thumb drive

For half a decade The Pirate Bay has been the leading BitTorrent site, but soon its users will no longer be able to download .torrent files.

The first step in this direction will be taken on February 29, the Pirate Bay announced today.

Last month The Pirate Bay announced that it will stop hosting torrents in the very near future.

This change is expected to go into effect before the end of the month.

From then on, Pirate Bay users can only download files through magnet links.

Is it a portable DVD drive, or is it a 32GB thumb drive? As a matter of fact it’s both: the Isostick, which is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, is basically a memory stick that automatically converts ISO images into physical, mounted optical drives — or at least as far as the host computer is concerned.

This all happens so transparently that you can put an image of Ubuntu or Windows on an Isostick, restart your computer, and boot from it; as far as your computer is concerned, it’s an optical drive.

Epson breathed new life into the projector business with a heavy dose of technology in its notebook-size PowerLite 1700 series projectors .

If you’ve been overwhelmed by the bulk of a typical projector on the road and underwhelmed by a pico projector’s brightness and resolution limitations, there is now a sub-category of mainstream projectors that is highly portable and bright enough to present to groups of more than 100.

One model automatically corrects setup hassles through the use of an ingenious on-board camera that watches the screen.

Apparently, one strategy the military is taking in a weak attempt to prevent a future State Department cable leaks, like the one currently going on, is to ban all forms of removable media and to threaten to court martial anyone caught using USB keys or CD-Rs on machines connected to SIPRNET.

Lifehacker: "What can you do with a few gigabytes and a USB port? Quite a lot, with the right software. Learn how to encrypt your work, run whole systems, rescue Windows, and customize your thumb drive with these USB-geared tricks."

Jim submitted this story about a paramedic who left a thumb drive containing child pornography plugged into a shared computer.

A coworker later found the files on the thumb drive, and the owner of the drive was brought up on charges for the offending files.

Hacking Truths: "There are so many reasons why having a Linux distribution on a USB drive can come in handy.

From having a “rescue” OS on your keyring to being able to install a new distribution on your EeePC, a “thumb drive” Linux has many uses."

Uphaa: An oldie but goodie, featuring Barbie, a real thumb drive, and a teddy bear.