By Jon Stokes | Published: December 18, 2008 – 09:35PM CT

Two of the biggest knocks against the use of SSDs in the enterprise have been size and lifespan, but both of those arguments have taken a hit this week with two recent announcements. These announcements will also have an impact on the mobile client, as well.

The first announcement comes from Sun and Micron, who claim to have cooked up a way to increase the the lifespan of an SLC SSD by about ten times by enabling up to one million write cycles. This is a pretty huge boost, and it definitely diminishes concerns that SLC just doesn’t have the lifespan for enterprise use.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any details from either Micron or Sun on how they get the write cycles up so high, but whatever trick they’re using also works for MLC NAND. This means that MLC, which is larger in capacity but lower in performance and lifespan than SLC, will have lifespans that rival the current generation of SLC lifespans. Because of its lower lifespan, MLC is typically used in consumer electronics and some consumer-oriented SSDs (Intel and Toshiba, among others, make MLC SSDs). SLC is preferred for SSD applications where performance and lifespan are more critical than raw capacity, and that includes the higher levels of the enterprise storage hierarchy where SSD is finding effective use as cache. So a tenfold increase in MLC lifespan could make it newly viable as enterprise cache storage.

Boosting capacities

The other big SSD news today is Toshiba’s announcement of a half-terabyte (512GB) SSD, the price of which hasn’t been revealed. The new drive has a maximum sequential read speed of 240MB/s and a max sequential write speed of 200MB/s, making it plenty fast, especially relative to its 2.5-inch magnetic competition.

I’ve no doubt that this 2.5-inch MLC drive will set you back quite a bit, but I also don’t doubt that its price is headed way down, and at a more rapid rate (thanks to larger market conditions) than we might have previously expected. Either way, this is a pretty significant size milestone, and it was achieved on a 43nm half-node process.

All told, flash’s rising capacities, falling costs, and increased lifespans are all poised to drive flash even deeper into the enterprise, both on the server side and on the mobile client side. The latter especially will benefit dramatically, because these flash trends will give an added boost the cost-sensitive netbook market that’s currently eating into the low end of the laptop space.

If you’re interested in hearing me ramble on at some length about portability, then check out a webcast that I recently did. Click through to this site and then look for the large gray box on the right, “Breaking Portability Barriers in the Enterprise.”

TalkShoe this afternoon released a major upgrade to their live podcasting platform, one that allows for a call to be created mobile, on the fly and independent of a connection to the web.

CEO Dave Nelson posted the details to the company blog today:

So now you can do a movie review as you leave the theater, inform your audience about a breaking news story, or tell your friends about a hot new restaurant while the taste is still on your tongue.

You may recall a similar service was released back in March by TalkShoe competitor BlogTalkRadio called CinchCast. The primary difference between the BlogTalkRadio offering and TalkShoe’s new feature is the ability to bring in callers to the show and broadcast it live (Cinchcast is time-shifted only).

As a podcast producer who has frequently used TalkShoe as a valued production tool, I can say that this is one feature that’s been on my personal wishlist for quite some time. It allows TalkShoe to move into the category of journalistic tool that Twitter has found itself in, and adds another utility to the repertoire of the New Media producer.

In essence, it finally allows users to have the same functionality in audio format they’ve had for quite some time with the video format thanks to services like Qik and Flixwagon.

Mozilla first spoke about development of a mobile edition of its Firefox browser last October. And just this week we saw a first-run alpha make its way to the developer testing stage in the form of a program called “Fennec.”

There’s of course ample reason to be excited about this ultra-soft launch. Add-ons are part and parcel of the Firefox experience since way back when, and they are most definitely coming to the handheld world by way of Mozilla HQ. Which should pique the interest of third parties everywhere. Still, you might be wondering if the initial release is anything to drool over. The best answer I can provide you this very moment is a solid and strong maybe.

To start, Fennec is laid out as you might expect it to be if you were using, say, a mini tablet PC, like the Nokia N810. Which makes perfect sense, given that the only mobile installation available from Mozilla at present is one constructed for use with the N810. Those who don’t happen to own one such device will have to made do with desktop-friendly downloads for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, which can be run just as, say, those iPhone and Android SDK emulators – albeit strictly within the technical confines of Web browserdom. For the record, I base this brief overview on the Mac-specific package.

In its default view, the Fennec “emulator” is drawn as it would be on the N810. It can be resized to conform to broader or thinner dimensions, but for sanity’s sake, try to maintain what Mozilla gives you from the get-go, lest you become furious with it in mere seconds and exit quickly, returning only when Mozilla can provide Firefox for your whatever it is that lives in your pocket.

It’s certainly hard to contrast Fennec amid actors like Safari Mobile, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, and Google’s Android-friendly Chrome option. Or whatever Google’s official name for the product is. You’ve got your URL field (complete with “Awesome Bar”), a pseudo tab-slash-new-window button, jazzy touch screen functions, back button and forward button, and bookmark button and bookmarks menu button. All the usual stuff, really. So as logic would have it, where Fennec will have to distinguish itself is in the add-on world. Firefox is the clear champion on the desktop. Will Mozilla retain that label in the mobile realm as well?

I’m going to go out on a semi-adventurous limb and posit that, yes, Mozilla will accomplish the task set before its engineers.

Obviously mobile browsing today isn’t like its desktop equivalent. You just can’t do with your mobile phone everything you can do with your preferred PC-based utility. Much of it has to do with real estate. Whether you’re handling an iPhone, T-Mobile G1, Symbian-equipped Nokia, or Windows Mobile 6-based device, it’s just not possible. And Fennec, whatever might come of the alpha in the weeks and months to come, won’t work true desktop-like magic either. But if competitors aren’t careful to address their myriad faults and weaknesses, it may well evolve to become second-best to what we have on our full-sized devices.

Through sheer brand value and favoritism among third-party developers, it doesn’t seem too bullish to consider that many extensions will soon (relatively speaking) find a home inside Fennec. Seeing how inventive mobile developers have shown themselves to be as of late – what with Web-connected applications made for the iPhone and the brewing excitement over the Android Market, and even Microsoft’s so-called “Skymarket” application storefront – the age-old phrase of “hit the ground running” seems apt for Mozilla’s picking.

Now, success isn’t guaranteed. That alpha tag is synonymous with super-duper early. Early squared. But Mozilla has issued something for any and all curious eyes to pore over and play with. It’s quite bare and quite drab, for sure, but if you just recall where it was that Firefox began, you’ll know that candied sexiness is just a front for internal and extensional beauty. It is with eager anticipation that I await Fennec alpha 2, 3, and whatever it is that comes after. Are you hungry, too?

September 26, 2008 – 2:47 am PDT – by Stan Schroeder

After Adobe jumped into the wonderful world of Web apps with their lightweight version of Photoshop, dubbed Photoshop Express, they’re releasing Photoshop Mobile as a free beta for US-based owners of Windows Mobile-based phones. Yes, that sounds like a lot of restrictions, and I honestly cannot understand why only US-based users (which excludes me) can use the software, but it’ll give me a wonderful opportunity to go hard on them without even trying the thing out. Just kidding. In any case, the mobile version of Photoshop (take that with a grain of salt, you can’t work on your 100+ layer illustration on your mobile just yet) gives you the ability to upload photos from your phone to your Photoshop account, with 2GB of storage space. You can also access photos from anywhere you are and share them with your friends. There are already dozens of applications that offer this functionality, but I reckon that Photoshop Mobile is probably as good a choice as any.

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Google on Thursday announced that it has used its Gears Geolocation API to make searching for businesses and locales in your area easier on Windows Mobile devices.

According to the company, Search with My Location approximates your location based on Cell ID technology already employed by Google Maps and returns businesses in that area. If you’re looking to find the best Italian restaurants in your area, you can input “Italian restaurants” into the Search field, and it will return a list of Italian restaurants around your location. But it goes beyond businesses and restaurants. Google said that if you want to know the forecast where you are, simply type in “weather” and it will return the weather for your area.

So far, Search with My Location is only available on Windows Mobile phones for users running Internet Explorer Mobile (a full list of compatible phones can be found here) in the US and UK, but Google said that wider support will be available as it continues to enter into agreements with vendors.

To use the new service now, surf to Google.com, click the My Locations link, and get started.

By David Chartier | Published: September 05, 2008 – 12:50PM CT

For those still on the fence about 3G in the US or convinced that it’s just a fad, a new report shows that 3G device growth is very healthy and has even exploded in the past year. In fact, the US has just overtaken Western Europe (by a hair) in terms of overall 3G device adoption. According to data in a year-long comScore survey of mobile subscribers, the total number of US mobile phone subscribers with a 3G device has leapt from 35 million in June 2007 to over 64 million this year. That’s an 80 percent growth in 3G devices, beating the European adoption of 46 percent from 43 to 63 million in the same time span.

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New research by engineers at the University of Washington has resulted in a new video encoding scheme capable of allowing individuals to communicate via American Sign Language on US cellular networks.

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