USB Wristband makes fashion history

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Although having a USB drive around is very handy, they’re a bit annoying to carry around. If you wear them on a lanyard, you look like you’ve just stepped out of a computer scientist’s convention, and they’re a bit too bulky to carry on a keychain.

The wristband pictured above, sold by tinyliving, remedies the problem somewhat, providing 512MB of storage wrapped around your wrist. It’s still not the coolest-looking bit of kit in the world though, giving me flashbacks to 2005’s Make Poverty FashionableHistory campaign. Still, if you want one they’re just $30 (£21) so we’re not exactly talking a massive outlay for this addition to your wardrobe.

Flash Drive Band (via LikeCool)

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CES 2009: Victorinox presents the Presentation Pro Swiss Army Knife

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Many of the companies exhibiting at CES have been going for years, but one company is making its first trip – Switzerland’s Victorinox. The makers of the original Swiss Army Knife are exhibiting this – the “Presentation Pro”, which comes with a flip-out 32GB USB drive.

Your data will be protected by a fingerprint scanner, and there’s a laser pointer and bluetooth remote, as well as the standard knife, scissors and nail file. It’ll be shipping in May in the US, and it’ll cost $330 (£216). Just don’t take it on business trips abroad.

Victorinox (via Engadget)

For more CES coverage, you want to look at our mega-index-post.

CES 2009: New SD card standard paves the way for 2TB capacities

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The SD association has announced a new top-end to the capacities of its eponymous flash memory cards. The new spec is called “SDXC” – short for “eXtended Capacity”, and it’ll hold up to 2TB of data, with transfer speeds rocketing up to 104MB/s. In contrast, the previous maximums were 32GB and 10MB/s.

This is just a specification – there’s no products yet – and support for the format will have to make its way into devices before it’ll be much use selling the cards. However, I think it’s fairly safe to say that we’ll be seeing these on shelves in a year or so.

(via Gizmodo)

For more CES coverage, click here

Sandisk reveals one-button-backup USB flash drives

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Now that flash memory has got to a price competitive with mechanical storage, we’re starting to see it crop up in all sorts of places. One of those places is backup, where the speed of the memory presents a clear advantage over a traditional disk drive.

With that in mind, Sandisk has brought out a new backup-focused USB drive, which is the first in the world to work its magic with just a button press – no software installation needed. The capacities aren’t huge yet – the biggest is 64GB – but that should cover the contents of ‘My Documents’ for the vast majority of consumers.

The SanDisk Ultra Backup will go on sale in April, and cost between $40 (£28) and $200 (£137) depending on the size you plump for. How big is your “My Documents” folder? How about when you don’t include the porn? Let us know in the comments.

Sandisk Press Release

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Keep your porn more hidden than ever with Lenovo's 128-bit encrypted ThinkPad USB Portable Secure HD

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We’re sure there are plenty of uses for external hard drives other than using them as hiding places for pornography. Like, er, as a back up for treasured family photos. 320GB of treasured family photographs.

If you have need for a large chunk of external memory and need it safely locked away behind a 128-bit virtual wall (then hidden in the loft or underneath a floorboard until you’ve got the house to yourself), Lenovo has it covered with its ThinkPad USB Portable Secure Hard Drive – complete with onboard…

USB 3.0 spec set in stone – move your files about at speeds of 4.8Gbps

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If you’re constantly shuffling vast Blu-ray rips from device to device and sighing while your PC locks up for 27 minutes, rejoice! USB 3.0 is coming to make all your data-copying woes disappear.

The shadowy USB consortium, which meets in Vienna once every 1000 years, has confirmed the spec of USB 3.0, proudly telling everyone that a 25GB file will copy from a PC to a 3.0 device in 70 seconds…

Solid gold USB stick challenges your wallet

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If I learnt anything from the second series of Heroes, it’s that people who turn stuff into gold tend to end up in an early grave. A cautionary tale for Super Talent, who make USB drives out of 18 carat solid gold. The Pico-C USB drive. Oh, they cost US$599, by the way. What do you get for that cash? 8GB of storage, 30MB/s transfer speeds (gold’s a very good conductor) and water resistance, in case you drop it in your $300 glass of champagne.

The company will also etch anything you like onto it for no extra cost, like a pretty zebra, your primary school nickname (big ears), or maybe even your company’s logo. The whole thing arrives in a black velvet jewelery box with a certificate of authenticity and a gold keychain. I’ll say again – US$599. That’s £380. Yowch. Grab one on eBay and spraypaint it gold instead.

Super Talent (via ShinyShiny)

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PNY launches "mobility pack" for its MicroSD cards

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Over the past few years, there’s been a vast army of competing memory card formats, fuelling an army of card-reader devices that let you use the most popular formats. Luckily the industry seems to be settling on SD cards as a universal format, but the choice still remains between SD, MiniSD, and the tiny MicroSD. Reports that the NanoSD, FemtoSD and YoctoSD cards are forthcoming are all false…