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1" Hard Drives in Cellphones on the Rise

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the coming-to-the-tipping-point dept.

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."

28 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. define: DAP by Caspian · · Score: 4, Informative

    I had to think about this for a moment. "DAP" means "Digital Audio Player". (e.g. iPod, etc.)

    I believe this is the first time this term has appeared in a SlashDot article. (Perhaps a SlashDot Glossary would be a good idea?)

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    1. Re:define: DAP by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:define: DAP by madfgurtbn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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'.

      --
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    3. Re:define: DAP by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Funny

      That would be nice, but you always have the option to, you know, RTFA.

      That's the attitude of someone who has no respect for other peoples' time. You're allowed, but I expect better of Slashdot's editorial staff. What is their function if not to save readers from unnecessary effort?

  2. whats the fascination with stuff that breaks? by Shivetya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:whats the fascination with stuff that breaks? by __aammuz5019 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I agree totally with not wanting a hard drive in my cell phone, but... has anyone tried to buy a cell phone *without* a camera in it lately? I don't want a camera in my cell phone either, because I work in the defense industry and I cannot take my phone into many buildings due to security restrictions. But, when I tried to purchase a cell phone without a camera, I found my only choice was a klunky offering that was too big for me and looked like it was several years old in design. I fear that the idea of having a hard drive in one's cell phone will "catch on," and shortly after, one will not be able to find a cell phone without one. Sigh! smp

    2. Re:whats the fascination with stuff that breaks? by Kufat · · Score: 2, Informative

      I was in the Verizon store yesterday (for an hour and fifty minutes, argh, but that's another story) and saw several reasonably nice, small phones without cameras. Nothing as small as a razr, but a few things smaller than, say, my Motorola E815.

    3. Re:whats the fascination with stuff that breaks? by mnemotronic · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Very small drives are ... a little different. You're probably thinking of Z-axis damage, where the heads "slap" into the media after the drive is dropped "face down". What's kewl about these tiny drives is that everything (including the head or heads) is smaller and lighter, with less mass, which means less momentum, which translates into fewer chances for this kind of damage. Another way to prevent damage is use an accelerometer which the embedded F/W will use to sense impending doom and park the heads on a non-data portion of the media, or to remove the heads from the media entirely (ramp loading).

      But in the end, you're right - Flash is much more tolerant of these kinds of environments. Yes it's expensive, but there's that Moore's Law thing that, for a few years now, has given us smaller, denser, and cheaper circuitry. There's also the limited number of rewrite cycles, but in the sub 1.8 inch drive arena, I think (MHO) Flash will be the ultimate winner. Until then, those of us using micro drives thank those of you who fork out the Really Big Bucks for Flash-based products (like the Nano) - you're helping drive down the cost for us all.

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    4. Re:whats the fascination with stuff that breaks? by WebCrapper · · Score: 2, Informative

      You obviously haven't ever worked for the government.

      Its not just government either - some companies don't let their users use thumb drives because of IP theft issues.

      While I work for part of the government that currently doesn't care about my cell phone, I've been applying to various parts that do care (Computer shtuff) - my current phone has a camera on it and if I get one job or another, I'll have to get a second phone (no camera) and change my card out daily. Heck, my father-in-law can't carry around a phone with a camera due to gov contracts...

      BTW - its soooo much easier here in Europe than it is in the US when it comes to cell phones. I tried to get a cell phone for my sister for Xmas and found that I would have to enter into a contract with any number of companies that serviced the area she lives in. Even the "prepaid" phones like Virgin had this issue. Here in the EU, I would have been able to buy a prepaid phone and send along a damn prepaid card with it. After that ran out, she would have been able to choose from any number of prepaid cards to use.

  3. A little more info by dcsmith · · Score: 2, Informative

    This article has a little more info, including a projected price of $18.50/GB.

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    This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
  4. Re:What do I need a hard drive on my phone?? by Dionysus · · Score: 3, Informative

    The drives shows up as USB storage devices (at least they do in the newer Nokia models). You can just access them that way and copy the music or whatever over. That's what I do.

    --
    Je ne parle pas francais.
  5. Mod Parent by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 2, Funny

    Those of us who own Distributed Array Processors agree with you. Mod parent +27.5 "Really Intelligent"

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  6. Of course he's going to predict that by DrSbaitso · · Score: 3, Informative

    I read an article about Cornice a while back (upon further googling, here it is). They were approached by Apple to be the exclusive supplier of HDs for the iPod Mini. They ended up turning Apple down in order to focus on the phone hard drive market. Time will tell how smart of a decision that was, but if there's one thing you can say about their CEO it's that he's got some brass ones. I think it was a pretty stupid move, but then Apple would be done with this tech by now (only flash in the Nano, bigger HDs in the 5G iPod) so maybe they will sell a lot of phones with hard drives and become rich.

    --
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  7. Hurrah for competition by hattig · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  8. "... by 2009..." by Slartibartfast · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:"... by 2009..." by sstidman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because by 2009 the HD capacity will be 100 GBs and cost less than your 8 GB flash card. And by that time we'll all be bitching about the uselessness of 8 GBs of storage. Batteries will likely have significantly higher capacity by then so we won't care as much, the hard drives will surely have some energy saving optimizations and the hard drives will surely be every bit as pluggable as compact flash. And if the phone/PDA/MP3 player has a GB or 2 of memory built-in (which it surely will by then), the device could spin up the drive, copy off the next few songs/videos from the disk, and then spin down the disk drive, saving tons of energy.

      Remember when your PC had a whole gigabyte hard drive? Remember wondering how you could ever fill that massive beast? Okay, I'm old.

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  9. MiniSD is already better by michaelmalak · · Score: 4, Informative
    It is already possible to get (I've had one for a month) 1GB of RAM in the mini-SD format, not to be confused with SD, which itself is smaller than CompactFlash. The miniSD is about the size of a fingernail, and that adapter you see at the bottom of the sandisk.com page is a slipcase to bring the miniSD up to the size of SD.

    By 2008, the projected release date of the 1" hard drive, I'm sure miniSD's will be up to at least 4GB if not 8GB, without the power drain of spinning platters, without the seek and latency, and in a much smaller form factor.

    We can see from IBM's CompactFlash hard drives how limited the market is -- basically photographers who can't afford the time to change their "film". But the trend is to smaller and more personal devices, and the market for tiny hard drives will be even smaller in 2008.

  10. There are modern phones without cameras by daveschroeder · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your issue is exactly why enterprise and government wireless providers offer versions of modern phones without cameras, such as the no-camera Treo 650NC offered by Sprint.

  11. Not to mention battery life by scsa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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?

  12. Re:What do I need a hard drive on my phone?? by DJCF · · Score: 2
    I have a Nokia 7610 / Symbian OS v7.0 / Series 60 with a rather nice 512 MB of RAM thanks to the expansion slot. I know the latest Symbian OS (v 9) does show up as a universal mass storage device and I would really, really love it if my phone did this too -- so I don't have to carry around a thumbdrive all the time.

    Does anyone know of a Symbian app that will simulate the phone as a mass storage device, or, failing that, does anyone know a way to upgrade a 7610 to the latest Symbian version?

    Cheers,
    Daniel

  13. Re:What's interesting about this... by Smidge204 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I hope that post was a troll. I don't know what's worse... the fact that none of what you said makes sense or the fact that apparently people think it's correct.

    For the mods who rated that post "informative" and "interesting":

    Microwaves have wavelengths measurable in centimeters. This makes them very bad for data storage. The whole reason the industry is trying to move to Blu-ray and similar technologies is because blue colored light has a much SHORTER wavelength than the traditional red colored lasers used in established data storage devices. The "size" of the bit being stored (and therefore the number of bits you can store in a given area) is directly proportional to this wavelength.

    The wavelength of the microwave radiation emitted by the phone is roughly 35 centimeters. The wavelength of light used in CD drives is roughly 0.000078 centimeters. That's nearly 13000 times larger! So you'd think you could store 1/13000th the data in the same spot using microwaves than you could fit using regular CD laser tech.

    All this ignores some other very serious technical issues, of course... like how the unfocused microwave energy emitted by the antenna (or anywhere else in the phone) is directed and focused towards the HD platter, and how the microwave energy is able to interact with the platter to read and toggle magnetic bits considering microwaves bounce right off metal surfaces.

    ------------------

    The size of the R/W heads is NOT a limiting factor.It is easy enough to use MEMS technology to make them only a few billions of a meter wide, so they can be built plenty small enough. The real limiting factor is how closely you can back the magnetic regions that encode the data before they interfere with each other and lose the ability to retain their state.

    I need another cup of coffee...
    =Smidge=

  14. Re:That depends. by jank1887 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    hmmm... DDR hard drive needs external power supply. So, basically the idea is to use RAM as a HDD by never turning it off? Nice. 'Cause power outages never happen.

    Although, seeing as how I have to reformat my windows box once a year or so, this would make that process really fast.

    Also, is there any validity to that device? Links to an article with no meat (manufacturer mentioned as "the firm"), and it only points to a webpage with an email address and the same graphic in the article.. My guess is someone was playing with Photoshop.

  15. Re:Cornice who? by sstidman · · Score: 2, Funny

    Your write, eye due no bedder. Eye maid a misteak. Sari.

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  16. battery life by stud9920 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    moving parts is just what my anemic battery needs.

  17. Re:Who would need this? by dcsmith · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Who has that many friends that they need a 10GB hard drive to store all their phone numbers?

    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.
  18. Re:Sturdy? by DuBois · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://www.corniceco.com/technology/crashguard.htm l

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  19. Re:custom OS? by Ced_Ex · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is it supposed to mean you are trying to be funny? Or maybe you just haven't realised, that some people, instead of bringing everywhere tons of gadgets, with backpack full of different rechargers for each of them, prefer to have only one; which could provide phone, internet, digital-camera, entertainment in the form of MP3 player, games, video, act as place to store notes and reminders, and provide all kind of different services at the suitable time when you choose to use them (hint: not necessarily all at once while driving)?

    I'm still waiting on a company to build a commercial level tri-corder. I'm getting sick of having to carry so much crap.

    --
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  20. Re:What do I need a hard drive on my phone?? by DietPepsiAddict · · Score: 2, Informative

    My Nokia 6255i has a space (under the battery, *dipshits*) for an MMC card & SIM card. I can load a 1Gig MMC full of mp3's, pull it from my PC reader, slip it in the phone, and play them until the battery dies. No need for tweaking them - the phone plays them just fine. And that works for some video's too. Granted, the screen is REALLY small to be watching video on, but it adds to the geek factor when your peers realize you're watching a movie while they're playing lame-ass games in the waiting lines... MUH HAhahahahh...