Highest Capacity SD Card in the World

Pretec (www.pretec.com) has released the 8GB SD card, the highest capacity SD card in the world. The Pretec 8GB SD card is fully compliant with SD 2.0 (SDHC) specifications with access speed up to 20MB/sec. The maximum capacity of an SD card is 2GB under SD 1.1 of the Secure Digital Alliance (SDA) specifications; however, by using the file format FAT32, many SD 1.1 host devices can use 4GB SD cards.

SD 1.0/1.1 uses the traditional “Byte Addressing” scheme which limits the maximum capacity to 4GB while SD 2.0 adopts the “Sector Addressing” scheme which is the same as the technique applied by the Mu-Card Alliance in 2004 to reach the maximum capacity of 2TB (2048GB). With capacities of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB, Pretec SDHC is now available for key customer sampling at a unit price $299. Mass production is scheduled by Q4/2006.

SDHC cards are recognized by new SDHC host devices differently than standard SD cards and are not backward compatible with legacy SD format host devices. As Pretec is the first in the world to offer 4GB standard SD cards, and now also offers 4GB SDHC cards, Pretec will provide patent-pending SD-Tuner technology for customers to have an easy transition between the incompatibility of SD 1.1 and SD 2.0.

Women’s Shoes in Hard-to-Find Sizes

DesignerShoes.com has radically redesigned its website to better serve women looking for shoes in hard-to-find sizes. The new website offers 80,000 style/color combinations in women’s hard-to-find sizes. The redesigned website allows customers to search the entire inventory by size, width, color, heel height and brand; browse styles by Lifestyle Collection and Style; and learn more about the over 50 renowned designers that make footwear for DesignerShoes.com customers. The company offers fashionable women’s shoes in sizes department stores don’t stock including extra wides from 6 to 15 and mediums from size 10.5 to 15. For nine years DesignerShoes.com has been the most comprehensive source for flats, pumps, sandals, slides and slingbacks in the larger, hard to find sizes.

Web Browser Enhancer

The web has become the largest repository of knowledge and noise humanity has ever seen — with well over six billion pages. How can we possibly make use of this much information without getting swamped? A research group at University College London looked at optimal strategies of online knowledge work. They found that an effective approach in getting to grips with such a large volume of data was to make the data more interactive.

The result is the Hyperwords extension for web browsers from The Hyperwords Company. It makes all words on the web interactive. Users can select any word, or selection of words, and choose commands from an intuitive pop-up menu. Hyperwords commands include: Looking a word up in Wikipedia, blogging about a paragraph, translating a single word or page, looking up addresses on web-based maps, searching for results using any of the major search engines and much more. Hyperwords is free for personal use and is available for download from www.hyperwords.net.

High Definition Video Conferencing Solution

LifeSize has now released LifeSize Team worldwide (www.lifesize.com/products/lifesize_team/). LifeSize Team is a high definition video communications system specifically designed for distributed project teams and work groups that often interact in small conferencing environments.

Based on the same technology as LifeSize Room — a high definition video communications system for conference and board rooms — LifeSize Team delivers quality video and audio so that geographically distributed participants can maximize their collaboration efforts. The solution offers: High Definition Video — 1280x720 resolution at 30 frames per second and High Definition Audio — super wide-band audio up to 16kHz.