As cloud storage becomes more common, the need for portable, removable drives has diminished, but for photographers, travelers, extreme athletes, or anyone working in remote locations, a hands-on physical solution for transporting important files is sometimes the only option.
To address the needs of such users, Lexar today unveiled its latest USB thumb drive, the JumpDrive Tough. Built to withstand the elements and survive a wide range of adverse conditions, it is waterproof, shockproof, and includes EncryptStick Lite software to provide 256-bit AES encryption that protects files and guards against corruption, loss, and deletion.
Whether you work in extreme conditions or are simply accident prone, the JumpDrive Tough has you covered. It is waterproof down to a depth of 98 feet, so if for some reason you want to carry your family memories with you on your next scuba diving trip, you can. Or, you can just rest easy knowing if you drop it in the mud you can wash it off without fear of damaging it. Plus, if you’ve ever wanted to wear stiletto heels around the house or office but didn’t for fear of stepping on and destroying a stray USB flash drive, fear no more: the JumpDrive Tough can withstand up to 750 PSI of pressure.
Lexar didn’t just build this new thumb drive to be strong, they also made it fast, with a transfer speed of up to 150 megabytes per second and a read speed of up to 60MB per second over USB 3.1 connections. Lexar says that’s roughly four times faster than a USB 2 thumb drive, with the ability to transfer a 3GB file in less than one minute. Naturally, the drive is reverse compatible with older USB standards, albeit at slower speeds. 150MB per second isn’t as fast as many of Lexar’s other consumer memory products. The 1800x Professional MicroSD card transfers data at 270MB per second — but it probably wouldn’t survive being stepped on by an elephant or run over by a tank.
The JumpDrive Tough is available now in three different sizes: 32 gigabytes for $20, 64GB for $35, and 128GB for $60.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.