Time to leave gaming and ultra-portable mice alone for a bit and concentrate on the latest vehicular rodents. Ever wanted a fast American muscle car, but couldn’t afford it? Now you can try one of NGC’s latest Shelby-like mice that’s guaranteed to give you adrenaline rushes every time you use it.

The Novelty Gift Company prepared the V8 Bullet with an authentic retro shape based on Ford Shelby’s design. It comes complete with front and rear blue LED lights and you can use the provided decals to further customize the looks.

On the functional side, the car-mouse is ergonomically designed to fit your palm and comes with a decent 800 DPI optical sensor that is suited for browsing and office stuff. The mouse has 5 buttons and a scroll wheel and is available in wired or wireless versions. The wireless model includes rechargeable batteries charged via a petrol nozzle styled USB cable and the wireless transmitter has been cleverly hidden in the form of a starter key. Unfortunately this is just an RF transmitter that allows only for a 1,5 m range.

In case you don’t like the Cherry Red color, NGC also have this model available in Diamond Black and Racing Green.

More info and pricing details on the NGC official website.

I was getting tired of the curvy, ergonomic shape of today’s mice and went looking for some interesting concept. What better place to look for weird concepts than Logitech’s garden? Weird, but pretty handy, I rekon. Check out what they came up with.

Dubbed the SpacePilot 3D Mouse, this interesting piece of hardware reminds me of a gizmo placed in the cockpit of a spaceship (something like a “Push in case of emergency” button that triggers some atomic devastation weapon). Snap out of that! Right, where was I? Yes, this mouse concept integrates the Natural 3D navigation system. We’re talking about some serious sensing stuff here that makes the SpacePilot 3D mouse a virtual extension of your body. It’s also based on the SpaceNavigator concept, presented a while ago here.

Logitech assures us that using the SpacePilot is highly intuitive and totally natural. Push, pull, and rotate the control cap to simultaneously adjust altitude, speed, and direction on the fly—without stopping to press keys or choose commands. Radical flying, Swiss dudes!

What other miracles can it perform? Well, it’s not a divine instrument of justice but it can dynamically map functions to those special keys you see in the upper part, putting the commands you need at your fingertips. Even more so, it’s got an LCD panel, which lets you see which functions are currently assigned to the six programmable soft-buttons at the top of the pad.
Here are some more features:

o 6 degrees-of-freedom optical sensor
o 21 programmable function keys
o Dedicated function keys for view, keyboard modifiers
o Application detection
o Weight: 1.875 lb. (0.85 kg)

Kind of cool, but what about the price? $399.99? C’mon Logitech, what, do you think we are starship captains and money were abolished hundreds of years ago?

While Saitek is well-known for their beasty gaming-grade mice, the UK manufacturer seems to be into serious mouse customization, as well. Check out the Saitek Photo Mouse. It is said to be the first of its kind and combines a compact design with a mobile picture frame.

You only have to print out your favorite photograph, cut it to the right size using the template provided in the package, position it under the Photo mouse’s transparent cover and secure it by closing the cover. In order to provide maximum exposure for your photo, Saitek included an integral white spotlight, so when you plug the mouse into the USB port the pictures colour’s pop up as vivid as ever. Tired of that picture? Simply print out another, cut and insert it.

The mouse itself is not that impressive but it is nonetheless a decent pick. Packing an optical sensor, three standard buttons and a simple scroll wheel, the mouse is at least comfortable and highly durable. Hmmm, I wonder what they put in its case… titanium? How durable can it be?

Anyway, being a plug&play piece of equipment, Saitek recommends this product as an ideal gift/impulse purchase for your kids and family. It’s only £12.99.

Here’s an interesting design from 3Dconnexion. It’s called the Space Navigator, a mouse that looks like a stylish door knob at first sight. OK, the analogy is a bit far-fetched. Anyway, 3Dconnexion claims their proprietary pressure sensing technology allows the controller cap to become a virtual extension of you.

It is specifically designed for 3D applications. Imagine you can push, pull, twist or tilt the cap a fraction of inch to simultaneously pan, zoom and rotate 3D imagery. The pressure sensitive cap can detect the slightest moves, allowing for intricate adjustments, or on the contrary, large-scale changes if you put more pressure.

3Dconnexion took care of all compatibility issues as SpaceNavigator works with a large selection of entry level and professional 3D applications. For example, it could be used to conduct elaborate 3D presentations using Adobe Reader or DWF Viewer. Want to unleash the designer in you? No problem, the mouse works swell with Autodesk Inventor or Solidworks. You can even fly through rich 3D worlds like Google Earth, Nasa World Wind or Microsoft Virtual Earth, tilting around with the “knob.”All in all, SpaceNavigator is compatible with over 100 popular 3D applications and 3Dconnexion is proud its ever-growing compatibility list. The mouse is available for about $47.

Yo lefties, having problems with those right handed mouse designs? You need the Logitech MX610, you say. Not that cheap in my opinion. How about a ‘Moldable Mouse’ for lefties and large/small handed individuals?

It’s still a design concept, but Lite-On promises it could get into your hands sooner than you expect. Looks to me like Lite-on is taking the eco road with this mouse, because it’s made of non-toxic lightweight modeling clay, covered with nylon and polyurethane blend fabric, while the base is made out of 100% recyclable PC/AMS plastic blend and houses the PCB, laser optics and batteries.

Lite-On claims that the mouse body can be molded into any shape a user defines, shapes being is self retaining. OK, you mold the body, but what do you do with the buttons? These, along with the touch sensitive scroll wheel are also stick-on parts which have an integrated RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device). So you can come up with some interesting layouts.

A pretty customizable device, I’d say, but Lite-On is also emphasizing that this design flexibility encourages users to adopt different hand positions which helps to minimize Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

No word on any pricing, but my guess is it will be quite cheap, as you can’t compare it with a gaming-grade mouse.