Hi-tech Frontier

Music Balloons -- USB Balloon Speaker Music Balloons - that’s the name of these new fun and colorful USB speakers. You charge the portable mini speaker via your computer’s USB port and then simply connect it to the audio player of your choice using a 3.5mm stereo audio plug. Product Description Size: 55 x 55 x 55 mm / 2.16 x 2.16 x 2.16 inches Amplifier: Internal / 0.7W (8Ω 1.0KHz Battery: Rechargeable via USB About 2 hours life time / 100mA / 4.2V The Music Balloon is available from the Geek Stuff 4 U website for $76 . There are five colors for you to choose from: pink, yellow, red, blue and black .

Swiss Army Knife with Digital Altimeter Last time we saw the Swiss army knife here at GeekAlerts, it was a model equipped with a 16GB USB drive. Now the Victorinox company has managed to squeeze in a digital thermometer and altimeter into their famous multifunction pocket tool. The Swiss Army Knife with Altimeter is available from SwissOutpost.com for $115.

Brammo Enertia electric motorcycle to be sold at Best Buy You're already buying TVs, washing machines, cheap keyboards and cell phones at Best Buy, why not a $12,000 electric motorcycle? That seems to be the thinking going on at Brammo HQ, where an infusion of cash from Best Buy's investment arm last year has now led to plans to sell the $11,995 Enertia at five West Coast Best Buy stores in May. Okay, sure, but we're way less optimistic about plans to let the Geek Squad handle basic repairs and maintenance -- we don't let those fools near our laptops, god forbid Pimples McUpsell touch something that could actually kill us. Eventually Brammo wants to sell bikes at every Best Buy location around the world, but we'll see how this initial test works out.

Nokia 1600 survives week in fish's belly, still makes smelly calls First off, it's rather amazing that someone in a developed nation is still using the Nokia 1600 as their primary handset. Secondly, it's even more astounding that said handset lasted a week in the belly of a cod and could still make calls after it was rescued. In a just-barely-believable story hosted up at The Sun, a businessman was both shocked and confused when his presumably sunk cellphone began ringing his lady friend around five days after he dropped it at sea. As the tale goes, a 25 pound cod managed to swallow the thing, and a pair of fishermen discovered it upon gutting their catch. The best part? The bloke who it was returned to is still using it, despite the fact that it literally reeks of rotten fish. Who knows -- maybe he suffers from ichthyomania.

ASUS' P565 superphone canned due to Garmin partnership? Sad business if true, but the UnwiredView is reporting that ASUS' P565 Windows Mobile 6.1-toting, VGA, HSDPA, Blazing 800MHz (Marvell PXA930) monster has been quietly dumped. The reason? Nobody's talking and we've not heard reports from either Garmin or ASUS to verify it either way -- it has apparently launched in Germany and Poland, at least -- but according to GPSAndCo, its debut in France isn't happening and they point to the new partnership as the reason. In the end, it does seem as if the Garmin / ASUS team is going to deliver some pretty serious goods, so we'll not shed a tear unless something happens to them, too. Of course, this could all be fluff, so do tell us if you catch sight of one of these at your local shop.

Amazon's Gold Box sale features Nokia E71 for $289, shipped Well if your dreams of a new set have been dashed by the Nokia XpressMusic 5800's issues but you still want to shop Nokia, here's a deal for you. Amazon's Gold Box sale today features the lovely -- and arguably Nokia's sassiest QWERTY smartphone -- Nokia E71 in gray for $289 shipped. We peeked at Nokia's shop and they have it priced at $349, and Expansys is at $389, so we're fairly impressed at the price here, though it will only be about at this price today. Heck, we may stock up and make it an early Nokia Christmas this year, for ourselves. References in earlier entries: Nokia E71

Limited edition Lego Mindstorms NXT brings back a decade of memories Maybe, you'll definitely be $169.99 further away from paying the light bill next month, as the limited edition Mindstorms Black NXT Brick is simply a must-have item for even amateur collectors. The device, which was created to celebrate ten years of Mindstorms, boasts four input ports, a trio of output ports for motors, a large dot-matrix display, USB 2.0, Bluetooth, a 32-bit microprocessor and a digital wire interface for third-party developments. We'd get in line now if you want to be assured of a piece come March 3rd, but that's totally your call.

MIT team develops solar car, bodly calls it Eleanor When you name a custom built vehicle Eleanor, it better be good. It better be really good. But in fairness, the machine concocted by MIT's Solar Electric Vehicle Team is actually one of the more stellar creations we've seen on wheels. The newest iteration is a touch taller than prior versions and should be more comfortable to operate. Additionally, designers managed to increase the frontal area by 30 percent, all while keeping the drag area exactly the same. The juice comes from six square meters of monocrystalline silicon solar cells, and reportedly, the car can run all day long (providing the sun shines brightly the entire time) at a steady speed of 55 miles per hour. Eleanor will be competing later this year in the World Solar Challenge in Australia, and in preparation, the team is hoping to drive it across America this summer. So yeah, if you've ever wanted a summer to try hitchhiking, this would be it.

Our Nokia 5800 XpressMusic magically starts working on 3G We powered up ye olde NAM 5800 XpressMusic today, and the weirdest thing happened: it worked on 3G. This comes after a day of frustration trying to get it hooked up to UMTS yesterday -- a sentiment echoed by several others who took the plunge. The only theory we can come up with is that we were in Chicago yesterday at the Nokia flagship store -- a place where many of the "defective" units were sold -- and today we're elsewhere, so it's conceivable that there's an issue with AT&T's 3G network in Chicago. We've noticed an uptick in 3G loss on other devices in Chicago the past few days, so it's possible that the 5800 is just particularly sensitive to crappy networks; then again, there seem to be others in New York that have the same issue, so it's anybody's guess. All we know for sure is that we're showing a big, fat "3.5G" logo in the upper left corner of our unit at the ...

Samsung sends GT-S3500 slider to market, us to sleep OK, just because the Samsung GT-S3500 slider may look like a really basic set, OK yeah, you're right, it is. While running a little on the homely side of the tracks, it does make use of stainless for the body, quad-band EDGE, has FM radio with RDS, 2 megapixel shooter, and a 2.2-inch display. Things like Bluetooth also find some space inside so wired headsets won't be your only recourse for safe talking on the go. Pricing seems set at 7500 rubles ( roughly $200 ) and is apparently hitting the shops now, in Russia.

Telus' BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 gets a plan and pricing, rumor-style Our friend (and oft correct) RileyFreeman over at HowardForums tipped us off that Telus' BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 is pimping and pruning its pricing prior to launch. Word has it that this flippy debutante will be priced at $100 on a 3-year contract, and $500 completely off-contract. Other info mentions that Telus has prepped a special plan just for this pink or black set, running at $32.50 it'll include 200 minutes, evenings and weekends after 6 P.M, 3 months free local calling, and unlimited mail and instant messaging. Of course, with Bell's launch of the same set at $29 on a three-year today -- and competition with its own BlackBerry Curve 8830 at the same price point -- we suspect Telus may want to rethink a tad -- if indeed, this proves true -- before they open the floodgates wide. Refferences in earlier entries: Bell CDMA BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 ; Telus BlackBerry Pearl 8230

Curious ELPA remote sports built-in speaker Well, here's a novel concept. Rather than bothering with turning up the volume on your ancient television, just crank up the volume on this here remote. Asahi Electric's block-shaped remote is about as unergonomic as it gets, and it sure won't bring along any advanced functionality, but we suppose that's sort of the point. The 30mm speaker connects to a wireless transceiver in order to blast out the audio, and while most everything else is lost in translation, do you really need to understand any more?

Dynaudio active Focus 110 A speakers Anyone who's ever heard good self-powered speakers next to an equivalent passive setup will attest to the advantages of the active approach. Sadly, market forces overwhelmingly favor the passive approach, except on the desktop, where "multimedia" speakers thrive. Dynaudio's new active Focus 110 A speaker i s attempting to take the company's success with the MC 15 model off of the desktop and into the rest of the house. With dual 50-Watt amplifiers in each speaker (one for the tweeter and another for the mid/bass), these beasties certainly have the potential to sound a lot bigger than their size; and at $2,450 for a pair , they had better. Expensive, for sure (you didn't expect Dynaudio to come in cheap, did you?), but you will save some money by not having to get an amplifier or receiver.