Steve Jobs has turned out to be 2010's Santa Claus. Imagine him smiling at the iPad's sales figures and remembering how the audience sniggered, when he introduced it as a “magical device”. This gift season, his wand has split the ICT universe neatly down the middle — into those who'll pawn family jewellery to own the iPad and those who own it. Just one uploaded app in an iPad will explain why: The iPad Star Walk identifies constellations when you raise the gadget's face to the night sky, effortlessly transporting you to another world.
Spoilt for choice
Check the other apps too — Air Display (Facebook/Twitter/stock market posts), Evernote (free) that stores notes, photos and voice memos, Sketchbook Pro, Photoshop Express (free) and Magic Piano for the artistically bent and Orbital HD to kill the long winter hours — before placing your credit card on the counter. “Apple iPad is the first touch-based tablet with long battery life, speed and ease of use,” said techie Mahesh. “Be very kind to mother/father-in-law, whoever's planning a geek gift for you.”
Outside that is a load of other gift-worthy gizmos. TechRepublic's “hottest geek-gift guide” lists among others Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter, a geek-fun-in-one gadget that flies, controlled through Wi-Fi, iPhone/iPod/iPad and an onboard computer. It's a cool model, stabilised by gyroscopes and an altimeter, while two cameras record every action.
Teen Vishal has been eyeing the gaming mouse Cyborg R.A.T. 7 for some time. “Futuristic design,” he said in defence. “Its built-in tool adjusts its shape. Totally meant to make a gaming geek drool.” His younger brother Vineet would like to have a Microsoft Kinect sensor for his Xbox 360. It's geek goodness contained in one.
If you grew up building with Lego (who didn't?), a LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 kit is your best bet to engage kids on a family holiday. What, you aren't getting your bookreader wife the Amazon Kindle Graphite 3G + Wi-Fi 2010? Even without the Net add-on (not yet in India) it's a great buy, with its clear text, easy page-turner and a loud-reader option for tired eyes. How about a Samsung galaxy tablet?
For a big family gift, invest in a VIZIO M470NV 47-inch 1080p LED LCD HDTV. Sports are already HD. With built-in Wi-Fi and Internet apps, it is a feature-rich TV set. If a big surprise is your dream, plan for a Roku XDS streaming media player — hardware for an amazing multimedia experience. But are geeks ever happy?
Mythbusters Kits
Fans of Discovery Channel's Mythbusters can take myth-busting into their hands with Mythbusters Kits. A perfect (but pricey) gift for a nerd would be the MakerBot Thing-o-Matic 3-D printer, voted this year's top Science Geek Gift. The gizmo “prints” three-dimensional objects by building up layers of plastic to match a computerised design. MakerBot calls it “a little factory that sits on your desktop.” Architects, are you here?
Stuff (India) magazine's best-gadget-innovations-of-2010 list features Xbox Kinect that helps you control the game with voice instructions, the hi-res/hi-def Wi-Fi video-enabled iPhone 4, HX800 with top-order 2D and 3D future, the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2/Black Ops (extremely addictive!) and the cool-tech miCoach that transforms your iPhone/BlackBerry into a personal trainer tracking distance, pace and calories-burned using GPS. The miCoach website creates a training calendar and syncs it to your phone.
The Android's sat-nav has got better and better. Tried Map My India, Streetview and Local Search? Or considered the C9000? It's a slim 8mm baby, with both 2D and 3D modes. It allows you to tweet, update Facebook and stream content from a host of video services. Any gift receiver will be stunned by the way Dell Adamo's lid opens with a swipe of a finger, its SSD storage, 720p, HD screen that acts like a stand.
I'm not going into smartphone options at all. Being in a store of Motorola Android Charms, LG Optimus Ones, HTC Wildfires, Nokia X5s and QT-95s is like being in Ali Baba's cave. There's a Wave of them with Sharp knocking at the door. It's endless variety.
So, good-bye, 2010 and thank you. You have been a year of wonderful geek surprises and nerdy aspirations. You brought 3D gadget explosion, powerful new smartphone rivals and a controller-free game-changer. Geek historians will see you as the year portable computing changed and for BiP and AiP. You're the year a revolutionary tablet re-wrote the way we interact with our computers.
