For the techies on your holiday gift list, ties and bathrobes just won't do. Here are our picks of this year's hottest gadgets:
-- For the worn-out homebody, check out Cye home robot, $695 plus $89 each for wagon and vacuum; www.rugrover.com. Once it learns your house's layout, this byte-size butler on wheels delivers drinks, runs messages and even vacuums. When it's done, Cye beeps and whirs like R2-D2 and heads back to its home base to recharge. The little homebot scares some pets but is a hit with most kids.-- For the all-American couch potato, try ReplayTV, $899; www.replaytv.com and TiVo at $698; www.tivo.com. Both allow you to pause and play back live shows and scan program schedules to automatically record your favorites. The digital TV-recording devices look like VCRs but have PC-like hard drives, making them far easier to install and operate.
-- If there's a technophobe on your list, consider the infoGear iPhone, $399; www.infogear.com.You say Aunt Hilda doesn't own a computer and doesn't want to? The iPhone is a telephone, email station and touch-screen Web browser in one. And it's remarkably simple to use. About the size of a phone-and-answering-machine combo, the iPhone has a corded handset, a black-and-white 7.4-inch screen, a pull-out keyboard and a 56K modem.
-- If the iPhone causes sensory overload, the Cidco MailStation, $149.95 plus $9.95 per month, or $99.95 plus $99.95 per year; www.mailstation.com is worth a try. Essentially a keyboard and mini screen that plugs into a phone jack, the MailStation provides just email.
-- Show and tell will never be the same with the QX3 Computer Microscope, $99.99; found at www.intelplay.com. The QX3 uses digital technology to capture images through a detachable lens, display them on your PC, add special effects and even create time-lapse movies.
-- For the budding Ansel Adams, snap to CamPrint, $99 with rebate; www.igo.com. Digital cameras are hot these days. But most of them have a major down side: You need a PC to process and print your pictures.
Enter CamPrint, a faster and cheaper alternative for playing the middleman between camera and printer. Shoot a few frames, plug in your camera and, voila!, instant prints. At the push of a button, CamPrint also lets you print multiple copies of the same shot or try a variety of image sizes.