Lighters are great and all, but they are too prone to fail. Typical lighters can run out of fuel, or the flint may need to be replaced. Once they get wet, that’s it. That’s not good if you need to use it in an emergency. Sometimes you need a more rugged lighter. Like the Brunton Helios Stormproof Lighter.

Priced at $49, it has a windproof adjustable high-temp flame that can withstand winds up to 80mph. Its Piezo electric switch provides up to 30,000 ignitions. And when the lid is closed, Helios is completely waterproof. It refills using the Brunton FuelTool which costs around $12. That’s probably the only downside.

Asus is all about thin with their U and UX series of ultra slim notebooks that will show up in the second quarter of the year. Both models will havea chiclet-style keyboard and auto-adjusting LED backlit display for optimal viewing.

The U series also features a 15.6″ glossy LCD display and a touchpad that uses progressively fading lights to follow your fingertips. Under the hood there’s an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a NVIDIA GeForce G105M graphics card, up to 500GB of hard drive space and Altec Lansing speakers with SRS true surround sound.

Whether you plan on having a heavy or a light data flow, this tampon drive should have you covered. Just don’t send your boyfriend in the store to get this for you. It’s a real product.

Apparently a light flow means that you need the 1GB. I shudder to think what the 16GB model means. No info on pricing. Which is a shame, because I know you just can’t wait to buy one. I’m thinking that female spys have a new place to hide their secrets.

Great news. Asus’s awesome Eee Keyboard will be available in May or June for only $400-$600. It’s essentially a home theater PC inside of a keyboard, complete with wireless HDMI and a secondary touchscreen. According to Asus CEO Jerry Shen, they’re working on two different models, one wired and one wireless. The wired version will cost around $400 while the wireless will be around $600.

The keyboard features a 5-inch built-in display, 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 1 GB of RAM, 16/32 GB SSD, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. It’s got all of the ports you want like wireless HDMI, 2 USB 2.0, VGA, HDMI, and audio in/out. We’ve been waiting for this one. It’s almost here.

The tech wizards over at JVC have on their hands today a new dual-use camera that shoots high definition video and high resolution digital still images. It is part of the company’s Everio line up and will cost around $1,000 when it debuts in June.

The JVC GZ-X900, or Everio X, is a all-in-one digital camera weighing around 0.66 pounds. It is capable of shooting both nine-megapixel digital pictures and also 1920 x 1080 Full HD AVCHD video. These digital media captures are recorded to SDHC memory cards.

It’s Ripley’s console of choice. She plays it while wearing a Mech-suit just in case she has to hurl it out into space. Granted, it should feature a baby alien popping out of it’s chest somewhere, but it’s still a pretty awesome mod. We have the perfect furniture to accompany it.

This beast was created with super heated epoxy putty, that was sculpted and cooled. When the material cools it becomes as hard as metal, so it’s permanently creepy.

If you’re a fan of Edge Quest, Cisco is sponsoring the Edge Quest 2 Tournament. It started earlier today and runs through Friday, March 6, 2009. Players have the chance to win a $500 gift card and also a new Cisco Wireless Audio Home System. There’s also some prizes for runner-up contestants. You can play the game here. After you register here.

To help kick it off, we’re getting in on the action and giving away a TomTom XL 330S 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator. The requirements to with the TomTom are simple: If you live in the US then leave a comment below. It’s just that simple.

icePod holds a ton of GBs of delicious chocolate and ice cream. All DRM free in a user friendly design. Unlike other competitors, it isn’t insanely overpriced with low storage space costing you a bundle. And unlike other competitors icePod will not release an updated product every year with slightly more storage, just so it can scam you into paying out more money for a popular and trendy brand.

Most importantly, it melts in your mouth. USB compatible? You bet. Just slam that connector in and you’ll know it’s getting too much juice when it starts melting.

Maybe you’ve been looking for an inexpensive all-in-one for your kitchen, so you can look up recipes or read the ‘Brick while burning dinner. If so, you might want to have a look at ASUS’s Eee Top.

It’s almost available in the US as it has a pre-order page on Amazon.com. The 15.6-inch touchscreen model has a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of memory, and XP installed on a 160GB drive. It’s available in either black or white flavors for $599.99 with free shipping. If you already have one by the time you read this…Something’s burning. Go check.

Dell’s Studio 15 laptop is a decent and budget-minded system, but if you’re looking to get one that stands out a bit, you might want to check out the company’s new Special Edition model, which adds a “Black Vapor” paint job and a 1440 x 900 LED-backlit display.

You can get it with your choice of Pentium Dual Core or Core 2 Duo processors, up to 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 graphics. The price is going to be a bit higher than the non-Special Edition models though, at $799, $849, and $949 for the standard configurations.

Sony intros a couple of new Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players: the BDP-S360 and BDP-S560. The BDP-S560 will feature built-in Wi-Fi connectivity that taps into BD Live content, as well as the ability to download future firmware updates without a cable.

It is also fully DLNA-ready, upscales your DVD collection, bit-streams audio via HDMI, decodes Dolby TrueHD/DTS-HD Master Audio and is compatible with external media loaded up on a USB drive. The BDP-S360 is the same player, it just lacks Wi-Fi connectivity.

Apple offers up something a little different in the wireless router market with the new Airport Extreme. Its dual-band Wi-Fi radios allow the device to work in 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands at the same time. It can also support up to 50 users simultaneously, and does so while setting up separate limited-access networks for guests to restrict access when you need to.

The $179 pricetag on the new Airport Extreme is typical of Apple and isn’t justified. Hasn’t Apple heard that times are tough?

After all the rumor and excitement, Apple basically did a bare minimum Mac mini update. Still, the five USB ports will be good for homebuilt RAID enthusiasts, and the Mini DisplayPort and DVI plugs are nice for dual monitor support.

The new SKUs both feature 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processors with an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics.. The price is $599 and you get 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive, $799 gets you 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. Both minis sport 8x SuperDrives.

Looks like Apple has announced a new Nehalem based Mac Pro with a starting price of $2,499. The new systems feature your choice of a single core 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3500, or a dual 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500, start with 3GB of memory, a 640GB hard drive, and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of RAM.

The new systems should be available next week online and in stores, so break open your piggy banks and get your credit cards ready.

Discrete graphics cards in notebooks make more than playing games possible. This is why you see discrete graphics cards on notebooks that are not meant for gaming. A discrete GPU on a notebook also allows the decoding of HD video on the GPU freeing the CPU up so the entire system runs faster.

AMD has announced at CeBIT that it has the world’s first 40nm GPUs that are in its Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and 4830 lines. The GPUs support DirectX 10.1 games and offer HD multimedia capability. AMD says the GPUs are also optimized for long battery life.