I have to confess I'm a big fan of those shops where products are so awful that the only way to sell them is through television, via out-of-work actors who are paid to look life-alteringly excited by the product, and some grave-sounding fellow who is wheeled on to offer you a free flyswatter if you place your order in the next five minutes. Inspired by such products, let me share with you some of my ideas for last-minute presents from the gadget corner. I should stress I haven't had the chance to test run any of these, so consider this sentence a legal disclaimer should you have any unpleasant experiences using these implements. Not sure you entirely trust your spouse/colleague/offspring? May I suggest The Truster, a Korean-made gadget that promises to measure how much truth you're being told, as well as people's stress levels. (You can hook it up to a mobile phone). Start telling tall tales and the liquid crystal display shows varying degrees of an apple in decay. Tell a whopper and all you see is asmug-looking worm. As for stress, the LCD displays a cooking pot in nine stages of boiling over. Of course, this is not a serious industrial strength lie detector but its makers, 911 Co. (www.911.co.kr/Truster/en-index.htm) reckon it has widespread uses, from measuring your stress prior to an interview to checking on the status of an opponent. (It doesn't clarify whether you're playing poker at the time or about to engage in business.) Price: about $50, insurance against angry marital exchanges is extra. Irobot Inc.
(www.irobot.com/ir/index.htm) offers to take the paranoia a stage further with what looks a bit like a metallic dog on wheels. Hook the pooch up to the Internet and it will race around the house relaying video and audio, enabling you, the US company suggests, to monitor everyone in or around your home from elderly family members to contractors hammering away in the bathroom. It actually looks quite smart, although the blurb leaves you wondering just how you could justify the $6,000 price tag. My suggestion: Buy a Lego Robotics kit for less than one-10th of that (www.lego.com), lock yourself in the house through Christmas and build one yourself. More importantly, there are people out there striving to overcome those knotty problems of modern living, such as that nagging desire to roll up your computer keyboard and put it in your pocket.
The thinking, it seems, is this: Full-sized computer keyboards are too bulky to carry around, but you kind of miss them when you're scratching away at a personal digital assistant with your stylus, or squashing your fingers onto a laptop keyboard in coach class. Britain's ElectroTextiles Co. offers as a solution soft&Qwerty, a full-sized keyboard made from a mysterious "ElecTex" fabric that can hook up to your PDA or handphone. ElectroTextiles (www.electrotextiles.com) also offers a mobile phone made of the same material that you can bend and squidge as necessary, (depending on who you're talking to, I suppose.) Another bendy keyboard is available from Korea RAS Ltd. (www.goodmorningshop.com) which comes in a charming choice of chartreuse or orange, and will hook up to your laptop or computer. The promotional pictures show the keyboard swimming past a coral reef, or more worryingly, on the beach, alongside a laptop that is getting too wet for comfort. Cost: $350; bring your own snorkel. If you're still stuckfor presents, check out The Gadgeteer (www.thegadgeteer.com), an excellent starting point for ideas and reviews. Aside from stuff mentioned here, it can offer you advice about how best to wear your Palm Pilot, exhaustive comparative analysis of Palm PDAs and Windows-driven Pocket PCs, and commentary on a charming new range of pink Melanie Griffith Palm pouches.
(The Asian Wall Street Journal)
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
