Daily Gadgets, Computer, and Electronics News » u3

U3 Preview

cosa — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 14:49:12 +0000

Folks at PC Magazine already try the new U3-based USB keys and provide an interesting preview and some screenshots. Quite interesting, Explorer will show U3 USB keys as two drives on the PC. The first drive (assigned the letter ‘F:’ on our PC) fools the system into thinking it’s a CD-ROM drive so it can AutoPlay the LaunchPad manager. The second drive (G: ) contains our applications and data.

[ Read the Preview ] [ Via UberGizmo ]

Skype Inside The USB Disk

cosa — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 20:08:20 +0000

Earlier today, I’ve posted about U3, a unique platform that lets USB disk to directly run any application. During the press release on Demo Conference in Huntington Beach, Calif, Skype was included in the demonstration.

Since application must be modified first before it can be run from U3-based USB disk, according to Share Skype, the official blog of Skype, you can download this U3-version of Skype from U3 Software Central. With the Skype inside your USB disk, you can keep your own settings, history, and other Skype’s data on the USB disk. Wherever you want to use Skype, just plug in your USB disk and you can run Skype with all your personal configuration.

Skype is a VoIP software that enable telephone conversations via the Internet. Calls to other Skype users are free as well as calls to regular telephone and mobile telephone numbers all over the world are at a low rate. Apart from that, Skype also able to act like a normal instant messenger software, by sending a text message to other Skype users around the world in real time.

Furthermore, Skype’s team gives a useful tips related to using Skype from USB disk or other removable media. You can use /datapath:”path” command line option to specifies where all the Skype data is located. This command line option supported by Skype for Windows v1.4 and above. For example:

skype.exe /datapath:"c:\skypedata"

Above command line will run Skype using the data inside c:\skypedata directory.

U3 Lets You Run Software Directly From Your USB Disk

cosa — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 01:38:46 +0000

U3 LLC launched its smart drive U3 technology on Monday. This new technology lets USB flash drive to run applications, not only store files. U3 platform is targeted at mobile users or those who frequently share PCs with others, since the resulting drives are touted as complete workspaces on a key fob-sized device. Verbatim and Memorex become the first companies who released a USB drive based on U3 platform, at the Demo Conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. Later, Kingston and SanDisk will follow. All of them will be available on the market starting from 15 October.

As reported by EETimes, “This marks the first available plug-and-play way for consumers to carry and access their personal workspace without having to lug a laptop around,” said U3 chief executive Kate Purmal in a statement. “Whether on the home or office PC, computer at a family member or a friend’s house, hotel business center, print shop or Internet cafÃ©, consumers will enjoy the ability to check e-mail, edit a document, view photos, play a game, listen to music from their playlist or surf the Web, all in a safe and trusted environment that’s completely mobile and all stored in just one place.”

Most applications must be modified to be able to run from the USB drives. But on the conference, Purnal have demonstrated several software running from U3-compliant flash drives, such as anti-virus (McAfee), games (Party Poker), photo editor, music player, instant messenger, and VoIP software (Skype). U3 platform itself is still compatible with Windows only right now (Windows 2000 and Windows XP).

[ Via Engadget ]