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Bokusatsu_Tenshi
11/19/09

In reply to Is There Any Point to the World's First Wireless USB Drive?
Well, what can I say? Simplicity sells.
There's one favorite Gizmodo company whose motto is exactly that.

And you know, the vast majority of computer users don't know much about dealing with wi-fi and servers, so I guess a good number would really pay extra just for the plug and play ability.

I'm only wondering how the one to one connection works... does each USB key + drive pair have an unique identification? Because if so, the signal interception argument makes sense... and is also great for users who don't know their way around configuring wireless routers and stuff...
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blash
11/19/09

In reply to Is There Any Point to the World's First Wireless USB Drive?
Why? Let's see...

1) Put wireless USB fob on your key ring
2) Pair it with your desktop
3) Pair it with your laptop

When you're at home, work on items on the USB fob. Save your work, grab your laptop, and go out. Get to work, open your laptop, and start working again. No need to disconnect and reconnect makes your data appear to almost be in the Cloud but without all the privacy concerns and need for constant internet connection. Drivers can be equipped to encrypt the data for local transmission, pairing codes, etc. etc.

The price is rather irrelevant since this is a 1st-gen product, eventually the prices will fall to what they are for USB fobs today, and when they do I will buy one. I'm guessing the dongle is a WUSB dongle since the majority of computers don't have it built-in yet... give it time.
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ceilingFANBOY
11/19/09

@blash: You only have a 30 foot range. Unless you work from home, you aren't going to be able to access the drive from work, in which case you might as well just transfer the files to your laptop.
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blash
11/19/09

@ceilingFANBOY: I said put the wireless USB fob on your key ring. Do you not take your keys with you when you leave the house? Ergo your data comes with you wherever you go without going through the time needed to plug in the USB fob and transfer the files, since you're just working off the fob all the time.

Dunno why my explanation doesn't make sense to you... put 2 and 2 together please.
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ceilingFANBOY
11/20/09

@blash: But you would still need the hard drive. If you have room for the hard drive, then you probably have room for a cable connecting your hard drive to your computer. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, with the hard drive being wireless, wouldn't that also mean that you would either have to plug in the hard drive to a wall outlet anyway, or take the risk of using a battery operated hard drive that could die in the middle of a file write? How is that any better than just connecting directly to your computer?
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blash
11/20/09

@ceilingFANBOY: Who's talking about a hard drive? Take a USB 16 GB flash memory key fob, put a WUSB chip and a LiOn battery on it, and THAT'S IT! Recharging comes from the once-a-week plugging in, induction charging... remember when you didn't have to recharge your dumb cellphone every day because it had a standby time of a month? Oh, but you forgot because you got a smartphone that goes through the whole battery in a day.
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ceilingFANBOY
11/21/09

@blash: If you don't want to use a hard drive, which is what the article was talking about, and you are only using flash memory which fits on your keys, I don't really see any need for this to be wireless. It would be a lot quicker for the for the computer to connect via a USB plug and more reliable than a wireless connection. About the only use I could see for this is if you could link two or more computers to the same drive at the same time so that you could get sort of a Google Wave or Docs thing going on where multiple people can work on the same document at the same time.
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blash
11/21/09

@ceilingFANBOY: Now you're thinkin' :)
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ceilingFANBOY
11/24/09

@blash: The wireless technology itself is all I can find a use for. The actual implementation that is being discussed in this article is what I find fault with. Yes, I know that the first few generations of a technology may not necessarily live up to the expectations, but I feel that even with current technologies this could have been utilized in a better manner that would have better encouraged others to invest in R&D for this product. As it stands, it seems useless to the majority of people (if even people on a tech site look at it as useless, what do you think the average person is going to see in the product?). Had they instead marketed it as a tool for allowing multiple people to collaborate on a single document without the need of a network that could either be unreliable or a security risk, I feel they would have been on to something.
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Kaiser-Machead
11/19/09

In reply to Is There Any Point to the World's First Wireless USB Drive?
This is junk, and whoever buys it is a sucker, when one could get either a good USB (cabled) drive or a network drive. I can't see any situation whatsoever where this would be remotely useful compared to the alternatives
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Edited by Kaiser-Machead at 11/19/09 12:03 PM Kaiser-Machead was starred Kaiser-Machead was unstarred

BergenCountyJC can't beat MW2
11/19/09

In reply to Is There Any Point to the World's First Wireless USB Drive?
You could pretend it's a phone - that's about all the value I get out of it
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