There had been some rumors about an Astro Boy netbook for awhile now and it looks like it’s actually a real netbook. We know that it has landed in Taiwan because someone was spotted with one during the IT Month event in Taipei.

This 10″ netbook even comes with a certificate that claims the Astro Boy netbook is genuine and not a knock-off. Other specs include a DVD Burner, USB flash drive, USB speakers, an external hard drive and a memory card reader. Maybe we will see it around here one day soon, though we won’t hold our breath.

Check out the latest addition to Verbatim’s 1.8-inch portable hard drive line-up, looking all sleek and thin. The Pocket Drive weighs just 85 grams, manages to be compact and stylish and has 250GB of storage space.

Some other features include a USB 2.0 interface and it comes bundled with Dmailer Backup Software and Verbatim Sync Software. The drive will play nice with Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP operating systems. The Verbatim Pocket Drive is available now in Europe for 125 Euros or $189.

I-O Data has unveiled their latest external Blu-ray burner, the BRP-US6. The BRP-US6 connects to your notebook via the USB 2.0 port and keeps things slim. Some specifics include 6x burning for BD-R SL, 2x for BD-R DL/BD-RE and 6x reading with BD-ROM discs.

The drive will also burn DVD-R/+R at 8x, 6x on DVD-RW/+RW and 5x on DVD-RAM discs. It measures just 137mm x 154mm x 20mm and weighs in at 330grams.

Pogoplug may have been the first to make this type of gadget, but now it’s time for some less well known names to offer up similar devices for less money. Sharkoon has now developed their own USB LANPort, which effectively puts USB storage like your flash drives, external hard drives, etc. onto a local network.

Looks like it’s mainly for making multiple drives available to a different machines via customized permissions though. The USB LANPort 100 converts a single drive into a device that can be streamed from locally. The USB LANPort 400 handles up to four USB devices. Both devices support automatic and manual IP address contacts and are available now for €22.99 ($34) and €36.99 ($56).

Most people don’t clone their hard drives, but when you have to do it, it can be a real pain. If you have to clone hard drives on a regular basis, you might want to check out this Double Rack USB/ eSATA dock. It allows you to plug in two hard drives, and clone one from the other.

The most interesting thing here though is that it doesn’t require using your PC to do it. No need to tie up your machine at all. You can also use it as a regular hard drive dock too. It can even clone PS3 hard drives.

Looks like Google’s Chrome OS will be getting some support from Dell. The company is making an experimental version of the Chromium OS available for its Mini Inspiron 10v netbook. The OS will be available as a USB key image file, but they are warning users that it’s a risk since it has only gone through minimal testing.

Some of the current known problems include taking up to 10 minutes before the network connection manager can find wireless networks and other things freezing as well. The 8GB image can be transferred to a USB drive only by using a Linux system.

These flash drives look good enough to eat, but if you try you are only going to break a tooth, even though they do look like candy. The Yum Drive 2 GB USB Flash Drive disguised as Bubble Yum and Twizzlers are for the user who loves candy, but needs storage more.

Both the Twizzlers and the Bubble Yum version look very realistic. And they’re better than the real thing since they won’t give you any cavities. Both are available now for $24.99 and will probably make you break down and buy the real thing.

Naturally whenever you look at your old video game consoles, you think iPhone dock. Who doesn’t? Wired’s Charlie Sorrel certainly thinks that way. He found an old Sega Mega Drive without any controllers or wires, so he turned it into an iPod dock. Naturally.

And yes it works. He just slid an iPod dock inside, secured it with gaffer tape and ran the USB cable out of a hole. Easy stuff. We like the way Charlie thinks. Just don’t let him near your stuff. Seriously. Not unless you want an iPhone sticking out of it.

Samsung has a line of external hard drives that are aimed at users looking to back up their data called the Story Station. The line uses 3.5-inch HDDS and is currently available in 1TB capacity. Samsung announced a new version of the drive is coming soon with new features.

The new drive has 2TB of storage space and has both eSATA and USB connectivity. The eSATA connectivity allows the drive to operate at 3Gbps transfer speeds. The 2TB of storage is enough for 500,000 MP3s or 560,000 digital photos.

Buffalo’s DriveStation HD-HXU3 is the first external USB 3.0 drive to hit the U.S. It promises to deliver transfer speeds up to 4.8Gbps and Buffalo has a two-port USB 3.0 PCI Express card to get you going.

There’s no info on price yet on the USB 3.0 PCI Express card (IFC-PCIE2U3), but it will likely be about $60. The drive itself is $200 for 1TB, $250 for 1.5TB, and $400 for 2TB, and it ships with Memeo AutoBackup software for both the Mac or PC.

MSI Korea has dropped their latest all-in-one PC, the WindTop AP1900 onto the unsuspecting Korean market. This one is powered by an Intel Atom N270 processor and will save you some space on your desktop.

Some other features include an 18.5-inch 1366 x 768 UV coated LCD screen with 1,000:1 contrast ratio and 250 cd/m2 brightness, an Intel GMA 950 graphics card, 1GB RAM, a 160GB hard drive, 1.3MP webcam, DVD SuperMulti drive, a 4-in-1 card reader, four USB 2.0 ports and of course WiFi.

Hard drives have come a long way, buy they are still prone to failure if you drop the drive. And that’s no fun at all. Luckily for us all pqi’s H560 Ultra Shock Proof Hard Drive can ease our minds by being able to withstand military standard drop tests.

The 2.5-inch SATA drive within is connected to your PC via USB 2.0, and the drive comes in 320, 500 and 640GB sizes. The 500GB will cost you about $120, and comes with a standard 3-year warranty.

The price of SSDs keeps coming down and as they get cheaper, they are getting more and more attractive to me. I would like to put one in my work computer to speed things up. The things that I worry about when upgrading a HDD is getting data off the old drive and onto the new one and then what to do with the old HDD after the SSD update is complete.

Imation has unveiled a new SSD Upgrade Kit today that includes an external enclosure for your old drive so you can use it as an external storage device after the upgrade. The enclosure requires no power supply, which means it can be powered by USB.

The economy and slow adoption haven’t been kind to many companies in the wireless USB market. These facts have forced many of the largest out of the market altogether. Long after we first heard of wireless USB, we are finally getting the first HDD to use the tech called the Imation Pro WX.

The drive uses wireless USB connectivity with a 30-foot range. The computer the drive connects to has to use an included dongle for connectivity. Imation claims the wireless connectivity is good for data transfer speeds up to 15MB/sec.

Like it’s predecessor, the new Pogoplug allows for USB drive sharing over the Internet. It’ll cost you $129, has no service fees, takes up to four USB drives, and has Twitter and Facebook integration. It will sync your content with a Mac or PC and let you share and watch movies, listen to music, or view photos directly through the Pogoplug website and on an iPhone.

It also has a drag-and-drop interface and sharing over social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The only downside is that you are relying on the company staying in business in order to be able to share data.