A whopper...

While on the one hand, LaCie is pushing the hard drive desktop storage gauntlet with its 1 TB drives, Buslink is pushing the gauntlet on the other side of the desktop storage market with its 16 GB USB stick.

I still have a Dell Latitude lying around, which, when I ordered it in 1999, was considered tricked out. The system came with a whopping 6 GB hard drive. Now with solid state memory (i.e. flash memory) coming in ever higher densities, it looks like flash is going to become the new personal storage medium of choice. Honestly, how much (truly) personal storage do you need? With IMAP mailboxes, flickr, and other online storage options, how much physical storage space do you really need to have? Okay, there are always those big media files (some of which are not necessarily intended to be visible to the rest of the world) but those can always be stored on a local network drive.



I'm guessing we're not too far from the day when you'll be able to keep your personal documents and OS settings and preferences stored on flash memory a device you cary around with you, that will enable you to sit down at any terminal and boot up 'your' desktop and OS. My choice? How's about a Sony Ericsson W950i? Only thing I'd like to see added to it is an external SATA connector and you'd almost be there...

Dvorak's off to France

For once, not a gadget story. Although I don't have a high opinion of either PCMag or John Dvorak, I loved his story on U.S. overreaction to 'digital crime'. Bottom line: Dvorak (who's always been quite the 'U.S. patriot') has decided to move to France, a country where you're not likely to be thrown into bankruptcy for downloading movies off of P2P networks and where you don't run the risk of getting shot for using an unsecured WiFi network to check your mail. Go figure...