For many, Black Friday marks the start of the holiday shopping season.  For others, it’s the newly coined “Cyber Monday.”  Some of you might have even started on December 26th last year.  So my apologies in advance, but I don’t fall into any of those categories.  I wait until at least the Thanksgiving leftovers have been polished off before I start thinking about it.  We’ve still got over two weeks to go, after all!

Before we get started on the geeky gift ideas, I just wanted to quickly share a few helpful resources.  First, you’ll want to check out Google’s special Holiday Shopping Search.  This is great for tracking down products and comparing prices from different vendors all in one shot.  Also helpful, you’ll see the top searches shoppers are using this holiday season – great to find out what the most popular gifts are (looks like video games, music players, and digital cameras top the list), and may also give you some ideas.  Secondly, you’ll absolutely want to refer to DealHack’s list of Holiday Shopping Deadlines.  There’s over 150 of the top Internet retailers listed with their shopping & shipping deadlines – if you like to wait til last minute as I do, it will come in handy to know you’ll be able to receive items in time.

So on with a couple ideas!

1. Duracell Pocket Inverter 175

The Duracell Pocket Inverter is a DC to AC power inverter.  Basically, it’s a device you plug into the cigarette adapter in a vehicle’s dash that provides you with a standard AC power, like an electrical outlet in your home.  This allows you to plug your gadgets in while on the go without buying special mobile adapters for each one.  This Duracell is one such model, however inverters come in many shapes and sizes from many manufacturers.  What stands out on the Pocket Inverter 175 is a USB port in addition to the AC power outlet.  Lots of devices nowadays recharge via USB power from a computer (like iPods & iPhones, digital cameras, etc.), so those devices plug right in as if you were recharging them at your computer.  Shop around for other models if you wish, however, understand that “bigger isn’t necessarily much better” if you’re looking for something portable – it’s just more expensive and probably overkill.  A typical vehicle cigarette adapter is rated at 15 amps, which can provide 180 watts of power: 12 volts * 15 amps = 180 watts (thanks Dr. Ohm!) So this 175 watt Duracell model is juuust right.  (Larger inverters serve special purposes: larger appliances in boats, motor homes, et cetera… and would just blow a fuse in your car if loaded to their capacity!)  An inverter the size of the ‘175 is perfect for portable games, music players, cell phone chargers, laptops, portable TVs and DVD players, and other such devices.  It’ll only set you back about $40, which in some cases is less than a single specialty adapter for just one device. (Search for it!)

2. Antworks Space Age Ant Habitat

The Ant Farm is a classic educational toy and cultural icon, dating back to 1956 when Uncle Milton’s began selling them.  In 2003, NASA brought ants into space to perform gravity experiments, and devised a nutrient “gel” to meet the food and water needs of their 6-legged passengers.  Back on earth, Antworks combines the nutrient gel and Ant Farm concepts, and we’ve got a space-aged makeover of the classic Ant Farm fit for a new century.  Ant Farm is a trademark of Uncle Milton’s of course, so Antworks instead produces an “Ant Habitat.”  Fill up the container with your nutrient gel, give the tunnels a head start, add ants (yes, they still come in the mail when you’re ready for them), and sit back and watch your colony thrive. There’s even an accessory light to give your colony a cool blue fiber optic glow.  If you’re partial to the original, Uncle Milton still makes ‘em, as well as their own updated gel version too.  $15-25 for the Antworks Habitat (shop around!), $13 for the lighted base.  (Search it!)

3. USB Cell AA Rechargeable Batteries

These are an absolutely ingenious idea sure to score a perfect “10″ on the nifty scale with any nerd.  They look like regular AA batteries, and they are, sort of.  Flip the top back to reveal a USB plug.  The battery plugs right in to a USB port for recharging.  USB Cell managed to fit a rechargable battery, re-charging circuitry, and the USB plug itself all inside the normal form factor of a regular AA battery.  These are NiMH rechargables that work like any other rechargable battery as far as your devices are concerned.  When you’re out of juice, you can plug it right in to your computer or any powered USB port, which are nearly ubiqutous on a lot of electronic equipment these days.  There’s some drawbacks: they don’t last quite as long as normal rechargables, take a bit longer to recharge, and are a little more pricey.  But the geek-chic coolness factor trumps some of that.  They are however a perfect match for battery powered things that hang out near the computer anyway: wireless keyboards, mice, game controllers, and they’d be handy for traveling if you’re bringing a laptop anyway and want to avoid the battery charger too.  $20 for a pair.  (Search it!)

4. Logitech Harmony series Universal Remote Controls

Logitech has a whole series of programmable, universal remote controls.  These can be a little pricey, but these aren’t your typical remote control.  They’re universal remotes, which means they can control every piece of AV equipment in your home – Logitech can boast close to a quarter million different devices supported, and the remotes can “learn” from other old remotes that aren’t otherwise supported.  Unlike cheaper generic universal remotes, these can control several devices at the same time.  There’s no switching between “TV” or “Receiver” functionality; press the volume button, and it controls your receiver volume.  Press the channel buttons, and the channels change on your cable box.  You configure the remote control to your AV environment, so the controls for the buttons go to the right device, every time, the way it should work! The remotes are fully programmable and customizable via a computer interface connected by USB connection (Mac or PC compatible), so you don’t have to worry about punching in all this information on the remote itself.  The best feature are the “activity centered” buttons.  Think of the steps you might take now to watch a DVD: power on the TV, power on the receiver, power on the DVD player, set the TV to “input 3″, set your receiver to “input 2″, whatever your setup calls for.  How about a button that says “Watch DVD” that automates all those different button presses for you?  That’s exactly what you can program these remotes to do.  They’re a great gift for somebody to tidy up their huge collection of remotes, or somebody who struggles with working their complex AV system – but beware, you WILL need a little tech-savvy to set these up, so this might be a gift best given FROM a geek to a non-geek, along with a little configuration help to send them on their way.  The remotes retail from $99 to $499; there’s a whole slew of options, shapes and sizes, even customizable color screens and rechargeable models.  Shop around and you’ll find them for less than those retail prices.  (Logitech Website for Harmony series)

5. An HD Radio

Not sure what an HD radio is?  You’re not alone.  These are the greatest new products that either nobody has heard of, or doesn’t understand what they are.  I’ll try and break it down, short and sweet.  An HD radio is a digital radio, that picks up over-the-air signals, like an AM/FM radio.  An HD radio IS NOT a satellite radio, although it boats similar sound quality and features.  You pick up local stations, that are broadcast for FREE; there is no subscription required.  An HD radio is most similar in concept to the new digital TV broadcast scheme that’s forcing consumers to either upgrade or use converter boxes to keep using their rabbit ears.  Unlike the DTV transition, there’s no deadline set for a conversion to digital radio.  There likely won’t be one set for some time to come – so don’t get worried that you have to upgrade – but if you have a radio afficianado on your shopping list, they sure will appreciate the upgrade.  These radios are all over the charts when it comes to prices and options – they come in many varieties from table top and alarm clock size, to stereo component size, to units for installation in the car.  (Some ‘08 and many ‘09 vehicles will start shipping with HD radios standard… and there’s no portable models as of now, the electronics required haven’t been shrunken down small enough just yet!)  Your one-stop-shop for information on HD radios is the aptly named hdradio.com.  On the site, you’ll find a station locator to see which stations broadcast in HD in your area; in the Buffalo area there’s already about two dozen stations. You can still tune into regular AM & FM stations with these, but when you tune into HD stations you’ll get much better sound quality: AM now sounds like FM, FM now sounds like CD, and there’s never any fuzz or hissing.  Like DTV, some exisiting stations broadcast multiple versions at once, so you can pick between different tunes on the same station, and some are even commercial free.  Pictured is a Cambridge Soundworks Radio 820HD, which is a great choice for a mid-range, entry level, mid-priced table top model.  Retails about $129 – but again, shop around, you might beat the factory direct price.  (Cambridge Soundworks site)

What did you get for your geek this Christmas?  Leave a comment and share your idea with us!

Election ‘08 is now in the history books – so I figured it’s time to take a look backward, and a look forward at some relevant headlines.

Hacking Democracy

First, we’ll take a look at one of the best kept secrets of the campaign season, from both sides, care of a Newsweek article published just today.  Over the summer, the FBI had its hands full with simultaneous cyber crime investigations: the hacking of the Obama campaign computer system(s), and the hacking of the McCain campaign computer system(s).  While the intrusions have been acknowledged,  little else has been released or confirmed yet.  At this point, it’s known for sure that the FBI was involved, that “a large number of files” were stolen from the Obama side, and that the attacks came from a “foreign entity” and definitely did not come from the opposing sides.  The McCain campaign systems were intruded on in a similar fashion as the Obama systems, but the extent of the compromise on their side was unmentioned.  The rest is speculation of course: security experts have suggested the attacks likely came from China or Russia, and anyone’s best guess is that the goal of such an intrusion was to gain an inside line on procedures and policies used by the campaigns for a leg up in future dealings with the to-be president. (H/T to Newsweek)

This of course wasn’t the only politically motivated cyber-crime this campaign season – I’m sure many recall the Sarah Palin e-mail intrusion back in September.  Though it’s significance is near nil at this point, we’ll remember it as the day our servers felt the shock wave of a web traffic explosion.  If anyone is still interested: David Kernell, a college student in Tennessee, and the son of Tennessee democratic representiative Mike Kernell, was indicted by grand jury in late October.  His trial begins on December 16th, and faces up to 5 years and fines.  Not so “anonymous” now, eh David?  A court has also ordered the e-mails in both of governor Palin’s Yahoo! accounts be preserved for further investigation.

Another dishonorable mention is the state of Ohio election information and registration website that also came under attack, and experienced some brief downtime in late October.  (H/T to Reuters)

Technology Promises

I also want to give a nod back to another item I’ve talked about here: Science Debate 2008.  We’ve got a list of policies and action-items promised to us from pre-president-elect Obama in the realm of technology.  I’ll be saving a copy and keeping score for the next four to eight years.

Along the same lines is Obama’s “Blueprint for Change” video on technology issues.  Maybe you missed it?  Don’t feel bad; for whatever reason, this wasn’t released until the night before the election, effectively burying it in the rest of the 11th hour buzz.

Hi-Tech Election Day Coverage

Election night itself was a grand display of technology as well.  CNN debuted it’s new “hologram” technology – much to the chagrin of pocket protector pencil neck purists who are still complaining two days later that the effect isn’t actually a hologram.  “True” hologram or not, I personally found it a bit silly.  We’ll see if CNN or others bother with this technique down the road.

Ratings speak volumes though, and CNN enjoyed second place of 14 major networks covering the event with 12.3 million viewers.  ABC was the victor, at just over 13 million viewers.  In all, it’s estimated about 71 million viewers tuned in on Tuesday to watch the results unfold.  As impressive at it sounds, it’s still over 25 million shy of this year’s past Super Bowl.  Apparently the world’s couch potatoes are still more interested in the Patriots than in patriotism. (Nielsen’s complete ratings here.)

Nielsen also kept an eye to the web to gauge coverage ratings in cyberspace.  There’s a comprehensive list here if interested; CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo! News being the top three destinations for surfers on Tuesday. The official campaign sites also received a boost on Tuesday, with Obama’s site receiving 1.2 million unique visitors, and McCain’s site receiving 479,000 unique visitors.

The Future

Lastly, let’s look ahead to some new developments that will affect us going forward.

While not related to presidential politics per se, this is still a governmental policy decision that flew under the radar with all the elections buzz, that could mean huge developments in the wireless arena.  On Tuesday, the FCC approved a measure to free up “white spaces” for unlicensed (read: free but regulated) use.  In short, this means unused areas of the wireless spectrum in the general area of digital TV transmissions can be used by consumer devices.  This coveted piece of intangible mathematical electromagnetic real estate means higher bandwidth (faster) transmission of information to and from consumer devices, at greater distances than the current public bands allow.  It’s been a long fought battle mostly centered around issues of interference with licensed bands (at least, that’s the PR friendly argument – it’s probably been a long fought battle because telecommunications companies have sunk billions into competing technologies that may have just been rendered obsolete.)  To appease the interference complaints (some of which are probably valid), devices will have to be extremely smart: they’ll be required to be GPS aware, and to communicate over the Internet with a central database to announce their position and ask permission for an interference free frequency.  There’s a loophole for less intelligent devices, though they’ll have to pass some pretty rigorous interference tests.  You can read more here.  Dell claims to have laptops with “white space radio” already in the works that you can learn about here.

The last “bit” we have to pass on is some news about some technology related appointments to the Obama transition team.  Named to the team include Google philanthropy officer Sonal Shah, and Julius Genchowski who is a former IAC executive and former chief council to former FCC chairman Reed Hundt.  Rumors abound about Google CEO Eric Schmidt may be in the running for U.S. Chief Technology Advisor as well.

ScienceDebate2008.com is an organization that started as an idea and group of 6 people less than a year ago, and has grown 38,000 strong by latest count – including nearly every major American scientific organization there is.  Their goal was to bring science and technology into the political discussion.

As a group, they’ve come up with a list of 14 questions that they felt were most important in the science and technology fields, given the current political climate and challenges we face as a nation.  They include topics like climate change, energy, genetics, stem cell research, space, and so on.  They then submitted the questions to the candidates to see where each side stands.

Obama’s campaign had supplied answers about two weeks ago – and the McCain campaign has submitted theirs just this morning, so now we can see the responses quite literally side by side.  With all the mud-slinging and lack of actual issues talk that’s been going on since the conventions, it’s pretty refreshing to see both of the candidates talk policy for a moment.

Believe it or not, the candidates actually agree on some of the topics.  They give very similar answers to the climate change question, are both big proponents of NASA, and surprisingly have some of the same ideas on national security (at least in this context), but they differ on energy, and most obviously, on stem cell research.  Rather than “spoil” any more, why not head over to ScienceDebate2008 and read it yourself?

The National Space Society held a press conference this morning to announce a breakthrough in wireless power transmission.  In a demonstration, they’ve been able to transmit power wirelessly a distance of 148km between Hawaiian islands.  This distance, when pointed straight up, is great enough to reach up into the Thermosphere beyond the accepted boundary between our planet and space.  The idea is that solar panels can be launched into space where they can collect energy, and “beam” that energy back down to Earth.

This has a few important implications.  Above the Earth’s atmosphere, solar power is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The energy is available in its most concentrated form, without any of it having been diffused, absorbed, or reflected by our atmosphere.  There’s no such thing as cloud cover above the atmosphere.  With the ability to transmit it wirelessly, it can theoretically be beamed down to any location on Earth, powering up otherwise hard to reach places, underdeveloped areas, or potentially restoring emergency power during a disaster.

The NSS has created a 2 minute video demonstation of the wireless transmission technology:

The downside of course, is having to launch massive objects into space that would dwarf even the International Space Station.  NSS is confident this will be possible, and possible soon.  With the issue of wireless power transmission solved, the last major hurdle is cost-effective and efficient launch vehicles.  Just a few days ago, another commercial enterprise SpaceX was granted license to use the Cape Canavral launch site.  It’s nice to see private enterprises pushing space technology forward, looking for ways to put it to practical use, and most of all, to see that for a change the government isn’t hindering the process! So while we’re not 100% there, there are pieces falling into place that might make big ideas like this a reality.

The NSS conference this morning was to raise awareness of the technology, and to plug Discovery Project Earth: Orbital Power Plant, which airs on the Discovery channel tonight at 10PM EST.  If you’re interested in seeing more about this tech, you’ll probably want to tune in, as the NSS project will be the topic.

NASA has also published an informational DVD about solar power in space that you can watch in its entirety free of charge here care of NSS & Google Video.

It’s fair to say that dwindling energy resources and ever growing demand is eventually going to shape up to be one of the greatest challenges ever to face all of mankind.  We know we need to act, and we’re starting to realize that we’re already behind the ball.  Unfortunately, now is a confusing time to be alive.  The lip service is building and it’s coming full force from every direction.  We’ve got “ideas” coming from our politicians who in many cases have “solutions” probably designed to garner votes than to actually solve anything.  We have activist groups who have answers that fit their agendas but put up barriers to ideas that don’t fit their ideals.  We have folks like T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore claiming to have it all figured out – but a look into their investment portfolios makes one wonder what it is they’re trying to solve.

What’s missing from all these ideas and plans being thrown around?  How about some cold hard facts?  Some actual numbers?  When they say “we have huge wind and solar resources,” wouldn’t it be nice to know what exactly “huge” meant? (more…)