2014 geeky holiday gift guide: 5 high-tech gadgets for geeks
Welcome to the eighth installment of SiliconANGLE Media’s 2014 Holiday Gift Guide series. In this series of gift guides, we’ve suggested some of the best high-tech gift ideas for your friends and loved ones this holiday season. So far we’ve given you techie gift ideas for golfers, tennis players, dog lovers, new parents, runners, better sleep and skiers. In this gift guide, we give you five techie gadgets that any self-respecting geek would love to receive this holiday season.
See our golfers gift guide here.
See our tennis gift guide here.
See our dog lovers gift guide here.
See our new parents/new baby gift guide here.
See our runners gift guide here.
See our better sleep gift guide here.
See our skiers gift guide here.
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1. Epic Portable Projection Keyboard & Multi-Touch Mouse
Product Name: Epic Portable Projection Keyboard & Multi-Touch Mouse
Manufacturer: Celluon, Inc.
Product Description: Get the geek on your holiday list Celluon’s Epic, an ultra-portable projection keyboard and multi-touch mouse device that works on most opaque, flat surfaces. A successor to the company’s flagship product, the Magic Cube, the Epic is a smaller, mobile device—about the size of a matchbox. Like the Magic Cube, the Epic uses a red laser diode to project a virtual keyboard onto the surface in front of you. An infrared signal detects your fingers making contact with the virtual keys and relays text entry to any device you have connected. Devices can be connected via a USB cable or Bluetooth. The Epic offers a full-size QWERTY keyboard and a built-in battery with over two hours operating time. It is compatible with iOS 4.0 and later, Android 4.0 and later, Windows XP and later, and Blackberry 10.
MSRP: $149.99
Available Colors: Black, Silver, White
Watch product ad here (1:44):
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2. bKey Compact Wireless Smartphone Battery
Product Name: bKey Compact Wireless Smartphone Battery
Manufacturer: bKey Inc.
Product Description: The bKey started as a successfully funded Kickstarter project in September 2014. Now shipping, the bKey is a cable-free, emergency smartphone battery with a built-in USB tip to charge it, and a micro-USB or iPhone tip to charge your phone on the go. The bKey is small, lightweight and roughly the size of a typical car key. It is 75mm in length, 15mm in width at the USB male end and 30mm in width at the round end—and it easily fits in your pocket or bag at just 6.5mm thick. The bKey charges through a USB port on your computer or A/C wall adapter. A red light shows when bKey is charging and it switches to blue once the bKey is fully charged.
To use the bKey, just plug the smartphone tip into your smartphone and the bKey will release its full charge into your phone. You can use your phone while it’s charging. The bKey’s custom-made, 230-milliAmp hour lithium-ion battery is good for an additional 30 minutes of talk, text or surf time whenever you need it. The bKey holds its full charge for over a month so it’s ready to go when you are. Available models include bKey for iPhone 5, 5C, 5S (Lightning 8-pin), bKey for iPhone 4, 4S and many iPods (30-pin), and bKey for Micro-USB (Samsung, HTC, Blackberry, etc.).
MSRP: $24.99
Available Colors: Rubberized matte black or white gloss
Purchase at: bKey Inc.
Watch product ad here: N/A
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3. Ohm Portable Speaker with Wireless Charging Dock
Product Name: Ohm Portable Speaker with Wireless Charging Dock
Manufacturer: Quirky.com
Product Description: The Ohm is an all-in-one portable Bluetooth speaker and inductive, wireless charging dock. It is the charging dock that sets the Ohm apart from other Bluetooth speakers. The Ohm doesn’t need any wires at all because it comes with the inductive wireless charging station. While playing music on Ohm’s speaker, you can charge up your device using either its high-output USB port or wirelessly using the Qi-compatible charging pad. When the speaker runs out of power, just return it to the dock—it’ll charge wirelessly, too. You can get six to eight hours of playback on a single charge.
MSRP: $169.99
Available Colors: Black, White
Purchase at: Quirky.com
Watch product ad here (0:20):
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4. SnapLite Desk Lamp and iPhone5 Scanner
Product Name: SnapLite Desk Lamp and iPhone5 Scanner
Manufacturer: PFU (subsidiary of Fujitsu)
Product Description: The SnapLite Desk Lamp iPhone5 Scanner works like an ordinary lamp for your desk or work station, but it can quickly transform into a smart scanning device as soon as you slide your iPhone 5 on its top. Just download the SnapLite iPhone app, place your iPhone 5 on the SnapLite’s cradle, and press the scan button. The SnapLite communicates with the iPhone via Bluetooth 4.0 and allows the app to control the level of illumination. SnapLite then projects a laser frame (which is the scanning area) and scans the image.
The Snaplite can scan objects and documents up to A4 size. It comes with a host of other functions and timer options, making it handy to keep at home (to scan recipes or kids’ artwork) or at work (to quickly scan those meeting notes). The laser guide provides you with scans that are far superior to any images you can snap with just your phone’s camera. Plus, you can easily adjust the lighting and brightness. You can edit, share or save the scan to your phone’s camera roll. The SnapLite connects with your device Bluetooth plus it can be charged up via USB.
MSRP: US$241.00
Available Colors: White
Purchase at: Japan Trend Shop
Watch product ad here (1:34):
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5. WiFi Hotspot and 2GB USB Combination Cufflinks
Product Name: WiFi Hotspot and 2GB USB Combination Cufflinks
Manufacturer: Ravi Ratan
Product Description: More than just a decorative accent to business attire, these clever cufflinks deliver a pop of cutting-edge connectivity to any mobile office. One cufflink serves as a 2GB USB Flash drive to store digital files. The second cufflink serves as a personal Wi-Fi hotspot for laptops, smartphones, tablets and other wireless devices. Simply install the included software onto an Internet-connected computer, connect via USB and create a hotspot for all wireless devices. WifiAn-Mini sets up automatically as a router (Wi-Fi hotspot) on Windows XP (32-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit, 64-bit) and Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit). Can be used as a wireless LAN adapter on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows CE, Linux and Mac. Each cufflink measures .75″w x .75″l x .25″h and secures with an engravable, straight post whale-back closure.
MSRP: $250.00
Available Colors: Oval rhodium-plated base with polished silver finish
Purchase at: Amazon, Brookstone, Cufflinks.com, Nordstrom, Red Envelope
Watch product ad here: N/A
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2014 Holiday Gift Guide graphic courtesy of SiliconANGLE Media
All product ads/videos courtesy of their respective manufacturers via YouTube
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