Sony and Microsoft at it again

MICROSOFT AND SONY are bashing each other over the head again, only this time, the subject isn't games consoles - it's flash memory.

Sony has announced that its upcoming range of Vaio notebooks won't include support for Intel's Turbo Memory technology, dubbed Robson. Why? Because, according to the firm, Vista doesn't support it - and what's the point of putting the hardware in if the software doesn't support it?

Further, Sony went on to say that hybrid hard disk drives - that is, drives that are mostly magnetic but have a few gigs of solid state storage for speedier access - are also not supported by Vista.

This seems to be news to the Vole, which put out a statement claiming that Sony doesn't know its 'arris from its elbow and that support for both forms of flash acceleration is present and correct in Vista, and already working. Intel also weighed in, saying that Sony's statement 'is not correct'.

Given that Turbo Memory and hybrid hard disks basically make use of the same ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive technologies that have been up and running in Vista since November, it does seem odd that Sony has made what appears to be a grade school mistake.

The only other explanation is that Intel and Microsoft are attempting to pull a fast one, and that any hardware is being, well, faked. That doesn't seem likely to us, but if any readers have actually got a machine with Turbo Memory built in, let us know it if actually, you know, works. µ