USB key keys from LaCie

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These are keys. Except they’re not keys; except they are. And yet not.

What I can tell you with 100% certainty is that they’re made by LaCie. Well, sort of. They’re manufactured by them but designed by the award winning 5.5 Designers. That’s close enough for me.

What you’re looking at is three products shaped like keys. Now, of course they’re not keys, they’re USB sticks…

O2 launches cheapest PAYG mobile broadband

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O2 has just joined 3 and T-Mobile in offering a pay-as-you-go mobile broadband package. It’ll sell you a USB dongle for just £30, and then you can choose from £2 a day with a 500MB data allowance, £7.50 a week with a 1GB allowance or £15 a month with a 3GB allowance. You’ll also get free Wi-Fi at hotspots operated by The Cloud.

This seems to currently be the cheapest on the market. It’s closest rival is 3’s ugly Huawei e220 modem, for £40. 3 charges £10 for 1GB, £15 for 3GB and £25 for 7GB, offering more data if you need it, at a slightly higher price.

This is a positive step for mobile broadband. For just £30, there’s now a very low barrier to entry, and with prices as cheap as £2 for 500MB, I’m seriously considering picking on of these dongles up and keeping it in my bag for ‘just in case’ occasions, like the train, or an airport. I’ll wait till I get to try the INQ1‘s dongle capabilities first, though.

Press Release (via O2 Press Centre Twitter)

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Use your iPhone as a 3G modem… but maybe Stateside-only

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It’s functionality that’s already available for a range of popular phones, including the N95, the Skypephone S2, and the forthcoming INQ Facebook phone, but it’s something that a lot of iPhone users would kill for – the ability to use the iPhone as a 3G modem.

The iPhone’s carrier in the USA, AT&T, announced last night that it would release some software to enable this functionality on the device. There has previously been two options for using your iPhone as a 3G modem, but one was removed from the App store and the other only works on jailbroken iPhones.

It’ll almost certainly cost users more money, and the connection won’t be fast enough to do much more than load a few websites, but it’s a nice feature addition to the device, for US users. I wonder if O2 has anything similar in the works over here.

AT&T (via Technologizer)

Related posts: Skypephone S2 offers this functionality out of the box | So will the INQ Facebook phone

3 launches D100 wireless router for dongles

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Mobile operator underdogs 3 have just launched an addition to their family of wireless dongles – a wireless router. It’s quite a smart idea – it allows you to plug a 3 wireless dongle in, and it’ll act like an access point, when there isn’t one normally available. Given usual 3G speeds, however, how fast this would actually run when split between “up to 32” people is open to debate…