Advanced Media, Inc., manufacturer and marketer of the popular RIDATA brand of recordable CD and DVD media, electronic storage products, and digital media accessories, is adding an unbalanced Secure Digital memory card to its RIDATA line “Our unbalanced Secure Digital memory card is further indication that Advanced Media is dedicated to providing its customers the latest advancements in electronic storage media,” remarked Charlie Shiang, VP of Flash Products “This fast card enables users to store specific navigational or mapping information for use in a variety of mobile devices. It can also be used to hold trip details and highly detailed charts.”
The applications are unlimited, any type of digital content provider with the consideration of protecting the intellectual content while in need to be able to sell or populate the whole content will definitely benefit from the Unbalanced SD card, more examples include educational markets, remote learning education, automobile and defense industry ” added Shiang.
The uses for this product will be centered on two parts of SD memory formation: encrypted output control segment and accessible data segment. The data stored on the Encrypted output control segment is strictly prohibited for any kind of “check-in” (write data) or “check-out”(export data) activities with any other devices. Any form of the data movement is actually impossible.
However, data in this encrypted area can be accessed from the data segment. Numerous applications and industrial products can be derived from the structure of the unbalanced SD: GPS maker and mapping software will be immediately benefited by selling their map geographically while keep the main navigation program intact.
Other uses include publishing companies that can sell e-books with encrypted chapters. Industrial computer designers can use Unbalanced SD card as an embedded processing unit
“Ritek can also provide duplication services if the customer needs to make many copies of the Unbalanced SD card. Ritek is known for its cutting edge media duplication facilities and certainly has the knowledge to duplicate high quality flash media such as Unbalanced SD products,” added Shiang.
The RIDATA Unbalanced SD memory card is available in capacities of 384MB(256MB free space and 128 secure storage), 768MB(512 free space and 128MB secure space), and 1.5GB(1024 free space with a 512 encrypted area).
The unbalanced part refers to the split of the memory: some for a protected area that can’t be written to, and another area that is user accesible. If I buy the card, I want the whole thing to be open to my use. Granted, with a GPS map, some kind of protection is needed to keep the data from being erased right when someone is lost in Antartica. On the other hand, if this means that I can’t put music files on my hard drive without a lot of hassle, I’m not too excited about this. We’ll have to watch this product and see if it is starting a new trend in the industry. Of note, the cards are available in some unusual capacities: 384 MB, 768 MB, 1.5 GB. For the record, I thought that SD meant “secure digital,” and it was already secure.