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SanDisk first began letting some details slip late last year about the possibility of bringing a write-once memory card to market. Well even though most of us have long since forgotten this concept, it seems SanDisk has been hard at work getting them ready.

They have officially announced the WORM (Write Once Read Many) SD card, which is being aimed at the professional market with suggested uses such as “police investigations, court testimony, electronic voting and other applications where data files must be protected from alteration or deletion.”

The new WORM SD cards offer a 100-year lifespan and are locked as soon as the card it written to with, according to SanDisk “no physical way to alter or delete individual recorded files,” although I would imagine there are lots of people who will take that as a personal challenge. 

Currently SanDisk has a 128MB model that is available, and are planning to release larger storage options in the future. We can only imagine that these are not the cheapest option around because the pricing is simply listed as ‘available on request,” which usually means its expensive.

Read [SanDisk]

SanDisk has announced they have purchased MusicGremlin, which for those of you who cannot remember, were perhaps way ahead of their time when they released their MusicGremlin Wi-Fi MP3 player a few years back. This terms of the sale were, of course, undisclosed and the details as to just what SanDisk has in the works remains a mystery. We do however know that the acquisition will fall under SanDisk’s Sansa audio/video business unit.

Daniel Schreiber, general manager and senior vice president for SanDisk’s Sansa audio/video business unit stated that;

“MusicGremlin’s digital distribution platform and capabilities will provide SanDisk with adaptive and innovative technology that will play a key role in the development of future Sansa products for consumers,”

While as far as we can remember the big catch on the MusicGremlin, although it was not well received at the time was the built-in Wi-Fi. It looks like SanDisk could be a making an attempt at a second shot with a Wi-Fi enabled music player. SanDisk tried in the past, with yet another acquisition that was the Sansa Connect.

Read [SanDisk]

This goes out to all you our dear readers who have used SanDisk’s video download service called Fanfare and its accompanying hardware, TakeTV. If you’ve liked the service, too bad you won’t be able to use it anymore as SanDisk has just axed the service and stopped selling the hardware. So, what are you going to do with your TakeTV hardware? Luckily, SanDisk said that you can still use it’s drag-and-drop features to watch (non-Fanfare) digital videos on your TV. Well, that was pretty comforting.

Alright for those who don’t know what are talking about here, Fanfare was being touted as a cheaper alternative to the iTunes store. While TakeTV is like an Apple media player it provided a quick, easy and portable way of watching DivX, Xvid and MPEG4 videos on your TV, similar to what game consoles such as the Xbox 360 or PS3 can also do.

So, it is understandable that SanDisk would be forced to close down the service and stopped selling the hardware. Especially since, Fanfare didn’t get a much needed partnership agreement with content providers.

Via [News.com]

With consumer’s growing interests in the so called ultra-low cost PC (ULPC) market, it seems only logical for data storage companies to take advantage of the situation and come up with something that is very essential for most ULPCs available on the market today. We’re talking about solid state drives (SSD), and SanDisk has come up with its 16GB pSSD to add to its line-up of flash-memory based SSD’s.

In addition to the 16GB model, SanDisk’s new pSSD is also available with 4 and 8GB capacities. Regardless of which model you get, the SanDisk pSSDs all boast a 39mbps read speed and 17mbps write speed. The SanDisk pSSD’s were built using multi-level Cell and Single-Level Cell flash memory.

If you’re wondering about the pSSD’s other features, we are glad to inform you that the pSSD are packed inside a memory device which is 1/10 of the weight of a 1.8-inch HDD. The pSSD is also rugged, reliable and fast, is also utilizes a standard low power interface and form factor. These new pSSD’s from SanDisk should definitely help boost the popularity of future ULPC’s.

Via [Electronista]

SanDisk has just added a fast read/write memory card to its Memory Stick product line, the Extreme III Memory Stick PRO-HG-Duo. How fast? If 30mbps read and write capability ain’t fast enough for you, better wake up, cause this is the fastest that a memory card could possibly read so far.

Slated for launch during the PMA Australia Imaging Technology Show which runs from May 30 to June 1, this new memory card will come in 4GB and 8GB storage capacities. Suffice to say that this card would be of great use for photography purposes. Be reminded that Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo is the direct off-shot of the Memory Stick PRO format memory card and was developed by both Sony and SanDisk to answer the needs of PRO-HG capable Sony cameras.

The 4GB and 8GB memory card will start hitting the market worldwide sometime in June for $89.99 and $149.99 respectively.

Read [SanDisk]

SanDisk has upped the notch in memory card storage with the release of its new high-capacity microSD, microSDHC and Memory Stick Micro (M2) which all belong in their new Mobile Ultra card series. These flash mobile memory cards boast of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities as well as offering fast loading speeds and accelerated transfer rates.

SanDisk said that their new Mobile Ultra flash memory card series will fit well with budding mobile phone photographers and videographers, thanks to their high-storage capacity and the ability to easily transfer photos and videos to PC’s. SanDisk has packed their Mobile Ultra memory cards with a MobileMate Micro Reader that users can plug into the USB port of their machines which allows for those fast data transfers. This also goes for users who habitually transfer their digital media into social media or video-sharing sites.

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Portable apps are great, they are now becoming more and more popular and users can choose to run just about anything from email clients to web browsers to office suites all from a USB drive. Scott Kingery, a blogger at TechLifeBlogged recently wrote about his application, Windows Live Writer Portable. Scott has released a new version of Windows Live Writer that will work with U3 and non-U3 based USB drives. The software launcher U3 is typically found on USB sticks by SanDisk.

Kingery wrote a step by step instructions on how to use the Windows Live Writer Portable 2.0 app and thankfully he included instructions to make it work on both U3-based SanDisk drives, but also non-U3 drives as well. You may view Scott’s detailed instructions here.

Read [TechLifeBlogged] Via [on10]

SanDisk is releasing DRM-free music of 50 new and emerging artists on microSD cards. This program is part of SanDisk’s campaign to promote its recently announced 8GB Sansa Fuze.

The microSD card will contain a collection of rock, pop, and hip hop songs, music videos and photos from more than 30 record labels. Among those featured artists in the microSD cards are All Time Low Ladytron, Magnet, Nada Surf, Of Montreal and The Coup. All 50 tracks included in Sansa microSD card were selected and licensed by LA-based entertainment and music marketing agency NonStop Riot.

U.S.-based music fans who will purchase the 8GB Sansa Fuse player will receive a promotional coupon that they can use to redeem the Sansa microSD card containing the 50 DRM-free music tracks.

Read [SanDisk]

While we saw the details for the Sansa Fuze emerge yesterday, which came courtesy of Amazon, SanDisk have since confirmed the details with an official press release.

While Amazon had most of the details, there are a few additional items to note. The Sansa Fuze will be available in a 2GB model in black, a 4GB model in black, blue, red or pink and an 8GB model which is only available in silver. They will retail for $79.99, $99.99 and $129.99 respectively and hit the stores in “early April.” The Sansa Fuze will have support for music services to include Rhapsody To Go, Napster and eMusic. Music playback will support MP3, WAV, Audible and both unprotected and protected WMA files, video playback will support MPEG-4 and the Fuze will also be able to view JPEG photos.

Read [Business Wire]

The Sansa Fuze from SanDisk has shown its true availability, and while it may not yet be shipping, the listing on Amazon confirms it will be shortly. Well shortly may be a little generous, as Amazon currently has it listed as shipping “within 1 to 3 months.”

The Sansa Fuze will feature a 1.9-inch display, 4GB of internal storage, a microSDHC card slot for additional storage, FM tuner, built-in microphone and a battery life of 24 hours for audio playback or 5 hours for video playback.

It will, according to Amazon be available in black, pink or red and will retail for $99.99. While it would make sense to see other colors and additional storage sizes available, no details have been leaked or announced just yet.

Products [Amazon] Via [DAP Review]