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RSS feedsMost of us have a printer, digital camera or MP3 player that we connect to our computers using one of the little USB sockets situated at the front and back of the machine.
You don't have to stop there, though. Those shiny USB cables can carry any kind of data, including radio or television signals. They can also carry a small electrical charge - enough to power a variety of gadgets that might normally require batteries or their own power supply.
This opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities for new products - and, needless to say, the computer industry has leapt at the opportunity to design a motley assortment of weird and wonderful USB widgets for you to spend your money on.
Storage in a flash
After printers, the most common USB devices are probably storage devices of various types. Compact flash memory devices shaped like a key-fob are common these days, although there are with some interesting variations on this theme from time to time, such as the Camera Key by Philips.
Priced at around £70, this flash storage device has a small digital camera built into it, so you can use it either as a snapper or a general-purpose storage device.
For about the same price, you can also get the Mega Memory Watch from Memix. This device looks like a conventional wristwatch but it's got a USB connector and 256MB of memory on board so that you can carry your files around on your wrist. There is also a cheaper 128MB alternative.
These flash memory devices are light and compact, but they tend to have limited capacity. If you need extra storage for your ever-increasing collection of digital music or video clips, then you might instead want to look at some of the USB hard disks that are available.
External USB-connecting hard disks are not unusual but many are big and bulky and require their own power supply. That means more cables and an ugly great power supply unit cluttering up your office. It also means the drives aren't very portable.
However, a number of companies have produced lightweight and compact hard disk drives that draw power from the USB cable. Iomega has released a 60GB portable hard disk that's ideally compact, measuring just under four inches wide, six inches long and less than an inch thick.
Similarly, LaCie is well known for its range of Pocket Drives, which are specifically designed for mobile types.
The units have a thick rubber trim to provide extra shock absorption. This extra durability makes them a bit more expensive, though, with the 60GB Pocket Drive coming in at around £50 more expensive than the £169 price tag of the Iomega drive.
USB hits the fan
The ability to send electricity down the USB cable has given rise to all sorts of odd little gadgets. One of the daftest things we've seen recently is the USB Desktop Aquarium. This, believe it or not, is a small fish tank containing a couple of plastic fish.
The power supplied by the USB cable drives a small motor that creates a current in the water and makes it look like the fish are swimming around. Imagine our lack of surprise to discover that this came from a US company called Think Geek.
There's even a USB Lego kit called the Robotics Invention System that allows you to build motorised Lego models and then control them via a small infrared transmitter that connects to a USB port. It's a bit pricey, though, coming in at around £150.
A more affordable idea is to buy illuminated USB cables, for no other reason than they look quite pretty. These are otherwise standard USB cables with a light-emitting diode (LED) built in that lights up makes the cable glow.
The cables can be made out of different-coloured plastics, causing them to glow in a variety of shades. A number of companies make these cables but the cheapest option is probably just to pick them up from your local Maplin store for about £7 each.
A slightly more practical option is to simply stick a small lightbulb on one end of a USB cable, allowing it to act like a reading light. This could be handy if you want to use your laptop on a plane, or if you're giving a presentation in a darkened conference room.
Kensington Technology manufactures a range in a variety of styles and colours, with its basic FlyLight model costing about £12.
Kensington is a bit of a USB specialist, selling a number of other handy USB gadgets. For notebook users it produces the CalcPad (£23), a small numerical keypad that makes it easier to enter numbers and perform calculations on a notebook.
It even produces a small USB-powered fan, called the FlyFan (£15), that will waft a rather feeble breeze in your direction while you work.
Charge ahead
Another useful device for the mobile computer user is a USB mobile phone charger. Several companies make these but the most well known are probably Belkin and Keyspan.
Their products draw power from the USB port to recharge your mobile phone so you don't have to carry the phone's normal charger unit around when you're travelling. They typically cost £20-£30 and there are several models available for use with different types of mobile phone, so make sure you get the right one.
One final option for those with super-fast, heat-generating notebooks is the Laptop Cooler from Antec (£26), a slim unit that contains a fan and sits underneath the computer to help keep it cool.
Multimedia USB
The proliferation of USB webcams and music players demonstrates the usefulness of USB for working with audio and video files, and there are quite a few interesting devices that can add various multimedia capabilities to your PC. Pinnacle Systems and Hauppage are leaders in the video and TV fields.
Pinnacle focuses on video editing and has several USB products in its Dazzle range. We particularly like its Fusion device (£69.99), which provides video-capture capabilities and also includes a reader that can decipher most memory card types.
Hauppage specialises in TV tuners, which enable you to watch TV on your computer. Like Pinnacle it has an extensive range of products, but its WinTV Nova USB is perhaps the most versatile.
It lets you play both TV and radio on your computer - and that includes satellite TV too, a feature that is missing from many rival tuners.
Most computers have quite good sound capability already built in, but if you're a real audio buff you might want to take a look at Creative Labs' Audigy.
This is, in effect, an external soundcard that connects to your computer via the USB port. It can be used to connect your computer to a set of surround-sound speakers, and also provides a variety of input and output connectors for both analogue and digital audio recording work.
Adapt and survive
The final category of USB products for us to look at comes under the general heading of 'adaptors'. One of the annoying things about computer technology is the profusion of different types of cables and connectors that you have to deal with.
Fortunately, you can now get USB adaptors that will allow you to hook up just about any type of cable or connector you care to think of.
There are plenty of adaptors for old devices that have parallel or serial ports (these were a precursor to the more versatile USB), but the best are all-in-one devices such as Belkin's DockStation.
This costs about £90, but includes several different types of connectors, including parallel and serial ports, and an Ethernet port that will allow you to connect to a network or broadband internet service.
Belkin also makes some handy USB networking products such as its USB Direct Connect device. This networking device directly links two computers in order to share files or play multi-user games.
It does a handy little Bluetooth adaptor as well, and an infrared adaptor that can be used to connect your PC to laptops and other devices, such as handheld computers that also have infrared capabilities.
These devices don't provide an internet connection, though, so you might want to look at Belkin's Wi-Fi USB adaptor, which allows you to add wireless-networking capabilities to your PC.
You can pick up a two-pack of these from Dabs.com for just £50. We're also fans of Netgear's networking products, and Netgear has its own wireless widget, called the WG121, that works well and is easy to use.
Hard case
There's no end to the things you can do with USB. You can even recycle parts from an old PC and use them with a new system. A number of companies sell drive 'enclosures' that can be used to hold a hard disk, CD or DVD drive taken out of an old PC. We like Belkin's products for their ease of use, so you could look at its External Drive Enclosure Kit for £50.
There's a little bit of work involved, as you'll need to open up your old computer in order to remove the drive and then install it in the new enclosure. However, this really is just a matter of fiddling with a few screws and then attaching a couple of cables, so you don't need too much technical knowledge to do this. As well as getting a cheap drive unit this also allows you to transfer the contents of your old machine onto a new PC quickly.
FireWire wares
In addition to their USB ports, some PCs - and all Macs - have another type of connector known as FireWire. It is similar to USB but transfers data much faster.
All modern digital-video (DV) camcorders have got a FireWire port built into them, so if you've got a digital camcorder you'll need a FireWire port to connect it to your computer. If you haven't got one built in, you can pick up a FireWire expansion card from companies such as Adaptec for £50-£70.
There are lots of FireWire devices around, including Apple's popular iPod music player. However, FireWire's speed makes it ideal for transferring large files, such as digital video. In other words, you won't see any FireWire fans or fish tanks floating around on the internet.
Unusual but useful
There are plenty of oddball USB gadgets out there, but the ones we've chosen here are some of the best we've seen. Granted, some are a tad gimmicky but many are genuinely useful and well worth the money. All we need now is for someone to come up with a USB tea-maker. We'd pay serious money for that.
See also:
All Peripheral Devices
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