Having your own cool-looking memory stick is becoming as important to fashion as the way you dress. Producing a boring flash drive says you’re practical but pulling out a Darth Vader USB drive says “I brake for The Force.” What these four new USB drives say to your co-workers and friends is open for interpretation but they may have the side-effect of making those around you hungry.

Produced by Japan-based Green House, these 1GB USBs are made to resemble a cartoony style of staples of the American diet. As any medical expert will attest, a slice of pizza, hamburger, hot dog and a sub sandwich represent each of the four food groups that are so important in your nutritional requirements for proper junk food.

If the Memory Squid isn’t to your liking and you are still in need of some extra flash memory consider Traxdata’s EZ Drive YEGO. Think of it as a high-tech Christmas tree.

Each EZ Drive is a USB storage device that holds 2GB of Flash memory and that splits off in a Y-shape to give you an additional two USB ports (which are compatible with USB 1.1 and 2.0 specs.) If you need more memory or if you just want to grow your EZ Drive tree add another couple of Yegos to your base and voila, now you have four additional USB ports to play with — and so on and so forth.

Waterproof electronic devices just always seem kind of cool for some reason. Anytime you can take some electronic gadget under water and it still works, even when there is no need, automatically moves it up the “cool” list a few points.

A good example is the mDrive waterproof USB Flash drive from Gidis. The slim drive comes packaged in a CD jewel case with a smooth looking black and red Taegeuk design, but what’s most noteworthy is that its waterproof. We’re not sure just how many things you’re going to be able to actually plug this thing into when your under water but when a device comes along with a functional, underwater USB port, Gidis will be ready. Then again, this of course could be handy right after you’ve downloaded the secret documents onto it while on your secret spy reconnaissance mission, and then have to dive into the ocean in a narrow escape.

If you are looking for the ultimate in security for a new thumb drive take a gander at the IronKey, the military’s solution to keeping their secrets safe. The IronKey is made to be both tough physically as well as data attacks.

For starters it encrypts your password using 256-bit AES and then encrypts that info a second time using 128-bit encryption. It may sound like overkill but heck why not do it? If a hacker wants to try and guess your password they only get 10 tries before the IronKey destroys all of the data it contains. If the villain tries to pop the drive open and get at the chips inside he will have a next-to-impossible task pulling it out in one piece since the guts are coated with an epoxy and would gum up the removal process.

SanDisk has announced a doubling of the drive capacity of their SanDisk Cruzer Micro flash drive, brining the total capacity to 8 Gigabytes from the previous maximum of 4GB.

This capacity equates to around 1,600 high res photos or 2,000 songs on this single, 2-inch long, half an ounce USB Flash drive. The drive, like the previous Cruzer’s, features the retractable USB connector so there is no cap needed and more importantly no cap to loose. The connector retracts into the drive when not in use. When connecting and transferring data the sliding switch lights up to indicate its in use.

We should expect to see the new 8GB SanDisk Cruzer around mid-September world-wide, retailing for around $129.99. Of course if you like the drive but don’t think you need quite all of the 8GB’s (yet), you can …

In a world where your cell phone can be a camera, mp3 player, portable video device, and access the web you most definitely need a lighter that can be used to secretly store your personal data. Combining two of my favorite things, information and fire (the true key to the modern world), the memlite is a hybrid lighter and USB flash drive that would even make Q himself jealous.

The memlite will eventually come in five colors (black, grey, blue, red and green) and soon will have a capacity of 4GB… more than enough room for all the viral videos a lighter could assist you in making. Unfortunately for now, however, this German creation is only available in orange or black and is limited to a capacity of 512 MB.

At a cost of EUR 29.90 (roughly $40) it may be cheaper to simply do …

Available in colors of black, pearl blue, red, and silver, the Korean company DIGIX has released a ballpoint pen that also houses a USB flash drive. The pen measures 6.1×0.5×0.5 inches and has 1GB of storage capacity. Simply remove the cap from the back of the pen to expose the USB 2.0 compatible plug.

via Aving

Advanced Media, the manufacturer of Ridata digital products, announced it had begun sales of its Ridata Yego Drive through the Web sites of Wal-Mart and CompUSA. The Yego Drive is available in 2GB and 4GB storage capacities.

The Ridata Yego Drive is a rather unique looking USB drive. Besides allowing one to store data on it this drive also acts as a USB hub via the two USB ports built into its limbs. These USB 2.0 drives also feature what is called “advanced partition and security functions” so one can create password protected areas for storage of important files.

PQI has been at work packing more storage capacity in the same wallet-sized USB memory device. They’ve doubled the maximum capacity previously available in the super-slim, 3mm thick flash drive from 16GB up to 32GB. Now you can easily carry 32GB of data in a place as small as a credit card slot in your wallet.

The 32GB U510 connects via USB 2.0 with a slide-out dongle so there’s nothing making the card any larger, and no additional parts you need to have with you to make it work. It connects and transfers data like any other USB Flash memory device would except that it’s in a slimly designed frame instead of the shape of some animated character you’d be embarrassed to take out during a meeting. The 32GB PQI U510 is available now, retailing for around $285….

Sony has announced a new series of flash drives called the Pocket Bit Mini (USM-HX series). The USB flash drives come in capacities of 1GB and 2GB are Vista ReadyBoost compatible with virtual expander, encoding and secret file lock built into the drive.

They come in colors of black or white and has a two-way carrying case to make them convenient for different USB port locations. The little drives are 14.5mm long and weigh just 1.5 grams. They will retail for $34 and $52 for the 1GB and 2GB, respectively. Expect to see these guys showing up September 2.

FarEastGizmos

How secure would you like your USB flash drive and its data to be? How about if it self-destructs (in the virtual sense) if tampered with? That’s the idea behind the new IronKey, a metallic flash drive available in 1GB, 2GB and 4GB storage capacities.

The IronKey offers on board hardware encryption which requires a password to unlock it. If someone attempts to tamper with it, the drive’s maker claims, “it will trigger a self-destruct sequence, ensuring data is kept confidential.” The drive itself is also secure, sporting a metal casing filled with epoxy to make it waterproof.

Today Alienware announced that they will start selling notebooks that utilize Solid State Drives (SSD) to improve performance through the drives faster read and write speeds. The SSD drives will be offered in the Area-51 m9750, Aurora m9700 and Area-51 m5550 notebooks.

In addition to getting your notebook with the fast flashed-based storage, two of the notebooks will also offer dual 64GB SSD drives in a RAID 0 configuration. The company is even offering a dual drive configuration that combines a 32GB SSD drive for faster booting and running applications along with a 200GB standard hard drive for general storage, which really gives you the best of both worlds in one (likely heavy) notebook.

Notebooks running with flash-based storage are starting to become more commonplace not only due to the increased speed but also because they’re able to run quieter with no moving …

“Write speed…must have more write speed.” If you find yourself saying this phrase over and over again as you miss critical shots with your digital camera you’ll probably be happy to know Kingston announced today an increase in the speed of its Compact Flash Ultimate memory cards.

The new Compact Flash Ultimate memory cards are now rated by Kingston to have a 266x write speed. That’s twice the minimum sustained write speed previously available in the Ultimate line, said the memory products manufacturer. The cards measure 1.43″ x 1.68″ x 0.13″.

Brando’s put out a new design twist on stylish looking USB Flash drives with this USB Flash Drive wrist band. No longer do you have to have a lanyard around your neck if you want to wear your flash drive around since this one disguises itself as a wristband that comes in six different colors of red, yellow, blue, green, orange and purple.

The USB port doubles as the connector to hold the strap together when wearing it and it sounds fairly durable as the catalog page boasts that the drive is shockproof and moisture proof (we’re assuming moisture from sweat). It comes in one size of 210 mm long which should fit most geek wrists, and comes in one capacity of 512MB for a $25 price tag.

via Krunker

USB Flash based drives come in so many packages now that it’s getting hard to come up with something new that actually looks somewhat cool. It appears that SanDisk and Ducati have come through on that front with the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition USB Flash drive.

This flash drive which looks like the tank cover of a Ducati bike comes as part of the Extreme Ducati Edition of Flash memory products from SanDisk, teaming up to reflect the speed of Ducati motorcycles in Flash memory products. Along with the USB drives are CompactFlash and SD cards branded with the Ducati colors, but of course must keep their original shapes. Speed is the name of the game with this line of Flash Memory as the 4GB USB drive shows off a 20MB/second read and write speed, which is the fastest that SanDisk currently has …