Sony Corp, Olympus Optical Co Ltd, Sanyo Electric Co Ltd, Casio Computer Co Ltd, Sharp Corp and Fujitsu Ltd have jointly developed a new memory card format for recording and playing back sound and still picture images, intended for use in digital still cameras. Reuters reports that the card, which is long and thin and may end up being called the memory stick stores data in memory units of 8 kilobytes rather than the usual 512 byte units, making data retrieval and management easier. The six intend to encourage other manufacturers to use the format, and plan samples this year, with volume production by the spring of 1998.
