Serdar Yegulalp's story "12 Tricks To Teach Your USB Drive" got me thinking about some of the more accomplished thumb drives I've seen recently.Beyond coming up with goofy designs like sushi and severed fingers, some USB drive manufacturers are adding unforeseen functionality to their devices, pushing them into the realm of Swiss Army knives.

Swiss Army knives, of course, come with just about any tool you can think of: cigar cutters, altimeters, hoof cleaners, fish scalers. There's even a model called the Cyber Tool, which comes with wire strippers, and a wrench for setting DIP switches.

But the sharpest tools in the Swiss Army lineup may be the ones that come with USB memory sticks. The Swiss Flash from Victorinox/Swiss Army packs 8 G or 16 G of high-speed memory alongside its nail file, scissors, screwdriver, and blade. Read speed is 30 Mb/sec max and write speed is 23 MB/sec max. It comes with a nail file/screwdriver, scissors, a key ring, a powerful LED light, a ballpoint pen, and, of course, a cutting blade. It can be had with a class 2 laser pointer instead of an LED light, or encased in gold, if that's how you roll.

The new Swiss Flash pocket tool shines a powerful LED light (or laser pointer), files your fingernails, and holds up to 16 GB of data on its removable USB drive.
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To really multitask, you'll need access to more devices and more data. Ridata's EZ Yego "Y"-shaped drive has two additional ports for connecting extra devices, which solves my laptop problem of too many devices (memory card, iPod, BlackBerry charger, mouse, wireless keyboard transceiver) and not enough (3) slots.

It needs no external power or battery, and features a power-saving mode. EZ Yego is available in capacities of 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, and 8 GB and transfers data at up to 480 Mbps. Advanced partition and security functions allow password-protected sectors to be created for the storage of sensitive material.

Multitasking can be thirsty work. Luckily, TrekStor makes a thumb drive with a bottle opener for when you've absolutely got to crack open a cold bottle of Dr. Nut. Or a Dr. Pepper. Or a Dr. Brown's.

The TrekStor stick has a high-speed USB 2.0 connection with a read rate of 25 MB/sec, and a write rate of 12 MB/sec. It is bootable, preformatted, and ready for immediate use without a driver and available with 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 GB of memory.

See more multifunctional thumb drives here. And don't miss 12 cool tricks you can teach your thumb drive.