Objects of Desire 3
You know that you want them, but now e-shopping has made it
almost TOO easy to get them. Phil South
sympathises, but doesn't entirely help matters...
 24
Hour Junk Food
Ever wanted a Big Mac at 4am in the morning? Do you have a Twinkie habit
you picked up in the US but can't get any in Europe? Ever wondered what
the secret ingredient in KFC chicken is? Now you can make all your own
junk food classics in your own kitchen with this great book. Mmmm.
Top Secret Recipes
www.topsecretrecipes.com
  DIY
Gameboy
I don't know about you, but I've always had a bit of a yen for making
my own Game Boy games. If you look into it, you discover it's actually not
as hard as you would think. Certainly one development system is free on
the Web, but then you face the problem of how to get your games into a GameBoy
rather than an emulator. Easily solved. The Bung GBXchanger lets you burn
.gb files onto special writeable GameBoy cartridges. Great fun, and each
"blank" cart comes with about 16 games from the recent Bung
Enterprises Game Writing competition. Check the Web site for dealers in
your country.
GBXchanger (110 EUR)
www.bung.com.hk
 Go Girl!
And boys too, can get around in style on the motorised Go-Ped.
The original California Go-Ped has been popular in the US since 1985. The
scooter weighs in at 20lb plus it has a direct drive 1.2 horsepower engine
and has apparently the "greatest power to weight ratio of any transportation device in the
world".
Go-Ped (750 EUR)
www.goped.com
 Dog
Ruff
So you want your own dog, but the landlord won't allow pets. Why not
get a robot dog? Sound a bit like something out of the Jetsons? Yes of
course it does, but this is real life. The Sony Aibo is a robot dog which
responds to voice commands and has a series of behaviours either
pre-programmed or downloaded via a computer. AIBO stands for Artificial Intelligence
roBOt,
and also the word AIBO in Japanese means 'companion'.
Sony Aibo (4,000 EUR)
www.aibo-europe.com
 Interactive
Gremlins
If you liked the movie Gremlins you will be surprised and amazed that
you can get a Gizmo flavour Furby from Tiger Electronics. It is
interactive like a regular Furby, but it uses the voice from the movies.
Gizmo (60 EUR)
www.tigertoys.com
 Pocket
Film Studio (part 4)
The MD-Discam is the latest in a long line of innovative camcorders
from Sony. The difference with this one is that it uses a MiniDisc rather
than a tape and it allows you to take 20 minutes of high quality video per
disc. Like the audio version of MiniDisc you can delete, edit and
re-sequence shots on the fly, and if you don't mind a drop in quality you
can shoot more footage. The bad news is that, as yet, this is a Japan-only
item but it should be winging its way to Europe pretty soon.
Sony MD-Discam (4,000 EUR)
www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/mddiscam/
 Where
am I?
It's one of those things. If you run out of new ways to package a
product, put it on your wrist. Casio has come around to this idea bigtime,
obviously because it has the capability to make wristwatches in bulk.
However, many manufacturers are following suit and putting cameras, MP3
players, universal remote control units and mobile phones in a form that
can be strapped to a wrist. Casio has taken this up a level. The GPS
Pathfinder packs powerful GPS navigation capabilities into an
ultra-compact wristwatch. Oh and it also tells the time.
Casio GPS (tba)
www.casio.com/timepieces
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