The Bak Jak is a portable leaning frame which takes away the discomfort of bending over to work on things like car engines and suchlike. Leave both hands free too, apparently. We’re just trying to work out whether this position works, or whether it would create more problems than it solves? Anyhoo, it’s £49.99 plus shipping.  Bending over to work on engines, perform plumbing, electrical or maintenance jobs or carry out any number of tasks often means hours of discomfort….

Louie. A…er….sound activated toilet…ah…assistant. So who pitches these things? Who goes into a board meeting and stands up when the CEO asks for new product ideas and says, ‘Hey boss, I’ve got one. A pugly little fellow who grunts in your restroom.’ Who says that? Who? £9.99.  When Louie is activated by your bodily sounds, (no matter how rude they are) he will make the most repulsive noises, like hefty grunts and groans then you’ll hear the him farting and plips and plops coming…

The Geek-a-Cycle is a computer desk exerciser. Bolt a recumbent bicycle to a desk and throw in a computer and monitor and you’ve got the idea. $349.95 excluding the computer (padded seat $15.95 extra). I’m getting panic chills just thinking about this thing, gimme a GameBike any day.  While you work, you pedal. Set the drag on the magnetic resistance to light. As you think, pedal. When you type, stop pedaling. Over the course of the day you will find you…

The Burning Love Pouch for iPod will do for your music player what Liberace did for classical music. Or maybe less. £12.99.   Surely the most beautiful iPod pouches available in the UK, the cotton candy model consists of gorgeous pink fluffy hair all round to keep your ipod safe and sound while also making it a leading fashion statement.  

The Companion8 In-Wall Home Automation Control Panel. Touchscreen LCD with soft and hard buttons for controlling everything from your heating system to Burt Bacharach. Complete with in-built speaker and mic and web browsing capabilities. What it won’t do is control your heart rate as you hand over $2449.99.  The Companion8 In-Wall Touchscreen leverages simple cat. 5 cabling to offer control and status of all of your home’s systems, along with Internet browsing, digital media management, and environmental control on a…

The ZipLinq Road Warrior Kit. Basically just about every cable, connector and adaptor you’re going to want or need in order to connect and compute. USB male and females, mini USB, extensions, crossover sockets, Cat5e, even a stereo microphone headset for VoIP stuff you may want to do. The ultimate anti-wireless kit. There’s one circulating around Ferret Towers at the moment, and it’s got a quality feel, no question, although they should replace the mouse with a USB drive to make it really sing….

The SRV-1 Mobile Surveillance Robot watches. Like a Mars Rover. Carefully. Surreptitiously. With an on-board video camera, tank tracks and a speed of 1/2 a mile an hour. Whooosh! Mind you it’s Java, Open Source and Linux, so mind your manners. $374.99.  This palm sized bot packs tank-like treads, a 32-bit ARM processor and a mini video camera. The included wireless transmitter interfaces via USB with any PC up to 300 feet away. The Java based host software supports Windows,…

The LED Lipstick Light. Great for map reading, locating things at the bottom of handbags and highlighting keyholes. Put one of these in his stocking this Xmas and watch his face light up. $14.99.   This whimsical mini-flashlight is perfect for reading maps or directions, highlighting a keyhole, or finding things at the bottom of your handbag. Take off its cap, give it a twist, and the ultrabright LED light pops up and comes on. Dazzling gold metallic finish.

The Revolution Alarm Clock is unquestionably the boy’s toy of the week. A humungous dial, digital clock, loud V8 engine noise alarm and lots of finger trembling black buttons to press. Bliss, thy name is auto-gadget-mania. Around $47.00 via Daneland.   Some people like to wake up to the sound of singing birds others like the soft voice of mommy, the girlfriend or wife. And then there are those who loves the realistic, throaty, roar of a V8 engine in the…

Sports Drink Mixer. Er…are we the only ones who think it’s a bit strange to take a battery powered drinks mixer to the gym to stir your sports beverage? So you spend goodness knows how much on gym fees to get fit, stronger and more athletic and then are too woosie to stir your cup? Yeah, riiiiiight! Anyway it’s $15.95 and good luck with the abs, loser.  Sports drink mixer is battery-powered – take it to the gym! Tired of…

USB Car Flash Disk. From 16MB to 2GB. No driver needed. Arf!  1) USB plug and play with no external power supply 2) USB host interface: USB 1.1/2.0 compliant 3) No driver installation needed (except Windows 98) 4) Magnetic proof, shockproof and moisture proof 5) Read/write cycles: 1,000,000 times 6) Capacity: 16MB, 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, 512MB, 1GB, 2GB

The Walking Robot Pencil Sharpener. First Law: No robot shall knowingly or unknowingly harm the lead in any human being’s pencil. $5.99.  This is perhaps the coolest pencil sharpener ever to walk on its own. Just open its chest, insert a pencil, twist to sharpen, and remove your pointy pencil. By sharpening your pencil, you have secretly wound the 4″ robot’s power core and it will now begin walking toward you (or in whatever direction it’s facing). The shavings empty into…

The new Terratec PhonePreAmp iVinyl has a somewhat weird name. OK, it may be descriptive but it’s still a bit strange. But we’re not namophobes so we’ll move swiftly along and advise you to plug it into your computer’s USB port and record audio from a vinyl record player or cassette player to your hard disk. Without a sound card in sight. Comes with editing software too, so no excuses Mr Hiss Crackle-Pop. £99.99.  The PhonoPreAmp is equipped with an input for your turntable (with moving magnet cartridge) and with a port for tape decks…

The Diabolo Messenger may look like a salt and pepper dispenser, but it’s actually a voice recorder. Go figure! Holds up to 20 seconds of audio (like, ‘so where’s the pepper grinding handle?’) and the clever thing is that you turn it upside down to listen to the messages. €29.00.  Pocket idea and message recorder. Recording at the touch of a button and playback by turning it. 10 seconds recording capacity (can be as much as 20). Perfect for short messages for…