These hand-carved wooden animal flash drives are the latest in the tradition of semi- to fully perverse animal USB sticks. While this time the cute definitely outweighs the eww, Japanese designers Monodo just couldn't help themselves when it came time to select the connection point for these 1GB drives. Joining this little schnauzer is an elephant, swan, hippo and little piggy, all sharing the same unfortunate hook-up location. They can be yours in a few weeks for around US$70. [Product Page (Japanese) via Fareastgizmos]

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Brando's Aexea KeyXpress flash drives are designed to really make key-ring data portability true: they're shaped like keys, and are about as thin as your average door or car key (about 3mm thin.) They're in three colours, have 4GB of flash storage aboard, come with a similarly tiny lanyard and that's about all you need to know. Oh: they cost US$27. [Brando]

Though it sounds more like a droid-designation than a useful product, the N4B1 from LG is a combined network HDD bay and Blu-ray disc recorder: Much better than pairing a BDR-recorder with a VHS drive. It's got space for up to four HDDs inside (supporting up to 4TB total capacity) and three USB ports and an extra e-SATA connection so you can presumably bolt on even more storage. The BDR recorder can burn data to disc on request, or automatically back up your files for extra security against data loss. There's no info on when it's out or how much it'll cost, as yet. [Akihabaranews]

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We got our first look at the Folderix folder-shaped USB drive from Art Lebedev when it was in the concept phase. It took over a year to bring to market (that's Lebedev for you), but it appears that they took that time to subtly streamline the quirky little drive. You can pick up a 4GB now in yellow, blue or purple for US$55. [Art Lebedev via Electronista]

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Dell's offering up a 128 GB SSD for their XPS M1330 and M1530 laptops and even with the dwindling prices of SSDs, US$450 doesn't sound like a half-bad deal. [Dell via Engadget]

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Toshiba has announced it's beefing-up its line of NAND flash storage chips to 32GB sizes. The new package combines eight 4GB 43-nanometer chips into one—double the previous generation's capacity—and is specifically aimed at the portable device market. Since it can be dropped into existing slots, manufacturers have to make no specific changes to accommodate the new chips. Toshiba, of course, doesn't name its clients, but suffice it to say Apple is on the list. The new chips will be available as samples in September, with bulk production starting soon after. [Electronista]

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The inexorable march of solid-state drive technology continues forward with news from Micron Technology (one of the worlds leading semiconductor suppliers) that they're going to produce SSD's with a read speed of 250MBps. That's more than twice the speed of the drives Samsung announced last month (90MBps.)

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For the DIY DVR enthusiast, Hitachi just announced their new CinemaStar 7K1000.B. Coming in sizes up to 1 terabyte, the 7,200 RPM drives promise to be the "industry's quietest, most energy-efficient 3.5-inch hard drives." But what can a 1TB CinemaStar actually do? It can store 247 hours of HD MPEG4 and handle 10 streams of data simultaneously (as usual, your tuners are the main limiting factor). Hitachi also promises that the CinemaStars are designed for operation 24/7, so hopefully you won't lose about 45 episodes of No Reservations like I just did. There are no prices yet, but look for the new CinemaStar 7K1000.B this August.

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...they might not have been so different from these external drives from Meninos Design Studio. Acrylic cases coated in customisable vinyl, 250-500GB, 7200RPM drives are hidden behind your favourite take on glossy commercialism (from mock Red Bull containers to giant Marlboro packs...or even your own custom skin.) Our favourite is this little Pulp Fiction reference, but all of their designs beat yet another silver box:

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There are plenty of odd USB drives out there--especially ones shaped like food. But those drives are meant for happy-go-lucky types that may or may not have an eating disorder. But what about hotheads that have a love/hate relationship with their computer? Plankon's 1GB "Nailed" USB drive fills that void with a design that almost begs short-tempered nerds to smash an unruly laptop with a hammer. Available for the steep price of US$45.

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