LaCie Golden disk, to Jazz up your desktop

You would love the mew LaCie Golden disk, a 500 gigabyte external hard drive. This 1.5 inch-thick hard drive looks like a gold ingot, weighs only 32 ounces. LaCie hired the French designer Ora-Ito to create this $189 slab that, with its wrapped top panel, look like it is still in a liquid state. It connects to a computer through USB cable.

The drive is driver free and quiet in operation because it has no fan, spins at 7200 rpm and can transfer data at about 480 megabits a second, about the speed at which many drives of this size perform. The Golden Disk is compatible with Macs and PCs includes automatic back-up software. LaCie Golden disk will be available in late October.