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Cut to the Chase
Skip tedious uploads and compression by emailing video footage straight from your camcorder. Sony's 1.5-megapixel mini-DV leaves your desktop computer on the cutting-room floor by connecting a Bluetooth adapter to your analog phone line. Through your own ISP or Sony's, you can wirelessly transfer photos to online albums; send and receive email with JPEG, GIF, and MPEG attachments; and surf the Web at 56 Kbps from 30 feet away. Send a 60-second MPEG in the time it would take to simply boot your computer.
DCR-PC120BT: $2,000. Sony: (800) 222 7669, www.sony.com/di.
Off the Wall
Save space for your CD stacks by suspending your stereo speakers in midair. The all-in-one Kayak pumps multi-directional audio through two 30-watt coaxial cones housed in aluminum casing. The speakers face each other on opposite sides of a central reflector, which sends audio in all directions - so the sound surrounds you even when you're across the room. The 2-foot-long cables let you hang the Kayak either vertically between floor and ceiling or horizontally between opposing walls.
Kayak: $880. NACsound: +39 (064) 45 57 30, www.nacsound.com.
Click-Click, Bling-Bling
The artist who adorned Oprah and the Divine Miss M with original jeweled purses wants to glam up workstations with one-off Iced Mice. Erin Lareau hand-paints and applies 1,200-plus rhinestones to Microsoft Wheel Optical mouses. Like true pieces of art, each clicker is signed and numbered. Choose one of Lareau's standard designs or ask her to customize the accessories with your sparkly pattern or logo.
Limited Edition Iced Mice: $229 each. Erin Lareau: +1 (323) 851 9444, www.erinlareau.com.
Haute Fidelity
Designer Karim Rashid throws turntablists a curve, applying soft sensibilities to scratchy material. DJ Kreemy's fiberglass body (available in several hues, including orange, yellow, and pink) holds two standard decks and a 10 x 14-inch mixer. Audio cables and power cords tuck inside the station. And two adjustable 25-watt lights on top help you see in the dark, so you can avoid any faux pas - like slapping down "Me So Horny" instead of "The Wedding March."
DJ Kreemy: $2,900. Pure Design: mail@pure-design.com, www.pure-design.com.
Trigger Fingers
Thumb-wrestle your joystick-wielding foes into submission with Essential Reality's P5 controller. While gamepads and keyboards manage only two independent axes of motion, the P5 commands six. Wear it like a glove (righties only) and determine your character's fate with finger and hand gestures. Integrated and infrared sensors track your movements, which are instantly transferred to a tethered docking station up to 4 feet away. The USB dock plugs into a Mac, PC, or USB-compatible console like the PS2 and Xbox.
P5: $129. Essential Reality: +1 (212) 244 3200, www.essentialreality.com.
Power Ranger
Laugh in the face of power failures with the AirGen. Because it draws from a fuel cell instead of a combustion engine, this Coleman's the first portable power source that's quiet and clean enough to run indoors. The AirGen takes three metal hydride canisters, each with 1 kWh of juice. The 3 kWh of combined energy can run a 50-watt laptop for 60 hours. You can power anything off the grid, or plug the 24 x 18 x 24-inch AirGen into a wall socket and use it like an uninterruptible power supply (you'll need to keep an eye on the fuel).
AirGen Fuel Cell Generator with three canisters: $7,495. Coleman Powermate: (800) 445 1805, www.colemanairgen.com.
Wrist-Top
Keep your contacts and appointments on hand - literally. Fossil's Wrist PDA stores data from your Palm or Pocket PC and serves as a digital watch. It features an 8-bit Epson CPU, 190 Kbytes of internal memory, and an IR module, so you can transfer up to 5,000 to-do reminders, 1,100 phone numbers, 800 meetings, or 20 business cards. Scroll through menus using the directional pad at the bottom of the 102 x 64-pixel LCD. Check the time and your next meeting with a flick of your wrist.
Wrist PDA or PDA/PC: $145. Fossil: (800) 842 8621, www.fossil.com/pda.
Accelerator Board
Long before Tony Hawk mastered the half pipe, Larry Gordon and Floyd Smith pioneered slalom skateboarding. And their company, started in 1959, continues to reinvent the sport. The limited-edition Response includes two layers of unidirectional glass for super resiliency (letting you pump the board to greater speeds). An additional two sheets of polyester laminate and another one of fiberglass absorb vibration, keeping your wheels on - and your face off - the ground. The board's jumbo 7.5-inch width coupled with the trucks' seismic springs help you turn quickly as you bomb downhill.
Attila Aszodi Response Composite Limited Edition with Seismic trucks and Fibreflex wheels: $280. Gordon and Smith: +1 (858) 695 2690, www.gordonandsmith.com.
DVD Cubed
Need more proof that Japan rocks? Panasonic's tricked-out GameCube rises to the latest consolechallenge, packing DVD features similar to those in the Xbox and PS2. The SL-GC10 combines Nintendo's hardware with a Panasonic DVD video/DVD-R machine. That, plus the system's mirror-glass finish and slick LCD, make this Japanese exclusive worth a trip across the Pacific. While you're there, pick up the "culturally sensitive" version of Pearl Harbor - it'll take a few months before hackers circulate the hardware you'll need to play US discs.
SL-GC10: $325. Panasonic: +81 (3) 3578 1237, www.dvdgame.jp.
