There once was a time when portable storage was quite the opposite of what it claimed to be—portable. If you were born pre-1992 (and if you weren’t, welcome) you might recall the first and—at the time—revolutionary Zip disk. It was like a 3¼-inch disk and a 5½-inch floppy had a baby and then bought it a really expensive bassinet—the Zip drive. What resulted was a whopping 100 megabytes of storage, which by today’s standards, isn’t even enough to illegally download an episode of Breaking Bad … or so I’ve heard.
These days, portable storage comes in so many forms, some even smaller than a postage stamp, which is, incidentally, a vestige of simpler times. So in an era when form needn’t necessarily follow function, it was only a matter of time before the humble USB key became an object of desire.
UK-based Logical Art brings their version of the memory stick, “Empty Memory”, a form of jewellery for your laptop. Handmade from premium materials such as rhodium, rose gold, high-quality 316 stainless steel and Perspex, each has a 4GB capacity and is available for pre-order for a March delivery. They’re not cheap, however, ranging from £48 – £60 each; although, if you’re in the market for something to adorn your laptop, it probably doesn’t matter.
Published on 18 January 2012 by Agony Uncle