The good ideas of 2006

People love to make lists and look back at a year before it ends. David Pogue of the New York Times is one of them. Check out his list of greatest ideas, individual features, that surfaced in 2006.

One I didn't know existed but have often thought would be a good idea:

THE FLASH-DRIVE FUEL GAUGE You gotta love those U.S.B. flash drives. They’re cheap, shiny and tiny, and they offer a practically perfect way to transport computer files.

On the other hand, you gotta hate it when you plug in a flash drive to receive a file you need — and discover that the darned thing doesn’t have enough free space.

That’s the beauty of Lexar’s Mercury flash drive, whose case has a “fuel gauge” — a bar graph that tells you, without even plugging the thing in, how full it is. Thanks to a technology called E-Ink, this graph is always on and stays visible indefinitely, without requiring any power whatsoever.

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