 |
| Photo credit: Jerry Jalava/Flickr |
A Finnish software developer has blurred the line between human and cyborg a little further. Jerry Jalava, who lost a finger when his motorcycle crashed into a deer last May, didn't mind wearing a prosthetic digit, but wanted it to be functional for more than just typing and gripping. The self-described hacker, who hails from Riihimäki, Finland, asked his prosthetist to design into his new silicone ring finger a functional United Serial Bus (USB) flash-memory drive covered by a fold-back fingertip. Jalava refers to the device—which most people would call a "jump drive" or, ironically, a "thumb drive"—as his "You-SB drive."
The finger, which he removes when he plugs it into a computer, holds 2 gigabytes of data and is loaded with software, the Linux operating system, and at least one movie: Freddy Got Fingered.
Jalava opted to be very public about the process of designing and wearing his You-SB, even embedding GPS tags into his posts to show exactly where he was at the time he wrote about it. The posts generated an Internet sensation, and nearly 115 different sites reference the hacker's high-tech enhancement.
Jalava recently blogged that he's already planning the You-SB Version 2.0. The next finger shell will have a pop-off fingertip and a radio-frequency-identity (RFID) tag that will automatically transmit his personal data and settings preferences to any computer he plugs into, and can be read by any standard RFID reader.
To view more photos of Jalava's You-SB drive, visit www.flickr.com/photos/jerry_jalava/sets/72157615074278472/
