Bookworms rejoice! Finally a gadget to keep all of your favorite volumes in the palm of your hand. The Amazon Kindle is just one of a number of new e-book readers on the market. At about 10.3 oz, the Kindle is made specifically for the purpose of downloading and reading e-books, electronic versions of the traditional cover-to-cover models adorning bookstore shelves. What’s even better is an e-book sells for a fraction of the price.

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So we all know by now that the future, while being populated by obedient robotic dogs and edible plates, will undoubtedly be defined by touchscreens. Apple figured this out quite early on and has made it somewhat of a phenomenon. And then there’s this HP Touchsmart line of PC’s designed around touch-tracking technology which re-imagines the navigation of a home computer. The latest rendition in the line is the IQ506, which ups the ante considerably over previous installations and makes a strong argument for welcoming this ‘touching’ device into your home.

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If you are sick of having your external PC devices look like, well, devices, you just might want to check out Sarotech's Wizplatz W-31 external hard drives. Sure, there is Western Digital's line of My Book external drives, but those are not going to pass for anything but nicely designed plastic cases.

That's not to say the Wizplat W-31 will pass for a real book, either. However, it's quite a bit closer to resembling the real thing. Just have a look at that picture. They have more of the visual bells and whistles you find on actual books. The different colored spine and the little ridges on the spine and, uh...

Well, the spines are a very glossy, and, uh, very bright red. Then, the spine has those two ridges crossing it that light up when the drive is in its various states of activity. Clearly, these are visual features that will, uh...

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Joining the ever-crowded world of Ultra-Mobile PCs is Hewlett-Packard's diminutive little laptop, the Mini-Note. The base price is $500--a full $100 more than the Asus eeepc's base price, but that doesn't mean the HP isn't worth at least a look-see. In case you don't know, the idea of a UMPC is to deliver what you'd expect from a regular laptop after it's been hit by a shrink ray.

In the Mini-Note's case, it's base model comes with a lot of low-end, but perfectly reasonable features. The display on all of the models is 8.9 inches. The base comes with a 1 Ghz processor, 512MB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive and all of your basic ports, in and out (in: USBx2, microphone, power; out: headphones, VGA monitor; both: RJ-45/Ethernet). It comes with Wifi and Bluetooth, both nice, but typical features, too. It's dimensions are perfectly reasonable, coming in at 10x6.5 with a thickness of 1 inch. Not bad. The display can do WXGA (1366x768) and brings the VIA Chrome 9 for graphics.

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If you're a casual gadget addict, it's possible you've never heard of femtocells and have never heard of any other way for a cell phone to use an Internet connection for calls other than the phone, itself, having the ability to connect to a wifi router. A good portion of the mobile phone industry is comfortable with the idea that cell phones are moving in the direction of WiFi compatibility. However, there is also a movement that supports Femtocells.

Have you ever found your non-wifi-enabled cell phone without any reception at all while at home or the office? Perhaps you work deep in a big cube farm or maybe your boss makes you do your job from inside a Faraday Cage. Or you could have your home office in a particular corner of the world that doesn't have a nearby cell tower with your particular carrier's signal carried on it. Femtocells can fill in that gap.

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If you're like most computer-based gearheads, it's more than a little likely that you have an extra hard drive or two just laying around taking up space and collecting dust. You might even be contemplating building a low-end homemade rig just to serve as a new home for those still functioning but probably smaller-capacitied (not really a word) drives. Or, perhaps you recently upgraded from a tower PC to a laptop and have yet to transfer all that data off of your old machine. Which ever is your issue, computer accessory company, Brando, has the perfect device to add to your computer setup: it's a dock for your old SATA hard disk drives.

Think of the dock you stick your iPod in to charge its battery or transfer media. Essentially, the Brando HDD dock is exactly like that, only bigger, for obvious reasons. It can take your full-size 3.5 inch internal hard drive or even your laptop-size 2.5 inch drive and connect it to any computer with a USB port on it. Pick up one of these and you've just put all of your old SATA drives back to work.

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If there has ever been any doubt, the proof comes from the Japan-based Universal Roaming Company, that the classiest personal computers come from Japan. Their Ryou Collection of PCs feature wooden cases lovingly crafted from actual wood. Remember that stuff those things with leaves are made of? The same place paper comes from? Those things you used to climb on when you were a kid? Right--trees.

In a time when plastic is starting to suffer the slings and arrows of environmental outrage, leave it to the Japanese to design a computer that does away with the plastic case and manages to add an impressive amount of class to one of the most ubiquitous machines in the world. Having one of these on your desk will make you the envy of Apple users everywhere. Sure, the MacBook Air may look sleek and sexy, but the Ryou Collection is sleek, sexy and biodegradable!

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If you've ever wanted to get away from closed off, limiting proprietary media computers, the new Myka might be what you are looking for. Windows Media Center computers have, what some say, is a major flaw. They're Windows-based. Of course, Apple-elitists will tell you that Apple TV is the only way to go. Many others cite their limited number of compatible video formats to be, well, limiting. So, what is a media gadget freak to do?

Myka says, go with the, uh, Myka, a device the official Myka website calls "The Magic Box For Torrent-To-TV Transfer." The idea is simple enough--it's a hard drive, with a simple operating system on it (based on Linux, duh) that allows you to download and play videos directly on your TV. Now, if this is your cup of tea, then this is going to be your media-playing-box of choice. They've even struck a partnership with the original company behind the original Bit Torrent platform to make sure the emphasis is put on the legal syllable here.

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Ever find yourself needing to record what you see through a microscope onto your computer? Well, if you have, your need has been met with a short stack of USB microscopes available now, around the intarwebs. A few different companies make a few different types of USB microscopes--but hang on--why would anyone need a USB-based microscope/cam? Well, for starters, they're just cool! If you're truly a gadget addict, how could you say "no" to something like this?

Snarkiness aside, you also could be a scientist who is looking for a way to easily edit or share your observations. You could use your USB microscope as a webcam and update your website with new pictures of what ever tiny thing you happened to be looking at. You might also be a science teacher interested in finding new ways to educate your students with the use of technology. Regardless of why you might need a USB microscope, there are plenty out there to choose from.

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For many of us, space economy is an everyday reality. Ultimately, cutting down on the clutter in any room gives it additional appeal, not to mention freeing up space to, you know, move. Sometimes, those things that most often get in the way are light fixtures, like that standing lamp that you’re always drunkenly crashing into. Well, what if I told you there was a way to have all the lighting you need and keep the aesthetic appeal of a lamp without taking up any space? What if I then told you this can be done by ‘sticking’ a lamp to your wall? No-no, don’t leave, I’m not lying!

The design is called Tall&Tiny and was created by Alice Rosignoli. The package is comprised of two lamp ‘outlines’ made of vinyl foil: one table-top lamp and the other standing (hence Tall and Tiny). You can fix these lamps to your wall, which come with actual light fixtures, and stand back and enjoy the extra space, not to mention an incredibly cool look. Despite the appearance of a dangling pull-cord in the black outline, the light is controlled via a switch on the power cord that runs up to the bulb. For the time being these ultra-chic lamps appear to be exclusive to the designer’s website but if popularity grows, they will no doubt be readily available in the future. Now if they could only do the same with my bulky coffee-maker…

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