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Fetish
__Self Serving __
If you can stack bricks, you can upgrade your server. Modules containing fast memory, routers, and other power features snap Lego-like into SGI's 6'2" Origin 3400 mainframe. Need more disk storage? Each 12-drive D-brick supplies up to 876 Gbytes. For more computing muscle, snap on another four-CPU C-brick. This big iron uses nonuniform memory access (NUMA) architecture, which replaces an all-purpose bus with faster point-to-point wiring and determines memory-module access times based on distance. Time to put your rack-mount system in storage.
__Origin 3400 (four-processor base system): $145,000. Silicon Graphics: +1 (650) 960 1980, www.sgi.com. __
__Double Shot __
Instaprints or permapixels? With the C-211 Zoom, you can have it both ways: This digital printing camera saves 2.1-megapixel snaps and pumps out standard Polaroid 500 shots. The zoom part of the equation is a 3X optical glass lens with 2X digital telephoto; the dimensions are 5.5 by 7.0 by 2.25 inches. The 2-inch monitor lets you preview and crop before printing - then make as many duplicates as you want.
__C-211 Zoom: $799. Olympus: (800) 622 6372, www.olympus.com. __
__Fat Pipe __
Hogging more than bandwidth? Stayhealthy combines a body-fat/water analyzer, portable calorie tracker, and online training service. First, grasp the large metallic wheel to estimate your fat and water ratios. Then remove the pager-sized fitness tracker to carry to work and the gym; Stayhealthy's tiny accelerometer records the type of exercise and duration. When you dock the tracker back in its base, your stats upload via modem to a password-protected Web page, where you can chart your progress.
__BC1 Body Composition Analyzer with CT1 tracker: $330. Stayhealthy: +1 (626) 256 6152, www.stayhealthy.com. __
__Card Shark __
Ordinary docking stations give your laptop a few extra ports, but EasiDock 5000 turns your mild-mannered computer into a monster. Three PCI-card slots and five standard drive bays let a connected portable run things like videocards and an extra hard drive. EasiDock exploits the PCMCIA slot as a high-bandwidth bus - and at 1,250 Mbps, it's more than three times faster than FireWire. The universal dock hooks up without shutting down, provides Ethernet connectivity, and works with almost any notebook, making it a perfect power station in laptop-driven offices.
EasiDock 5000: $599. Mobility Electronics: +1 (480) 596 0061, www.mobilityelectronics.com.
__Jolt __
Saintsong Espresso, a full-fledged Windows computer tower that measures 4 by 6 inches and weighs 1.75 pounds, lets you pack light and pack heat. Inside the effervescently styled shell are a 6-Gbyte drive, 64 Mbytes of RAM, and a 700-MHz Coppermine Pentium III. Sporting a touchpad mouse on its front, Espresso is good to go as a kickass belttop - just add heads-up hands-free display goggles. You can, of course, add a keyboard and monitor for a desktop-anchored setup.
Saintsong Espresso: $1,299. Available through ibuypower: www.ibuypower.com.
__Cube Farming __
Impersonal cubeware sapping your productivity? Meet Frank, a computer table that's equal parts boardroom and barnyard. The chic titanium-and-cardboard top is suspended on galvanized hog paneling, a material traditionally used to fence in livestock. (Hee-haw!) Gary Paudler's economically designed shelves hold a printer and two small peripherals, and a four-plug power outlet makes jacking in as easy as fattening veal.
__Frank: $680. ATMOspheric: +1 (805) 565 1903. __
__Airplay __
The bass is pounding. The dance floor is jumping. The needle is skittering across the hot wax and knocking everyone out of their groove. Rockport's System III Sirius turntable solves the jitterbug problem by suspending the platter and tone arm literally in thin air. Using an included compressor, the platter levitates on an invisible cushion and turns touchlessly by a magnetic-induction motor. The only physical contact is between needle and vinyl, meaning good vibrations and nothing more.
__System III Sirius: $73,750. Rockport Technologies: +1 (207) 596 7151. __
__Point and Click __
FinRing, a cordless mouse that looks like club jewelry, controls your onscreen cursor with a wave of the hand. Slip the device on your index finger, gesture to navigate, and click with your thumb. Inside the ring, a tiny circuit reads your twiddling with two tilt sensors and transmits commands to a USB-compatible radio receiver. After a little practice, you'll be giving your PC the finger in the most ergonomically correct position, and running presentations with pure prestidigitation.
__FinRing: $80. BossWave: +886 (2) 2995 2884, www.bosswave.com. __
__Starting Gate __
What good's a broadband connection if it's narrowcast to the PC in the den? 3Com's HomeConnect gateway helps all your home computers share the wealth. The domesticated hub hooks up to a cable, DSL, or plain-old phone line and speaks multiple Ethernet and home-network standards; someday soon, 3Com hopes, you'll be adding everything from the fridge to smoke detectors to the loop. In the meantime, HomeConnect's firewall stops malicious hackers from slapping a KICK ME sign on the back of your IP address.
__HomeConnect Home Network Gateway: $249. 3Com: +1 (408) 326 5000, www.3com.com. __
