Skip to main content

StormFly USB bracelet: Finally, an operating system you can wear on your wrist

stormfly01StormFly may sound like an insect species – or to fans of How to Train Your Dragon, a mythical reptile – but it’s actually a new bootable USB device that comes in the form of a bracelet. The makers of StormFly are betting on crowdfunding to raise the $100,000 they need to begin initial production. The device is currently listed on Kickstarter with the tag line “Like a PC On Your Wrist,” and it’s racked up roughly $24,500 as of this writing (with 24 days to go). 

Like other bootable USB devices, StormFly isn’t just used for file storage. It comes installed with its own operating system. You can plug it into any 64-bit Mac or PC, and the computer starts up using the OS on the USB instead of the OS installed on the computer itself. That means you can carry not only your files, but also any program you need. In case of emergency – let’s say you need a document for school but forgot it at home, and you need a specific program to open it – you don’t need to install a program on a computer you don’t own since it’s already up and running on your portable OS.

If you want a StormFly of your own in either orange or black, you need to pledge at least $59 on Kickstarter. That amount will also get you three free months of the developers’ backup service, which means the company will send you a new StormFly with a copy of your files and setup if anything happens to your high-tech bracelet.

When the device is available on the market, the optional backup service will cost $20 for a year. The device’s developers hope to bring StormFly’s price point down and promise to also lower the backup service’s cost if that happens. In the future, StormFly could potentially be used by younger children or parents who share the whole family’s computer, schools that can’t afford to provide one computer per student, broke college students, and everyone else concerned about security – including those who want to be able to safely access sensitive data, like bank accounts, anywhere they want. 

Editors' Recommendations

Mariella Moon
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Mariella loves working on both helpful and awe-inspiring science and technology stories. When she's not at her desk writing…
Best OLED monitor deals: Get an OLED screen from just $450
Marvel's Spider-Man running on the Samsung Odyssey OLED G8.

Shopping some of the best monitor deals is a good way to save on some extra screen real estate, but if you’re looking for something that can produce a stunning image you should turn your shopping cart toward the OLED monitors. OLED is one of the best picture technologies currently available, and it can create a lifelike image that makes interacting with games, presentations, and creative work much more immersive. The best OLED monitors can run pretty expensive, but that’s what OLED monitor deals are for. If you’re looking for superior picture quality and some ways to save, read onward for more details on the best OLED monitor deals taking place right now.
ViewSonic 15.6-inch VX1655 4K OLED portable monitor — $450, was $500

Getting into the OLED game can be both affordable and portable with the ViewSonic VX1655. It’s a 4K OLED display that’s made to function as either a laptop extension or something to pair with a tablet. It comes in at a super sharp 4K resolution and a refresh rate of 60Hz. This isn’t something you’d want to pair with a gaming PC, but it’s a great little display to keep with you if you do creative work on the run or want some extra screen real estate while working on a tablet at your desk.

Read more
Best monitor deals: Gaming, office, curved, OLED and more
Dell UltraSharp 27 4K PremierColor Monitor

Whether you prefer to work at one of the best desktop computers, the best laptops, or anything in between, an external monitor can be helpful to add some extra screen real estate. One of the best monitors can even go a long way toward reducing eye strain and creating an immersive digital or gaming experience. While high end monitors can get quite expensive, there are always some impressive monitor deals to shop, and we’ve tracked them all down. Reading onward you’ll find what we feel are the best monitor deals, whether you’re shopping for 4K monitors, gaming monitors, ultrawide monitors, or more general monitors meant for all-purpose users.
Best monitor deals

The following deals represent a best-of of the deals below. They're selected to give a mixture of prices, styles, and levels of discount. If you don't see something you like, don't worry, as the following sections will have plenty more deals for you to choose from. However, this is a highly recommended place to start:

Read more
7 best Chromebooks for 2024: the best for every budget
Close up of the Chrome logo on the top of a Chromebook.

Chromebooks might have a hard time competing with Windows laptops and MacBooks, but that doesn't mean they don't have their place. We've reviewed hundreds of laptops over the years, testing for important qualities like performance, battery life, and display quality — and we've found that Chromebooks consistently excel at performance and reliability.

You can find Chromebooks from Google, HP, Lenovo, Acer, and many others, and we've dug through them to put together this roundup of the best Chromebooks on the market. They're incredibly accessible devices, and for the right person, a Chromebook can be the best laptop in terms of value.

Read more