Bradley Manning was able to download over a quarter million documents from the US government via USB slurping…where by, he downloaded the sensitive data directly to his flash drive, then sent the docs to Wikileaks.

Not a cool move Private Manning.

So as a result, the US Military is banning all USB flash drives with systems connected to, or have access to, the SIPRNET network.  The Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, in simple terms, the internet used bye the DOD.  Of course it’s much more sophisticated then your office network with internet access.

The US Government has taken this breach of information so seriously that any military who do not comply with the data transfer ban “may be punished under Article 92 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.” The article covers failure to obey orders and dereliction of duty and makes clear that any persons in violation of such rules “shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

Like I said, not a cool move Manning.

In a day when typing “cougar” into Google yields more pornography then the animal you would expect, it’s almost a shock to hear about Playboy content being available on USB hard drive.  Wouldn’t you think it had already been done?
It hasn’t, and that is why I’m here to tell you about the 250GB USB hard drive full of all Playboy magazine content.  All of it – back from 1953 when the first issue was published.

The USB Hard drive from Playboy holds 650 magazines and over 100,000 pages of fascinating articles, photographs and interviews.

The hard drive works on any computer, just like you’d expect a USB hard drive to work, but you do need to install

If the benchmark claim rings true, LaCie has a new USB 3.0 flash drive which is living up to the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed promise.  Things might be coming to fruition with the most recent product from LaCie, the FastKey.

The FastKey has print on the box claiming a whopping 260MB/s transfer speed.  If it true, this puts a single flash drive at a faster transfer rate than your best hard drive.  As EveryThingUSB points out:

“To put that in its proper perspective a typical 3.5″ hard drive has a peak read speed of about HALF of that and has an average speed about one THIRD of this little bad boy’s performance numbers”

So dumping your buddies MP3 collection of a 1,000s songs will be much easier with this USB 3.0 flash drive, then your portable USB hard drive.  But don’t think this convenience, and some would say luxury, come without a price.  The LaCie FastKey comes in a variety of sizes, starting at

PQI introduced their first SuperSpeed USB 3.0 flash drive today, called the U339V.  The PQI 3.0 stick is available in 8GB through 64GB sizes.  As with any new technology, the performance is lagging behind the specification of performance.

For example the smaller 8GB PQI drive shows a read speed of 55MB/s and a write speed of 10MB/s.  Verse the larger 16GB and larger sizes are more like 86MB/s read speed and 20MB/s write speed.  If you know anything about flash drives, it just means the bigger sizes are dual channel and the 8GB is single channel.

Still far from the 5Gbps transfer rate USB 3.0 is suppose to offer, but once more advanced controllers come into the market, we’ll see the performance rise.

The PQI drive will be available through

A New York artist names Aram Bartholl is trying a very daring, if not crazy, art exhibit by placing USB sticks throughout New York City.  The idea is for others to share their digital life, secrets, information with others to bridge the life of digital information with that of the physical world.  So what exactly do you do?

Aram has placed a small collection of USB ports in public places thinking that others will connect their laptop or computer to the USB port and upload or download data to share.  I bit crazy if you ask me…you know how many viruses and key logging programs one could get?  Even with virus checking software – there are sophisticated attacks you could expose yourself too.  BUT, if you dare, connect!

Currently the installation is only a five-stick preview, but Bartholl is planning to expand the operation to more sticks and more cities. Check Bartholl’s blog for coming information including “full documentation, movie, map, and ‘How to make your own dead drop’ manual coming soon!”

Aram – you should use USB Write Protected disks and share controlled data so that you’re exhibit doesn’t kill computers!  Maybe provide an upload link where you can control the data, then put the data on flash drives and write protect the stick.  Don’t know how – contact us, we’ll show you.

Verbatim announced their 32GB flash drive today in the form of a USB dongle no larger than a nickel.  There is no lanyard loop and it’s damn small, so will most likely get lost if you place it in your pocket – but that is all okay.  It seems Verbatim is gunning for this product to be a permanent extension of memory for your Netbook or laptop anyway.

However, in the event you plan to swap the 32GB stick from PC to PC there is one dirty little secret you should be aware of…it needs a DC powered USB port.

In most situations and applications this isn’t a problem as the device will be connected directly to a motherboard USB port, but you’ll need to pay specific attention to dock stations or non-powered USB hubs.  To understand a little better, the device controller needs

With Apple’s recent news about the MacBook Air being ultra thing, ultra long lasting and ultra cool, what many overlooked was the reinstall software shipping on a USB drive.

With companies trying to save energy, reduce cost and reduce product sizes, it’s no surprise [at least to me] that Apple dumped the optical drive in favor of solid state memory…for both the computer and the restore media.

“Even the flash drive looks awesome from Apple,” says my colleague who does a ton of iPhone and iPad applications…with a new one coming out.

Beside the fact of flash being faster than optical, we also save space on the internal SSD drive by not having the reinstallation software loaded, but rather off-line and secure.  Just be sure to wrap a key-chain around it, the Apple restore USB drive looks pretty small.

End.