Weird Tech Gifts for People Impossible to Buy For
By Robert McMillen, Koin’s Tech Guru
My wife and many other spouses have a really difficult time buying for people like me. I pretty much have all the gadgets I need, so finding something I would want can be tough.
So to help you all out this season I have come up with a list of things that we all can find something to like, and there’s no way we already have it.
For the dog lover in your life you can go to fatbraintoys.com and get a pet’s eye view with the wireless camera that connects to your dog’s collar. For $42 you can see what your dog is doing at all times. It may help you understand what they are thinking when they take a drink from the toilet bowl.
From Brookstone you can buy the ultimate shopper’s tech gift: A voice recognition shopping list computer. It remembers what you bought last trip, and you can tell it what to get on this trip. It will print out the list so you can take it with you. It costs $99.
For $50 from LL Bean you can buy the gamer in your life a solar powered charger for a Sony PSP. I’m not sure how much your gamer will need to play in the sun and away from an outlet, but gamers can be a little weird about when and how they kill zombies.
Toys R Us is now carrying toys for adults, and this is one I would love to have (hint, hint). For $299 you can have a remote controlled car with a built in web cam that streams video to the web that you can view on your computer or your TV set. I see myself battling it out with my dog’s web cam for domination. See the dog’s reactions on both webcams as you move the remote controlled car in a jerking motion towards his favorite dog toy.
You could also use it to drive around your neighborhood in a lazy man’s version of neighborhood watch. Now you never have to leave your couch while you do your shift for the people on your block.
Hammacher and Schlemmer is offering the ability to convert all those old slides and negatives from your family history and put them into digital format. For only $99, you can burn the images to DVD, add music, and send them out as gifts to younger family members who have no idea who these people were. Someday they will care. I promise.
Here’s another cool gift from Hammacher and Schlemmer if you have teenagers or music lovers on your gift list. You will love this very quiet high tech drum set for $60. It’s actually a drum pad with a USB connection. The drummer plays on the soft pads in any combination they want and they can listen to their work using head phones. They can record their riffs and send them off to Def Jam for consideration for the next rap album by that new and upcoming band “Bang Your Head on a Sharp Rock.”
From Uncommon Goods you can buy a pen for just $25 that can write in space! You may not get there for a while but you can buy this space pen that NASA spent millions of tax dollars trying to develop. Don’t mention to your spouse that the Russians got around the space vacuum issue by using a one ruble pencil.
Good luck with your shopping, and let me know if you find anything even more unusual than what is on this list.
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com/
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
My wife and many other spouses have a really difficult time buying for people like me. I pretty much have all the gadgets I need, so finding something I would want can be tough.
So to help you all out this season I have come up with a list of things that we all can find something to like, and there’s no way we already have it.
For the dog lover in your life you can go to fatbraintoys.com and get a pet’s eye view with the wireless camera that connects to your dog’s collar. For $42 you can see what your dog is doing at all times. It may help you understand what they are thinking when they take a drink from the toilet bowl.
From Brookstone you can buy the ultimate shopper’s tech gift: A voice recognition shopping list computer. It remembers what you bought last trip, and you can tell it what to get on this trip. It will print out the list so you can take it with you. It costs $99.
For $50 from LL Bean you can buy the gamer in your life a solar powered charger for a Sony PSP. I’m not sure how much your gamer will need to play in the sun and away from an outlet, but gamers can be a little weird about when and how they kill zombies.
Toys R Us is now carrying toys for adults, and this is one I would love to have (hint, hint). For $299 you can have a remote controlled car with a built in web cam that streams video to the web that you can view on your computer or your TV set. I see myself battling it out with my dog’s web cam for domination. See the dog’s reactions on both webcams as you move the remote controlled car in a jerking motion towards his favorite dog toy.
You could also use it to drive around your neighborhood in a lazy man’s version of neighborhood watch. Now you never have to leave your couch while you do your shift for the people on your block.
Hammacher and Schlemmer is offering the ability to convert all those old slides and negatives from your family history and put them into digital format. For only $99, you can burn the images to DVD, add music, and send them out as gifts to younger family members who have no idea who these people were. Someday they will care. I promise.
Here’s another cool gift from Hammacher and Schlemmer if you have teenagers or music lovers on your gift list. You will love this very quiet high tech drum set for $60. It’s actually a drum pad with a USB connection. The drummer plays on the soft pads in any combination they want and they can listen to their work using head phones. They can record their riffs and send them off to Def Jam for consideration for the next rap album by that new and upcoming band “Bang Your Head on a Sharp Rock.”
From Uncommon Goods you can buy a pen for just $25 that can write in space! You may not get there for a while but you can buy this space pen that NASA spent millions of tax dollars trying to develop. Don’t mention to your spouse that the Russians got around the space vacuum issue by using a one ruble pencil.
Good luck with your shopping, and let me know if you find anything even more unusual than what is on this list.
To buy my latest book “How to be an IT Administrator,” go to http://howtobeanitadministrator.com/
For more great tips, check back here each week and listen to me on the All Tech Radio show at 9:00 Sunday mornings on AM 1360 KUIK and at 10:00 AM on KOL in Seattle, or listen online at http://alltechradio.com.
If you would like your technical question answered here, just email rmcmillen@koin.com. Even if it doesn’t get answered in the column, I will always answer by email.
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