Wearing Your Data

Wearing Your Data

Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Universal Serial Bus, otherwise known as USB, has been very instrumental over the years. I remember when printers required the use of the parallel port but now it's simply a USB connection. USB ports can be used for connecting peripherals or even powering smaller devices, such as LED lights and cellphones. One of the most popular uses for the USB port is for saving data on to external drives. These drives are usually small, maybe the size of a keychain. However, I feel they have some design problems that haven't been solved yet.

There are a few types of USB data drive designs. The purpose behind most of them is to cover the metal part (called the A-plug) that is inserted inside of the computer. One possible design is by sliding the A-plug out of the body of the device. Usually, there's a place for your thumb to slide a lever which in turn reveals the A-plug to be plugged into the computer. The problem with this design is apparent when the device is about to be plugged in. If the lever isn't fully extended or locked after revealing the A-plug, it's possible to have the A-plug retract after it pushes against something. The motion to plug something in requires you to push, this means you could lose the A-plug inside the device before it is plugged into the computer. There is another type of retractable USB drive that does the opposite, where the body is slid down from the A-plug. In this design, it's possible that the A-plug becomes exposed if the body isn't fully extended or locked, which defeats the purpose of protecting the A-plug.

A more common way to protect the A-plug is by using a cap. There's an obvious problem with using a cap for anyone that uses pens; you can easily lose the cap. Such is true with this design. However, some creative people recently started to use the cap design to hide their USB drives inside of things like toys and jewelry. One of the most popular types of USB drives is a rubber bracelet. One end of the bracelet is the A-plug and the other end is the cap for the plug. When you cap the A-plug, you may wear the device like a bracelet. These are often found at trade shows as giveaways.

Now for a bit of demographics and stereotyping. I believe that a rubber bracelet is not generally acceptable for an adult to wear in a professional setting. I also believe that most people who would normally carry around a USB drive, in the general sense, are male. Taking this into consideration, a person would think there is a considerable market for men's USB jewelry. This is hardly the case. Why is that?

I don't believe this is due to a design problem. This simply could be a chain bracelet where the ends would be replaced with the USB drive and cap, like the rubber version. To solve a possible loose cap problem, a clasp could be created to secure the drive to the cap in an elegant form, similarly to how some earring clasps work. This could be done with tiny USB devices like the LaCie MosKeyto.

In fact it has been done; for women. There is a fairly substantial market for women's USB jewelry. Everything from bracelets, necklaces and even earrings. I'm sure women in the tech field are interested but, I feel men would be interested as well if option was available. Especially options where form met function in the manner I've described.

There is one point that I feel I should mention. With the creation of "cloud computing", where a person can access their own files from any internet connected device, some people may argue that saving to disk is not longer needed. I feel that connectivity cannot be assumed on any device. Even having many different ways of accessing the internet, there's still the possibility of being cut-off. This is where having a non-intrusive backup disk would come to the rescue. This is where the market for the unisex adult USB bracelet will begin.