Paraben has introduced a new USB drive that detects porn on a user's PC.

"The Porn Detection Stick... is a $100 thumb drive stuffed with Windows-compatible image detection software," writes Gizmodo's Mark Wilson. "Give it an hour and a half, and the device can scan 70,000 images — even deleted ones — with algorithms that analyze 'facial features, flesh tone colors, image back grounds, body part shapes, and more.' The system promises less than 1% false positives."

"First, the software applies filtering to the images, 'cleaning' them to make them more easily discernible," writes Gearlog's Mark Hachman. "Skin detection looks for skin tones, while a background eliminaton tool separates the image from, well, the background. Other algorithms look for particular body parts and faces, using edge detection. After all of the image processing has been completed, the software renders a decision on whether the image is pornographic or not."

More here from Fudzilla ... and more here from Waleg.

OCZ Technology has announced a suprisingly affordable $100 solid state drive, the Onyx Series, for netbooks, laptops and desktops.

"Like all SSDs, Onyx can do several things faster than spinning disk drives," writes eWeek's Chris Preimesberger. "They load applications faster, offer quicker data access, enable shorter bootups and don't use as much battery power."

"The 'ultra-affordable' 2.5in SATA II MLC drives start at less than $100 MSRP for the 32GB version, which should be large enough to comfortably run the operating system and most applications, while content can be stored on a more capacious traditional spinning disk," writes The Inquirer's Ian Williams.

"According to OCZ, its new 'budget' Onyx SSD also comes with 64MB of cache memory and delivers up to 125MBps read and 70MBps write speeds," writes Crave's Dong Ngo. "The Onyx SSD also has a durable and lightweight housing, according to the company, and like all other SSDs, it has no moving parts and therefore uses much less energy than traditional hard drives."

More here from PC Mag ... more here from Computerworld ... more here from The Register ... and more here from ZDNet.

Order out of chaos On Storage

Techworld.com - Order out of chaos: Techworld.com presents Order out of Chaos - a quick overview of some of the industry terminology in the storage space these days, and gives you a few pointers for things to look out for when talking to your vendor(s). knowledge is power, and hopefully, with that knowledge, you can avoid burying yourself in a technology dead end. [...] Read More


Storage for the Little Guys On Storage

Thanks to two companies teaming up for a good cause, small and midsize companies will now have access to sensibly sized storage systems. Dell and EMC have announced the release of the CX3-10, an entry-level storage area network (SAN) that promises multi-fabric connectivity, flexibility in how it can be configured, beefed-up data protection and easier installation. At $22,000, it's a much less expensive solution for companies with smaller data storage [...] Read More


Charting New Storage Territory On Storage

Data centers have long fought the fight between storing and maintaining the workflow. Storage networks simply aren't set up to understand, or even to be aware of applications, workflow and data access patterns. Even the so-called fixes - the general block-based storage arrays - fall short. While they do run any number of varied workloads, they aren't optimized for any specific workload function, nor do they understand any particular data [...] Read More


Chaos at Bergdorf Goodman Are you a beauty?

Donna Karan's cult favorite perfume Chaos is back! I remember Chaos best as my best friend's favorite fragrance in my early 20's. When the scent was discontinued in 2002, she was absolutely devastated and searched Ebay and flea markets, buying up every bottle and sample that she could find. With notes of sandalwood, cardamom, cinnamon, padukwood, agarwood, saffron, clove, amber, musk, sage, lavender, chamomile and coriander, Chaos is a sultry, mildly [...] Read More


Matisse Chaos Collection The Jewelry Weblog

I've been yapping and yapping about chains and links and links and chains. Here's yet another jewelry site, Matisse, which has a jewelry collection loaded with links....oh and lots of dangles too. They call Chaos: Our most popular line... These pieces are intended to look random and chaotic when, in fact, each bead is artfully placed and replaced until a precise level of randomness is achieved. Chose the color palette you like best! No [...] Read More

Raidon has announced the HyBrid Disk, a storage device that includes both a solid state drive and a traditional disk drive for backup.

"The device writes to an SSD while mirroring data to a 3.5-inch HDD in the same housing," writes TechSpot's Matthew DeCarlo. "While they aren't set up in a true RAID 1 configuration, files written to the SSD can be backed up to the mechanical drive at scheduled intervals. Naturally, if the SSD fails, information can be recovered from the disk drive."

"Complete details on this one are still a bit light, but you will apparently be able to remove the SSD and use it on its own if you like, and then have its contents automatically backed up when you put it back in its enclosure," writes Engadget's Donald Melanson.

"Raidon has yet to determine the storage capacities or prices for the HyBrid Disk," writes Macworld's Roman Loyola. "A representative said that initially, HyBrid Disks will only be available as internal drives in April, and that a version in an external case will be available later this year."

More here from Legit Reviews ... and more here from Ubergizmo.

Image above is from Macworld.

ThinkGeek is now selling a set of lightsaber USB flash drives, imported from Japan, for $19.99 each.

"These official Lucasfilm licensed USB products come in both Darth Vader's red design [and] Luke Skywalker's green design and measure five inches long," writes Tom's Hardware's Marcus Yam. "Capacity-wise, they're not much at only 1GB, but the appeal of this product isn't related to storage - it's about having a glowing Lightsaber protruding from your USB port."

"Unfortunately there's no cool sound effects when transferring, saving or deleting data, but in any cases it's another cool novelty gift for the Star Wars fans in your life that will only put a $20 dent in your pocket," writes The Inquisitr's James Johnson.

"Back up your files on this thumb-drive and you'll keep your data from crossing to the Dark Side," writes Wired's Charlie Sorrel.

More here from Coolest Gadgets ... more here from I4U News ... and more here from Ubergizmo.