Transcend Develops SD Card with CD-ROM-Like Partition

[alidan]

[citation][nom]loomis86[/nom]The point of this is not for you to use it. It is for manufacturers to use. The reason why music and video games have not switched to SD cards is because SD cards are not permanent and too easy to pirate. Now they have fixed this shortcoming (in manufacturers' eyes) so there's a chance we will now be able to buy games on SD cards.[/citation]

except the fact that its 10cents to 2$ to press a cd dvd or bluray (bluray dual layer is about 1.80 4 years ago, probably came down sense than) but a sd card is about 1$ per gb, and you are assuming that everyone has a card reader when they don't, but everyone has a dvd drive at least.

[citation][nom]fb39ca4[/nom]Nintendo still uses flashcarts for DS games.[/citation]
130mb, for ds games, not sure what 3ds games clock in at, but im assuming less than 2gb, and for a portable device, cards is the only way to go due to battery life.

 

[juanc]

[citation][nom]fandroid[/nom]"There's also no way to write new data to the "locked" portion of the cards."Hackers of the world respond "Challenge... wait for it.... accepted!"[/citation]

Ok let's say they CAN'T... but what about this?

[citation]This prevents accidental or unauthorized copy, modification and deletion of the stored contents.[/citation]

What the h*ll is that? If I can read, I can duplicate.

 

[digiex]

Just pack your data using ISO, then use daemon or similar tools to access it, the beauty is that you can add data to it using third party ISO edit software, just don't add a malware or virus though.

 

[jamie_1318]

[citation][nom]dalauder[/nom]I was thinking along the same lines as you and then I realized how many SD cards I've broken while trying to protect them. The only damaged DVDs/CDs I've encountered are a result of carelessness. I have plenty of stuff that's 15 years old that's in good shape. 1/5 of my SD cards have broken--like the plastic physically falls apart and the card won't read. A bunch of my Micro SD card readers are erratic--if they work at all.So I find optical media to consistently work if I take care of it. And flash media randomly breaks, regardless of what I do--a vast improvement on floppy disks, but still not good enough for critical data longterm storage.[/citation]

I am just going to make a counterpoint- your SD cards have been used continuously, for probably around at least year. Those CD probably go in and out just a few times during their life cycle. On top of that the only reason SD cards are broken that way is that current quality control for SD cards just isn't there. Any companies using SD cards for distribution will cherry pick the very most durable ones and than order in bulk exactly the same as CD manufacturing was done in their early eras.
It is after all only the plastic enclosures falling apart, the chips can survive insane forces, and totally terrible conditions. Early CD roms were subject to a verity of the same issues, one of the most famous were black spots from oxidization after the plastic opened.
Still prices are prohibitive and it appears that Internet distribution is more likely to catch on by major Content distribution that new physical media.