For those asking, a Mimobot is not a memory flash drive - it is an artistic representation embedded upon a portable file carrying system. Okay, so it is a flash memory drive, but manufacturer Mimoco has been known for their fleet of designer USB flash drives, which is why we let you in on their '07 releases - backstory included.

For starters, we have artist Mori Chack with his current works, Gloomy Bear: The Naughty Adult Bear. The story for this cute blood-spattered piece of art is that it was a cute little bear picked up one day by a little boy. However, one night, Gloomy's dark side emerged, and he ended up ripping the poor little lad to ribbons. Naughty indeed.

Now, if you don't mind keeping this card in your pocket after that sad disturbing little story, it comes in 512 MB (selling for US $ 49.95), 1GB (US $ 69.95), 2GB (US $ 99.95), and 4GB (US $ 149.95). On the lighter side of things, we have the One Love (by HANAZUKI) and Ripple (Sket One) cards out for the guys who prefer a happier tone to their units. Check them out.

USB is everywhere. Those tried and tested cables connect anything from iPods and Keyboards, to Coffee Hotplates and Lava Lamps. Wires, wires, and wires everywhere. By the end of this year though, people could come up to help you rid that clutter of wires weaving around your desktop.

The WiMedia Alliance is planing to make the technology known as "ultrawideband," or UWB, work for a wide variety of consumer electronics devices from PCs and printers to external hard drives and MP3 players.

Basically, the USB Implementers Forum, the 1394 Trade Association and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) have chosen the WiMedia Alliance's version of UWB technology as the foundation for their next networking technology.

UWB technology can deliver data rates at up to 480 megabits per second at around 3 meters, with speeds dropping off as the range grows to a limit of about 10 meters. Real-world speeds will probably be a little slower, but this is as fast as the wired version of USB 2.0 and much faster than current Wi-Fi networks are capable of transmitting data.

Okay, so back then there was a "paperless office" movement, now it's "wireless office." Yeah, we know, it's the march of the machines. One of the selling points of USB though is that it can "power" the many devices that it also serves as a data connection medium too. How will they do that wireless? When they figure that out, they better make that work with the PS3 controller's USB connector... or something.

Korea, always a leader in the tech industry, has spawned yet another innovative product. Known as the IM-H100, this USB device grants users access to 3G HSDPA networks (like the one run by Cingular in the US).

Currently, there are precious few solutions that provide access to the newest generation of wireless broadband  networks. As we've mentioned here before, Verizon offers a competing flavor of wireless broadband service known as EV-DO as does Sprint (US only).

The HSDPA 3G USB Card from SK is small enough to be carried in your laptop case and is designed with flexibility in mind. The USB cord can be twisted and maneuvered into a position that keeps it out of your way and in the best spot to receive a clear signal.

With one big red dial for controls, the IM-H100 looks to be easy enough to use. However, without a port for an external antenna users will miss out on some locations because of signal attenuation that could easily be countered with an antenna.

Sometimes referred to 3.5G, HSDPA is descended from the W-CDMA standard. Speeds achieved by HSDPA are currently similar to EV-DO's top speeds. HSDPA tops out at around 1Mbit per second in bursts, with sustained download speeds between 400 and 700 KB per second.

Verizon and Sprint both have EV-DO networks currently up and running. In fact, Verizon is in the process of upgrading its network to the next generation of its EV-DO technology called revision A.

Cingular is playing catch up with its network, which is scheduled to be in most major cities by the end of this year. Similar to EV-DO, HSDPA is also an evolutionary technology.

UMTS universal mobile telecommunications system is the basis for the HSDPA technology and since the technology is backwards compatible, upgrade costs are lower and handsets and modems are compatible with each generation of the standard.

Griffin Technologies has an impressive history of making accessories for PC, Mac, PSP and Ipod that make our lives easier and add capabilities to our already multifunctional devices. Once again Griffin has announced a product designed to make our lives easier.

The PowerBlock is a USB charging system that helps extend your battery life when travelling. It comes complete with adapters that make it compatible with the power supply on most continents, a dock for charging your Ipod and a pouch to hold your adapters.

Most portable device owners will agree that battery life is the most important factor when taking your portables on the road. The PowerBlock comes with an Ipod charging dock, but it can be used with any device that is charged using a USB port.

When you consider the mind numbing boredom inherent in long trips by air, some type of battery extending solution is a must for all your favorite handheld gaming devices, portable media players and the like. At $34.99 USD, the PowerBlock from Griffin (which is available right now) should quickly become a standard piece of kit for most portable owners.

As a user and supporter of EV-DO, I have watched with great anticipation as the technology has moved slowly towards maturity over the past few years.

With Verizon and Sprint signed on as EV-DO supporters and both companies well on their way to completing nationwide EV-DO networks of their own, the question is no longer if EV-DO will be the most widespread wireless broadband technology in the US, but if there will be any other technologies coming to compete with, complement or replace EV-DO any time soon?

The most recent sign that EV-DO has come of age is the USB modem released by Franklin that will bring Internet connectivity to a while new class of devices.

Tablet PCs, lightweight laptops, some PDAs, and many of the recently released UPMCs and other ultra tiny portables that run XP, but yet are too small to sport PCMCIA slots or other wireless equipment, are being given the unexpected opportunity to get online using their USB ports.

Known as the CDU 550 USB modem, this tiny device will only be available for use on the Sprint wireless network. The package comes complete with the modem itself, a carrying case, Y-shaped USB cable, an owners manual, and a Windows setup CD. Once you get your CDU 550 in hand, you'll need to do an ESN swap to move your active Sprint wireless account from your EV-DO wireless card to the new modem. The new USB modem works with all Macs (with a few caveats), but it cannot be used to create a network using the Kyocera KR1 EV-DO router under its current firmware.

Then all you have to do is use the Sprint connection manager (included on the setup CD) to activate your account and tweak your settings. The average speeds for an EV-DO network are from 500Kbps to 800Kbps when downloading and 80Kbps to 180Kbps in the other direction. I would imagine that the lack of an external antenna port on the tiny modem could potentially limit its speed a bit, but since it is the only available EV-DO option for Sprint customers with machines that have express slots alone, I guess they won't mind.

First it was the talking pen/calculator, now this? Reading about the Merriam Webster USB Dictionary and Thesaurus only makes me think of one question - "Where was this when I was doing my thesis?". Doing my thesis was an ultimate test of your vocabulary - you wouldn't want repeating the same terms over and over again, so you'd have to think of synonyms or other terms. The annoying part is that most of the time, the terms are right on the tip of your tongue, you just can't remember it. This is where this contraption is going to be really handy.

So you need not carry a bulky dictionary/thesaurus with you all the time, because you have the Franklin distributed Merriam Webster USB Dictionary and Thesaurus. This one is a 256MB flash drive that contains the Webster's digital dictionary with 300,000 words and an accompanying thesaurus with 500,000 words.

A portion of the drive is also allocated for other pre-loaded software programs such as phonetic spell correction, a grammar guide and confusable function alerts - a facility by which the software will alert the user if he might have mistaken similar sounding words (e.g bore and boar). The remaining memory can be used for normal data storage - the specification doesn't say how much of the memory is left, though. Will work well with people who misspell words a lot. Priced at roughly $50 bucks.

This program is billed on its website as being, "made by Mac users for Mac users." Considering the fact that at one time there was no easy method, other than emulation maybe, that would allow a Mac user to sync and transfer files between his machine and his Windows Mobile device, any Mac user who finds him or herself in the unfortunate situation of being stuck using a Windows Mobile portable device will find this piece of software indispensable.

Given high ratings by critics, The Missing Sync will make your Mac and Pocket PC play nice together. Along with the basic functions like transferring files between your Mac and your mobile, The Missing Sync lets you use a variety of different software from desktop productivity to mirrored tasks and events in iCal and Entourage. Whenever manufacturers (like Microsoft and Apple) neglect to provide solutions that bridge the final gap and fill a consumer want or need, someone else inevitably will do so, and usually rather quickly too.

Mark Space, the company that is selling The Missing Sync, is a company that specializes in Mac synchronization products. Specifically, Mark Space provides Mac synchronization software for the Sony PSP, Windows Mobile devices and Palm Operating System devices, along with a variety of small hip top smartphones as well.

     

These USB dongles from Franklin Wireless can provide you with access to the Internet, at usable speeds, anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. The CCU 550 and the CDU 550 both allow the user to connect to an EV-DO network. Using these dongles makes it unnecessary to buy a PC card or an EV-DO router.

Even though I personally use a Kyocera KR1 EV-DO router with a PC card, I would gladly switch over to using one of these tiny things. Their tiny size alone makes them infinitely more portable than any of the other options. The dongles are even more convenient than PC cards, in terms of size.

With a single USB port you can maintain a wireless connection to the Internet. Sadly, there is currently no interest being shown by either of the major EV-DO providers in the US to market the device and there are no other publicly known plans to make the products available in the US.

With PDA's on the decline, more and more people are turning to phones to keep up with their mobile computing needs. Whether you choose Symbian, Palm, Windows CE or Windows 5.0, compatibility issues are almost certain to arise.

Unfortunately, the issues effecting Windows 5.0 devices can affect more than just the user, and in some cases they can bring down an entire network. In short the problem amounts to this: A Centrino equipped laptop connecting to a WPA-PSK encrypted network is used to sync a device running Windows 5.0 via USB and voila the network goes down!

I don't mean a few lost packets or temporary drop in throughput, I mean the network will remain unusable until such time as WPA-PSK encryption is turned off altogether or WEP encryption is opted for instead. While many home users might think "so what," many small and medium sized businesses are becoming concerned.

Considering how useless WEP encryption is for a business (or anyone else for that matter) the solution of turning off WPA or opting for WEP is not really an option. For businesses that don't have the money to pay for dedicated, competent IT staff this can really foul things up!

This problem is present on "newish" phones that run Windows 5.0 including the HTC Strtrc and the O2XDA mini. I had not heard of this problem before, so if anyone has ever experienced this problem leave a comment or find a spot in our forums to discuss it so we can determine how widespread it is.

Buffalo Technologies has just released information on a new series of SD cards with built in USB connectivity. The RSDU cards will be available from mid-July in a variety of sizes. Details that have been provided show these will be available in 256MB, 512MB, 1Gb and 2 GB. Functionality will be like those of normal SD cards and this will be compatible with Windows Me/2000/XP and Mac OS X 10.1.2.

These will be useful for those people who use laptops or desktops and want less fuss by having fewer or no wires at all. There are no more details on data transfer speeds, or prices on release, or even if they will be initially globally available. We'll keep you posted.