SanDisk Rolls Out TrustedFlash Platform in Grand Style
SanDisk issued multiple announcements pertaining to their new TrustedFlash platform during the CTIA Wireless Show last week in San Francisco.
The TrustedFlash platform itself was introduced. This is a DRM strategy that employs custom encryption hardware and software right on the card.
The Yahoo! Music Engine has been made compatible with TrustedFlash, allowing users to directly subscribe to the Yahoo! Unlimited music service to listen to music and preview/unlock an artist's back catalog. The Yahoo! Music Engine software client will be embedded into TrustedFlash music cards.
NDS and PocketTunes will also support the standard.
Samsung's Mobile Communication Division has adopted SanDisk's TrustedFlash platform for its mobile phones
SanDisk teamed with embedded security firm Discretix Technologies and digital rights management technology company NDS Group plc to develop the encoding engine for the TrustedFlash cards.
SanDisk has introduced a 4GB Hard Drive replacement called iNAND using the TrustedFlash standard. The card uses an SD interface, but is somewhere between the miniSD and the microSD in size.
But the really big story is that the company introduced a major record album in card format using this platform. In November the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang, the group's first studio album in eight years, will become available on microSD cards (formerly known as TransFlash, a format co-developed by SanDisk and Motorola) at a suggested retail price of $39.95. The same card will also allow consumers to preview and purchase - directly from the card - other Rolling Stones music from the band's back catalog, through either a PC or a supported mobile phone.
SanDisk calls TrustedFlash: "new technology that will enable consumers to buy premium music, movies and games on flash memory cards for use interchangeably in mobile phones, laptop computers, PDAs and other portable devices." In a second phase planned for 2006, SanDisk plans to introduce a version of TrustedFlash that supports mobile commerce applications enabling handsets to perform secure online financial transactions such as credit card payments, mass-transit access and one-time password authentication.
It has been a few years since the Secure Digital or SD format of flash card was introduced. This was in response to the recognition that digital media would pose great difficulties to recording artists and producers since content is so easy to share. How do you lock down your content to prevent rampant illegitimate copying?
By itself the SD card did not solve the industry's problem. Various technologies have been developed to thwart illegal copying, but none has met with market success, in part from a lack of backing by the major interested parties.
Now with SanDisk, Yahoo!, and Samsung , along with EMI's Virgin Records division, we have some major horsepower being directed toward getting this standard adopted.
SanDisk says that music and movie studios will be less reluctant to release premium content on TrustedFlash products as it provides the necessary level of security and digital rights management. The scheme allows consumers to either download content from online digital music services to their mobile phone or PC, or to purchase pre-recorded TrustedFlash cards. With the TrustedFlash standard the card manages the rights, rather than the player.
We will be interested to hear if buyers warm up to the idea of buying digital content in a card format, or if online transactions have already killed off that opportunity.
