Handheld IM devices, big deal, right? What if I told you that they work off of Wi-Fi networks? Ah, that got your attention I see. It’s true though, the K-Byte Zipit Wireless Instant Messenger apparently works off any Wi-Fi network.

As cool as this sounds, there is one major issue. You cannot connect to any WEP or WPA security enabled network. Since people should have their networks secured, this could certainly prove to be a problem.

You could look for day and be hard pressed to find a Wi-Fi device quite this silly: Nigel Ballard alerted me to this Target.com item, the K-Byte Zipit Wireless Instant Messenger, for $99.99. It’s as ridiculous as its name. It lets you instant message with Yahoo, MSN, and AOL services if you have accounts on those IM systems. (This isn’t mentioned on Target’s site, but is noted in an Amazon.com customer review.)

The device works with Wi-Fi networks—it must lack any kind of stub browser because it refers to using just home and free networks, which means that if you have WEP or WPA security enabled or use a gateway page, you must be out of luck. The product details say there’s security for instant messaging, but doesn’t describe it. I’m guessing it means password protection, not encryption.