Over at Instructables, there's a step by step on boring a cigar, treating its surface, and then loading it with a fiery LED along with a USB stick. The result is a classy cigar USB dongle that can possibly lead to computer mouth/throat cancer. But don't feel bad for your laptop, it'll turn obsolete well before its needlessly induced nicotine addiction claims its life. So you'll thoughtlessly drop your computer in a retirement home (a landfill disguised as a recycling center) from where it will spend the rest of its days doing its damnedest to poison you back. [Instructables via Geeky Gadgets]

This announcement comes on the heels of Western Digital's acquisition of SiliconSystems back in March, and the company is now coming through with drives in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch sizes. The 2.5-inch drive use SATA/PATA transfer interfaces, while the 1.8-inch drive opts for the MicroSATA standard (its capacity also maxes out at 60 gigabytes).

Mums the word on pricing and retail availability, but I'm sure this will all make it's way to the general public soon enough.

WD(R) Begins Shipping New SATA/PATA SSDs Featuring Higher Speeds and Capacities for Embedded Systems and Data Streaming Applications

New Products Based on Third-Generation SiliconDrive Platform

LAKE FOREST, Calif., June 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — WD® (NYSE: WDC) today announced that it has begun shipping its new SiliconDrive® III SSD product family based on technology from its March 2009 acquisition of SiliconSystems. The company's new SiliconDrive III products feature faster read/write speeds and increased capacities, and offer mechanical scalability, making them a perfect storage solution for embedded system and data streaming applications such as multimedia content delivery systems and data center media appliances.

SiliconDrive III SSDs include 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA) and Parallel ATA (PATA) and 1.8-inch Micro SATA products featuring native SATA 3.0 gigabits per second (Gbps) or ATA-7 interfaces with target read speeds up to 100 megabytes per second (MBps) and write speeds to 80 MBps in capacities up to 120 gigabytes (GB).

"SiliconDrive III is the first example of how WD plans to productize solid state technology developed by SiliconSystems. The launch of SiliconDrive III will also enable WD to leverage its global sales and distribution channels to accelerate the adoption of SSD technology beyond SiliconSystems' traditional embedded systems OEM customer base into data streaming applications such as multimedia content delivery systems and data center media appliances," said Michael Hajeck, senior vice president and general manager of WD's solid state storage business unit. "SiliconDrive III is an ideal solution for OEMs that require increased performance, capacity, reliability and data throughput in their applications."

SiliconDrive III has been designed and optimized for high performance and high reliability in demanding 24x7 applications in the embedded systems, media appliance and data streaming markets. Performance and reliability is achieved through the integration of the company's patented and patent-pending advanced storage technologies in every SiliconDrive III product. The company's patented and patent-pending PowerArmor®, SiSMART® and SolidStor® technologies address critical OEM design considerations such as the elimination of drive corruption due to power anomalies, the ability to monitor a SiliconDrive's useable life in real-time and integrated advanced storage technologies that ensure data integrity and SSD life for multi-year product deployments.

Web site at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=21.

The announcement came straight from the mouth of Sony Ericsson Global Marketing Director Fortuné Alexander, who conceded that they're "moving in another direction" (like the X1 pictured above). It's also a better direction, considering Sony Ericsson phones has relied too much on proprietary technologies for their products (charging, headphones, storage, etc...). [TrustedReviews via CrunchGear]

The short story is that the number of electrons crammed inside of flash storage now makes them less accurate as they get older—they "start to smear"—and that Harari thinks they can only double chip capacity two more times. When they go from the current 64-billion-bit chip to the 256-billion-bit (32GB) one, that's the end.

There might be some salvation in stacking the layers, but it's not ready for prime time yet. Check out more of the grisly bits over there: [Bits]

With Valentine's Day a little over a month away, we're all scratching our heads as to how to get our loved ones jewelry that we can actually play with. Luckily, the $33 USB Thumb Drive Bracelet showed up just in time to ship from overseas. Hiding a discreet 8GB of fold-out USB flash storage behind two dazzling lines of glued-on "decorative crystals," your girlfriend will just think you're cheap. But you'll know the truth.

(Well, you are cheap, and the bracelet has a hidden USB drive). [Brando]