Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

It takes more than just a novel design to catch a consumer’s attention these days when it comes to flash drives. Just cramming one into a random object is less than impressive. So the Domino flash drive by Marcos Breder serves as a great example of an unusual design, that’s also practical. The domino pieces split apart into two separate drives, and the white dots indicate the remaining storage capacity. When the dots are all white, the drive is full, when the dots are all black, the drive is empty.

While it means each domino half can only display it’s capacity in 1/9th increments, it’s not that different to other flash drives on the market that use a simple series of bars instead. Of course the big difference is that those drives are actually on the market, while this one is just a design concept.

[ Domino Pen Drive ] VIA [ Yanko Design ]

By Luke Anderson

For those living under a rock, the 2008 Olympics are going to be held in Beijing. With it being an Olympic year you can bet there will be plenty of themed products to go along with it. A lesser-known fact is that this year’s Olympic torch design was created by Lenovo, which means there will be plenty of tech products that bear a striking resemblance to the torch.

Shortly after winning the torch design Lenovo showed off their Olympic laptop and assured us that there would be plenty more to come. They’ve made good on their word, and they are now showing off their matching flash drive. Unfortunately they’ve neglected to mention anything regarding pricing or availability.

[ Lenovo ] VIA [ PCLaunches ]

by Shane McGlaun

Corsair launched their newest flash drive this week called the Flash Padlock. The drive is available in a 1GB capacity for $29.99 and a 2GB capacity for $39.99. Those are both pretty mundane amounts of storage these days, but the Flash Padlock offers a feature you won’t see elsewhere.

The front of the drive has a five button keypad that allows you to set your own, custom pin number of up to ten digits long. A hardware-enabled auto-lock function secures the drive each time you unplug it from your PC once you choose a pin number.

Once the drive is secure the data on the drive can’t be accessed unless you know the pin number. The drive won’t even be recognized by Windows when plugged into a computer without entering the pin number. No software is required on the attached computer for the Flash Padlock to work and it is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

VIA [ Corsair ]