Pics without wires
This year sees more than one significant advance in digital photography. Cameras, such as the Nikon P Series, offer the same picture quality and features you’ve come to expect (along with ever-increasing megapixel counts) from your old digi, with the added bonus of wi-fi functionality. Finally, no more trying to remember where you put the USB cable! For amateur shutterbugs who crave a little higher-end functionality, the Kodak Easyshare V570 is the first consumer model to offer two integrated lenses: one a 23-mm wide angle, the other with a narrower view for those Spaghetti Western–style close-ups. At $399, this five-megapixel model compares favorably with its one-eyed competitors, and the dual-lens setup ensures a compact design.

Anywhere TV
This brave new world of “all wireless, all the time” is pretty great, but video on demand is no substitute for vegging out in front of your own TV. Well, now you can do that anywhere you want, thanks to Sling Media’s Slingbox. The Slingbox, which hit the stores over the past holiday season, funnels a cable or satellite signal through your broadband Internet connection; you can then pick up transmission on a Windows PC anywhere in the world (Sling Media just released SlingPlayer Mobile, which will extend the functionality to Windows-enabled handhelds). This means you no longer have to suffer the paltry cable offerings in your hotel room, as long as you’ve got ’net access. And you’ll never again have to miss an afternoon baseball game just because you have a desk job. Just pipe the Slingbox signal into your office PC and keep a spreadsheet at the ready. They’ll never be able to tell.

Look at the pretty stars!
Sometimes a gadget isn’t necessarily useful in the strictest sense of the word, but it’s so technologically awesome that it elicits squeals of nerdish glee. The Celestron SkyScout, expected to hit the market in May, is one of those devices. By cross-referencing the time of day, your GPS-precise location, and a host of other impressive-sounding factors, the SkyScout instantly provides information about any celestial object you point it at. Not only does it identify the star or planet, but it also gives a short lesson in the object’s history. But this hand-held marvel doesn’t stop there. Information and astronomy lessons are provided through both text and audio (updates can be downloaded as they’re made available), and the SkyScout suggests your 20 best-viewing options for a given night. For $399, you can get that much closer to being a Jetson.

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