Lockheed Martin introduces 'PC on a stick' flash drive -- yes, Lockheed Martin
By Donald Melanson 
posted January 19th 2010 3:51PM
posted January 19th 2010 3:51PM
Our coverage of Lockheed Martin here on Engadget normally focus on things like laser weapons or futuristic airships, but it looks like the mega-defense company is now trying its hand as something a little closer to home for us: an ultra-secure USB flash drive. As you can see above, that's done with a little help from the folks at IronKey, but Lockheed Martin does seem to have made its new IronClad its own, and included some custom software that promises to let you carry your entire computer with you and securely use it on any public computer. Of course, exact details are a bit hard to come by, but the drive is available with "at least" 8GB of storage, and includes 256-bit encryption, built-in virus protection, and a variety of networking features that will let organizations keep watch on individual drives and control what can or cannot be installed on them. No word on pricing, but Lockheed Martin is apparently ready to talk with any companies that are interested in using the drives.
@ExtinctDoughnut The answer is QEMU. It's not the fastest VM solution out there, but it actually doesn't need an install, unlike Virtual Box and VMWare, which both of which do require installs. But even with this approach, the code is still running on the host machine. And not relying on the accelerator (KQEMU) is the trick. So, performance drops off pretty dramatically, but the result is something you can pull up on EITHER a PC or OS X. It's pretty remarkable when you think about it. But I'd only recommend it for text-based access to the VM. Running Gnome, KDE or Windows would probably be disappointing. Lockheed may be using different install-less virtualization software that doens't have the performance limits of QEMU.
why does this seem like it's just a case of run-of-the-mill USB key product branding .....ala some USB key manufacturer said, hey Lockheed, you can put your name on USB keys, add some security and start selling them with your brand power (and fear)
Thumb-drive Ubuntu is not New!