I have one of these $2000 SD cards in my Diamond DA40. It lets me connect my iPad to my aircraft so I can transfer updated databases, flight plans, and see real time avionics data. It's pretty cool.
Database updates are still using SD cards though, but just a normal one as far as I know.
It’s sad as a regular person that I could never be able to afford to fly. Even in a 75 year old piece of garbage with a carburetor
I've flown some 172s. When the DA40 came out I thought it seemed like a really, really neat airplane. I got some marketing lit and talked to people about it from Diamond at Sun 'n Fun (in 2004, I think). It's nothing I could have even remotely approach buying then (or now, unless I wanted to live in it, I guess) but I just wanted to soak up some of the aura of the thing.