NYTimes Takes a Look at USB Flash Drives

[DudeAsInCool]

From Storage, a New Fashion

By MICHEL MARRIOTT

Published: September 23, 2004

Toward the end of the latest Tom Cruise thriller, "Collateral," the story's action turns on the performance of a player new to most movie audiences. For a suspense-charged moment Mr. Cruise and his co-star, Jamie Foxx, are upstaged by a silvery finger of portable storage technology.

s, these slender solid-state memory chips - known by many names, but officially U.S.B. flash drives - have increasingly been seen blinking from the ports of computers in classrooms and libraries, conference rooms and offices, coffee shops and airport lounges.

And when the devices, which can cost less than a music CD, are not being used to store or retrieve data, they often dangle from key chains and backpacks - or even from the necks of users - as if pendants signifying a cult of convenient computing. Some are built discreetly into pens or wristwatches; a maker in the Far East is now marketing them in the form of lipstick tubes. "It's such an easy technology," said David K. Helmly, senior business development manager for digital video and video imaging of Adobe Systems, who keeps one in his pocket, another inside a pen and sometimes another on a lanyard around his neck. "I'm a total believer in the technology."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/technolo...its/23thum.html

[Potato]

I have one on my keychain!

[cjules13]

I don't know how to live without one now...

I bring a couple albums a day to listen to at work - and I can just stick em in a jeans pocket with no worries!

[method77]

I'm planning on getting one.

I remember the days when I had to record everything on tape. Some really old people in here remember the days when tapes didn't even exist (see Koop, Rainbow etc). Now you just carry everything on a key chain. Technology moves so fast these past years. I love the fact that I'm living all this.

What will our grandchildren see?

[Redneck4sure]

I remember the days when I had to record everything on tape. Some really old people in here remember the days when tapes didn't even exist (see Koop, Rainbow etc).

Those guys remember when electricity didn't exist. <_>

I sure am glad I didn't make the list...........

[method77]

I sure am glad I didn't make the list...........

you are in the "etc" category. You also made this list :bigsmile:

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

With every pro there's a con. Part of the problem is these buggers are small. I lost my last one. It was a 128. For about the same price or possibly lower, I got a 256 about a month ago. Costco has them for a great price. SanDisk is the brand to get.

[Redneck4sure]

With every pro there's a con. Part of the problem is these buggers are small. I lost my last one.

You can always put it on a small diameter 6 ft chain made of stainless steel. Nail the other end of the chain to an 8 ft long 2 by 4. Paint the board with red and yellow stripes. Paint your name, address, phone #, date of birth, email addy and next of kin on the board in 1 inch block letters in a contrasting color. Offer a $500 reward if found. I assure you that you won't lose another one. :psychofun:

[Kooperman]

Some really old people in here remember the days when tapes didn't even exist (see Koop, Rainbow etc). Now you just carry everything on a key chain. Technology moves so fast these past years. I love the fact that I'm living all this.

What will our grandchildren see?

I'll get the ritualistic pleasure of calling you a slimy Greek hairball whose paternal follicle is unknown out of the way before addressing your salient point about generations seeing changes in technology.

In 1983 in Mississippi I bought a 10 foot satellite dish and receiver in order to get the huge array of TV channels available (unscrambled at that point), because we were in a rural area unserved by the cable company. I put it in my back yard on land formerly farmed by my grandfather decades before. He was still alive at that point, 83 years old, and I asked him what he thought about it. He didn't know exactly what to think, especially when I told him that the hardware in the middle of the dish sent a signal into outer space, striking a satellite in orbit, and in return sending television channels from all over the world back to my receiver...I didn't even mention the many, many audio subcarriers of radio broadcasts...too much info there.

He pondered what I told him, shook his head slowly, then said that it's hard to believe that he was sitting on his front porch looking across the road at a contraption which could do something like that...especially when he thought about sitting in that same spot many years ago when nobody around the area even had a radio, and the cars were started with cranks in the front, and ice boxes for food were just that....insulated boxes with blocks of ice in them, bought from a man who carried them in a horse-drawn wagon. Television had not even been dreamed of yet and the motion pictures, which he had heard of but never seen, had no sound to go along with the herky-jerky black & white pictures. All the clothes were washed by hand on a scrub board and all the food was cooked in wood-burning stoves...electricity hadn't reached the area yet. So maybe, he said, I could understand why it was so hard for him to comprehend modern technology.

Granddaddy, I'm beginning to understand it more and more all the time....

[method77]

my grandma is 93 years old. You can imagine the stories I've heard from her.

Growing up in Greece and Europe in general was way harder that America. She lived and fought in all wars since then (WW1&2, civil etc) and you can imagine how the really old people think of all this tech stuff. She has told me about the first tv bought in the village. Dozens of people gathered to watch the news. The first radio, car, oven and all that.

A very funny story I remember was when I got a mobile phone in 93 or something. I was at her house when it rang and she told me what that was. I told her "my phone" and she replied "how did they know you were here?"

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

Great stories guys! :good job:

[Redneck4sure]

I told her "my phone" and she replied "how did they know you were here?"

That's funny as hell but you didn't finish the story. How did they know you were there? :psychofun:

[method77]

grandma has told me 1000 funny quotes like that but she is the person I respect the most. This woman has seen everything and her life was really hard. Grandpa died in the civil war in 1948 and she's been alone since. Grew up 3 children and she always made sure that the rest of us were ok.

:bow:

/me dedicates the next track to my grandma and Koop's grandpa (Puressence - Fire)