Tag: Flash Drive

Yum. This popsicle-shaped hard drive looks good enough to eat. Unfortunately, magnetic platters and circuit boards don’t taste very good. I speak from personal experience. Currently a concept design from Korean design firm mintpass, this portable storage device is called the “Mint Hard”, which, as it turns out is supposed to be quite funny in Korea, as the word “hard” is also used to refer to an ice cream bar.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly done my fair share of plugging in a flash drive to and fro between computers to copy files, which is why I can’t believe I haven’t heard of PQI’s Cool Drive U360.

These USB flash drives are made from the hollowed out carcasses of original 8-bit video game cartridges and controllers. Robotic Evil, Inc. is currently selling both an Atari 2600 cartridge and a Nintendo NES controller flash drive over on their Etsy shop for $29.99 (USD) each.

A Japanese company called solidalliance has come up with Mnemosyne, an aluminum cube that holds an otherwise ordinary 16GB flash drive inside. But it’s not that simple: the cube is actually a puzzle. It’s made of smaller pieces that you have to slide apart before you can get to the flash drive.

The gadgets that Brando sells are often weird but they’re mostly affordable. GeekStuff4U has it the other way around: slightly weird gadgets that really hurt the pockets. Case in point: handmade frog and duck USB flash disks.

Flash drives are becoming a popular item for the steampunk modding community, but projects like this are rare even so. This incredibly detailed piece of steampunk art sold out in a day at Etsy… even at the price of $165.

Geared towards schools and businesses, Nexcopy’s modular 60-port USB duplicator is a Windows-based device that allows for quick and easy data distribution. It’s perfect for making a ton of copies of Linux distros, or perhaps copying student submissions in one go.

Brando, producer of gadgets that are mostly devoid of sense, is at it again with their latest flash drive, the “jewel bug necklace flash drive.” Look at all the shiny plastic. Brando is kind enough to include a chain so that you can make a necklace with the bug as its pendant, although why anyone would do so is beyond me.

It doesn’t take a genius to predict that over time, gadgets will be cheaper compared to their predecessors, and they’ll have improved performance as well. And that’s basically what Ars Technica’s 5-page 2009 flash drive roundup reveals: today’s flash drives are cheaper and perform better compared to the ones available in 2005.

From Active Media Products – the folks who make the Obama Drive – comes another gimmicky storage device, the Panda flash drive. But at least this time it’s for a cause: 5% of the flash drive’s retail price goes to the panda-loving World Wildlife Fund.

Our What the –? product of the week comes from China-based Everbright Technology. 7 Gadgets‘ write-up about the device is as follows:  “You can protect your data by plugging in this USB silicon rubber.” If you’re scratching your head now, wait ’til you see what it looks like: The mystery does not unfold as we look at its specs on its product page: made of plastic vomit Silicon rubber, it’s supposedly a flash drive with data capacity ranging from 32 Mb to 8 Gb, yet the only price listed is $2.49 USD a piece.

You’ve probably seen EagleTec’s Nano flash drive, a gadget that redefines “Nano” in terms of gadget size. The iPod Nano’s nanoness cannot compare to the EagleTec Nano’s. What could possibly be more awesome than a tiny flash drive?

Someone – I forgot who – once said that politics is “showbiz for ugly people.” Well the United States of America beg to differ, as they now have a leader whose charms are so far above Hollywood levels that he makes betting on the NCAA Final Four absolutely bewitching, even to yours truly, a Filipino who doesn’t even care about basketball in general. 

Wanna know who fills the hardware needs of covert operatives? Fujitsu. The company will deny it of course, but the sharp eyes over at GetUSB just released some top-secret info regarding Fujitsu’s prototype USB flash drive that can erase the data it contains after a set amount of time, or if someone attempts to copy or transfer the data to an “unauthorized workstation or server”.

Capcom’s controversial, more-action-than-horror survival horror game Resident Evil 5 has a special treat for people who buy the Limited Edition set: aside from 3 “making of” DVDs, customers will also receive a 2GB USB drive shaped like a chainsaw.

Flash drives are really useful for managing data, particularly if you’re moving files around between computers, but sometimes you just need to scribble something down. On paper. But how often is a notepad around when you need one?