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"  Hasbro A.M.P. Robot | $500  As if the Rolly wasn&amp;#039;t enough dancing robot for you. Plug your MP3 player into this Automated Music Personality (A.M.P.) and he starts dancing with all the skill that his Segway-like wheel will lend him. Using a control, you can roll him across the room and turn his plate-like hands into makeshift turntables. Sure, it&amp;#039;s cool, but when it comes out in October, A.M.P. will present potential buyers with what we have dubbed the &amp;quot;Rock Band Problem&amp;quot;: This toy takes up serious living room real estate. -- S.P.  Merrell Gatherer Jacket | $100  Between grass, pine cones, leaves and various small woodland animals, nature is full of insulation. Using a series of parka-lining pockets, wearers can stuff this jacket with whatever happens to be lying around, allowing them to increase and decrease its warmth instantly. We had ample time to play with Gatherer at this January&amp;#039;s Outdoor Retailer show and stuff its pockets with a multitude of forest debris. At that point, the product was merely a concept, and a Merrell rep told us that it &amp;quot;probably wouldn&amp;#039;t&amp;quot; be released commercially. He was wrong. Beginning this fall, cold campers will be able to say honestly, &amp;quot;Yes, that is a pine cone in my pocket.&amp;quot; --S.P.  Logitech Driving Force GT PS3 steering wheel | $150  I&amp;#039;ve been playing steering-wheel-controlled racing games since the days of Pole Position (remember that one?). I spent much of my lawnmowing money on Out Run. But nothing compares--not even other haptics controllers-- to this PS3-compatible force-feedback wheel(which hit stores in late April). It creates various levels of tension as you twist and turn through the Gran Turismo 5 racetrack, adding a level of realism that floored PM&amp;#039;s crack team of auto editors. Unlike most gaming wheels that only give you about 200 degrees of rotation, this one can be twisted through several full rotations--just like a real car. --S.P.  Dell E Netbook | $300  From the ThinkPad X300 to the MacBook Air, 2008 is turning out to be the year of the ultraportable laptop. While those computers can run upward of $3000, ASUS&amp;#039;s Eee PCs can cost less than $350. Dell aims to enter both categories later this summer with its shiny new E-series notebooks. We&amp;#039;re more excited about the Chiclet-size ASUS competitor that Michael Dell was seen carrying around last month. Rumor has it that pricing will start at $299 and that it will ship sometime in August. At 2.2 pounds it won&amp;#039;t weigh down your briefcase but will be far better for surfing the web and creating documents than any smartphone. --S.E.K.   Polaroid PoGo | $150  Polaroid caused a lot of rancor earlier this year when it announced that it would stop making instant film. The company hopes to win back loyalists this summer with its mini PoGo (Polaroid on the Go) printer, a tiny printer that doesn&amp;#039;t use any ink. Instead, the printer relies on ZINK (Zero Ink) technology, which uses paper embedded with heat-activated dye crystals. The printer is portable, quiet and seriously different from the company&amp;#039;s older technology. You send digital images from your cellphone or digital camera to the printer, which means you print only the pictures you like--there&amp;#039;s no wasted paper. And unlike the old-fashioned Polaroid, the end result is waterproof and you can shake it as much as you want without damaging it. The pictures can even be used as stickers. We&amp;#039;ve seen this printer in action: the results weren&amp;#039;t amazing, but they were good enough that they made the PoGo look like it would be fun to have around. Let&amp;#039;s be clear, though--it can&amp;#039;t compete with instant film. Yet. But until Polaroid figures out how to fit ZINK into digital cameras, it will have to do. --S.E.K.  Yamaha Bodibeat | $300  Mid-workout playlist misfires can ruin a good run. Kenny G may be great if you&amp;#039;re trying to cool off after crossing the finish line, but the slow, soothing sounds of smooth jazz can kill your momentum when you&amp;#039;re trying to sprint out the last lap. This MP3 player uses a pulse sensor to play songs that match your heart rate. Speed up, and it pulls superfast tracks, slow down, and it&amp;#039;ll give you something to chill out to. The machine can do this because it has a built-in accelerometer and pulse monitor, which are useful for more than just song management: The Bodibeat saves exercise logs monitoring your workout that you can upload to your computer. Yamaha first announced the Bodibeat over a year ago. As of now, it is finally slated to come out this fall. --S.P.   LG Decoy | $180  One of the major disadvantages to Bluetooth headsets (besides their insanely dorky appearance) is that they force you to carry around yet another easy-to-lose, needs-to-be-charged digital ball and chain. No more. The LG Decoy, now available through Verizon, has a Bluetooth headset that stows away in the phone&amp;#039;s body when you&amp;#039;re done using it. The headpiece charges when you charge your phone, eliminating yet another logistical headache. The phone is 3G enabled and has most of the other extras we expect nowadays, including a micro SD slot, camera and media player capability. It costs $180 with a two-year contract. --S.E.K.   Sigma DP-1 | $800  Digital Single Lens Reflex Cameras (DSLRs) are bulky. Digital point-and-shoots are portable, but their images can&amp;#039;t compare. Sigma changed that earlier this year by putting a really large image sensor--the size of an entry-level DSLR--into a small point-and-shoot. The reason that DSLRs have better image quality than point-and-shoots has little to do with megapixels and everything to do with sensor size. It&amp;#039;s not a new idea-- Leica makes similar cameras, but sells them for more than $4000. At $800, Sigma&amp;#039;s DP-1 aims to be a game changer, blowing away point-and-shoot competition and taking images on par with similarly priced DSLRs. It&amp;#039;s not the perfect camera for everyone: It&amp;#039;s not tiny and it&amp;#039;s not quick, but it&amp;#039;s an important step in the right direction for portable digital cameras. --S.E.K.   Iomega Super eGo 1TB external hard drive | $255  In 1980, IBM released the first 1 gigabyte hard drive. The storage device, which was larger than a coffin and weighed more than 500 pounds, held less data than a typical USB flash drive does today. The price tag: $40,000. Today, we have reached the state of almost infinite data capacities. This external hard drive, which is available now, can hold a whole terabyte (1000 GB), an amount of data that would have been almost inconceivable a few years ago, in a case the size and shape of a large flask. Of course, someday we&amp;#039;ll look back at this and laugh at its huge size, paltry capacity and monstrous price tag. But that likely won&amp;#039;t be for at least a few years. In the meantime, this baby can back up every computer in your home several times over without breaking a sweat. -- S.P.   Belkin Conserve Surge Protector | $50  Electricity-sucking vampires--inefficient devices like Plasma TVs that continue to trickle significant amounts of power from your walls even when they are turned off and not in use--aren&amp;#039;t doing your already-rising energy bill any favors. According the California Energy Commission, up to 15% of the average household&amp;#039;s energy use is can come from standby power. This gadget, one of the early faves for best eco-friendly appliance of the year, may be one of your best lines of defenses if you&amp;#039;re looking to de-fang some energy suckers. On the surface it&amp;#039;s a normal power strip, but press a button on the strip&amp;#039;s wall-mounted lightswitch-style remote control and it completely cuts the power from most of its outlets, while keeping the juice flowing to a few others (your DVR won&amp;#039;t work unless it&amp;#039;s on, for example). It&amp;#039;s expected to hit stores later this summer. --S.P.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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