Have you ever dreamt of having your own, self-contained network in your house or office? Have you ever wanted to take full control of every aspect of a network -- banning, blocking, adding, limiting and deleting whomever you choose? Well listen pal, your egomaniacal dreams are about to come true, thanks to the ioBox-1000, a "network appliance" from Hong Kong-based Dragontech. Designed to eliminate servers and "centralize" networks, the company's odd looking purple box does a little of everything. The system, which acts as a wireless router, firewall, and VPN, as well as a mail, FTP and printer server, can also house your own, quasi-unique domain names (blank.ioboxusers.com), and includes a p2p blocker for when you really want to put the kibosh on your worker's / children's fun. The mysterious Dragontech claims all this power can be yours for less than $5 a day, which, assuming they mean $4.99, is $1821.35 per year. Enjoy, root.

If your remote access setup just ain't cutting it, RingCube Technologies has developed software that allows your iPod, external HDD, USB drive, or other fancy form of storage to be utilized as a "private and portable PC." MojoPac manages to cram your Windows XP desktop, settings, accounts, and even programs and preferences onto any portable storage medium to be accessed as a virtual desktop. The software essentially relocates your data to an on-the-go device, while it borrows the resources from any other Windows XP computer you manage to locate. RingCube touts the software's ability to run "side-by-side" with the host PC, allowing you to work in both domains while keeping all of your private info secure; since all data transmissions reportedly occur on your MojoPac-equipped storage device, no traces of your work (in cache form or otherwise) are saved on the host PC. Of course, the utility of such a setup is greatly reliant on the speed of your storage device, so attempting to render a Photoshop document from a USB 1.1 thumb drive would likely create a fair amount of frustration. Nevertheless, satisfying your curiosity here won't cost a dime -- MojoPac is currently available for a free month-long trial, after which the "introductory price" is $29.99 for the initial license ($14.99 for add-ons), while the late bloomers will pay nearly double that.

[Via SiliconValley]

While we were a bit skeptical when Chase sent us one of their questionably-secure RFID-equipped "Blink" cards last year, we're gonna be all over a new technology from several companies that actually gives credit cards a heigtened level of security by generating a one-time passcode for each transaction, viewable on an embedded e-ink display. The OTP DisplayCard, as it's being called, was developed by InCard Technologies in conjunction with security firm nCryptone using technology from SiPix Imaging and SmartDisplayer, and is being targeted at financial institutions or at other companies as a replacement for the password-generating key fobs used to enable VPN access to their intranets. While the added security feature would come into play for both online and in-person transactions, it will probably be most useful for Internet purchases, making your credit card info almost worthless to identity thieves who can't get their hands on the card itself. Oh, and to answer the inevitable question: no, these cards will not be able to play Doom.

[Via mobileread]