Ennova Direct has a neat idea for securing USB drives and improving their functionality: Slap an OLED touch screen on top.
The company announced that the US Patent and Trademark office has awarded the patent. The so-called "Retractable Biometric USB Flash Drive" has a protective cover that slides out to reveal the OLED screen. A biometric fingerprint scanner will be built-in, and the screen will change colors to indicate whether the user has successfully verified his or her identity.
Other functions, such as a file selector, will also be available through the interactive interface. Ennova has previously created a USB drive that transmits MP3s to wireless headphones via Bluetooth, so I'm hoping for a device that allows users to listen to music without fingerprint scanning while locking out important documents.
A quote from Ennova Direct Executive Vice President Peter Garrett suggests that the drive will be high-capacity (and, I'm guessing, on the expensive side):
"With USB flash drive memory capacities now reaching 64GB and higher, user's are now utilizing their USB flash drives as full external backup drives," Garrett said, "making it even more important for users to secure the large amounts of personal data they are storing on their USB flash drives."
Ennova Direct plans to release the device under the Ion brand in the first quarter of next year.
