This sounds useful, and is one of those things I would have thought was already available: a USB server. Say you’ve got a network and you want to share your USB devices with other folk on the network. At the moment you could do so, if it was a printer, or a hard-drive, but it would have to go through your computer, and things could get pretty bunged up. Keyspan reckon they have the answer: Today they will unveil their USB server in Las Vegas, which will allow users to hook up to four (Mac or Windows) USB devices — printers, hard drives, scanners, modems, etc — on a wired or wireless network for the princely sum of $130.
As they point out, it could be very useful for Wi-Fi addicts, who, like some of my home network users, like to move their laptops around a lot and don’t want to be encumbered by annoying peripherals jutting out of their USB ports.