SHANGHAI, Apr. 27 -- Imagine transferring gigabytes of photos from your camera to laptop or iPod within a few seconds. Well, that will become reality soon, with a new short-range wireless technology that's 10 times faster compared with BlueTooth and Wi-Fi.

There will be no need to wait a long time for Windows to start up or buy expensive hard disks to protect data. The next-generation storage technology promises to give high mobility to users.

The new memory standards also double the running rate of computers and reduce power consumption by a third, allowing games to run smoothly.

These new technologies are called Wireless USB, Solid State Drive (SSD) and DDR3 (double date rate).

The good news is that all these will come into commercial use later this year or in 2008.

Wireless USB

Wireless USB is a short-range, high-bandwidth wireless extension to USB that combines the speed and ease-of-use of USB 2.0 with the convenience of wireless technology.

Certified Wireless USB performance is targeted at 480Mbps (a megabit per second) at three meters and 110Mbps at 10 meters, compared with 54Mbps of Wi-Fi and less than 1Mbps of BlueTooth.

"Too many wires are needed with computers to connect consumer electronics, mobile phones and music players - it's a mess," said Jeff Ravencraft, president of USB Implements Forum, which promotes the new technology.

Products of Wireless USB, co-developed by HP, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Samsung, are scheduled to be launched in China later this year.

The forum's members include Kodak, Sony, Nokia and Lenovo.

"A big Beijing-based PC maker will start to adopt the technology within this year," Ravencraft said.

People with older equipment can still choose a wireless package, including a wireless hub and a USB connector, to use Wireless USB.

Alereon, which designs the chip and software of wireless USB, is seeking partners in China and it expects the related products will be available in the country in 2008, according to Mike Krell, Alereon's market director.

Solid State Drive

This long-awaited technology is about to burst out of the lab. During the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing last week, Samsung and Intel displayed their SSD products. Intel also displayed the "classmate PC" with SSD inside.

The Solid State drive is a data storage device that often uses non-volatile memory such as Flash, the iPod Nano's storage drive.

SSD provides high-speed data transfer compared with current hard disks. In a recent test, a SSD-powered computer started Windows XP within 18 seconds, compared with 31 seconds now.

Meanwhile, SSD means you can use your computer even in a bumpy bus, and it saves the data even the power supply is interrupted suddenly, which are missions impossible for the current generation of hard disks, industry insiders said.

Globally speaking, Samsung and SanDisk has launched the SSD above 64G. Some 8G and 16G SSD products are available now, a marketing official at the Samsung booth said.

"It is a nice technology for future laptops and the 16G SSD meets the requirements for most enterprise computer users," said Knut Grimsrud, Intel's storage architecture director.

DDR3

The next-generation memory chip provides the high speed of 800 to 1,600 Mbps compared with DDR2's 400 to 800Mbps. The energy-saving memory, with a smaller size, is now used in graphic cards, which helps PC makers to cut costs.

Samsung and Qimonda, a spin-off memory firm from Infineon, displayed the DDR3 products at the Intel Developer Forum.

The DDR3 will replace DDR2 in a wide range of products next year or in 2009 as the popularity of Windows Vista grows, Samsung forecasts.

Car Navigation Device

MIO launched the flagship car navigation product Mio DigiWalker C720, which features a 4.3-inch wide-screen, ultra-slim shape, GPS function and BlueTooth, which can connect people's BlueTooth phones to ensure the driver's security. The product also features a 2-megapixel camera and can "read" business cards automatically.

n Price - 5,980 yuan (US$776)

Prada Phone

JOINTLY designed by LG and top-notch Italian fashion brand Prada, the Prada phone features a wide 3-inch touch screen, a 2-megapixel camera and the absence of a front keypad. The model first went on sale in Europe in March and is scheduled to launch next month in South Korea. Company officials said LG is still studying the possibilities of a future launch in China.

n Price - 600 euros (US$818)

210,000 users

MORE than 210,000 people visited five pornographic Websites created by a university student surnamed Li. Now Li, who earned 10,000 yuan from the sites, has been detained by police.

4.3% drop

CHINA'S LCD monitor sales dropped 4.3 percent to 6.7 million units quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter, according to US-based IT consulting firm IDC. The drop came from the price fluctuation in the LCD panel sector in the period, IDC said.

1,400 staff

LENOVO Group Ltd announced recently it will cut 1,400 overseas jobs, five percent of its total staff. Lenovo aim to cut costs to compete with HP and Dell in the global market.