This Virgin Maria holds more than just the unsullied seed of Yahweh inside her—she also keeps flash memory and a beating LED heart nestled close to the floating peace-fetus himself. Her halo is inscribed with a prayer familiar to even the faithless: "Oh, Maria. Keep my data safe."

You'll need plenty of faith to pay these prices, though: €70 for a measly 512MB.

Product Page [Strato.de via Ship of Fools] (Thanks, St. Teresa, Maker of Light!)

The nattily-named "Spycatcher of Knightsbridge" offers this pen with a UV light for detecting invisible ink and a built-in message shredder available for under $10. Sounds like there may be a shortage of spies to catch in Knightsbridge, so Spycatcher is helping them out a bit in procuring equipment.

Product Page [SpycatcherOnline.com via Coolest-Gadgets]

The orbiTouch is a (very) non-standard input device that allows you to control your computer by manipulating two paddles towards an outer ring. (They slide instead of turn.) By combining the positions of both, a variety of keystrokes, including letters, can be performed. It's not a replacement for a standard keyboard, but instead an alternative input device for those with disabilities that might prevent them from typing on a standard QWERTY.

It's also $400, so best reserved for those who really need it.

orbiTouch Keyless Keyboard [OhGizmo]

Over on the mothership, young master Doctorow is laying some serious science into some folks complaining about the ecological footprint of these solar-panel-sporting leather bags.

Unless you're involved in some kind of deep green historical reenactment club where you mine your own ores using organic shovels, any manufactured commercial artifact (including and especially the PC you're reading this on) will have a gigantic and evil carbon footprint.

If the ruling classes are going to go out this xmas and blow $400 on shoulder bags, I'd rather have them spend their dough on a bag that reduces the amount of coal we burn to run our cellphones than on some inert piece of Prada (not least because the more money there is spent on solar bags and clothes, the larger the market will be and the cheaper and more widely dispersed they will be).

Objecting to a "green" product because it is a *product* is pure doctrinaire absurdity. All the people reading this blog are digging coal with their spacebars, and living a lifestyle that is dozens of orders of magnitude more environmentally damanging that the majority of the world's population.

Handsome leather solar bags [Boing Boing]

On the fancy side of my neighborhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn, "Flight 001" models each of their luggage stores to look like the interior of an airplane. Racked had a look around.

Rackage: Flight 001 Park Slope [Racked]

Crystal pushers Swarovski and electronics maker Philips have teamed up to offer some glamtastic, $178, 1-gig USB keys, one of which is shaped like a heart. Some fetching earphones "enhanced with a dome of faceted crystal" for digital music players here, too -- $79 a pair. Link to "active-crystals.com." -- XJ (Thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Surprise! A company named "WolfKing" puts out a weird product. This one is the "Warrior Xxtreme," a combination gamepad and keyboard. For a moment I tried to figure out how you would use the two circles full of keys as a gamepad, then realized that the gamepad is actually there in the middle. Why the keys are in a circle then is anyone's guess.*

It's supposedly tailored for MMO players, "eliminating the keys unneeded for gaming." Should you find yourself needless distracted by all those pesky keys on your normal keyboard, you can get a Warrior Xxtreme for $80.

WolfKing Launches WARRIOR XXTREME [BusinessWire.com via Engadget]

* For the Horde!

This little phone strap is actually a USB cable, with a standard male connector on one end and a mini-USB male on the other. (The type normally used on phones.) Painfully clever—if you use a wrist strap on your gadgets. (I tend to not.)

It's $20 normally, but may be on sale from Wireless Ground for around $12. It appears to be sort of large, though. I'd like to see a company with a few more design chops take a crack at this, then start offering it as standard equipment.

The WirelessGround USB Leather Hand Strap Review [GearDiary.com via Coolest-Gadgets]

Instead of locking your laptop, Belkin wants you to strap its alarm to something secure—then if your laptop is swiped, the alarm will sound. I don't get it. Why risk someone grabbing your laptop and muffling/destroying the alarm when you already are going to have to find a place to lock the whole contraption up? Just use a regular lock.

It's $25.

USB Laptop Alarm Thwarts Theft, One Decibel at a Time [EverythingUSB.com via Oh Gizmo!]

SentrySafe has teamed up with Maxtor to create a line of fire resistant and waterproof USB hard drives, the better to protect your data in a disaster. The drives can withstand temperatures up to 1,550° Fahrenheit for 30 minutes and can be submerged in water for up to 24 hours.

They're maddeningly expensive for the capacity—$260 for an 80GB version—but have undeniable appeal to industrial strength data solution fetishists like myself.

Sentry is also selling a safe with slots of DVDs with a USB cable passthrough to a small drive inside. In fact, it looks like all these units may use 2.5-inch drives instead of full-sized 3.5-inch ones—that would explain the lack of capacity.

Product Page [SentrySafe.com via EverythingUSB.com]

Not much needs be said about the Matias Folding Keyboard: it folds. It is not wireless, but USB. It will cost $60 when released next month. It weighs just under a pound.

It actually seems like a good time for another folding keyboard to show up, although it's funny that folding full-sized keyboards are now being sold as accessories for tiny laptops, which have taken the role once filled by PDAs.

Product Page [Matias.ca via Crave.CNET.com]

The Livescribe digital pen and paper system, which we discussed a bit before, has shown what is probably the production model of their pen. It's hefty, but still pocketable. If they make a nice little Moleskine-like notebook with their special paper, I might even give it a shot.

Livescribe is taking pre-orders for the system now, although it won't be ready until early next year.

Livescribe Smartpen Gets Realer [OhGizmo]

This "Magnetic Field Paper" is simple enough, reacting to the mysterious power of the lodestone. I am unsure if baby's blood is necessary to activate its fell power, but I figure it always pays to play it safe.

From the product page:

Developed back in the 1970s, with ideas that it might become a replacement for paper, this paper makes magnetic fields visible. Any other magnet can be used, and the paper will allow to to make the magnetic field visible.

It consists of a thin plastic sheet containing tiny cells containing liquid. Each little cell contains colloidal iron. Hold a magnet near, and the iron in each of the cells will align, and form a pattern on the paper.

Catalog Page [Grand-Illusions.com via Coolest Gadgets]

Previously: Lancome "Le Magnetique": Magnetic Nail Polish [BBG]

Although I didn't see any North American retailers selling the KeySonic Compact 2.4GHz Wireless Keyboard after a cursory Googlin', there seems to be much to recommend the unit from this short review on Coolest Gadgets. For home theater types, the integrated touch pad is a great addition.

I only have 2 complaints:
It takes a while to wake up from sleeping, so you have to tap the control or function keys a few times to kick it into life before you want to type anything.

I found the range limited. Sitting about 3 meters away from the screen I found it dropped a few characters if I typed fast. In the interest of fairness I should point out that I had exactly the same problem with another, completely different wireless keyboard so it’s quite possible that my environment is just hostile to 2.4Ghz wireless. With DECT phones, WiFi, a microwave next door and a 4 foot tall equipment stack in the corner spitting out RF I’m amazed anything works...

Keysonic wireless keyboard - a (Mac) mini review [Coolest-Gadgets.com]

FujiFilm's new "Tape Tracker" is a GPS-broadcasting system stuffed into a standard half-inch data tape case, designed to be slipped into a case with data tapes to keep close tabs on physical backups when they go off site.

In addition to the device, Fujifilm Tape Tracker utilizes a secure, web-based tracking software application called FujiFind for managing one or several data tape shipments simultaneously, from any PC.  The Fujifilm Tape Tracker is up to 1,000 times more sensitive than conventional GPS receivers so users can track inventory through rural areas, cities, within transport vehicles and even inside warehouse locations.

Press Release [FujiFilmUSA.com via Engadget via SpaceMart.com]

Getting Things Done nerds will be drooling into their file folders over the Casio USB Label Mouse Printer, which tucks a little thermal printer into the bottom of an otherwise conventional two-button mouse. Labels are printed using any TrueType font you have on your "PC," which in this context leads me to believe it's Windows-only.

It's $30 from Brando, plus $14 for a three-pack of thermal roll paper.

Catalog Page [Brando.com via Gizmodo]