AlbertPacino
Explorer
Could IBM's Millipede mean the end of dedicated PDAs and MP3 players for good?
Quite frankly, I'm ready to ditch the idea of owning a PDA or an MP3 player. After all, my phone (the one that's irradiating me as I sit here and write) goes everywhere with me and the only reason it doesn't function as my full-time PDA or MP3 player (or digital camera for that matter) is that it doesn't have the memory to host everything I'd want to stick on it (contacts, notes, music, podcasts, documents, e-mail, etc.). I can't be alone in this thinking. Just today, news came out that there are at least 179,999,999 cell phone radiation absorbing souls in the U.S., in addition to me. Sure, as every year goes by, it feels like they (the proverbial "they" that is) are able to squeeze another order of magnitude of memory onto a Secure Digital (SD) or Compact Flash (CF) card. But those leaps in capacity have never been the sort of breakthrough increments that could turn an SD- or CF-sporting cell phone into a mean lean storage machine. And so, even when we have a gig of memory on our phones (thanks to an expansion slot), we take extra special care as to what goes into that memory. Bottom line? So far, there isn't a Treo or a PocketPC phone that rivals the iPod.
Perhaps IBM's Millipede will change that. According to a report by ZDNet UK's Dan Illet, IBM dazzled CeBIT attendees with a demonstration of the new MEMS-based storage technology that can fit 1 terabit of data per square inch, which nets out to the capacity of 25 DVDs fitting in an area the size of a postage stamp. According to a report on Tom's Hardware, "Total storage capacity of Millipede storage media device is expected to reach about 100 GByte in a SD card form factor when introduced." 100 gigabytes on an SD card? "Oh my" is all I can say.
Although Illet's report provides no details, another mobile advantage of Millipede will probably be power consumption. According to a Web page on IBM's Web site that's full of technical details about the technology, "All-silicon, batch fabrication, low-cost polymer media, and low power consumption make Millipede very attractive as a centimeter- or even millimeter-sized gigabyte storage system." The document goes on to describe typical applications of such nanodrives saying "Miniaturized and low-power storage systems will become crucial, particularly for mobile applications. The availability of storage devices with gigabyte capacity having a very small form factor (in the range of centimeters or even millimeters) will open up new possibilities to integrate such Nanodrives into watches, cellular telephones, laptops, etc., provided such devices have low power consumption."
As promising as it sounds, Illet's report also warns that the technology won't reach the market for at least another two years. Once it does, you can be certain that there will be a significant premium for some time to come. For example, even though they're a bargain considering the cost per megabyte, IBM's 1GB CF-based Microdrives are still in the near-$200 price range -- the sort of component cost that would push many cell phones (if they could accomodate a CF-slot, which most can't) out of the reach of many buyers' budgets.
So, now for some predictions. Already, smartphones with far less memory are too expensive for most consumers. When and if the Millipede technology comes to market, my expectation is that, like other new storage technologies when they first hit the market, it will be significantly more expensive on a per-megabyte basis than any other form of storage. Like what happens with newer faster processors, just Millipede's release will drive the price of the older storage technologies down (thus extending their popularity). In other words, the recent drop in the price of Apple's hard drive-based iPods won't be the last price drop we see. Not by a longshot.
As happened with the initially expensive Microdrive, however, the price of Millipede-based technologies will eventually drop into a range that's more affordable. But that's probably not for at least another 5-7 years. (Perhaps by then we'll see $400 iPods with capacities measured in terabytes rather than gigabytes.) Of course, we may also be asking just exactly what it is we'll need all that storage for. The explosion in memory capacity will change the nature of the applications we run on our handheld devices -- everything from locally delivered audio, images, and video to streaming on-demand multimedia that can be locally cached (thanks to the memory) for performance reasons to backup and restore applications for our PCs (or even better, just plugging them into the USB slot of another system will turn that system into "our" system).
Like USB keys, however, the continued miniaturization of high capacity storage will raise security concerns. Today, it's hard to walk about of a building with a copy of a multi-terabyte database. Tomorrow, with technologies like Millipede, it could be child's play. As usual, we have to take the bad with the good.
Source
:O wow,thats something i would love to have...
Quite frankly, I'm ready to ditch the idea of owning a PDA or an MP3 player. After all, my phone (the one that's irradiating me as I sit here and write) goes everywhere with me and the only reason it doesn't function as my full-time PDA or MP3 player (or digital camera for that matter) is that it doesn't have the memory to host everything I'd want to stick on it (contacts, notes, music, podcasts, documents, e-mail, etc.). I can't be alone in this thinking. Just today, news came out that there are at least 179,999,999 cell phone radiation absorbing souls in the U.S., in addition to me. Sure, as every year goes by, it feels like they (the proverbial "they" that is) are able to squeeze another order of magnitude of memory onto a Secure Digital (SD) or Compact Flash (CF) card. But those leaps in capacity have never been the sort of breakthrough increments that could turn an SD- or CF-sporting cell phone into a mean lean storage machine. And so, even when we have a gig of memory on our phones (thanks to an expansion slot), we take extra special care as to what goes into that memory. Bottom line? So far, there isn't a Treo or a PocketPC phone that rivals the iPod.
Perhaps IBM's Millipede will change that. According to a report by ZDNet UK's Dan Illet, IBM dazzled CeBIT attendees with a demonstration of the new MEMS-based storage technology that can fit 1 terabit of data per square inch, which nets out to the capacity of 25 DVDs fitting in an area the size of a postage stamp. According to a report on Tom's Hardware, "Total storage capacity of Millipede storage media device is expected to reach about 100 GByte in a SD card form factor when introduced." 100 gigabytes on an SD card? "Oh my" is all I can say.
Although Illet's report provides no details, another mobile advantage of Millipede will probably be power consumption. According to a Web page on IBM's Web site that's full of technical details about the technology, "All-silicon, batch fabrication, low-cost polymer media, and low power consumption make Millipede very attractive as a centimeter- or even millimeter-sized gigabyte storage system." The document goes on to describe typical applications of such nanodrives saying "Miniaturized and low-power storage systems will become crucial, particularly for mobile applications. The availability of storage devices with gigabyte capacity having a very small form factor (in the range of centimeters or even millimeters) will open up new possibilities to integrate such Nanodrives into watches, cellular telephones, laptops, etc., provided such devices have low power consumption."
As promising as it sounds, Illet's report also warns that the technology won't reach the market for at least another two years. Once it does, you can be certain that there will be a significant premium for some time to come. For example, even though they're a bargain considering the cost per megabyte, IBM's 1GB CF-based Microdrives are still in the near-$200 price range -- the sort of component cost that would push many cell phones (if they could accomodate a CF-slot, which most can't) out of the reach of many buyers' budgets.
So, now for some predictions. Already, smartphones with far less memory are too expensive for most consumers. When and if the Millipede technology comes to market, my expectation is that, like other new storage technologies when they first hit the market, it will be significantly more expensive on a per-megabyte basis than any other form of storage. Like what happens with newer faster processors, just Millipede's release will drive the price of the older storage technologies down (thus extending their popularity). In other words, the recent drop in the price of Apple's hard drive-based iPods won't be the last price drop we see. Not by a longshot.
As happened with the initially expensive Microdrive, however, the price of Millipede-based technologies will eventually drop into a range that's more affordable. But that's probably not for at least another 5-7 years. (Perhaps by then we'll see $400 iPods with capacities measured in terabytes rather than gigabytes.) Of course, we may also be asking just exactly what it is we'll need all that storage for. The explosion in memory capacity will change the nature of the applications we run on our handheld devices -- everything from locally delivered audio, images, and video to streaming on-demand multimedia that can be locally cached (thanks to the memory) for performance reasons to backup and restore applications for our PCs (or even better, just plugging them into the USB slot of another system will turn that system into "our" system).
Like USB keys, however, the continued miniaturization of high capacity storage will raise security concerns. Today, it's hard to walk about of a building with a copy of a multi-terabyte database. Tomorrow, with technologies like Millipede, it could be child's play. As usual, we have to take the bad with the good.
Source
:O wow,thats something i would love to have...
