It's flash card season at CES (especially given the shutterbug boost by the conjoined Photo Marketing Association show), and SanDisk has a contribution with high-capacity mid-range SDXC cards.
The two SanDisk Extreme models, 64GB and 128GB, can transfer data at 45MBps. That's less than half the speed of the company's top-end Extreme Pro line of SD cards at 95MBps, but it should be good enough for many photographers and videographers.
The high capacity comes with a price premium--prices for the cards are $200 and $400--but could be useful for those shooting lots of video or traveling away from a computer. And if you're shooting raw photos--my camera's weigh in at 30MB apiece, typically--this card will hold more than 4,000 still images.
The cards are available now, SanDisk said (flying in the face of the CES vaporware trend).
The cards, with the UHS-I interface, are up to the chore of capturing 3D video in high-definition 1080p video, Sandisk said.
Also at CES, SanDisk rival Lexar announced faster but more expensive UHS-I cards, including a 64 gb
model that reaches 90MB/sec and a 128GB model that reaches 60MB/sec.
And on a more ethereal plane, Sony announced the first examples of a new flash card format called XQD. It offered 16GB and 32GB models of the cards, which so far work only in Nikon's new flagship D4 SLR.
The CompactFlash Association developed the new format as a sequel to CF. XQD offers faster data transfer speeds--125MBps in Sony's case--with faster speeds to come.
More tablets, PCs, and TVs to adopt AMOLED displays
AMOLED (active matrix organic light emitting diode) displays are ideal for tablets and TVs as they offer high contrast ratios, quick response times, and wide viewing angles. The technology also allows for such devices to be thin, flexible, and even transparent, the research firm notes.On the other hand, AMOLED technology has faced challenges scaling up to screen sizes much larger than those on smartphones. But the latest improvements in the technology are expected to pave the way for its use on bigger devices, though production can still carry a high price tag."OLED displays operate through direct emission, as opposed to transmissive LCD or reflective displays, which enables area lighting," Jennifer Colegrove, vice president of emerging display technologies for NPD DisplaySearch, said in a statement. "The technology has made good progress and is ready to enter large-size applications, but low cost manufacturing for large sizes is still a challenge."
In December Samsung released a 7.7-inch Galaxy Tab tablet that uses a Super AMOLED Plus display. LG is expected to launch a 55-inch OLED TV sometime this year.And NPD DisplaySearch sees other tablet and laptop vendors adopting the technology in 2012 as the manufacturing process starts to allow for larger displays in a more cost-effective way.Revenue from OLED displays overall might have surpassed $4 billion last year, estimates NPD DisplaySearch, around 4 percent of all flat-panel display sales. As more companies latch onto the technology, revenue could shine past $20 billion by 2018, accounting for 16 percent of the entire display industry.
