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Toshiba Bluetooth Portable Storage Device

Posted by timothy on from the are-you-listening-cupertino dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Toshiba has announced a new portable storage device, Bluetooth Pocket Server, that can be used as a HTTP/FTP wireless server. This device with a 5GB of data can hold up to 37 hours of MPEG-4 moving images. You can read the press release on the Toshiba web site. Now while walking you can be a human web server..."

22 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. I know I shouldn't... by TheConfusedOne · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine a cluster of guys all named Beowolf walking around with these...

    --
    --- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
  2. Next on Slashdot!: by Telastyn · · Score: 4, Funny

    WarDriving for WaReZ.

  3. How helpful! by Chairboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's awfully kind of these posters to tell us how many hours of MPEG-4 'Moving Images' can be stored on 5GB. Seeing as how hard it is for this readership to understand 5 GB in other terms....

    1. Re:How helpful! by drsoran · · Score: 3, Funny

      Reminds me of the retail box on the hard drive I bought that listed capacities in number of hours of MP3s that could be stored on it. :-)

    2. Re:How helpful! by warpSpeed · · Score: 5, Funny

      Could you translate that to the LOC (Libraries of Congress) units please. That is the Unit I am most familar with.

  4. I can see it now... by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 5, Funny

    Your walking along and suddenly the RIAA police run by and tackle some kid for pirating over the air waves.

    Or better yet, you'll go on a warez site and the instructions will be like..

    "Goto the mall, stand in front of the Orange Julius and make the 'pirate sign' in the air. Your download will commence shortly aftwards."

    --
    Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
  5. Transfer rates? by questionlp · · Score: 3, Informative
    I wonder what kind of transfer rates one can get with that thing, since it is limited to the speed of the Bluetooth connection.

    The storage unit would be a nice add-on for those with a Pocket PC 2002 device and a BT card (or in the case of the iPaq 3870, which has BT built-in) as you could just sit the drive on a table or in a jacket pocket and listen to MP3s or even watch (shrunken versions) of Anime or movies with PocketDiVX.

  6. Cool.... a new iPod perhaps? by Bake · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can't wait for some kid to walk with one of those into CompUSA and rip Office X without even plugging into the computer:)

    1. Re:Cool.... a new iPod perhaps? by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 3, Insightful

      better yet, the kids standing across the street with a high gain yagi getting office X.

      I can see it now, there going to start installing bluetooth scramblers (they'll just call it "bluecavity") in public places to prevent remote theft...

      --
      Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
  7. I wanna be a Bluetooth Radio Station by BeBoxer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I think would be really neat is a simple radio protocol for Bluetooth. That way, I could "share" whatever tunes I happen to be listening to on my MP3 player with the people around me. Other folks on the bus or whatever could "tune in" to see what I was listening to, or I could check out what other people are listening to. It wouldn't even have to include download capability, just a stream of whatever is going to my headphones.

    1. Re:I wanna be a Bluetooth Radio Station by Merlynnus · · Score: 5, Informative

      Bluetooth? How about FM broadcast, so that anyone around you with a FM radio can tune in?

      It already exists, and it's cheap. When I got my SlimX MP3 player, I also got a Link-It which is a personal FM transmitter, with a range of a few dozen feet, weighing a few ounces, and only a few inches in size. You can buy them for about $30 US from various places, including here.

      Excellent for listening to MP3s in the car.

      A>

  8. Just imagine this at the next G8 meeting... by Saint+Aardvark · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A protestor goes to the front of police lines and videotapes them. The camera is seized, but there's no tape inside. It's too late to stop the news from getting out; the group's been mirroring the contents of her pocket server the whole time, and are busy putting that up on their website in real time.

    Or alternatively, one police car is designated the "friendly face" -- it's got a camera and one of these inside. The police are busy mirroring its movies/images in real time, to show the world that the protestors are getting out of hand and the police are doing their best to keep things cool.

    --
    Carousel is a lie!
    1. Re:Just imagine this at the next G8 meeting... by cutecub · · Score: 5, Interesting

      David Brin discusses this very idea in his book, The Transparent Society .

      In his example, a person wears a small camera pinned to his shirt which wirelessly streams video and audio to his personal server ( located in his apartment. )
      When this hypothetical person is pulled over for a traffic violation, both the the police officer and the driver are on their best behavior because each knows he's being recorded.

      I doubt Brin would have imagined his futuristic example becomming plausible quite so soon. - the book was published in 1999.

      -Cutecub

  9. This isn't a foolish as it may sound... by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Consider this hypothetical example:

    I have my Citizen/IBM Linux watch - not a lot of internal storage there, but it is my display device.

    I have the Toshiba storage device - there's all my disk space, tucked into my jacket pocket where it is out of the way.

    I have my cell phone, in an outside pocket. There's my Internet connectivity.

    Now, I can check if I have mail by looking at my watch. If I need to read it, I can either view it on my watch, if it is short, or on the phone, if it is longer (I assume the phone has a larger display than the watch).

    My tunes are in the storage device, and played via the watch or phone (and headphones, natch).

    If I have my digital camera, I now have GIGs of storage to save the pics to.

    Sounds like a good thing to me.

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  10. I can see it now... by rleyton · · Score: 5, Funny

    Soon, there will be more than just FTP/HTTP... Imagine it...

    telnet girlfriend
    Trying 192.168.23.45
    Connected to girlfriend
    Escape characters are 'Football'.
    What do you want? rm /dev/complaints
    What do you want? mknod 5 12 /dev/do_the_washing_for_me_love
    What do you want? mknod 5 13 /dev/happy_to_let_you_surf_til_late
    What do you want? cat /proc/wallet | grep 'enough_for_a_pizza' | mail me@me.com
    rm: cannot open `/proc/wallet': Permission denied. You are barred from the house until further notice.

    Warning! Liberties quota exceeded.

    --
    ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
  11. Think of the Spy oppertunities by warpSpeed · · Score: 5, Funny

    Two agents walk up to a park bench and sit. Never talking, exchanging anything or touching. They sit for 1/3 hour while the secrets are copied from one to the the other. (and if they are double agents the transfer will be bi-directional) Then they get up an leave.

    Man, the CIA and FBI will hate that. You honor in this video we see now non-descript men in a park doing, umm, nothing...

  12. Bluetooth is too slow by Mr.Sharpy · · Score: 4, Informative

    If I remember correctly, bluetooth 1.1 comes in with a transfer rate of about 720Kbps and only works in about a 10m radius (for devices, access points have longer ranges). At that rate, It would take about 16 hours to copy 5GB of data to or from the device. So unless you plan on standing close to somebody for a quite a while, the mental images of swapping mp3 collections or walking for warez can be put on hold for now.

    Now if they will support Bluetooth 2, the situation improves...

  13. But can you WATCH those MPEG4s? by chill · · Score: 5, Informative

    Speeds for Bluetooth spec out at under 1 Mbps, depending on range, obstacles, etc. At an average speed of 750 Kbps, could you watch an MPEG-4 encoded video clip at a decent resolution on a handheld? (Hmmm...that OQO has Bluetooth built in.) Check out the specs on Bluetooth.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  14. Actual transfer rate. by juuri · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maximum transfer rate is asynchronous 732.2/57.6kbps. Sync is around 433kbps. So don't expect to be transfering lots of data around. This is still plenty fast enough though for DiVX movies.

    --
    --- I do not moderate.
  15. Picture by joeku · · Score: 4, Informative

    O'Grady has a pic of it. Nice and clean design I might add.

    http://www.powerpage.org/story.lasso?newsID=9274

  16. Re:For the traditionalists... by MaxVlast · · Score: 3, Funny

    Remember when floppy disks and hard drives had this statistic on them?

    --
    There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
    Max V.
    NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
  17. hmmm by teslatug · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is that 5GB of porn in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? ;)