We hope you find many USB gadgets in your stockings or under the Christmas tree. Merry Christmas to all our readers, bloggers and fellow gadget lovers.

Cheers!

SuperTalent announce their USB 3.0 flash drive in November of 2009.  Today we have a short video of that drive in action.  You can see the performance of the device is much greater than any 2.0 device.  How would you like to copy files at 78MB per second?

I spoke with SuperTalent last night and still no word on official price or official launch date.

Source: SuperTalent.

How to turn off autoplay XP home edition for USB flash drives.

Windows XP Home edition requires a different method to turn off the USB autoplay function than XP Professional [which we reported on earlier].

It’s not difficult to turn off the USB autoplay, just a couple easy steps.

Note:  We are going into the Registry so be careful not to do anything other than what we suggest.

Got to>  START > RUN > type “regedit“

Navegate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
+ software
+ Microsoft
+ Windows
+ CurrentVersion
+ Policies
+ Explorer

**The “+” are the registry hives you must expand.

Now click the + Explorer directory just once so it is blue.  On the right side you will see “NoDriveTrypeAutoRun“

Right click that and Select “Modify“

Here you most likely have b5 listed in the “Value data” field.  Simply replace that value with 95.

Click OK.

Close out of the Registry and reboot your machine.  Done!

It’s a bit complicated of a article title, but the point is this:  It is now possible to put a paper thin USB key into a magazine ad to drive customers to your site.

This fresh approach to implement USB technology into marketing is extraordinary to say the least.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about a flash drive with storage, I’m talking about a “web key.”

A USB webkey is simply a device that auto launches your web browser to a specific web page.  That’s it.  But it’s incredibly powerful.

Now a major retailer or manufacturer can send a magazine reader directly to a webpage via a paper thin USB key.  I’d try it just to see if it would work.  I would try it just to see if there was storage on there [if I wasn’t a USB-super-geek].

The process is simple.

• Step 1 - Open magazine and see the ad
• Step 2 - Pop out the webkey
• Step 3 - Connect it to a USB port on your PC

That’s it.  Now your reader is on the web checking out your next greatest invention [Honda Unicycle]

To learn more about the USB webkey contact USBcopier.

Actor Morgan Freeman and his production company Digiboo are trying to break ground with sales and distribution of movies via USB.  We love the idea!

USB Movie sticks might become a thing of the future as Digiboo plans to launch over 100 kiosks in Hollywood Video stores next year; the first will roll out in January. People will be able to plug a USB device into the kiosk, download movies to rent or own, and then plug them in to any USB 2.0 or 3.0-compatible devices.

Before you ask, yes, DRM is layered into the movie content so put away your ideas of bit-for-bit USB copies to pirate your movies.  However, you now own the content on a portable device which will pug into just about anything including xBox or game consoles, cars, computers and set top boxes.  No word on how transferable the format will be to get the rented video from USB to something like a iPhone or PDA for portable playback.

About two years ago we started reporting on the USB music albums and now it appears we’ll see more articles about USB movie sticks.

Did you know Windows will make over 260 registry entries with a single enumeration of a USB stick?  This means for those with multiple flash drives your registry will get extremely cluttered and bogged down.

With flash drives dirt cheap these days, you’ll find at least a couple dozen going into your computer through the year.  That would be over 6,240 registry entries.

USB Scrub is a free utility which performs a deep cleaning of those unused drivers and registry edits.

We gave USB Scrub a try, and it worked great.  We went from enumerating a single USB stick in 45 seconds to enumerating that stick in less that 12 seconds.

In addition, if you have a USB stick that doesn’t perform correctly or the Windows OS doesn’t see it, chances are the USB Scrub will clear up those problems and your drive will work once again.  This is because a registry entry can become corrupt and simply clearing it out will resolve your issue.

So lets take a closer look.

Using RegShot [a free application which takes a snap shot before and after an event and compares only the changed registry values] I took a snap shot before and after a USB stick was connected and ejected.  The result was this:

• 78 Registry Keys where created
• 183 Registry Values where added
• 261 Registry edits in total!

Here is a snap shop.  Click the image to get the full text file. (more…)

At the time of this article, Buy.com has a set of AA battery chargers which re-powers via USB at a 72% savings.  List price went from $24 down to $7 bucks!

Great stocking stuffer for the geeky Dad, brother or in-law.

Save the environment by throwing fewer batteries away! This Ni-MH battery recharges with any USB port and has a built in safety circuit to prevents overcharging. LED indicator light lets you know when your battery is fully charged.

Grab the Get USBDealz now!