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A Fake Digit That’s Digital

Written by Fred J. Aun
March 19th, 2009

The blogosphere was having lots of pun-fun this week with a story out of Finland about a fellow who stuck a USB thumb drive onto the end of his prosthetic finger. Indeed, it’s hard to resist the urge to make light of Jerry Jalava’s creation by resorting to groaners such as “Did you ever want to give the finger to your data storage systems?” Jalava, a programmer from Helsinki, lost part of his left ring finger in a motorcycle accident. He was inspired to build his prosthetic finger, containing a 2GB USB memory stick, when surgeons performing his finger amputation cracked jokes about installing a “finger drive.”

Sometimes, since the prosthesis is easily removed, Jalava just leaves it plugged into his computer’s USB port. According to reports, Jalava is planning an upgraded version that has a removable fingertip, an RFID tag and more memory. That’s some pretty innovative thinking and it’s a sure way of being sure you have the data you need, ahem, right at your fingertips.

Posted in IT Strategy/Industry, Mobile/Wireless/Contactless, Security/Fraud
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