A CHILDREN'S CAMERA THAT LETS PIGLET SAY 'CHEESE'
The Disney Pix Max from Digital Blue is designed for the child who is longing for a real digital camera. Its most fun feature is the ability to superimpose Disney characters over the picture in your viewfinder in real time. If you want to have Piglet smiling at your dog, you press a magic wand button and line up the picture so Piglet is posed right where you want him.
Underneath the mouse-ear decor is a basic 3-megapixel camera with 32 megabytes of internal storage. There is also a slot for SD and MMC memory cards so you can increase this to two gigabytes. Memory cards and the two required AA batteries are not included in the price. Other essential features include an auto flash, a 1.5-inch color screen, an optical viewfinder and a 4x digital zoom.
Pictures taken with the Pix Max can be exported using the included cables. The Windows-only editing package lets you further Disneyfy your photos additional clip art.
THE ALARM CLOCK AS A MOVING TARGET — CATCH IT IF YOU CAN
If a screeching buzzer is not enough to get you moving in the morning, consider Clocky.
This alarm clock doesn't just make noise, it breaks the snooze-button habit: after the first snooze period, Clocky rolls off the nightstand and runs away.
Clocky generated Internet buzz in 2005 when it was just a conceptual design project by Gauri Nanda, then a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is now an actual product, available for US$50 at www.nandahome.com.
The clock can survive a two-foot drop and the alarm beeps randomly, ensuring that its frantic squalling won't be easily forgotten. It comes in white, light blue and light green.
The snooze time can be set from zero to nine minutes. When it's set to zero, Clocky skips the grace period and immediately starts rolling around, ensuring no rest for the weary.
Nanda's original Clocky had an odd shaggy cover, and a similar version will be available soon.
While this clock can survive small bumps and falls, it is not guaranteed to withstand an assault by someone who has had to drag it out from under the bed.
TOSHIBA'S DYNAMIC LAPTOP DUO
The Toshiba Satellite A135-S4499 has a fairly forgettable name but promises to remember everything you throw at it. This laptop is one of the first entry-level notebooks with two hard drives for extra storage or automatic backup.
The laptop has 2 gigabytes of memory and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 1.66 gigahertz. The two 120GB hard drives can be configured in three ways: they can be used separately; both can be chained together to create one large drive; or one can be used to back up the other.
The 15.4-inch screen has a resolution of 1,280 by 800 pixels and includes a Mobile Intel graphics chipset along with a DVD writer, four USB ports, a FireWire port and a microphone. The laptop runs Windows Vista Ultimate — the most advanced version of Microsoft's new operating system — and has a five-in-one media card adapter.
If 240 gigabytes of hard drive space sounds like too much to carry around, remember that just a few years ago a 40-megabyte hard drive was a monster.
HEY, GEORGE, WHAT SONG DO YOU HAVE PLAYING ON MY IPOD?
Perhaps Chestnut Hill Sound ran out of more generic names and is kicking off a new product line honoring our nation's presidents. Whatever the reason, the company's new iPod dock is called George.
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