Popular Gadgets

These are the 15 most popular gadgets from the past week, based on how many people looked at their pages.

The Tumbling Vacuum Marinator

Why wait to marinate?

Winner of Popular Science Magazine's Best of What's New Award in Home Technology, this marinator creates a vacuum inside the barrel that causes the food's fibers to stretch and become porous, while paddles inside of the rotating barrel flip and coat the food with marinade.

Unlike conventional techniques that only flavor the surface and require 24 hours of marinating for thick cuts of meat, the automated marinator infuses restaurant-quality flavor and succulence into a 5-lb. brisket in less than 20 minutes, while using half the amount of marinade required for pan or bag soaking.

Motion Activated Lawn Sprinkler

I wish I had one of these last spring when raccoons were digging up my lawn. It's a motion activated lawn sprinkler, for the express purpose of scaring away garden pests such as raccoons, dogs, cats, and other animals. When triggered by its infrared day-or-night motion sensor, it sprays a forceful stream of water at the intruders.

Lego Mindstorms NXT Robotic Building System

This all-new Lego Mindstorms pack has a new NXT Intelligent Brick with a 32-bit microprocessor and more memory. The kit features 3 servo motors with built-in rotation sensors for precise control, and over 500 Lego Technic elements. The computer software features intuitive drag-and-drop programming.

Lighted Tweezers

How often have you struggled with a tweezing job because the light was too dim? Here's a brilliant product (no pun intended) that solves the problem once and for all. Tweezers with a built-in light. They're stainless steel, with a bright long-lasting LED light, and batteries included.

Shure E500PTH - The Ultimate Sound Isolating Earphones

While these may the most expensive earphones ever, except perhaps for those with gold plating and diamond studs, the Shure E500PTH Sound Isolating Earphones are pretty much the earphones to drool over.

Sound quality is, no argument, the best in the market.

I normally hate ear bud style headphones, but the comfort of these can't be beat. They feel like nothing is there.

And one of the nicest features - push to hear. Most noise-isolating earphones do just that, isolate the outside noise so that all you hear is your music. And then when someone talks to you, or you actually want to hear something outside, you have to pull them off. The Shures have a switch that causes them to reverse the sound isolation, so that you hear what's outside and not what's playing.

They include a carrying case, and the "push-to-hear" switch can be removed for increased portability. You can't go wrong with these, as long as you can afford the steep price.

The World's Best Prelit Christmas Tree

This is the most realistic tree in the world, professionally strung with the best lights available, guaranteed for life. The tree is molded from a live Abies procera, or Noble fir, considered one of the most desired holiday trees for its deep blue-green color and symmetrical branch pattern.

Unlike other trees that have light strands which fail immediately when one bulb ceases to work, this tree has strands of advanced integrated circuit lights that withstand the failure or removal of multiple bulbs, ensuring bright, clear, reliable lighting year after year.

Maytag SkyBox Personal Beverage Vendor

"Ka-Thunk." Want to hear that satisfying vending-machine sound when grabbing a cold beverage? This customizable personal beverage vendor from Maytag holds 66 12-ounce cans or 33 12-ounce bottles. Child lock-out lets you lock some sections while leaving others accessible. To add some personal style, the front and side panels of the SkyBox can be customized with NFL, college, NASCAR, and other sports and beverage logos. It operates without coins or dollar bills. And just think about how much room you can free up in your refrigerator.

Next-Generation Robosapien Robot

This is the next evolution of the Robosapien, capable of autonomous behavior and equipped with interactive sensors to recognize objects and respond to sounds. It can be programmed to execute more than 60 different movements, including dancing, exploring, lifting items, or bowling (ball and pins included).

It responds to touch and sound with advanced sensors like a camera that detects skin tone (hold out your hand, and the robot knows to shake it) and object color (the robot collects blue objects when handed them).

The robot avoids obstacles intelligently as it walks, and sonic sensors detect sharp noises, responding with a hearty Hey, there! and turning to face the sound.

It can bend and pick up small objects on command, using its precision-gripping, articulated fingers, and then it can throw the object to you.

The robot has true-to-life bi-pedal walking gaits and realistic double-axis head turns.

It can use its sonic and infrared sensors to guard an area (sounding an alarm when motion or sound is detected) and to interact with other Robosapiens.

The Remote Control Reconnaissance Plane

Your very own AWACS! This oversized remote control model plane has a detachable digital camera that takes still photos from hundreds of feet above the ground.

This plane is BIG, with a nearly 5-foot wingspan, and it has a range of 1000 feet.

Flight time is 7 minutes per charge, with two rechargeable batteries included.

Darth Vader Nutcracker

Handcrafted from select European hardwoods by Steinback, the only name in high-quality decorative nutcrackers. Highly detailed, with a red lightsaber, this nutcracker is the perfect gift for your favorite Star Wars fan, or as a conversation piece for Christmas gatherings. Yeah, it's expensive, but you can't put a price on cool.

Aero-Garden Kit

This is the perfect gift for cooks or gardeners or yourself, no green thumb required. It's a counter-top herb garden, with the perfect balance of organic nutrients, oxygen, lighting and automation technology. No messy soil is needed. It comes complete with everything including seed pods and nutrients.

Digital Picture Frame

Why stare at the same photo all the time? This 8" digital picture frame has 64 MB of built-in memory allowing you to store up to 100 6-megapixel photos. It can be positioned in six different ways for optimum landscape and portrait viewing, and is wall-mountable. Built-in speakers can play music while it plays a slideshow of your photos (remote included). New photos can be loaded via USB 1.0 or 2.0, or via various digital camera flash memory card formats.

Voice-Activated R2-D2 Droid from Star Wars

How would you like your own little R2-D2 droid chasing you through the hallways of your battle-cruiser... er, I mean house?

This motorized replica responds to more than 40 voice commands, and plays games like tag using an infra-red sensor to find people.

R2-D2 has lights, a swiveling dome top, and sounds that mimic the real thing.

The Remote Control Night Vision Spy Car

I can't tell you how many times I've thought "What if I could mount a video-camera on the front of an RC car and drive it around while seeing what the camera sees". Ok, I'll tell you - quite a few, because I'm an RC junkie.

This remote control car not only lets you see what the car sees, it does it with a night-vision camera that sends images wirelessly to a remote headset with an eyepiece and LCD, allowing you to see what the car sees in the dark! Kids will absolutely love this. If they can ever pry it away from dad, that is.

Closet Organizing Trouser Rack

Taking up only an 18-inch width in your closet, this pant rack keeps twenty pairs of slacks neatly hung and readily accessible. It easily mounts to a closet wall or door and has a 10-gauge steel support bracket to hold 20 solid birch wood dowels that let you hang trousers flush against the wall, then swing them out individually, up to 180 degrees, for easy selection. Can also hold ties. (Just dare them to look in your closet.)