Flash memory drives come in many odd forms - disguised as plastic sushi pieces, Swiss Army knives and Hello Kitty figures. Now, a contender for the oddest: a vibrator.

An erotic toy with built-in flash memory is the latest addition to a growing, evolving industry. The toy's maker is Crave, a new San Francisco company begun by a Stanford University designer-engineer whose Duet vibrator started showing up last year in stores like Good Vibrations in San Francisco and Babeland in New York and recently hit a handful of boutique retailers around the United States.

The Duet Lux looks like a sleek tuning fork, with a silicone tip and a gold-plated band. Open it up and discover a USB port with 8 gigabytes of memory (for $219), or pay $349 for 16 gigs and a gold-plated base.

The obvious question: Why computer memory?

Including memory was not Crave's original intent. The idea was simply that the device's USB port would be chargeable by computer, eliminating the need for cords or batteries.

But "a bunch of the testers asked: can we store stuff on this?'" said Michael Topolovac, Crave's founder.

Mr. Topolovac said testers and others explained that they would like to use vibrator memory to store private material - not just erotic files, but documents. Users can remove the vibrating part at the top, he said, and be left with what might pass at a Starbucks as just a fancy flash memory stick.

"I use it for my V.C. presentations," he added.

More broadly, the Duet looks to be an exception that proves the rule. The exception: Mr. Topolovac said there do not appear to be other vibrators on the market with a built-in computer memory, though there are a growing number that can be charged through USB ports.

The rule proved by the exception: a lot of design and innovation is coming to the vibrator category, reflecting a growing mainstream retail market. Last year, for instance, Walgreens pharmacies began carrying Trojan-made vibrators, alongside other personal items like lubricant. In the third quarter of 2012, Trojan said, it sold 273,000 vibrators at food, drug and mass retailers (like Walgreens, CVS and Duane Reade), citing Nielsen, a market research firm.

In 2011, the Brookstone gift store started selling a line of Pleasure Objects, vibrators made by a company called Lelo. It, and other companies, have been pushing luxury and design-centric vibrators, hoping to keep moving the business from one with a reputation for novelty toys toward lifestyle brands.

In the case of Crave, adding computer memory to a sex toy is just the beginning of the innovation.

"Next year, we'll be introducing products with memory and wireless capability," Mr. Topolovac said. Wireless? "To control the device," he said vaguely, but declined to elaborate as to exactly how that might work or why it would be useful, citing that Silicon Valley standby: fear of divulging intellectual property secrets before their time.

Crave draws not just its ethos but its heroes from Silicon Valley. Crave's other co-founder, Ti Chang, is a woman with an industrial design background who Mr. Topolovac insists can become to vibrators what Jonathan Ive, the design guru at Apple, is to user-friendly computing.

"On my best day, I'm a mediocre Steve Jobs," he said, "and her regular day, she's a Jony Ive."

A vibrator with a built-in flash memory stick.

The New York Times

(China Daily 01/20/2013 page11)