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Divide and Conquer
Nothing ruins an Ikea motif quite like the gray burlap of a cubicle wall. Freecell's Rolling Office Partition, however, separates your home office from your living room without disrupting the decor: The 5 x 5-foot divider comes in several configurations, and its skeleton - made of the steel tubing used to conceal electrical wiring - is covered with a tightly stretched vinyl skin. Wood bookshelves and two metal file cabinets store your supplies, while fluorescent lighting illuminates the unit from within, so your family will know when you're open for business and closed to goofing around.
Rolling Office Partition: $2,000-4,000. Freecell: +1 (718) 643 4180, www.frcll.com.
Beyond iPod
No, it doesn't look as cool as Apple's portable MP3 player, but Archos' Jukebox Multimedia costs $75 less and does way more. The player holds 10 gigs of data (up to 2,500 MP3s or 5,000 3-megapixel photos), records CDs directly from your computer or stereo, and comes with add-ons for reading CompactFlash and SmartMedia cards. What's more, by the time you hit the beach this summer, an optional 4X digital zoom camera ($35) and a camcorder ($50-80) will be available. Then you'll be able to keep 30 to 40 hours of MPEG-4 video, too.
Jukebox Multimedia: $325. Archos: +1 (949) 453 1121, www.archos.com.
Auto Record
Don't risk warping your CD collection while your car bakes in the sun. With Sony's MEX-1HD, you can blast your favorite tunes on the road and keep your discs safe at home. The system, which installs like most other car stereos, rips up to 165 hours of music from CDs or Memory Stick onto its 10-gig hard drive. Upload more than an hour of tunes in 15 minutes - while you're listening to the album, clocking the news on NPR, or enjoying beats you've already stored.
MEX-1HD: $1,499. Sony: (800) 222 7669, www.sony.com.
Fringe Lighting
Who knew those hard-to-cut plastic ties could brighten up a room? Habitat, a British home-furnishing company, can turn 850 of these throwaways into a distinctive chandelier. The ties are hand-dipped in ink and attached to a metal egg basket that surrounds a 100-watt bulb. The resulting 19-inch tentacled globe hangs from your ceiling on an adjustable line, impressing guests with your recycled-chic fixture.
Eight Fifty Light: $95. Habitat: +44 (207) 255 6072, www.habitat.net.
Compact Zoom
Minolta's DiMAGE X packs its optics and miniature parts vertically - not horizontally, like other cameras - so the zoom lens stays tucked inside. That tidy package translates into faster pictures: The 4.8-ounce shooter gives you 3X optical and 2X digital zoom in just over a second.
DiMAGE X: About $500. Minolta: (800) 528 4767, www.minolta.com.
The Mighty Mini
The Mini's charmed '60s life was cut short when US emissions regulations halted imports. Now BMW is bringing it back - and raising the bar for roadsters. The sleek, affordable Cooper's 115 horsepower engine can hit 62 mph in 7.4 seconds. (Leadfoots take note: The 12-foot-long Mini maxes out at 125 mph.) Despite its demure stature, the four-seater won't crumple under pressure - its shell is reinforced in impact-prone spots, doubling crash protection compared with other subcompacts.
Mini Cooper: $18,000. Mini: www.miniUSA.com.
Steam Chamber
By the time you get home from that junket, your Armani suit looks like it's been refolded by every security guard at JFK. Instead of dropping dough on a dry cleaner, hang your rumpled wardrobe - three items at a time - in Whirlpool's Personal Valet. In 30 minutes, your clothes will be pressed to impress. The Valet heats up a water-based solution from Procter & Gamble ($11.99) to create a mist that circulates through every garment fiber, leaving a fresh scent on silk, wool, cotton, rayon, and delicates. The wall-mounted unit plugs into a standard electrical outlet, ditching water lines and extra hookups.
Personal Valet: $799. Whirlpool: (866) 698 2538, www.whirlpool.com.
Fliptop
Unlike other wireless communication devices, Danger's hiptop doesn't simply repackage old tech and call it a new product. The 5-ounce cell phone/PDA runs the latest and greatest technologies on a Java-based OS, which gives it unmatched flexibility. It can handle all of the basic network protocols you'll need for global connectivity, as in GSM, GPRS, and 1xRTT (the superspeedy new CDMA network) plus run applications such as an HTML browser and attachment-friendly email. The headset port accepts a hands-free kit or an optional camera module (under $50) that lets you snap super low-res color images. Send notes with your pics by swiveling the LCD 180 degrees to reveal a BlackBerry-like keyboard underneath.
hiptop: $200. Danger: +1 (650) 289 5000, www.danger.com.
Rockin' on Air
Portable CD players let you move your tunes without breaking your back, but headphones let only one person at a time enjoy the music. Ellula has a solution: Blow up these 10-watt speakers like you would a beach ball and plug them into your player's headphone jack. Your harmonies will float across the surface of the thick plastic for all to hear. Thanks to NXT's flat-panel driver technology, the 10- by 5- by 5-inch speakers deflate to a mere 1 inch high.
HotAir Speakers: $45 per pair. Ellula:+1 (917) 519 2233, www.ellula.com.
