cards

I got my Japanese Vita a few days ago, but my order was incomplete.

I received a Wi-Fi Vita with three games, but the 4GB Vita memory card I ordered is taking a bit longer to ship. Little did I know that without a Vita memory card, my new handheld would be rendered mostly useless.

You read correctly: a sizable number of PlayStation Vita games will not even boot up unless a Vita memory card is installed in the unit (including the ones I bought: Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Ridge Racer, and Everybody's Golf 6). There are also a number of Vita apps that require a card to run, all of which I cover in my First Look video. It's not that I'm upset that the Vita requires a memory card to play games, it's the fact that Sony has chosen not to include one in the box. CNET has already confirmed with Sony that none of the U.S. Vita SKUs will ship with a card either, save for the $350 First Edition Bundle.… 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

Nearly everyone has that one relative on their holiday shopping list who's hard to buy for. When imagination fails, we turn to gift cards.

While most gift cards these days are of the physical variety, there are at least a handful of companies starting to offer gift cards you can store on your smartphone. SmartPlanet's Sumi Das finds out how mobile gift cards work and what the caveats are when it comes to using them.

This video originally appeared on SmartPlanet with the headline "The Future Of...Gift Cards."

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For some reason, I was put in charge of putting together and sending out our family holiday photo cards this year. This was a huge mistake.

I am a procrastinator, so just about everything I do gets done with some amount of stress and anxiety and usually costs me more money than it should. And while I vowed this project would be different, here I am three months later on December 12 putting together a photo card for the holidays.

Have you ever done a Web search for "photo greeting cards"? There are a lot of options. Too … 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

Lucky Supermarkets, a chain in California, has been hit hard with a credit card scam.

The company announced the scam in November, saying customers and employees who used the self-checkout kiosks in more than 20 of its 234 stores might have fallen victim to tampered credit card readers. The hackers reportedly used devices called "sniffers" that recorded credit card numbers.

Soon after the information was made public, Lucky Supermarkets, as well as its parent company, Save Mart Supermarkets, said it was unsure how many people might have been affected but urged customers to monitor their accounts.

"We … Read more

What's the best way to keep track of the gift cards, and their respective balances, you received from family and friends around the holidays?

While we may not have a concrete answer to a common problem, we do have three apps that aim to help you keep better track of your gift cards. Some solutions are free, and others will cost you no more than 99 cents. … Read more

Cut the Rope, one of the hottest smartphone games, just got an update to the free standalone holiday version for both the iPhone and iPad (universal) featuring new challenges and holiday-themed levels.

Certain apps have staying power on the top-10 list at the iTunes App Store and Cut The Rope offers just the right mix of challenging physics-based gameplay, family-friendly graphics, and tons of levels to explore to keep it near the top.… Read more

UNO, one of the most popular paid card game apps for Android, is now available for free download.

Previously only available in its $2.99 paid download form, the new ad-supported UNO Free still offers the same nostalgia-inducing gaming experience.

For those who have never played UNO (or have never experienced childhood), it's a classic color and number-matching card game for up to four players. And with its Android incarnation it can be played via Wi-Fi with friends, or against computerized opponents. The app also has a Tournament Mode that increases in difficulty and includes a bunch of unlockable … Read more