The “big” selling point of LaCie’s Rikiki hard drive is size: it is tiny, occupying just 110cm3 of precious volume on Spaceship Earth. That’s just 4.3 x 2.9 x 0.5 inches.
LaCie says that the aluminum Rikiki is “most compact 2.5” hard drive on the market”, and it certainly looks that way. It also runs, as is standard these days, from the power supplied by the USB port and comes in 250GB, 500GB and 640GB flavors, at $75, $110 and $150 respectively.
But for all that, the Rikiki is just another portable hard drive, albeit a rather good looking one. What we’re really interested in here is that tiny, impossibly cute monkey. What is it? Typing Rikiki into Google Image Search brings up several pictures I would rather not see. I asked the Lady what she knows about tiny monkeys. “They attack you,” she told me, “I saw it in Indiana Jones.”
Armed with this fantastically-sourced information, I dug deeper and came up empty. What about that name, Rikiki? A vague memory of Rudyard Kipling’s books floated up, but the character Rikki-tikki-tavi was a mongoose, not a monkey.
The best I can do is the marmoset, or New World monkey. The cute little creature in the picture also looks a lot like King Mob, of Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles, in full battle gear, so it could be that. Answers in the comments.
LaCie Rikiki [LaCie]
