Righteous Ring Tones
Your polyphonic "Sweet Child o' Mine" ring tone might rock, but it'd rock harder if it had Axl's signature wail. Answer to the real Guns N' Roses with Nokia's 3300 mobile, which accepts MP3 and ACC files as ringers and doubles as an audio player. Just pop in a MultiMedia Card filled with downloads, make your selection, and you're good to go. Bonus tracks: Web access and a split keyboard that speeds your search for leather pants.
3300: about $300, www.nokia.com
Air Supply
Forget knobs and wires. The Air Boom Box inflatable radio lets you tune in to your favorite stations using conductive ink - a pigment, usually found on motherboards, that carries an electric current - rather than bulgy knobs. Slide your fingers across the resin controls and blast your favorite hits out the speakers at each end. Note: Though it may sound like a good idea, using this as a flotation device will fry the circuits.
O2Tronics Air Boom Box: $15, www.wildplanet.com
Small-Screen Star
Stop squinting! Sharp's Linux-powered handheld opens like a laptop to reveal a QWERTY keyboard and a 640 x 480 touchscreen - twice the pixel count of most pocket PCs. Unlike standard LCDs, this PDA's screen is made of continuous-grain silicon, which refreshes images three times faster, sucks less battery juice, and won't get washed out by ambient light. Now there's no excuse to stay indoors during the last days of summer.
Zaurus SL-C700: $599, www.dynamism.com
Sharper Images
Diehard photo buffs have long griped that digital tech can't replicate the richness of film. Their main beef: Digipics look flat and blown-out. Not anymore. This 6.2-megapixel shooter boasts two layers of photodiodes - one for capturing shadows and one for highlights - to give your shots the depth and detail usually found only on film.
FinePix F700: $600, www.fujifilm.com
Grand Slam
Sure, Barry Bonds can smack 'em out of the park with a maple stick, but the rest of us need more firepower. Nike enlarged the sweet spot on the MX5 by using a 500-ton hydraulic press to squeeze its aluminum alloy into shape. (Other metal bats are molded through a spinning process, which can separate the molecules and weaken the structure.) Nike says its method makes for a stronger slugger and decreases contact vibration, so you'll hit the ball with maximum force every time.
MX5: $250, www.nike.com
PLAY
The 17,000-Hit Wonder
Give the DJs What They Want
What's on Your iPod?
Feets of Fury
Cracking the Box Office Genome
The Hackers Cookbook
Easy Rider
Peer-to-Peer Pressure
The Polyester Pavilion
Paint by Rumbas
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Fetish
The Year's Best Gear So Far
