Common Paradox Tech Blog

During CeBIT, Mushkin was spotted showing off a new line of memory modules. Dubbed "Ridgeback," the upcoming memory kits will sport a redesigned heastpreader with ridges along the back (imagine that).

News and rumor site Fudzilla says the Ridgeback heatsink will be available in gaming and enthusiast grade memory kits in both DDR3 and DDR2 trim. These will include:

• 4GB DDR3-1600, 6-8-6-24, 1.65V
• 6GB DDR3-1600, 6-8-6-24, 1.65V
• 6GB DDR3-1600, 8-8-8-24, 1.65V
• 4GB DDR2-1066, 5-5-5-15, 2.1V

Mushkin didn’t say when it plans to bring these kits to market or what they will cost, but given the specs, we suspect these will trend towards the higher end.

Don’t even bother trying to follow the memory market until you’ve taken a dose of Dramamine. The DRAM industry has more ups and downs than a Six Flags amusement park, only without all the thrills. According to A-Data, that doesn’t look to change in 2010, and you should brace yourself for a memory shortage in the latter part of the year.

Speaking at a recent company event, A-Data chairman Simon Chen said strong PC replacement demand in both the consumer and business sectors will put the squeeze on memory makers to keep up. Chen expects demand to outpace supply by 1-2 percent in the second quarter, and then remain throughout the second half of the year.

Chen attributes the demand to Windows 7, which he says will spark a ton of replacement PC purchases. As a result, expect DRAM prices to go up, a trend we’ve already been seeing, especially in the notebook memory market.

Image Credit: TomsHardware

What do you carry on your USB stick? Plans for world domination? Love letters from your mistress? Detroit Lions fan club information and links? Whether you’re prone to any of these or simply aspiring to be a secret agent man, Corsair’s Flash Padlock 2 USB flash drive might be just the tool you’ve been looking for.

This 8GB USB key sits in the sweet spot of ‘put-it-in-your-pocket’ storage, but unlike most other flash drives, this one comes "very cleverly and comprehensively designed to protect your critical business or personal data from unwanted exposure." This "clever" design entails a numeric PIN pad, which you can configure with anywhere from 4-10 digits. Adding a second layer of protection, the Padlock 2 boasts 256-bit AES encryption.

But what happens if you forget your PIN? Corsair says you can reset the drive to its factory default state, securely erasing all your data in the process.

This one’s available now for $55 shipped.

Image Credit: Corair via techtree.com

Mushkin doesn’t make the headlines too often, but the high-end memory maker this week announced one more addition to its Blackline series, the Blackline 4GB DDR3-2000 kit.

The new dual-channel kit sports Mushkin’s now-familiar Blackline Frostbyte heatspreaders, but it’s what’s under the aluminum that counts. Mushkin rates its memory modules at 2000MHz with fairly tight 7-10-8-27 latencies at 1.65V.

This ranks as Mushkin’s fastest DDR3 kit to date, although not the fastest on the market, and also the company’s tightest-timed 2000MHz kit.

Mushkin says the new kit will be available soon for $180.

Image Credit: Mushkin

Anyone familiar with Moore’s Law will know that over the years, storage has got bigger and cheaper. But the possibility of a 1TB SSD being the size of a postage stamp? Sounds impossible, but not to those crafty Japanese scientists.

A bunch of researchers from various Japanese universities and organizations have banded together to work on bringing the size of SSDs right down, with the energy efficiency right up—with them hopeful they can produce enough so they can go on sale in 2012. They’ve already got one prototype created from 128 NAND flash chips and a controller chip, which you can see above, with the drive apparently transferring data at 2GB per second. Seriously, this is the stuff from my dreams—an SSD that can fit in my wallet? Amazing. [Nikkei via CrunchGear]