Your Next Gift

Here at YourNextGift, we often come across some great ideas on the net which just haven't made it into production yet. And we just loved this when we saw it!

The NapBook is a laptop case which also happens to be a comfortable cushion. It is designed for students and commercial people whether attending class, a lengthy business meeting or just the odd journey home the NapBook should come in handy for the restless. Created by Hafsteinn Juliusson a product designer from Reykjavik, Iceland his approach to design includes a new perspective and to reach a diverse range of people. So far, most of his designs are just one-off prototypes but we would love this to go into mainstream mass production!

More information: Hafsteinn Juliusson

Obviously printed photos are so last-decade. Digital photo frames allow us to go directly from shooting to displaying our photos with no messy meatspace-based printed version needed. The eStarling 2.0 Wi-Fi Photo Frame takes this concept to the next level by connecting to your local Wi-Fi network and allowing you to send photos to it via e-mail or RSS photo feed.

With full web-based access you can control exactly the photos you want on your eStarling frame at any time from anywhere in the word. E-mail photos as .jpg attachments and they appear on your frame. Choose a Flickr photo feed with the keyword "cool japanese robots" and soon your frame will be scrolling through nifty shots of highly desirable bots you will never get your hands on. New Photobucket integration allows you to add photos into rotation on your eStarling frame directly from the Photobucket website. You can of course send photos while on the go from your mobile phone, while your pets watch your exciting antics remotely on the eStarling. Hand the eStarling Photo Frame over to a non-technical relative and rule with an iron-fist over exactly what photos your Grannie views!

With one time easy set up, you get assigned a free dedicated e-mail adress to send photos to it. Simply e-mail any JPEG photo to the eStarling frame. It polls for new e-mail every few minutes and puts any photos it receives into rotation on the frame in a slideshow format. The frame functions similarly when receiving photos via the Flickr photo feed. You can also delete or add photos directly via the web-based control panel at any time and can easily set up RSS feeds to it. For Flickr RSS photo feed configuration, simply do a search on Flickr for your favorite photos. Cut and paste the URL from the "RSS 2.0" link at the bottom of the page into the eStarling web-based software. You can even do multiple feeds at once. Once a feed is set-up Flickr photos matching your search criteria go into rotation on the frame. As new photos are posted to Flickr, they show up on the frame.

We like to bring you those more unusual gifts here at YourNextGift and we definitely think the eStarling Wifi Digital Photo Frame will be a gift that will amaze and be well received!

Available at: ThinkGeek (USA/International) and Amazon (USA) and Firebox (USA / UK)

Wi-Fi Signal Status Now On Your Wrist!

For a geek on the go, checking for wi-fi is like checking to see if it's raining outside. It's an essential resource that is necessary for proper operation of the many gadgets that we carry. When wi-fi is not available it can really rain on your parade and cause you to go searching for a nice safe place to connect.

This wristwatch tells you the wi-fi signal strength at the push of a button. The strength is shown as a number from 0 to 8, letting you know exactly what kind of connectivity you can expect or if you need to move a little closer to the access point. The Wi-Fi Detecting Watch also has other features (alarm, countdown timer) and is well styled with steel case and rubber strap band.

Features:
- A smart digital watch with WiFi Detector.
- Pushing the watches' WiFi button starts the detection process. The strength is shown numerically with 0 being the weakest and 8 the strongest.
- Time is displayed digitally, displaying the time in hours, minutes and seconds.
- An alarm function, countdown, hourly chime, dual time and lap memory complete the watches' repertoire.
- The watch is shock-proof and is water resistant to 100m.
- Size: Watch face: 1.6" x 1.2" / 4cm x 3cm.

Available at: ThinkGeek (USA/International) and I Want One Of Those (UK/USA/Europe/International)

The Micro Mosquito is currently ruffling feathers throughout the world of RC aviation, as it is one of the most incredible flying machines ever to take to the skies. Weighing in at a mere 15g, this bug-like indoor 'copter is so small it can take off and land in the palm of your hand. Amazing!

Thanks to its counter-rotating blades the Mosquito is astoundingly manoeuvrable. Once you get the hang of its twin-toggle, digital proportional transmitter you'll be buzzing around like a pro pilot. Up, down, hover, forwards, backwards, left, right - you name it. We just landed ours on the boss's head having taken off from the water cooler. Try doing that in a proper chopper. (Don't, you might decapitate someone).

Ready to fly in the smallest of spaces straight out of the box, the Mosquito is powered via a charger that doubles up as a launch pad. A 45 minute juice-up will give you a full ten minutes of flying time - more than enough to hover around the ceiling, fly by the coffee table and buzz past the telly. This innovative triumph of micro-engineering even features a pair of green glowing 'eyes' - perfect for putting the willies up the cat when night falls.

Believe us, playing with the Mosquito is seriously addictive. We guarantee you'll be unable to resist a quick flight whenever you're lounging on the sofa or twiddling your thumbs at work. If you still haven't got the bug, hit the Buy button. Because flying the Micro Mosquito is a total buzz!

Available at:
I Want One Of Those (UK/USA/Europe/International)
ThinkGeek (USA/Canada/International)
Firebox (USA/UK/Europe/International)

Dance Dance Revolution... Kaos Style!

You may be familiar with the amazing pocket-sized Kaossilator Touchpad Synthesizer designed by Korg Japan. Now Korg brings it's revolutionary touchpad style interface to the Mini-Kaoss Touchpad Effects Processor. The Mini-Kaoss acts as if you took several hundred different guitar effects pedals and crammed them into one device. Give it any audio input like your iPod or CD player and run your fingers across the touchpad as the Mini-Kaoss pad transforms your music with amazing effects. Tap the BPM key in time to your music and the Mini-Kaoss learns the beat of the song and syncs the effects appropriately. With 100 different amazing sounding effects ranging from pitch changers, to flangers to reverb and delays... soon you'll be opening your own discotheque at your desk!

Features:

- Transform your music with amazing live effects controlled by the Mini-Kaos touchpad.
- Intuitive touch-pad interface gives you fingertip effect control in real-time.
- Battery operation and small size make it an ideal choice for any scene.
- One hundred effects including filter, delay, and looper meet the needs of any musical style.
- Numerous BPM effects are provided. You can use the "TAP/BPM button" to synchronize the mini-KP to your song's tempo, and apply a wide range of effects to your music.
- "FX RELEASE" function provides a natural decay when changing effects or removing your finger from the pad.
- Hold function lets you memorize the position at which you touched the touch-pad when you release your finger.
- Use the two memory keys A and B to store your favorite effect program settings, including the effect depth and the Hold on/off status.

Available at: ThinkGeek (USA/International)

We all know VHS tapes were rubbish. Dodgy tracking, limited lifespan, noisy spools, below par quality...we could go on. So we will. Bulky, clunky, fragile, ridiculously slow to rewind - the list is truly endless. But for all its faults, VHS was the leading video format for almost thirty years. And that's why you've got stacks of tapes languishing in the loft and piled up in the cupboard. And that's why you need the brilliant Ion USB VCR 2 PC Converter.

This idiot-proof video player allows you to convert long-forgotten VHS recordings into pristine digital files. So you can cringe at your shoulder pads in those homemade vids and laugh at all those old TV shows you taped, without cracking out your soon to be obsolete VCR.

Simply plonk in a tape, press play and leave the rest to this USB-friendly machine. It doesn't matter if you want to watch reinvigorated recordings on your computer, iPod, PSP or DVD because the included conversion software caters for stacks of formats. As well as its incredible ability to amalgamate declining technology with cutting edge jiggery-pokery, the USB VCR Converter can be used as a regular VCR, just plug it into your TV. And once you've successfully archived your VHS library the only thing left to do is bin those cumbersome tapes!

Available at: Firebox (USA/UK/Europe/International) and I Want One Of Those (UK/Europe/International)

Also popular:

Ion USB Tape 2 PC and Ion USB Turntable

Time is so staggeringly elastic. The seconds of terrifying anticipation before your parachute opens stretch ahead of you like hours, the minutes before you have to get out of your warm bed to go to work flash by in a nanosecond. The Lifetimer clock lets you keep track of the important things in life in a wonderfully novel way. The clock face is surrounded by a collection of buttons relating to different aspects of your life, such as your next holiday, your next tea break, your birthday, the time you knock off from work, even the last time you had rumpy pumpy. Simply pressing any of these buttons will give you the number of hours, minutes and seconds you've got left (or that have passed in the case of some) till the event happens. Press, and it's only seven minutes and twenty seconds to your coffee break; press, and you've been in your current relationship for two years, three months, six days, ten hours, four minutes and twelve seconds, etc etc. It's a brilliant idea and great fun - in fact it's amazing quite how much time you can waste simply pressing the buttons to see how much time you're wasting. Watch the seconds left till you can go home from work tick away (backwards of course), or the days since you last made like a rabbit add depressingly up!

Features:

- The Lifetimer keeps track of the important things in life, counting up or down to momentous events like 'home time'.
- An option to set the clock to 12 or 24 hour clock.
- A stopwatch function.
- The Lifetimer counts the days until your Birthday, Christmas, next holiday, lunch hour, home time, the weekend, the event of your choice.
- The Lifetimer times how long it has been since you started your job, began your relationship, last had sex.
- The calendar stretches up to the year 2050.
- The Lifetimer is an interactive little thing, pinging away with date reminders and scrolling messages across its back-lit LCD screen.
- Ergonomically designed.
- Uses with 2 x AAA batteries.
- Size: 3.3" x 3.7" x 3.3" / 8.5cm x 9.4cm x 8.5cm.

The Lifetimer - possibly the most interesting and interactive clock ever invented!

Available at: I Want One Of Those (USA/UK/Europe/International)

'Just the good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm, beats all you've ever saw...' If you're old enough and geeky enough to remember that song, you'll know that the real star of the Dukes of Hazzard wasn't Bo, Luke, Flash the dog or even Daisy's perfectly formed...erm, jeep. No, the star of this so-bad-it-was-brilliant slice of 80s TV was the good ol' General Lee.

Seemingly indestructible, this souped-up 1969 Dodge Charger roared its way through each goofball episode (and the frankly disappointing 2005 movie) like grits through a goose. It could even leap through the air every time it hit a bump. And now you can yee-haa your way across the county in this fully-functioning, Remote Control version of one of rubbish TV's greatest vehicles.

The General Lee R/C Car is an exact replica of the fantastically orangey ve-hi-cle driven by them pesky Duke boys in the TV show and movie. Ready to run, this beautifully-built car travels forwards, backwards, left and right, and boasts a nifty 'turbo-boost' function so you can outrun Enos, Cletus or any other suggestively named deputy sheriff. It even has working headlights so you can run moonshine into Chickasaw County after dark.

Of course the General wouldn't be the General without those ear-splitting airhorns, heck no! Simply press a button on the handheld transmitter and you'll hear that famous Dixie ditty plus a hearty 'Yeee-haaa!' It's just like being in Hazzard County. In fact you can almost hear Rosco P. Coltrane saying 'I'm gonna cuff ya an' stuff ya! Ghkuu-ku-ku!' every time you break the speed limit.

Whether you're a longstanding Dukes of Hazzard aficionado or a fan of the movie (well there must be a few), the General Lee R/C Car is one of the purdiest replicas we ever did see. We guarantee you'll be unable to stop speaking in hayseed slang every time you go for a spin. You can even dress up like one of them Dukes and pretend you're foiling one of Boss Hogg's dastardly schemes. It's fun, but boy, do those hotpants chafe. Yeeeee-haaaaa!

Available at: Firebox (USA/IK/Europe/International)

Today's computers are triumphs of technology, but divvy designers always seem to scrimp on the USB ports. A shame because practically every electronic device on the market is now USB-friendly - from cameras and MP3 players to phones, lava lamps and drum kits. And who can be bothered fiddling around the back of their computer looking for spare ports?

Not us. That's why we use USB hubs. But we don't use any old hubs to bolster our USB connectivity. Good grief, no! We use ones shaped liked Doctor Who's Tardis. Why? Well, for starters we love Doctor Who. But more than that we love the Tardis. This ingenious product of Time Lord technology is surely one of the most iconic objects in sci-fi history.

The Doctor Who Tardis USB Hub boasts four ports in which to plug your various gizmos. Simply plug in and you're away. But here's the good bit: every time you connect or disconnect a device, the blue light on the top of the Tardis flashes and that unmistakable de-materialisation 'vworp, vworp' sound starts sawing away at your lugholes. Thankfully it doesn't actually vanish into the time vortex, so you can enjoy the classic grating din again and again by plugging in more devices or pressing the demo button.

Perfect for Doctor Who fans or those of you who want to increase your USB connectivity via a pretend Gallifreyan time/space machine, the Tardis USB Hub makes an eye-catching addition to any work surface. And with 4 metres of cable, you can easily slip it out of view when the boss, wife, or anyone else who might disapprove of PC peripherals disguised as dimensionally transcendental vehicles, is around. Vworp, vworp!

Available at: Firebox (UK/USA/International) and ThinkGeek (USA/International)

The Sanctuary charging station's simple and compact design brings order to his world of gadgets. Compatible with over 1,500 devices from most major brands--including Apple, BlackBerry, Motorola and Samsung--the universal charger allows it to charge up to 12 devices at the same time. The reversible inner tray insert turns this into the ultimate catchall. Tidy up your desk at home or the office, perfect for those with so many devices and gadgets to charge, the Sanctuary Charging Station will look neat anywhere!

Features:

- Available in black or white.
- Includes a fabric-finished inner tray that reverses to black or tan
- Has 12 built-in connectors for your electronics
- Measures 9" x 9" x 1 3/4"H
- Universally compatible with all models of the iPhone, iPod and BlackBerry
- Works with most models from Kyocera, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony-Ericsson.

Available at: Red Envelope (USA)

Sick? Tired? Feel like being late?

Remember how easy it was to shirk responsibility when your mother could write you a note? With the Excuse Note, simplicity is here again. Whether you're late, absent, or just plain out of it, you'll be excused. Irrefutable written explanations! Authorizable by anybody - 50 useful pages included!

Available at: Perpetual Kid (USA)

The electric guitar is without doubt the greatest weapon in the rock 'n' roll armory. Indeed the crunching kerrang of a nicely distorted axe is, in our humble opinion, the finest sound in the world. The problem is, achieving sonic nirvana whilst spanking your plank requires all manner of accessories, including racks of pedals and a whopping great stack. Step forward the amazing iAxe 393 USB Guitar.

This revolutionary instrument might look like a top-notch electric guitar featuring a maple neck, solid body, single-coil pickups with 5-way switching, chrome machine heads and a vintage whammy bar - and that's because it is. But it's also an ingenious USB-friendly axe that allows you to transform your computer into an amp, effects rack and recording system without any additional hardware.

Going way past eleven in terms of features, this Strat-style guitar comes with idiot-proof software that lets you jam along with your favorite music files. You can even slow tracks down or speed them up for learning and practising - ideal if you're into shredding metal or plodding pop. There's also a multi-track recording/editing function, so you can record your wicked riffing, two-handed tap-offs and sweeping arpeggios (or something like that) on the spot. Sticking your tongue out like him out of Kiss is entirely optional.

But what does all this hi-tech jiggery pokery do sound-wise? Well, pretty much everything as the included software can recreate countless combo sounds, from tube to transistor, soft to distorted, warm to edgy. No wall of speakers or mile-long pedal deck required. And if you're worried about the neighbors (how very un-rock 'n' roll) you can listen to your plucking genius via headphones. Whether you're a wannabe widdler or a lightning-fingered axemeister, the iAxe 393 USB Guitar is guaranteed to blow you away with its playability, sound and functionality.

A great gift for all those budding stars out there!

Available at: ThinkGeek (USA/Canada) and Firebox (UK/USA/Europe/International)

Yes, it's absurd, we know, but boy is this gizmo a blessing in 1970s white plastic disguise or what! Stumbling to the lav at night is one of life's little irritations at the best of times, but what really makes it so darned annoying is having to half blind yourself in the process by turning on the bathroom light. You could almost get away with going through the process without truly waking up, if it wasn't for the 'Oh my good god, who put a 1000 watt bulb in when I wasn't looking' experience. Well now, thankfully, that whole snow-blindness nightmare is finally over. The Lavnav (great name) is a joy to behold.

You simply stick it on the inside of your lav lid (comes with sticky pads) and hey presto, whenever you stagger into the bathroom in the dark the motion sensor fires it up, and it shines a gentle guiding light into your lav, and turns off after you leave. It even knows if the seat is up or not - red light for up, green light for down. A brilliant, if slightly odd, product, and an excellent solution to prevent you being wrenched from half-asleepness in the middle of the night.

Features:

- Motion detector.
- Green/red light and seat position reader.
- Uses 2 x AA batteries.
- Size: 3" x 3.5" x 1" / 7.5cm x 9cm x 2.5cm.

Available at: I Want One Of Those (UK/USA/Europe/International)

This compact wonder is the perfect sound system for home or on the go. The JBL On Stage III is a quality portable stereo dock for your iPod, iTouch, iPhone or other MP3 player. It has four Odyssey Transducer speakers with 6 watts-per-channel to create ultra-clear sound, smooth bass and includes a remote control.

Features:

- Superior quality JBL sound with 4 x Odyssey Transducer speakers.
- Weighs only 1 lb.
- Compatible with all docking versions of the iPod, iTouch, iPhone as well as other MP3 players.
- Includes remote control.
- Powered via AC wall cord (included) or six AA batteries.

Available at: Red Envelope (USA)

Now you can hit the road with all your favorite tunes. This ingenious Wireless Radio Transmitter from Belkin is perfect solution to use your iPod or iTouch in the car without any messy or complicated wiring. The radio transmitter has a ClearScan feature, which cuts through the static by seeking out the clearest station on the FM dial with a push of a button.

Just plug it in, tune in and go!

Features:

- Easy-mount base fits any docking iPod or iTouch.
- Includes line-out for use with car-stereo inputs or cassette adapter.
- "Pro" setting optimizes audio and boosts volume.
- Transmits audio wirelessly on multiple FM channels from 88.1MHz-107.9MHz.
- Flexible neck for convenient, easy adjustments while driving.
- Dimensions 2 3 / 4" x 5 3 / 4" x 7 3/ 4"H.

Available at: Red Envelope (USA)