Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re a fan of The Avengers or just like interesting flash drives, you’ll get a kick out of the new flash drives from Dane-Elec that are available online and in Best Buy locations. The flash drives look like toys from a Happy Meal to me. There are four different versions each with 8 GB of internal storage.

The four versions of the flash drives available include Captain America, Thor, Ironman, and The Hulk. Each of the flash drives has 8 GB of storage inside the base along with a USB connector on the end. The company also offers a four-port USB hub with The Avengers logo.

If you feel the uncontrollable need to own all four of these flash drives, Best Buy is offering all of them in a special package. With the launch of The Avengers on DVD and Blu-ray today, Best Buy has a special offer with all four flash drives bundled with the DVD movie. The pricing on the DVD bundle isn’t announced at this time.

Each of the individual flash drives is available online at $16.99 each. The Avengers USB hub is also available online for $16.99. The USB connector slides out of the end of the flash drives and plugs directly into your computer.

Dane-Elec The Avengers flash drives hit Best Buy is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Those 7mm-thick hard drives you’ve seen in some Ultrabooks are already looking a tad on the chunky side. Western Digital has started producing sample versions of a hybrid hard drive (you’re not yet looking at it here) that measures just 5mm (0.2in) tall, even as it crams in both flash and a 500GB main disk. If you think the slimmer drive is just the ticket for a best-of-all-worlds laptop that’s both fast and capacious, you’re not alone: Acer and ASUS have mentioned their collaboration in the same breath, which may be a strong clue as to where future Aspires and Zenbooks are going. The remaining question is when they arrive. Sampling isn’t the same as mass production, which could leave us with months to go before the 5mm drive lands in future extra-skinny PCs.

Continue reading Western Digital builds 5mm-thick hybrid hard drive, Ultrabook makers sign on early

Filed under: Laptops, Storage

Western Digital builds 5mm-thick hybrid hard drive, Ultrabook makers sign on early originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Victorinox may have offered a hefty bounty to crack its secure USB drives’ encryption, but the storage sticks seem to have met their match another way: the end of software support. In an email sent to customers and a pair of Facebook posts, the firm announced that it will halt updates as of next month and that its security program’s VeriSign certificate is only valid until September 15th. As a result, customers are urged to backup their data lickity split. According to the outfit, the economics of continuing application development just weren’t reasonable and it’ll now refer to a third party for all software. However, the Swiss Army Knife maker isn’t out of the flash drive business — it’s committed to putting more of the devices on the market. We’ve reached out to the company for more details on how the thumb drives will be affected and we’ll update when we get word. In the meantime, hit the source links for the notice or check out the e-mail below.

[Thanks, Scott]

Continue reading Victorinox nixes software updates for USB drives, security certificate to expire in September

Filed under: Storage

Victorinox nixes software updates for USB drives, security certificate to expire in September originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 03:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some of us might say that a particular file is toast once we accidentally pressed Shift and Delete keys on the keyboard, but you might want to think of making a backup of all your important files onto a USB flash drive beforehand. Now, since many of us already tote a fair number of USB flash drives as part of our collection, why not make matters more interesting by using a USB hub at home or in the office? You might as well make a stylish statement in the process with the USB Toaster Hub and Thumbdrives from ThinkGeek. The USB Toaster Hub is one thing, and you can choose other thumb-drives that come in the shape of a toast. The toaster and toasts are sold separately, retailing anywhere from $24.99 to $27.99 depending on what you are looking for.

I guess it would be travesty not to collect all four “slices” of “toast”, especially when you consider how cute the whole setup would be if you were to piece them together. Not only that, ThinkGeek knows that the modern day road warrior is also one who carries a slew of other gizmos as well, which is where the SD memory card slot on this puppy comes in handy.

[ USB Toaster Hub and Thumbdrives copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

iPhone cases and USB flash drives are probably some of the most popular tech around, and both things that you almost always have to have on you. That’s one of the reasons why ego decided to combine them into one sleek package. The ego Hybrid iPhone case looks pretty good, and you’ll be able to carry a USB flash drive without knowing it and without losing it.

The ego Hybrid USB Series 2-in-1 iPhone case has a slide-out USB flash drive that’s available in 4, 8, or 16GB sizes. It’s incorporated into the case itself, which is made out of matte gray resin that’s matched with pastel drive colors. It’s not a bad look, and the fact of the matter is that I’ve lost quite a few USB drives over the years, so this will keep one securely in a known place.

The ego Hybrid iPhone case starts out at $34.95 for the 4GB and goes up to $49.95 for the 16GB version. The only improvement I can think off is it would be great if your iPhone could connect via Bluetooth to the flash drive to transfer files.