I recently acquired a strange device which i think may be potentially useful if i can figure out what it does. Its a rectangular device with an LCD, a bunch of unlabeled buttons and a volume knob. It has a usb cable im assuming to connect to a pc. The device is manufactured by toshiba and the model number is PMD-C0014. Ive scoured the net for any reference to it in vain. Does anyone recongize this device?

Picture of it here

I couldn't find anything either... but in my searching I found out that Toshiba has recently released a product called the GigaBeat, which is a competitor to the IPod and has several advantages... For instance, it uses a removable PC Card hard drive, so if you have a laptop you can fill it up that way, or it can connect to a desktop using USB 2.0. Sounds like a fantastic idea.

Have you tried connecting the USB cable to a port and see what happens? Detect new hardware might clue you in to what it may be. Just a thought.

"PMD" acronym usually stands for "physical medium dependent (sublayer)" that is (as far as I remember correctly) the layer responsible for taking prepared data for PMI sublayer (physical medium independent) and actually "feeding" the physical medium (wires, optical fibre, air, ...) with it.

Since you don't mention any other connectors then USB, I guess that it it could be some kind of wireless LAN device...

But really - just don't know

Ok. What does that mean in layman terms? What does it "do"?

At the first look, it remembered me some sort of "Call ID"
device...
After searching for "Toshiba PMD" google pointed me to this page.
Going thru the site, I've found more info also.
Looks like your misterious box is part of an integrated
telephonic & computer system.
I Hope it helps.

LIF

Connects computer to some kind of network (probably via radio waves).