Digital Home Thoughts: Infinitec's IUM Promises 'Infinite USB Memory'

"[Infinitec's IUM]... ad hoc streaming stick creates a local WiFi network... for all sorts of media and data to flow from your PC to, well, pretty much anything. PC to PC, PC to Blu-ray player, PC to printer...."

Engadget has been following the development of Infinitec's IUM device, which is expected to be available in July 2010 at a list price of $129. The IUM is uniquely paired to your laptop, via Infinitec's "Infinite Portal" software, and then can be plugged into almost any other device that has a USB port, where it appears as a simple USB thumb drive - but uses your laptop's WiFi signal to create a connection that can access the installed hard drive, as well as any external drives your laptop has access to. Although the "unlimited" tag is arguably a bit of a stretch, the IUM promises the transfer, or streaming, of a wide variety of data or media files, including full HD (1080p), and does so without storing any data internally, so if the IUM itself is lost, no data is compromised. This looks like a promising product, although it does have competition - for at least some of it's functions - in devices such as IOGear's USB Net ShareStation (Ethernet or WiFi), or any of a number of "Certified Wireless USB" (WUSB) devices, which use Ultra-Wideband technology.