If you haven’t noticed, Redbox movie rental kiosks used to be everywhere, especially at grocery stores and convenience locations. The idea made sense at the time: you were already there, so grabbing a movie on the way out was easy. Today, many of those kiosks have disappeared, replaced by on-demand streaming and app-based rentals that deliver instantly to your phone, TV, or tablet.

Flix-on-Stix was trying to solve a similar problem, but with a twist: instead of renting a disc, the idea was to rent your movie on a USB drive. Conceptually, it still sounds appealing today, especially for situations where internet access is limited, unreliable, or restricted. Think hotels with poor Wi-Fi, long flights, remote job sites, classrooms, or enterprise environments where streaming services are blocked.

But the technical and practical challenges remain. Transfer times are less of an issue today thanks to widespread USB 3.2 support and faster flash media, but file size has gone the opposite direction. A modern 4K movie can easily exceed 40–80GB. That raises new questions: who supplies the media, who pays for wear on the flash drive, and how does the kiosk handle compatibility across devices? Then there is the DRM problem. There is still no universal USB copy protection method that works cleanly across Windows, macOS, smart TVs, game consoles, and set-top boxes. Studios continue to require strict, certified protection systems, and most rely on streaming ecosystems precisely because access control is easier to enforce there. All of this makes the original Flix-on-Stix idea interesting, but still commercially difficult. What do you think?

Source: EverythingUSB

A New York artist named 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, and information with strangers to bridge the world 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. A 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 to. 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 flash drives and share controlled data so that your 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.

Full story at Discover Magazine.