You may have seen the term Steampunk before, you may even have seen this USB Steampunk drive before - it’s a fantasy like design based off steam power for this USB gadget.  Enjoy the detailed pictures then brush up on Steampunk history at the footer:

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Mac from Zedomax picked up a nice story on turning a wine cork into a USB stick.  Why ask you say?  So wine companies can data load the cork with company history, processing methods and other marketing spin (mood setting music) to give the ultimate crushed grapes experience.  You couldn’t do this with CDs or DVDs that’s for sure.

Source:  Zedomax.

Hmm, that title came out a little weird. Anyway, Vladimir released updated versions of his USB wood drives to include some odd shapes that include, what looks like to me, a mushroom, tree stump, wooden tooth and a fluted casing.

Wooden Jewelery is offering these for $20 [1GB] and $30 [2GB]. The wood drives come with a leather lanyard and a quality case. The line is called MEMORE and there is a full selection available with larger shapes and sizes to choose from.

So what else do you get for the $20 or $30? Well, for starters you get a very unique wood USB drive perfect to start any conversation. Not only does your USB drive hold valuable data, but the wood case is valuable too. To prove that point you can explain [depending on what you get] that a Bog Oak drive has been created from wood that is carbon dated back 1,300 years. Or Yew Root drives have been carbon dated back 600 years.

A quote from the creator:

…I prefer to work in wood because it is a living material…
-Vladimir Levestam

I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but Texas Hold’em in the US is a very popular past time right now.  In fact, I got 2nd place last night in my neighborhood poker tournament.  Well, Dane-Memory is a fan too.  Dane-Electronic made 1GB and 2GB USB poker chips.

The size is official but I’m wondering if the chip has that clay feel to it?  The USB poker chip splits in half when being used.  Top half is the cap and the bottom half has the USB connection and memory.  Red is 1GB and blue is 2GB.

For the Texas Hold’em enthusiast you might want to pick up several of these USB poker chips, as now you can go “all in” using your personal financial records as liquid cash.

USB poker chip product page.

Source:  UberGizmo.

**Mike [Dane-Elec Irvina CA - send me a comment if you’ve seen/used this chip before]

With over 5,300 Diggs, I figure this would be a good article to report about on how to make a sawed-off USB key.  Nothing about this project is too technical, but the idea is clever enough it’s gained a lot of attention.

The sawed off UFD is a mod of using a slim Kingmax USB drive, USB cable and some glue + knife for a very cool looking storage device.

The intro line to this tutorial from the main page is:

“Holy crap– somebody just went and TORE MY FREAKING USB CABLE IN HALF while it was still attached to my laptop!!!

No– wait– sorry. That’s just my USB drive. My bad. Never mind.”

Which I think is pretty funny.

So besides getting a slim Kingmax USB drive (here is a 4GB for $15), you will need the following:  USB cable, X-acto knife, glue, pliers, small screwdriver and some mad cutting skills.

First thing you will want to do is cut open the female end of the USB cable so you can insert the memory for storage.  It’s fairly straight forward in the process.  Some additional pictures are available (more…)

OWC is giving you GB hungry data hoggers some extra storage space. Their new 500GB Mercury portable hard drive is their largest [portable] edition yet. It’s got Firewire and USB connectivity to support any gear you’re dealing with. A couple concerns I have are a) it’s a 5400 RPM hard drive, which is standard for portable hard drives - but I like 7200 RPM, and since the Mercury is b) bus powered, the 7200 RPM wont see the light of day. As I’ve mentioned before, if you are looking for serious use off your USB hard drive, don’t deal with bus powered devices.

So given those two knocks, it’s still super slim for a half Terabyte of data storage, and at just $359 it’s doable, but I’ve seen plenty of options out there.

Nothing posted on OWC’s site for purchase, but check their homepage and use the search function.

Iomega is shifting it’s focus to the consumers with more disposable income, the gamers. Well at least in theory. The Iomega Media Xporter is a portable 160GB hard drive designed to seamlessly integrate with cross-platform applications to PlayStation 3 consoles and Xbox 360 console.

With the gaming console become more of a home entertainment center, it’s Iomega’s goal to provide the tools to enjoy photo’s, video, music and games without hassle. The Media Xporter allows users to experience all the above without a PC. Once more, the photo’s and video will look stunning on a hi-def TV since the PlayStation and Xbox support HDMI as well as HDTV connectivity.

I don’t know about you, but a family function or get together would be a lot more fun sharing photo’s on a sweet flat screen then huttled up over a computer monitor. The Media Xporter makes this a simple and easy process.

The 160GB Iomega Media Xporter drive is power via USB 2.0 and will retail for $120. Although I do have some concerns about a bus powered USB hard drive.

Source: Coolest-Gadgets. Media Xporter product page.