Addonics Announces Multi-Format Flash Reader!
By Michael R. Tomkins, The Imaging Resource

(The Imaging Resource ) -- Sept. 21, 2001 -- New 'Pocket DigiDrive' accepts 7 different types of flash and hard-drive media...

A press release from Addonics Technologies Inc. today announces its new Pocket DigiDrive, a portable flash card reader which accepts a wide range of different media. With 4 different slots in the face of the 11 ounce, 4" x 1" x 5.5" unit, the Pocket DigiDrive can read CompactFlash cards in both Type-I and Type-II formats (including IBM's MicroDrive), as well as SmartMedia cards, Memory Sticks, MultiMediaCards and Secure Digital cards.

Compatible with USB 1.1 and 2.0 ports, the Pocket DigiDrive draws its power from the USB bus and hence needs no external power supply. It has a read/write speed of 1MB/second, and when installed it mounts flash cards as removeable disk drives with one drive icon shown for each type of media.

The Pocket DigiDrive supports Windows 98SE, Me, 2000 or XP, MacOS 8.6 or higher, and Linux kernel 2.4 or higher. It isn't clear from the Addonics press release whether the device supports USB Mass Storage Class for driverless connectivity on the latest operating systems, and we are awaiting confirmation of this from Addonics.

Available immediately, Addonics' Pocket DigiDrive costs $89 (list) including a USB cable and software.

UPDATED 2001-09-19 16:03ET: Addonics have confirmed that the Pocket DigiDrive is indeed Mass Storage Class compliant, meaning that drivers are not needed with recent operating systems such as Microsoft's Windows 2000, Me or XP.
Source: Addonics Technologies Inc.

Copyright © 2001 The Imaging Resource