After already spending too much of my day behind traffic lights at intersections and at those metered ramps they have here in the Portland metro area the last thing I really want to see when I get to work is another traffic light on my desk. Unless of course I can use it to effectively stop or at least caution approaching visitors of my current status.

This USB traffic light doubles as a 4-port USB 2.0 hub and has a little switch letting you control the red yellow and green light for once, instead of it controlling you. As if that isn’t enough from a $25 USB peripheral it also can record and playback a 10 second voice message and has a place to clip a memo pad and supposedly some type of screen cleaner. Huh…

Anyway, another one of those perfect gifts for the geek who has to have every type of cheap USB accessory available.

Now you can feel like those suckers putting in a full day at the Springfield power plant. That is, you’ll be under the watchful eye of C. Montgomery Burns with this webcam. You’ll know exactly how Karl and Lenny feel, not to mention Homer. Don’t fall asleep with a donut in your mouth.

The webcam includes a large clip that allows it to be attached to your flat-panel monitor or laptop screen. Specs: 30 fps @ 640 x 480 with built-in microphone, supports USB enabled machines running Windows 98, 2000, XP and Vista, runs with Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and AOL messenger. You can pick up this little tyrant for $49.99.

The Eco Button connects via USB and puts your PC into sleep mode, thus saving precious Watts and making Al Gore smile, despite the fact that he has become portly in a William Shatner kind of way. It will even wake the PC up, when it’s time to get back to work. The bundled software records the carbon units saved.

As Ubergizmo pointed it, it probably takes a lot of carbon units to build the button and then when it hits the trash one day, it will pollute anyway. Plus it looks like a Frisbee. This somewhat pointless green gadget will cost you $18.

XFPS has created a nifty little gadget that allows you to connect a USB or PS2 keyboard and mouse to your Playstation 3. The question is, will it be PlayStation 3 authorized only, or are we finally going to be able to use any keyboard and mouse on those integrated USB ports as long as the game supports it?

A company representative said that you will be able to play games such as Unreal Tournament 2007 with the keyboard and the mouse, which might mean the end of auto-aiming that is now have on Playstation 2. More details are sure to come. We will try to get more info on this one for you.

Let’s say you pulled that old 40GB hard drive out of your notebook and replaced it with 160GB of storage. Ever wish you could do something else with the leftover drive, instead of throwing it away? Now you can. Just stick it in an enclosure and turn it into a portable USB hard drive.

Meritline.com has an enclosure for just $10.99 shipped (after entering coupon code HW1971413OFF, which expires 1/25). It’s compatible with all 2.5-inch IDE and SATA drives, and includes both IDE and SATA external interfaces (with cables). You also get a carrying case and a little screwdriver so you can open and close the enclosure. The drive itself is powered entirely by the interface, so you don’t have to use an AC adapter. Best of all you’re recycling and not throwing the old drive away and crapping up the environment.

Star Wars USB drives are not new. We’ve covered them before, but now there are some limited edition versions that have Star Wars content pre-loaded on the drives themselves. Content like six trailers, wallpaper, icons, avatars, and sounds. They come in an assortment of characters like Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Stormtrooper, R2D2, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, Princess Leia, and Han Solo.

These are available for preorder now from 1GB to 4GB with prices ranging from $49.95 to $124.95. The fun doesn’t end with the USB drive, they also throw in some fun mimobot stickers and a small carrying case is included as well.

Data Drive Thru, the makers of the Tornado USB peer-to-peer connection device for PC’s, have given it an upgrade this year and are launching the iTornado sometime in March of this year. The iTornado works much like its predecessor making a direct connection between computers via USB. The upgrade for this model allows users to not only connect two PC’s, but also allows them to connect a PC to an Intel based Mac to transfer files back and forth.

The device consists of two retractable USB cables and built-in software so there is nothing to install. Simply plug-in both computers and a list of files available on both computers will display, and it will display on both computers. From there users can simply drag and drop files between the two and transfer them via USB 2.0 at up to 25Mb/second. The iTornado can make upgrading or switching from a PC to a Mac a lot easier than trying to find the other computer via a common network or copying back and forth with a thumb drive.

We’ve seen some pretty handy adapters to connect your internal drives, externally to your computer with things like the Stage Rack and this USB to SATA adapter but none of them match the convenience of the USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter from NewerTech. This adapter not only connects SATA drives to your computer’s USB port, but it will handle ATA/IDE drives as well.

Anytime I upgrade computers or just upgrade my drive I always keep the old one because inevitably a day will come where I want something off of it that I thought I would never need again. Opening up the computer case is a real pain and adapters like this are well worth the money in the time it saves alone. The adapter works with all 2.5″ laptop drives, 3.5″ desktop drives and will connect any existing 5.25″ drives such as CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs or removable Iomega Zip drives.

Take a look at this card reader from USBFever that says it will handel up to 62 different types of memory cards and connections. I’m not sure what those 62 types are and the product page doesn’t even list them but you can feel pretty confident that it will take just about whatever you got. We do see support for CF, SD/MMC, MemoryStick and xD at the least.

Aside from being just a card reader, the gadget also works as a hub for a single connection for each of USB, Fireware, SATA, e-SATA, headphones and a microphone. All of this is conveniently built into a box that fits in your internal 3.5″ drive bay on your computer so you don’t have to have yet another device taking up space on your desk and another USB port.

Hauppauge has some handy new TV tuners hitting the market this week at CES 2008, one of which is the WinTV-HVR-950Q. This USB-based tuner stick’s claim to fame is it’s ability to not only receive the popular NTSC analog cable and over-the-air ATSC high-def formats for North America, but also the ability to pick up clear QAM digital cable TV.

The WinTV-HVR-950Q tuner stick connects to a PC via USB and allows users to watch and record television on their desktop PC or notebook through a standard TV cable. The tuner comes with a credit card sized remote control to navigate channels, recording options and the ability to pause and resume live TV. It also comes with Hauppauge’s SoftPVR and SoftMCE software for MPEG-2 encoding. This allows the device to record television to the computers hard drive without needed some expensive MPEG encoder.

This credit card sized digital voice recorder is not only anorexic, but white as a hospital. A splash of color wouldn’t have killed them, would it? Anyway, despite it’s ultra white sanitary look, it’s pretty easy on the eyes. In fact, it reminds me of why I love Nurses, all dressed in white, nice curves…

It measures just 6.5 millimeters thick and has 1GB of built-in storage, a handy flip-out USB connector, and flush-mounted controls. But it’s not just a Voice Recorder, it can also be used as an MP3 player and USB flash drive. The recording is in high quality WAV file format and files can be handled easily, just copy or delete like a typical USB storage device. Of course the advantage with this device is that you can take it just about anywhere. Pick one up for $69.99.

This flexible Keyboard & Skype dial pad with USB hub is super versatile, bendy, multimedia coolness. They claim that it’s a virtually indestructible, washable, roll-up keyboard with a Skype dial pad, built in microphone and speaker as well as having 2 USB ports.

A plus for alot of people is that, being washable, this keyboard will be very hygienic. That means less getting sick. Just wipe up any spilled liquid with a damp cloth and it’s clean. Since it’s bendable, it’s ultra Portable and easy to store. Just shove it in a backpack or briefcase. It has a bunch of great qualities for only $59.99.

This retro looking radio has a very simple design marrying the old with the new. It’s powered via the USB port on your computer and will give you the current time and weather conditions. It features two round portal like displays on the front. One display shows you the current week on the top, the hour and minute, and the bottom part displays the year, month and date. The other display gives you information about humidity and temperature.

It’s also available in a smaller version with a few features missing. Instead it has a count down function and a birthday reminder. I just like the fact that these remind me of my grandfather’s electronics. They are basic with no bells and whistles. Sometimes it’s nice to have something low-key.

Shinhan Card, a South Korean company, unveiled a new kind of credit card yesterday. A USB credit card. It functions as a contactless credit card in stores. To use it online, you just insert it into your USB port. It enters your credit card information for you.

It should be noted that the USB device itself cannot be used as a portable storage device. In other words, money out/No data in. The company is hoping that it catches on among the franchise stores. I can easily see this taking off, especially if they make it so that the device can actually be used for storage.

Magic Jack is a complete phone service on a USB key. Just plug it into your computer’s USB port, then plug a telephone line into the MagicJack and the MagicJack software will automatically load. Now you will be able to make and receive calls with any home telephone.

Comes with a phone number, magicfree local and long distance, free voicemail that receives messages whether you are offline or not, caller ID, call waiting, free directory assistance, call forwarding, free three way calling, and 911. See, I wasn’t lying. A complete phone service. The price is $39.95 for the first year and $19.95 for the each year after. I know. Sweet! MagicJack also has international prepaid packages starting at $5.