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Fetish
Triple Player
JVC's HM-HDS1 combines the power of digital video recorders, VCRs, and editing stations - without locking you into a pay-to-play world. The 40-gig hard drive saves 14 hours of television programming at DVD quality, while a three-hour memory buffer lets you pause, replay, and slow-mo live broadcasts without missing anything else. The S-VHS drive works like a standard VCR and archives stored programs onto tape. With the simple interface, you can assemble-edit home videos onscreen, without a computer - just copy them to disk, define cut-in and cut-out points with the remote, and transfer the distilled, nonboring versions back to tape.
HM-HDS1: $1,899. JVC: (800) 252 5722, www.jvc.com.
Aurally Fixated
It's a headset user's dilemma: Over-the-top earphones look dorky, and dangling microphones tempt you to hold them up to your mouth - hardly an adequate hands-free solution. Sony's 0.12-ounce wisp.ear uses a tiny plastic pipe mike that captures every word while the flexible 9-mm bud fits comfortably in your ear, blocking out external chatter and leaving your hairdo in place. This hearing aide connects to cell, cordless, and desk phones via a standard 2.5-mm jack. Happy yapping.
wisp.ear TL-DR150EX: $39.99. Sony: (800) 222 7669, www.sony.com.
Mail Carrier
Email overload keeping you at the office? Address scads of equeries from the road with Audiovox's mobile MP3J. Connect the wallet-sized in-box to your computer via USB, and download your POP account into the 340-Mbyte internal memory. A text-to-speech processor converts up to 700 one-page missives into MP3 audio files, which you can play through your car stereo using the cassette tape adapter. Hit the MP3J's Reply button and record responses, which are sent to recipients as attachments the next time you sync up. The battery-operated handheld also vocalizes downloaded Web pages and works as a portable MP3 player whose memory doubles when a CompactFlash card is added.
MP3J: $300. Audiovox: (800) 290 6650, www.audiovox.com.
Single-Handed Combat
Stop hunting around your QWERTY for that killer keystroke combo. Belkin's N50 SpeedPad lets you program 57 game- winning sequences on a 10-button pad designed for use with one hand. You can download Belkin's prefab settings for specific games, or use the included software to create your own hot key configurations. The board substitute is designed to work in tandem with the N30 TouchSense-enabled GameMouse, another component of Belkin's Nostromo line, which lets you literally feel the action. Plug the devices into your USB ports, and you won't miss a beat as you whup ass in Unreal Tournament.
N50 SpeedPad: $29.99; N30 GameMouse: $39.99. Belkin: (800) 223 5546, www.belkin.com.
High Beam
Whether you're workin' the graveyard Huggies shift or navigating the crawl space under your house, this wearable lantern will help you find your way. Petzl's palm-sized Zipka headlamp uses a trio of LEDs to illuminate a path up to 30 feet in front of you. Three AAA batteries power the energy-efficient, 64-gram minitorch for 150 hours. A retractable cord secures the lamp snugly around your head or wrist, while a foam insert in back makes it comfortable. Optional color filters ($3.50) keep your pupils dilated, for better vision when you switch off the light.
Zipka: $44.95. Petzl: (877) 807 3805, www.petzl.com.
Telecomputing
Compaq's 700-MHz Evo N400c laptop entertains all comers from the wireless world. A dedicated USB port on the rear of the inch-thick, 3.5-pound system accepts Compaq minimodules for 802.11 and Bluetooth, so your line into the local data cloud won't deprive you of any card slots or network jacks. Plug in a module, and the computer auto-configures to recognize its wireless network neighbors and begin talking. The Evo has a 12.1-inch, 1,024 x 768 XGA display and a full complement of ports along the sides. Two VAIO-style docking bays take compatible floppy, DVD-ROM, and CD-RW drives.
Evo N400c: $2,299. Compaq: (800) 888 0220, www.compaq.com.
Atlantis Productions
With Bluefin's waterproof camcorder housing, Dogma-school moviemakers might dive deeper than von Trier's cinematographer did in Breaking the Waves. Two types of high-end Sony DV-cams will fit inside the 14.3-pound unit and attach to a Control-L connector. Buttons on the back adjust white balance and shutter speeds, while handlebar controls spoof infrared remote signals to operate zoom, focus, and record. Optional 2.5-inch color monitors mount to the top of the case or stay on deck, tethered by a 300-foot cable. An amphibious mike catches every nuance of your watershed drama.
Bluefin VX2000: $3,899; underwater monitor: $1,000; remote monitor: $1,550. Light & Motion: +1 (831) 645 1525, www.uwimaging.com.
Going Long
Is your shopping list longer than your PDA screen? The HandEra 330 will stop all your scrolling around. This Palm-compatible handheld takes a big step up from the old 160 x 160-pixel screen, to dimensions of 240 x 320. Touch the up or down arrow to see the Palm-standard icons and Graffiti area, or make them disappear for more room. Almost all Palm apps run full-screen without patches, and HandEra versions of DateBk4, Mapopolis, AvantGo, and other faves take advantage of the higher resolution. A left-side button and jog wheel enable easy voice recording and one-hand navigation. Even better, the 8-Mbyte device has an expansion slot for CompactFlash and another for Secure Digital and MMC - so you can plug in I/O devices and still have room for removable storage.
HandEra 330: $349.95. HandEra: +1 (515) 252 7522, www.handera.com.
Lego My Stereo
Since it first broke out of the toy box, Lego has turned up in everything from artwork to telephones. Now vacuum records is offering qmpo, a stereo minisystem available in Japan that's enclosed in the giant, colorful bricks. Every component - two 5-watt speakers, a CD player, a power adapter, and a remote - renders the construction toy's signature knob pattern in Lego-authentic ABS plastic. A standard jack takes audio input from MP3, minidisc, and other players, while optional CD holders, $30 each, add more blocks to the stackable set. For stateside use, plug qmpo into a garden-variety transformer.
qmpo: $300. vacuum records: +81 (3) 3335 8850, www.qmpo.com.
