You think your girlfriend has the longest lasting memory, do you? Well according to “Digital Camera Shopper” magazine, where they took five of the main memory card formats; CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia and not only boiled, washed, dunked in cola, run over with a skateboard, but also give them to a six-year old who was instructed to destroy the cards. The result, the cards took the abuse! The xD card and the SmartMedia card even survived being hit with a sledgehammer and nailed to a tree (it did take a data retrieval expert to get the photographs out). “We knew modern memory cards were durable, but had no idea they would be quite so tough.” said editor Geoff Harris. He suggests that the UK’s 18 million digital photographers should still back up their pictures, presumably in case of the card being struck by lightning during a tornado which has driven a nail through the memory card and thrown it two miles into an inconveniently-sited blast furnace.
[ via The Register ]