Tag Archives: memory

Archos Fusion Storage OTA Incoming

Android, SD Card, smartphone, tablet, , , , ,

Archos Fusion StorageBack in March at MWC, French firm Archos announced “Archos Fusion”, an Android storage technology that seamlessly joins a smartphone or tablet’s internal memory with an inserted memory card. Archos Platinum 52The merger of the two memories is invisible to apps and other services, with Archos Fusion automatically managing and moving files around. Apps tend to stay on the internal memory and media gets moved to the external card.

The clear advantage here is that there’s loads more space made available to the user with almost zero effort. Another advantage is a reversibility of the process: the fusion of internal storage with the external storage card is seamless and the user can return to the original separated settings at any time.

GNC covered the announcement at the time, but the good news is that Archos are delivering on the promise and a free OTA is expected very shortly for owners of the Archos 101 Oxygen tablet, along with the 50 Oxygen Plus, 50 Diamond and 52 Platinum smartphones.

By pure coincidence I have an Archos 52 Platinum smartphone on review at the moment so I’ll be reporting back on the OTA and the Archos Fusion technology, which looks really clever and a huge benefit.

Archos Fusion will be available on the new 62 Xenon and 59 Xenon out of the box.

Dakim Brainfitness

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Dakim Brainfitness is the leader in the development of brain fitness products. The products have been created to maintain and enhance cognitive fitness. This is important as both seniors and boomers continue to live longer and want to remain active. The programs are clinical tested by UCLA scientist and are based on standardize neurological tests and programs. Dakim Brainfitness uses this knowledge to create programs that work and are fun to play. Providing a broad range of cognitive activities that improve memory and concentration. These programs have shown significant improvement in memory and concentration both immediately and over time in most users.

There are several products available: an integrated hardware and software program available to senior living environments, a professional software program that can be used by doctors and clinicians that work with the elderly and starting in March there will be a cloud base program for the consumer. The pricing varies depending on what program is being used. As the overall population continues age programs like this will increase in importance.

Interview by Chris Montera of  and the Health Tech Weekly

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“Each second we produce about 25 million times as much memory as the world had in all of 1953”

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URs Holzlz - G+ Profile Image

At a Memorial Day barbeque over the weekend, I found myself sequestered in a corner of a friend’s yard with a mutually nerdy acquaintance talking about memory – both human and digital. The question was, “How much memory does the human brain possess – in bytes?” We theorized, but neither we, nor anyone else, it seems, has an answer.

While the human brain and its capacity is still largely a mystery, Google engineer Urs Holzle posted an interesting factoid about digital memory from his Google+ account over the weekend:

“59 years ago, in March 1953, the world had a grand total of 53 kilobytes of RAM spread over a dozen or so computers, the largest having 5KB. That’s not enough RAM to store a single icon…

For comparison, today the DRAM market produces around 40 billion billion bits per year. In other words, each second we produce about 25 million times as much memory as the world had in all of 1953.”

Those types of numbers are difficult to digest, but the advancement in memory and computing capabilities even over the past could of decades is remarkable. Moving forward, I would imagine not only the memory available will continue to rise, but the way we access it will continue to develop, as well – from sub-pint-sized memory sticks to consumer cloud storage by the gigabyte.

Lexar Takes CompactFlash to 150 Mb/s

3D, Information, Photography, USB, , , , , , ,

Lexar CompactFlash ProfessionalEach year, CompactFlash gets faster and more capacious, despite being one of the older memory card formats around, and it looks like 2012 will be no different. Lexar has announced a new addition to its Professional range with 1000x CF cards that support minimum data transfer speeds of 150 Mb/s, allowing the capture of high-quality images and 1080p full-HD and 3D video from a suitable DSLR camera.

Available in 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB capacities, the CF cards support the VPG-20 specification meaning the card has been tested and guaranteed for professional video capture streams at up to 20 MB/s. To get the video off the card, Lexar offer a high performance USB 3 card reader.

Included with the purchase of a Professional CF card is Lexar’s Image Rescue software (downloadable) which will help recover accidently deleted photos and videos from the card.

The new Lexar Professional 1000x CompactFlash card will be on-sale in February, though the 128 GB variant won’t be ready until April. Recommended prices are 16 GB – $169.99, 32 GB – $299.99, 64 GB – $529.99, and 128 GB – $899.99 (ouch!)

You might be wondering what significance the “1000x” is. The original CompactFlash cards had a transfer rate of only 150 kb/s which itself was based on the data transfer rate of CompactDiscs (CDs). Geek fact for the day.

Verbatim Memory Products 2010 CES

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Every year the folks at Verbatim keep introducing new products one of their products I have used for several months is the Tuff-N-Tiny USB drive. I have it attached to a keyring and it works our great. Verbatim is also coming out with some very low profile external hard-drives along with a whole variety of other new memory products.

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Firefox 64-bit Needed for Windows7 – NOW

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I remember when I decided to move to Firefox over Internet Explorer. IE6 was not cutting it and Mozilla was showing promise. Add to it all the security issues for some projects I was working on and the plugins to test code. I never thought I would move away from Firefox at that point.

Until Windows7 64-bit.

Everyone talked about how Firefox crashed, and in all reality, I didn’t see that problem. That was until I hit 64 bit mode. Firefox is still a 32 bit application, so I expected a few crashes during the inception.

Then the crashes started happening a little more than usual. I would be working – especially on a page that housed Flash – and the system would stop responding. I would restore what I was working on, but the same process would happen again within minutes. Just the other day I had the browser crash 6 times in an hour – halting my work every time.

Add to it the memory it starts to eat up. I pulled up Task Manager and watched how – while I was doing nothing in the program – the system was allocating more memory for it. Now you might think that it was because of Flash or a plugin I had installed, but I turned off all plugins and was on my homepage – which is a page I created with nothing but HTML links.

I decided to look for a 64 bit version of Firefox. One area said they are not even thinking of going 64 – at least not until version 4. I did find the alternate projects to FF 64. I installed a program called “Minefield”, which made me nervous to begin with. Who names a testing platform “Minefield”?

Alas, it wasn’t any better. I had no Adobe flash and it crashed within a few pages.

I don’t get it. It’s the only 32 bit program that crashes on a regular basis. I even tried compatibility mode, but the browser would still stop responding.

The big issue was the memory hog it became. I went to the about:config option to try and find a key that would limit or release memory. There was none that I could find. I might have overlooked it – anything is possible. But as far as I know, nothing to change how it works memory.

I didn’t think this would be a big issue for Mozilla. 64 bit OS has been around for a couple years now, and they have Firefox 64 for Linux and Mac users. But not for PCs

Therefore, for now I am using Chrome on the main system. Since the laptop is still 32 bit Windows XP, Firefox will be the browser of choice on that machine. It doesn’t crash there. I personally don’t like Chrome, but if I had to order the browsers I would use and like, it would be Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE and then Safari.

Still, I implore Mozilla to get on the 64 Bit kick and get this browser out. I also want you to try and figure out why Firefox eats memory like a high scoring Pac-Man game. I like the plan of going to the ribbon style menu, but if it still causes crashes, I’ll have no choice but to switch off Firefox. After all, I cannot start working in a browser that might stop responding, especially if I am in the middle of writing a blog post.

Doodle Away During That Meeting…It’s Good For Your Brain!

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A new study published in the February 26th journal Applied Cognitive Psychology suggests that doodling while listening actually can encourage memorization of facts and events. The UK’s Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, U.K., tasked 40 members to participate in the study, which required them to listen to a 2 1/2 minute tape giving several names of people and places, and were told to write down only the names of people going to a party.

Half of that group were asked to shade in shapes on a piece of paper at the same time, not attending to neatness. Participants did not know it was a memory test and were not told directly to doodle naturally.

After the exercise, all participants were asked to recall the eight names of party-goers, and eight additional place names which were included in the tape as incidental information. The doodlers were able to recall 7.5 names of people and places compared to only 5.8 for the non-doodlers.

Apparently, if someone is completing a boring task, like listening to a lecture or seminar, it is easy to let the mind wander to more interesting things. The act of doodling may rewire synapses in a way that keeps part of the brain available for the boring listening task, while the fidgety part of the brain has something to do with itself.

This could suggest that those that doodle, fidget, or otherwise make use of their hands may be looking for a way to help keep the brain on-track with the boring, but necessary activity.

I wonder, myself, why I listen so much better to podcasts when I’m alone in the car than I do riding in the car or sitting in a waiting room. In the car my hands and presumably my eyes are occupied with driving the daily commute, leaving the listening part of my brain ready and willing to absorb the spoken words of a podcaster. Or maybe it’s the reverse, that the driving is the boring part, and my mind is being enlivened by the podcaster, which then keeps me on task with the boring commute thing.

Either way, more interesting facts about the brain and how it operates in daily life. Now when my boss tells me to stop scribbling in my notebook during a meeting, I can tell her that I’m doodling to help my brain concentrate better on the meeting. She’ll buy that, I’m sure.