Whilst the media in general is awash with reviews of what happened last year, in c|net's 'Top Ten' of brilliant ideas that came to market in 2006, two entries of digital storage are seemingly worth a mention here on CD Freaks.
The first is a very simple but technologically advanced idea: a USB flash memory stick with a capacity gauge on the side. Lexar's JumpDrive Mercury uses a compound called 'E-ink', which registers a colour change without the need for power, so you don't need to plug it in to find out how much space you have left on the drive. Whilst the price is relatively high at around $70 for a 2 GB unit, and the writing performance is quite slow, it's not hard to see that the cost may come down once other manufacturers adopt this very attractive idea.
The second interesting gadget is the Samsung Helix portable music player. Whilst on the outside it looks more like a cell-phone, the little bumpy aerial just about gives away that this is also an XM satellite radio receiver. Capable of picking up the 70 or so ad-free music channels provided by the XM service, there is a great feature of a one-button download of the whole of any song that you hear, regardless of whether you missed the beginning.
The full top ten list can be seen on c|net's News.com pages here.
