IBM has tripled the capacity of its Microdrive from 340 MegaBytes to a full GigaByte! The Microdrive,known as the worlds smallest working disk-based hard drive, measures in at under an inch and a half by an inch and three quarters and weighs a scant 16 grams. Adhering to the CF+ Type II interface, the Microdrive was built specifically for use in digital cameras, handheld PCs, PDAs, portable music players and vide cameras. The Microdrive also comes with a PCMCIA adapter for notebook support and includes support for the ATA interface. With its new larger size, the Microdrive can now hold up to 1,000 high-resolution photographic images, a thousand 200-page novels or nearly 18 hours of high-quality digital audio music. IBM has improved the latest Microdrive over the previous drive by improving the non-operating shock rating by 50% (from 1,000 G to 1,500 G) and increasing the sustained data transfer rate and decreasing power consumption (thereby increasing battery life in devices). All this without tripling the price! IBM has announced that prices for the drives will be $399 for the 340MB Microdrive and $499 for the 1GB Microdrive through the Fall of 2000 via IBMs Website.