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Cornice Co. still open for business?
Site's been down for a while.
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RubenNYC 2007-06-12, 15:58 #1
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Subject: Cornice Co. still open for business?
Has anybody heard anything about Cornice?  Their corniceco.com web site has been down for quite a while now.  I hope it's not an indication that they went under.  I can't find anything in the news about it.

I'm posting this in the Rio/Trekstor General forum because of the obvious implications on future versions of the vibez.

Just curious if anybody knows anything.

Thx.
Sean Michael Taylor #21 (1983-2007). Thank you for giving it everything you had. Rest In Peace.
Tom77 2007-06-19, 16:53 #2
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I haven't heard anything about them, but when I try to go to their website that I've been to many times, its just not there.

When a search engine comes up with links to pages on their site, trying to go there just comes up with "The page can not be displayed"

I have no idea what's really happening, but...  I'm guessing that 12GB and larger flash drives are going to be cheap and plentiful soon, making micro drives with spinning platters pretty much un-necessary no matter how robust they are.

I'll bet if we see a 15 or 20 GB vibez it will not have a drive with any moving parts.

I'll bet its really hard to get anyone to invest in developing any new micro drive tecnology at this point...   It will be basically obsolete before its ready for production.
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RubenNYC 2007-06-19, 17:03 #3
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Almost by definition, flash drive capacities will grow in powers of 2: 1 GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, etc.  So the next threshhold will be 16GB then 32GB flash cards.
Sean Michael Taylor #21 (1983-2007). Thank you for giving it everything you had. Rest In Peace.
peter 2007-06-20, 04:13 #4
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Quote by RubenNYC:
Almost by definition, flash drive capacities will grow in powers of 2: 1 GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, etc.  So the next threshhold will be 16GB then 32GB flash cards.
Individual chips grow in powers of two, but sometimes cards are made from three (or six) chips. I've seen 6GB CF cards.

This isn't perhaps a very interesting post, but I wanted to get #10,000.

Peter
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LycoLoco 2007-06-20, 12:31 #5
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Peter, you ass :-p
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Peregrine 2007-06-21, 06:54 #6
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10,000 what?

?!?!?
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RubenNYC 2007-06-21, 07:36 #7
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Peter's is post number 10,000 for Riovolution.org.
Sean Michael Taylor #21 (1983-2007). Thank you for giving it everything you had. Rest In Peace.
ericks37 2007-06-21, 08:24 #8
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Check this link out:

http://cbs4denver.com/business/local_story_046121520.html

(Cornice pulled the plug on their hard drive division)
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RubenNYC 2007-06-21, 08:35 #9
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I'm guessing the next vibez will indeed be a flash player.  I'm arbitrarily setting the over/under to sometime in Q4 2008.

Big question for current vibez owners, if our hard drives die, will there still be Cornice Dragon drives available as replacements?  And for how long?

/me feeling very worried and kinda pissed.
Sean Michael Taylor #21 (1983-2007). Thank you for giving it everything you had. Rest In Peace.
ericks37 2007-06-21, 08:49 #10
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At least they are not out of business completely; perhaps they will make a flash memory device that will fit their hard drive interface.  I would also imagine that an interface could be made to allow SD cards in its various forms fit the current vibez hard drive interface... Hopefully Cornice will step up to the plate with conversion devices.
Tom77 2007-06-21, 11:23 #11
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I'm envisioning flash drives with the same interface as the micro drives so you can plug them right into the vibez. 

Kind of like the new samsung 32GB 2.5 inch flash drives that are now available and can be plugged right into notebooks to replace hard drives.

Thats where things are headed I'm thinking.
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RubenNYC 2007-06-21, 16:23 #12
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Just had another thought:  This could push back the next firmware version if they now have to develop & test for flash or another brand of microdrive. 

My heart is starting to sink little by little.
Sean Michael Taylor #21 (1983-2007). Thank you for giving it everything you had. Rest In Peace.
Riolist 2007-06-21, 18:11 #13
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Quote by RubenNYC:
Just had another thought:  This could push back the next firmware version if they now have to develop & test for flash or another brand of microdrive. 

My heart is starting to sink little by little.

Why would they do that? They have an existing base of players that could benefit from a firmware upgrade, which they have stated will be forthcoming. Why would they stop work on that in order to start developing a firmware for a player that doesn't yet exist?
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RubenNYC 2007-06-21, 18:15 #14
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Quote by Riolist:
Quote by RubenNYC:
Just had another thought:  This could push back the next firmware version if they now have to develop & test for flash or another brand of microdrive. 

My heart is starting to sink little by little.

Why would they do that? They have an existing base of players that could benefit from a firmware upgrade, which they have stated will be forthcoming. Why would they stop work on that in order to start developing a firmware for a player that doesn't yet exist?

My thinking is that, eventually there won't be any Cornice drives left to continue manufacturing or refurbishing vibez players.  So, this could potentially force TrekStor/Sigmatel to accelerate devleopment of a firmware optimized for flash storage.  Of course, we don't know how much the change at Cornice actually affects TrekStor's or Sigmatel's plans regarding firmware development.

Of course, I could be completely off base.  This is pure conjecture from someone who does not work in the DAP industry.
Sean Michael Taylor #21 (1983-2007). Thank you for giving it everything you had. Rest In Peace.
Tom77 2007-06-21, 19:49 #15
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Quote by RubenNYC:
Quote by Riolist:
Quote by RubenNYC:
Just had another thought:  This could push back the next firmware version if they now have to develop & test for flash or another brand of microdrive. 

My heart is starting to sink little by little.

Why would they do that? They have an existing base of players that could benefit from a firmware upgrade, which they have stated will be forthcoming. Why would they stop work on that in order to start developing a firmware for a player that doesn't yet exist?

My thinking is that, eventually there won't be any Cornice drives left to continue manufacturing or refurbishing vibez players.  So, this could potentially force TrekStor/Sigmatel to accelerate devleopment of a firmware optimized for flash storage.  Of course, we don't know how much the change at Cornice actually affects TrekStor's or Sigmatel's plans regarding firmware development.

Of course, I could be completely off base.  This is pure conjecture from someone who does not work in the DAP industry.

I wouldn't think it would need a firmware change any more than you would need a firmware change to drop one of the 32GB flash drives into a laptop.  It looks and acts just like a drive.  The laptop or vibez wouldn't know the difference other than it would probably be faster.

The differences will be handled in the drives interface.  The pin-outs to the connecter would be identical.  The I/O commands and responces would be identical.

Have you seen the chips in/on a drive?  Thats where the firmware changes will be.

All speculation of course, but thats the only way it would be done.
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