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Data Storage Businesses Apple

Apple Rumored to Be After Samsung Flash Memory 274

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we-wants-it-it's-precious-to-ussss dept.
Steve Nixon writes "An unconfirmed report today from Reuters quotes an industry analyst firm iSuppli as saying that Apple plans to buy as much as 40 percent of Samsung's second-half flash memory output. The NAND flash memory cards will be used in a new, 4 GB iPod Mini, which Apple would release in time for the holiday shopping season, the report stated. The current version of the 4 GB mini contains a hard drive. Apple's iPod Shuffle uses flash memory."
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Apple Rumored to Be After Samsung Flash Memory More

Apple Rumored to Be After Samsung Flash Memory

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  • Very good news (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ChrisF79 ( 829953 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:37PM (#13401024) Homepage
    Flash memory is going to do wonders for both battery life and size. Maybe I'll buy one of the new iPod minis if the rumors are true.

    • Re:Very good news (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mhore ( 582354 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:44PM (#13401110)
      Flash memory is going to do wonders for both battery life and size. Maybe I'll buy one of the new iPod minis if the rumors are true

      Absolutely -- but I just have to wonder why they'd want to move the mini to flash. Battery life -- sure. But size? Wouldn't they just end up with an iPod shuffle with a screen? Maybe they're just going to discontinue the 4 gb mini and introduce a 4 gb shuffle (since the largest mini is currently 6 gb). Who knows... ;)

      Mike.

      • Perhaps an array (Score:5, Interesting)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:50PM (#13401167)
        Nothing says Apple has to stick with using only one 4GB flash memory... (beyond price).

        A smaller Mini that holds 8GB might go over well, and fit even better between the large iPods and the Shuffle.
      • The mini could be slightly smaller without reducing the UI size, if the hard disk could be made smaller. Personally, I like the size of the Mini. When they make a 20GB one, I will replace my 3G iPod with it - the only question is whether it will be 20GB of hard disk or Flash.
      • They have 8 gb ipod mini will probably arrive at the same time, since the harddrive of that size has been available for a few months now.

        Maybe we'll see 1 and 4Gb Shuffle, 6 and 8Gb Mini.
      • Maybe it won't get that much smaller. Maybe they'll use the space saved for something else (larger battery, different/extra connector?)

        Maybe they'll just make it thinner. That'd still make it fit in a pocket better, while still keeping the same ui hardware.

  • Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

    by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:37PM (#13401028) Homepage
    Rumors for nerds. Stuff that may turn out to matter tomorrow.

  • Engadget? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by J-bob2 ( 219807 )
    Why is it all I see on Slashdot now-a-days is stories that were on engadget yesterday?

    • Re:Engadget? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by interiot ( 50685 )
      A year or two ago, you could say the same thing about Slashdot-vs-BoingBoing. These days, it's really Slashdot-vs-Digg.

      Still, Slashdot is an old reliable standby for normal people who don't need 100%-up-to-date info, and Slashdot still has more people to argue with.

  • Snappier? No, flashier! (Score:5, Funny)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:39PM (#13401046) Homepage
    So will the constant in-joke among the Mac crowd change from:

    "It just feels snappier!"

    to

    "It just seems flashier!"

  • All your memory are belong to us (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:39PM (#13401047)
    All your memory are belong to us. Well 40% of it anyways. After we pay you for it.

    Sincerely,

    Apple Computer

  • About time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by giorgiofr ( 887762 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:39PM (#13401052)
    I hope this will help drive down the cost of flash memory so that flash-based hard drives will become available to the general public. Silent, less power-hungry, more reliable. How longer will we have to put up with very fragile magnetic disks spinning at 7000+ rpm under a head that would cut them in half if contact occurred...

    • Re:About time (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation@@@gmail...com> on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:44PM (#13401099)
      I know! I go through about 10 or 20 hard drives per day and have to wear safety goggles because of all the shards of platters flying about!
    • It doesn't work that way. For one, flash is competing against microdrive in that case, which is tougher to make mechanical drives that small, being 1" drives and all.

      For another, I don't think the heads can cut through the platter, the heads would break first.

      Lastly, flash isn't anywhere near able to compete against laptop drives, much less desktop drives. For $100, I think one can get a 60GB laptop drive, which is faster in bandwidth than a high performance $60 1GB flash SD or CF chip. The 1GB chip I ju

      • Re:About time (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Bob Uhl ( 30977 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @05:09PM (#13401920)
        For another, I don't think the heads can cut through the platter, the heads would break first.

        At the old office, we had a disk whose heads ground the platters to dust: all that was left in the inside was the heads, a small (1/16") stub of platter material and a lot of dust. Very cool.

        • Having recently had a HD die of mechanical reasons on me, and also having a rock (ok, screwdriver and hammer) I took apart a hard drive for fun. The platters themselves are about a milimeter thick while the drive heads are less, and a lot more flimsy. Maybe back in the day they could, but not these days.

      • Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)

        by iamhassi ( 659463 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @05:27PM (#13402097) Journal
        "The 1GB chip I just bought was a high performance one rated at 9MB/s, laptop drives are easily faster. Desktop drives are even cheaper and higher performance, beyond 60MB/s and less than 50 cents per gig."

        yeah but hard drive's measure access time in milliseconds while ram accesses in nanoseconds. When you're playing hundreds of ~5 mB files access time is far more important than transfer rate.

        Not to mention a flash iPod could be much smaller and weigh a lot less with much longer battery life.

  • what kind of price changes would we expect to see, if any? right now id love to get an iPod, but they are a take on the expensive side. Would be nice if it dropped just a little for the cheapo people like myself :)
    • Not much since Apple will be getting the memory at a very steep discount. Said to be getting the memory for the same price as they were getting the hard drives. So it wont raise the iPods price, just makes it better.

      • Re:how will it change the price? (Score:5, Informative)

        by TrippTDF ( 513419 ) <hiland&gmail,com> on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:59PM (#13401263)
        ...which is exactly what Apple does, doesn't it?

        Apple almost never drops their prices, they just make things better at the current price point... remember, $300 5 years ago got you a black and white 5 GB iPod... look what it gets you now.

        I bet it will be redesigned a little, but the price is going to stay where it is.

    • Re:how will it change the price? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @04:18PM (#13401455) Journal
      But then low-lifes like yourself would be part of the hip, chic, "wealthy-appearing" culture that is Apple's base. Since you obviously aren't rich enough to flush $350 for a consumer item that will be passe in a year, you arean't really a good advertisement for Apple, now are you?

      Gotta keep the riff-raff out, you know? ;-)

    • Re:how will it change the price? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by anagama ( 611277 ) <obamaisaneocon@nothingchanged.org> on Thursday August 25, 2005 @04:34PM (#13401611) Homepage
      I've wanted to replace my 192 mb (w/ extra memory card) creative nomad mg II for a while. The other day I stopped into the local Apple store to poke around and I saw that they had 3g 15gb ipods for sale at $199. These include a dock and a wallwart charger (headphones, beltclip, and sync cable of course). It's a refurbished one (Apple has these on their website for $189 -- but I like the instant gratifaction of store buying). Anyway, I have a psychological barrier against paying more than $200 for a music player -- so this was perfect. I know the 20gb color model is only $100 more (more like $140 if you throw in the missing dock), but I'm not going to spend that much on music player ... I learned my lesson w/ the nomad. I think it was about $250 (with base 64mbs, another $100 for the memor card) and I don't think I ever got my money's worth out of it.

      With the 15gb ipod I will get my money back -- I've copied over all my CDs and I've finally heard old beloved songs I hadn't heard in ages merely because digging through piles of CDs for one good song is such a pain. Anyway, shall I ramble even more? ....

  • A small gap already (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rob_squared ( 821479 ) <<rob> <at> <rob-squared.com>> on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:41PM (#13401069)
    Having a 4GB iPod for $50 less thana full iPod seemed like a bad idea, but it worked. I'm wondering if using flash, which should increase price, will shorten the gap between the Mini and the low-end iPod. Then again, maybe apple wants people to notice the GB/price ratio and get the full-fledged iPod instead.
    • It only seems like a bad idea if you think only in terms of raw storage space. In the end the choice between a Mini and the full sized iPod is also one of form factor, where the significantly smaller size adds a lot of value, especially if people are not going to be listening to more than 4GB of music anyway (every person has an amount of storage beyond which nothing is useful).

      I don't think using Flash will increase price. What I thgink will happen in the new flash iPods will be smaller still, with longe

  • 40 percent is pretty significant (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sexyrexy ( 793497 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:42PM (#13401084)
    I don't think the big news here is that Apple is making a Shuffle-Mini hybrid, but that Fourty percent of the world's Samsung Flash memory stock is going to be eaten by a single buyer. Think about how many different manufacturers and resellers buy that memory - and 40% of it is going to Apple. Wow.

  • More info (Score:5, Informative)

    by i_should_be_working ( 720372 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:42PM (#13401088)
    More info here [tomshardware.com]

    Looks like Samsung is wooing Apple with a price reduction. Samsung also makes mp3 players. Seems like they would hoard the memory for themselves. Maybe they have figured out the sweet spot, in terms of profit, of how much to keep for themselves and how much to sell to the best selling brand.
    • Different business units.

      One make mp3 players. another makes flash memory. While the mp3 player biz will probably get some preferential treatment, the flash guys have revenue quotas, just like everybody else.
      • Bigger market share.

        There'd be no point to Samsung hoarding memory to themselves if they can't sell it. As things are now, best case scenario, Samsung might be able to wrangle a somewhat bigger minority share of the mp3 player market. If they cut this deal with Apple, Samsung gets to benefit from Apple's huge share.

        • Spare Fab Capacity What do you want to bet the Fabs for the Flash are not running full out? Or that Samsung has some spare capacity at Fabs they can convert to make Flash. That way they can increase efficiency of the Fab, lower costs per item, supply Apple and thier own sister division.
      • Different business units.

        Definitely. I'd rather see a company like Samsung who is able to keep its business divisions separate rather than try to hobble one division in a vain attempt to help another. Samsung is big in consumer electronics, but they shouldn't hobble their semiconductor business just because they think a particular buyer is going to compete against them, because those competitors generally have alternative sources, so if Samsung's chips are in a competitor's device, it is still a win for S

  • How much would you pay? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:44PM (#13401098) Homepage Journal
    An iPod mini with flash memory instead of a hard drive obviously would have much better battery life and be significantly lighter.

    What's it worth to you, though? $300? Will we have to wait a while before the price point becomes attractive? For me, frankly, battery life has never been an issue.

    • Battery life is only an issue when you travel with it and forget to bring your charger. I just drop it in the dock at night and let it synch and recharge. As for ruggeddness - the Mini is hard to break - I've dropped mine several times with no problems. It also is more than acceptably light weight.

      So, it's wait and see as to why Apple is doing this.

      • Re:How much would you pay? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by binarybum ( 468664 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @04:26PM (#13401532) Homepage
        disagree - battery life is paramount on portable devices as are size and weight. I tend to travel places where there is no place to plug in a charger. You should view any portable device as portable only when it has charge, so a device with less battery life is in a sense less portable.
          Size and weight play into the opportunity cost of the device. I have to carry a lot of stuff when I'm traveling around. Music is nice to have, but am I willing to lose an entire pocket to it? Am I willing to have an additional something warm and heavy clunking against my thigh (whoa, I'm asking for it with that one). the lesser those size/weight/heat issues become, the more likely one is to consider the device worthy of occupying their luggage space.

  • A good idea (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jetekus ( 909605 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:44PM (#13401103)

    Hopefully this would push down the size of the iPod mini. I can't help but hide a smile when people talk about how small the minis are, when you can get 10 times the storage on something only about twice as big...

    Until the iPod mini is really small (like shuffle size), it is just impractical for people with decent sized music collections. The size and weight you save vs the large models isn't enough to outweigh the loss in capacity. Of course, I guess it's ok for people who call 64kbps "near CD quality"...

    • If you want smaller than a mini, get a shuffle or some other stick-of-gum sized player.

      The whole point of the mini is, it's the smallest you can go and still retain the excellent ipod touch wheel interface. THAT's why people buy a lot of them. Small enough to pocket but still containing the interface that keeps apple dominating the market.
    • To me personally, storage space and battery life are much more important than size.....

      However, my wife says that "size matters".

    • it is just impractical for people with decent sized music collections.

      I beg to differ. My music collection is 'reasonable' weighing in at something just under what the largest ipod will hold. My audiobook collection (with a smattering of podcasts and old radio productions) though tops 1/4tb. Since there is _no_ way any portable player is going to hold all of that any time soon there's simply no point in trying.

      I have a mini. I bought it because it had the wheel, was intuitive enough to use while walking (no

    • I have, at last check, >68GB of MP3s, which is more than can fit on the largest iPod. I own a mini because (a) it has a screen, so I can read my calendar and contacts and leave my Palm at home, (b) it's large enough for a week-long trip and/or carrying non-music files around.

      Sure, I could have more storage or color with a larger iPod, but I don't really care. I have my standard playlists, and a smart playlist of randomly-selected stuff I haven't listed to in a while to keep things interesting. As far as

  • how much? (Score:3, Informative)

    by demonbug ( 309515 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:47PM (#13401137) Journal
    Just doing a quick search of retail prices, it looks like I could get a 4 GB compact flash card for about $250, while a 4 GB microdrive runs about $200. Anyone know what the price is like on the Samsung NAND flash memory? The article claims Samsung would have to drop prices 50% to match microdrives, but that seems like a little much - how much less power does NAND flash memory use than a microdrive, and how much less battery would a flash-based device need for comparable performance?

  • Apple Leads Again (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @03:53PM (#13401193) Homepage Journal
    Apple put a mouse on every one of their computers - now every computer has a mouse (or equivalent). Apple put a CD-ROM in every Mac - now every computer has one. Apple put ethernet in every Mac - now it's default standard. Apple put a "universal serial bus" in every Mac, for data and media, and now we all use them. If they replace HDs with FlashROM for all personal storage, we might just all get to leave the rotating discs behind, connected to the network. Go, Apple, go!
    • "All personal storage?"

      One model of iPod definitely doesn't meet that qualification. If this revolution were to happen, Apple would have to use flash memory in everything they produce, and that's not very likely.

      Hell, you even said it yourself. Notice how many times you used "every" in your post?

  • ...or even a DVD-iPod.
    What I don't like about harddrives is that thowing them around isn't good at all. In addition, they rotate at 5200 RPMs at minimum which isn't good for the battery. And constantly stopping the drive reduces its life rapidly. Actually, shutting down (even correctly!) a harddisk is the most damaging thing that can happen to it.
    Flash memory is slow to write, and it wears off in rewrite cycles. Actually, all Siemens S45i phones I've seen had their flash memory broken because the phone cons
    • There's plenty of CD players out there that will allow you to burn a CD full of MP3s and play it. I have one. The only problem with them are that they are as big as a normal CD player. I'm not sure if they have made any for DVD, as I now just use my iRiver.
    • I can't imagine Apple would go in that direction-- frankly MP3 CDs are last decade's technology.

      Portable CD players are as fragile, if not more so than hard drive players. I've burned through three of them, all name brands treated with normal care and none last more than a year. The mechanism is simply too fragile for a portable device, which is why they never caught on like the far more reliable cassette players and flash/hard drive devices. (Cassette "walkmen" were still outselling portable CD players
  • ...which has the best MTBF Vs. Cost? Flash or HD?

    Given the history of CF cards on my digital camera, I'm not going to rush out when this releases. Anyone got some good hard data on which rules for this sort of thing and not "well, Apple must have done their homework if they're doing it". I leave everything before Mac OSX as evidence that they ain't perfect.
  • Any chance of replacing sick ( or just power hungry ) disk drives in current models with flash ?

    Though, im sure they will be different enough to force you to buy new...

  • Mini-Disc (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alistar ( 900738 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @04:27PM (#13401551)
    Ok, I have to wonder, why these never caught on. I have a mini-disc player and I love it.

    I get 30 hours off of one AA, 15 off the rechargable.
    I can throw my MP3's on it easily, (sonicstage sure, stupid program, but its easy)
    I pay $5 for 1GB discs and it came with one.
    Playlist management on the device.
    Plus I can record through a mic to it, transfer back and forth and whatnot.
    It has never skipped for me.
    They are fairly small, smaller than an IPod.
    USB, optical or stereo jack in.
    Anyway, yea, I would love to be enlightened

    • Re:Mini-Disc (Score:5, Insightful)

      by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) * on Thursday August 25, 2005 @04:59PM (#13401806)
      Anyway, yea, I would love to be enlightened

      No problem.

      1. ipods run MP3's natively. No encoding to a proprietary format (ATRAC) and losing quality as with minidisc.

      2. "sonicstage sure, stupid program, but its easy" Meet iTunes. It's not stupid, it's quite awesome, and quite easy. And it's a great portal into a digital music store.

      3. You have to use interchangeable discs. My iPod has 40GB. I have 5000 songs, over a dozen audiobooks, and now a dozen constantly synced podcasts on this thing. I drive a lot, and what I feel like listening to at any given moment can change frequently.

      4. You can use ipods like portable hard drives. Because they are.

      5. Apple engineering. Sorry, the iPods are a thing of beauty and great UI. This counts, A LOT.

      6. Marketing. iPods are hip. MDs were never hip. Yeah, this counts as well. When you see white headphones, you know there's an ipod on the other end. Steve Jobs is fucking brilliant at marketing.
    • easy. it's sonicstage (stupid). It only 'works' under windows, and there's no realiable way to use the bloody thing without it. I'm not some kind of anti windows zealot, heck there's 2 machines running 2k in my cavement.... right over by the BSD routers, the mac mini, the debian server, the mythtv box and the small stack of ibooks.

      I spend much of my time working, not with applications, but services accessible with clients available to all of those systems. If it's not crossplatform, or at least not highly

    • In some ways, you are right, MD players are very nifty. I have owned two portable MD players and they've taken several drops to concrete and still worked. Eventually the battery door hinge broke on one, though the device still works.

      Being able to store MP3s on them is a very recent development, before they required ATRAC files, which was an asinine requirement.

      But still, being able to shuffle through more than a small fraction of a music collection is more important to me.

      I might look into one of the larg
    • Ok, I have to wonder, why these never caught on. I have a mini-disc player and I love it.

      I got one for my newphew at one point in history. To copy music to it required a usb dongle and some sort of optical connection, and recording to it was in real time. This had to have been 8 years ago or so, back when CD-Rs were for sale in 4x or 8x varities. I was shocked about this fact. Keep in mind this was an early generation MD Discman.

      But anyways... these days CD-R is up above and beyond 40x. A full cd burn
    • A mini-disc player is larger than an iPod mini.
      The (2nd gen, since February) iPod mini plays "18 hours" (tests show more like 25) on the internal rechargeable battery.
      An iPod mini holds 4X as much (although it cannot be swapped).
      It actually does take mp3s, and fast. Unlike the mini-disc which has to convert them. Slowly, using that awful software.
      It has playlist management on the device.
      iPod Mini cannot record.
      iPod mini doesn't skip either.
      It's smaller than the mini-disc player.
      It has USB in only.

      And it wor

  • Quote from Samsung CEO (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @05:13PM (#13401974)

    "Steve Jobs is always after me Lucky Charms!"

  • Who the hell are iSuppli? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NekoXP ( 67564 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @06:21PM (#13402532) Homepage
    They're making a name for themselves this week! Lots of rumours and speculation
    over Apple. I sense backhanders in return for hype :)

    Bad journalism or maybe just useless English composition skills: it is rumoured
    that Apple want flash memory. Then they say they *WILL* be used in 4GB iPod
    Mini's. How can you have an unconfirmed rumour and attach such certainty in it?

    Neko

  • Performance per Watt (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @06:58PM (#13402787)
    Will this improve their Performance/Watt rating?

  • Too little too late (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @07:04PM (#13402823) Homepage Journal
    I'm an Apple zealot, I'm typing this on a Mac Mini, and I'm going to be clicking submit with my one mouse button, but there is no way I'll be buying a flash-based iPod. My free upgrade phone is on order (a Sony Ericsson K750), it has a USB connector, plays mp3s and takes a Memory Stick Duo Pro card (currently maxing out at 2Gb, but 4Gb version promised soon).

    By the time Apple gets to market, I'll have all it's functionality plus the ESSENTIAL feature of automatically stopping playing when my phone rings, just by adding a card to my phone - which also has the simple game play and video playback functionality that is missing from iPods (even if Sony forgot to add a usable fast forward/rewind or pause button).

    I'd love have an Apple device in my pocket, because they get the user interface right in ways that Sony Ericsson can't be bothered to think about, but until they have a LOT more functionality, I can't justify buying one.
    • K750i is an okay phone. It's no iPod, but I can see where you're coming from here.

      The k750i doesn't even have a proper headphone jack. Pretty crazy for a music player, eh?

      I don't know what your idea that iPods don't have game play functionality. iPods currently have 4 games on them. Honestly, if you ask me, that's 4 too many. But either way, I don't see how you can say they don't have it.

      For the price of that 2GB MS Pro Duo, you could pretty much have an iPod.

      I'd have a k750i if it had GSM 850. But I know i

    • Re:Too little too late (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jerk ( 38494 )
      I've had a K750i for 4 months now and I can tell you that it will not replace an iPod. Unless you upgrade the ROM to the W800 ROM, you won't have sorting capabilities (artist, album, etc), 1GB+ Duo sticks are expensive, and unless you get a dongle, you're stuck with the crap headphones included with the phone. The battery life on the K750i isn't the greatest, either. While mp3 listening uses less battery, you won't be using it much if you value having a low battery. There's a workaround for the kernel panic

  • i think the interesting news here (Score:5, Interesting)

    by utexaspunk ( 527541 ) on Thursday August 25, 2005 @07:09PM (#13402865)
    is that if apple buys up 40% of their production, they're likely to seriously increase their production in the next year, and the market will likely be flooded in a couple years. it has been a long time coming, but flash ram is about to undergo a serious price drop. combined with continual improvements in scaling and capacity, perhaps this means we'll have 40GB flash drives by 2007. that ought to shake things up a bit...

  • Caching (Score:3, Interesting)

    by el_womble ( 779715 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @03:31AM (#13405435) Homepage
    Why couldn't you have a two tier tertiary storage system. 6GB of power hungry storage, and 256MB of low power storage, the 32 MB of volatile RAM etc...

    That way your iPod wouldn't have to fire up the harddrive half as often. If you need to access your music you can, but providing you don't want to change the playlist / album or are happy with the shuffle selection you'd only need to fire up the HDD every couple of days.

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