Designer Hung Chih Wang has come up with what he thinks a portable printer should look like. His tiny device, called “Trak,” attaches to the back of a laptop screen to take up as little room as possible.

Trak is powered by USB, and comes complete with a detachable printer head for even more space savings when lugging the thing around.

Unfortunately, the concept has its downsides as well. You are probably already asking yourself if it’s even possible to fit a printer into such a small package, and we highly doubt it. The design also seems to be limited to laptops with the same width, although that could be easily fixed with some sort of extendable grips on the printer. The open nature of the design would probably lead to quick dirt and grime accumulation, causing poor-quality printouts.

Nevertheless, we applaud the designer for trying to tackle the problem of portable printers with such a stylish concept.

[Via yanko design]

Western Digital (WD) has introduced its new line of My Passport Essential portable hard drives today. The new models are small but still pack a big punch in terms of storage space.

The hard drives weigh in at a paltry 5 ounces and are powered through the USB bus instead of an external power adapter, making these drives ideal on the go.

“The newly designed My Passport Essential drives are the perfect travel-friendly storage device to hold the rich media content generated by higher resolution photos and HD videos and music,” said Jim Welsh, vice president and general manager of WD’s branded products group.

The drives are available in some stores now, starting at around $180.