Hi-tech Frontier

Bandai’s New Speaker Looks Like Tokyo This new and impressive diorama speaker from the Japanese toy manufacturer Bandai has been designed to look like the Ginza district in Tokyo, Japan did back in 1955. The 2×1W speaker comes with moving parts, sound effects and a bunch of LED lights. Only 2000 copies have been made and the price is ¥198,000 (about $2,200 USD).

Mario-Style Mini Mushroom USB Massager It’s hard not to think of the classic Super Mario 1-Up mushroom when you see gadgets like last year’s mini vacuum cleaner or this brand new mini USB massager. Shoulders or body parts feel tired due to always working with computer? Don’t worry. Mini Mushroom USB Massager will help to get rid of your tired and stress. The Mini Mushroom USB Massager is available Cherry red, Pink, Purple, Blue or Green and the product is yours for $14 from the gadget4all.com website.

Carbon Neutral Wooden USB Flash Drive The British company Flashbay has a new line of carbon neutral USB flash drives called “ Nature Series ”, featuring a natural hardwood shell from an PEFC certified source. The perfect blend of modern technology, environmentally sustainable materials and sophisticated styling, this USB Memory Stick is machined from European Maple (light wood). Complete with all the capabilities of a traditional Flash Drive and brandable by either colour printing or laser engraving, the Nature Series is perfect if you are looking for a distinctive product with a tactile feel and great visual appeal. The Nature Series USB Flash Drive from Flashbay is available with memory capacities ranging from 32MB up to 8GB.

Chili Pepper USB Drive Yes, it’s another one of those food inspired storage devices. This time it’s a 4GB USB drive that is designed to look like a red hot chili pepper. The Chili Pepper USB Drive is available from the SourcingMap website for $12.99 .

E-blue Troza -- Tiny Wireless Laser Mouse The stylish and travel-friendly E-blue Troza is a shiny black 2.4GHz optical laser mouse that weights only 32 grams and works wirelessly from distances of up to 10 meters. Lightweight enough to carry along in travel without inconvenience. Wireless feature also allows you to enjoy the freedom of wireless connectivity. Features: 2.4GHz Wireless Technology Laser Technology Ergonomic grip and sculpted thumb support Longer battery life up to 6 months Mouse speed: 500 / 1,000 / 1,600 dpi, 6,000fps Powered by 1 x AAA battery Receiving Distance: 10M Support Window 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OSX 10.2 or above Dimension: 51 x 75 x 30mm (approx.) Weight: 33g The E-blue Troza 2.4GHz Wireless Laser Mouse is available from USB Brando for $28 .

Gemei 4.3-inch HD-660 PMP It's been quite some time since we've heard a good word from the folks at Gemei , but clearly, there was no resolution made upon the Chinese New Year that they'd stick to originality and stop ripping ideas from other PMP mainstays. Oh sure, the HD-660 isn't exactly like anything else we've seen, but we'd wager that the designers at Archos would disagree. At any rate, those in China can now find this 4.3-inch PMP for sale, packing a 480 x 272 resolution display, 32GB of internal memory, support for a smorgasbord of file formats, and a bundled remote and TV output cable . No word on pricing, but it'll probably sit nicely between "cheap" and "reasonably affordable."

mLani new "MoBi" FPS controller for PS3 There's not exactly a wealth of information about this one just yet, but peripheral maker mLani (started by the former founder of SplitFish) looks to be doing its best to make PC gamers feel a bit more at home on the PS3 with this new FPS-minded controller which, coincidentally, looks to compete directly with some of SplitFish's own offerings. Apparently, in addition to improving your aim in Killzone 2, this one can double as a mouse for your PC and, as you can see above, it's also wireless, although it's at least possible that the cable between the mouse and the Wiimote-esque controller has been conveniently omitted. No word on a price, but this one's supposedly on track for a release in the next three months or so.

Neolux NUUT2 Back in 2007 the NUUT beat the Kindle to retail by a few months, but its plain styling and lack of features meant it couldn't compete -- especially for the same $300 price point. Now the successors must battle for supremacy and this time it's Neolux running a bit late, just now announcing the NUUT2. It's a complete redesign that, oddly enough, makes it look more like the original Kindle, complete with an odd little auxiliary strip display. The NUUT2 has a 6-inch, 600 x 800 display offering eight shades of gray (twice that of the original but half that of the Kindle 2), 1GB of storage, SD card expansion, and WiFi as well. The biggest news is native support for PDF along with a bevy of other file types, but given this isn't likely to appear outside of South Korea it, like its predecessor, probably won't make much of a splash.

Onyx International Boox e-reader Look out, Amazon -- Onyx International has your number. Among the electronic bounty we'll be checking out at CeBIT will be the Boox e-reader . The device boasts a 6-inch e-ink touchscreen with 16 shades of gray, 512MB storage, WiFi, support for various formats (including EPUB / PDF / HTML / TXT / CHM / MOBI / JPG / BMP / PNG / GIF / TIFF / MP3), and text to speech (but sadly, no Tom). We don't have a price yet , so we're not entirely sure how threatened you should feel, but if we had to wager we'd probably bet on "not very."

MSI Wind U123 MSI 's Wind U120 has only been available for a little over a month, and already received a minor update of its own, but it looks like the company is already planning on adding a few more digits to the Wind line, with its upgraded Wind U123 apparently on track for a release April. While much will apparently remain unchanged form the U120, the U123 does get a bit of a boost from Intel's new Atom N280 processor, which has already found its way into ASUS' Eee PC 1000HA, and from a maximum 2GB of RAM, as opposed to 1GB on the U120. You'll also be able to get it in your choice of four colors, and with a six or nine cell battery if you choose. What's more, MSI's director of US sales reportedly confirmed that the company has both 11.6-inch and 12-inch netbooks "in development," and that it "can bring that out of the gate," although he unfortunately didn't go any farther than that somewhat cryptic statement."

Apple Rev. B MacBook Air Generally speaking, we wouldn't bother asking you how you'd change the second iteration of something, but Apple's MacBook Air is a different beast. Given how Apple maintained a lot of those severe limitations the second go round (see: single USB port, non-removable battery, etc.), we're extra curious to see how you want the next round of MBA to go. Is it finally time for Apple to downsize into the world of netbooks? Or do you just want a more "pro" oriented MacBook Air? Is 13-inches really the ideal display size here? Would it kill the suits in Cupertino to throw an integrated SDHC card reader on the side? Time to take off the gloves and let it rip!

Bell CDMA BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 Big day for Bell and smartphones as they add the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 on top of the Pal Treo Pro launch a little earlier in the day. Thankfully the BlackBerry seems to have its pricing lined up and will squeeze your piggy bank for $29 on a three-year contract, a steep $349 on 2, $449 for 1-year and is $499 off contract altogether -- though the $29 is apparently only until the end of March. Telus is also prepping this flippier BlackBerry for launch, though no word on a date for that just yet. In case you've forgotten the pink or black 8230 features GPS capabilities, 128MB of memory, external 1.6-inch and internal 2.4-inch displays, and the oh-so novel 4.6 OS . Grab it now on Bell's site if you've been dreaming of the same ol' BlackBerry in an entirely new and interesting package.

ASUS P835 WVGA smartphone Last we checked, Mobile World Congress ended a few days ago, but evidently ASUS doesn't mind a bit. Out of nowhere, the company has just introduced its newest Windows Mobile 6.1 (boo...) smartphone, the P835 . Without a doubt, the two standout features here are the 3.5-inch WVGA (800 x 480) touchscreen and support for HSUPA 7.2Mbps downloads . The handset comes loaded with Opera Mobile for web surfing, a trackball, the company's new and improved Glide user interface, a battery good for six to seven hours of talking, a 528MHz Qualcomm 7201A processor, 4GB of internal storage, a microSDHC card slot, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, USB 2.0 connectivity, aGPS and quad-band GSM compatibility . You'll also find a 5 megapixel AutoFocus camera and video recording, and beautifully enough, the phone can double as a WiFi access point to share its blazing fast connection over WiFi with up to ten devices. As ASUS always does, we're left high and dry when it comes to...

Nokia E55 We doubt you need a translation to figure out what's going on here, but to summarize: the crew at mobile@mail.ru managed to get what they're saying is an exclusive hands-on with a red Nokia E55. It's the same compact QWERTY phone you've grown to love vicariously through photos and video, only now with a little rouge.

ViewSonic 24-inch VTMS2431 multimedia HDTV We're not quite sure what makes this a "multimedia-capable LCD HDTV" more so than any other TV tuner-equipped LCD HDTV, but we'll go with it for the sake of simplicity. ViewSonic has introduced a 24-inch LCD HDTV (native 1080p resolution) with a built-in ATSC / NTSC / QAM tuner, an internal "media player," a USB port for loading up clips and an RS-232 control port for home automation gurus . Alongside that $449 panel, which is set to ship in Q2 of this year, the company also introducing its 42-inch ultrathin bezel CD4230 LCD at the Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas, which features 500 nits of brightness, a 1,500:1 contrast ratio, RS-232 port, VGA / DVI sockets, support for VESA mounting and carry handles for easy transport. It'll also land in Q2, but for $1,999 .

Mickey Mouse Webcam with USB Hub and Fan Fans of Mickey Mouse inspired gadgets like this photo frame, flash drive and MP3 player can now expand their collections with this new multifunction USB web camera . The Mickey Multifunction Webcam with Sucker is available in blue, purple or orange and the product can be purchased over at the GizFever.com website for $28.99 .