We’ve put together a list of gadget gifts for the gizmo-lover in your life. These aren’t just great for the Christmas holiday season but any time of year. For the most part, we’ve tried to stay away from the usual and obvious electronic gadgets like MP3 players, phones and cameras, but instead bring you a variety of neat electronic gift ideas and in most cases useful items that are still worth their salt as far as gadgets go.

Perplexus

Let’s start with some toys/puzzles/games. Perplexus is a spherical 3-D maze with a ball bearing that you to need to navigate around a maze. Simply to learn, hard to solve and master!
Buy now!

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a geek like us, you never travel without your laptop. While netbooks have become more popular for lightweight personal travel, most of us still have to lug full size notebooks for work. Given the travel situation in the post-9/11 world, we were extremely happy when we heard that TSA (the airport security folks) put out specifications for laptop bags to allow laptops to go through security without having to be removed from the bag. Sure, you could always travel with your laptop, but those of us who travel regularly know what a hassle the X-ray checkpoints can be.

Typically, with an ordinary laptop bag, security makes you remove a laptop and put it in a bin by itself, with nothing covering it. This means, on top of removing your shoes, emptying your pockets, taking off your watch, belt, cell phone, keys, yank out your zip lock bag with your gels and liquids, you also have to dig out your laptop.

Given that most laptop thefts take place in airports, and the majority of those take place in the exit of the X-ray line, being able to keep your laptop secure and hidden in your bag is a big deal and a time saver. If you travel through a major US airport such as Atlanta or Chicago, you know that even saving 20 seconds per person can add up to huge time savings and shortened lines when considering the thousands of people moving through the checkpoints in those airports.

It has been several years since TSA announced their guidelines for approved bags, and we felt it was time to see what the various bag manufacturers had come up with. We contacted a total of 7 manufacturers asking for their offerings, and three sent us review units: Belkin “Flythru”, Skooba “Checkthrough Brief”, and Tom Bihn “Checkpoint Flyer”. Let’s see if any of these TSA compliant laptop bags fit the bill.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are literally thousands of items going on sale starting at various times this week, but we just wanted to point out some of the better ones in the gadgets and electronics arena.

Best Buy

Palm Pre $79.99 (with 2-yr contract).

Regularly $149.99.

You save $70.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do-It-Yourself can be a pain – especially that small DIY job that’s really precise. This is only exacerbated by not having the right tools for the job. This Autoloading Screwdriver however brings us one step closer to a pain-free life.

This device is perfect for the geeky DIY enthusiast as its handle is packed full of different bit sizes so you’ll have the right screwdriver for the job all the time. What’s more is you can pull back the handle, reveal the bits, and simply press a button to fire your chosen bit into placed at the tip of the screwdriver.

2 different sizes are available depending on whether you need large or small bits and, it goes without saying, that all the bits are magnetic. What more could you want from a screwdriver?

Buy now!

Price: $29.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Wal-Mart is getting in on the in-home tech service business a la Best Buy’s Geek Squad or the dead Circuit City FireDog service. Expect the service to start up in time for this year’s shopping season.

via Hot Hardware

Aerolatte’s cappuccino/latte/milkshake/you-name-it milk frothers have been around for years, but here’s a new twist – the Aerolatte To Go. Essentially still their original design, this new version comes in a suave matte black with a sophisticated travel case for the modern man on the go and won’t look out of place sitting in your BMW’s glove compartment. Well… your call.

With the new paint job, it still does the same thing beautifully – it really can make a lovely frothy milk in under 20 seconds, running on 2 AA batteries. No more violent hand pressing on your part. Get that froth for your latte or cappuccino.

.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer

Price: $12.20
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Retro is in – it’s time to dig out all those Etch-a-Sketchs and Diablos and get playing! More alarm clock gadgets. This one looks like a Rubik’s cube, and includes time, date, alarm and temperature. To keep the cube theme going, you rotate the top row to switch between the different functions. Not as easy as pushing a button, but hey, you wanted a Rubik’s cube alarm clock, right?

Buy now!

Price: $24.00
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

via FreshTrend.com

Remember those sticky nights where you just can’t sleep with the heat? Well a Japanese company has come up with a solution for this – the air conditioned bed which works by blowing cool air over you as you sleep. The makers, Kuchofuku, already make air conditioned shirts so this just seems a natural progession of their product line! Unfortunately the website is in Japanese so details are scarce, but we do know that the bed would set you back around $250, that’s if you can find a way to have it delivered; the product is only currently available in Japan. This picture sums it up nicely:

More info from the manufacturer (Japanese site)

Price: $250 approx.
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

We always like to report on recycling efforts because we feel this is a topic that needs constant exposure and it’s something that consumers can participate in without a great deal of time or money expenditure.

Costco has now partnered with Gazelle to offer Costco members a way to recycle their old or unwanted electronics. In return you will receive a Costco Cash Card for the value of the item.

Visit http://costco.gazelle.com/ to get started.

We’ve seen Google trying their hand at operating systems but what about Microsoft trying to steal power usage market share from Google? Back in February we took a look at PowerMeter – a product from Google that allows users to monitor their power consumption via ’smart’ meters, but Microsoft has released Hohm (still in beta) to do pretty much the same job.

Hohm will check your levels of electricity, propane and oil consumption within a given time period and Microsoft will look at adding device monitoring (something already offered by PowerMeter) and water monitoring to give a complete picture of your resource usage. When you sign up for your free account you can see how much you’re spending on energy, how it compares to similar users and how it can be reduced.

It’s just a pity they couldn’t get hold of a better domain to host it on.