Hi-tech Frontier

Sharkoon Rush FireGlider gaming mouse Not that weight-adjustable mice are new -- in fact, we've been mostly ignoring them since 2006 -- but Sharkoon is hoping that you'll be intrigued enough by having a few slugs in your critter that you'll go ahead and bite the proverbial bullet. The Rush FireGlider is decidedly not subtle, sporting a vivacious flame covered paint job along with a no-slip grip, a half dozen programmable buttons, maximum resolution of 3,600 DPI, Teflon feet for superior gliding and an obligatory internal tuning system to adjust its weight from 118 to 135 grams. Too bad the Yanks in attendance will have to fly quite aways to drop €25 ($32) in order to claim one.

IBuyPower trots out GeForce 3D Vision-equipped desktops IBuyPower's been on a pretty good roll of late with these new gaming desktops, and it's keeping things interesting with its latest two. Rather than just shoving the latest processors from AMD and Intel into the Gamer Fire 640 and Gamer Paladin F830 and calling it a day, it has thrown in a 22-inch Samsung SyncMaster LCD and NVIDIA's GeForce 3D Vision system with each rig. As for the Gamer Fire 640 specifically, it comes loaded with an AMD Phenom II X3 720 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, a GeForce 9800GTX+ (512MB), dual-layer DVD writer and Vista Home Premium 64-bit. The Paladin gets loaded with a Core i7 920, 6GB of memory, a Blu-ray drive and a GeForce GTX 260 GPU. Detailed specs (along with the full release) are just past the break, but if you're scouting base prices, they sit at $1,349 and $1,999 in order of mention.

Lenovo ThinkCentre A58 and M58e desktops Quite frankly, it's immensely challenging to find desktops more apt to make computer users fall asleep at the keys than Lenovo's ThinkCentre line, but thankfully, they're not exactly aimed at the "1337 gaming crowd." In an effort to continue shrinking the size of towers and blasting us all with the company's profound green vibes, the ThinkCentre A58 and M58e have been introduced, bringing with 'em Intel Core 2 Duo / Core 2 Quad CPUs, onboard graphics, up to 1TB of HDD space, upwards of 4GB of RAM, optional Blu-ray drives for the really productive employees and all sorts of bloatware that keeps corporate machines from booting up a second before the coffee's ready. For those of you still awake, you can buy either of these joyous boxes next month starting at $399.

MSI announces the VX600 15.4-inch notebook MSI has been one busy outfit as of late -- between the company's new Wind Boxes, netbooks, and everything else, it's been quite a year. That said, allow us to submit for your approval the VX600. This guy sports a 15.4-inch (1280 x 800) display, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 graphics, up to 4GB memory, up to 320GB storage, and 6 and 9-cell battery options. In addition to all that, the company's brought their ECO Engine Power Management System to the party, which allows the device to switch among the five different power saving modes (including Gaming, Movie, Presentation, Office, and Turbo Battery) for optimized battery usage. No price or availability yet, but you'll know as soon as we do. For reals.

A-DATA SATAII SSD 300 Plus It's hard to say just how legitimate these claims are at the moment, but A-DATA seems pretty jazzed about its newest SSD. While not nearly as capacious as the outfit's recently unveiled 512GB XPG SSD, the next-generation SATAII SSD 300 Plus supposedly increases performance of read speeds by up to 40 percent while boosting write speeds by around 60 percent when compared to a "regular SSD." According to A-DATA, this here drive utilizes a special mobile SDRAM module to hit a sustained read rate of 250MB/sec and write rate of 160MB/sec, and all this high-flying performance comes to you in 32, 64, 128 and 256GB flavors. Pricing, however, remains a thick, convoluted mystery.

Gigabyte M1028 netbook / tablet It's not an official confirmation, but it looks like the chances of at least some of Gigabyte's new netbooks showing up 'round these parts just got a bit better, as the M1028 has now hit the FCC and been put through its necessary paces. Now sporting the "CafeBook" moniker, the netbook appears to be mostly identical to the T1028 Touch Note model that made its debut at CeBIT which, as you can glimpse above, takes things a bit farther than the norm by opting for a convertible tablet form. Somewhat curiously, however, the manual now indicates that the system packs an 8.9-inch touchscreen (as opposed to the 10-inch we heard before), but all the other specs remain the same, including Intel's new and slightly improved N280 Atom processor, up to 2GB of RAM, a max 250GB hard drive, your choice of a four-cell or six-cell batteries, and optional 3G and WiMAX, to name a few features.

iPod touch 2G finally jailbroken with NitroKey The iPhone Dev Team hackers have been teasing their redsn0w iPod touch jailbreak for what seems like forever now, but those you tired of waiting might want to check out the just-released NitroKey Slipstream. The $15 software does its thing on the 2.2.1 firmware, and automatically installs Cydia for all that jailbroken app action you crave -- including the new paid apps store. Windows-only for now, but there's apparently a Mac version in the works -- hopefully we'll see the free redsn0w take the lead back on that front. Report back if you take the plunge, would you?

SmartQ 5 PMP / MID We've been hearing all about the SmartQ 5 PMP / MID for a little while now, but someone's finally gotten their hands upon a real live device, and it's looking pretty cool. We still don't know a ton in the way of specs -- it's got a 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 touchscreen and built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, plus four actual hardware buttons -- nor do we know when it's going to be available, or how much it'll cost... but it definitely appears to exist now!

UMID M1 mbook Less close, further away -- take your pick. The bottom line is that the UMID M1 mbook that we've been secretly swooning over for weeks now may be further away from a US release than any of us Yanks would like. According to new intel gathered by Pocketables, a Stateside release of the MID is still planned, but it's apt to ship later than previously expected. Furthermore, the units already prancing about in other corners of the globe aren't likely at all to support US 3G bands, so importing one won't fill that hole in your soul the way a WWAN-enabled MID should. Better hurry up and deliver the goods UMID, else we'll be forced to buy a rivaling unit and hack it up to suit our needs. Don't say we won't.

Apple 4GB iPod shuffle Bam, another Apple rumor vindicated. Apple just doubled the capacity of its iPod shuffle to 4GB while ditching the control wheel entirely. The new design keeps the clip and adds VoiceOver -- a new feature that gets around the lack of display by telling you which song is playing and who performs it at the touch of a button on the earbud cable. It'll also call out your playlists and let you navigate to others. Available in black or silver for $80 and your claim to what Apple calls the "world's smallest music player."

Fraunhofer's new security device turns your window into a motion detector The brain geniuses at Fraunhofer are back on the scene with a security device that takes the window alarm to the next level. The Vigilant window sees the ol' glass panel coated with a nanoparticle material which converts light into fluorescent radiation. When the system is switched on, a UV lamp is aimed at the window, which is outfitted with sensors along its edges. As long as the lamp is unobstructed, everything is goldie. However, if a cat burglar should come by in his trademark all-black out fit and obstruct the beam, the alarm is activated -- sending your elite security team into action. If you don't have an elite security team, perhaps you can send your T-34 to snare him in its net. Either way, it's clear they messed with the wrong folks this time. A prototype already exists, no word yet on when this will become available.

Brush & Rinse magical toothbrush It's a insanely simple idea, but Amron Experimental really captured a lot of hearts, minds and minty-fresh mouths with its Brush & Rinse toothbrush concept. Sporting the same boring bristles and molded plastic of every other toothbrush produced this century, the Brush & Rinse has a slightly indented back, which lets you redirect water and... well, brush and rinse. Unfortunately, the last time the thing was in the news, it was a prototype selling for $1,750, so we're happy to see it down to the much more reasonable pre-order price of $1.18 a pop -- though they need to presell 50,000 units before they can go into production. Regular people will be able to pick one up for $5 once they get that minimum out of the way

BlackBerry Curve 8330 Remember how MetroPCS' COO was spouting off about a BlackBerry in the product pipeline just last week? Well, turns out it's coming out the other end of that pipeline sooner than we thought. The regional carrier's own version of the BlackBerry 8330 will be hitting Best Buy this week and MetroPCS locations by the end of the month, but there's a catch -- AWS isn't supported, so if you're in an AWS-powered MetroPCS market, you're outta luck. That's a shame considering the steal of a plan: $50 buys you unlimited everything (add another $10 for BES), though you'll need to shell out $450 upfront for the privilege.

Samsung a877 From render to Craiglist in a few minutes flat -- not bad for a phone that won't officially be on sale for a few weeks yet, as far as we can tell. A Samsung a877 for AT&T has popped up with an asking price of $400, complete with pictures to prove that the phone is the real deal; interestingly, it's identified as the Eternity, which we're assuming is a misunderstanding on the seller's part since the Samsung Eternity has already been at retail for a few months now. Of course, that leads us to suspect the remainder of the specs listed here, including MediaFLO-based AT&T Mobile TV, which -- call us skeptical -- we suspect the a877 doesn't support. All told, $400 doesn't seem bad to get your hands on technology that AT&T doesn't intend for you to have yet -- just don't, you know, expect any support from reps when you can't get your email.

Nokia 5730 and 5330 XpressMusic and 5030 XpressRadio handsets Nokia just announced its 5730 XpressMusic QWERTY, 5330 XpressMusic slider, and lowly 5030 XpressRadio candybar bringing up the tail. The trio of handsets spread across different price-points should make access to the Nokia Music Store (now available in 15 countries) that much easier. The top-end 5730 (available Q3, €280) is Nokia's first QWERTY device optimized for both music and gaming with dedicated audio and N-Gage keys. The 5330 slider (Q3, €260) steps up the design with illumination effects while adding a 3.5-mm jack and 26-hours of audio. The 5030 XpressRadio (Q2, €40) is Nokia's first with an internal FM radio antenna thereby eliminating the need for a headset or external speakers. With that as its major selling point, you've probably already guessed that it's heading to emerging markets.

Acer's two-faced DX650 reviewed After first coming face-to-face with Acer's bizarre DX650, we weren't sure we fully understand what the phone's engineers were trying to accomplish -- and after one of the first quick takes in the wild, we're no closer to understanding the vision. As the reviewer points out, one of the main draws to the phone's numeric keypad backside would be SMS, since Windows Mobile 6.1 isn't particularly strong at dealing with finger text input -- but the problem is that the secondary screen accompanying that keypad is a wee bit small for serious SMS work. For the 24,990 pesos Acer's asking (about $518), we're pretty sure we can think of better things to buy, but hey -- you'd probably be the only cat on your block with this thing in your pocket, and we guess that counts for something.

BlackBerry Pearl 8230 Alright, Telus, you can dial down the that envy-induced shade of green you've developed while pining for Bell's BlackBerry 8230. Actually, you can't -- green is a part of your color scheme -- so allows us to rephrase: the Pearl Flip is now available on both CDMA nationals in Canada. It'll run you $49.99 CAD on a three-year deal, which delivers the promise of the $50 KickStart we'd hoped for before the GSM version was originally announced; it's just a damn shame it's going to take a three-year contract to get down to that level (of course, the $449.99 contract-free option is always available, too). Grab it now in your choice of black or pink.

Black Nokia N79 We'd previously seen all-black N79s make cameos on regional Nokia sites around the world, but now, we've got some in-the-wild shots to gander. In short, it's awesome -- the front is a refreshing, stealthy change from the white we're used to. Like its paler counterpart, this one includes three battery covers that presumably automatically change the phone's theme when attached, but this time around you've got a patterned silver, patterned black, and plain black cover to choose from. From the keypad, this appears to be a Taiwanese localized version of the phone, and we'd definitely stop short of saying this version's going to be available through European or American channels -- but on behalf of the world's spies, ninjas, secret operatives, and anyone else who needs camouflage in the cover of night, we're hoping it does.

Forknife G1-controlled robot The gang over at Surveyor Robotics have introduced SRV-1 Console, an open source Android app for operating robots based on the company's camera board and firmware. Using the G1's WiFi capabilities, the operator can access a live video feed from the robot and control the device using the handset's touchscreen and accelerometer. So far the app's been demonstrated with several robots, including the SRV-1 Blackfin, the YARB Robotic Blimp, and last but not least, our old friend Forknife.

HABEY Atom N270-powered mini HTPC An Atom N270-powered rig that can handle 1080p content? Say it ain't so! The relatively unknown HABEY has stepped forward with a minuscule media PC that includes a fairly weak CPU and a potent hardware decoder that can supposedly handle 1080p content and even Blu-ray flicks. The BIS-6550HD is meant to be one of the most energy efficient machines on the planet to adequately play back 1080p material, with the entire system sucking down under 13 watts. Complementing the 1.6GHz processor is a single SODIMM slot for carrying up to 2GB of RAM, wireless / HDTV tuner options, a slew of video outputs, multicard reader, gigabit Ethernet and four USB 2.0 sockets. Unfortunately, pricing and availability both remain undisclosed, but we get the feeling you'll be paying dearly for the chance to see 1080p sans stutter on a machine this tiny.