Kingston previews a totally wireless external flash drive prototype

CES 2011: Lithium battery, flash memory, WiFi, ready for love

Kingston Technology is generally known among the community as a solid provider of all things memory.  From desktop DIMMs to SD cards, they’ve got you covered and now they are putting the finishing touches on a nifty piece of kit that is bound to turn some heads and make its competitors stand up and take notice.

The device in question is still operating internally under the code name Mobi SX  (not the final name on launch as a couple other options are currently tied up somewhere in the depths of the US Patent and Trademark Office.)  Essentially what you get is an iPod touch sized SSD that is rubbing elbows with a Lithium Polymer battery pack (likely in the 1000 mAh range based on the size of the device) and a WiFi-N chipset.  Sizes were not disclosed, but will most likely span the range from 16 to 128GB eventually.

The drive in its current form is being targeted at the iPhone/iPad crowd and simply registers as a wireless network you can connect to that has a share with all your files on it.  No wires (except when charging over mini-USB), it fits in your pocket discreetly, and presumably transfers data at up to 300 Mbps (or as fast as the link between your iPhone or iPad allows.)

 

This is a very cool concept as it is essentially a NAS that fits in your pocket and is battery powered.  The fact that it is iDevice specific thus far is disappointing.  Using a standard WiFi connection should in principle let it connect to any device capable of logging onto a wireless network, but perhaps Kingston is testing the waters for its device by dumping in on Job’s freely-spending mob first.  If the drive is deemed shiny enough to be worthy, and the unit I saw was quite lustrous, perhaps the rest of us non-fruity folk can begin to benefit from this technology eventually. S|A

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