Here’s a gizmo I’d like to try: the Yoggie Pico, a USB key-sized computer with 12 security applications. The device just received a Best of Innovations - Computer Accessories award from the Consumer Electronics Show.

The Pico connects to your PC or notebook, blocking Internet threats outside the host computer. Here’s the gimmick: Even though it’s the size of your thumb, it’s a full-fledged computer with its own processor, memory and operating system (based on Linux).

According to the company, people running the Pico no longer need to run software-based security suites, which supposedly increases performance for the computer because you’ve offloaded those bottleneck applications. Plus, it isolates your PC from public networks.

If you’re looking for a way to impose parental control over where online your kids can surf, you can configure the device such that if it’s yanked by somebody wanting access to off-limit websites, Internet access will be totally denied.

The security functions provided by the Pico include:

• Anti-virus
• Anti-spyware
• Anti-phishing
• Anti-spam
• Intrusion detection
• Firewall
• Web filtering
• Transparent email proxies
• Transparent web proxies

There’s more, but you get the idea.

 Devices run between $100 and $160 through PriceGrabber, though it lists for $179 from Yoggie itself. Plus, you’ll need to add in the cost of subscriptions for those security applications, which seems to run about $30 a year (first year free!).

If easy security is what you’re looking for, tomorrow, I’ll share the details of a new product that I hope to start seeing become standard issue for touchpads.

Posted on November 27th, 2007 by dian