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Toshiba has married its card-size hard drive with Bluetooth wireless technology to come up with a portable storage device aimed at PDA users who need large-capacity storage. The Hopbit will be publicly unveiled at the World PC Expo show that runs in Tokyo from next Wednesday, Toshiba says.

The device contains a 5GB version of one of Toshiba's 1.8-inch hard drives and offers about 80 times the memory storage space offered by Toshiba's Genio 550 PDA and 10 times the capacity of the largest memory card on the market. It will hold around 1,000 average-length MP3 audio tracks, 3,000 digital images from a 3-megapixel camera, or 37 hours of MPEG4 video encoded at 320 by 240 pixels and 15 frames per second, says Toshiba.

A Bluetooth transceiver embedded in the Hopbit means it can be accessed from the PDA and also from other devices equipped with Bluetooth, such as desktop PCs. Bluetooth's device-linking function and proprietary software should ensure that data remains accessible only by approved users, says Toshiba.

Low-Cost Storage

The Hopbit B105H will go on sale in Japan from November 1 and will cost $410, making it an attractive option for PDA or mobile PC users that want extra storage space at a low cost. A similar investment in Secure Digital memory cards would buy around 768KB of storage, or around one-seventh the space offered by the Hopbit.

The device measures 4.3 inches by 2.8 inches by .9 inches and weighs 6.3 ounces. A rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery should allow the Hopbit to run in standby for around 200 hours or in operation for six hours off a single charge.

Toshiba has no plans at present to put the Hopbit on sale overseas although the company will consider such sales should it be a success in the Japan market, says Midori Suzuki, a Toshiba spokesperson.

World PC Expo, Japan's largest PC exhibition, runs from October 16 to 19 at Tokyo Big Sight.

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