Gadgety News

If you’re off to a party over Halloween but can’t work that portable HDD or USB stick into your costume - worry no more!

How about a skull ring that hides a 2GB of flash storage?

Surely you can get that to work!

Perhaps the $145.50 might be too much of a surprise even for the most shocking Halloween.

Pioneer Japan have announced that they’ve developed a 16 layer Blu-Ray disc which can hold 400GB of data!

The capacity of each layer is 25GB and, using the disc manufacturing technology usually employed for DVD’s, 16 layers are laminated on to the disc.

So they’re half-way there then - as the necessary tech for the reader has yet to be perfected.

Further details and technical information will be released by Pioneer at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 (ISOM/ODS2008) that is to be held in Hawaii from July 13.

Some of you might wonder how someone could design a hard drive and make it sexy in a minimalist kinda way.

Well, have a goosey at LaCie’s Hard Disk. Designed by the Scottish born, Paris based Neil Poulton; its subtle black design blends perfectly into dark workstations, home entertainment setups and my Bauhaus inspired mansion……………..

Connectivity comes in USB 2.0, eSATA and FireWire 400 offerings so you can hook up via USB 2.0 to share files or, if speed is of the esscence, the eSATA offers a fast transfer rate of up to 80MB/s.

With two FireWire ports, it can connect to your computer and to another device like a camcorder or camera. This is all plug & play and offers automatic formatting with LaCie Setup Assistant.

For 500gig you’re looking at £110 or there abouts whereas the 1TB version stomps (albeit in black patent boots) in at £210 all but coppers.

Now, most Mac owners I know are of the designery persuasion and, as such, aesthetics are all important.

Minimalist desks, clean lines, design icon chairs - you know the type.

Well this is right up their avenue!  It’s the LowKey Stand from Macessity.

Buit from 0.1085-inch thick steel and coated to coordinate with your machine.  As well as having a hiding place for your slim board it also offers up a powered 4-port USB port.

This pleasing thing will cost you $60.

Sorry, but I just had to post this which I found posted on Gizmodo by Sean Fallon - unfortunately, that headline is mine.  Sorry.

If you have some really precious data that could use a little protection from above, you are in luck. This Virgin Mary flash drive will store up to 512MB of data and safeguard it from evil. When connected to the computer her LED heart will glow and “beat” —increasing in intensity when information is being transferred. Sure it costs ???69 (or $100), but can you really put a price on protection straight from heaven? [Product Page via Ship of Fools via BB Gadgets]