Solid state storage device leader, Kingston, has gone beyond mere passive storage in its newest USB Flash device and made it an active drive with a cool set of tools including a photo viewer, browser, an MP3 player and the ability to back up critical files in the cloud. The Kingston’s DataTraveler 109 harnesses a preloaded application called urDrive, that pops up on the desktop as soon when the device is connected ( or when you click on the urDrive logo). It harnesses drag-and-drop and double-click for helping you in organising files, photos, music, videos etc. It also comes with a service that syncs files from USB to the cloud, offering up to 6 GB of free Web storage for backup and ‘anywhere, anytime’ access.

The urDrive application take up some 2 GB of space but it’s a small price to pay: The clean and attractive opening menu offers a choice of a browser, a PC check courtesy Norton; a creative space for kids; a selection of games and quick links to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. They’ve even included a Yahoo search button. With the DT109, you could work on a completely unloaded PC and still do most of what you want on the Web. The DT109 comes in 8 GB ( Rs 1170) and 16 GB ( Rs 1600) sizes and is small enough to go on your keychain. It works on all current flavours of Windows.

I’ll stick my neck out and say, Kingston has started a trend that other Flash drive players will soon have to copy….

Link to more info on urDrive: http://www.kingston.com/asia/flash/urdrive/default.asp  



Anand Parthasarathy / November 30 2011