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The hotlist

Never afraid to welcome with open arms the brave new world of technology, we present a selection of the finest gadgetry sure to leave colleagues, friends and family green with envy

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Digital WiFi detector
£59.95
The digital WiFi detector is perfect for those occasions when you are in an airport departure lounge, café or hotel lobby and you simply must check your emails, look up some directions or watch a videos of the wacky and weird. Instead of unpacking your laptop, waiting for it to start up and then finding that there is no wireless signal anyway, all you need to do now is whip out this handy little gadget, and it’ll scan the airwaves for all available wireless signals. Not only will it show the names and strengths of network signals, it will also show you Network info, network ID, encryption status and channel information. It will even let you scroll through multiple networks if more than one is present.

Aego M speakers
£99.95
Unlike most mp3 player speakers, the Aego M speakers actually sound better than a bluebottle trying to fight its way out of a jam jar. High quality craftsmanship, sleek and contemporary design and high technical specifications all combine to deliver a speaker system that sounds as good as it looks. The amplifier is built into the subwoofer, which delivers robust bass sounds, and the two tiny speakers will bring out crystal-clear treble notes. All this high-quality engineering will probably be wasted if you spend your time listening to ‘Gertcha’ by Chas and Dave, or ‘Gangbang’ by Black Lace – but each to his own.  

Breitling Emergency Watch
We’ve all been there. Everything is going fine, you’re flying your helicopter over the Himalayas, and suddenly you hear a spluttering noise as the engine comes to a halt. After plummeting for several thousand feet and crashing into the side of a mountain, you find yourself stranded, injured and without any hope of rescue. Until now. Enter the Breitling Emergency Watch – simply unscrew the protective cap on the side, pull out the antenna, and the watch will transmit an emergency signal over a range of 100 miles for 48 hours, which can be picked up by aircrafts flying at up to 20,000ft.

Now all you have to do is sit back, relax and tend to your horrific injuries.

Wind-up charger
£5.99
Keeping your mobile phone fully juiced up while out on your travels is one of life’s great difficulties; but now help is at hand with this new wind-up mobile phone charger. It comes supplied with a set of adapters which will fit most types of phone – Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson are all catered for – so all you need to do when you see those little bars running down on the edge of your screen is whip out the charger and get cranking. It could even become part of your daily work-out routine, especially if you want one of your arms to be freakishly more developed than the other.

Shure E500 Earphones
£289.99
Like the Aego M speakers, these earphones pack an audio punch which belies their miniscule size. As well as offering incredible sound quality, they also have a sound isolating feature, which blocks 90 percent of ambient noise. The Shure 500 include a detachable Push-to-Hear Control, which enables you to switch between the music coming from the earphones and the noises in the world around you – so if you want to have a conversation without removing the earphones, all you have to do is push the button and the specially designed VoicePort microphone will pick up any nearby voices in perfect quality. Or you could just pretend to be listening while you’re actually rocking on out to Metallica.   

Professional weather station
Talking about the weather is one of the favourite pastimes of the average Briton – so just imagine being able to predict the weather with your very own weather station! Everyone at dinner parties will be queuing up to speak to you. When somebody says “Ooh, it’s a bit warm today,” you’ll be able to reply with “That’s because we’re experiencing unusually high pressure, and my graph indicates that there’s more on the way.” What fun you’ll have keeping track of humidity, temperature and air pressure, and what fun your friends and family will have listening to you – just don’t be surprised if they suddenly take to wearing the Shure E500 earphones when you’re around.

E-TEN Glofiish X800
If you ignore the stupid name for a second, the Glofiish X800 is actually one of the most advanced PC pocket phones available. Not only does it have a high-resolution VGA display, 3.5G connectivity and GPS, it is also one of the thinnest phones of its kind, measuring just 15.8mm. It may be lightweight in terms of its physical properties, but it is certainly not when it comes to technology – running on Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft’s latest mobile platform, it is ideal for working with messages, documents and multimedia while you’re out and about. It can even be used as an in-car navigation device. It also has not one, but two cameras – one on the back for taking pictures, and one on the front for video calls.

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