Sandisk announced a range of new Flash memory-based products at CeBit. Its Cruzer Titanium Flash drives doubled their capacity to 2 GByte, another Cruzer version offers content protection through fingerprint identification and xD picture cards are now available with up to 1 GByte capacity.

The Titanium drives are a stylish version of popular USB sticks. According to Samsung, the casing is made by Liquidmetal Technologies. The "advanced" titanium alloy is about 2.5 times stronger than common titanium and commonly used for aerospace, medical devices, sporting goods and other applications that require lightweight strength and the ability to withstand extremes of temperature, Sandisk said.

The drives are expected to ship in April with suggested retail pricing of $250 for the 2 GByte version, $170 for 1 GByte and $85 for 512 kByte capacity. The drive is available in a 512 MByte and 1 GByte version.

New is also the Cruzer Profile, a USB Flash drive that comes with a fingerprint identification tool integrated into the device to help restrict access to designated users. The devices are priced at $100 and $200.

xD cards are now also available in capacities of up to 1 GByte, which will be able to hold about 700 to 800 pictures in 5-megapixel resolution. The card will also be available in April and carry a suggested retail price of $140. (THG)