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The Swiss Army Knife of USB Drives
Mudzy writes "The Tech Zone reviews what has to
be the coolest Swiss Army Knife ever made. The Swissmemory USB Victorinox is the
first knife to be equipped with a USB flash drive. " Besides 64 or 128mb of data, it includes such useful items as a ballpoint pen, red light, scissors, nail file, and not surprisingly, a knife.
Until you can't take it on a plane with you.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
a) Hasn't this been out for a while? b) Why do I want a USB drive I can't take on a plane?
Thinkgeek, OWNED by OSDN if I'm not mistaken, has been selling USB swiss army knives for months now.
/. has happily traded in sanity for advertising dollars?
Is it obvious to anyone else that
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I have to wonder how this thing would hold up, though. I'm rough on pocketknives, and while it's true that there aren't many parts, I don't think it would take me long to render the flash drive useless.
Well, the site's already /.'d, but 64 or 128MB? I picked up a 128MB Lexar Sport a few weeks ago 'cause it was cheap, and have already found times when it wasn't enough memory.
Too little, too late.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
...storage devices.
I always have it with me, and it has my emergency backup documents plus it functions as an emergency boot disc. It also has all my contacts, registrations, passwords etc. Obviously it functions as a transfer disc too. The only thing it doesn't do well is function as a card reader, which would be the icing on the cake. Oh yeah and it plays music.
I have a nice SAK that I use for back country camping, during which time the USB drive does not get much of a workout.
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
OK I just about understand this that its a good idea in that you won't forget both the USB and knives. However what next? Prehaps an ice-cream make with built in WiFi. The point is though its cool do we really need it?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
You need to expand your horizons. I've used my Swiss Army knife for such diversified tasks as tuning my carburetor and slicing a wedding cake. You never know when you may need one of these little James Bond tools.
Don't know about you lot, but I'm quite happy having them seperate. I've got a 15 year old swiss army knife. It's been soaked/dropped/heated and been through every other possible mistreatment and it's still great. I don't see one of these coping with that.
Will 128mb still be enough space for useful storage in 15 years, will we still have USB?
My way I only ever buy top quality tools and keep them many, many years. My technology I can replace whenever I like.
As everybody seems to point out, you can't take it on a plane, which makes me wonder: How much do you think security issues have hindered sales of products of this nature? How long before victorinox starts selling swiss army knives without any type of blade? If they did, would they still call it a Swiss Army knive? And even if they did, how many times do you think the security guy would tell you that you can't bring it in only because it has the Swiss Army icon? Hmm.....
Swiss Army knives are traditionally used around offices and households. They are too small and lame for real camping.
Multi-tools like the Leatherman are what go on camping trips, and thousands live on the belts of mechanics and technicians.
James Bond?? Try MacGyver!
Read jack phelps dot net
MacGyver has to make useful things out of stuff you would throw in the garbage - you can't just give him actual working stuff to use as it was intended to be used for...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Meaning the only parts of the knife that will actually see any use. I'm still carrying an old knife I received as a gift and also have one I received at highschool graduation (a long while back) and the screwdriver and big blade are what I use the most.
Not that the travel version is necessary, since the USB drive is removable.
Really, since that's probably the only part you could carry onto a plane. Be a shame to chuck a pricey toy because you have to catch your flight and that toy has your latest architectural drawings on it. Hopefully the drive is upgradable as what ought to be good enough for anybody, today, will be laughably inadequate in a few years time.
"Hey, I'm listening to Mack the Knife!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
And it only cost you 400 bucks!
Awesome!
A 120gig HDD and USB2.0 enclosure would run you about 80 if you shopped smart. And it won't overheat if you actually try to use it as a HDD for any extended period of time. I've seen them used as HDDs, they get real hot. And they don't charge over USB. And the batteries arent replacable.
Backups you always keep with you? Burn it on to a business card sized CD. Total cost? About a buck including a nice little hard-case that fits in your wallet.
Why do slashbots keep modding up people who tout the virtues of a $400 dollar iPod as a $90 external drive, when it's really a pretty miserable external storage solution.
I could tolerate the endless Mac advertarticles, and even quietly ignore people who claim Apple invented (well, anything really). But come on, this is supposed to be a geek tech site.
Yeah, you can use an iPod as an external HDD. But you shouldnt because it sucks at it. Actually pretty much any mp3 player can do the task. I can use my cell phone as a USB drive and mp3 player, but I dont go around recommending people piss away 600 bucks on the thing to back up their files.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
But if I use this knife to hammer in tent pegs (like I can with my father's Ka-Bar) will the USB widget still work? (Assume that my own wetware memory is functioning normally, meaning that I forgot that the knife has electronics inside and didn't remove the drive before striking.)
My opinion of Victorinox has changed over the years. These days their creations have hack value, but..."that's not a knife!"
They're not geeks.