Posted 09/17/09 at 08:41:12 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Are your USB 2.0 gadgets starting to feel a little slow? Well, luckily USB 3.0 controllers are about to enter mass production. Genesys Logic plans to start churning out the faster controller chips in the first quarter of 2010. Expect to start seeing it around later next year. Genesys expects to turn a profit almost immediately.

USB 3.0 was approved by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group last November. The new technology uses a 0.13µ process instead of the 0.18µ process used in USB 2.0. Early indications are that the 3.0 standard is capable of up to 10 times the speed of current USB technology. USB 3.0, or “SuperSpeed USB” as it’s also known, is expected to make up a quarter of the market by 2013.

Read More

Posted 07/03/09 at 05:05:33 PM by Paul Lilly

A-DATA today unveiled a new line of colorful USB flash drives with a swivel design case the company claims will keep the USB connector free from harm.

"Unlike conventional swivel-designed USB flash drives, the unique asymmetric outer casing of C903 protects the USB connector and serves as a lock mechanism to prevent the connector from sticking out due to constant turning and wearing," A-DATA stated in a press release. "The same design enables users to turn and store the USB connector properly in place with much of an ease."

The case comes constructed with a glossy metallic finish wrapped around either a bright red or blue USB stick, with initial capacities available up to 32GB.

No word yet on price or availability.

Read More

Posted 06/17/09 at 09:30:24 AM by Paul Lilly

In what we hope becomes a trend, another manufacturer this week has stepped up to the storage plate with a 128GB USB flash drive, this one from Edge Tech. The company will make an official announcement next week, but has given us the skinny on their fat capacity drive.

Dubbed DiskGO, Edge Tech says its 128GB thumb drive can store approximately 85,000 photos, 128 hours of video, 32,000 MP3s, or over a million documents. Keeping all that data secure is a combination of a  "rugged aluminum casing" and CryptArchiver Lite encryption software. The Lite version allows users to encrypt up to 25MB of data using 128-bit AES encryption, while the full version ups the ante to 32GB and either 256-bit AES or 448-bit Blowfish.

But what some might find far more appealing than its feature-set is the price. Edge Tech has priced the 128GB DiskGO at $390, which is about $150 less than Kingston's recently announced DataTraveler.

You can pre-order the DiskGO direct from Edge Tech, with shipments to start on July 31st.

Read More

Posted 04/29/09 at 10:08:26 PM by Pulkit Chandna

USB flash drives are meant to do a very simple job. Try telling that to manufacturers who apparently regard them as a canvas that should, from time to time, tolerate their whimsical artistic and technological cravings. Our beautiful planet has been blessed with USB flash drives of various ilks, be it the radical or the rank outrageous.

Ennova Direct has announced a new thumb drive that has enough room for a miniscule OLED screen/biometric scanner. The OLED screen can be used for file browsing and other ordinary functions. And for those of you who require thumb drives to house valuable state secrets, the OLED screen can function as a biometric scanner. The company expects to launch the drive in Q1, 2010.

Read More

Posted 07/03/08 at 10:56:48 PM by Pulkit Chandna

You are not the only one confronting difficulties retaining uninterrupted possession of your USB Flash drive, but large organizations – or their mortal employees – are also prone to misplacing their USB Flash drives brimming with sensitive data.

The latest entrant to the universal brotherhood of butterfingered flash drive owners is the Japanese military, which has admitted that one of its USB Flash drives, pregnant with sensitive maps of Japanese-U.S troop deployment was stolen a year ago by a 33-year-old captain of the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The captain has primeval economic faculties as he also stole the paltry sum of ¥2,000 [$19] and a ¥10,000 [$94] airline coupon.

But there was a twist in the tale as the captain was eventually nabbed and the drive recovered. But a lieutenant borrowed the flash drive and in turn gave it to a clumsy sergeant who lost it. The sergeant did a pretty good job as the drive has gone missing without a trace. The Japanese military kept the one-year old incident under wraps as it didn’t want the troop deployment maps to be scoured by internet users.

Read More

Posted 06/29/08 at 09:29:46 PM by Pulkit Chandna

USB flash drives have registered a huge surge in popularity with their constantly plummeting prices and sundry uses. Imation has launched its new small-as-a-paperclip Atom flash drive, which the company proudly identifies as its smallest yet. But the forgetful and clumsy types are advised against purchasing the Atom which weighs less than an ounce, and only 1.5 in length and 0.5 inch in width.

Imation’s Atom flash drive comes in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB sizes with prices beginning at $18 and going up till $100. It is Vista ReadyBoost compliant.

Read More

Posted 09/17/06 at 06:38:14 PM by Josh Norem

Crucial pulled out all the stops with its new Gizmo Overdrive key. This drive roars past everything but Corsair’s fastest offerings.

The Gizmo’s read speeds are more than twice as fast as OCZ's Mini-Kart and Kingston's DataTraveler, and its write speeds are 30 percent faster. This kind of performance has a price, however, as the Gizmo is twice as expensive per gig as these other two.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 08/15/06 at 01:59:41 AM by Josh Norem

The Kingston DataTraveler is like the 1969 Mustang of USB drives; it looks old but has a ton of power under the hood, thanks to its preinstalled U3 software.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More