How many times have you wanted to say F**k the rain by sending a special message through those storm clouds toward the man above? Well now ya can thanks to this umbrella by Art Lebedev and Anton Schnaider .

It also doubles as an effective way of communicating with your fellow human beings who displease you. Just point it toward them, give a little forward jab so they know it’s for them and then for a bit of theatrics give it a twirl and walk off. It’s available for $56. I’m wondering if enough of these pointed at the heavens would piss God off. Guess we’ll find out. Should be interesting. I just hope it doesn’t lead to something like Bush’s third term.

Art Lebedev’s design shop is at it again, this time trying its hand at handset design. We like the results. Art is teaming up with Scartel, a Russian carrier in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The conceptual stage is looking good.

In addition to a WiMax radio, the device has WiFi, tri-band GSM, microSD, dual cameras, 3.5mm audio, an A/V plug and a huge 850 x 480 screen. The buttons are kept minimal at the base: five-way joystick and call/end, and no keypad, so it must sport a touchscreen. There’s a lot to like already. Android maybe? No word yet if it will go from concept to actual product.

The Folderix USB flash drives from Art Lebedev, the team behind the Optimus Maximus keyboard, are designed to look like a folder icon, and feature 4GB of storage space. We told you about these when they were still in the concept stage. The good news for those of you who want them is that they are now available from the artlebedev.com website. The price is $55 and you get three colors to choose from: yellow, pink or blue. The case material uses multiple colors of aluminum with a laser-etched logo.

The folks at Art Lebedev are busy little elves. They are working on a new keyboard that carries the Optimus name, but this time it will be smaller as evidenced by the above pic. It’s going by the codename Popularis.

There will be no OLED keys on this one, since it will be used on an entirely different principle although they did not mention what that might be. What we do know is that there will be 11 additional keys above the F-keys, and it will cost below $1,000.