Olympus xD 1GB memory cards are no longer available, Olympus announced in May 2011 that production of the 1GB card has ceased and focus is now solely on the 2GB xD card. xD Picture cards were the proprietary format for Olympus cameras for approximately 10 years.

All new model Olympus cameras now utilise the ever popular Micro SD format, the 2GB xD by Olympus card is likely to cease to be available in late 2011.

Fuji have recently announced that their eXtreme Digital (xD) memory cards are now discontinued. This means that all future cameras manufactured by Fuji will probably use either SD/SDHC or Compact Flash memory.

Olympus, the only other manufacturer to use the xD memory card format, have not yet discontinued their range of xD cards, although they have started offering MicroSD support in their newer cameras.

Previously you could use either Fuji or Olympus cards in either a Fuji or Olympus camera. The only drawback to using a Fuji card in an Olympus camera was that the panorama function featured on many Olympus models could not be used.

It seems strange that Fuji have now discontinued their xD cards after releasing the new type M+ cards only last year. xD suffers in the fact the current maximum capacity is 2GB. This may be partly responsible for Fuji xD cards being discontinued as many new Fuji cameras support the faster SDHC (Secure Digital Higher Capacity) cards.