If there's one thing smartphone can never be, it's too fast. Yeah, granted, mobile processors have been intentionally throttled for years in the interest of keeping battery times reasonable -- so we're always delighted to hear when someone's doing something to boost speeds in different, creative ways. That's where flash memory giant Samsung comes into play, rolling out new file systems and drivers for its OneNAND, Flex-OneNAND, and moviNAND storage solutions (none of which are pictured to the right) that it claims will slap a turbocharger on boot and access times. The new software is available for basically every major mobile operating system, and Sammy even claims that it'll decrease engineering times, so it looks like it's a win all the way around.

2009 may be the year when we finally see a unified memory format, that is, if Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson have their way. The "Universal Flash Storage specification" would see memory cards travel between cellular devices, digital cameras and other memory hungry devices without the need for adapters -- and it'll likely save us some coin, too. Some big name memory manufacturers are purportedly onboard, with names like Micron Technology Inc., Spansion LLC, STMicroelectronics NV, and Texas Instruments Inc., being bandied about. We look forward to that magical day, when our stacks of memory cards can be reduced to a stack of one type of card, ahhh... progress.

Wow, it seems like we were just marveling over the introduction of the world's first 8GB SD card a few moons back. Ah, that's right, we were. Alas, Samsung took it to heart that SD doesn't cut it for your average cellphone (they run a bumpin' mobile business, after all), announcing that it has managed to pack a full eight gigabytes into the microSD form factor for mid-2008 production. That's particularly timely considering that 4GB examples haven't even gotten into widespread circulation yet -- "8GB" just has a nicer ring to it -- not to mention that the new card handily surpasses SDHC guidelines with 16MB/s reads and 6MB/s writes. For the record, a microSD card rocks a little over 20 percent of the surface area of its SD counterpart, so does this mean we can expect 40GB SD cards, like, now? Not quite.

These days, it really takes something special to catch to eye of the desensitized market, and Nokia's shifting the focus back to the consumer with its lighthearted touchscreen game at a London bus stop. The interactive advertisement requests that the player flip the pockets in order to find matches, but it also insinuates that the sleek Nokia N95 smartphone is just too slim and inconspicuous to readily pick out. Of course, we highly doubt it's all that difficult to spot after a flip or two, but the idea here is novel nonetheless. If nothing else, it sure breaks up the boredom (or frustration) felt whilst waiting on the next bus, so be sure to click on through for a video of the thing so you'll know it when you cross it.

[Via FreshCreation]

It's a common adage that over time, consumer electronics get faster, cheaper, smaller (size) and bigger (capacity). In continuing with this tradition, NEC, Samsung and others are poised to introduce the next generation of flash memory by placing eight memory chips (each only 50 micrometers thick) and one controller chip in a vertical stack, with "3D connections" between all of 'em -- creating a tiny-sized but powerful piece of storage. Samsung says that this could lead to a one-terabit flash chip within the coming years, but don't count on fitting an entire season of "Lost" on your cellphone just yet -- company scientists say that these new chips are "in their early stages" and can only hold 32 bits for the time being.

[Via Sci Fi Tech, thanks Mike]

Read - NEC press release
Read - Technology Review

Being that Kingston went and introduced its own blazing fast DDR2 RAM, Samsung's hitting back by announcing its Powerhouse Fusion Memory Solution, dubbed OneDRAM. But Samsung's not gunning for the gamer's wallet necessarily, as its new device is specifically geared towards "handsets, game consoles, and other digital applications such as 3D graphic work." By taking a "dual-port" approach, the RAM "sharply increases" the time it takes to transfer data between processors, not to mention reducing power consumption by 30-percent. Moreover, Samsung claims that "a single OneDRAM module can replace at least two mobile memory chips in a high-end smartphone," further stating that "five-fold" speed increases were realizable in cellphone response and gaming console operations. While we're not sure how much Samsung plans to charge cellphone / console manufacturers for this snazzy new module, you can expect to see handsets loaded with OneDRAM "by the second half of 2007."

With most people unconvinced or just plain agnostic about conflicting reports regarding cellphone radiation leading to cancer, researchers have decided to turn their gaze to the important topic of... indecisiveness? Turns out an Australian study points to electromagnetic radiation from your mobile phone as an impairment to your ability to make snap decision, such as when driving a car. It seems quite obvious that talking on a phone can and does make people worse drivers, but these findings seem to come from study participants who were given straight up radiation, so they shouldn't have been distracted by a conversation during tests. Another interesting finding of the study was that the participants showed a slight improvement in working memory, such as remembering a phone number long enough to dial it. Other than a few scientific high fives, we can't imagine these findings making much of a societal impact, but it's always good to know.

Samsung just laid their 2GB MMCmicro cards on the table. These little slivers of NAND-based flash memory are said to be the "fastest and highest capacity mobile phone" memory cards available... once they uh, actually ship. Come on Sammy, we're still waiting on your 1GB cards to hit the market, not to mention devices which use them before getting too worked up over this, mkay?