Memory stick channels your inner Wordsworth
Here's something for those who would say nature and technology don't mix, at least in the portable storage department. Oooms has rolled out wooden memory sticks that are exactly what you might expect: a flash drive encased in a chunk of wood.
The Web site puts it more poetically: "The sticks are picked from the woods and are manually selected on their natural beauty, professionally handmade into unique and personal USB memory sticks." Each memory stick is meant "to stand out against its natural environment of computers and offices," according to the maker.
A 256MB wood memory stick sells for 45 euros, or $57.67, on the Web site; 512MB goes for 60 euros or $76.90; and 1 gig lists for 70 euros or $89.72.
Oooms would appear to have all the answers for the Walden-obsessed techies among us, providing an organic design for solutions that perhaps Robert Frost would have wanted--if he could have tapped his verse on a laptop deep in the woods.
For everyone else, the look may take some getting used to. It may appear to the casual observer that a tornado has forcefully driven a branch deep into your USB port. While that's eye-catching, it may also grab people in other ways, especially if they walk by close enough to knock it off.
Some background: Oooms is an interior design studio founded by Guido Ooms in the Netherlands. The Web site features a host of cool designs, including lamps made out of wine glasses (once the bulb burns out, the glass is ready to use).