Flash Memory is used in many different ways today, including digital cameras, iPods, and USB memory keys (a.k.a. thumb drives, memory sticks, flash drives, key drives, etc.). These technologies are quickly transforming how we communicate and publish in the world of education.

Now Samsung has developed a way to increase the storage capacity on these flash-based devices even more. Imagine a USB flash drive that is as small as your keychain but which holds as much as the hard drive on your laptop! Or even more? They’re talking 16 or even 32 gigabytes of storage on just one of these units! With the universality of USB memory compatibility, that’s like having a permanent hard drive with you whereever you go!

ZDNet published a story on Monday that described the new developments.

Samsung has developed a new computer flash technology with so much capacity it could replace mini hard drives in some PCs, the company said Monday.

South Korean-based Samsung said its latest NAND memory device has 16-gigabit density. That’s twice the density of the 8-gigabit NAND memory developed last year by Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi and others.

To give you an idea of the size, they’re saying that these devices could be able to store about 8,000 MP3 files (about 680 HOURS of songs!)! Now THAT’S ubiquitous computing!