Technical

Taiwan-based USB controller IC design house Phison Electronics is said to be planning for the launch of a new U3 platform specialized for the China market with Toshiba, according to industry sources.

Phison, however, declined to comment on the speculation, saying that the company has not released any news regarding U3 deployment.

The Phison and Toshiba developed platform is said to incorporate radio frequency identification (RFID).

Sphinx Software’s Portable Application Conversion Technology converts existing application to the U3 platform on-the-fly. The technology does not require any modification of the original source code.

Note that it's a service and not some software that you can use on your own.

Read more here (U3 developer blog)

Runtime Revolution, Ltd, the makers of the cross-platform development tool Revolution, and U3, the company that transforms USB flash drives into the next smart medium for portal applications, announce a new, cooperative relationship.

“Building for U3 presents a new venue for not only building new classes of applications for mobile workers, but also an exciting opportunity for existing Revolution developers to easily recompile their applications for an entirely new and highly secure platform.” said Kevin Miller, CEO of Runtime Revolution, Ltd.

All current Revolution products will gain the ability to run off of U3 smart drives, and Revolution Studio and Enterprises will also generate applications that easily comply with U3’s security model, communicate with the U3 launch pad and handle contingencies such as safe application shut downs when a drive is suddenly removed. Just save your existing project and select the U3 options.

Support for building U3-aware applications will be included in release 2.7.3 of Revolution. U3-aware applications are currently only available for the Windows platform.

“The Runtime technology model lends itself to portable application development since it requires no external components to be installed on a PC and Runtime executables are incredibly small compared to applications built with other cross-platform tools,” said Kate Purmal, CEO of U3.

An interesting page that documents a successful attempt at changing the U3 drive to modify the write-protected partition and control the autorun feature.

Read more here 

Here are some links, if you want to find out how to boot your PC from a USB drive:

Windows

Fred Langa (From information week) offers a step-by-step and illustrated guide on how to boot XP from an ordinary USB drive.

WinUSB is a free tutorial which allows the user to run a complete Windows XP version on an USB device/stick. This tutorial is some kind of manual which you have to follow, in order to let your modified Windows XP run on your USB device.

Safend Protector 3.0 offers enhanced security functionality, including granular control over WiFi network access, logging of all files accessed via removable storage, and Cisco NAC integration. The upgraded solution allows the blockage of U3 drive and autorun functionality, yet will permit the use of approved storage devices. An expanded list of controlled ports, including SecureDigital, is included in the extensive list of device types supported.

U3 LLC today announced that it is continuing to expand the market with the addition of licensee Phison Electronics Corporation. Established in 2000, Taiwan-based Phison is a global leader in USB flash controller technology and related NAND flash applications with more than 50 percent global market share in the USB area. Companies can purchase the U3 smart controllers from Phison and build their own branded U3 smart drives or work with Phison through an original design manufacturer (ODM) relationship. Phison supports customers all over the world including those in North America, Europe, Japan, China and other areas within Asia.