Thursday, September 29, 2005
SanDisk Announces TrustedFlash
Posted by Darius Wey in "HARDWARE" @ 03:00 PM
"Heralding a significant breakthrough in mobile entertainment, SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today introduced TrustedFlash, a new technology that will enable consumers to buy premium music, movies and games on flash memory cards for use interchangeably in mobile phones, laptop computers, PDAs and other portable devices. The announcement was made at a press conference at the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment Show, where SanDisk is showing products at Booth 944. Music producers and movie studios will be able to release premium content on TrustedFlash products because it provides the superior security and digital rights management solutions that are required by these providers. Consumers will be able to download premium content from online digital music services through their mobile phone or PC. They'll also be able to purchase pre-recorded content on SanDisk's new gruvi cards, the first product to be released with TrustedFlash."
Something else to come out of the SanDisk press room: TrustedFlash. If all goes to plan, this could change the way we view content on our mobile devices. These days, most exclusive digital content is bound to a host device by way of a license. SanDisk hopes to change that by opening up a world where content is bound to the card itself, effectively giving consumers the freedom to use the card (and thus view its content) in any device supporting TrustedFlash. And another key theme featured here is interoperability: where non-secure host devices are present, TrustedFlash cards function just like any other memory card.
TrustedFlash might sound like wishful thinking by SanDisk's development team, but it's already on its way to becoming a reality with key industry figures like EMI Music, Samsung Mobile Communications, Yahoo! Music and NDS all signing on to be one of the first to adopt TrustedFlash. But as with every innovation, there are downsides, and I don't think I need to be the first to point just how unwilling Joe User would be to swap cards just so he can listen to his favourite song on his Pocket PC? Food for thought... ;)
For the moment, TrustedFlash will focus on digital media content, though there are plans to support mobile commerce applications and secure online financial transactions sometime in 2006. As we speak, TrustedFlash is shipping to OEMs in miniSD, microSD and SD (in capacities up to 2GB), so we might just see the first wave of TrustedFlash content sometime soon.
Something else to come out of the SanDisk press room: TrustedFlash. If all goes to plan, this could change the way we view content on our mobile devices. These days, most exclusive digital content is bound to a host device by way of a license. SanDisk hopes to change that by opening up a world where content is bound to the card itself, effectively giving consumers the freedom to use the card (and thus view its content) in any device supporting TrustedFlash. And another key theme featured here is interoperability: where non-secure host devices are present, TrustedFlash cards function just like any other memory card.
TrustedFlash might sound like wishful thinking by SanDisk's development team, but it's already on its way to becoming a reality with key industry figures like EMI Music, Samsung Mobile Communications, Yahoo! Music and NDS all signing on to be one of the first to adopt TrustedFlash. But as with every innovation, there are downsides, and I don't think I need to be the first to point just how unwilling Joe User would be to swap cards just so he can listen to his favourite song on his Pocket PC? Food for thought... ;)
For the moment, TrustedFlash will focus on digital media content, though there are plans to support mobile commerce applications and secure online financial transactions sometime in 2006. As we speak, TrustedFlash is shipping to OEMs in miniSD, microSD and SD (in capacities up to 2GB), so we might just see the first wave of TrustedFlash content sometime soon.
