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Stargazer
Once upon a time, we navigated the oceans using the stars; today, many of us are hard-pressed to find the Big Dipper. Enter SkyScout, a handheld scope and celestial encyclopedia. Aim it at any heavenly body, and the GPS receiver and three-axis position sensor identify stars, planets, and constellations by voice or text. Now there's no excuse for confusing Orion's belt with Capricorn's horn.
SkyScout: $399, www.celestron.com
Firewater
To stoke the flames in this haute hearth, just add water. Seriously. Heat & Glo's 5-foot-tall fireplace runs on H20 and the juice from a wall socket. The indoor-only unit separates tap water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, then burns the hydrogen in its copper and steel base. The only drawbacks: No sound or smell of burning oak on wintry nights - and a huge hole in your wallet.
Aqueon: $49,999, www.heatnglo.com
Dial-a-Hit
When the Walkman appeared back in 1979, who would have imagined that its 21st-century incarnation would be a phone? Sony's latest surfs high-speed EDGE data networks and packs a 2-megapixel cam and 512 megs of MP3 storage. Add a set of MDS-60 speakers ($50) to transform it into a makeshift-stereo. Not bad for a mobile that's smaller than a cassette tape. Remember those?
W810 Walkman Phone: $TBD, www.sonyericsson.com
Thin Is In
Looking for a stylish, compact rig that's not an iMac? Alienware crams a 17-inch monitor, speakers, VGA webcam, and Intel's speedy new Core Duo chip running Windows Media Center into a single box. A Wi-Fi card and wireless keyboard mean the only cable snaking out of this machine is a power cord. It might not run OS X, but it comes in oh-so-slimming black.
Area-51 5400: $1,999, www.alienware.com
Sweet Streams
Getting out of bed in the morning is hard, but waking up to cheezy programming is sheer torture. This alarm clock lets you rise and shine to a stream of MP3s from your PC via Wi-Fi. It can also grab Internet radio, tunes from an SD memory card, or good old over-the-air AM-FM. All that's missing is a digital shot of espresso.
SoundBridge Radio: $400, www.rokulabs.com
Shiny Bottle
Put a new twist on your water bottle with this cap from Guyot. It contains seven white LEDs that turn your vessel into a lamp as pretty as a mason jar filled with fireflies. Three AAA batteries-provide 25 hours of power, and you can adjust the intensity from romantic mood-lighting to blazing forest fire.
Firefly: $15, www.guyotdesigns.com
- Brian Lam
credit Robyn Twomey
SkyScout
Aqueon
credit Robyn Twomey
W810 Walkman Phone
credit Robyn Twomey
Area-51 5400
credit Robyn Twomey
SoundBridge radio
credit Robyn Twomey
Firefly
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