You know how solid state drives aren't very common right now? SanDisk laid the blame for that directly onto Microsoft's face, accusing Windows Vista of not being optimised for those SSDs. The next-generation drives due out soon require more advanced controllers (the stuff that interfaces with the drive itself), which "need to basically compensate for Vista's shortfalls."

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Today SanDisk announced it would acquire the company that developed the chunky MusicGremlin Wi-Fi MP3 player, a device that made a smallish splash a few years ago for being the Zune before there was a Zune.

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SanDisk's new pSSD is a pATA drive aimed at the low-cost notebook PC sector— that range of ULPCs, MIDs and the like. Using Multi-Level Cell and Single-Level flash chip designs, the pSSD will have a read speed of about 39MB/sec and a streaming write speed of about 17MB/sec. Though there's no pricing info available, they'll be released at the beginning of August in 8, 16 and 32 GB capacities. Read on for the full press release.

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SanDisk may have a new PMP on the way. An accessory bundle for something called a Sansa Fuze was spotted on maker HandStands' website earlier—currently the address redirects to generic Sansa accessories. The player pictured in the ad looks like competition for a 3G iPod nano, and will likely include 8-16GB of memory as well as video and radio playback. When we know for sure, you will too. [anythingbutipod]

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The SanDisk Cruzer Titanium Plus is more than just an ordinary USB drive—it forces you to be responsible by backing up everything you place on it in a secure location far away from that maelstrom you call everyday life. So stick 4GB on board this $US60 pocket-sized lifeboat, and as soon as it's able, it automatically sends all that data up to the mother ship, an online backup service that's free for the first six months. After that, you'll have to pay $US29.99 per year. SanDisk needs to know one thing, though: Titanium is not a golden colour as you see here, guys. Anyway, backing up is a great new year's resolution, so don't wait for this trinket to ship in March to get started. [SanDisk]

Though you can no longer buy episodes of "The Office," "Heroes" or "30 Rock" on iTunes, you will be able to purchase them in January from SanDisk's Fanfare service. Of course, if you recall, you can't download the shows to your computer. You will have to watch them on the $US100 to $150 SanDisk Sansa TakeTV, which has some sluggish controls and video quality that isn't exactly hot. I'm stoked that SanDisk scored NBC because I want to see where Fanfare can go, but this sort of bush-league alliance, forged in flagrant defiance of its former friend Apple, makes NBC-Universal look like some kind of slutty ex. [Reuters]

Today SanDisk revealed Vaulter, a 8GB or 16GB flash drive that can hold your entire OS, designed to sit on the PCIe port inside a laptop. In Windows, this creates a separate letter drive, which speeds the hell out of your computer, without taking the place of your 2.5" SATA-connected HDD. It's not a Santa Rosa "Robson" thing either—it's a real drive, not some caching assistant. (In case you're wondering, Mac support is coming.) Performance acceleration comes from "pre-controlling the distribution of storage data between itself and the hard drive." The fact that it's on the PCIe port means that both storage devices can work in parallel. Now, the bad news: SanDisk is only offering it to OEM partners at first. We won't be able to buy them a la carte for a little while. [SanDisk]

SanDisk has begun shipping its 8GB microSDHC and M2 flash memory cards. The company hopes that they will find a market among users of memory-card-ready mobile phones. Available now for $140 and $150, respectively. [Electronista]

The recently released Sansa View may already in line for an upgrade if some leaked info on the SanDisk website is anything to go by. The link revealed listings for devices with 8, 16 and 32GB capacities with the high end price topping out at $US330. And since a 32GB Sansa View does not currently exist, we can only assume that one will be released sometime in the near future. Not a confirmation by any means, but if you are planning on picking up a Sansa View, you might want to wait a little longer if a higher capacity interests you. [Dapreview]

Over the weekend, Buy.com blabbed on SanDisk's Sansa TakeTV, formerly previewed as USB TV. Now available, the TakeTV mobile video player will cost $100 for 4GB and $150 for 8GB. Buy.com also mentioned the Fanfare video service, now in beta. It just so happens we got to play around with both, shoot some galleries and formulate some early opinions:

It's a funny little system, consisting of a video-capable USB flash drive, a dock with S-video, AV composite connectors and a power cord, and a remote that the flash drive can hug when not in use. You dock the USB drive to a Windows PC to load videos from the Fanfare service, but you can also dock it in any computer, Mac or PC, and load DivX, xVid and MPEG-4 videos onto it as a mass storage drive.

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