Inspect These Gadgets

The Age

Thursday December 18, 2008

Fran Molloy

Australians are tipped to spend an estimated $6 billion on consumer electronics this year, and there's an unusual, appropriate or just plain odd gadget for everyone on your Christmas list. Fran Molloy avoids the pre-Christmas mall rage, loads up her credit card and shops from the comfort of her lounge room.

CHRISTMAS shopping is usually a painful and expensive exercise - not to mention unhealthy, what with all that time spent raising one's blood pressure in parking queues and bribing the kids with expensive shopping-mall milkshakes.

This year, with Mr Rudd's generous bonus in hand, I've decided to do all my Christmas shopping from the comfort of my ergonomic office chair, with USB headset strapped firmly to my chin, using my wireless keyboard to submit gadget-gift orders online.

WHO Teenage nephews and nieces

WHAT The Shocking Quiz

WHERE latestbuy.com.au/shocking-quiz-game.html

HOW MUCH $50

I'm guessing there's something rather sick about a party game involving electric shocks, although guessing might be a little dangerous with The Shocking Quiz. Four handsets and 600 question cards are supplied. Press the correct response from four possible answers and you score a point, otherwise it's juice time, baby! Not recommended for anyone under 14 years of age, or those suffering from a heart condition, this is bound to be a hit with those hard-to-buy-for teens. Sick, sadistic frame of mind an optional extra.

WHO The under-eights

WHAT The Read-it Again Leapfrog Tag Reading System

WHERE leapfrog.com/tag

HOW MUCH Basic tag and book kit from $99, with extra books starting at about $22

As every parent knows, once your preschooler has decided a particular book is a favourite, you'll be up for a recital several times a day for the next six months - or until you hide it somewhere they would never look (such as their bookshelf). US-based toy company Leapfrog is onto a winner with the Tag Reading System, based on a chunky plastic pen-like stylus, in green or pink, that will read a paper-based book aloud, and never has to do the washing-up first. The Tag stylus contains an infrared camera that scans dot patterns on the books and then reads out the appropriate text to the child. Magic, I told my two-year-old (although it probably really uses an inbuilt MP3-like audio file.) A USB connection allows you to plug the stylus into your PC to track your child's progress, and additional phonics-based activities at the back of the book can be useful to promote reading, although it's less useful if you have the kind of child who just wants to make chicken noises hundreds of times in a row. At least there's a range of books to choose from - 18 have been rolled out with the initial launch, with the promise of more to come. And although aimed at four to eight-year-olds, this would make a great present for stressed-out parents of two to six-year-olds. Just add batteries.

WHO Girls aged five to 15

WHAT The Nabaztag bunny

WHERE dynamism.com/nabaztag.shtml

HOW MUCH $290

Everything's WiFi now, even plastic talking bunnies. Here's one for the late-primary schoolgirl who still loves tacky toys. The Nabaztag (Armenian for "rabbit") is 23cm tall, responds to voice commands and connects to the internet to download material such as weather forecasts and news headlines, and will even read out its owner's email messages. The bunny's ears move, and colours on its belly change to announce new email or other messages. Some owners create podcasts (nicknamed Nabcasts), others matchmake their bunnies, "marrying" two Nabaztags in a bizarre partnership in which each rabbit will copy the other's movements, sounds and lights. Sort of like most 10-year old girls.

WHO Any boy with a pesky sister

WHAT Remote control tarantula

WHERE latestbuy.com.au/remote-control-spider.html

HOW MUCH About $40

What a big-brother instrument of torture! Standing 4.5cm high on its eight furry legs, the remote control tarantula has eyes that glow red, is very hairy and will "creep, stalk and scurry" across any smooth surface. This is truly a horrible, horrible thing, and I know my 13-year-old son would absolutely love it. I'm also quite sure that if he unleashed it on his big sister or me, we would take to it with the nearest heavy blunt object until it was reduced to a bundle of wires and faux spider fur.

WHO Dad

WHAT The Robomow automatic lawnmower

WHERE friendlyrobotics.com.au/robomow

HOW MUCH About $2000

Dads everywhere will jump for joy after unwrapping the Robomow, a programmable lawnmower that plugs itself into the wall to charge, then - at a pre-set time and day - dutifully takes off to mow your lawn from side to side, covering the whole yard and cutting the grass from several angles. It's a mulching mower, so there's no need to empty the catcher; the grass is cut into tiny clippings and buried in the roots of the lawn, where it hopefully will decompose and act like a natural fertiliser. Be warned, though: one robotic lawnmower model has been recalled by US authorities after one dimwitted owner lifted the mower while it was going about its business - and, unsurprisingly, suffered "minor lacerations from the moving blade".

WHO Grandma

WHAT The Sun Jar

WHERE latestbuy.com.au/sun-jar-light-gizmo.html

HOW MUCH $70

There's nothing nicer than giving your nan something that makes her go "ahhhhh". The Sun Jar looks like an ordinary biscuit jar, but it "stores" sunlight. Sit it on a windowsill during the day, and when it gets dark, the jar gives off a warm, orange glow.

WHO Grandad

WHAT Wireless weather station

WHERE oregonscientific.com.au

HOW MUCH $200 (for the BAR916HG model)

Whether your pop is a gardener, a fisherman, a bowler or a handyman, he's bound to be keen on spending much of his time outdoors. With this little beauty installed, he can follow his weather map and make predictions for the next few days. The weather station includes an outdoor sensor box that collects information such as temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and even gives a UV index figure. The info is wirelessly transmitted indoors to a little display panel that shows the indoor/outdoor temperature and humidity, current and recent barometric pressure, even the date and time in more than 120 cities. Now all he needs is a brolly!

WHO The new mother-to-be

WHAT The BabyPlus Prenatal Education System

WHERE babyplus.com

HOW MUCH About $199

Expectant first-time parents are often disinterested in anything but their growing bump. With that in mind, here's a gift bound to please, as it's all about boosting baby's brain power. The BabyPlus Prenatal Education System is a strap-on sound device that plays a series of increasingly complex sounds that mimic the maternal heartbeat, aiming to enhance early brain development. A series of 16 "lessons", stored on a lightweight flash memory card, are played to the Bump from between 18 to 32 weeks of pregnancy to birth.

WHO The competitive photographer

WHAT The biggest telephoto lens in the world

WHERE tinyurl.com/telelens

HOW MUCH Unknown

If your nearest and dearest is given to poring over camera catalogues in search of the next critical accessory, you've probably despaired of ever satisfying him. Now's your chance. Ask any photography widow: big lenses give photographers (amateur or pro) lots of cred - the bigger the better. With the Carl Zeiss STL Sonnar T 4/1700 Supertele Lens, your beloved won't be one-upped for quite a while. The prototype of the world's largest telephoto lens was designed to fit a medium-format Hasselblad 203 FE camera. Weighing in at a hefty 256kg, the lens has 21x magnification, a 1700mm focal length and a minimum aperture of f/4. No word on the price, but if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it.

WHO The dorky mail-room guy

WHAT The alien doormat

WHERE tinyurl.com/22smac

HOW MUCH $167

This strangely named doormat features a flat LED panel embedded in a black, industrial-grade, rubberised-plastic doormat, displaying the marching pixelated green aliens familiar to Space Invaders fans. It's useful for warning unsuspecting door-to-door religion merchants that you're more likely to worship Mr Spock than any deity they're pedalling. But the jury is out on whether this nifty gadget offers protection against alien abductions or is more likely to welcome those visitors from another galaxy looking for a suitable vivisection subject.

WHO The cranky old guy at the shops

WHAT The sonic teen deterrent

WHERE compoundsecurity.co.uk/teenage_control_products.html

HOW MUCH About $1400

Here's a gadget to warm the hearts of the grumpy brigade. Tired of gangs of pimply youths hanging around outside the local shop and blocking the footpath, Welsh inventor and cranky old party-pooper Howard Stapleton came up with the Mosquito, a device that sends out a high-frequency sound that can be heard within a range of about 15 to 20 metres by most people under 20 and hardly anyone over 30. Its pulsing tone, broadcast at 75 decibels, is designed to irritate young people so much that they move away from the area after a few minutes. Unfortunately, the Mosquito's effectiveness might be limited - studies have shown that as a result of listening to personal stereos at extreme volumes, some 18-year-olds have hearing loss equivalent to that of the average 60-year-old.

WHO The Gen Y fitness freak

WHAT The Nike iPod

WHERE apple.com/ipod/nike/sync.html

HOW MUCH Nike Air Zoom Moire shoes, about $200; with sensor kit, $50

Nike has joined Apple to produce a shoe range for your ears. You can connect to an iPod via a wireless in-shoe sensor that fits a pocket under the sport's shoe insole, and get a receiver for your iPod Nano that tracks your times, distances, pace and calories burned for later upload to the net. Why not create a bar graph? Activate real-time spoken feedback for a GPS-like presence outside your car ("Turn right now! Feel the burn!"), or even challenge other runners to a virtual race.

© 2008 The Age

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