Show the world your inner tech geek and find wireless hot spots at the same time with the Wi-Fi Detector Shirt from ThinkGeek. Designed for people too lazy to open laptops or check handheld detectors to find Wi-Fi, the black T-shirt uses three AAA batteries in a pocket to power a glowing decal resembling a radio tower. Animated bars fluctuate with 802.11b or 802.11g signal strength. www.thinkgeek.com, $29
JUMP-START DC POWER PLUS How many times have you been on the road and needed a flashlight? Or an emergency car battery charger? Or some portable juice for your laptop or cell phone? Jump-Start DC Power Plus has all that. Retailer Sharper Image claims the gadget charges a car battery in minutes — though some users say it won’t work with an old or dead battery, just a newer one that has lost most of its charge. It also comes with a built-in LED flashlight and five universal DC adapter plugs for charging portable devices on the go. The two-pound power stick runs on a rechargeable NiCad battery that’s good for 500 charges. Charge it up by plugging into your car cigarette lighter or a wall outlet. Sharper Image (www.sharperimage.com) other retailers, $39.95.
MOTOROLA BLUETOOTH CELL PHONE CAR KIT Like seat belts, hands-free cell phone car kits aren’t just a good idea — in some states, they’re the law. Numerous manufacturers now sell Bluetooth wireless technology car kits, but Motorola’s T305 seems like a winner — and not just because Motorola pioneered the idea of putting radios in cars. Clip the simple device the size of a garage door opener onto your car’s visor, push a single button, and you can make and answer calls while keeping your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel. It provides up to 14 hours of talk time, 14 days of standby time and comes with a car charger. Various retailers, $40 and up.
TAO ELECTRONICS DIGITAL KEY-CHAIN PHOTOFRAME Now you never have to look like a bad dad or mom for not carrying around photos of your kids. Tao Electronics is one of several companies selling digital photo frames that let you take tiny family photos wherever you go. Tao’s 1.5-inch square photo frames are about the size and weight of a pocket watch. With 8MB of internal memory, they hold up to 31 pictures at a resolution of 128 by 128 pixels. Tao Electronics (www.taoelectronics.com) $49.99
CHARGEPOD The sure sign of a gadget aficionado is the tangled mess of cords and power bricks needed to juice up those cell phones, PDAs, music players and wireless headsets. The Chargepod seeks to bring order to chaos by funneling power from a single cord through a circular base station to up to six devices simultaneously. It’s touted as being compatible with more than 1,000 mobile devices. The downside is paying for the specific adapters. A basic Chargepod costs $50, plus $10 for each adapter, while a starter kit with common adapters runs about $100. At retailers and at www.callpod.com
EYE-FI So your digital camera is stuffed full of precious moments from this season’s (or maybe even last season’s) Halloween and Thanksgiving. Now what? For everyone who has procrastinated over uploading photos to a computer or photo-sharing site, Eye-Fi offers its wireless SD memory card. After an initial setup, the 2-gigabyte card uses a built-in Wi-Fi transmitter to connect from inside your camera to your home wireless network. It automatically sends JPEG-format pictures to a computer or one of 17 photo Web sites, including Shutterfly, Flickr, Snapfish and Facebook. $99 at online retailers including Amazon, Buy.com and Wal-Mart.
TAKETV With all the new ways to zip video wirelessly around the house, the Sansa TakeTV is definitely retro. The device from flash-memory maker SanDisk uses your feet as its network to move video between your computer and TV. Looking and acting like a flash drive, TakeTV plugs into a computer USB port so you can copy over video. You then plug it into a docking station connected to your TV to watch. It also works with Fanfare, a download service SanDisk is testing. A 4-gigabyte TakeTV holds up to 5 hours of video and costs $100, while an 8-gigabyte model costs $150. It’s available at major retailers and www.take.tv.
SEA-DOO SEASCOOTER XL Granted, this is more toy than gadget, but what water-loving geek wouldn’t want one of these? Strap on your waterproof iPod and dive in with the SeaScooter XL. You can travel James Bond-style below the waves at 2 mph. Charge the 12-volt battery for five or six hours and you’ll get an hour of running time. (Just make sure to come up for air.) Amazon.com (www.amazon.com) and other retailers, $149.95.
VUDU There’s no shortage of ways to view movies at home, from DVD rentals to Internet PC downloads and video on demand from cable and satellite services. But the new Vudu set-top box aims to combine the best features of all these options. The black, 4-pound device hooks into a broadband Internet connection and delivers high-quality movies straight to your TV without a computer. Movies from a constantly updated library of more than 5,000 begin playing immediately while downloading. There is no monthly fee. Rentals range from $1 to $4, while permanent downloads cost $5 to $20. Vudu is available for $399 at a handful of retailers and at www.vudu.com.
KINDLE Will Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader revolutionize the book business, reverse falling reading trends and be a holiday hit? The jury’s still out. But as the newest toy on the block, its certainly tempts gadget addicts willing to splurge. Beyond the hype, the Kindle is going where no electronic reader has gone before with a built-in connection to a free nationwide wireless network for buying and downloading books, newspapers, magazines and blogs. Its screen uses electronic ink technology to mimic printed paper. New book releases cost about $10 (or you can get “Moby Dick” for $1.99). $399, available at www.amazon.com/kindle
GARMIN STREETPILOT 7500 This is one of the most advanced — and expensive — GPS systems on the market. With a 7-inch screen and advanced software, it not only shows you the way, but also announces the names of exits, accepts custom “points of interest” like school zones or favorite restaurants, and uses a “dead reckoning” feature to plot your course even if you lose a satellite signal. With optional subscriptions, you can listen to XM satellite radio, check weather and traffic conditions and get traffic alerts. A built-in FM transmitter wirelessly syncs it to your vehicle’s stereo system. Bored? Pull over and plug your DVD player or video game into the back of the device, and enjoy. Garmin Ltd. (www.garmin.com), $1,393.
Source: http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/plugged/entries/2007/11/26/a_gadget_for_every_stocking.html
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