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MEDIA PLAYER
Theater in the Round
Bang & Olufsen knows it's not hip to be square. Its new entertainment center, the BeoCenter 2, is a polished aluminum ellipse that replaces your boxy old A/V components. Because B&O would never deign to use something as trite as a disc tray, it engineered wings that slide out to reveal the combination CD and DVD player. In place of buttons, touch-sensitive spots on the media hub's smooth surface let you control volume, track selection, and other settings. Or you can (yawn) use the included remote.
BeoCenter 2: $4,100, www.bang-olufsen.com
SPEAKER
Liquid Audio
Freestyle swim to the Strokes or dog-paddle to Snoop at your next pool party. Aquasonic's 135-watt transducer pounds out tunes above and below the waterline. Just attach its 25-foot-long speaker-wire tether, float the unit in the pool, and soak in the sound waves. Waterproof hardware and connections keep the AQ from shorting out as you shizzle your bizzle in the deep.
AQ339: $600, www.clarksynthesis.com
DVD SERVER
Video on Demand
It costs as much as a year's mortgage, but the Kaleidescape DVD server can rip 160 DVDs (expandable to 440) onto its internal drives and then stream them through player modules anywhere in the house. Multiple movies can be screened simultaneously, and details about each DVD - such as the film's genre, director, and plot synopsis - are automatically provided by the company's online database.
Kaleidescape System: $27,000 (additional players $4,000), www.kaleidescape.com
SATELLITE DISH
Auto Download
Wanna leave the office without losing your high-speed access? The Mobile T-1 collapsible satellite dish morphs your car, truck, or SUV into a broadband Internet portal. The 75-pound carbon fiber two-way dish mounts to the roof and provides up to a 500-Kbps uplink/3-Mbps downlink connection almost anywhere (as long as you're parked).
Mobile T-1: $3,995, plus $79 per month service fee, www.thedatabahn.com
EXECUTIVE TOY
News at a Glance
Replace those clacking balls with a real desk accessory. A quick glance at Ambient's Executive Dashboard gives you updates on local traffic, the markets, the temperature outside, and personal data like how many emails are clogging your inbox. Slide your choice of five faceplates into the Dashboard's three slots and a smooth-pivoting analog meter reads the corresponding information feeds. Additional plates, sold for $20 a dozen, track Web visitors, IM status, pollen counts, opinion polls, and more. The data is refreshed every 15 minutes through a nationwide radio network.
Executive Dashboard: $130, www.ambientdevices.com
PC
Pocket XP
Why fiddle with a PDA when you can palm an entire PC? OQO's been promising (and delaying) its ultra personal computer for almost two years, but the company finally proved that the slate isn't just an urban legend by coughing up a working demo unit. The teeny (14-ounce) handheld offers full-size power with a 1-GHz Transmeta Crusoe processor, 256 Mbytes of RAM, a 20-gig hard drive, a 5-inch color display, and 802.11b Wi-Fi, FireWire, and USB 1.1 ports. OQO swears it will materialize out of the vapor this fall.
ultra personal computer: around $2,000, www.oqo.com
PLAY
Paragon City Needs You!
The Secret Diaries of Hellboy
You're With the Band
Kraftwerk's Tour de States
New World Order & A Side of Fries
For an Airtight Alibi, Press 1 Now
In Pursuit of Pallor
Man of Steel
The Blender Files
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Fetish
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