Sony's 128 Mb Memory Stick Duo has arrived in the UK (June 03). The current wheeze for data storage in Sony Ericsson mobile phones, Memory Stick Duo lets you carry photo albums, video, games and music on a slither the size of a thumbnail. It's not that regular Memory Stick wasn't small enough, but here's another physical format to follow Compact Flash, SD, MMC and the rest. It's hardly surprising that people baulk at the thought of buying into, or becoming a slave to any format. The makers would reply that this gizmo fits phones like the SE P800, massively increases its memory and so long as you can copy stuff onto it the job is done. They're pretty much right since it only matters what shape it is when you want to exchange stuff with others.
Costs more than gold
The real issue is what this costs - tax inclusive: on the US Expansys it costs $160 compared to $65 for a regular Memory Stick. In the UK Expansys sell these same for 110 and 67 UK pounds. At the Sony Style website you have a bargain where the 128Mb Duo was last seen at $104.
Incidentally, it weighs only 1.75g and thus at its best price, thus costs $60 a gram. Compare this with 24 carat gold which retails at around $24 a gram. Still that's cheaper than a bag of Loose Diamonds (tiny ones at that) costing $8000 a gram. (For the record, a one carat diamond weighing 0.2g has scarcity value and would set you back $15,000)
Copyright copy wrong
While MSD lets you store any kind of material that fits, it also features Magic Gate protection designed to protect data from being copied all over the shop. The idea is that games or music files you buy over the 'net will be tied to the MSD and not copiable or useable elsewhere. Hear anyone going wow over this?
