The new cards are part of Lexar's "Armor" lineup, which already includes ruggedized portable SSDs and other gear designed to withstand harsh conditions. The two new stainless...
  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1221·
    3 months ago

    Unironically a good idea. I can see these really helping to increase the chances of memory survival in camera applications where the camera has a high chance of being physically destroyed. Also a metal body reallllly helps conduct heat out of the flash, which will increase their lifespan in continuous-write applications.

    • Voyajer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      655·
      3 months ago

      Stainless is extra bad at conducting heat considering it’s a metal, but it’s still way better than plastic. I hope they make an aluminum version at some point.

      • cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
        154·
        3 months ago

        While we’re at it, let’s get back to all metal phones! Screw this glass back shit.

        For the “Wireless” charging people:

        It’s a gimmick, nothing of value is lost

        • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          171·
          3 months ago

          “All right team this is the single most dropped item in the history of mankind we need to make this thing tough what are we gonna manufacture the backing out of?”

          “Glass?”

          “…….Brilliant!! You’ve got upper management written all over you, Jacobs!”

          • cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
            316·
            3 months ago

            True wireless charging would definitely, the kind where your phone being in the mere vicinity of the “base station” allows it to start charging. From an actual distance larger than a handful of centimeters. That would be a feature worthy of the sacrifice of a metal body and being stuck with glass

            The “Wireless” charging marketing gimmick is just as bad as the “Hoverboard” gimmick vs a real Hoverboard a la Back to the Future.

            Its basically just a plug shifted from a socket to the back of the phone, but worse. It’s almost always slower and saves a second or 2 at most from having to plug/unplug it. Some minor pros, but not worth having to be saddled with annoying and fragile glass backs. You still need to take it out of your pocket, place it in a designated spot, and can’t use it all that well while in the designated spot and still have it charge.

            It’s a gimmick so companies could say their phones totally have wireless charging so they didn’t have to spend the R&D money to develop actual wireless charging and you bought into it hook, line and sinker.

            There were some promising developments on real wireless charging, but ever since the fake gimmick caught hold it’s been awfully quiet. Another victim of marketing I suppose.

            • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
              163·
              3 months ago

              What a weird think to insult someone over. It does what it says it does and I don’t get why you’re drawing the line on what “true” wireless charging is when I’m not plugging a wire into my phone. You think I “fell for a marketing gimmick” despite using the feature almost exclusively for the past 12 years? How is it a gimmick if I get value out of it?

              I like having a clean desk and not accidentally yoinking my phone off. I like not adding wear and tear to the USB port because it sucks when they break. I like that I’ve had a dozen or USB cords die but never once had to toss a wireless charger.

              You aren’t the arbiter of what’s useful. You not finding value in wireless charging doesn’t mean it’s a useless gimmick. Get off damn your high horse

              • cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
                113·
                3 months ago

                Lol never said it was useless, only the value doesn’t outweigh the sacrifices. Gimmicks can have some usefulness and utility and still be gimmicks.

                The gimmicky part is that smartphone companies got you hooked into a product that barely fills just enough peoples value thresholds that they could avoid developing real wireless charging.

                In a world where this fake shit didn’t take hold we could have had real wireless charging by now, if you think the “wireless” charging is good now, just think what true wireless would be like. You could walk into a room and your phone just starts charging with 0 effort. None.

                But all the major companies stopped their R&D on it because consumers like you lapped the gimmick up and continue to. All that’s left are a handful of startups working on it, so it’s going to be years still.

                • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  31·
                  3 months ago

                  From your first comment:

                  It’s a gimmick, nothing of value is lost

                  You’re right, you didn’t say it was useless! You said it was valueless. My bad, huge difference…

                • areyouevenreal@lemm.eeEnglish
                  2·
                  3 months ago

                  In a world where this fake shit didn’t take hold we could have had real wireless charging by now, if you think the “wireless” charging is good now, just think what true wireless would be like. You could walk into a room and your phone just starts charging with 0 effort. None.

                  You know this is possible how exactly? Wireless power distribution has been considered since Tesla’s time. Yet it still hasn’t been done outside of laboratory environments or very short distances. It’s definitely possible, but making it practical might not even be possible within physics as we currently understand it.

                  For example a very power light beam like for example a laser beam can transfer a lot of power over some distance. It would also cook you, burn you, or make you go blind. It would also require precise alignment between transmitter and receiver, as well as very expensive transmission equipment.

            • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
              53·
              3 months ago

              I use a magsafe charger in both the vehicles I drive on a regular basis, and a charging mat at home, both are extremely useful.

              You’re talking absolute nonsense.

        • pycorax@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          I know it’s counter to what the thread is saying but I really miss plastic phones. They allowed for wireless charging and don’t shatter so easily. Lumias had amazing designs and were built like a brick.

    • bluGill@fedia.io
      224·
      3 months ago

      Likely far more energy and pollution needed to manufacture this though so overall a loss for the earth.

        • bluGill@fedia.io
          132·
          3 months ago

          You still need a lot of energy to recycle steel. Less than mining by far but still a lot.

          • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
            161·
            3 months ago

            In a sustainable world, energy can and should be cheaper than raw materials. We are only harvesting a tiny fraction of the solar energy hitting the earth, to say nothing of wind and geothermal power. Rolling out more renewables and energy storage and using some of the surplus power to switch from extracting new resources to recycling our waste would greatly lower our footprint.

          • deegeese@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            13·
            3 months ago

            But compared to plastic from virgin fossil fuels?

            We as a society are going to need memory cards.

            What do you think they should be made out of?

            • bluGill@fedia.io
              64·
              3 months ago

              Need to be examined on e case by case basis but plastic often comes out aheadi

              • Deceptichum@quokk.auEnglish
                42·
                3 months ago

                If you penny pinch and don’t want to pay the environmental cost, sure plastic might come out cheaper.

                But when you take into account the triple bottom line, plastic comes out behind.

                • bluGill@fedia.io
                  52·
                  3 months ago

                  Plastic in a landfill is a lot less harmful than co2 in the atmosphere.

      • Luvs2Spuj@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        3 months ago

        Energy needs can be met and shouldn’t be an argument for using plastic.

        The pollution could be more dependending on how you look at that statement, but making something without plastic results in less plastic pollution and you can’t claim that to be an overall loss for the earth.

      • cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
        101·
        3 months ago

        You can swap out centralized energy sources (relatively speaking) overnight as greener sources become cheaper/more available compared to retooling whole industries away from plastic

        It’s the same thing with electric cars, yea it might plug in now to a dirty energy source, but that energy source could be a green energy source tomorrow without you ever knowing and importantly not having to buy a new car or change any other infrastructure to take advantage of it

        A power line is a power line, it doesn’t care if the electricity going through it was derived from a dirty power plant or solar or nuclear

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
      94·
      3 months ago

      I respect the sentiment, but is the amount of plastic in an SD card really that significant? There’s probably more in just the packaging alone.

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
          78·
          3 months ago

          This is more like taking the first step, getting distracted by a cool bug, finding an interesting stick, and going home to show Mum your cool stick.

          An SD card lasts for years, and the amount of plastic in one is negligible. It’s just not an issue.

          • mox@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
            8·
            3 months ago

            An SD card lasts for years, and the amount of plastic in one is negligible. It’s just not an issue.

            Hark! The ghosts of countless generations of short-sighted polluters cry out in complacent, rationalizing unison!

            It’s not about expecting one model of memory card to save the Earth. It’s about moving away from needless production of toxic materials, everywhere.

            And if you don’t care, nobody’s going to force you to read The Lorax, but please don’t go around shitting on people’s appreciation for even the small things.

            • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
              46·
              3 months ago

              Worrying about the plastic in an SD card just feels like bike-shedding to me, but keep up the good fight, I guess.

              • UnityDevice@startrek.websiteEnglish
                2·
                3 months ago

                Yeah it’s the equivalent of finding two dollars on the ground and getting excited because at this rate you’ll be a billionaire soon enough. There’s less than 2g of plastic in an SD card - the buttons on your shirt probably weigh more.

  • sploosh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    572·
    3 months ago

    I feel like dealing with SD cards’ inevitable demise is more important than armoring them. What good is a stainless SD card that no longer functions after 2 years of use?

    • cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
      49·
      3 months ago

      What good is a stainless SD card

      Better thermal conductivity and in turn dissipation than plastic does tend to longer lasting flash chips, how much this change means in real world practice though remains to be seen

      Heat is a flash storage killer of all kinds

      • sploosh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        24·
        3 months ago

        It’s hard to believe that it would have taken 25 years for the many SD card builders out there to figure out that a heat spreader could solve the degradation problems.

    • Draconic NEO@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Well considering that most of the SD cards I’ve had always died from foul play or physical destruction of some kind I think that armoring them is not without merit.

      Obviously like all solid state media they do wear out over time, and their wear leveling isn’t as good as an SSD which has a much more sophisticated controller with much more sophisticated wear leveling management.

  • MightyCuriosity@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    383·
    3 months ago

    All the comments are fun and games but they could’ve used aluminium which is way cheaper. It’s nothing more than a marketing gimmick.

      • Zeoic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        3 months ago

        How is aluminum non-conductive? It’s literally used as a lighter and cheaper alternative to copper in wires

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          42·
          3 months ago

          to my knowledge, the only place they use aluminum as a conductor is in overhead external transmission lines, because you can wrap them around a steel or fiberglass/carbon fiber core (due to the skin effect this incurs minimal losses) while increasing strength and reducing weight (with the composites at least)

          the secondary reason is because you can just use more aluminum, since it’s not nearly as dense as copper, and also allows you to string farther, since again, not nearly as dense.

          most aluminum wiring is actually cladded in copper, it’s called CCA for what should be fairly obvious reasons.

          Also i believe the oxide coating of aluminum isn’t conductive? The bare material itself is, but once it oxidizes it’s probably not a good conductor, this is why we use shit like gold plated contacts. Copper also oxidizes as well, but it’s not nearly as bad.

          • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
            81·
            3 months ago

            Aluminium is a better conductor than copper by weight, but not cross sectional area. It’s used in aerial conductors because the weight is more important than the diameter. And it’s cheaper.

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              2·
              3 months ago

              it’s technically like four different reasons.

              The big one is weight per foot of current carrying capacity. this reduces the amount of transmission towers you need, reducing the amount of labor, and raw materials. the aluminum itself is cheaper, but that’s a secondary effect. Since it’s not as heavy per unit, you can make the runs much cheaper. And since you can make them cheaper, you can carry more current by simply making them bigger, or adding more of them.

              compounding effects are something funky.

          • dan@upvote.auEnglish
            3·
            3 months ago

            it’s called CCA for what should be fairly obvious reasons.

            CCA Ethernet cables are literally the worst. The wires are much more brittle so it’s much easier to break the cable just by bending it a little bit, and since the resistance is significantly higher, they can’t go as far as regular pure copper cables, and you can’t use them for Power over Ethernet (they’ll overheat).

            People buy them to save money since they can be a lot cheaper, but often end up having to re-run a lot of the cables in the future. Better to just buy the high quality cables from the beginning. “Buy once, cry once” as the saying goes.

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              3 months ago

              yeah, this is a pretty common issue with CCA cabling, normally this is why people go for things like OFC wire instead, it also carries a little bit more current which is nice.

          • Zeoic@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            3 months ago

            Sure, aluminum as the sole conductor is rare, but as you said, there is CCA, which is ridiculously common. CCA is mostly aluminum to save cost but is still 60ish% as conductive as copper.

  • mudmaniac@lemmy.worldEnglish
    231·
    3 months ago

    Isn’t there a danger of someone shorting data to voltage by inserting this thing wrongly?

    • Draconic NEO@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Doesn’t the steam deck use micro SD cards, I don’t think that these full-sized ones are going to be much help for those guys. Unless of course they come out with stainless steel micro SD cards but that doesn’t seem likely for obvious reasons.

        • Draconic NEO@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          I guess if they made the chips small enough that the MicroSD body is just a shell, same thing happened with full sized SD cards (there was a time the whole space inside them was used, now it’s usually a small part of the front and the rest is just the body shape for compatibility).