Hi-tech Frontier

FC Mobile II Portable NES Adds Bundled Accessories Given they’re smaller than the NES cartridges they’re designed to play, the recent onslaught of portable gaming devices that will accommodate an actual NES cart just look plain ridiculous. But the FC Mobile II might be taking things too far since it also comes with a set of wireless controllers and a convincing clone of the original Nintendo light gun. Now I’m pretty sure those accessories are only designed to be used while the FC Mobile II is connected to an external monitor, but bonus points will be awarded if those controllers can be used while staring at that tiny LCD display. The FC Mobile II is expected to ship sometime in May with a price tag of just $60, but keep in mind you’ll need to have a collection of NES carts lying around, otherwise this thing is useless.

Relax Lounge Chair: Come and just relax Ever wanted to sit on a chair that recreates the ambience of contentment and tranquility after a days work? Then you can be part of the many folks who’ve discovered the relax lounge chair. These people have, from seating on it or placing it among the treasured furniture in the living room, come to realize that such a hand inspired chair with an infinite elasticity that allows you to glide on air is a must. The chair with a touch of genius is a coupling of functionality and know-how that borders on skilled technological presence and eventual creation. Come and just relax.

BacVac Fuel Cell Vacuum Cleaner with Backpack-Style Vacuum cleaners are an unavoidable appliance for those who would like to keep their households neat and clean. There are many available vacuum cleaners over the market but not many of them are as effective as BacVac, a fuel cell concept vacuum cleaner. This smart backpack-style vacuum cleaner is powered by an integrated fuel cell which allows the user to enjoy a cable free cleaning experience. The main goal of this vacuum cleaner is to meet the residential cleaning needs and is hanged over the users shoulder like a passenger bag. When recharging needed, the fuel cell can be reloaded with instantly available ethanol.

Samsung plays catch-up with 32GB P3 With Cowon's S9 going 32GB a couple of weeks ago, and the iPod touch doing 32GB for eons, Samsung's finally matching its touchscreen brethren with the 32GB P3. Unfortunately, it's only available in Korea at the moment, for the quite reasonable price of 389,000 won -- about $291 US. On an unrelated note: we hear it's nice over there this time of year.

Skytone's Android-powered netbook to cost around $250 Guangzhou Skytone Transmission Technologies Company, which we will absolutely never call by its full name again, has just dropped a juicy nugget about its forthcoming netbook. If you'll recall, we recently caught wind of the ARM-based, Android-powered rig (the Alpha 680), which is expected to be a stripped down portable useful for web surfing and light duty Office use. Nixon Wu, Skytone's co-founder, recently confessed that it's aiming to sell the machine for around $250, and if all goes well, it should have prototypes ready by June and final products ready for consumption a month or two after that. Call us crazy (or just greedy, really), but we were totally hoping for this to ring up at $199 or less.

Samsung U350 Smooth Of, course, by the "Samsung Smooth U350 arrives wrinkle free", we mean: smoothly boring. For $29 after a 2-year deal and rebate you'll get yourself a pretty low end flip with a VGA camera, Bluetooth, a 160 x 128 display, 336 hours standby, 300 minutes talktime, oh, and some lovely Verizon branding. Notably absent is any type of 3G connectivity, this one is a 1X affair, so if your dreams were of a super low cost EV-DO device, you'll need to peek elsewhere. With that snobbery done, you'll also get what should be a pretty tough set that just may wow Grandma's socks right off is she's looking for something smallish to tote to bridge club Wednesdays.

Bellperre Nero Gold Nice - or something -- to see a Windows Mobile device getting the Midas touch, and Bellperre gives us just that in the Nero Gold. Finished in leather from your choices of shark, lizard, buffalo, or even alligator, gold accents, and with black brushed steel filling in all the other holes in this otherwise fairly brick-like affair. The Nero Gold is apparently a tri-band GSM device with a 2-inch display, the usual Windows Mobile push mail and office apps, and a tough as nails scratch resistant sapphire crystal screen. Want one? Yeah, neither do we, but if you'd like to see how the other half lives, hop on over to the Bellperre site and have a look see. Oh, and no word on pricing, but as the saying goes, if you have to ask, you can't afford.

JVC XV-PB1 Blu-ray player surprises with 1080p MPEG-4 MKV support The first Blu-ray player to come to the U.S. from JVC, the XV-PB1, hasn't received a lot of hype since its CES reveal, but that might change now that it appears to be one of the first supporting MKV playback, followin the Oppo BDP-83 and LG BD390. EHD reader Bill picked one up on the humble and lets us know he's had no problems playing 1080p video with DTS audio from a burned DVD. The manual on JVC's website indicates official MKV and AVCHD support, but surprisingly, not DivX although the spec sheet on the same website says it does. We're reached out to JVC to confirm what buyers can expect from the XV-PB1, but with MKV on top of BD-Live, network streaming from PCs and reportedly extremely fast load times this $299 player might reshuffle the list of most desired Blu-ray hardware.