Hasta La Gadget!

Friends, the moments are ticking away and it won’t be long at all before your tranquil living rooms turn into wrapping paper-strewn war zones. What’s that? You haven’t done your shopping yet?

Well, we’ve decided to take a quick break from our more thematic gift guides and give you the straight dope on the gadgets and gifts that just make our lives a little better. Read on for a glimpse of what really tickles our fancies, warms our cockles, and drains our bank accounts.

John Biggs:

Time-it T-Block Full Black Watch

$190

Nerdy watches are my kind of thing and the Time-it T-Block is the nerdiest. At less than $200 it’s a great looking watch with a nice retro-Information Society feel. The watch shows the time by lighting up a series of bright red LEDs and the case and band make one fluid whole. If you’re dressing like Neo at all this year, this is probably the watch for you. It also comes with a blue and yellow band, but I think black is best.

Udoo Raspberry Pi/Arduino Mashup

$99

Shopping for a tinkerer? The Udoo Raspberry Pi/Arduino board is just right. It runs its own version of Linux and can directly control a set of dedicated digital and analog I/O ports. It’s a great experimental platform and allows you to add some very cool real-world interactivity to your Raspberry Pi projects. It’s not quite for the faint of heart but it’s amazing fun when you get it started up and you start blinking LEDs with reckless abandon.

The Trebuchette

$39.95

Go to war against your cubicle mates with the Trebuchette, a working, desk-based trebuchet designed to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their electric pencil sharpeners. The DIY kit is made of wood and comes with all the pieces you need to lay siege to Pam-alot.

Matt Burns:

Parrot A.R.Drone 2.0

$299

At worst, the Parrot A.R.Drone 2.0 is a fantastic toy. At best, it’s a device that will show the masses the appeal of drones. The Parrot A.R.Drone is a fully-capable drone, able to reach incredible heights and speeds and it’s controlled by just a smartphone. There is a learning curve and it’s definitely an outdoor toy. Still, after 30 minutes of wobbling around the yard, you’ll have the drone soaring like as if controlled by Skynet. It’s a fantastic gift for you or your kin.

IOGEAR GearPower
$20-$50

There are countless mobile battery solutions on the market. But I have yet to find one as bulletproof and affordable as the IOGEAR GearPower. It’s dead simple: two USB outputs, recharges by microUSB and sports just one button that kicks on the power and displays the remaining battery capacity.

Best of all, this battery is often dirt cheap on Amazon and comes in various sizes. The 11,000 mAh flavor can sometimes be had for as low as $28.99 on Amazon while the 7,000 and 2,400 variations are also priced relatively low. It’s a boring gift, sure, but a gift that will surely be used by anyone addicted to their smartphone.

FitBit Force

$129

I’ve tried nearly every smart device on the market, but the FitBit Force is the only one I still use. It’s the perfect size. The battery lasts over a week and it functions beautifully as a simple watch. My expanding waistline is testament to the fact that simply wearing a health tracker will not cause you to lose weight. However, since the Force is much more than a connected pedometer, it’s managed to work its way into my life as something I wear 24/7.

Darrell Etherington:

Kindle Paperwhite

$119

Amazon makes a mighty fine e-reader, and that hasn’t changed even as it started pouring more resources into its Android-based tablets. These kids with their Alanis Morissette and their TurboGrafx 16s might be okay with reading books on backlit LCD displays, but I’ll stick with e-paper like God intended, thank you very much. The latest generation is a refinement on last year’s model, but it does manage to truly refine things in every way that matters.

Anker USB 3.0 7+2 Port Hub

$44.99

USB hubs are possibly the least sexy gift you can get someone, but also the most useful. This one by Anker has been a stalwart, with two dedicated charging ports that offer both 2.1A and 1.5A 5V charging to power up your iPad and your iPhone or Android device at maximum speed. Little lights indicate what ports are currently in use so you can tell if you have defective or undetected equipment, and the design is actually not offensive or garish, which is rare in these things.

Philips Hue

$199.95

Call me a weirdo but I really like these lights, and will slowly blanket my entire house with them as budget allows and as Philips continues to introduce new models that are compatible with all my various sockets. Heck, I’d use one in my oven if it was rated for that. If I have a complaint, it’s that the app maybe isn’t as good as it could be, but Philips just updated its software for iOS 7 and it no longer requires you to turn your phone into landscape orientation to change the color/tone of your bulbs.

Chris Velazco:

Nintendo 3DS XL

$199

I know, I know: mobile gaming is the new frontier and there’s no shortage of gadgets out there that can turn your smartphone into something approaching a real gaming console. Call me an anorak, but until we start seeing seriously top-tier franchises earnestly migrate over to mobile I’m more than happy to tote around a separate device meant solely for catching Pokémon or navigating the wilds of Hyrule.

PhotoJojo Smartphone Lens Sampler

$49.99

You can throw as many filters and effects on a photo as you want, it’s no substitute for a bit of shaped glass that sits in front of your lens. There’s no shortage of these little things floating around out in the e-commerce ether but I’m particularly fond of the ones from PhotoJojo — I’d much rather have a magnetic ring sitting around my phone’s lens for the rest of its days than, say, a hefty clip sticking of the end of it.

Digital Calipers

$16.99

Easily the curveball of the group. I originally bought one of these for use with phone reviews until I realized that they just weren’t all that necessary to the process… so I started measuring other things instead. And by other things, I mean everything. Seriously, I think I have a problem.

You can check out our complete Holiday Gift Guide 2013 right here.

Amazon made waves with its Amazon Air drone delivery concept, and a video of a recent test flight really brought that concept to life. Now robotics startup and iPhone-enabled toy maker Sphero has a concept of its own to reveal, complete with a shot-for-shot remake of the original video by the online e-commerce giant – they call it Amazon Ground.

Sphero makes iPhone-controlled rolling spherical robots that light up and can play a number of app-enabled games using one or more units, and the video above, while created for laffs, does give you an idea of what they’re capable of. The company released version 2.0 of the Sphero earlier this year, and Amazon’s a key retail partner.

Using Sphero in this way is of course rife with logistical problems, not least of which would be the overwhelming urge to kick these diminutive delivery people clear across the street should you encounter them in the wild. Don’t get me wrong, I find Sphero very endearing, but a ball must needs kicking. This is a well-crafted parody tribute, but those spherical robots do look right at home in that warehouse and could conceivably be of some limited use in that specific setting, so who knows what the future will bring.

Speaking as someone who’s considered spending nearly $1,000 on a full Stormtrooper costume multiple times, I’m very interested in a new crowdfunding project designed to build and mass produce a complete Iron Man suit with electronic features like an automatic sliding faceplate. The Iron Man Mark III project from Iron Man Factory, which must violate at least 80 licensing agreements, also just looks so damn cool that I’m going to hope beyond hope it somehow gets made.

The prototype in the video is fully 3D-printed, and also features a number of light-up aesthetic features, powered by AAA batteries. It’s lightweight, weighing in at only 3kg (6.6 lbs) and features metal joints with a carbon fiber/polymer body. Anyone under 5’6″ or much over 6’1″ need not apply, according to the specifications, which means even if I want it so badly my entire body burns I’d be taking a risk on not quite fitting within.

The creators of the Iron Man project are a team with an injection moulding factory out of Shenzen, the company tells me, including engineers with over 15 years experience in die casting manufacturing. The factory employs between 30 and 40 people, and currently produces toys, routers, smartphone parts and more. They’ve been working with designers in Beijing on the Iron Man project, and began producing small runs of the Iron Man helmet alone via 3D printing. To get costs down and volumes up, they’re looking to cover the costs of initial setup for a full-scale, injection moulding production run.

Backers can lay down pledges for either the full injection moulded suit ($1,999), a helmet alone ($1,800) or the full, 3D-printed suit ($35,000). The latter two will ship within three to four months, while the production run suits are expected to arrive between six and eight months out should the project prove successful. No cards will be charged until orders ship, with payments managed via Stripe.

The company also tells me that it’s working on a space-grade aluminum version of the suit, too, which it plans to put into mass production provided the initial campaign is successful. They declined to comment on licensing, indicating this isn’t a project with Marvel’s official blessing, but that probably won’t stop the superfan from drooling over this. And yes it’s $2,000 and it doesn’t even fly, but imagine the faces the next time you walk the con floor.

Update: Marvel has unsurprisingly requested the project’s creators to stop selling these unlicensed works, so from now on it’ll be unavailable to buyers outside China.

Artec, makers of high-end 3D scanners for industrial clients, have added a little whimsy to your day with Shapify.me, a service that can scan and print your body in full color, allowing you to make a little mini me of your very own.

The system uses the Kinect Sensor – it works with either the Kinect for Windows or Kinect for Xbox 360 – and allows you to scan your entire body using a PC or Mac. The software then lets you download the scan for 3D printing or order the print for $59. Prints are available in the US and Canada but more countries are coming soon.

Capturing the image is a little tricky – there are a lot of lighting issues and lots of turning – but the service seems to be outputting smooth, usable scans. Arguably these aren’t as beautiful as some other services we’ve seen including the incredible Twinkind but because you’re depending on a fairly low resolution system like the Kinect and limited processing power it’s easy to forgive some of the elisions in the model.

I’ve learned that 3D scanning is hard and anything that makes it easier is a good thing. While it might be a little late to give a Shapify figurine to your dear old mother and father, it’s definitely a fun little toy and could be an interesting tool for home hobbyists. Besides, who doesn’t want a 3D selfie?

Why does Google need robots? Because it already rules your pocket. The mobile market, except for the slow rise of wearables, is saturated. There are millions of handsets around the world, each one connected to the Internet and most are running either Android or iOS. Except for incremental updates to the form, there will be few innovations coming out of the mobile space in the next decade.

Then there’s Glass. These devices bring the web to the real world by making us the carriers. Google is already in front of us on our small screens but Glass makes us a captive audience. By depending on Google’s data for our daily interactions, mapping, and restaurant recommendations – not to mention the digitization of our every move – we become some of the best Google consumers in history. But that’s still not enough.

Google is limited by, for lack of a better word, meat. We are poor explorers and poor data gatherers. We tend to follow the same paths every day and, like ants, we rarely stray far from the nest. Google is a data company and needs far more data than humans alone can gather. Robots, then will be the driver for a number of impressive feats in the next few decades including space exploration, improved mapping techniques, and massive changes in the manufacturing workspace.

Robots like Baxter will replace millions of expensive humans – a move that I suspect will instigate a problematic rise of unemployment in the manufacturing sector – and companies like manufacturing giant Foxconn are investing in robotics at a clip. Drones, whether human-control or autonomous, are a true extension of our senses, placing us and keeping us apprised of situations far from home base. Home helpers will soon lift us out of bed when we’re sick, help us clean, and assist us near the end of our lives. Smaller hardware projects will help us lose weight and patrol our streets. The tech company not invested in robotics today will find itself far behind the curve in the coming decade.

That’s why Google needs robots. They will place the company at the forefront of man-machine interaction in the same way that Android put them in front of millions of eyeballs. Many pundits saw no reason for Google to start a mobile arm back when Android was still young. They were wrong. The same will be the case for these seemingly wonky experiments in robotics.

Did Google buy Boston Dynamics and seven other robotics companies so it could run a thousand quadrupedal Big Dogs through our cities? No, but I could see them using BD’s PETMAN, a bipedal robot that can walk and run over rough terrain – to assist in mapping difficult-to-reach areas. It could also become a sort of Google Now for the real world, appearing at our elbows in the form of an assistant that follows us throughout the day, keeping us on track, helping with tasks, and becoming our avatars when we can’t be in two places at once. The more Google can mediate our day-to-day experience the more valuable it becomes.

Need more proof? Follow the money. Robotics is big business and analysts estimate that Boston Dynamics could be a $5 billion company in the next few years. With the right contracts and the right product mix, almost any of member Google’s current robot horde can hit nearly any market, from consumer robotics on a large scale to massive installations in manufacturing – not to mention those lucrative DARPA contracts.

Will we see RoboGooglers wandering through Palo Alto this year? No way. It’s far too early. But with a bit of smarts from Google Chauffeur, the software running the company’s self-driving cars, and some better bipedal robot designs I could see Sergey and Larry standing beside their robotic assistants within the decade. Now all they have to do is make them sentient.