In
the News
November 20, 2006
The
Gizmo List
Looking for a gift for your
gadget-lover? Our columnist shares his personal picks
for the season.
By BUZZ McCLAIN
Special to the Star-Telegram
Santa's workshop is more Bluetooth-enabled than ever
this year, as his elves work furiously to piece together
gadgets that make our lives ever more wireless, but
ever more serious. Phones and MP3 players and their
accessories are high on gift-giving lists, but we've
found a few cool high- and low-tech items of useful
whimsy that will lighten the mood of your gift-giving
list.
What does your Weekend Techie want in his or her stocking?
I can't tell you. But here are my top 10 picks. All
of these, in true techie form, are just a few mouse
clicks away.
Retro Phone Handsets
From Think Geek, $29.99-$39.99
People thought you were a crazy person talking to yourself
before they spotted your Bluetooth phone earpiece. Wait
until they see you talking into this heavy hunk of black
plastic straight out of the '60s. With no wires on it.
As you walk down the street.
These replicas of the Western Electric 500 series handset
-- seen aplenty in black-and-white movies and TV shows
-- are so goofy they're cool, and they're not that heavy.
$29.99 for the model that plugs into your cell phone
(some may require adapters), $39.99 for Bluetooth-enabled.
An exclusive from www.thinkgeek.com.
Pure Malt speakers
Pioneer, $299 each
Imagine listening to your whiskey while sipping it.
Audio specialist Pioneer takes 50-year-old white oak
barrels that formerly aged Japan's Suntory whiskey and
turns them into sonically and visually pleasing speaker
cabinets. Through Pioneer's Web site only: www.pioneerelectronics.com.
Wireless digital weather station
WeatherNow, $199
The wireless digital weather station market is heating
up, so to speak. Look for these devices to get smaller,
in the manner of Oregon Scientific's WeatherNow, which
does a lot in a little space. The machine uses MSN Direct
to provide a comprehensive four-day forecast, updated
every two minutes, ranging from temperatures to winds
to wind chill. It also alerts you to severe weather
possibilities and works as an alarm clock. We love how
smart all those graphics make us feel, but the thing
is as easy to use as plugging it in, because it seeks
out the MSN Direct signal on its own. Get it at www2.oregonscientific.com.
LP-to-MP3 converter
Hammacher Schlemmer, $169.95
So let's just say someone this holiday season drags
you kicking and screaming into the MP3 epoch and gets
you your own player. You start off with about 80 gigabytes
of pristine hard drive just waiting for you to pack
in thousands of songs you download from the Internet.
But at about $1 a song, the cost adds up fast. Here's
a better way to create your music menu: Using the LP-to-MP3
converter, you can turn your 33 1/3 vinyl albums and
45s into MP3s for playback on your computer, iPod or
other MP3 device. Go to www.hammacher.com.
Loc8tor, a remote for the remotes
Loc8tor, $100
"Where's the doggone remote control?" you
ask an empty room five times a day. Where are my car
keys? Where did that hamster get to? Wouldn't it be
great if everything in the house had a locator button,
and all you had to do was press it to find a missing
item?
That's what the Loc8tor does; radio signals show the
handheld unit which direction to go to find whatever
is wearing the tiny tag, up to 600 feet away. The tag
is chirping and blinking, and the Loc8tor lets you know
when you've zoomed in.
Think of the cool things you can do: hide-and-seek,
scavenger hunts, spy on your brother. We have no idea
what to do if you misplace the Loc8tor. From www.loc8tor.com.
Electronic bar guide
Hammacher Schlemmer, $24.95
For the high-rolling high-ballers on your list, here's
a high-tech gadget shaped like a low-tech flask. There
are 500 cocktail recipes stored in its memory, which
you access through a digital window on the side. Not
only will the BarWizard tell you what goes into a sidecar,
the slang dictionary will tell you where the word comes
from. Get it at www.hammacher.com.
Gorillapod tripod
Think Geek, $21.99-$41.99
Cameras are a hot gift item, not just now but year-round,
creating a nation of shutterbugs. But our photos are
so ... snap-shotty. Even though we shoot zillions of
pixels -- hey, they're free -- our pix rarely turn out
magnificently. That's because we don't steady the camera
on a tripod and take the time to properly frame the
photo.
Hauling a tripod just got easier. Gorillapod is made
up of flexible joints that rotate and bend 360 degrees,
so you can wrap it around just about anything to get
a stable shot. Sizes for little digitals up to SLR.
Through www.thinkgeek.com.
Inspire electronic wine opener
Oster, $19.99
Yes, you have a million variations on the corkscrew,
and still half the time the cork breaks. With Oster's
rechargeable, cordless wine opener, you put the bottle
into the opener -- which doubles as a chiller -- replace
the top, push a button, and voila! vino. From www.oster.com.
Skip-Away disc repairer
OptoClear, $249
Scratches on CDs and DVDs are not just frustrating,
they're costly, particularly for serious collectors.
VenMill, which has been making professional-grade disc
repair units for years, finally rolls out one for the
consumer market with the visually pleasing Skip-Away.
Put the disc in the boomboxlike machine and in 10 seconds
the platter comes out all nice and shiny, minus the
scratches. The Skip-Away works like an iron, but safely,
under pressure. From www.venmill.com.
Camera cases
M-Rock, $16.99
The cases that come with today's digital cameras are
either insufficient for heavy-duty duty or nonexistent.
M-Rock nylon cases for cameras and camcorders are a
clever system of straps, zippers and flaps that protect
cameras from the elements and your clumsiness. For serious
buffs, there's an interlocking set of bags for all your
gear. At www.m-rock.com.
Click here to
download a pdf version.
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