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Star Wars 4 GB USB Flash Drive

USB 3.0 clears the way for Finalization of ExpressCard 2.0

PCMCIA, the leading technology trade association for PC Card(TM) and ExpressCard® technology, today announced the newest release of the ExpressCard Standard 2.0.  This version has been significantly updated to accommodate the faster speeds increasingly demanded by today’s high-performance mobile technologies.

ExpressCard technology (www.expresscard.org) is the next-generation PC Card technology for  high-performance expansion of desktop and mobile systems. ExpressCard and PC Card slots can be found in more than 95 percent of notebook computers.

“ExpressCard technology is closely tied to the PCI Express® and USB specifications, and the 2.0 release of our standard takes full advantage of recent advancements in both interface technologies,” said Brad Saunders, chairman, PCMCIA.  “Now that the new SuperSpeed USB specification is ready, PCMCIA can move forward to finalize the ExpressCard 2.0 release and make it available to members in early 2009. Consumers can expect to see new, innovative products that take advantage of the enhancements offered by the ExpressCard 2.0 Standard starting in 2010.”

“SuperSpeed USB brings a whole new level of performance enhancements that will drive the next generation of consumer electronics,” said Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF president and chairman.  “Having SuperSpeed USB support in the latest ExpressCard Standard gives developers an additional form factor to take advantage of these new features. ExpressCard technology is a natural extension of USB.”   The new ExpressCard Standard will support transfer rates ranging from two to 10 times faster than ExpressCard Standard 1.2, depending on the data protocol used.

Some of the applications that benefit from the improved performance are:

  • Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) 2.0 adapters supporting large file transfers between computers and various storage devices;
  • USB 3.0 adapters supporting large file transfers between computers and peripheral devices;
  • Very high-performance streaming media and video adapters; and
  • Very high-performance storage modules based on flash memory technologies, e.g. solid-state drive applications.

The ExpressCard Standard is based on the advanced serial I/O technologies, PCI Express® and USB. The Standard is being updated to comply with the recent release of the PCI Express specification, Version 2.0, which offers transfer rates of up to 5Gbps, two times faster than its previous version.  The ExpressCard 2.0 Standard also supports the new USB 3.0 specification released today.  SuperSpeed USB will support speeds of up to 10 times faster than Hi-Speed USB.

The ExpressCard 2.0 Standard supports backward compatibility with products compliant with any previous versions of the Standard.  Any compliant ExpressCard product will work in any ExpressCard slot, regardless of which version of the Standard the product complies with. A new product compliance and logo program will be phased in once the ExpressCard 2.0 Standard is released.

Current ExpressCard “plug ‘n’ play” applications include memory, local area network (LAN), wireless broadband (WWAN), WiFi, memory adapters, parallel adapters, serial adapters, TV tuners, smart card readers, instrumentation, 1394A&B adapters, serial ATA (SATA) adapters and USB adapters.

Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Lexar Media, LG Electronics, Microsoft, Sony, Texas Instruments and Toshiba are among those supporting development of the ExpressCard Standard.


MIMOBOT Taps Consumers Creativity for Designer USB Flash Drive Series

  • Author: USB World
  • Filed under: USB News
  • Date: Nov 17,2008

The newest series of MIMOBOT designer USB flash drives takes design studio Mimoco in a decidedly new direction. Known for their artistic MIMOBOT line of character-based flash drives, the studio has put their flagship brand squarely into the hands of their fans, thanks to the Vimobot Design Contest, a unique competition which tapped the creative power of the MIMOBOT community. The six winning designs are now available in the form of the VDC MIMOBOT Series of USB flash drives in 1GB ($24.95) to 8GB ($79.95) capacities.

Late last year, Mimoco began the Vimobot Design Contest, a Do-It-Yourself vinyl art toy challenge which sought the best and most innovative character designs. The entries were hand-created by the entrants, using Mimoco’s oversized blank Vimobot vinyl toy as a canvas. After the hundreds of entries from unknown, emerging, and amateur artists in the MIMOBOT community were narrowed to twenty finalists, MIMOBOT forum denizens chose their six favorite designs to become MIMOBOT flash drives. The winning VDC creations represent a wide variety of artistic styles, from traditional character design to the semi-abstract.

“Our community is what drives our success as a company,” says Dan Ruby, Mimoco’s Minister of Information. “We tried to take the idea that a company’s brand doesn’t belong to the company, but rather to the consumers, to a new level with this contest. Using a DIY vinyl art toy as a platform to solicit artwork for a series of flash drives had never been done, and we’re thrilled with the results.”

The six winning designs represent the beginning of a strong collection of community-created characters that Mimoco will add to their portfolio of nearly 100 limited edition MIMOBOT designs, ranging from incredibly detailed to iconic to super cute, all of which lean towards contemporary. The VDC Series designers hail from the US, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates and each winner receives a cash prize and shipment of their design in MIMOBOT flash drive form.

The VDC MIMOBOT series also continues Mimoco’s devotion to the creation of original, rich, and engaging content, with the release of mimoZine Issue 4. MimoZine is Mimoco’s quarterly digital magazine, focusing on topics like music, tech, entertainment, and art. Issue 4, releasing on the VDC MIMOBOT Series, features a profile of the ROTHBURY Enviro-Music Festival, a tour of pop-culture’s meeting grounds – San Diego Comic Con, and an exploration of the James Brown estate collection on Christie’s auction block. With the release of mimoZine Issue 4, Mimoco is happy to announce all previous mimoZine issues are now archived and can be viewed at mimozine.com.


USB Crunching Dog

USB dogs exercise… so you don’t have to

If you haven’t seen the slightly NSFW USB Humping Dogs… you may have a hard time understanding USB Crunching Dogs. But then you can say to yourself “ahh… these are imported from Japan” and suddenly everything becomes more clear. While the Humping Dogs… er… hump… these Crunching Dogs do endless sit-ups when you plug them into your USB port. Do they ever stop? No. Is there an off switch? Nope. However there is some kind of satisfaction to be had at watching a tiny dog tirelessly exercising on your behalf. It almost makes us want to leap from our desks, forgo electronics and computers and start doing jumping jacks… but then again that’s where the trouble started with the Humping Dogs.

usb crunching dogs

Product Features

  • Small dogs do sit-ups when plugged into any USB port
  • Imported from Japan
  • 2.25″ inches high

Price:$9.99 Buy here: ThinkGeek.com


New Hosted Service Enables Organizations to Remotely Disable, Destruct or Detonate Lost, Stolen and Retired USB Devices

IronKey, maker of the world’s most secure flash drive, today announced its IronKey Silver Bullet Service, which enables enterprise security professionals to remotely manage hundreds or thousands of IronKey secure flash drives over the Internet. As a key component of the IronKey managed service, the IronKey Silver Bullet Service provides the ability to remotely track, deny access or destroy IronKey USB secure storage devices.

A recent study by the Ponemon Institute showed that 26 percent of enterprises have experienced breaches caused by malicious insiders. Building on the company’s expertise with military grade, always-on encryption as well as password management in its tamper resistant USB drives, IronKey is now extending its capabilities to allow administrators to set policies that define actions to be taken when a device is lost or stolen, or when an employee leaves and does not return a device. The Silver Bullet Service also provides comprehensive tracking and rich reporting capabilities to deliver provable confirmation about the data stored on the devices for auditing and compliance purposes.

The IronKey Silver Bullet Service provides a variety of options that prevent access to data on the device when it is lost, stolen or in the possession of a user who has been terminated or otherwise deemed an insider threat. Administrators may deny access to the device until its status is verified through the management server. They may disable the device, so the next time the device connects to an internal or external network, the Silver Bullet Service locks out the user completely (which cannot be undone unless the administrator manually makes a change to the state). Or, they may remotely instruct the device to initiate its self-destruct sequence, which actually destroys the internal circuitry so that even the administrator cannot recover the data.

With more and more enterprises going mobile, businesses will see a rapid increase in the number of mobile devices introduced, and according to Forrester Research, growing numbers of employees are not waiting for IT, but instead are going mobile themselves. This introduces major support, management, and security pains to the corporate environment, and IT operations must take steps to control this.

“Encryption provides a first line of defense against data loss from flash drives, but it is not enough, especially for larger organizations that require an enterprise approach to deploying devices and protecting proprietary systems and information,” said IronKey CEO David Jevans. “The IronKey Silver Bullet Service provides the management component required for IT organizations to gain visibility into USB drive usage, and ensures protection throughout the lifecycle of the drives.”

IronKey Silver Bullet Service is available now. For more information, please visit http://www.ironkey.com/.

Source: IronKey


USB 3.0 Design and Verification Teams to Benefit from Pre-silicon Compliance and Interoperability Verification IP

Denali Software, Inc., a world-leading provider of electronic design automation (EDA) software and intellectual property (IP), today announced that its PureSpec(TM) verification intellectual property (VIP) product now supports the USB 3.0 specification from the USB 3.0 Promoter Group, allowing device and system designers to begin advanced USB 3.0 development. Denali’s PureSpec USB VIP product provides both design and verification engineers with a high-quality solution for modeling, simulating, and verifying designs that utilize the latest USB interface specification, enabling them to accelerate the design and verification of USB devices and systems.

“Denali has been a long-time supporter of USB technology and provider of verification IP solutions,” said Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF president and chairman. “We are pleased to see this announcement from Denali, supporting the USB 3.0 specification, as it will help developers bring SuperSpeed USB products to market quickly and support compliance to the USB 3.0 specification with their USB VIP solutions.”

Denali’s PureSpec VIP software for the USB interface supports the next-generation USB technology and specification as it continues to evolve. The USB 3.0 specification offers over 10x performance improvement and is fully backwards compatible with USB 2.0.

“Our customers are thrilled that we have enabled USB VIP for the next generation of USB, and thus can leverage Denali’s tools, experience and support with PCI Express and USB 2.0 to take advantage of the new SuperSpeed USB protocol,” states Sanjiv Kumar, director, Verification Products at Denali Software. “Our verification IP products not only support the next-generation interface requirements for design and verification of SuperSpeed USB devices and systems, but accelerate our customers’ design cycles time to market.”

PureSpec USB 3.0 Verification IP

Denali’s PureSpec is the most widely-used verification IP product for verifying compliance and compatibility of USB designs. All PureSpec products are directly integrated into all popular EDA languages and verification environments including: Verilog, SystemVerilog, VHDL, C/C++, SystemC, ‘e’, OpenVERA. Quality, completeness and seamless integration with all modern verification environments, e.g., OVM, VMM, eRM, etc., make PureSpec the solution of choice for functional verification and interoperability validation of USB designs. A solid product platform, dedicated customer support, and unmatched EDA modeling and verification expertise make PureSpec USB the best-in-class verification IP solution. For more information about PureSpec USB, visit: http://www.denali.com/usb3.

Source: Denali Software, Inc.



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