,) Angular momentum depends on the rotational speed, (L=I*omega) not the moment of inertia itself.
      • Rotational intertia (or, as I've always heard it called, the moment of inertia) is indeed a property of the object, just like mass is a property of an object. Its value depends on how the mass is arranged, though -- a solid disk and a hoop which both have the same mass and radius don't have the same moment of inertia.

        You're right that angular momentum depends on rotational speed (omega), but it also depends on the moment of inertia. That's the I in your formula.

        Nevertheless, as another poster pointed out, the mylar disc is small (moment of inertia goes up as you put more mass further away from the rotational center) and lightweight, so angular momentum effects will undoubtedly be tiny.

  • It's about time (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:11AM (#5126395) Journal
    It's about time that large amounts of affordable portable storage becomes available. $69 for a 128MB UBS key chain was just too much.

    • Re:It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jimhill ( 7277 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:13AM (#5126419) Homepage
      Not necessarily true now, either. The article says that media will be available from 100MB up to 5GB. Any takers that it's the 100MB card that sells for $15 with the 5GB "model" going for several hundred?

    • Re:It's about time (Score:3, Informative)

      by karnal ( 22275 )
      Not necessarily a better solution, but you could buy:

      1 USB CF reader (~20$)
      1 512mb CF card (~140$)

      Of course, it doesn't have the same form factor as the USB keychain, but you would have data portability... and you could buy extra cards for more storage.

      Of course, it's still more expensive than a CD-R.....

  • Big enough for DVD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ultrabot ( 200914 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:12AM (#5126410)
    Aren't they about the right size for containing a movie with pretty decent picture quality? One could imagine using these in preference over DVD-RW, provided that set top boxes that can read these become available. At least they are not too "encumbered", unlike DVD's.

    • Re:Big enough for DVD (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Quaryon ( 93318 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:19AM (#5126477)
      I can't find anything to say how fast these drives are, and whether they could sustain the speed of transfer necessary for a DVD movie.

      Also, the article says they start at 100Mb and go up to "as much as" 5Gb, so that price of $15 may just be for the 100Mb version, at which point it doesn't sound quite so attractive.

      Q.

      • Re:Big enough for DVD (Score:5, Informative)

        by Quaryon ( 93318 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:29AM (#5126553)
        This [storcard.com] site mentions a 5Mb/s transfer rate which I guess would be more than enough for DVD movies.

        However, it says that this figure is for the 100Mb version and that it "scales" to the 5Gb version. What does that mean, I wonder? It will be 50 times faster for the 5Gb version? I don't think so, somehow - 50 times slower? That might be pushing it for DVD usage at 100Mb/sec..

        Q.

        • Re:Big enough for DVD (Score:5, Interesting)

          by karnal ( 22275 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:45AM (#5126678)
          Actually, doesn't the DVD spec top out at 10mbits/sec?

          If they're referencing a 5mbit/sec transfer rate (minimum, mind you), then the media would have no problem sustaining a divx transfer, but would probably puke on most (if not all) DVD-spec'd files.
          • Actually the spec says "5MB" which I took to mean 5MByte, not 5Mbit, which would be plenty for a DVD. But yes, if it's 5Mbit that's not so good..

            My fault for mis-quoting a small "b" :)

            Q.
          • while it would be easy to go on the web to find out, let's apply some math to the problem.

            10Mb/s = 600 Mb/m = 75 MB/m

            So if you want to encode an 100 minute movie on one disk (fair assumption) that disk would need to hold 7.5 GB.

            I personally don't recall the storage capacity of a DVD, but I thought it was lower than that, on the order of 5 GB.

            • Re:Big enough for DVD (Score:4, Informative)

              by Max von H. ( 19283 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:42PM (#5127865)
              I personally don't recall the storage capacity of a DVD, but I thought it was lower than that, on the order of 5 GB

              You're wrong. Well, you're right if you're talking about DVD-R which has a maximum capacity of 4.7GB but pressed DVDs can contain a LOT more (up to 17GB), considering they can be multilayered and double-sided whereas DVD-Rs are only SL/SS (Single Side/Single Layer).

              Here's a table representing the various combinations and respective capacities (googled the info from this page [techtv.com]):

              DVD-5 (SS/SL): 4.38 gig (4.7G) of data, over 2 hours of video

              DVD-9 (SS/DL): 7.95 gig (8.5G), about 4 hours of video

              DVD-10 (DS/SL): 8.75 gig (9.4G), about 4.5 hours of video

              DVD-14 (DS/ML): 12.33 gig (13.24G), about 6.5 hours of video

              DVD-18 (DS/DL): 15.90 gig (17G), over 8 hours of video

              DVD-RAM (SS/SL): 2.40 gig (2.58G)

              DVD-RAM (DS/SL): 4.80 gig (5.16G)

              As you can see, we'll have to wait a bit more for a solid-state competitor to the DVD...

              Cheers,
              max

            • DVDs can use VBR. 9.8Mb/s is the maximum rate for video/audio/subpictures but the average rate can be and usually is much lower. Recordable DVDs are 4,700,000,000 bytes though most current DVD videos are up to twice that (dual layer), but it's generally possible to reduce the size of a dual layer dvd to fit on a single dvd-5 without noticeably affecting video quality.
    • That all depends on access times.

      You could just use it for storage of the movie, and copy it to your HDD, then play it from there, but that all remains to be seen.
    • The fundamental difference between these media is that this thing's data is fully volatile, and can be overwritten. Even DVD-RWs can only be rewritten several times, as I understand it. It's only partially volatile. These things have much greater potential as they're designed to be fully volatile.

    • Re:Big enough for DVD (Score:4, Insightful)

      by forgoil ( 104808 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:43AM (#5126652) Homepage
      Considering how often I break cards, well, I hope they will be more durable.
    • Can you say "Movie iPod?"...

      Of course, then comes the issue of watching decent-quality movies on a post-stamp-sized screen.

      Probably won't come with 5.1 either...

  • At long last! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:12AM (#5126411)
    I suspect that Duke Nukem Forever will be released using this new media.

  • Coming Not So Soon (Score:4, Funny)

    by DASHSL0T ( 634167 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:13AM (#5126413) Homepage
    Cmdr Taco's grammar checker to become late 2007, at the earliest.

  • Old Commercial, New Twist (Score:5, Funny)

    by slide-rule ( 153968 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:14AM (#5126433)
    Trip to the ballpark with teenage son: $25.
    Trip to computer store for card reader: $100.
    Trip to radio shack for odds-n-ends: $30.
    Look on son's face when he cracks into the secret pr0n cache on your new credit card: Priceless.

  • Cool but Scary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GabrielF ( 636907 ) <GJFishman@@@comcast...net> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:15AM (#5126435)
    Cool, but it scares me a little. At $15 a card, how much of our personal information will we be forced to carry around in our pockets? Take for example a national ID based on this card, it would have enough memory to store your medical information, financial information, school information, etc... Reminds me of Gattaca

    • Re:Cool but Scary (Score:4, Insightful)

      by October_30th ( 531777 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:27AM (#5126542) Homepage Journal
      Take for example a national ID based on this card, it would have enough memory to store your medical information, financial information, school information, etc...

      I already have my national ID card with me at all times (euro driver's license in a wallet) and yes, a cop has the right to request that I identify myself with it. If I refuse and they have a probable cause they can drag me to the station for identification. So what? Complaining about a national ID is just a lot of hot air about how the sky is falling.

      I sure would like to have all my medical, financial and school information in my pocket at all times too. You could go to any doctor and get a prescription without having to carry your dead-tree medical history file to prove that you do have this and that chronic problem. In fact, to solve this problem they are already planning a national health database to which every doctor has an access. IMHO, this is only a good thing. Having your school information and financial with you should help with job interviews (they can download your certified school and job history on site) and banking (credit ratings on the card).

      • This is once again why Europeans shouldn't get involved in privacy issues in the US. Of course you have a "national ID", because your countries might have counties or provinces, but when you go to any other country in Europe, and they ask where you are from, you'll probably say you're from whatever country from which you hail.

        On the other hand, if I travel to Canada from the US, and someone asks where I from, I tell them which state I am from.

        Why is this? Because people from the US, for the most part, identify their origin by their state. It's something steeped in American tradition from when we were under the Articles of Confederation and had an extremely weak federal government uniting the otherwise independent states.

        Now, why is this important for the sake of the "National ID card" debate? Because, most of us, because we identify ourselves by states, fear even further encroachment of the federal government on what is currently the responsibility of the state.

        I know, it's hard to understand, but since we have a large country, we generally don't feel the need of an excessively large bureaucratic federal government in charge of all aspects of our lives, and in the case of smaller states, totally unresponsive to their needs.
      • Translation into English:

        "My government is fucking me up the ass, and by god, it feels good!"

    • Re:Cool but Scary (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gazbo ( 517111 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:32AM (#5126580)
      I should've known some retard would start yakking about privacy. Jesus, if the government mandated you carried a single card (not even smartcard) that had a barcode, they could look up your data on a central DB and get gigabytes of data about you. But they don't.

      Now you're given a system for transporting porn and mp3s, and suddenly you think that the government is going to say "to hell with a centralised database, we'll make everyone carry their own data. Hope nobody breaks it."

      Hey, I hear that tinfoil hats protect you from harmful gases - try wearing yours then sticking your head in a gas-oven for an hour - it really works!

      • To parent of parent:
        NO! DONT do that! That will kill you! Tinfoil hats protect you from mind reading devices and microwaves.
        Mod your microwave - it needs to operate with an open door for this experiment to work.
        Put on your your tinfoil hat and switch on your microwave (with open door - that the important part) and watch the pretty sparks!
        Doing this 3 times a week makes you permanently immune to mind-reading-devices.

        To parent:
        Dont kill him (infertility is enough :)! Let him spread word about the mind-reading-device-protection to his 'anon tinfoil hat users' group :)

        If this post doesnt make sense - try reading it backwards!
    • But, gee, i mean, mine keeps breaking officer, you know how this cutting edge technology is when you spill a beer on it and then step on it accidentially while drunk.

  • cheap media, expensive reader (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:15AM (#5126440)
    Its amazing that they are able to fit that data density and functionality (realtime encryption/decryption of data) into something the size of a credit card for 'under $15', but the reader is about $100.

    I wonder if they could fit their technology into a Compact Flash I/II format - it would give IBM's micro drives a run for their money.
    • Its amazing that they are able to fit that data density and functionality (realtime encryption/decryption of data) into something the size of a credit card for 'under $15', but the reader is about $100.

      I wonder if they could fit their technology into a Compact Flash I/II format - it would give IBM's micro drives a run for their money.

      If it actually can stream data as fast as a DVD then it could give the single-sided / single-layer DVD format a fun for its money. Hell, except for the problems of crushing or demagnetizing the card, this is a pretty choice format for transferring fragile DVDs into a durable format for children (waterproof, rewritable, harder to scratch) to use and to leave the parent's expensive DVD collection alone. That is one of the reasons children's shows are preferred to be on cheap videotape over fragile DVDs. If the kid destroys the videotape then it won't be too pricey to replace it. The other option is to up the data density and deliver a pocket-sized format perfect for people on the go and traveling. The one key thing for the content providers to remember is LEAVE THE DAMN FORMAT OPEN AND EASY TO COPY. If parents cannot copy their expensive DVDs for the kiddies to watch on car trips to these MEDIA CARDS (yes you can use this name - I yield all rights to this title in exchange for a non-stupid RIAA with foresight) then the format faces consumers looking at the requirement to RE-BUY the media they already own on the previous DVD format just to enjoy the perks of the new format.

  • Compact flash anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrMickS ( 568778 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:21AM (#5126488) Homepage Journal
    The real driving force for small, portable, removable media is not the computer industry but the photographic one. Do I care if I can carry around a credit card sized disk if all I can use it in is a computer? Compact flash storage prices are coming down and capacities are going up. How long will it be before they reach the multiple GB mark?

    I don't see this as being a major player unless it gets adopted my a photo manufacturer. That's only going to happen if they can demonstrate write speeds to match solid state devices.

  • yet another format (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jas79 ( 196511 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:21AM (#5126489)
    How many drive does a computer user need to read every type of disk currently avaible on the market?

    There are just to many. what good is a disk if you cannot exchange it with your classmates or collegue's.

  • and the RIAA levy.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Craig Nagy ( 605528 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:21AM (#5126491)
    will raise the price to $200?

    Cause obviously this thing is going to hold my entire mp3 collection...I don't see any other use.

  • Encryption built in (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Excarnate ( 453613 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:21AM (#5126492)
    The article says

    Amazingly, within the card is an on-board processor containing integrated software controls that can encrypt data securely in real time.

    so I went looking and found the StorCard [storcard.com] website. It says

    There are two types of cryptography logic; a PKI system providing authentication logic, and a block encryption algorithm, such as AES. The encryption keys for both the cryptography engines (supporting 1024 bit keys) are stored in local RAM, which is not accessible external to the card. All data on the StorCard's recording disk is encrypted and block encryption is done "on-the-fly".

    What I am less thrilled with is their emphasis on storing biometric data and trying to get what they see as a huge amount of money being spent on ID cards.

  • The NeXT iPod (Score:2, Interesting)

    by krray ( 605395 )
    I'd love to have a iPod with a card reader (forget the internal hard drive) to go. Full? Want another "library"...

    Or how about just sliding a card into the dash of your car for tunes on the road? THIS could replace household CD players as we know them today...
  • This sounds like the next generation floppy. A spinning mylar disc? Sounds about as reliable as a floppy. Basically write twice, then dispose.

  • iPod (Score:3, Interesting)

    by andyring ( 100627 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:26AM (#5126522) Homepage
    So, this means that the iPod will either come down in price, or start using these cards. Imagine having an iPod that takes these 5 gig (and in the future, larger, I'd assume) drive cards. Boom, suddenly your iPod isn't limited to 5, 10 or 20 gigs! WooHoo! I can finally justify buying one.

    -Andy

  • Durability, and data backups...? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sodakar ( 205398 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:27AM (#5126531)
    At $15 per card, the price is definitely right, but I wonder if your data is safe... No, not in a data security point-of-view, but in simple mechanics and durability.

    It helps that the r/w head is not contained within the card itself, but I wonder how resistant it is to dust, flexing, and people simply sitting on it. Such cards are begging to be placed within a wallet, where guys like me will sit on them...

    Side note: With RSA's solid-state SecurID cards, I typically see about 1 out of every 15 get broken from what users perceive as "normal use". Interestingly enough, both men and women manage to break them from "accidentally crushing it" -- I had imagined that most of the broken cards would come from men putting it into their wallets and sitting in them, but it seems women put their cards in purses, and purses get stepped on and what-not quite often as well... (small sample (500) though, so here's your grain of salt to go with the data... :)

    Which brings up the issue of backing up the data... On a USB 2.0 bus, backing up 5GB's is not that bad, but on a USB 1.1 bus, a full backup would be quite painful... I suppose daily backups/synchronizations would help, but as you know, we humans love to procrastinate...
    • This is why RSA moved away from the credit card type design, and migrated to the "key fob". They are virtually indestructable (bout 1 in 500 has problems usually .... from my expierience).

      I can forsee these having the same short comings, 'to thin for their own good'. Despite having a nice metal shell, it won't stop the "normal" user from mangling.
  • Mylar suggests a floppy, rather than hard disk to me. 3.5" floppies are still floppies even though they are encased in a shell
  • The article states that they're already in talks with content producers. They also make a point of stating that it's large and fast enough to stream media and that it has an onboard processor capable of on-the-fly encryption. Looks like they wanna see these things on the shelves next to dvds. Also, the article says that the cards store anywhere from 100 mb to 5 gb. Does this mean that the 'under $15' pricetag they talk about is for a 100mb model? Anybody got any more info?

  • Please parse the topic for me (Score:5, Funny)

    by guacamolefoo ( 577448 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:27AM (#5126539) Homepage Journal
    "Credit Card sized 5GB HD to become late this year"

    So...:

    1. Is it coming late this year, or
    2. Is it on target but is going to become late sometime later this year, or
    3. Is it going through a transcendant, life-changing experience sometime during this year, or...

    GF.

    GF.
    • *LOL*

      Actually, I think its quite clear and accurate. They will announce that it will ship this year, but instead, it will become late this year.

      Also, if the history of innovative storage techniques holds true, it will be too expensive (when released) to gain acceptance. When the price comes down to where buyers might take notice, 5 gigs will be about as useful as a floppy, rendering the device affordable and nearly useless.

  • durable? (Score:2, Informative)

    by adamruck ( 638131 )
    so how durable is this unit going to be? If you drop it is it going to be unreadable? What about heat? If you leave your wallet in the winshield with one of these things is it going to mess up the data? Did anyone do any stress tests on these things?

  • Competes with connectivity? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mikewas ( 119762 ) <wascher.gmail@com> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:32AM (#5126572) Homepage
    I see lots of comparisons to other drive technologies, but is that the competition? With better conenctivity (e.g. mobile/wireless net access, WiFi islands, DSL in hotels) do I really need portable storage? If I can connect to my fixed storage from nearly anywhere, why do I need to carry yet another piece of hardware?
    • If I can connect to my fixed storage from nearly anywhere, why do I need to carry yet another piece of hardware?

      That's actually a very good question. However, there's also a really good answer: bandwidth. Sure, you might be doing OK for most things if you're in an 802.11b (or, better yet, 802.11g) hotspot, but not if you're doing anything I/O intensive (like high-res media). Cellular bandwidth isn't going to be truly sufficient even for light storage I/O any time soon, and there will always be some blackout times or areas.

      Sure, you say, so you use a local disk as a fast cache to avoid going over the net for every single block, but the authoritative copy (or copies) is still "out there" rather than on your laptop. It just so happens I've done a few years' work in exactly that area, and here's the thing: that cache needs to be fairly large, and it needs to be fairly fast, so you're back to needing some sort of reasonably high-capacity high-bandwidth local storage in a small form factor. That's why something like this would still be useful.

    • You have obviously never used a digital camera in the middle of africa. Thousands of photos begging to be taken, and no internet connectivity of any sort (short of sattelite) for hundreds of kilometers.

      There is a place for this sort of thing. My Mavica and a stack of floppy disks didn't do too badly, but I really would have liked to have higher resolution.

  • incredibly cheap (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MankyD ( 567984 )
    That price seems really cheap to me. The latest Zip750 goes way above that price, comparatively, and has much larger media, physically. There must be some drawback to these, something they're not telling us. How do companies like Iomega plan on responding to this product?
    • Newsflash: Zip disks have always been horribly overpriced. That's why the readers were comparatively cheap (compared to the previous generation Syquest and IOmega drives at least). That's also why nobody uses zip disks anymore, CDs are much more cost effective. Even write once CDr discs can be bought for $0.10/each down at my local Best Buy (and I don't live in a cheap area). 100Mb Zip disks cost $10/each in bulk in the same store (and just about everywhere else). Not to mention the drives are still slow as can be and fewer and fewer computers have zip drives on them at all these days (while nearly every computer has a CD-ROM on it).

  • This could really boost smart cards (Score:5, Insightful)

    by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:35AM (#5126596) Journal

    If this StorCard is what it claims to be, and if it's sufficiently durable and reliable, it could just be the technology that finally makes smart cards really widespread.

    Why? Well, one of the major things holding smart cards back has been the fact that, in most cases, consumers have no interest in them. All kinds of fantastically-useful applications have been dreamed up, but nearly all of them fail because the infrastructure costs are astronomical, and blow the business case out of the water. This card, however, offers significant value to the consumer, enough that people will be willing to pay for the cards and to buy and install readers on their home computers. There will still be significant costs to build the software, the host-side systems, deploy kiosks and terminals at stores, doctor's offices, etc., but the cost of cards and home readers are a huge burden, and this could lift it.

    The Storcard web site has a PDF with "Technical Specifications", but it appears to be slashdotted or just not there, so I can't see what kind of interfaces the card supports. I would really hope they'd include an ISO 7816 (smart card) serial interface in addition to the high-speed interface. They're claiming the card has a processor for crypto and access control, which is critically important. The one other major question in my mind is durability -- is this a card that is expected to be carefully inserted inside a digital camera and then left there except to be occasionally (carefully) placed in a PC-attached reader? Or is it something I can keep in my wallet, sit on, run through the washing machine, use as an ice scraper, etc.?

  • One Question: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gillbates ( 106458 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:37AM (#5126608) Homepage Journal

    Will bending the card cause a head crash? Or are these more like zip drives, in which the read head is in the reader and engages the disk only when inserted?

    I can't imagine too many people would want to carry these around in their wallets if a slight bend could destroy them....

  • very neat (Score:3)

    by esarjeant ( 100503 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:38AM (#5126619) Homepage
    And it looks like they will provide a PCMCIA-style reader device as well. This provides excellent backward compatibility, but the real test will be to get support from a major hardware vendor (Dell, Apple, HP?) and bundle the card reader into new PC's.

    Some weirdness in their product description though. "...the StorReader supports a sustained data transfer rate of 5 megabytes per second in the 100 megabyte StorCard, and scales in the 5 gigabyte design".

    I wonder what they mean by "scales".... YMMV?

  • Storage Space (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SomeOtherGuy ( 179082 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:39AM (#5126626) Journal
    The article says that storage space is between 100 meg and 5 gig. I bet that much like the buz phrase: "With upgradable fimware to support future media formats....cough OGG" -- that you will be holding a bunch of 15 dollar 100 meg cards with another soon to be famous "Will support up to 5 gig" promise that will never materialize. (And then just at the end of the products life -- they will come out with a handful of really expensive 5 gig cards -- at the same time they start to list their coffee machines and foozball tables on ebay....)
  • How is this significantly different than a 3.5" floppy? Size is huge yes, but technology wise, it sounds like a really good floppy.

    M@

  • Does it have content control built in? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jacoplane ( 78110 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:40AM (#5126632) Homepage Journal
    I think this device will only take off if they don't include any content control like floppy discs or CDs. Remember [slashdot.org] what happened to Dataplay [dataplay.com] ???
    • Well, the built in encryption chip should be enough to make one smell rat, and looking over their webpage [storcard.com] the front page bosts that their product solves "the increased concerns with information security for consumers, enterprises and content owners."

      Digging deeper:

      Security & Intelligence - industry's first intelligent media with the ability to authenticate an individual and his own data, to encrypt and secure the data, and to enforce policy information on how and when the data may be used.

      Look like we have a winner...
  • In Memorium: One 5Gb hard drive. Died peacefully in its sleep last night after a brief illness.

    In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the "Help Slashdotters with Grammar" foundation.

  • Yo it what it is (Score:3, Funny)

    by jhines ( 82154 ) <john@jhines.org> on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:43AM (#5126654) Homepage
    Spinning wheel of mylar?

    That is a floppy folks, not a hard drive.

  • All the Juicy Technical Details (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    are available here [storcard.com].

    Well, at least some of the juicy technical details.

    Well, at least it references an ISO standard (ISO 7816).

  • IT IS A *#$&ING DRM CARD!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:49AM (#5126711) Homepage
    within the card is an on-board processor containing integrated software controls that can encrypt data securely in real time.

    The increased concerns with information security for consumers, enterprises and content owners

    bind information to a particular application or device.

    Security & Intelligence - industry's first intelligent media with the ability to authenticate an individual and his own data, to encrypt and secure the data, and to enforce policy information on how and when the data may be used

    StorCard uses a combination of storage, processing and security technologies, packaged into a convenient credit card form factor. An on-board processor with integrated software controls authentication encrypts data securely and executes policies that manage the data. The information is stored on the integrated high-capacity rotating storage volume. The result is a 100% secure, environment that allows individuals, enterprise and content providers to transact and exchange information safely and comfortably wherever and whenever it is needed.

    (a) the encryption logic and keys are unique for each storage medium or unit, (b) the algorithm and the key can be economically changed without compromising legal access to the content, and (c) information pertaining to the algorithm or the key is always kept secret, and is never made available or communicated over a public channel.

    the security logic can be programmed to allow access which is time dependent or for a predetermined number of accesses after which the key and the data in the storage volume is randomly ERASED.

    mailto:info@storcard.com

    -

  • To good to be true? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jesus_watkins ( 620686 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @09:51AM (#5126732) Homepage
    It seems to good to be true. The company's website [storcard.com] seems to be very short on real details. Although the product could be real. All of the photos appear are mock ups.

    From the website it suggest the card only contains the disc plus some simple electronics. The actual motor for the device is held in the reader.

    But there are already PC card hard drives that can hold 5 GB of space. So if you are going to have to put it in a PC card adapter each time you want to use it then the size benefit is cancelled out.

  • Does anyone have any information of the REAL speed of this device? How much data per second can one RELIABLY pull off this thing? Or are there no prototypes out there in the hands of slashdot readers? At US$15 each, it can't be that fast, can it? Dare I hope for DV cameras with a stack of these plugged into the back instead of tapes?

    I've been to their site [storcard.com] and had a quick look, but found only this:

    ISO 7816 communication speed is 9600 baud, while the StorReader supports a sustained data transfer rate of 5 megabytes per second in the 100 megabyte StorCard, and scales in the 5 gigabyte design.

    Does "scales" means what I think it does? It's surely too good to be true that, if the 100 meg card is 5 megabytes a second, that the 5 gig card is 250 meg a second. Yeah, that's too good to be true. Plus knowing me my math is probably off.

    I'm guessing that since they mention USB but not USB2 that it's not fast enough for broadcastable video. But I can hope. :-)

  • If I have to buy a separate reader (USB & FireWire please) I'd rather not take the chance of the media (the card-drive itself) breaking on me as it makes repeated transitions from wallet to reader or bouncing around in my pocket and being subjected to other thermal/physical stresses.

  • Is it just me, or does this sound like a modern take on the floppy disk?

  • Why USB? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @10:02AM (#5126812) Journal

    Seriously, why USB? Why do I have to use an external connector and external device for something that I'd much rather have inside? Why not a 3,5"/' (damned imperial system) bay slot as a reader? And if it comes with internal processor and all, why not use it as a removable network drive? Users stuff their creditcard into the reader, machine reads stored username and key, compares it with domain server, grants user access to his or her network files while having 5gb for other programs...

  • Remember dataplay, quarter sized disks holding huge amounts. Going to replace minidiscs/ had music companies signed up etc..etc..

    What happened? While technically feasable the implimentation was too difficult. Delays and out of cash.

    Joins a long list of failed media. MD-Data, Jazz, SyQuest, Digital Compact Casset..

    While the technology is neat, I'll beleive it when I see it.

  • Not for use in cold places.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Darren.Moffat ( 24713 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @10:11AM (#5126869)
    The technical specs for the cards say they only work between 5C and 55C. Not much use for large parts of the Global in winter. Non operating mode goes down to -20C.

    So using it in your portable PDA, MP3/OGG player etc in winter is just too bad ;-(
    • Maybe your PDA/MP3/etc. player generates enough heat to raise the temp in the card slot to 5C - I know my lappy definitely does. In fact, most of the cards I have pulled out of a laptop are pushing the limit of being too hot.

      I don't think cool winters will be as much of a problem as hot summers, eg. Oz.
  • Just bigger and a bit smaller. Maybe more like the Jaz drive.

    The Zip drive was as cool piece of gear, I still use mine fairly regularly to shuttle files to and from the office.

    I'm wondering, though, if this thing will have the same drawbacks, namely:

    - too slow, both throughput and seek time. Made it OK for archiving, but you couldnt really run software off it

    - too expensive, when CD-Rs started being a buck a pop, 20 bucks for 100 meg zip disks was silly

    - too prone to failure. They frankly wore out too quick

    - The Jaz drives were notoriously buggy and glitchy, and died all the time. A good friend had one and did nothing but cuss about it
  • Another expensive device I'll accidentally sit on.
  • What's the difference, concept wise, between this and a floppy disc?
  • Ok, this looks really cool, but I wonder how they will hold up? I used to have an old car stereo made by Blaupunkt, which used a smartcard like this instead of a removeable faceplate for security. After about a year of use, the microprocessor had pretty much seperated from the card and was about to fall out. I also was never comfortable with the card being able to flex like a credit card like they promise because it was actually a little stiffer, and felt more brittle than a credit card.

    Of course, a years worth of use on a card like that for under $15 still isn't bad, I would just hope that I would be able to get my data from the card before it came apart. This also has the added complexity of moving parts inside, so it might be even less reliable than my stereo's card was. That is some really cool technology though.

  • Too late to market... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sunbane ( 146740 )
    They are going to face what has just about put iomega out of business. I can already buy 4.7GB dvd+r media for $3-4... By the time this comes out we'll be starting to be close to the Blu-Ray discs that hold 27GB and will probably be just as cheap as these $15 drives. I just don't see it happening - especially when you need a dedicated reader. So as far as removable media it is doomed.

    Then as far as a one time standalone? The fact that you need a special reader kills it. Notebook harddrives are already very small and higher density (even have 20GB in an iPod!) and the IBM Microdrive is already out in 4GB and will fit in a standard compact flash slot. Just don't see this happening.
  • ...is still a frigging HD, much like, "the king of spam is still a spammer".

    Let's abandon the whole small HD idea already and go for solid state.
  • Wouldn't something like this make public terminals more useful?

    5 GB of encrypted data is more than enough to store a complete desktop workspace and even if it's not durable enough to put in a wallet, it IS small enough for a shirt or front pocket. The ideal companion software for this device would be an operating system utility to dump your entire workspace onto the card so you can set up anywhere anytime without worrying about setup hassles or security. The article mentions onboard encryption so even losing the device wouldn't be an immediate loss or compromise of your workspace property.

    At my work, we have a network infrastructure problem so our system admins won't give us roaming profiles even though the nature of our business means that we don't always work at our own desks. A 5-10 meg profile doesn't seem that large, but in our case (old building, old/clunky LAN) it's too much to shove over the network each time we log on, so we have to manually set up a user profile on each computer. An encrypted card with our workspace and profile on it might make for a tidy solution and reduce network load even when we finally get our new LAN up and running someday, because we could take that card and load our profile anywhere even when away from the home office.

    It would need OS support and reasonably cheap hardware and you can't count on Microsoft to play ball unless they thought of it first, but the potential seems obvious.
  • Now I can upgrade to something better than my wonderful Replay drive! Oh, wait...uh...hm.

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