This is a simple, elegant idea. Belkin's Mouse Trap mouse pads allow you to quickly zip up all the flotsam, jetsam and detritus scattered across your mouse pad and take it on the road with you like a little pocketbook. For $8.79, it seems rather useful. The only question is whether or not it could possibly hold everything littering my mousepad, which seems to function as a gravity well for my junk. Currently stacked atop my mousepad: one smoldering Meerschaum pipe, one jumble of indeterminate origin keys, a cheap lighter I bought for fifty cents at the local convenience store (this lighter declares its owner to be an "Islam O.G."), two depressingly empty beer bottles, a novelty bottle opener, a stack of coverless CDs, a fork, my syncing iPod, a paperback copy of Naked Came The Stranger and, finally, my laser mouse, which will only function within its allotted millimeters of free space by cranking the sensitivity up to the point of sub-atomic mapping.

Belkin Mouse Trap [Geek Bro via Book of Joe]

Novatel's U727 EVDO Rev. A USB cellular modem is small, fast and works seamlessly with Windows PCs and Macs.

Though an improvement over earlier models like the U720, it's still larger than most thumbdrives and those looking for something super-tiny will be disappointed. Joel bought one and sent it back, disappointed by its size, but I have no problem with it at all. It's one of the few things of its type that even fits in a MacBook Air.

Setup is easier on Windows: plug it in, and the software autoruns and configures it automagically. On OS X 10.4, instructions are provided, but they didn't quite match up to reality, and you have to find your way to Internet Connect and punch some stuff in manually. Not a major problem — especially for anyone who has ever hacked a WiFi or WWAN stick to work on OSX — but this flashback to the dial-up era may give delicate Mac fans the vapors.

Throughput was excellent in my location: 1.3 Mbps down and 500 kbps up on either platform, though it seems quite sensitive to location: moving a laptop just a few yards halved that.

The stick's antenna is attractive enough, flush with its geometry when closed and not unattractive when up. There's also a tiny connector for connecting an external antenna.

One untested bonus is the MicroSD card slot; it works as a card reader for cards up to 4GB.

I've been using this all week as my iMac's sole internet connection, and haven't noticed much difference at all between it and Comcast cable internet for everyday browsing. Sprint's EVDO service is fine, assuming you get a decent connection: the iMac's web server is not accessible with the stick's global IP address, however, so perhaps there's some sanitization of connections going on. There's no noticeable degradation of images or other suggestions of "speed-boosting" proxies.

The U727 costs $280 outright or is $80 with a 2-year contract subsidy with Sprint, on whose network it was tested. You'll need the $60 unlimited plan, as EVDO will eat the $40 40Mb plan in a few minutes.

"Mind-reading" video game controllers are nothing new. The Atari Mindlink introduced the concept to gaming in 1983. Trephining and plunging electrodes through spurting skull holes was not the prerequisite: the Mindlink was a crock, actually controlled by a series of forehead waggles and facial tics. Then, last year, there was the Neurosky... Mindlink Mach II. Now Gizmodo's spotted a new one: the OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator.

To begin with, you probably only want to map a single event to your games, but as your confidence improves you'll be able to do more and give your hands a break. And as the NIA can speed up response times (200ms to click fire, 100ms to think it), it means you'll be more efficient at shooting before getting shot.

We got to use the device for an extended play in the wonderfully frenetic Unreal Tournament 3, and the buzz you get when you knock up your first frag is every bit as stunning as it is scary.

It seems to be getting mostly positive reviews, but it's just another Mindlink: it basically just monitors your forehead muscles. When are people going to learn?

I think, ultimately, the idea that neurologically commanded video game controllers will somehow be more intuitive than their digitally handled counterparts is a phlegmatic huff on the magic jaybone of wishful thinking. People seem to assume that if such a controller comes along, looking around in a video game will be as easy as turning your head in real life. Obviously, it can't be that simple: if you send the same mental signal to look around in a game as you do to move your head, you'll quickly find yourself looking away from the screen. You'll need to train your brain to send a message to the controller to make you look around in the game. But I already know how to send that message: I tell my thumb to wiggle on the D-Pad. Simple. Direct brain controllers, even in theory, simply convolute the remarkable elegance of moving a mouse or thumbing a trigger button.

OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator [Buy]

Image: Atari Museum

Cost Controller convinces you to pay $100 for an LCD display-equipped power strip which informs you how much power is being used by the eight appliances it can accommodate. If it doesn't add up to at least $100 a year, a sample of The Simpsons' Nelson laughing at you is played at random intervals throughout the day.

Product Page [Computer Gear via Red Ferret]

Top ten things to copy with Virtua Console's USB Flash Drive Duplicator:

• Malware, so that the drives may be scattered in a corporate car lot, from whence the inevitable occurs.

• Porn, same ruse but more amusing results.

O.K., so I've already run out of ideas. Drat. Anyway, the box can do its job quickly, finishing up a rack of 1GB drives in 2 minutes. It can even discretely encrypt each one with its own unique key. It costs $8,000, and they're developing a system to link up hundreds of these units, so that one may copy data to arbitrarily-large numbers of USB drives at once.

Product Page [Virtual Console via Crave]