Western Digital has introduced the My Passport Essential portable hard drive, My Passport Essential SE portable hard drive and My Book Essential external hard drive. These storage devices come in variety of storage capacities and deliver superfast USB 3.0 connectivity.

The My Passport Essential is the smallest with a 500GB storage capacity, while the My Passport Essential SE is available in 750GB and 1TB sizes. The My Book Essential ranges from 1TB up to 3TB. The My Passport Essential portable is $99.99, the My Passport Essential SE drives range from $129.99 to $169.99, and the My Book Essential drives are from $129.99 to $249.99.

Western Digital’s 500GB My Passport Essential will now come in limited edition designs thanks to students at California State University, Long Beach’s Industrial Design program. The drives will come in Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave decorative patterns.

Obviously these are targeted at students who want some extra style. The new drives are compatible with Windows and feature WD SmartWare software that offers a visual method for performing backups of your data via a single-screen view of the contents. There’s also user-selected password protection combined with 256-bit hardware-based encryption.

It’s not easy staying organized, but somehow travelers have to keep everything straight in order to wake up on time and not lose their belongings. This is a handy tool for the traveler that will prove very useful. The new Travel World Alarm Clock With Passport Holder.

It has a world time alarm clock, a thermometer and holder for your passport so it doesn’t get lost. It also has slots for your credit cards, so it will likely replace your wallet.

Seems like there’s a ton of disappointment with the Apple iPad since it’s unveiling earlier today. Well, love it or hate it, Griffin has announced their first iPad accessories, cases really and screen protections. There’s the Elan Passport, Elan Sleeve, FlexGrip case, Jumper, and Screen Care Kit.

The Elan Passport is a leather flip-open case that you can also use to store some business cards. The Elan Sleeve is a leather sleeve. The FlexGrip case wraps your iPad in protective silicone, while allowing complete access to the audio output jack, dock connector, MultiTouch display and controls.

It took them awhile, but drive makers are finally getting hip to the fact that we would like to see how much disk space is left without having to plug it in. About time. Western Digital’s My Book Elite and My Book Studio drives now feature labels on the outside displaying that always-on info.

That means even when it isn’t plugged in, you’ll get a 12 character label, and a second line that displays how much space is left on the disc. In both gigabytes and a graph no less. Simple solution huh? The USB 2TB My Book Elite is $280, and the 2TB My Book Studio with FireWire 800 and USB connectivity is $300.

In storage news WD has updated several of its external HDD storage devices for the media lover in you. The new My Book Essential comes in 1TB for $149, 2TB for $229.99 and 500GB capacities for $99.99. The My Book for Mac is available with 1TB for $149.99.

While the My Passport Essential comes in capacities of 500GB for $139 or 320GB for $99.99. My Passport for Mac is available in 500GB for $149.99 and 320GB for $119.99.

Samsung has been showing off their latest AMOLED concept, an e-passport with a 2-inch QVGA resolution flexible display in an identity card. The idea is to show a 360-degree view of the card-holder, rather than just a headshot. The e-passport uses an AMOLED display that can be powered wirelessly via an RFID reader.

Usually the display is blank (That’s why you need a normal picture. Not everyplace will have an RFID reader) but when it gets close to the scanner it powers up and automatically shows the video. The AMOLED is flexible, but also has a 10,000:1 contrast ratio and is capable of displaying 260k colors. Video below.

This concept turns your SS card into a gadget. The Troika Social Security card concept comes with a built-in thumbprint reader, buttons that can change the display from your Social Security info to your Driver’s License or passport.

That way, you can carry just one card on your person and have everything. It features an aluminum body, so it would be tough. The drawback is that if you lose it, you lose everything. And if a identity theif gets it, they get everything, because no matter how good that thumbprint reader is, it can be hacked.

Most iPod docking stations don’t support charging capability for your iPhone 3G, iPod Touch Gen 2, and iPod Nano Gen 4. It’s because of USB voltage differences. Scosche has come up with a converter named the passPORT Home Dock, that allows users to charge their iPhone 3G on these iPod docking stations.

The passPORT Home Dock makes it fully compatible with the older iPod docking stations. To clarify, this converter/adapter is not a stand-alone dock and will not add audio/video functions by itself. You can find one at Scosche.com and Amazon.com for $39.99.

Flexible OLED displays are becoming more commonplace everyday. They just need to make it into some of the devices we can buy. However long it may take, when that day arrives, Universal Display Corporation thinks something like the gadget above will be a part of it.

It’s a wearable, flexible, 4-inch prototype screen that CES attendees will be able to drool over, maybe even wipe clean and try on. Just don’t expect to wear it comfortably. It won’t be in stores anytime soon either. This one was developed with military applications in mind, but bendy consumer devices are on the way at some point. Give it a few years and we will start seeing them in passports, clothing, packaging etc.

This new 3M Mobile ID Reader could soon be used at events or in situations that require tight security. The idea is that it would scan your identification quickly to prove that you are who you say you are. Then you can be on your way in no time. It works like a credit card scanner and it would be used to scan things like your Visa card or passport, cross checking that info with watch lists of those who are threats.

It runs on Windows Mobile 6 and features WiFi, GSM/GPRS EDGE and a fingerprint sensor. It also has 8GB of storage for keeping track of those that have been scanned. That way they can leave all of that data sitting around somewhere and screw us all. Let’s hope not.

The State of New York has now begun offering driver’s licenses embedded with RFID chips, which they are calling enhanced driver’s licenses (EDLs). This comes just after New York became the second state in the country to offer RFID embedded identification that can be shown at the border in place of a U.S. passport. The chip in the new licenses will have the ability to be scanned by authorities in order to identify citizens entering the state from Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean. International travelers still need to produce an old fashioned passport to enter the country.

Since New York knows that many people do not trust RFID technology, you can still get the old RFID-lite version which does not act as a passport. According to authorities, no personal information will be stored or transmitted by the chip, only an identification number. Should you be interested, the new licenses will cost you an extra $30 over the $50 licensing fee. Hopefully they’re working on technology that makes you not look like a dork on your DL picture.

Western Digital (WD) is adding a new storage size option for fans of its My Passport Portable USB Drives. The new storage size is 500GB and you’ll be able to purchase My Passport Elite and My Passport Essential portable drive models for around $220 and $200, respectively.

WD says these new drives weigh less than seven ounces and are somewhat durable. They are USB-bus powered, use synchronization software which lets users sync their changes and offer plug-and-play capability with gaming consoles so one can play music and view photos and video files on a TV.

If you are the type that is a perennial speeder you probably already have a radar detector in your car. Not all radar detectors are created equal and if you have an older one you know how each time you drive by a Wal-Mart it goes off.

Escort is one of the top names in radar detectors and its Passport line has a new item called the 9500ix. This radar detector has the 360-degree protection from radar and laser speed detectors. In addition to the standard radar and laser detection the 9500ix also has a GPS-enabled database for speed cameras.

I’m a more traditional geek and tend to not want any bright colors in my external storage products. I guess there are enough people out there that feel differently and Western Digital has felt the need to glam up the common USB drive with bright and often girly colors.

Western Digital announced today that it was now offering its popular My Passport drive in 11 different colors. The available colors include black, brilliant orange, super sunny yellow, raindrop blue, arctic white, deep viola, cherry red, ultra mint, real red, intense blue, and vibrant pink. The white drive might be just the thing for Mac heads, at least until the new MacBook’s hit with the aluminum skin.