Gadgets and Gizmos

Fitbug - Health and Fitness

Looking for a novel way to shed a few unwanted pounds? Shove a Fitbug in your pocket! Carry around this advanced pedometer, upload your steps to the Fitbug service, and get advice on how to hit your health, calorie and exercise targets. Backed by BUPA, and it earns you Nectar Points!

Get the lowdown - See our Fitbug Review for more.

Salter MiBody Analyser Scales

Whether you take your fitness seriously, or just need a little help sticking to your diet - this set of high-tech scales could be the answer. The MiBody system measures weight, body fat, body water, muscle mass, visceral fat, BMI and BMR.

Has a USB socket and dongle so that you can transfer and monitor your progress with supplied PC software.

See our Salter MiBody Scales page for our review.

The tiny i-gotU GPS tracker can be used to capture your current position, or track your progress on a journey, then let you use that data on your PC or online.

You can overlay your position and waypoints onto Google Maps and Google Earth, and also use it to geo-tag photos and on photo services such as Flikr and Picaso.

This device is cheap, waterproof, rechargeable, and a snip at around £40. If you're a biker or a hiker, or own a digital camera, find out more about the i-gotU GPS tracker at FrequencyCast's i-gotU review.

Oral-B Triumph Toothbrush System

Claiming to be the most advanced toothbrush out there - this is an electric toothbrush with a built-in wireless transmitter that sends information about your brushing session to a separate screen - the screen tells you if you're brushing too hard, tells you which part of your mouth to brush, and counts down to the optimal brushing time of two minutes as recommended by dentists. Clever stuff.

See our Oral-B triumph page for our review.

Nespresso M100

On a quest for the perfect home cappuccino, but don't want to have to spend ages cleaning a coffee machine? Our quest for the perfect frothy coffee took us through a range of hard-to-clean cappuccino machines, and even a dalliance with the Tassimo - but then we found the Magimix Nespresso with Aeroccino. 12 varieties of coffee - minimal cleaning, and frothy milk. Well work a look - see our detailed review of the Nespresso M100 for details.

As an alternative, if you're into Italian coffee, try the Lavazza Amodo Mio

USB Turntable - Got a huge vinyl collection tucked away in the loft? Get yourself an ION USB turntable that connects to your PC - You can use this to transfer your old singles, albums and even 78s to MP3, WAV or WMV format - ideal for your iPod or MP3 player. Bundled software allows to you copy music at double speed, and can automatically remove crackles and noise from your records.
Available from Maplin, Firebox and I want one of those

Luxury - A Swedish Massage while you work!

Thats what you can get with the Swedish-Style Massager from HoMedics. Strap this to your chair, plug yourself in, and enjoy a Swedish style or rolling massage from this impressively powerful massager. Fits most office chairs and has four independent rollers, optional heated massage , width adjusters and a spot massager.

Confused? Find out more in our full review of the HoMedics QRM-409H Swedish Style Massager.

Our favourite gadget , is the All in One Kameleon, a remote control that manages multiple devices. A weird glowing blue electro-luminous controller that's easy, and fun, to use. Its motion-activated screen has subtle animation, and can be updated via the Internet. Control your TV, DVD, satellite, Hi-Fi, and much more with just one remote. More details of the Kameleon at the Radio and Telly Accessories page.

Kameleon remote controls from One 4 All are available online from Maplin, Pixmania and Play.com

Nintendo's DSi. The colour handheld electronic gaming console with 32-bit graphics, two cameras, music player, wi-fi and stereo speakers is a top console. A great games console, perfectly pocketable.

Our personal favourite game is Advance Wars Dark Conflict... a superb turn-based strategy game.

See our Nintendo DS page for more details

The Nabaztag wi-fi Bunny

Here's something that you're about to hear LOTS about - the wi-fi enabled Nabaztag desktop bunny - Uses wifi to get new messages, download news and weather, play MP3 and waggle its little ears at you. Available from Firebox and Pixmania.co.uk for about £80

The Loc8tor product is a handheld unit that i used to track down items fitted with a locator tag. Use direction finding technology to track down lost items. You can also use Loc8tor Plus to alert you if one of your tags wanders outside your sphere of influence. Released in June 2006, see the Loc8tor page for a review of this tool.

Here's a few other gadgets you may want to check out:

• Creative Vision M - Who needs a video iPod anyway
• TomTom One - Low-prices, but powerful in-car SatNav route-finder
• Nabaztag - wi-fi enabled clever little desktop bunny