iFrogz, maker of colorful cases and other accessories for portable devices, has just unveiled three earbuds for iPhone and BlackBerry, all of which include a microphone for making calls.

The least expensive is the Plugz model, shown here. It's compact, comes in seven colors (including black, not shown), and sells for only $19.99. Choose these when your default earbuds break and you're short on cash.

Next up is Reflex, which have a unique angled shape for a more comfortable fit. These have a higher definition microphone and come with three silicone tips. The Reflex sells for $29.99.

Big spenders will want to consider the Timbre, which have a natural wood-chamber for better sound. You can choose from dark or light wood accents. These go for $49.99, but promise clean tones and rich bass.

Luxury puts up a good fight, but necessity is still the true mother of invention. Innovations in assistive technology, such as Bluetooth hearing aids and Braille-input PDAs, are helping the physically and mentally disabled and impaired keep pace with our increasingly tech-dependent world--at least, for those who can afford them! Here's a look at some of the latest tech products for people with visual disabilities.

GW Micro makes a portable notetaker called the Braille Sense Plus, pictured above, that lets users input text using a Perkins keyboard--six keys that correspond to the six Braille dots, plus Space, Backspace, and Line Space keys. The device can then output messages via synthesized speech or its 32-cell Braille pad; the dots move up and down to produce scrolling lines of text.

With these features, even those with total blindness have access to email, MSN Messenger, word processing (with formatting), an address manager, a media player, and more. The 2-pound device goes for $5,995 (street). The Voice Sense, a smaller PDA without the Braille pad, weighs just over half a pound and costs $2,395.

More after the jump.

Here's something we originally missed in the Verizon Wireless MiFi router announcement: lower data fees for folks who go over their limits.

The MiFi comes with a 5GB plan for $59.99/month - the same as Verizon's modems - or a 250MB plan for $39.99/month. But if you go over the 5GB limit on the bigger plan, you only pay 5 cents/MB, or $50/GB. That's down from 25 cents, or $250/GB. (The overage fee on the 250 MB plan is now $100/GB.)

Now, many people may argue that's still a lot of money, and that it still prevents you from using Verizon Wireless as your primary Internet connection. Verizon generally agrees; they see this as a backup connection for when you're on the road. We'd advise keeping an eye on your data usage if you're using any wireless broadband product - $50/GB may be a sharp decline from previous rates, but it's still a harsh surprise when you see it on your bill.

Hopefully, Verizon will extend the lower fees to their USB modem subscribers, though they haven't done that yet (and, true to form, they won't comment on the future.)

The Internet has been buzzing today about Palm's second WebOS smart phone, the follow-up to the upcoming Palm Pre.

I've heard from some friends as well, and the predictions are coming into line - Palm's working on something that's lower-cost, and yes, it will have a QWERTY keyboard. Boy Genius Report published a blurry photo of a supposed phone, and Engadget followed up with a Photoshop rendering, the name "Eos" and a pretty comprehensive list of specs.

Finally, around dinnertime, Michael Arrington on TechCrunch christened it the "Pixie," and Greg Kumparak on Arrington's own TechCrunch site fell into the Eos camp.

The new device is supposed to be a slim, lower-cost WebOS gadget, destined to come out within several months of the Pre. Engadget purports to have almost suspiciously precise specs, and even to predict that it's coming out on AT&T.

The problem with rumors like this is that people tend to take them too literally. Six months before launch, a lot of specs are subject to change. Calling the frequency bands for AT&T, for instance, is extremely premature; unlike Apple, Palm are comfortable working on a range of bands and radio interfaces, and could swap a different radio in lickety-split if they get a good deal from a different carrier.

There's no way to watch Microsoft's keynote address at CTIA Wireless today without hearing "iPhone. Apple. iPhone. Apple," like the whispering voices in the background on Lost. Of course, Microsof't's Robbie Bach and Jim Wilson never mentioned either of those words during their keynote presentation, as they demoed a mobile OS whose navigation and interface work almost identical to the iPhone's.

Wilson kept a straight face while showing the finger-swiping, double tap to zoom, and Start button on the Windows Mobile 6.5 interface. Bach played it straight while talking about how Microsoft is building a consumer tech ecosystem that involves a user's PC, TV, phone, and syncing service, and when talking about how excited he was that EA Mobile's Sim City was coming to Windows Mobile.

The only overt mention of Apple came when Bach showed a Windows commercial in which an attractive young girl goes laptop shopping and decides she's "not cool enough to be an Apple user."

I'm a Windows Mobile expatriate who defected to the iPhone, so maybe this is all in my head, but the entire keynote presentation appeared to be Microsoft talking up all the features they'd cribbed from Apple, knowing full well that the audience was in on it.

If I were better at video editing, I'd splice the clips of Bach and Smith demoing iPhone-esque features and put together a mock Apple commercial for YouTube.

Anyway, sorry for the diversion. Now go back to reading Sascha's excellent CTIA coverage.

I've dropped—and in some cases, fatally damaged—many a cell phone over the years. Eventually, I just accepted that fact that I'm a klutz; scratches and dents add character, right? Well, when it comes to keeping my gadgets off the ground, it turns out there may be hope for me yet.

That's where the Mobigrip comes in. According to the gizmo's eponymous manufacturer, the Mobigrip is a "device leash" designed to help butter-fingered geeks keep hold of their portable tech. Intended for use with cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, and the like, it's essentially a quarter-sized, adhesive-backed disc with an elastic finger loop. The concept is simple: Stick the Mobigrip on the back of any device you're prone to dropping and save it from future crash-landings by sliding your finger through the loop whenever you pick it up .

The little plastic rounds come in several different colors and are available at mobigrips.com for $10 each. Now you can go get a hold of yourself (and your stuff).

Amazon has been famously coy about how many Kindle e-book readers the company has sold. But Mark Mahaney, an analyst at Citigroup, is estimating that Amazon sold 500,000 of the things in 2008, and that the Kindle is on track to become a $1.2 billion business for Amazon by 2010, according to AllThingsD.

The report said that Mahaney came up with his figure by examining a recent filing by Sprint, the company that handles the Kindle's wireless data connection for over-the-air e-book purchases from Amazon. The $1.2 billion figure is a little more suspect, though; essentially he assumed that the Kindle equals the iPod, will do similar business to the iPod at a comparable point in its life cycle, and that customers will buy one e-book per month from Amazon on average.

Meanwhile, everyone—including, presumably, Dick Cheney—is waiting for the other shoe to drop next week, when Amazon has its press conference and unveils Kindle 2.0. Mahaney thinks the new Kindle will be thinner, lighter, have a nicer keyboard arrangement, and cost $299 instead of $359 like the current model. Me, I'm just hoping for page turning technology that doesn't flash the entire screen each time.

The upcoming eSlick Reader doesn't look like much. But its target price point of $230—significantly less than the Amazon Kindle and Sony e-book readers—could make it a tempting buy, especially since it will be the first hardware e-ink device to support eReader files, Wired reports.

The support for eReader files is important. That's a popular format that currently displays on smartphones like the iPhone, as well as Windows Mobile and Symbian-based handhelds. This means that people who already have a well-stocked e-book library can buy the eSlick Reader as a nice screen upgrade from what they're currently used to, while circumventing the annoying DRM problem that plagues the Sony and Amazon devices—which only work with e-books purchased from their respective stores.

Of course, things can change if Amazon unveils the Kindle 2.0 next week.

The Palm Pre was announced a week ago, and now the rumors are starting to fly. WebOS Arena is quoting a "credible source" who told them that Sprint and Best Buy are getting an exclusive on the eagerly-awaited handset for two months.

The exclusivity wouldn't be unprecedented--Sprint had a similar deal with the Samsung Instinct last summer. And, oh yeah, Apple had the same setup with its phone, too--that is, until Wal-Mart entered the picture.

Accelerometers are all the rage these days, with Apple's iPod Touch leading the way. Incidentally, the iPod Touch has also touted itself as a gaming platform, which has to rankle Nintendo, which sells the most popular platform in the portable gaming market, the Nintendo DS. Nintendo also was first to the market with a touchscreen device too, let's remember.

Oh, and then there's the Nintendo Wii, of course, which uses both an accelerometer as well as a motion-sensing device.

So it's really no surprise that Nintendo has patented a "direction" card for the Nintendo DS, according to Siliconera, which translated the Japanese patent application. It's important to note that the patent covers the "DS Houi Sensor Card," with "Houi" meaning "direction". To me, that doesn't necessarily specify either an accelerometer or motion-sensing device. Either, however, promises a new generation of oddly bobbing, bouncing gamers on the go.

Nokia's only retail WiMAX product is no more. The N810 WiMAX tablet, which could be used with the Clear WiMAX networks in Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD, has reached the end of its life, Nokia spokeswoman Lauren Butler said.

"The Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition has reached the expected end of its lifecycle. We will continue to follow the WiMAX network development and new product development decisions will be considered based on the evolution of the business," she said in an e-mail.

The N810 was the only handheld that worked on Clearwire's Clear WiMAX network (formerly known as XOHM, and formerly run by Sprint.) With the N810 gone, users' only option for hooking up to WiMAX comes in the form of PC modems.

For PCMag's full CES coverage, go to http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,2235882,00.asp.

Don't count Palm out just yet: the company announced that Elevation Partners has agreed to make an additional $100 million equity investment, which Palm is hoping will propel them beyond key product introductions in 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The move immediately followed a report that Palm lost over $500 million during the second quarter, as more and more smartphone buyers chose models from RIM, Apple, HTC, and other makers ahead of the venerable handheld pioneer.

Most folks expect Palm to finally introduce its next-generation Palm OS, codenamed "Nova," at CES in two weeks. But the company has yet to officially confirm that—despite teasing the tech press with a cryptic invitation. The company did confirm, however, that the Nova OS is already in the wild, at least with regard to the wireless carriers and various third-party developers.

Yes, the BlackBerry Storm originally came out buggy, but that hasn't caused Verizon's popular smart phone to start streaming back into stores, a company rep said to me today. According to Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney, the return rate on the Storm is lower than any other PDA Verizon sells - and that includes the Palm Centro and the Pantech PN-820.

According to RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie (as cited on SeekingAlpha.com) the Storm is "Verizon's best-selling device" and "demand for the devices is even stronger than we had anticipated." After I spent three weeks with the device, I had come to terms with a lot of its oddities. What do you think - are you satisfied with your Storm?

Both wireless carriers and third-party developers are currently holding devices with the new Palm "Nova" OS, Palm's CEO Ed Colligan said on a financial analysts' conference call yesterday. The first Nova phone will launch during the first half of 2009, he added.

But that's not all! Palm will keep making Windows Mobile devices, rolling out a new Treo Pro on a major US carrier (that probably isn't AT&T or T-Mobile) during the next quarter.

The Centro, 755p, and Palm's PDA lines, meanwhile, are pretty much dead. Palm will keep selling their PDAs as long as people want them, but they aren't developing any new ones, Colligan said.

Everybody expects Nova to be announced at Palm's CES press conference on Jan. 8, but the company still hasn't confirmed that. On the other hand, if they don't announce it then, they're toast.

Read the full details from the call in my story at PCMag.com.