it is a standard SD card which at the moment is available up to 512 MB I believe. It is the size of a postage stamp and bears no resemblance whatever either physically or in technology to the stuff bebop remembers.

We have 4 standards now, Compact flash, which I would have preferred.

Smart media which is physically too fragile for my tastes (it breaks in your pocket).

Memory stick, which Sony introduced because they always have to have something better, and more expensive!

And SD which Panasonic introduced because Sony had their own system, and Panasonic must always have something different from Sony.

I suppose it should have been obvious that they would use the parent company format. The upside is that prices are falling all the time, and SD is used on many other consumer gadgets like cameras, camcorders etc. So I doubt if they are going to get more expensive, they should get cheaper if historical experience is anything to go by.