December 18th, 2008
Holiday Gift Guide 2008: Last-minute stocking stuffers
OK, so you promised yourself that this year, you’d get your holiday shopping done early. But, like always, you held off your holiday shopping until the Very. Last. Minute.
As my family often says, “Whaddya gonna do?”
Not all hope is lost. There are several petite gadgets you can buy straight off the racks at your local electronics store, and no one will be the wiser that you left your shopping until the week — or day — before. Here are my picks for this year’s perfect last-minute stocking stuffers.
Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
Surely one of the coolest pocket-sized gadgets I’ve heard of, the Livescribe Pulse smartpen records sounds (your voice, or a professor lecturing) through integrated stereo microphones and creates audio notes that it “ties” to your written notes. When you tap on written notes in your notebook, the pen can play the audio that was recorded at the exact moment you wrote those notes. Plugged into a PC, you can view a page-by-page archive of your notes.
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Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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