One of the worst parts about being an avid gamer is that it can be hard to find the newest and coolest video games the day they launch. I have been trying to get a copy of Mario Kart for the Wii for months and can’t find it.

Target has announced a new video game reservation program that is a bit easier to swallow than many pre-order programs that require you to pay for the entire purchase price of the game. The Target program has little cards, which look like gift cards. You pay $1 for the reservation cards and guarantee yourself a copy of whatever game the card is for.

We aren’t sure what to think about this one. Target is getting creative with their gift cards again. You can consider it either a gift card with a digital camera, or a digital camera with a gift card. Either way, it’s all good. This holiday season, Target will begin selling the combo gift card/digital camera, which is an interesting approach. It will give customers some added value to what is otherwise a pretty boring purchase.

The camera features a 1.2MP sensor with 50MB of storage. It comes bundled with a USB cord, driver disk, instruction manual and a voucher for 40 free prints at Target. It’s powered by two AAA batteries. So rest assured, Target’s battery sales will be way up this year. The digital camera gift certificates will be available at no additional charge, unless you order it online. They are available in values from $50 to $1000.

Looking for a device that does email and only email? Well here’s a new handheld from Peek and it will only handle your e-mails.

Sure, you can scoff and say what the hell is that about, but it may just catch on. Think of the older generation, you know the ones who can handle email but can’t figure out iPhones and such. It’s only real hurdle is pricing, which will be $99.95 when it hits Target next month. Oh, and $19.95 per month to send unlimited e-mails over T-Mobile’s network. Ouch!

Target sure knows how to market themselves. Warner Brothers does too. The proof is in these awesome gift cards. Target’s Wii cards looked really cool, sure. But these Speed Racer themed cards feature a USB flash drive which makes them useful too. They include an integrated inch-long USB cable that’s flush in the card and is released via a mechanical switch on the bottom edge. The cards only hold about 62.8 MB, but the upside is that 51.6 MB of that is packed with awesome Speed Racer promotional materials. Stuff like a PDF coloring book featuring the Mach 5 and other vehicles, coupons for Speed Racer toys, wallpaper, videos and even a cheat code for the Wii Speed Racer game.

The cards are obviously a team-up between Target and Warner Brothers, to promote the new Speed Racer movie. It’s a pretty smart idea. I’m not sure if you are required to actually put any money on them or not.

Has there been a week recently when China-made products have not been in the news? Normally it’s tainted food and toxic lead. Now it’s a malicious virus-infected digital photo frame. Computer Associates identified it as Mocmex , “a nasty worm that has a great deal of intelligence” and “a nuclear bomb of malware”.

It’s a malicious self-propagated worm that has been steadily spreading worldwide with variants of over 67,500 kinds. That’s cause for some concern. It was first identified as a Trojan horse that collected passwords from online games, but after further study, it’s able to get around more than a hundred antivirus vendors as well as Windows security layers. Now it could potentially collect personal and private data.