Full FeedWindows on USB drive in the works
Microsoft plans to alter the portable computing landscape with its ongoing development on Windows StartKey, a portable USB flash drive which can store your customized Windows settings, desktop wallpaper, contacts, data, application, profiles, and possibly the whole bootable installation. This is an interesting concept for Windows users who are always on the go but perhaps too tired or too lazy to bring their laptops. More importantly, it is more feasible as backup system in case something bad happens to your PC or laptop. In short, you can turn virtually any Windows-based computer into your own personal workstation.
Aside from its USB flash drive version, Microsoft is also working on different flash memory types and storage formats such as SD cards. Even though there’s no official word yet from Microsoft about StartKey, there are speculations that will be available towards the end of this year.
Conversely, StartKey is not free of flaws. The most apparent one is security risks involved since anyone can easily misplace or even steal a very small device like USB flash drives. To make matters worse, there are some technical loopholes which might endanger data privacy. At any rate, StartKey is a work in progress and I’m sure the geeks at Microsoft have the answers to these questions. They just don’t want to reveal it to us yet. So, stay tune and we will monitor the progress of this one.
Via [ars technica] Via [ubergizmo]
Keep up with the latest gadget goodness! - 
Subscribe to our feed
Black Friday 2009
Black Friday is almost here! Gadgetell's got you covered with all the latest news on who's offering the best deals. Dangerous crowds? You're on your own.
Palm Pre Information & Updates
Palm just introduced their next-gen smartphone, the Palm Pre, and next-gen operating system, Palm webOS. Gadgetell's got the latest Pre and webOS information and news for you right here.
This is just another occasion in which Windows launches a product that someone else had invented long before.
on March 6, 2008 at 03:20 PM - LINKdyne:bolic, a GNU/linux distribution has been giving its users the posibility to boot from nearly any device, for more than a year, and to save their settings in hard disk, usb, etc, since it was created.
Additionally, privacy is kept by AES encryption of the file which contains the settings.
take a look at dynebolic.org
__
juan carrano
(ah, it’s also free, libre software!!)