Top 10 Geek Gifts for the 2009 Holiday Season
Greetings everybody!
It is that time of year again, with a little over a month left before Christmas, it is time to start figuring out what you are going to buy! The big question is what are you going to get that geek in your life? I have compiled another list again this year of great geek gifts to get that geek in your life assuming they don't already have them. Here we go!
#10. Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt
Are you so good at Rock Band and Guitar Hero that you want to take your act on the road? You can do something like that with this awesome electronic rock guitar shirt. With this shirt, you can let everybody enjoy your awesome guitar skills! The shirt comes with a mini-amp that you can clip on your belt that will allow you to tweak your sound and crank up the music so that you make sure that everybody can hear you. ThinkGeek is selling this awesome shirt for $29.99.
Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt
#9. Kill-A-Watt Graphic Timer
Are you or your loved one concerned about the safety of your electronic devices and just how much energy you are using? If so, than this Kill-A-Watt Graphic Timer is for you. Not only will it protect you from voltage spikes, but it will also protect your precious appliances and gadgets from over current, over voltage and even under voltage. This device will not only let you measure your power usage down to the minute, but you can program it to function at different times for up to 7 days. There are a number of other features, but if you are looking to track your energy usage to help cut down on your electric bill or just want to protect your appliances and gadgets, you should definitely check out the Kill-A-Watt Graphic Timer from ThinkGeek at the reasonable price of $69.99. If you can use it to save on electricity or protect your appliances, this wonderful meter could easily pay for itself over time.
Kill-A-Watt Graphic Timer
#8. The Laptopper Portable Shelf
Have you ever been sitting in your car outside of a coffee shop using their wifi? Kind of uncomfortable isn't it? Well now you have a place to comfortably set your laptop while you are surfing the net. This portable shelf will slip on your steering wheel or even over a headrest to give you a place to set any laptop 17" and smaller as well as whatever other gadgets you may be using. Whether you just want to watch a movie or participating in a wardriving competition, at $14.99, the Laptopper Portable Shelf from ThinkGeek is great for anybody!
The Laptopper Portable Shelf
#7. Rovio - WiFi Roaming Bot
O Rovio, Rovio, where for art thou Rovio? Are you looking to keep an eye on your home while you are away on vacation or just want to check up on that new babysitter? If so, the wifi connected Rovio is just for you! This cool little robot is equipped with a webcam, microphone and speakers. You can control Rovio manually or set up way-points to monitor your house. Rovio can be controlled from any internet connection around the world. What is really impressive is that you can control it with a PC, Mac, an iPhone and even your PS3! The Rovio also has built in LEDs to light its way in poorly lit areas. At $229.99 from ThinkGeek, Rovio seems reasonably priced, especially considering the fact that it has a base station it returns to for charging similar to the Roomba.
Rovio - WiFi Roaming Bot
#6. Grab-It Pack Gadget Holster
I don't know about you, but I am always looking for ways to carry more gadgets with me. I have been made fun of on numerous occasions for having my pockets so stuffed full of stuff that you would suspect I just robbed an electronics store. Now you can carry more items and get more strange looks than ever before with the Grab-It Pack Gadget Holster! Strap this around your waist and legs and you will turn a lot of heads when people see just how many gadgets you can carry! ThinkGeek sells the Grab-It Pack Gadget Holster for $24.99.
Grab-It Gadget Holster
#5. Scottevest Quantum Jacket
Maybe the Grab-It Gadget Holder isn't quite your style or maybe it doesn't have enough pockets to put stuff in, so why not try Scottevest's Quantum Jacket! Not only does this jacket look far less goofy, but it is also breathable and water resistant! Did we mention this jacket has an amazing 28 pockets?! Just think how many gadgets you can carry with you from phones to mp3 players to portable gaming devices when you have 28 pockets to store them in? Just think how much fun you could have have going through airport security when you have to empty out 28 pockets! Don't forget, this jacket has their patented Personal Area Network (PAN) to manage your earbud wires! If you head over to Scottevest, you can get this jacket for $250, but can you really put a price on carrying 28 pockets worth of gadgets while staying warm and looking good all at the same time?
Scottevest's Quantum Jacket
#4. Mini 300Mbps Wireless N Travel Router
Have you ever wanted to say that you are the proud owner of the world's smallest wireless N router? Now you can! This tiny wireless N router from TRENDnet will make sure you can transfer data across your wireless enabled devices quickly and easily. A product like this is great if you are stuck in a hotel with crappy wifi that you can only get if you are standing on the toilet with your arm stretched out like a fountain. Just fire this up where you can get the signal and you instantly have a good enough signal that you can get anywhere in the hotel room. For $79.99 from ThinkGeek, the TRENDnet Mini 300Mbps Wireless N Travel Router might just be the best router for the road warrior in your life.
TRENDnet Mini 300Mbps Wireless N Travel Router
#3. Ironkey Military Strength Flash Drives
How important is the security of the files you move around? Do you carry your financial documents on a thumb drive so you can have access to them anywhere? What about confidential plans from work? Now you can rest easy because with an Ironkey USB drive because you won't have to worry about your data falling into the wrong hands again! With hardware encryption, the tough looking Ironkey can stand strong against both virtual and physical attacks. These drives have so much encryption and security on them thanks to a built-in encryption chip, even the military is using them in Afghanistan! The only way to access the information on the drive is with the password and if somebody tries to hack into it and enters the wrong password 10 times, the encryption chip self destructs and makes the drive useless and nobody will ever be able to get your data. If security is what really matters to you, you can't go wrong with an Ironkey Military Strength Flash Drive. ThinkGeek sells a 1GB model for $69.99 and a 4GB model for $139.99. Although they aren't cheap, you should ask yourself just how much your data is worth.
Ironkey USB drive
#2. Motorola Droid
My, how far we have come in a year. Last year's list included T-Mobile's G1 Android phone and this year, we have a vastly improved Motorola phone by the name of Droid for Verizon customers. With a 5-megapixel camera, turn by turn directions, a physical and virtual keyboard as well as turn by turn directions just to name a few of the features, many are calling this an iPhone killer or at least as good as the iPhone. With over 10,000 applications available on the Android Marketplace, now is a great time to be looking into getting the Droid on what many consider to be the best wireless network in the US. If you are in the market for a new phone and don't want to suffer the hell of the AT&T network just to have something as nice as an iPhone, check out the Motorola Droid which you can get from LetsTalk.com for $150.
Motorola Droid
#1. Mimo Mini USB Monitor
Not a day goes by that I think to myself, "Gee, I could be much more productive if I had room for a second monitor." Now I can and I won't need a new desk and power strip to get it! Any of the Mimo mini USB monitors might give you just the extra amount of screen you need to be extra productive without taking up as much room on your desk as a full sized monitor. These monitors are powered by a USB cable so you don't have to worry about trying to get a bigger power strip to plug a second monitor into or a new graphics card that can support a second monitor. Now you can keep email or whatever you want open on a smaller, secondary monitor while you work on your main screen so you can see when you get that important email you have been waiting for. Did I mention there is a touchscreen model? If you are into the touchscreen movement and want a monitor you can physically interact with, for a little higher price, you can have just that! You might have a hard time putting a price on productivity, but ThinkGeek managed put put a price on it, and depending on which of the three models you get, the Mimo Mini USB Monitor will cost you between $129.99-229.99.
Mimo Mini USB Monitor
Did we miss something? What geek items are on your Christmas list?
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Amazon’s VOD success depends on distribution deals
Greetings Readers!
The streaming video market has become rather crowded in the last couple of years with services like Hulu and YouTube, but the video service with the most potential is Amazon's VOD service.
Amazon's VOD (Video On Demand) service has been around for a while and has a huge library of tv shows and movies including some of the newest releases yet it has never gained much traction in a world dominated by Netflix. If Amazon hopes to really compete in this market, it needs to do more than advertise its service (which it doesn't do a very good job at anyway). Amazon needs to through its weight behind the service and make sure that everybody is aware of it and it is accessible as possible. How can they make it accessible? Amazon needs more distribution deals with hardware manufactures.
Amazon currently has deals which allow its service to be accessed on Roku boxes, Panasonic Blu-ray players, TiVo DVRs and Sony Bravia TVs, but they have to do much better than that. Amazon needs to push for a deal with every TV manufacture instead of just Sony and their Bravia line. With many people upgrading to new and better TVs after the DTV transition to take advantage of the new HD content, there is a huge opportunity for Amazon if they work to put themselves on all internet connected TVs. Same thing with Blu-ray players, Blu-ray is starting to gain traction and Amazon needs to do its best to get on more than just Panasonic players if it wants to get in on the ground floor before the mass exodus from DVD to Blu-ray begins. As far as TiVo goes, that is a great move for them but they should also work towards being on the DVRs offered by cable and satellite providers.
Amazon has the huge opportunity to grab a huge chunk of the streaming video market if they are willing to do what is necessary to put their service in front of as many people as possible. They have started moving in this direction, but so as Netflix and others, so if they want to put themselves in a dominant position, they must act now!
Finally, I think they need to go mobile with their video on demand service. Apps for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and such should be coming too. Many people like to watch videos on their phones, so if you have a way to stream videos to a phone, even if it is over wifi, you are ahead of the competition.
The competition in this space is in its very early stages and Amazon is on the position of either being left behind or taking the lead. The potential for profit is there, will they strike before its too late?
For Android to thrive, Google must do more
For months, I have been toying around with the Android SDK. There are a number of reasons that I have decided to being creating Android applications that range from the potential money I could make to the fact that it is an open source OS and I don't have the money or time to invest in a Mac and learning Obj-C just so I can make iPhone apps. Along the way, I have come to realize just why android isn't an iPhone killer or at least not at this stage in the game and that reason is Google.
I will admit that for the most part, I am a big Google fan (not a fanboy), I believe that they aren't doing what they could be to really help their products, specifically, Android. As I am sure you are aware by this point, Android is Google's mobile operating system. While it certainly has its its drawbacks, I am sticking to my belief that in the end, it will wipe the floor with the iPhone OS primarily because it is open and designed to work on many different phones. There are supposed to be at least 20 android phones available by the end of this year alone (the main reason I think it will eventually beat the iPhone). Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle to achieving this goal is android's creators, Google.
There are a couple of big obstacles that Google is creating that aren't making things better for them. The main obstacle is applications. There are some amazing applications for android that are far and above many iPhone applications but there is a big problem, there aren't very many of them. Last I heard, the iPhone had over 50,000 apps and growing rapidly. How many apps does Android have? The last I heard was around 5000. Unfortunately, I believe that is Google's fault. Why is that Google's fault? One word: documentation.
In my months of playing with the Android SDK, I have discovered the documentation in many places are terrible! In many places, there are examples using code that has long since been removed from the SDK, other lines of code that just don't work and even some that are not necessary. This is especially true if you want to do anything with multimedia. Want to record audio? You are in for many hours of headaches if you are going by the examples in the android dev guide (trust me on this). The bottom line is that if Google expects to have more applications and be a real competitor for the iPhone, it needs to do all it can for developers and that includes keeping documentation up to date.
The one other big issues I have is with advertising. It wasn't until recently that Google finally announced the ability to put ads in mobile applications and even that is reserved for a select few that meet the various requirements including 100,000 impressions. Having such a small group of people able to take advantage of it is bad, especially for those that want ad supported applications so they can give away their applications. Free applications attract far more customers than paid ones, but developers still need to make money for their time and effort. Without advertising, this won't happen like it should. Considering the fact that Google is in the ad business, you would think that they would have had this out and ready to go the second android launched. Clearly, Google lacks focus and dedication to Android.
If Google became truly focused and dedicated to Android, I think that within a year, it could be ahead of the iPhone, but until that happens, the only advantage they have is the ability to put their OS on many phones. Wake up Google!
Top 10 Geek Gifts for the 2008 Holiday Season
Greetings Readers!
Its almost that time of year again, when geeks either get the cool gadgets that they have been wanting thanks to holiday sales or are given the gifts they have been wanting by people that love them. Whether you are looking for some great gadgets to get for yourself or that lovable geek in your life, I have compiled a list of some of the top geek gifts for the 2008 holiday season.
#10. 26-piece PC Repair Tool Kit
What true Geek doesn't need a good repair tool kit? Whether they are making some amazing case mods or just replacing a dead hard drive, a Geek needs his tools! ThinkGeek has a great 26-piece PC repair tool kit for just $21.99!
26-Piece PC Repair Tool Kit from ThinkGeek
#9: Circuit Board Necklace
Geeks often like to show off just how geeky they really are, and what better way to do that than with a circuit board necklace? You may not want to spend the money on a fancy necklace made of all kinds of precious metals and stones, but you can still look good and show everybody just how geeky you are at the same time with a circuit board necklace from ThinkGeek. For only $19.99, you can make a fashion statement and have a great conversation piece!
Circuit Board Necklace from ThinkGeek
#8. Shut up and Reboot T-Shirt
Every geek that has ever played the roll of tech support to anybody before is guaranteed to have said "Just shut up and reboot" at least a million times. Now you can just tell people to read your t-shirt! This shirt, also from ThinkGeek, will allow you or the geek in your life to wear some of the best tech support advice ever, all for between $14.99-16.99 (depending on the size of shirt).
Just Shut Up and Reboot T-Shirt from ThinkGeek
#7. 2GB Secret Pen-Shaped Pocket Spy Camera Digital Video Recorder
Geeks are often looking for new ways to capture information and store it without bringing attention to themselves (except when they like to boast about how many Terabytes their computers and servers store). This pen is great for doing just that. This 2GB pen-shaped digital video recorder can hold up to 5 hours of video and uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that lasts close to 100 min. Whether you are looking for a way to capture embarrassing moments for the company Christmas party or capture some blackmail material against that boss that refuses to give you a raise, for $67.66, you can own this 2GB spy camera pen that wields great power to those who know about its capabilities.
2GB Secret Pen-Shaped Pocket Spy Camera Digital Video Recorder from Blueplugged.com
#6. NeatDesk
While not all Geeks are messy (I will admit that I am very messy), it is always a good idea to keep all of your contacts and financial information organized. NeatDesk helps you accomplish this task. NeatDest can scan business cards, receipts and documents all in one batch. With NeatDesk, you no longer have to scan in all your items separately on a flatbed scanner. NeatDesk also comes with software that helps you identify, extract and organize scanned information. You can purchase this organizational wonder from Neat, makers of NeatDesk for $499.95.
NeatDesk
#5. T-Mobile G1 Android Phone
The iPhone might be the sexiest phone of all time, but it can't compare in openness to the new Android based G1 phone ("The Google Phone"). Any geek that appreciates an open platform will love the new G1. Open systems such as Android are a geeks dream. Not only can you make your own applications for the G1, but you can hack the operating system till your heat's content. It is also a cheap alternative to Apple's iPhone. You can purchase the phone from T-Mobile, but rumor has it that Walmart has the phone considerably cheaper although the price isn't listed on their website.
T-Mobile G1 Android Phone
#4. Acer Aspire One Netbook
Netbooks have become wildly popular this year and few match Acer's Aspire One in price or performance. Although there are several models of the Aspire One which have different hard drives, batteries, operating systems and various other differences, the best deal is the Aspire One with XP, 160GB hard drive, 1GB RAM and a six-cell battery. The screen comes in at a compact but nice 8.9" and it has a larger, more comfortable keyboard than some of the competing netbooks. Whether you or your beloved geek is looking to browse the Internet or do some coding on the go, the Aspire One is a great alternative to getting a full sized laptop, especially for road warriors. You can pick up this wonderful device for $399.00 plus free shipping from Amazon. It also comes in several colors!
Acer Aspire One at Amazon.com
#3. iRex iLiad
If you or the geek in your life has been looking into moving from traditional books to an e-reader, the iRex iLiad is a great alternative to Amazon's Kindle. Although it is a considerably more expensive alternative ($699), it has the added features to make up for it. One of the biggest features that this new e-reader boasts is the ability to write on it like you would normal paper. This feature allows you to make notes, annotate documents which you can transfer to other iLiad devices or a PC and even play games like crossword puzzles and Sudoku! The iLiad can hold dozens of books, documents and even digital subscriptions to international newspapers! If that isn't enough, you can quickly increase the storage with a Compact Flash card or even a USB stick. The one drawback that it has compared to the Kindle is that instead of having a cell connection that you can download new content anywhere, you are restricted to Wi-Fi or USB to transfer content. I don't see this as a big deal since most people will load up on books before they leave the house anyway.
The iRex iLiad e-book reader
#2: Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote
Are you tired of trying to track down the remote for each device in your house. If you are like me, you likely have a remote for each TV in your house, DVD player, Blu-ray player, HD-DVD player, gaming console, stereo and other devices, plus a few remotes that you don't remember what they are for. The Logitech Harmony One helps you cut down on all of the remote clutter by allowing you to have a single remove for everything. The Harmony One is able to replace the remotes of over 225,000 devices while still maintaining all the functionality of the original remote. The Harmony One even has a color touch screen! The Logitech Harmony runs $249.99. If you think that is too much to replace just a couple of remotes, you can get the lower-end Harmony 510 universal remote for $99.99.
Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote
#1. Vuzix iWear AV310 Widescreen
Having a screen that you could attach to your face so you can watch videos easily at any time has long been a dream of most geeks (although some just dream of looking like LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation). The Vuzix iWear AV310 widescreen wearable display will help you do just that! This unit's display appears like a 52" widescreen display viewed from 9 feet. The unit is compatible with any device with a composite out connection as well as most iPods, portable DVD players, game consoles, and much more! With independent focus adjustments and high quality stereo earphones, the iWear AV310 gives the user an engrossing entertainment experience. The unit runs off of a single AA battery which can last for up to 11 hours. Personally I find this as a drawback as I long ago gave up disposable batteries, but you can probably use the rechargeable AA batteries just fine. You can pick up this visual wonder from Vuzix for $249.95.
Vuzix iWear AV310 Widescreen
These gifts are sure to light up any geek's face this holiday season. If you have any suggestions for other items that geeks might like this holiday season, tell us about them in the comments!
-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray
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