Simultaneous chill for eyes, ears
Put on Oakley’s new Thump 2 sunglasses and you can groove to your favorite tunes while wearing an ultracool pair of shades with a sleek frame, crystal-clear lenses and movable ear-sized speakers. Loading the music is simple: All you have to do is transfer digital music from your computer to the sunglasses via a discreetly placed USB port. A 256-megabyte pair costs $300, a 512MB version is $350 and a 1-gigabyte model is $450.
www.oakley.com
A King Kong-sized repertoire of response
Go ahead and tickle the chin on WowWee’s Alive Chimpanzee. The creepily lifelike chimpanzee with a toothy smile and a wild “hairdo” will erupt into a fit of giggles. Depending on what its touch and sound sensors detect, the life-size bust of a chimp might also growl, whimper or whine as its head turns to track your movements. Don’t like surprises? You can direct its actions with a programmable remote control. Available exclusively through Sharper Image, the chimp costs $150.
www.sharperimage.com
Road warriors can pack their notebooks, plus the other toys
If you can’t bear the thought of leaving home without your laptop, cellphone and iPod, you can easily fit everything inside Targus’ new Urban Backpack. The orange-and-black bag has a padded compartment with enough space to hold a laptop with a 15.4-inch screen, a pocket for a cellphone, a pocket with a headphone jack for a digital music player and extra compartments for additional gear. It costs $70. Targus’ new line also includes an Urban Messenger Bag for $60, an Urban Topload case for $70 and an Urban Travel Roller for $120.
www.targus.com
iKEY unlocks music files
With the handy iKEY, you easily can convert albums, taped lectures and other audio files into a format that can be played back on an Apple iPod or other USB-based digital music players. Connect the iKEY to an audio jack on a device that can play the original audio and to a USB port on your digital player. Select either an MP3 or WAV audio format on the iKEY and hit record. As the audio plays, the iKEY will convert it to the selected format and save it for playback on your portable player. It costs $230.
www.ikey-audio.com
