Slashdot Mirror
1" Hard Drives in Cellphones on the Rise
Tomo Hiratsuka writes "The imminent 10Gb 1-inch hard drives we've been hearing about have been well covered but the maker, Cornice, reckons its product could end up in over 70 million cellphones by 2009. Kevin Magenis, one of the company founders, isn't shy about pointing out that this is 30 million units more than predicted DAP sales."
I do not want a harddrive in my phone. My phone gets more abuse than any other gadget I have. Granted its cheaper than using flash but hell I would rather pay for something that isn't going to possibly be toast when it bounces once off the pavement.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This is what competition (in this instance, between flash memory and tiny hard drives) is all about - better products for less money.
...
$18.50 a gigabyte is pretty nice for such a small device. Flash isn't near that currently, but probably will be in 6 to 12 months time. Of course flash pushers will come up with other advantages for their side I'm sure
What's more interesting is that these drives are so thin - under 4mm thick! That's kinda sexy. Would I want it in a battered cell phone? Dunno. Do I need 10GB in a phone even? I'd prefer it in a digital camera, or tiny media player. It'll be a 'hit' in the integrated phone/media player market I'm sure. Somehow these devices take the worst aspect of every platform they try to integrate and reproduce it - but one day they'll get it right.
Huh? Why, in the world, have a 10 GB HD, when -- by 2009 -- you'll be able to have (for a slightly higher premium) 8 GB of flash? Lessee:
Flash uses less energy
Doesn't need to spin up
Won't "crash" [flash can have its own problems, but the heads ain't one of 'em]
Can be easily extracted and plugged into external devices
Etc.
I love hard drives, but the super-duper-really-small stuff has never (and, IMHO, will never) catch on; flash has that pretty much sewn up.
My clunky old Nokia 6310 lasted 2 weeks without a recharge, but my new super-fantabulous 6230i with colour screen, mp3 playback and movie capture barely lasts four days - without even using any of that crap!
What's a hard drive going to do to already crappy battery performance? Bring us back to the 90's routine of charging every single night?
moving parts is just what my anemic battery needs.
Yeah, becasue no one wants to use their phone for anything except making and receiving phone calls. Except taking photos. And surfing the internet. An sending e-mail. And, these days, watching streaming video. Besides that, nothing at all. Except for rest of the stuff I missed.
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
Perhaps a SlashDot Glossary would be a good idea?
Perhaps Slashdot editors could do what every professional editor on the planet does, and define what an acronym means the first time it's referenced in every article.
This is common sense. I will grant, due to Slashdot's subject matter there are some acronyms that are common enough that they don't need to be defined (GNU, MS, RIAA) but if, as you suggest, this is the first time the term 'DAP' has appeared in a Slashdot story summary, the reader is owed a definition.
Perhaps Slashdot editors could do what every professional editor on the planet does, and define what an acronym means the first time it's referenced in every article.
That would be nice, but you always have the option to, you know, RTFA.
Slashdot covers many esoteric subjects, so it's not likely that you will know every acronym or the name of every obscure language, technology, or application. Many times I have had to go into the threads to get more info about what the article was about, and many times I have learned interesting and very useful information that way.
Just sayin'.
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
http://www.corniceco.com/technology/crashguard.htm l
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.