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It looks like Grover from Sesame Street, circa 2050. But this lovable creature is actually iZ, a 9-inch-tall musical toy from Roger Shiffman, one of the original forces behind Furby. Twist iZ's ears to start one of seven different rhythm tracks, then twist them again to add vocals, chirps, and beeps. If you'd rather tweak your own tunes, jack an MP3 player into its back. As songs play through the 2-inch speaker in its tummy, iZ sporadically interjects phrases, bobs its eyes, and farts. Let's see your PBS-inspired stuffed animals do that!
iZ: $40, www.zizzle.com
The French have a word for this G-Shock watch: jolie-laide, or beautiful-ugly. Its hideous facade obscures some gorgeous technology - pretty much everything you'd ever want in a timepiece - including a cell phone-style vibration alarm, a self-setting atomic clock, an ambient-temperature gauge, solar charging, 200-meter water resistance, and, of course, a ruggedized G-Shock shell. It even displays tide tables and moon cycles. Magnifique!
Casio GW-400j: $229, www.dynamism.com
Gain some perspective with the first truly wide-aspect point-and-shoot digicam. Unlike shooters that fake a panoramic view by cutting off the top and bottom of a still, Panasonic's LX1 grabs large frames using a 16:9-ratio CCD imager. This chip, paired with a sharp wide-angle Leica lens, means all 8.4 megapixels show up in the same sweeping widescreen view you're used to seeing in movies and on HDTV. That's broad appeal.
Lumix DMC-LX1: $599, www.panasonic.com
Crisply pressed shirts? Classy. Iron-shaped burn marks? Not so smooth. Stay singe-free with Oliso's new laundry tool. When you release the grip of the Touch&Glide iron, a sensor prompts two heat-resistant plastic stilts to extend, lifting the hot steel plate a half-inch off your garment. To resume ironing, simply grab the handle - and the stilts drop it like it's hot. Now even the absentminded can look good without getting burned.
Touch&Glide: $130, www.oliso.com
Instead of hitting the Golden Arches for your next breakfast sandwich fix, make a break for the Egg & Muffin Toaster. It browns bread, poaches an egg, and heats up a piece of ham, bacon, or sausage - all at once. A microchip coordinates cooking, so regardless of how brown you want your sourdough, everything is done at the same time. If only it could brew coffee and fetch the newspaper….
Egg & Muffin Toaster: $50, www.backtobasicsproducts.com
Even skilled touch typists will have a hard time not looking down when clacking away on this QWERTY. Each key is actually a tiny organic-LED screen capable of displaying different images, animations, or foreign characters (think pictures of rocket launchers for Doom or labeled hot-key commands for Photoshop). The prototype is expected to go into production next year.
Optimus Keyboard: $TBD, www.artlebedev.com
- Brian Lam and Katy Neusteter
iZ
credit Craig Maxwell, styled by KC Blue/Artist Untied
Casio GW-400j
credit Craig Maxwell, styled by KC Blue/Artist Untied
Lumix DMC-LX1
credit Craig Maxwell, styled by KC Blue/Artist Untied
Touch&Glide
credit Craig Maxwell, styled by KC Blue/Artist Untied
"Egg & Muffin Toaster"
"Optimus Keyboard"
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