Sony announces the plan of high-speed Memory Stick

Sony is continuing its efforts to tempt digital camera users away from the ubiquitous SD Memory card format and on to the company's own Memory Stick standard, this time with a speed boost.

The company's latest Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo HX memory cards promise an impressive data transfer rate of 30MB/s, the fastest yet available in a Sony-branded memory card - performance which matches the current market leading speeds available from top-end SD Memory cards.

Designed for use in Sony's high-end range of devices - including the newly-announced NEX 3 and 5 mirrorless bridge cameras, which feature both Memory Stick and SD Memory card slots, and the company's secretive HD AVCHD camcorder - the company promises that users will feel the benefit of the increased transfer rates immediately.

As an example, Sony offered the calculation that a user with an Alpha-series digital SLR camera and one of the new Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo HX high-speed cards could capture 260 high-resolution JPEG images in a single minute - an improvement of 160 percent over the existing high-end Memory Stick storage cards. Users of the company's video cameras can enjoy similar performance boosts, with the company claiming the new cards will allow users to download video footage in a mere quarter of the time.

While UK availability hasn't been announced, Sony hopes to get the cards out in the US this summer in sizes ranging from 8GB to 32GB.