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*September 30, 2005 - *Can’t seem to lose your digital camera’s SD cards fast enough? Is that postage stamp sized media just too big? Well, if you buy a compact multi-functional cell phone in early 2006, keep your eye out for the newly announced Memory Stick Micro, a thumbnail-sized media card just 1.2 mm thick—with 32 GB of space.
Developed jointly by SanDisk Corporation and Sony Corporation, the new media, also called the M2, can handle devices that operate at 1.8 or 3.3 volts and transfer data at a rate of 160 Mbps. Compared to Sony Memory Stick PRO, it’s 75% smaller, almost 11 times faster, and can hold 16 times more data than the largest currently available size of Memory Stick PRO of 2 GB. According to Sony, 145 million units of Memory Stick have been shipped since the media’s development in 1998, and SanDisk and Sony hope the M2 will be just as popular.
"Sony's collaboration with SanDisk Corporation has continued to develop since our initial announcement of the joint Memory Stick PRO format development in 2003," said Sony Corporation’s President of Micro Systems Network Company, Akira Kubota. "Today's joint announcement of the Memory Stick Micro format provides a new, versatile IC recording media for mobile products such as mobile phones for sharing entertainment and data."
Licensing for products that will use the new Memory Stick Micro media is scheduled to begin on October 3 of this year. Though the M2 was specifically designed for cell phones, neither company has expressly stated that it will not be applied to cameras in the future. If it will be, Sony is prepared; a Memory Stick Micro Adapter has also been developed.