Companies Unite To Form Secure Digital Group

A new association -- created to set industry standards for the Secure Digital (SD) Memory Card and promote its acceptance in digital applications -- held its first general meeting Feb. 1-2 in Burlingame, Calif. More than 200 industry representatives attended the SD Assn. (SDA) meeting including content providers, card manufacturers, and consumer electronics firms. The SDA's formation was announced in January by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., SanDisk Corp., and Toshiba Corp. The three had an August 1999 agreement to jointly develop, specify, and promote the new memory card. It is the size of a postage stamp -- with high-density memory capacity -- designed to store secure digital media content, including digital music. It includes support for the Microsoft Windows Media format. Production of the new card is expected to begin in first-quarter 2000, with production shipments starting second-quarter. Initially, it will be available in 32MB and 64MB capacities. Application products that use the new card should be available in first-half 2000.