LaCie’s Huby wants to help you share the love

Device hubs are a fact of life for most computer users. Even if your computer has plenty of peripheral ports, most of the time they’re on the back of the computer; you don’t want to have to crawl under your desk every time you need to plug or unplug something. But who wants an ugly hub on their desk? That’s right, no one .

LaCie’s $80 Huby was specially designed by Ora-Ïto, a French design firm (it’s okay, I had to look them up too). It has 4 USB ports (plus one that plugs into your comptuter), 2 FireWire 400 ports (plus one for your computer), an LED light, and a fan…because you’re just so hot . Also in the box are eight colored LEDs (for that Christmas spirit?), which I assume you can swap with the LED cables, a FireWire extension cable and a USB extension cable.

It’s an interesting design, and it puts me in mind of the now-unavailable RePorter that my colleague Dan Frakes once wrote up, only, er, less useful. I suppose it’s nice to see peripheral makers focus more on design. I’ll be interested to hear if it’s any good when it’s released later this month.

[via Gearlog ]