Startup Blog

SanDisk announced that it is has begun sampling 6- and 8-gigabyte (GB)1 microSD™ High Capacity (microSDHC™) flash memory cards to major phone manufacturers and mobile network operators (MNOs) for testing and evaluation. The new cards are ideal for the growing number of feature-rich multimedia handsets that bring together phones, music players, hand-held computers, digital cameras and more. An 8GB microSDHC card can store more than 2,000 digital songs, or more than 5,000 high-resolution pictures, or up to 5 hours of high-quality MPEG 4 video2.

Retail release of the cards and availability to phone manufacturers and network operators are planned for later in 2007. Pricing has not yet been determined.

“With these new cards, any mobile phone with a compatible microSDHC slot will have just as much storage as the largest-capacity iPhone,” said Jeff Kost, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Consumer Solutions division at SanDisk. “What’s more, removable cards make it easy to share content you create with friends, ‘sideload’ files from a computer, and add more storage simply by purchasing more cards. By offering capacities of 6GB and 8GB, SanDisk is poised to enable people to enjoy more photos, more map data for navigation, more videos, more games and more music, wherever they go, on any phone with a compatible microSDHC slot.”

SDHC is the designation for any SD™ or SD-based card that is larger than 2GB and adheres to the new SD 2.00 specification required for cards and hosts to support 4GB to 32GB capacities. The specification was developed by the SD Association, an industry standards board, which has also created three classes to define minimum sustained data transfer speed. These cards adhere to the SD Speed Class 4 Rating.3

In addition to microSDHC, SanDisk offers a broad range of both embedded and removable storage solutions for mobile handset manufacturers and mobile network operators. Product lines include iNAND™ and mDOC™ embedded flash drives and microSD™, miniSD™, Memory Stick Micro™ M2 and MegaSIM™ cards.

SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the world’s largest supplier of flash data storage card products, using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., and has operations worldwide, with more than half its sales outside the U.S.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, announced that it has begun mass producing - the highest density SSD available today for mobile computing applications.

“We see sharply increasing interest in SSDs among OEMs worldwide amid a growing push to launch premium SSD-based notebooks, particularly in the ultra-mobile category,” said Jim Elliott, director, flash marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc.

SSDs feature far greater reliability, faster boot times and faster application start-up times than hard disk drives. SSD can also improve battery life by up to 20 percent in notebooks.

The 64GB SSD consists of 64 eight Gigabit (Gb) single-level cell flash memory chips. Use of 51nm process technology permits fabrication of much smaller components, with each chip having circuitry 1/2500th the width of a human hair.

Samsung is aggressively expanding market development efforts for its SSDs. Industry wide attention on ultra-light, ultra-slim notebook PCs with flash memory based SSDs reflects early market support for this new storage medium. In addition, Samsung has already introduced 32GB SSDs into ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPCs). SSDs also are being considered for server applications such as in advertising and for Web search engines. Other digital consumer products such as camcorders, PDAs and printers can now be equipped with SSDs ranging from 4GB to 64GB.

Samsung’s mass production of 64GB SSDs makes it the largest producer of high-capacity SSDs in the world.

Rapid expansion of the 1.8-inch SSD market will spark demand for even smaller SSD formats to be used in mobile consumer electronics. The miniaturization of SSDs will give rise to new types of digital products. Over the next three years, 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SSDs will also gain a great deal of momentum for widespread use in standard notebooks and desktop PCs, respectively.

Samsung expects that sales of SSD units will increase at a rapid 270 percent pace industry-wide between now and 2010 to become the largest growth segment in the NAND flash industry.

CNet today writes about a new startup: Start-up Robot Genius deploys new security technology

Robot Genius, an Oakland, Calif.-based start-up, announced Monday that it has created a new suite of security products designed to combat malicious software attacks like spyware, adware, and rootkits through a threefold approach of prevention, detection, and remediation.

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D-Wave Systems is now demonstrating commercial availability of its quantum computer, CNET reports.

D-Wave’s computer is optimized for running complex and oftentimes consuming simulations–for example, what happens when different variables are changed in an ornate financial model, or how different proteins interact with various synthetic, simulated pharmaceuticals. The system also could be used for nonscientific research such as searching patent databases for matches and overlap of intellectual property.

Zink Imaging is debuting “a portable device that makes it ultra-convenient to print photos from digital cameras and phones”, which requires zero ink, and hence the name of the company.

USA Today profiles Wisher, a Spanish startup that provides free of charge software for hooking a WiFi device to any WiFi network available out there. Of which the municipal broadband and residential broadband are the most interesting:

Whisher, based in Barcelona and backed by Switzerland’s leading phone company, Swisscom, and the venture firm Benchmark Capital, is one of several emerging start-ups that is taking broadband to the people by providing access through existing residential Wi-Fi networks.

You can download the software on Wisher Web site.

A similar release has been announced today by the company called DeviceScape. The software is downloadable here. VentureBeat has more information on the new release:

The service, a software download, automatically detects when there’s a Wifi network nearby; you can set the phone to vibrate, for example, to alert you when you’re near one. Phones, music players, or any other WiFi device can use the service. The device can also download subscribed information from Wifi hotspots, without you having to do anything.

Over at GigaOm it’s pointed out that support for Wi-Fi phones is sorely missing:

The devices that desperately need Devicescape-like software are mobile phones with Wi-Fi. If you look at the networks their software supports, Devicescape is highly skewed to the European markets - markets where people are big Symbian users. The sales of Wi-Fi-enabled dual mode handsets (that use Symbian OS) are increasing in Europe. And yet, there is no Devicescape client software for Symbian phones. Instead they develop a client for the Nokia Tablet, a device whose actual sales numbers are embarrassingly small.

Retrevo announced that it has secured $3.2 million in Series B venture financing led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). Series A investor, Alloy Ventures, also participated in the round. Retrevo also announced that Matthew D. Howard, general partner at NVP, has joined the board. Retrevo, which launched last September at DEMO Fall, is the first dedicated search engine developed specifically for pre-purchase research, shopping and post-purchase support of consumer electronics. The new financing will be used to accelerate product development, strategic partnerships and marketing.

Retrevo is a single source for all consumer electronics information, from the latest buzz and deals to hard-to-find product documentation. Retrevo helps consumers check community opinions, find pre-purchase information, monitor daily deals and get product documentation for technical support and troubleshooting. As electronic products become more complex and interconnected to other devices, Retrevo provides succinct information in 12 consumer electronics categories, including cell phones, smartphones, cameras, camcorders, home audio and home video, portable audio and portable video, printers and wireless networking (WiFi).

LiveOps is in the business of building distributed customer service centers, where it hires people to work from home on support issues for the customers. The company recruited eBay COO:

Webb said he wanted to be part of a fast-growing company, touting LiveOps’ potential to fundamentally change the way people work from remote sites. “It frees people up to work anytime, anywhere,” he said. “It’s creating a marketplace for work where one didn’t used to be.”

News.com covers Boston Power, which supposedly designed a more efficient and safer laptop battery:

Boston-Power has taken the lithium-ion battery technology, as we know it today, to the next level and broken through the perceived performance ceiling. In short, Boston-Power gives you batteries that do better and last longer.