It might be difficult these days to differentiate between USB flash drives—they all offer similar capacities and transfer capabilities—so designers have increasingly looked to the flash drives’ housing as a key way to differentiate their offerings. Some go pure utilitarian, appealing to the business and technical crowd. Others…embrace the cuteness. Such is the case with Taiwan’s A-Data, which recently won an iF Product Design 2009 award for its T806 Kissing Octopus Couple Drive—even though, technically, the iF award winners aren’t supposed to be known until January.
The Kissing Octopus Couple Flash Drives are available in 2, 4, and 8 GB capacities and feature USB 2.0 connectivity…just as you might expect. What’s unique about the drive is that they come in blue and pink, roundish "octopus" cases with heart-shaped eyes. Users can pop the US connector out of the drive and use it like a normal flash drive or reverse it back into the octopus so keep track of the cap. But the drives also feature magnets in the handles of the USB drives themselves—not only can they be used to, say, tack a note to a nearby refrigerator, but the pink and blue drives use different poles: put them together, and the octopi smooch.
A-Data is, of course, pushing the drives as a great Valentine’s Day gift for couples…but we’re sure they wouldn’t mind some folks looking at them for a reminder of a New Year’s Eve kiss.
A-Data hasn’t released pricing information for the drives, but some reports have the 4 GB version retailing for over $40…although we haven’t been able to determine that price is for a choice of pink or blue, or for a pair.
