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The 404 830: Where sorry does not put the crackers in our stomachs (podcast)

It's graduation time for college students, but today we're exploring an offer from Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel to give a $100,000 fellowship to students who drop out and start their own company. He argues that people under 20 can learn more useful real-world skills at a start-up than at a university, where they'll ultimately leave in massive debt.

We're also offering tips on how to shop at Costco, the dropping prices of external media cards, the return of The 404 Audio Draft in a new Web site Outloud.fm, life lessons to be learned from Adam Sandler's "Billy Madison," and a couple of rules for leaving a voice mail on our show.

Have a fun (and safe!) Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

The 404 Digest for Episode 830

Google Wallet debuts, PayPal sues. PayPal co-founder offers $100,000 fellowship to students to quit college. Kingmax unveils world's first 64GB microSD card. Follow Jeff, Justin, Wilson, and The 404 Podcast on Twitter!

Episode 830 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Kingmax MicroSD card hits 64GB mark

A few years back during CES 2009, I was introduced to the first microSD card that offered 16GB of storage space. Considering the card's size, which is smaller than the nail on your little finger, that was really a wow. But it's not a big deal anymore.

Kingmax, a big name among system memory vendors, introduced today the first microSD card that offers 64GB of storage space. To put this in context, the device would hold enough data to fill two and a half Blu-ray discs (some 24 hours of 720p content), in a space that's again smaller than your fingernail. The new card supports the microSDXC standard, where XC stands for "extended capacity."

Kingmax says the little module features a Class 6 rating, meaning it can read and write at up to 48Mbps. While this is fast for a microSD card, it would still take about three hours to fill it up or pull all the data off of it.

Note that it's unlikely your smartphone can handle the card, as most smartphones are designed to work with microSD cards in capacities of 16GB or lower. For this reason, Kingmax hasn't announced the pricing for the new card yet, but expect it to be available for purchase soon.

Also expect other vendors to soon introduce their own 64GB microSD cards.… Read more

Five-deal Friday. That's right: Five!

It's Friday. I'm on no sleep. Got a crazy-busy weekend coming up. My to-do list is as long as my arm. Computers and electronics are failing all around me. (Two desktops in two weeks, one Xbox 360, and one Novatel Wireless aircard, plus my Comcast Internet keeps flaking out at random intervals. Shall I go on?)

What does all this rambling incoherence (or is it incoherent rambling?) have to do with today's post? For some reason it seemed easier to write briefly about five deals than to write at length about one. I may regret that decision; … Read more

Sigma aims SD1 at pro photographers

Sigma has announced it'll ship its SD1 camera in June for $9,700, a price that suggests it's aiming its new flagship SLR almost exclusively at professional photographers.

The Japanese company unveiled the Sigma SD1 last year at the Photokina trade show. The camera embodies the company's aspirations to rise beyond its present role as a maker of third-party lenses into a camera rival to powerhouses such as Nikon and Canon.

The SD1 pricing, though, indicates that Sigma is trying to leapfrog Canon's top-end, $7,500 1Ds Mark III and Nikon's competing $5,900 D3x … Read more

Lexar's flash card reader supports USB 3, SDXC

Lexar Media has overhauled its 2007-era dual-slot professional flash card reader to support fast new cards and the higher-speed USB 3.0 interface that have arrived in the last four years.

Like its predecessor, the new reader handles CompactFlash (CF) and Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. Unlike its predecessor, it can handle SDXC, a newer member of the SD card lineage that provides for larger capacities, and SD's UHS-1 higher-speed interface.

Things didn't change on the CF side of the shop; the older model supported the present high-speed standard for CompactFlash, called UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access). CompactFlash … Read more

Creative launching iPod Nano rival

Though most of its features mimic those of the iPod Nano, Creative's new Zen Style music player is trying to up the ante by including Bluetooth and a microSD card slot.

Available next month, the Zen Style M300 is Creative's latest attempt to carve out a bigger slice of the portable music player market.

The $79 device is a combination music, photo, and video player with a built-in FM radio and touch-control buttons to maneuver around the 1.45-inch screen. A built-in mic allows for voice recording.

The included Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity lets people listen to music through any compatible Bluetooth wireless headset as well as through Bluetooth wireless speakers. The microSD card slot can hold up to 32GB of music beyond the unit's internal storage space.… Read more

How to manually transfer music to your Android's SD card

Phones that can browse the Web, e-mail, and check Twitter usually include a music player. And what better to listen to on your phone than your own music? Here's an easy guide to help add some tunes to your phone's library without any third-party software.

Step 1: Locate the music files on your computer.

Step 2: Connect the phone via USB cable and select "Turn on USB storage," which will allow you to mount the SD card to add music. If no prompt appears, there will be a USB icon in the notification shade (at top) … Read more

Delkin offers USB 3.0 flash card reader

Photographers and videographers with a lot of data spend a lot of time waiting for files to transfer to their computers, sometimes paying a premium for FireWire 800 ports to edge out the speeds of USB 2.0.

Now the USB 3.0 generation of flash card readers is starting to arrive, though, including Delkin Devices' $40 USB 3.0 Multi-Card Reader and Writer. The company announced yesterday that the products are now shipping from its San Diego factory.

Its raw data transfer rate of 5 gigabits per second promises to leapfrog the 800 megabits per second of FireWire 800 … Read more

How to use SD cards for extra iPad video storage

Now that the iPad 2 has video capabilities, storage on the device is more important than ever. According to commenter "nigelgoodman" at Mac OS X Hints, you can create a workaround using SD cards and the iPad's Camera Connection Kit to get extra storage for your media.

Videos stored on an SD card can be imported with the Camera Connection Kit when formatted properly.

Formatting your SD card First, you must set up your SD card. In order for the iPad to recognize your media files, it has to think that the card you store your media … Read more