flashing

Apple has acquired Israel-based flash memory startup Anobit, a report claims.

The deal, according to Israel's Calcalist business news site (Google Translate), is in the $400 million to $500 million range. Earlier today, Anobit apparently informed its employees that Apple had made an offer that it had accepted and that they were on their way to being employed by the iPhone maker.

Today's report follows a claim made by Calcalist last week, saying that Apple and Anobit were nearing a deal.

Anobit's flash memory technology is found in Apple's iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air. The startup … Read more

Panasonic, Samsung, SanDisk, Sony, and Toshiba today announced an agreement to develop new content-protection technology for SD cards and embedded flash.

Dubbed "Next Generation Secure Memory Initiative," the press release claims the as-yet undeveloped technology will be based around public key encryption. Based on the release's limited information, it sounds like it will create unique IDs that will tie a variety of fixed and mobile CE devices to you, making content producers less nervous about allowing you to download--rather than just stream--DRM'd content to devices they currently can't control, like phones and tablets. … Read more

If you've been browsing the Internet at all over the past couple of months, you've probably come across several Flash advertisements on pages that produce sound.

While this isn't a problem if the sound is muted by default, several of these ads begin playback immediately while also defaulting to max volume. Flash Control, an extension for Google Chrome, blocks these Flash applets from loading until you say it's OK.

Begin by downloading and installing the Flash Control extension.

Navigate to a page with a Flash applet on it. You'll notice it no longer automatically loads. … Read more

This software engineer really, really loves Christmas...and symphonic metal, as his cube decoration contest entry shows.

Redditor and software engineer Billiam5 posted this video on Reddit late last night demonstrating his achievement in action, replete with dancing Christmas lights synced to the song "Wizards in Winter," by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO).

According to the artist himself, Billiam5 used the Arduino prototyping platform and Flash-based animation programming to bring the LEDs to life:… Read more

According to a report over at TechCrunch (drawing on Calcalist, a Hebrew publication), Apple is preparing to purchase Israeli flash memory manufacturer Anobit for $400 million to $500 million.

The acquisition would be CEO Tim Cook's first as the guy in charge at Apple, though he has been through the process before. Apple recently purchased P.A. Semi in order to produce the mobile processors (the A4 and A5) that now appear in iPhones and iPads.

Purchasing Anobit seems like a prudent move on Apple's part. By controlling its own flash storage manufacturing, Apple should be able to … Read more

It's a thumb drive with the size and power of a supercomputer.

The San Diego Supercomputer Center in January will start the engines on Gordon, a supercomputer that uses flash memory extensively to handle massive amounts of data. Using flash as an integral building block means the supercomputer will crank through data-intensive problems, such as analyzing human genomes, 10 times faster than traditional designs.

The idea for using flash memory was shunned by commercial companies, San Diego Supercomputer Center officials told Wired. But they were able to convince the National Science Foundation about three years ago to invest the $… Read more

When it comes to malware exploits, Adobe's Flash and PDF software can't seem to catch a break recently.

Recently a vulnerability was found in both Mac and Windows versions of Adobe's Acrobat and Reader products that could allow an attacker to crash the programs and gain control of the system. So far only attacks on Windows machines have been found, but Mac systems could be affected as well.

Now two similar vulnerabilities have been found in Adobe's Flash Player, which likewise could result in arbitrary code being executed on the system.

Computerworld is reporting that the … Read more

The CompactFlash Association has finished its work designing a successor to today's high-end memory card format, naming its successor XQD and promising much higher data-transfer speeds.

CompactFlash, unlike many other memory card formats, has managed to withstand the onslaught of SD Card, but it's relegated to a high-end niche such as professional SLR cameras and Canon's new C300 cinema-oriented videocamera. CompactFlash capacity and transfer speeds beat SD today, but to stay ahead of the competition, it's got to improve.

Enter XQD, a project the CompactFlash Association announced last year. The new cards use the PCI Express … Read more

The weekend before last, I happened to spy an 8GB SanDisk Cruzer Edge flash drive on sale for just $4.99 at Best Buy. It was sold out online, but the inventory checker showed it to be in stock at my local store. I called first, and, sure enough, they had some. I asked them to hold three, and a couple hours later walked out with three 8GB flash drives for 15 bucks (plus tax). That was a really, really good day.

This deal isn't quite that spectacular, but it's close--and there's no sales tax involved (unless … Read more