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DataStickies: USB drives as sticky notes
- lazzlazzlazz 13y agoGreat, all the value of a USB drive with all the disposability of a Post-It note. This is a waste of time.
- Mithaldu 13y agoI 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? 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. 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.
- tlarkworthy 13y agoWith graphene + imagination you can do anything ... in your imagination.
- pmjordan 13y agoIt seems that they're all stuck on an "optical data transfer surface", whatever that's supposed to be. I'm guessing this is just a visual design study, not an end-to-end product design. (Seems to me a workable solution might involve Bluetooth LE - good luck filling a 32GB drive that way though - I estimate it'll take you about 11 days) Of course, you could store just some cryptographic keys and unique file IDs on a small, low-throughput drive in a form factor like this, and link it into a cloud storage service. That would at least approach making practical sense.
- cherioo 13y agoThe second approach sounds almost doable with the NFC technology. I wonder how small/thin a NFC tag can be built today.
- pmjordan 13y agoYeah, I haven't been following the NFC stuff - ubiquitous NFC tags have been "just around the corner" for a few years now. The thing is, if you're going to require an internet connection to make the little tabs work at all, you may as well just do it all online in a pure cloud service in the first place…
- toki5 13y ago"Each of the dataSTICKIES can be simply peeled from the stack and stuck anywhere on the ODTS (Optical Data Transfer Surface), which is a panel that can be attached to the front surface of devices like computer screens, televisions, music systems, and so on. The special conductive adhesive that sticks the dataSTICKIES to the ODTS is the medium that transfers the data." This should be made MUCH MUCH clearer, because it's a really cool idea that takes way too long to find in that page.
- roryokane 13y agoIt looks like the answer is in the pictures on the right in the How block near the bottom. You stick a strip called the Optical Data Transfer Surface (ODTS) to the edge of your computer screen. It can somehow read any dataSTICKY that has been stuck to it. Presumably that strip is connected to your computer through a USB cable or Bluetooth. But yeah, it is confusing that the site doesn’t make that clear. They should show how you plug dataSTICKIES in right next to that “not the USB port” image in the Why block.
- iamthepieman 13y agoI 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. If they were cheap enough they would be nearly disposable. I can also see them having the same problem as disposable information storage. 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.
- salehenrahman 13y agotl: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 that the drives' content can be browsed. 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.
- Brakenshire 13y agoYou could use Van Der Waal adhesion, like Gecko feet, we might as well throw it in. Although changing the adhesive will undermine the technology proposal, after all 'The special conductive adhesive that sticks the dataSTICKIES to the ODTS is the medium that transfers the data.' It's both optical, and conducts data via some plastic adhesive. You can't say they haven't thought things through.
- magic5227 13y agoThis is just a proof-of-concept, correct? Well designed, but, don't they know USB sticks are on their way out?
- indrax 13y agoIt's proof that there is a concept.
- glasshouses 13y agoThis is bad science self-congratulatory wank. Graphene organs, stick them to your face and let them compensate for your bad health via sound.
- HCIdivision17 13y agoIs there any graphene prototype that suggests this could be sold in the near future (next couple years)?
- wmf 13y agoI wasn't previously aware of it, but apparently non-volatile graphene storage is indeed a topic of research: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl101902k http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl101902k http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn3059136 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn3059136 I would assume it's over a decade out, though.
- HCIdivision17 13y agoThanks, especially for the link to a paper that doesn't need payment. I'm looking forward to reading it over lunch!
- cperciva 13y agoAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Apparently adverts for products which don't exist and never will exist are also nearly indistinguishable from adverts for advanced technology.
- tlarkworthy 13y agoyeah I had to read it a couple of times before I could confidently decide none of it made any sense.
- GuiA 13y agoIt's likely some design student's final year project. It's a designer's reboot of the "portable disk" interaction paradigm we have that started with cassettes and moved to floppies and disks and now portable hard drives/flash drives.
- yeaah 13y agoyeah this is why pakis shouldnt be allowed near computers
- jsilence 13y agoThis is the first time I am really discontent that I can not downvote yet. you stink.
- zem 13y agoi do not understand the negativity in here. literally the very first line of their copy is > dataSTICKIES: A design concept conceptualised as graphene-based flash drives that replace USB data drives. i see this as an appealing visualisation of "if technology gave us storage materials of this form, how might we design a product based around it?", in much the same way that science fiction extrapolates tech advances and tries to imagine devices using them.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoHN has become a site where most of the comments are severely lacking in imagination. I suppose that's inevitable in the long run.
- alphakappa 13y agoThere'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.
- Semiapies 13y agoIt looks like a particularly good design semester project, yes.
- prawn 13y agoCan'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.
- kbar13 13y agocool! I haven't seen a visitor counter used in a really long time.
- ics 13y agoIt's just counting requests too. I just added 45 to the count.
- miguelrochefort 13y agoThat's cute. Too bad it's not 2004 anymore.
- yeaah 13y agoanyone who finds usb sticks cumbersome must have the motor skills of a walrus
- shurcooL 13y agoCompared to Dropbox it is (for small relatively files).
- pseingatl 13y agoIt's not that they are cumbersome, it's the cost. Currently you would be hard pressed to find USB sticks in bulk for less than $1, $1.50. Retail is much more. They are not disposable yet. It's too bad this product is vaporware. 2 gb (even 512 mb) disposable USB's would be great.
- twic 13y agoGreat for what?
- slovette 13y agoI 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.
- diydsp 13y agoA fantastic example of projecting our fears and anxieties... (we all wait in fear of how powerful, potent or dense each new material technology can be) (we all fear that our world is not easy or colorful enough) (we all fear that we missed out on something profound and sweeping) (we all fear that we're being lied to) (we all fear that others will lie to the ones we love ( and that we'll have to fix their windows 8 at christmas ) )
- chrisfarms 13y agoOk so ignoring the fact that this relies on magic... 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. 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. 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.
- proksoup 13y agoQR code stickers would be disposable. And can do the same thing, associate data. Generate unique urls that go to a web service that allows "mapping".
- AlexanderDhoore 13y agoI'm currently working on a project for uni that does something like this. It let's you "tag" items in the world. So, for example, I can leave a message on the painting on the wall. Next time I take a picture of that wall, it will show me my messages again. You could also use it to send messages to other people. "I left you a virtual message on the fridge." The other person walks up to the fridge, takes a picture, and gets the message. I think it has some interesting potential. It's on github [1]. Though I haven't created any video or documentation yet. [1] https://github.com/Alexander-Dhoore/tagTheWorld https://github.com/Alexander-Dhoore/tagTheWorld
- cfn 13y agoIt is a very good idea. If the tags are visible and pleasing it might take off!
- pseingatl 13y agoThere is indeed a correlation between a physical (or three-dimensional virtual) place and information. The ancient Greeks discovered this. The British historian Frances Yates wrote about this in her Art of Memory. What is lacking in computer UI is precisely taking advantage of this ancient insight.
- flyinglizard 13y agoQuite an elaborate trolling, this.
- njloof 13y agoHey, now they can add "Hacker News" to their "Buzz" page. Well done, everybody!
- notjustanymike 13y agoI know it's not real, but really, "finances 2013.xls"? You want to put all that data on a post-it note?!
- sp332 13y agoWould dragging a huge hard drive around make you feel better? What's wrong with a sticky note?
- bcguy390 13y agothis is almost as bad as phonebloks
- proksoup 13y agoThis is actually totally possible with qr codes. (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. 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).
- proksoup 13y agoI actually built a business trying to sell these --- but couldn't explain the concept to anyone ... and slowly realized that not being able to explain a concept means it might not be such a hot concept.
- devsatish 13y agoCute.. that's about it. Good design execution and a concept idea. also it would be great if they are chewable.. looks like pack of juicy fruit gum
- krasin 13y agoit 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? [1] http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/flashkus/ http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/flashkus/
- vonskippy 13y agoUmmm...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.
- sp332 13y agoHow are you going to hand a chunk of the cloud to someone? http://xkcd.com/949/ http://xkcd.com/949/
- shittyanalogy 13y agoA quick transfer of data to someone where there are: Too many files to be cloud managed Business secrets you don't want on the cloud Files too big to quickly transfer
- sigkill 13y agoNot 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? 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. Well, there is a way but it's pointlessly slow - inductive power. The whole concept is quite flawed in my opinion [EDIT - unless their plan is to showcase a theoretical ultrathin USB flash drive.]
- bencoder 13y agoif the surface you stick it on is actually full of (conductive) dots: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and your sticky thing has two panels for data/ground with dimensions larger than the width between the dots then wherever you stick it you can be guaranteed of two separate connections
- userbinator 13y agoMore like two connections plus a ton of short circuits...
- bencoder 13y agoI was anticipating a very smart connecting board that can determine two working connections and disable the others. I wasn't arguing it's completely viable but simply that it's not beyond the laws of physics as OP suggested :)
- sigkill 13y agoI'm sorry I don't understand your description. You said a grid of conductive dots right? You'd need two separate grids of dots if you're going to use one-wire. Would you superposition both grids? Then it would short. If you have one 'band' on top and one band below, then it's just a rail setup.
- valleyer 13y agoPretty sure unclean unmount potential just rose immensely. Whoops, the sticky note fell off… just lost data / corrupted my filesystem.
- notimetorelax 13y agoWhy not use file system that can handle such misuse? Aren't there transactional file systems?
- anon4 13y agoThere is no transactional filesystem that works cross-platform. And even if, say, you stick to ntfs, no filesystem in the world can protect against data loss in the event of accidental disconnect.
- notimetorelax 13y ago> There is no transactional filesystem that works cross-platform Frankly I don't see how this is a problem for a project that wants to implement 4GB stick-it notes, doesn't seem to be the greatest challenge. > no filesystem in the world can protect against data loss in the event of accidental disconnect If note falls off and copying didn't finish, sure you'd expect to lose data. Otherwise if cache is disabled there shouldn't be a problem.
- MrMeker 13y agoAnyone who describes graphene as "paper thin" has no idea what they are talking about.
- skadamat 13y agoObviously this isn't feasible right now (and probably won't ever be), but this is great out-of-the-box thinking. 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. Full disclosure - I'm not a creative (I wish I was more creative), but just think it's important to have perspective
- anon4 13y agoEven 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.
- keithpeter 13y agoThe bit that I liked in the OA was the way you could mount the data sticky by popping it on the bottom bezel of the computer like a fridge magnet. I imagine wifi and some processing capacity in the sticky, perhaps power over radio from the PC?
- hardwaresofton 13y agoWhy 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
- bryans 13y agoI agree. I really don't understand the negativity here, and it reminds me of the immature and close-minded lambasting that the 3Doodler received. It's very disappointing to see the HN community act this way. The majority of the negativity seems to stem from it not being an existing product, which is a silly thing to be indignant about, especially considering the first two words on the page clearly state "design concept". Even if the optical transfer strip isn't feasible, there are certainly other options to transfer data in a similar fashion. To see such a large group of knowledgeable people completely disregard an idea for no legitimate reason is.. baffling, to say the least.
- Kliment 13y agoI believe I had a legitimate complaint about the 3doodler back then: the assholes were trying to patent it even though publically documented and dated prior art from years before they claimed to have started working on it existed. Said prior art had been around on various 3d printing and tech blogs and yet these disgusting people tried to rob the world of this toy by trying to patent it. This is not a matter of "this is a bad idea" it's a matter of them going "we made up this shit, everyone bow to us and there'll be hell to pay if anyone makes it without paying us ransom" even though it's not original.
- hardwaresofton 13y agoI've got half a mind to try and make this thing, if I didn't have what seems like a billion other projects going...
- _pmf_ 13y agoI ordered some via Amazon Prime Air and am convinced they'll arrive by 2037.
- Riesling 13y agoIdea for improvement: Add an e-ink display and show the contents of the "readme.md" located on the stick.
- philliphaydon 13y agoI'm really confused...
- sbierwagen 13y agoBullshit.
- userbinator 13y agoYou can already do something like this with smartcards (stick them on a reader/writer), although the data transfer rate and capacity is much lower...
- uptown 13y agoAnd when the stickiness wears out, you're just out of luck?
- Ellipsis753 13y agoWow, 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. 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?). 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.
- hnha 13y agophones have seriously limited space. 16 or 32 gigabytes won't even hold one uncompressed movie that you need for work. With everything moving to remote servers, streaming etc, I don't see that changing sadly.
- Ellipsis753 13y agoTrue but it's still more possible than this. You can actually buy SD cards with much more than 32 gigabytes. They are pretty rare though.
- egypturnash 13y agoAs 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. 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. 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. 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.
- shittyanalogy 13y agoInteresting concept, take it to the next level: 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. ;)
- qdot76367 13y agoWe have arrived at the future as predicted by Saturday Night Live. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-BH8j06pM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-BH8j06pM