Fetish

__ Fetish __

__ Workout Time __
Oakley has pushed the envelope of its body-conscious product line from extreme-sporting shades to shoes, backpacks, even wristwatches. Appropriately, the Time Bomb makes your muscles the very heart of the mechanism. The O Engine, a tiny flywheel that spins when you move your wrist, powers a generator whose electric current keeps time with a quartz tuning fork. The hyperkinetic watch comes in ion-plated stainless steel or "hypoallergenic X metal." It also tells the date. Time Bomb: $1,500. Oakley: www.oakley.com.

__ Cordless Surfer __
Why chain yourself to a desk to wander the Web? With up to 16 handsets and tiny screens, the Cendis cordless phone brings the Net to every room in your house. Say you're in the kitchen and want a recipe from Epicurious: Use the wireless touchscreen to pull up the site stoveside and start cooking. The battery-operated mini-monitors have a 900-MHz digital spread spectrum link to the base station's 56K modem and a serial link to a PC. The handsets, meanwhile, access four separate lines, providing call forwarding, intercom paging, and call conferencing. Cendis Super Cordless Phone with NetDisplay touchscreen: $725. Global Converging Technologies: www.globalconv.com.

__ Pedal Paddle __
The Mirage kayak's leg-powered fins work your lower body and leave your hands free to snap pictures or tote a fishing pole. The adjustable underwater fins flip around in semicircles, giving the light 55-pound boat even more speed than a traditional kayak. For a full-body workout, just grab the two paddles from an ondeck storage bay. Mirage: $1,195. Hobie Cat: www.hobiecat.com.

__ Signal Flair __
Handheld GPS navigators are great if you can read topo maps and decipher the tiny onboard routes on their displays. But until now there's been no way to transmit location data to someone else. Garmin's NavTalk, the marriage of GPS receiver and analog cell phone, lets you do just that - provided your friend has a NavTalk, too. With extensive coverage throughout the Americas plus millions of miles of road maps, the device can guide out-of-towners to a new restaurant or pinpoint your coordinates if you're lost in the woods. NavTalk: $625. Garmin: +1 (913) 397 8200, www.garmin.com.

__ Movie Bug __
Like a classic Volvo, this Gateway has an appealing boxy shape when it's closed. But unlatch the magnesium-alloy cover and witness its space-age splendor. Weighing just over 5 pounds, the FireAnt carries a 300-MHz Pentium II and a 56K modem. The topper, though, is an onboard DVD drive that lets you bring your own movies on a plane and blow off the in-flight flick. Battery life is still limited, but it's enough for two hours of private cinema. FireAnt: $2,599. Gateway: (800) 846 2000, www.gateway.com.

__ Network in a Box __
Tired of must-flee TV? TiVo wants your boob tube to be all that it can be. Based on your tastes, the set-top box begins taping your top-rated programs on its own. Pretty soon you have your own network. (Assuming your intelligent agent's no smarter than you are.) The real draw, however, is its tapeless-VCR function, which lets you capture up to 40 hours of high-quality signal without fumbling for videotapes. Fresh programming guides download every day at 4 a.m. so you don't have to wait for the endless scroll of the Prevue Channel. And, thanks to the high-capacity hard drive and intelligent streaming, you can pause and rewind live broadcasts in progress. TiVo Personal Television Service: $10 per month; receiver: from $500. TiVo: www.tivo.com.

__ For the Birds __
Ferocious finches? Bellicose bluebirds? As Hitchcock showed us, some fowl are best viewed from afar. This tiny videocam is the first designed specifically for remote surveillance of feeders and birdbaths. The weather-resistant digital CCD cam sends ringside images and sounds to your TV or VCR. Just string the included cable from the 12-inch gooseneck to your house and you can watch rare species from hundreds of feet away. Or link the BirdCam to the Web for a live, fair-feathered broadcast from your homepage. BirdCam: $399. Logic Product Development: +1 (612) 672 9495, www.teamlogica.com.

__ Instrumental __
Like the Teletubbies, it was created in the UK and meant for children, but once the club scene discovered the Little Infinite Frequency Expander - well, it took on a life of its own. Holding the small wooden gadget in one hand, you tweak the eight unlabeled knobs on top, controlling the sound from a deep bass to a screeching high note. Meanwhile, the thing in the middle that looks like a Ping-Pong ball pulses light and changes color to the music. LIFE: £154 ($255). TechnoMage: +44 (1597) 822138, www.technomage.freeserve.co.uk.

__ Soft Ware __
Recently rolled out of the labs, the Smart keyboard is a natural fit when space is at a premium. A quarter-inch thick and almost 20 inches long, the lithe device can be coiled into a cylinder less than 3 inches in diameter. The letters are etched in rubber to make them abrasion proof, and the keys are raised bumps - a little tough to touch-type on, at first. But the board is sealed with a special material that's impervious to oil, industrial disinfectants, and, more important, water - meaning you can email from the comfort of your bubble bath. Smart rollable keyboard: £69.95 ($117). Magnate Distribution: +44 (151) 242 9500.

*Thanks to David Cohen. *