GDrive rumours solidify – code spotted in Google Apps

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The rumours around Google’s GDrive, which we reported on the other day, look to be gaining steam. First, there was a mysterious menu option appearing in Picasa for Mac, and now code’s been added to Google Apps that references a ‘webdrive’. There’s even a little icon for it.

I’ll reiterate my comment from the other post – this isn’t likely to be ‘unlimited’ storage. People have too much crap for Google to allow that, and most of that crap is dubiously-acquired intellectual property like movies, games and music. Google’s had problems with that with YouTube, so I find it unlikely that they won’t put restrictions on the service.

More likely, we’ll see a limited storage, limited file upload service that doesn’t do very much more than what you can already do with Google Docs and Google Mail. When will we see it? My money’s on ‘fairly soon’.

(via Google Operating System)

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Rumours of Google planning an incredible unlimited cloud storage service

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Whispers around the intertubes would have you believe that Google has something very special planned for this year – unlimited cloud storage. It would mean that if you’ve got a fast enough broadband connection, then you’d no longer need more than a tiny hard drive – everything else could be stored online.

For the record, I don’t think Google’s quite there yet. Even their email product is officially limited, when its competitors’ products aren’t. There’s every chance that we’ll see some sort of limited storage product released by the Goog in 2009 but, well, the ‘unlimited’ label – I just don’t think it can happen yet.

(via ShinyShiny)

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USB Wristband makes fashion history

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Although having a USB drive around is very handy, they’re a bit annoying to carry around. If you wear them on a lanyard, you look like you’ve just stepped out of a computer scientist’s convention, and they’re a bit too bulky to carry on a keychain.

The wristband pictured above, sold by tinyliving, remedies the problem somewhat, providing 512MB of storage wrapped around your wrist. It’s still not the coolest-looking bit of kit in the world though, giving me flashbacks to 2005’s Make Poverty FashionableHistory campaign. Still, if you want one they’re just $30 (£21) so we’re not exactly talking a massive outlay for this addition to your wardrobe.

Flash Drive Band (via LikeCool)

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GODLIKE GENIUS: CD-Rs that look like floppies

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Yesterday, we had floppy disk posters, before Christmas we had floppy disk gift tags, today we’ve got floppy disk CD-Rs. Evidently the humble 3.5″ floppy, subject of much mockery in the school playground, is now the coolest kid on the block.

Sure, they only hold 200MB of data (though that’s 13789% more than the originals) and they’re a little on the expensive side – at $10 (£7) a CD, but you can’t put a price on retro-cool, right? Right? What do you mean “28p and a blackjack”?

Designboom (via Technabob)

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CES 2009: New SD card standard paves the way for 2TB capacities

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The SD association has announced a new top-end to the capacities of its eponymous flash memory cards. The new spec is called “SDXC” – short for “eXtended Capacity”, and it’ll hold up to 2TB of data, with transfer speeds rocketing up to 104MB/s. In contrast, the previous maximums were 32GB and 10MB/s.

This is just a specification – there’s no products yet – and support for the format will have to make its way into devices before it’ll be much use selling the cards. However, I think it’s fairly safe to say that we’ll be seeing these on shelves in a year or so.

(via Gizmodo)

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Toshiba will be showing off capacious SSD at CES

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If you needed any more evidence that solid-state-drives (SSDs) will be taking over from traditional hard drives pretty damn soon, then here it is. Toshiba’s developed an SSD that’s 512GB – twice the size of their recently launched 256GB model.

SSDs use fast flash memory for storage, rather than the traditional mechanical magnetic platter which is slower and more prone to failure. This particular drive uses 43-nanometer Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND flash technology to cram those gigabytes into a 2.5″ enclosure.

Tosh will also be offering 256GB, 128GB and 64GB drives, each in a choice of 1.8″ or 2.5″ enclosures.They’ll be available sometime between April and June, but they’ll be shown off at CES in January. No pricing info yet.

Toshiba (via Cnet)

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PNY launches SDHC memory cards aimed at netbook users

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PNY has managed to re-brand the humble SDHC memory card, calling it an SDHC NetBook Memory Card, and aiming it at netbook PC users who want to increase the capacity of their lowly portable machines.

Forget that SDHCs are used in a variety of portable devices already. PNY’s SDHC NetBook Memory Card comes in 8GB and 16GB capacities so is perfect for upgrading the oft-minimal built-in storage of netbook computers.

Next month, PNY is even going to upgrade its range of cards to suit netbook users. Can you tell that I’ve run out of things to say about memory cards and netbooks?