Will anyone buy Lacie's new designer USB hub - or is it destined to appear only as an on-shelf accessory in Ikea catalogues? It certainly looks the part, and wouldn't seem out of place next to an iMac. Styled by French designer Ora-Ito, the Huby provides an array of five USB and three Firewire plugs and sockets, along with a fan and a light for good measure, all on flexible cables.

The gadget will retail for $79/£69. LaCie's taking pre-orders at its website ahead of the late December ship date. ®

Related stories

• La Cie heads to Switzerland to get into the cloud (20 March 2009)
• LaCie's rugged rubber drive hits 500GB (24 April 2008)
• Iomega pitches paperback-sized media playback HDD (24 April 2008)
• Wacom out to plant Bamboo on consumers' desktops (15 May 2007)
• Sony rolls out cylindrical sub-woofer (29 January 2007)
• Brits are gadget addicts, says green think-tank (19 December 2006)
• Gamers offered six-speaker 5.1 headset (14 December 2006)
• Yes! It's the gold ingot USB hub (24 November 2006)
• Vendor unveils USB Serial-ATA dongle (5 October 2006)
• Nuclear War launcher (and USB hub) heads West (28 July 2006)
• Yes! It's the all-out nuclear war USB hub! (18 July 2006)
• Updated USB missile launches detected on multiple fronts (7 July 2006)