Digital photo album bypasses PCs

SanDisk on Wednesday unveiled a media player that can be used to display digital photos and video clips directly on television sets.

The $49.99 Photo Album enables people to organize and view images from digital cameras, bypassing the PC, the company said. It is compatible with eight flash memory card formats and with portable USB flash drives, and it can be used to play MP3 files on home audio systems. The media player has a slot for a second CompactFlash Card that can be used as an archive for slide shows.

The media player is capable of storing images in formats suitable for television viewing, but the actual file size that is saved is much smaller, said Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SanDisk.

The storage and flash memory segment of the technology market is seeing a lot of action as the devices shrink in size and find more and more applications in consumer electronics.

Separately, SanDisk announced Wednesday that it has increased the capacity of its Ultra II memory stick Pro and SD cards to 4GB and 2GB, respectively. These cards are used in digital cameras to store images.