1TB USB stick shoved into Swiss Army knife

Victorinox is making a Swiss Army penknife with a 1TB USB stick inside it, claiming it's the world's highest USB stick capacity. It's being shown at CES 2012 in Las Vegas. You can either buy the stick on its own – the airline-friendly version swings out from a standard-looking Swiss Army penknife container, coloured red or …

[hitmouse]

to be precise

the tool only has a 1000x capacity improvement if it holds 1000x as many knives as well

[tmTM]

Did

the original tool contain knives tho?

[SJRulez]

Now your local council, nhs trust or mp can lose all its data in one go instead of just a small portion of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

1TB?

I think they hold A LOT more data than that...

[Havin_it]

@AC

I dunno about that. The data's mostly just text, so even in a council area with as many as 500k citizens (rare, maybe nonexistent), each cit gets 2MB. You can get a lot of text in that, and probably leave room for a passport photo.

Of course, it's probably naiive to think the actual records are as space-efficient as that. Scans of paper documents, bloated MSO docs, gawd knows. Just saying they *could* squeeze your "life" into a lot less...

[Anonymous Coward]

best not to travel with it they will want to know what is on it anyway might take a while to image..

[stucs201]

which is why they do a version without the sharp bits...

[MacGyver]

@stucs201

Are you kidding, the TSA won't let you on a plane with a cartoon picture of a gun on your shirt, they would go crazy and you would be getting tazered. I'm betting they would say something like "it could scare passengers because it looks like a knife" and take it from you, and then you would see it on e-bay later that night.

[rurwin]

"On a separate note, just how small can a PC be these days?"

http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs

"The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. "

[Parax]

The Pi prototype was USB stick Sized:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ7N4rycsy4

(The Pi is driven by cost not size.)

[Alan 6]

I've got a 32gb USB stick, this holds way more than I need to carry from place to place, not sure why anyone would want to place 1tb of data onto a device that could fall through a hole in your pocket...

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy..

I've come across two forms of data use massive amounts of space, Video and Serious CAD.

Its easy to capture a huge amount of data when filming in HD this is the perfect mobile backup for someone who films and travels alot.

Or a ideal for a frequent fliers mobile film collection for playback on pad type device.

Alternatively Now its easy to post those CAD schematics and CNC Files...

[james lewis]

Midget PC: Raspberry PI

On the quesiton of how small can a PC be, try this one for size!

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

[Steve Knox]

I'd love to...

but it's not available yet.

[John Robson]

Yes it is - although only 7 left last time I looked.

Cheaper versions will be out in next 4 weeks hopefully.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why..

WHY????

It was a uber fail first time round, nothings changed. A useful blade has been replaced by a useless one...

[Anonymous Coward]

I want

NoW!

[MrT]

Filled with...

...1TB of audio from hacked voicemail? ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

That would be an awful lot of voicemails or taped conversations.

Imagine all of those reality stars, (Kim K, Paris, Nicole R. etc ...) All of the reality star wantabes, and you would still have room for your daily work.

1TB is pretty massive.

How long would it take for a TSA agent to take a dump of the data and return the fob back to you?

[Daveedmo]

...and weep

...when you forget you've got it the next time you head through an airport and they make you drop it in that see through bin with all the nail files...

[Velv]

OK, while expensive at the moment, large USB sticks are a great way to provide backup media for home or small office. Cheaper than a tape drive, more robust than a spinning disk, and greater practical capacity than the cloud.

[Mike Flex]

"don't expect to get that through airport security"

My SAK travels without problem in checked luggage.

Those pax whose "carry-on" baggage needs wheels will have a problem.

[MacGyver]

Typo?

1TB Flash disk; I have never seen one at all, let alone this small, let alone attached to an LCD, let alone attached in a knife. I think they did the picture up to get free press, this is the 3rd tech site to show it. I mean is the screen running on, solar, some watch batteries?

I call fake.

[Darren Barratt]

Duh

Well, I hear that USB ports are putting out some of that new fangled electricity now. Could be the tiny battery an LCD display requires could charge from there.

I'd have though MacGyver would have more faith in gadgets!

[Alan 6]

Ever heard of e-ink?

My Swiss Army Knife has a little LED lamp on it (so I can see who I'm stabbing with the 2" blade I suppose), this has a tiny battery, just like you find in those new fangled quartz watches.

Combine the e-ink that only uses power during a refresh, and a lithium cell and your display would work for ever.

[Dan 55]

"You think you can fool us with this Swiss Army Knife that is camouflaged to look like a USB stick?"

The only way I can think of successfully getting that through security with that is if you travel with an infant as they'll be too busy making you chuck out the baby food and milk and waking the poor kid up to take an interest in the USB stick.

Yes, I am talking about the version without the pointy bits. Never misunderestimate the IQ of a jobsworth airport worker.

[Pete Spicer]

I'm more likely to overestimate their intelligence than underestimate it...

[Hawkmoth]

really dumb

My first thought was the same as many others', that this will last until your first trip through airport security. My second thought is why not just tape a micro-SD to a regular mini-swiss army knife and save about $1,900?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Or

I just duct-tapped a knife, nailfile, scissors and corkscrew together to make my own swiss army knife!

[LateNightLarry]

Why not just make it into a tie clasp and wear it past TSA goon squad... Oh, wait, you havea to remove all metal from your person... All right, just make sure they see you take it off your necktie before you place it in the tray. Half of the TSA bots probably wouldn't know what a memory stick is anyhow.

forget it, it's wine o'clock somewhere and El Reg won't give me a wine glass.

[King Jack]

How would you use this? If you plugged it in a regular usb port it would be too heavy. Either it will fall out or break the port. Stupid idea. You need to carry an extension lead around. I'll stick to regular sticks.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a knife

That's a knife http://www.thegreenhead.com/2007/10/giant-swiss-army-knife.php

As for people asking why put a USB drive in a swiss army knife, it's not like it's anything new. Witness: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Victorinox-Secure-8GB-fingerprint-security/dp/B003FVEPTI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1326130737&sr=8-2

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is when you're going for your enemy's jugular and realise that you unfolded the wrong item.

[Havin_it]

Wow

A testament to the human spirit, but how the fuck am I supposed to actually hold it?

I love the idea of trying to wield this thing while using the, for example:

Fine fork for watch spring bars

Corkscrew

Nail file

Golf divot repair tool

The only reason I'd take that thing camping with me is to shelter under it if the tent blew away!

Lastly: All that lot yet they seem to have left out the thing for getting the stones out of horses' hooves?

[Lamont Cranston]

Typical of the Swiss,

bringing a USB stick to a knife fight.

[regorama]

Not interested because

I've had the electronics on USB sticks fail. At which time the soldered on memory chip/s become inaccessible. At those capacities the drives would be used by many as a backup device. A far better solution would be a USB thumb drive adapter with replaceable SD cards of that higher capacity..

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome...

That'll hold at least 3 powerpoint documents!

[Urh]

Somebody remind me...

...how many terrabytes are there in a porn year? I think it should be a goal of a budding electronics firm to produce a storage device that can store a whole porn year and also fit snugly between a pair of Bulgarian funbags.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's really the direction to go -- a small card that you can easily carry anywhere, that you can plug into whatever "terminal" shape you want: cell phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, TV/DVR/Set-Top-Box, etc. The Motorola Atrix is sort of the first practical example of that.

[Muckminded]

Available in April. Most likely the first day in April.

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought is the amount of torque this thing puts on a poor USB socket if not use with an extension cable or some sort of support. Looks like it's easy to snap that thing off from just the weight alone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait!

So, I open this up, just like a penknife, and plug it into a USP port on my computer?

How is the port supposed to take the weight?

[Probe]

Weight

It's detachable.

[Paul Hovnanian]

Too late ...

... to put this on Bradley Manning's Christmas gift list.

[zen1]

meh

I'll wait for the Leatherman version. Cool idea, but until it's mass produced and the price comes down to 1/100th of what MSRP is, it probably won't move real fast.

[Spud2go]

Not the best move??

Probably the first thing thats going to fail on the venerable Swiss Army Knife - not their best move, imho.

(I have a genuine Victorinox, had it for years & used it for many things, still going strong)

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it still have the thing for getting bits out of horses hooves?

[Grant Gibson]

Re the rambling bit in the middle of the article about "could you fit a PC into a matchbox... could it have a soft keyboard?... etc".

You've just described the last decade of mobile phone evolution. Small computers do exist. In matchbox sizes. With or without soft keyboards.

[John B 1]

It's called an S2. Actually, for documents it would improved by a hard keyboard, but for random web menting the soft one will do.

[Anonymous Coward]

You call that a knife?

[vic 4]

Health and Safety policy

in most places I have worked at would prevent me from taking this on site. Personally, I'd rather have a usb stick/cigarette lighter combo.

[Blasbo]

Why?

Why would you be prevented from taking this to work?

[vic 4]

Knife == Dangerous Weapon

Many places do not allow you to take things in that could be used as a weapon, I've see penknives as examples cited on quite a few lists.

[gsl]

Wrt the posters saying its weight will break USB ports, I've used the 64MB and the 2GB version of this, it's a pretty small knife, nowhere near heavy enough to damage a port on a normal laptop.

For flights, the stick does unclip if you're going hand luggage only, or need it in a flight with the knife in your check in luggage.

And the smaller capacity versions do have the unusable nail file, which does make a reasonable screwdriver for smalllhead screws.