The issue of how to safely and securely archive thousands, tens of thousands or possibly even hundreds of thousands of photographs is a constant problem for photographers. Well, a new solution is on the horizon from Sandisk – the ‘WORM’ Write Once, Read Many SD card. Initially available only in a 1 Gigabyte size; but larger sizes are sure to come.

IDG News Service – SanDisk on Wednesday announced a Secure Digital card that can store data for 100 years, but can be written on only once.

The WORM (write once, read many) card is “tamper proof” and data cannot be altered or deleted, SanDisk said in a statement. The card is designed for long-time preservation of crucial data like legal documents, medical files and forensic evidence, SanDisk said. The media comes with capacity of only 1GB. SanDisk determined the media’s 100-year data-retention lifespan based on internal tests conducted at normal room temperatures.

To draw comparisons, the card is like DVD-write only media, but much smaller and with a much longer life span. SD cards typically slot into portable devices like digital cameras and mobile phones to store or move images, video or other data. The WORM works like conventional SD media, but only with compatible devices, SanDisk said.

The company said it is shipping the media in volume to the Japanese police force to archive images as an alternative to film, SanDisk said. The company is working with a number of consumer electronics companies including camera vendors to support the media. The media is available worldwide through resellers. SanDisk did not comment on pricing.

I am on the road, so can’t verify by downloading (as I am on the iPhone) but it looks like Lightroom 3 is now available for download. Would love it if someone could download the trial and see if they have added in softproofing and leave me a comment.
Lightroom 3 Download

EDIT – I have just got back to the office and can now verify that unfortunately soft-proofing has not made it into Lightroom 3.0. This is very disappointing for me as it means continually having to round trip my photographs through Photoshop for soft-proofing before going back to Lightroom for Print. No doubt an Adobe conspiracy to get me to upgrade to CS5… Nevertheless there are some very welcome new features in Lightroom 3.0 and the upgrade is certainly worthwhile.

Adobe has posted a new video showing Terry White’s top 5 favourite Lightroom 3 features. Note they don’t say Beta anywhere in the video – in fact, Terry quotes “Lightroom 3 is here! In this episode I’ll show you my Top 5 Favorite New Features. Lightroom 3 has lots of new features that I absolutely LOVE, however in this Episode I’ll show you my top 5 favourites.” Top 5 Favourite Lightroom 3 Features. The short video clip demonstrates new capabilities such as tethered capture, custom watermarks, flexible print package layouts, lens correction plus additional slide show features including video export and background soundtracks. Unfortunately there is still no mention of soft proofing, but you would have to believe that the 3.0 release is now very close with the release of this video.

Edit (A couple of hours on) – Well it looks like someone at Adobe slipped up – the video has been removed. Luckily I grabbed the quote from Terry White off the site before they took it down. Adobe really is the ship that never stops leaking…

Edit 2 – You can actually still get to the video on google’s cache HERE as of 8:12pm EST.

My Canon Travel thermos arrived in the mail today from Canon Mugs in China – I must admit I had my doubts anything would ever arrive (its the cynic in me). Overall the quality is quite good. The thermos is lined with stainless steel and the lid is a good snug fit. This should do nicely for the morning coffee on the way to the office.