Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

This very cool bookshelf concept designed by Arianna Vivenzio is basically a large elastic bandage stretched around 2 metal posts that are permanently fixed to the wall. The tension from the elastic allows you to fit a variety of different sized objects inside like books, CDs, DVDs and even boxes full of smaller items. However I think the elastic material would have to be particularly strong to ensure the bookshelf wouldn’t just sag to the ground, which in turn means there’s going to be a lot of force on those 2 metal posts. On the plus side if this thing ever snapped you wouldn’t have to worry about it putting an eye out since it would probably take your head clean off.

[ Elastico Shelf ] VIA [ Cribcandy ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Oakley sells a bunch of different bags and backpacks but if you want to get all their nifty features in one fell swoop you’ll have to go with the Kitchen Sink pack. It includes padded pockets for safely storing a mobile phone and a 17 inch laptop, and the top compartment is even compression molded allowing you to stick a pair of sunglasses inside without the fear of them being crushed. Alternately, the top compartment also has a headphone port if you want to carry your MP3 player in there while still listening to it.

There are cable zipper pulls for the main compartment that allow you to add a lock for security purposes while the mid-body access flap hides an organizer for less important items like pens. I particularly like the bottom compartment which includes drainage holes for items that might get soaking wet.

You can find the Kitchen Sink Pack on the Oakley website for $175.

[ Oakley Kitchen Sink Pack ] VIA [ Uncrate ]

By Andrew Liszewski

This TrekStor portable drive doesn’t really do anything particularly innovative, but it does use a 1.8 hard drive giving it a footprint that’s just slightly larger than a credit card. It comes in capacities of 20GB, 80GB or 120GB and has a sturdy aluminum housing which helps with heat dissipation and only weighs between 65 to 75 grams.

The DataStation microdisk also includes a copy of Nero BackItUp 2 Essentials, giving you a one button option for backing up files, and is suitable for use with Leopard’s Time Machine feature.

In fact the only downside I can see with these drives is the price. The 20GB version sells for about $135, the 80GB version is about $233 and the 120GB version is about $290.

[ TrekStor DataStation microdisk ] VIA [ Digital Drops ]

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 Andrew Liszewski

While LaCie external drives aren’t always the best choice when it comes to value, they pretty much have no competitors when it comes to style. The Little Disk was designed by Sam Hecht and looks to be just a bit larger than your standard Zippo lighter. It has a high-gloss black finish and at the moment comes in either 30GB or 40GB capacities.

When you remove the cap on the bottom (or top I guess) you’ll find a retractable USB cable which ensures it never gets forgotten and more importantly, never gets lost. It also includes LaCieSync software which can be used to encrypt important data (with AES 128-bit encryption) or for automating backups of documents and even email. (via MS Outlook)

The 30GB LaCie Little Disk is available for $129.99 while the 40GB version is $159.99.

[ LaCie Little Disk ] VIA [ Ounae ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The Iomega Zip drive was a life saver when I was in University, since I was constantly shuffling around a lot of multimedia files for various projects or assignments. But like a good number of Zip drive users, I was horrified the day I encountered the infamous “Click of death.” Iomega did eventually repair my drive, but not before the problem damaged some of my disks, and the company’s reputation.

But Iomega has (somehow) managed to stick around, and at CES they’re showing their REV drive, which is basically the latest version of the Zip drive technology. But instead of 100MB, the removable cartridges now hold 70GB and are apparently pretty durable since the read and write heads are housed in the drive itself, with the cartridges containing the data platter.

Unfortunately at $599.99 for the REV external drive and $69 for a single 70GB disk, I can’t see how this can compete with the falling prices of Blu-ray burners. (Given a dual layer Blu-ray DVD can hold about 50GB.)

[ Iomega’s Zip Drive is back with a vengeance VIA CrunchGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

A while ago I wrote about a Hip and Shoulder Holster that provided an alternative way to carry a small collection of gadgets and other accessories without your pockets bulging. Well it’s been brought to my attention that there’s an even better, if slightly less subtle solution called the Grabit Pack. It uses a belt like a fanny pack (and yes, I’m familiar with the other uses of the term ‘fanny’) but hangs down the side of your leg instead. And for added security and to prevent it from bouncing around, it actually attaches to your thigh with another smaller belt.

I’ll be quite honest that I would never use something like this for my day to day misadventures, but I can see many opportunities where it could be quite handy. Specifically when it comes to physical activities where a backpack would be too cumbersome, but there’s still the risk of things falling out of your pocket. And because of where the Grabit Pack sits, it doesn’t interfere with something like a tool belt if you’re a carpenter, and actually makes it easier to access its contents. In fact, dare I say it seems like the perfect accessory for wandering around the CES show floor keeping your phone, camera and other gadgets easily accessible.

The Grabit Pack is available directly from the company’s website for just $23. Unfortunately at the moment the right side version is sold out, which is actually good news for south paws.

[ Grabit Pack ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Compact flash cards are slowly but surely being pushed out of the digital camera market by SD cards, but there are still plenty of cameras, particularly digital SLRs, that rely on the older format. So companies like RIDATA haven’t given up on CF just yet, and to prove it they’ve just introduced an updated version they call the SMART compact flash card.

As far as I can tell what makes these cards ‘SMART’ is a new internal data monitoring system that works to ensure you never experience any data loss. While having 16GB of storage in your camera is great, it’s not a pleasant feeling when something happens to the only card you’ve been shooting with the past few days. And besides extra data monitoring, the cards also include embedded error correction code (ECC) that supports “two random bits of a sector on-the-fly ECC corrections.” I’ll assume that’s a good thing.

The new cards even offer longer reliability, with a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 5,000,000 powered-on hours, and 100,000 times of program/erase cycles. The SMART CF cards will be available in two series, a Supreme 150X version with a capacity of up to 8GB, and a Lightning version with a capacity of up 16GB.

[ RIDATA SMART Compact Flash Cards ] VIA [ Digital Photography Review ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’ve been enjoying my Asus EEE PC for the past few weeks now, but filling up its 4GB drive that was already over half full with the OS wasn’t difficult. So I’ve been on the hunt for a considerably larger external USB drive that’s compact and won’t drain my battery.

The good news is that this new 100GB SSD external drive from Buffalo perfectly fits the bill. It has an integrated USB cable and when you compare the size of the USB connection to the rest of the drive, it’s obviously a lot smaller than even a 2.5 inch notebook hard drive. The bad news is that we’re still in the infancy of SSD storage and this drive will set you back about $885, which is tough to justify when you can buy 2 more EEEs for that kind of money.

[ Buffalo SHD-UHRS ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

By Evan Ackerman

External HD designs don’t generally excite me. Most of the time, I just want it to store my crap without any additional fluff, you know? But, this USB HD concept from Green Banana does an impressive job of integrating aesthetics with functionality. The drive case contains an OLED screen, which changes depending on the contents of the drive. Each file is represented by a shape proportional to the filesize (and a color related to the file type, perhaps?), and as you add more files, the shapes diversify. Not only does it look pretty cool, but it shows you at a glance how much space is left on your drive, and can even clue you in on what the drive is being used for.

This is only a concept, but if you like the file visualization idea, you can download a free copy of the software that the IVY display is based on here; it’s called SequoiaView.

[ Green Banana ] VIA [ Next Nature ]