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IT fair offers showcase for the weird and wonderful

An Asus employee shows a bamboo-covered laptop at the CeBIT trade fair in Hanover, Germany, on Tuesday. PHOTO: AFP

If swimming goggles with an in-built underwater camera, a bamboo laptop or a pink crocodile PC case is your thing then Germany's CeBIT IT fair is for you.

The world's biggest technology fair opened its doors to the public in Hanover on Tuesday and runs to Sunday, allowing thousands of visitors to check out the hottest and also the weirdest gadgets.

A chilly wind was blowing across the vast exhibition center, but when summer comes Liquid Image thinks its yellow goggles with an in-built digital camera are just the accessory.

Their top of the range model sells for 129 euros (US$196) and has a 5.0 megapixel camera and 16 megabite memory allowing up to 29 photos or 53 seconds of video up to a depth of 30m, the firm says.

Also on show for eyeware was a pair of sunglasses from Chinese firm Xonix not only with an in-built camera but also with an MP3 player, while another from Taiwan's Inter Brands includes music and bluetooth so you can use it as a phone.

But forget the glasses -- in the 21st century you can't be seen toting your laptop around in anything other than a pink, fake crocodile skin case, or so French firm Sweetcover would have you believe.

Their cases, which also come in other more traditional colors and materials including real leather, retail for around 70 euros in Paris boutiques and soon elsewhere, the firm's president Raphael Taieb said.

Not only will you avoid getting hot knees, he says, but the cover's high-tech design, which incorporates 70 different fabrics, ensures the computer will not overheat -- something which other luxury goods makers have failed to achieve with their prototypes, Taieb says.

The cases will protect your laptop and turn it into a "subtle and seductive" piece of hardware, the company says. It has straps to keep the computer in place, is open at the sides and has holes in the back for cables.

Other bling-bling novelties included a Giorgio Armani mobile phone from Samsung and a Lamborghini laptop complete with the sportscar maker's badge and partly made of leather -- yours to take home for 2,999 euros with an aerodynamic mouse with yellow go-faster stripes.

Its maker Asus was also showing off computers made partly out of bamboo -- to give it an eco-friendly style, a salesman at the Taiwanese firm's stand said. It has not yet decided whether to launch them on the market, however.

On the sillier side, Californian firm Ugobe presented a small, robotic dinosaur dubbed Pleo similar to Sony's AIBO robotic dog that has to be looked after and nurtured like a Tamagotchi.

Pleo can be programmed via a USB cable connected to your computer or with a memory card slotted into its underbelly so it can learn new tricks like barking at intruders or performing a leaf tug-of-war with another Pleo or its owner.

The green and brown pet, which retails for around 300 euros in Europe, is babylike when young and coos and purrs with pleasure when tickled under the chin. But it also gets hungry and can have mood swings.
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