The Flash drive technology rapidly evolved, as the storage capabilities, security measures and physical sizes of storage devices were subject to plenty of changes, most of which to the benefit of the user. However, so far their single practical use is storing information in various formats.

A couple of months ago, U3 Alliance (consisting of SanDisk and M-Systems), supporting a new version of USB flash-drives, introduced their characteristics, promising more capabilities for such mediums.

Users were promised the capability of launching applications directly from the Flash drive, besides the storage feature. Drive-owners would be capable of transporting a full application while keeping access to all history, personal settings and contacts associated with that software solution.

Mirablis/AOL was one of the main companies showing interest in this solution, so that ICQ users will benefit of setting, skin and history portability. Corel, McAfee and Zone Labs also showed interest in USB U3 technology. Microsoft is still reluctant, declaring that the U3 violates their security standards.

U3 Alliance already appointed the first manufacturers to build the USB U3 drive prototypes, recruited amongst renowned USB storage facility providers: Kingston, Verbatim and Memorex. The new generation drives are to benefit of a graphic interface (Launchpad) allowing the user to access the various applications installed on the portable drive.

Kingston already announced that the U3 technology is to be included in the USB flash DataTraveler series; the first items in this series are to be released this fall. Memorex announced that the Memorex TravelDrives will also be equipped with the same storage technology, as well as the Verbatim Smart Store 'n' Go USB drives.

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