I have made some very good first steps in completing the Gender Lens project! I chose the USB flash drive as my focus, because it seemed like a relatively mysterious product that many demographics take for granted. The use of “USB sticks” is banned at Oregon State due to the chance of people downloading viruses to computers, but I remember the product’s prevalence in high school. It was extremely useful to have a small stick of memory available that allowed me to transfer homework assignments between school and personal computers.
I was very pleased to stumble across the patent info which is available online. This document will be instrumental in describing the design of the flash drive as well as providing numerous diagrams for my project to help illustrate how the little device works. I also came across a video on how USB flash drives are produced in the Kensington factory. Finally, I emailed the engineering librarian at OSU to get more help in finding resources to address the various social factors involving the USB flash drive. I am waiting to hear back.
So far, so good!
