Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.<p>Apparently adverts for products which don't exist and never will exist are also nearly indistinguishable from adverts for advanced technology.
Ok so ignoring the fact that this relies on magic...<p>I think there is something to using physical locations to keep references to files. I can remember the shelf that I stored a notebook and the rough location in the notebook of a sketch for a project from 2005. I can't say the same about my filesystems even with the help of "cloud" services of more recent years.<p>Our brains are definitely wired to get clues from lots of context, and just sitting at a similarly layed out UI doesn't take advantage of that.<p>So drop the crazy magic... add rfid tags to the stickys ... replace the optical(??) strip thing with an rfid reader that just maps the stickies to my cloud files, and that might be relatively useful.... pretty sure rfids aren't quite disposable yet though.
I don't get it. How the hell do i put this in my computer? The second image block implies not the usb port. And even if it were to be put there, i wouldn't want to put glue in there, and have no idea how a thin sheet of material is supposed to maintain contact. Maybe i need a special drive for it?<p>Note, i don't actually care for the answers at this point, just wanted to lay out for the guys who made the page how its very confusing and useful for getting me to want it.<p>Edit: So as it turns out that this is in fact a fake advertisement for a non-extant product i feel compelled to point out this irony: I assume some ad company or group made this in order to attract customers, likely because they have a hard time getting real customers. Now the ironic part is that my confusion when faced with it demonstrates perfectly why they have such difficulties.
Obviously this isn't feasible right now (and probably won't ever be), but this is great out-of-the-box thinking.<p>I think it's super important to have creatives like designers and science fiction writers conjure a wonderful future as it is exciting and inspiring. Not all of it will make sense (flying cars anybody?), but it capture the imagination.<p>Full disclosure - I'm not a creative (I wish I was more creative), but just think it's important to have perspective
I can see this being really handy in a small size for storing an album (25-50) worth of photos, a CD of music or a paper or presentation.<p>If they were cheap enough they would be nearly disposable. I can also see them having the same problem as disposable information storage.<p>Like their namesake, sticky-notes, they might be great for quickly storing an idea but terrible for retrieving them because they end up getting misplaced or lost among a big pile of paper.
Why are so many people naysaying this? We have NFC, we have super slim (and super thin) consumer-accessible memory cards. The magnetism bit might be a little tricky (getting the object to stick to the data reading surface), but why is this so far-fetched? What they say aside (it seems that they are designers, not really engineers) -- saying this could never exist is an over-step
it unclear what these guys have to offer. If it's just the design, they just repeat the idea from 2011 ([1]). If they have a technology to produce these things, why don't they have a video demonstration of a prototype?<p>[1] <a href="http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/flashkus/" rel="nofollow">http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/flashkus/</a>
There's nothing to indicate that this is a real product. There's no information about availability, and given how everything is just a bunch of slides, I think this is more of a design exercise than a real product.
Not to poke holes in the implementation but even one-wire requires two connection, [1]Data/Power [2] Ground. Even with their optical mumbo jumbo how the hell can they actually transfer data?<p>On one hand they talk about optical things, and then on the other hand they're talking about 'conductive'. Seriously? Regardless, you do not bypass the laws of physics. You need atleast a complete circuit for it to be powered. And if their cop-out is that it's got a super-micro-pico-tiny-high-density-capacitor then I'm not even going to bother poking holes anymore.<p>Well, there <i>is</i> a way but it's pointlessly slow - inductive power.<p>The whole concept is quite flawed in my opinion [EDIT - unless their plan is to showcase a theoretical ultrathin USB flash drive.]
Can't say I've ever found a USB stick to be too large physically. Interesting concept, but I wonder if it's solving a problem that doesn't really exist and adding a required transfer surface along the way.
As someone who tries to keep a clean desk, and actively dislikes having post-it's on her monitor bezel, this design exercise gives me the heebie-jeebies.<p>I actively leverage my dislike of visual clutter on my desk by putting things I don't want to do, but have to, on a post-it on the edge of my monitor. That photo of a bunch of these things cluttering up a monitor is just one big NOPE.<p>Personally I feel like the form factor of the USB drive is getting close to the bare minimum size as a physical token to put files on. They're small enough to embed in a wide array of whimsically-shaped objects.<p>Hell, take this magical "optical data transfer surface" and cover your desk in it; build these in small modules that an end user can put into ANYTHING. Put one in the bottom of that action figure you have on the desk, that cool traditional craft piece an ex sent back from their trip to Foreign Parts, whatever - if you want to replace USB drives, I feel like there's a much wider array of things sitting on your desk to put data into than post-its.
A fantastic example of projecting our fears and anxieties...<p>(we all wait in fear of how powerful, potent or dense each new material technology can be)<p>(we all fear that our world is not easy or colorful enough)<p>(we all fear that we missed out on something profound and sweeping)<p>(we all fear that we're being lied to)<p>(we all fear that others will lie to the ones we love ( and that we'll have to fix their windows 8 at christmas ) )
tl:dr; there is a surface (called ODTS) that you stick the drives to. The surface itself connects to your computer via USB, and its through <i>that</i> the drives' content can be browsed.<p>Not a bad concept. I just fear that the adhesive might not last very long. Unless, if it uses another form of adhesion, such as magnets.
I know the general conception on here is this crap, but I disagree. I think a version of this is exactly where we are heading. It's useful, simple, minimalistic and I could definitely see all of my college colleagues keeping there most recent project on a data-sticky in their notebooks on the page with all the project notes. This concept is most definitely where we are headed. Development needs to be correct and something manufacturers build with congruity (like the USB standard), but a measure of this is most certainly going to happen.
This is actually totally possible with qr codes.<p>(1) Print 100 qr code stickers that go to unique urls on a web service
(2) web service serves "upload form" on first render (or enter url form, whatever the user wants to "save").
(3) web service redirects to file download (or url) on all subsequent visits, no longer allowing upload.<p>Sticky data you can put inside a book and retrieve later by scanning (or typing in the url, which was also printed on the sticker cause no one will actually use QR codes).
We have arrived at the future as predicted by Saturday Night Live.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-BH8j06pM" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-BH8j06pM</a>
Ummm...hate to break the bad news, but floppy disks (and the rest of the removable storage ilk) was killed off years ago by the Cloud. Better luck next idea.
Interesting concept, take it to the next level:<p><pre><code> Have a stack of "stickies" stuck to your monitor.
Drag files to the "drive" or "stack of stickies".
Files automatically go to the top "sticky" on the stack.
Peel off top sticky and use.
Drive IT at your office insane with all the frivolous unchecked data transfer. ;)</code></pre>
Wow, this honestly seems like a terrible idea. Not only do I really not want to get glue everywhere (and also have them loose stickiness over time) but also they look very breakable? I don't understand why I would need that many flash drives either? Generally even now I only use one USB stick for my general stuff. I don't think I could write everything that was on my usb stick on a label like that.<p>They complain that usb ports are hard to get and instead we should add a sticky surface the transfers data to the bottom of our monitors? Why not just buy a monitor with a few usb ports on it if you really want that? It already exists and is far more useful as it can be used with the wide range of usb products that already exist (phone charger, mouse etc). I can see no advantages that this has over buying a usb stick (unless I'm missing something big?).<p>Here's my equally pointless take on modern data transfer. We all have phone that store our data. They connect via bluetooth when near to a computer (Much like wifi the first time it pairs with a computer you must enter a pin). It then acts like a usb data storage. And huzzah, never again will you have to reach down and plug something into a usb port! Huzzah, never again will you have all those issues with usb ports wearing out or your usb stick getting knocked out while you were in the middle of a presentation! Never again will you struggle with not knowing which way around a usb stick should go! (This is actually kind of useful I guess?). If they don't have bluetooth then you can just connect your phone with a usb wire (as you will be doing 99% of the time). I'm not sure if it's clear here but my point is that they seem to be solving a problem (and using magic to do so) but no one actually has that problem.
You can already do something like this with smartcards (stick them on a reader/writer), although the data transfer rate and capacity is much lower...
Cute.. that's about it. Good design execution and a concept idea.<p>also it would be great if they are chewable.. looks like pack of juicy fruit gum
Even though the concept as shown is impossible right now, you can make a USB flash drive that's under a mm thick. Then just glue some paper to one side and you're practically done.