Ever needed to transfer a large file from one computer to another only to realize that the file was about the size of Texas and there was no way you could possibly use that itty bitty flash drive you brought from home to finish the transfer? Well, in the past you had some basic solutions such as using an Ethernet cable to set up an ad hoc network between the two computers, breaking the file into many pieces with either HJsplit for Windows or Split&Concat for Mac and then copying the pieces one by one, or if you were lucky - an external hard drive. 

But any one of the solutions presented above would not only take a long time but also have potential room for screw-ups. If when splitting the file, one piece became corrupted, then the entire transfer would fail when attempting to put the pieces back together on the second computer. It would be easiest to save to a hard drive, but nobody carries a hard drive to class or meetings. The most fool-proof of the three is probably the Ethernet cable but the time spent setting up a network between the two computers and then allowing sharing could've been spent doing something better. 

So what do you do when you need to back up your system or save all your music? 

Get an iTwin!

This is a nifty little device that you plug one side of into the transferring computer, snap off the other end and plug that into the destination computer. Now the two pieces communicate with each other over an encrypted private network, allowing the user to transfer files both ways. The beauty is that there is no software to install, no settings to configure. The only requirement is that both computers be connected to the internet - anywhere in the world! Now before you run out and buy one of these, realize that this is only in development and that the entire team consists of five people. However, the company hopes to launch it in 2010.  

So with the actual product still vaporware, it's hard for me to actually form a good opinion about it. But having just watched someone painfully use two flash drives to transfer all of their data from a broken laptop to a brand new tablet PC, I'm fairly optimistic about the iTwin. There's the possibility that the encryption could be weak, but as long as iTwin allows the user to manipulate the actual encryption, then security shouldn't be a problem. The interview on TechCrunch assures users that if one half is lost, then the other half can be unplugged from the USB port, and everything should be copacetic.

Overall, keep an eye out for the iTwin, it promises innovative changes to file transfer.