Sharing files and other information will get much simpler once Kurt Rampton and BOLTgroup‘s inventive tear-and-share USB flash drives make their way into pockets and purses everywhere.

The GIGS.2.GO concept includes four small USB flash drives attached via perforated cardboard. When you need to pass some files along, you just snap one off, record your data and hand it over.

The conceptual product isn’t made of just any cardboard, however. It is meant to be produced with molded 100 percent post-consumer paper pulp, making it planet-friendly as well as user-friendly. The unique material means you can even write directly onto each USB flash drive.

The GIGS.2.GO is roughly the size of a credit card, making it easy to fit into a wallet or pocket. Which is quite handy since you never know when you’ll need to snap one off and share some files with a buddy.

The post Rip it, Write it, Share it: Compact Tear + Share Flash Drives first appeared on Gajitz.

Remember the days before digital? We shared objects and ideas by actually handing over a physical item like a cassette tape, a hand-written note or a photograph. Oksu is a concept that brings back the idea of exchanging physical objects by printing out physical representations of links, songs, articles, movies and letting you pass them on to friends.

Oksu was designed by Alex Zhulin to give people a way to share their favorite things digitally….but with a whimsical physical element. The little cubical printer spits out small speech bubble shaped pieces of paper that include both physical and digital cues to represent whatever you want to share. The physical part of the paper is printed without ink using Z-Ink technology, in which the color pigments are already present within the paper just waiting to be activated by the printer.

When you find a link, story, photo, video or other bit of data that you want to share, you print it out on the special paper which includes an NFC (near field communication) chip in the middle. The person who receives the printout can view the data by placing the printout near any gadget that can read the NFC chip. The printout can then be kept as a permanent physical reference to call up the data again and again, or just to serve as a reminder of some fun thing once shared by a friend.

The post Little Printer Spits Out Combined Physical + Digital Data first appeared on Gajitz.

Not everyone is thrilled about cloud computing – who knows what might happen to your data when it’s out there, mingling with all that other data? The iTwin lets you transfer data to and from any computer – as long as they both have an internet connection – all with no cloud in sight.

The concept works like a combination of the best qualities of flash drives, remote access software, and cloud computing. The iTwin consists of tandem USB devices that are plugged one into the other, then into one computer. You set up your connection (no software installation required), leave one half of the device plugged into the first computer, and take the second half to another computer.

A secure internet connection between the two halves of the device allows you to share your entire hard drive securely and make edits from either end. If you happen to lose the second half of the iTwin, it’s nowhere near the tragedy that a lost flash drive can be. You can disable the lost device remotely, preventing unsavory types from accessing your data.

Unlike cloud storage, the iTwin lets you share unlimited data forever with no charges other than the cost of the device. It’s designed to be user-friendly and simple for even novice computer users to operate. The very cool design won a 2011 Red Dot Award and seems like the best alternative so far to the expensive, the non-secure and the difficult-to-use data sharing options out there.

The post Sweeping the Clouds Away: Novel Data Sharing Solution first appeared on Gajitz.