Boost the soft sounds around you; keychain-sized phone charging cable
The scoop: BEAN Quiet Sound Amplifier, by Etymotic Research, about $480 (for one; $860 for two)
The scoop: BEAN Quiet Sound Amplifier, by Etymotic Research, about $480 (for one; $860 for two)
In 1990, I was a cub reporter at a small daily newspaper in Southwest Florida, and someone brought in a Macintosh computer to the editorial department. They asked, "Who knows how to use one of these?" I raised my hand, saying that I had used them for a short time in college (the journalism school had just started to use Macintosh systems and QuarkXpress in their computer labs).
Here are two new devices that can help improve audio quality for voice calls, whether you're in the office or out on the road.
If you're going to be stuck with a Windows 8 (or 8.1) notebook, you might as well make it as interesting as possible, to help lessen the pain of having to deal with Windows as your operating system.
Cool Yule Tools 2013: Our Tester Elf-approved picks for awesome gadgety goodness
Here are some unique gift ideas that have some cool technology behind them.
Check out these devices and gift ideas.
Here are our picks for the coolest ones for your list
As a dad of three youngsters, one of my favorite categories in the holiday gift guide is seeing what technology-related fun we can dig up and play with. Here our a bunch of our favorite toys and silly geeky things that will keep your kids (or the kid in you) entertained for weeks, months or even years.
Our annual holiday gift guide always ends up with devices and gadgets that we just can't fit into the other buckets. But rather than not consider them, we create a "miscellaneous" bucket. If you're an artist, creative type or are just looking for something to keep track of your keys, check out some of these gift ideas / suggestions:
Music drives a lot of what we get out of our technology devices - if you can't hear the music from your device, or share it with others, it's just a bunch of ones and zeros sitting on a magnetic hard drive.
In general giving someone the gift of a device that can recharge the battery on their smartphone or tablet might not be on the top of your list. After all, people are generally more excited opening the box on their new phone, tablet or music player than a small black box with power prongs attached to it.
In the past, we used to separate out categories for cell phones, tablets and computers. In theory, we still could create separate guides just for those products - there are so many options to choose from and not a week goes by where another phone, tablet or computer hits the market.
Like many categories that we've chosen for this year's holiday gift guide, the lines are blurred. Several devices within the "home" category could fall into the "Audio Gear", "Video gear" or "Work/Office Gear" categories, considering how much work we do at home, or how much home technology we bring to work.
While many of these gift ideas would make for a better fit in our summer gadget gift guide, these outdoor gadgets could still be used in parts of the country (or world) where the chilling cold of winter hasn't struck yet. In addition, cases and things that protect your devices never go out of style, whether indoors or outdoors. Here are our favorite devices that sort of fit this category of outdoor gear or on-the-road gadgets: