Tania Hershman, reporting for Israel21c.org, writes that the new flat drives are designed to be even easier to use and keep than "those little flash memory drives that plug into any USB port and let you carry your files around on your keychain [which are] so small they can often slip through your fingers."



"I think the card shape is the future," Walletex CEO Alon Atsmon told ISRAEL21c. "If it is much smaller it gets lost. The most convenient place is in your wallet."



The new drive is only 1.9 millimeters thick, approximately equivalent to two credit cards on top of each other, and weighs just 12 grams (0.4 ounce). The drive is water-proof and heat-tolerant, to boot.



Launched in December 2005, the device received an innovation award at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, was a hit at the European equivalent, CeBIT 2006, in Germany this past March, and was voted Gadget of the Day by the UK's Stuff magazine.



Wallet Flash, which has a double sided USB connector at one end, and is available in different memory capacities, from 64 Mb up to 2Gb, costing from $25 to $120. It can be purchased through Walletex and other retailers online.