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Sunday, March 29, 2009

Antarctica to Pyramids : lights dim for Earth Hour

From an Antarctic research base and the Great Pyramids of Egypt to the Empire State Building in New York, illuminated patches of the globe went dark Saturday for Earth Hour, a campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.

Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries joined the event sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund to dim nonessential lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The campaign began in Australia in 2007 and last year grew to 400 cities worldwide.

Organizers initially worried enthusiasm this year would wane with the world focused on the global economic crisis, said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. But he said it apparently had the opposite effect.

image A combination photo of a night view of the site of the ancient Giza Pyramids before and after switching off the lights for the Earth Hour, in Cairo, Egypt Saturday March 28, 2009. From an Antarctic research base to the Great Pyramids of Egypt and beyond, the world switched off the lights on Saturday for the second Earth Hour, dimming skyscrapers, city streets and some of the world's most recognizable monuments for 60 minutes to highlight the threat of climate change.

"Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign; it's always around street parties, not street protests, it's the idea of hope, not despair. And I think that's something that's been incredibly important this year because there is so much despair around," he said.

Crowds in Time Square watched as many of the massive billboards, including the majestic "Phantom of the Opera" marquee, darkened.

Officials planned to flip a 4-foot-tall, mock light switch in Chicago, one of 10 U.S. Earth Hour flagship cities, where a storm added rains and strong winds to the drama of the event. More than 200 buildings have pledged to go dark in the city, including shops along the Magnificent Mile. Workers will also pull the plug on the marquee at the Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field.

In San Francisco, lights on landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge were set to be turned off, along with the city's well-known Ghirardelli Square sign. The Las Vegas Strip will turn down its glitz by extinguishing the marquees and decorative lighting outside casinos, as well as the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign.

China participated for the first time, cutting the lights at Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium and Water Cube, the most prominent 2008 Olympic venues. In Bangkok, the prime minister switched off the lights on Khao San Road, a haven for budget travelers packed with bars and outdoor cafes.

Earth Hour organizers say there's no uniform way to measure how much energy is saved worldwide.

Earth Hour 2009 has garnered support from global corporations, nonprofit groups, schools, scientists and celebrities — including Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and retired Cape Town Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

McDonald's Corp. planned to dim its arches at 500 locations around the U.S. Midwest. The Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont hotel chains and Coca-Cola Co. also planned to participate.

MacBook Air Versus Ultraportable Laptops

The MacBook Air is a stunner, no doubt, but it's going to be up against stiff challenges from PC notebook makers. Here are a few of the top ones.

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MacBook Air: Sleek & Light
The MacBook Air is lightweight and well-balanced—and one of our editors, Senior Product Editor Melissa Perenson, had no difficulties lifting this 3-pound notebook up one-handed. Unlike most notebook computers, the MacBook Air has a clean, tapered, uniform look when closed.

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MacBook Air: What's Missing, What's There

There is no optical drive in the MacBook Air, but that isn't unusual for laptops in this class. It has only three ports (a headphone jack, one USB 2.0 port and one Mini-DVI port), and no Ethernet—and its battery is sealed into the case. But its keyboard is already being compared to the popular MacBook and its large (for this class), 13.3-inch monitor boasts 1,280 by 800 resolution.

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Fujitsu Q2010: Mighty Close

It's been around a few years, but the Fujitsu Q2010 is about as slim as the MacBook Air and somewhat lighter. It has a smaller (12.1-inch) screen than the MacBook Air, which boasts a 13.3-inch screen.

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Fujitsu Q2010: Major Features

The Q2010 has integrated Wi-Fi 802.11abg, as well as Bluetooth v. 2.0, and enough ports and slots to keep you running the basics and then some (integrated SD Card slot on the left hand side, plus headphones and microphone jacks and a convenient volume wheel). And did we mention that it is extremely light (2.2 pounds)? It comes in 40GB or 80GB configurations. But you better hurry if you want one. They're getting quite hard to find

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Lenovo Thinkpad X61: The Current Champ

The X61 has become one of the most popular ultraportables in the corporate world (and is the current reigning leader in the PC World rankings). It's not an accident. It's fast and has astonishing battery life.

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Lenovo Thinkpad X61: Major Features

While heftier than either the Fujitsu or the MacBook Air at 3.6 pounds, this performance champion has a tip-top keyboard, a 12.1-inch screen, is reasonably priced, and uses Intel's Santa Rosa processor.

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Sony VGN-TZ150N/B: Beauty Contest

This is the ultraportable Apple seems to be most interested in challenging, and in truth, it is probably the nicest looking PC laptop on the market. But looks can be deceiving: Our Test Center found it to be quite slow. But it is a beauty.

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Sony VGN-TZ150N/B: Major Features

The VGN-TZ150N/B has a glossy piano-black keyboard, a sturdy carbon-fiber exterior, and a 2.7-pound minimum weight. The 11.1-inch, LED-backlit, 1,366-by-768-pixel screen is very bright, which makes it easy to read despite its small size. The individual keys are slightly raised above the surface of the keyboard for fairly easy touch typing. Another nice feature: two dedicated slots for using an SD Card and Memory Stick simultaneously.

New Cell Phones Dance

Big touch-screens, multiple-megapixel cameras, maps and more: Cell phones unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in February will soon make whatever's in your pocket or purse seem dated. Here are some of the most interesting.

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Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 Takes the Windows Mobile Plunge

Barcelona is the world showcase for new cell phones. Here is a collection of those handsets that interested us the most (warning -- not all will be available in the U.S.) For instance: Due in the second half of this year, the Xperia X1 goes where Sony Ericsson has never gone before -- into the realm of Windows Mobile. But thanks to a custom interface featuring nine square panels -- each of which launches a different application -- you might not realize that you're looking at an HSDPA handset based on the Microsoft platform for mobile devices. The X1 is the first entry in Sony Ericsson's new "premium" (read, expensive) Xperia line; future models may be based on other operating systems. But observers say the company chose to stray from its Symbian/UIQ roots to reach out to corporate customers.

Xperia X1's large (3-inch) touch-screen (see previous slide) exemplifies another handset trend. But it also lets you navigate via an optical joystick underneath the display. When closed, this Sony Ericsson's metal-finish rear case shows nothing but the lens of its 3.2-megapixel camera (above, left). However the X1 does have an unusual design feature: It slides open sideways in a gentle arc (above, right) to reveal a roomy portrait-mode keyboard. As with other sideways sliders, the display adjusts automatically.

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The G700 -- Another Touching Experience from Sony Ericsson

The G700, another eye-catching touch-screen phone announced by Sony Ericsson, sports an unusual sticky-notes application. Tap the note icon in the upper left, and a new blank note fills the screen. You choose the note's color and screen position, and use the phone's stylus to scribble or draw memos. Sony executives compared this handset to the Post-It-covered Filofaxes of a decade or two ago. This handset may not appear in the U.S. very soon as the model shown here runs on European GSM frequencies.

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Sony Ericsson's Two Cyber-shot Phones Step Up

The higher-end of two new Cyber-shot phones announced at the Barcelona gathering, the C902 (shown above) boasts a five-megapixel camera accessed via a new slide-apart design that's touted as able to capture images "within an instant." Other advanced technology includes auto-focus, face detection, flash, and image and video stabilization. The C702 (not shown) has a 3.5-megapixel camera and geo-tagging features using assisted (by cell technology) GPS, a.k.a. aGPS.

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Walkman 980A -- A Clamshell You Don't Have to Flip Open

Sony Ericsson's newest Walkman phone is designed to appeal to clamshell aficionados who might not want to see a keypad just to play music: The entire Walkman player interface appears on the exterior. The handset has 8GB of internal memory (same as the current smaller-capacity iPhone), and an FM transmitter to beam music to your car or home stereo receiver. It's due in the third quarter of the year.

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Samsung Adds Soul to Its Lineup

You can't go anywhere at the Mobile World Congress without seeing huge banners touting Samsung's Soul, the undisputed star of the company's lineup. Checking in at an eyelash over half an inch thick, this super-slim, metallic HSDPA (7.2 megabits per second) slider phone has a 2.2-inch display with simple icons showing its applications. Controls on the haptics-enhanced OLED navigation touchpad below the display change depending on application. The Soul also packs a 5-megapixel camera with face detection and image stabilization technology, as well as Bang & Olufsen IcePower amplification for music playback. We'll have to wait for this one (along with the others we particularly liked): It debuts only in Europe this spring.

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Samsung's G810: An HSDPA-GPS-Wi-Fi Camera Phone

At 0.7 inch thick, it may look positively chubby next to the Soul, but the Symbian-based G810 does offer a few things the Soul doesn't -- most notably Wi-Fi (for when its 3.6-mbps HSDPA isn't fast enough and you're near a hotspot) and assisted (by cell technology) GPS with geo-tagging support. Other goodies in this Symbian handset include a 5-megapixel camera, a 2.6-inch screen and TV-out port. Another one for the European market only, alas.

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Samsung's SGH-400: Speakers at One End, Keypad at the Other

One last Samsung design for the European market: The SGH-400 music phone with its dual slider design. Slide the back down (left) to see the usual keypad; slide it up (right) to see some serious looking speakers. It too has Bang & Olufsen IcePower audio technology and a 3-megapixel camera (which is almost chintzy in this year's crop).

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Nokia's N96: The Feature List Goes On and On

The successor to the popular N95, Nokia's top-of-the-line N96 proves you can have it all (except touch technology, something Nokia says its working on) -- if you're willing to pay for it. The N96 boasts a big (2.8-inch) screen and the connectivity (HSDPA, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0) to encourage MPEG4, Windows Media or Flash video playback. In areas where DVB-H (technology for live-broadcast TV for handhelds) service is available (mostly Europe), the Symbian S60-based N96 can handle that, too. This slider phone also has a built-in aGPS receiver (but turn-by-turn directions are an extra-cost option); a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics; 16GB of internal flash memory (expandable to 24MB via a MicroSD card slot . . . the list goes on. The N96 is slated to appear in the third quarter for an estimated price (before taxes or carrier subsidies) of 550 euros, which, at the time I write this, comes to about $800.

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Nokia's Value-Priced, Versatile N78

If the N96 is too rich for your blood, take a look at the N78, the next-gen version of the N73. It too brings HSDPA, Wi-Fi and aGPS (with support for geo-tagging of photos) to the table, along with a 3.2-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, a MicroSD card slot that will support up to 8GB of user-added storage, and an FM transmitter for music playback over an available stereo receiver frequency. The 2.4-inch display sits atop a handsome navigation pad and keypad (no sliding required). Nokia expects the N78 to appear by midyear, priced at 350 euros (a little more than $500 at this writing) before subsidies.

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Nokia's 6210 Navigator: Good for Walkers and Drivers

Nokia's 6210 Navigator will come bundled with Nokia Maps 2.0, the latest version (now in beta) of the company's mapping service, which has a few neat features you don't see in most GPS handsets. The new Walk component creates turn-by-turn directions for pedestrians on the 2.4-inch screen (in addition to the usual driving directions) and works with the phone's integrated compass and an accelerometer to help keep you on course (systems designed for cars generally don't pick up changes in walking quickly enough to realize you've made a wrong turn, for example). Multimedia city guides are available as an extra-cost download. Due in the third quarter at an estimated pre-subsidy price of 300 euros (about $440), this HSDPA phone also has a 3.2-megapixel camera and FM stereo receiver.

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LG's Flagship KF700 Gets Very Touchy

LG's new handsets are all about touch, which isn't surprising considering such recent touch-screen U.S. arrivals as the Voyager and the Venus. The KF700 combines three input modes: A 3-inch touch-screen display, a hardware shortcut wheel (on the back) that lets you scroll through icons on a virtual dial (above, left) to access user-defined features, and a slide-down alphanumeric keypad (above, right). Functionality can change depending on application: If you're browsing the Web, the shortcut dial lets you zoom in and out of pages. This HSDPA phone, with a 3-megapixel camera, is headed for Europe in March.

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The LG Venus Goes European

LG's KF600 is basically a GSM version of Verizon's Venus slider, with a touch-enabled, context-sensitive 1.5-inch Interact navigation screen occupying most of the phone's lower half and a 2-inch display on top. What's particularly cool are the Keith Haring themes that span both the top and bottom displays. It's bound for Europe only, however, and it only supports EDGE data speeds (although it has a 3-megapixel camera, compared to the 2-megapixel camera on the Verizon handset).

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LG's KF-510 Super Skinny Slider

Most of the phones at Mobile World Congress are between half and three-quarters of an inch thick. But LG's KF-510 is a slider that checks in at 0.43 inch -- and yet still manages to bundle a 3-megapixel camera, MP3 player and an FM radio.

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Motorola's Z6w Enables Seamless GSM to Wi-Fi Transitions

Having introduced its showy Moto Z10 video-creation and ROKR E8 music phones at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Motorola in Barcelona focused mostly on support (via reference designs) for future network technologies such as WiMax and LTE. But there was one newsworthy device announcement: The Moto Z6w, a Linux-Java handset with both GSM/EDGE and Wi-Fi, also incorporates Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology that will allow VoIP calls and Web browsing to be handed off between networks (although your carrier may have something to say about how you'll be able to use this technology). You get a 2-megapixel camera, too. The Moto Z6w is due by midyear.

10 Cool Gadgets You Can't Get Here -- Yet

A high-definition TV you can carry in your pocket. A remote you talk to. A dongle for bringing HDTV broadcasts to your laptop while you're on the go. Sound great? Too bad, because you'll have to cross an ocean to get them.

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Screen Gem -- Panasonic Viera P905i
Think of it as the world's smallest "big-screen" TV. Panasonic's Viera Ketai handset boasts a 3-inch screen with a contrast ratio of 2000:1 -- comparable to that of many full-size LCDs, along with powerful image processing and a tuner for Japan's 1seg ("one seg") mobile broadcasting service. You can use it as a standard vertical flip phone to make calls, or turn it 90 degrees and flip the screen open horizontally to watch TV and play 3D games. High-speed broadband, GPS tracking and a 5-megapixel camera complete the package.
Availability: Japan only; distributed by NTT DoCoMo.

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Run, Baby, Run -- Raon Everun UMPC
The diminutive Raon -- 7 inches long and just over a pound in weight -- is for travelers who want their laptop to feel not much heavier than a densely woven doily. This Windows XP-based handheld sports a full QWERTY keyboard, a 4.8-inch touch-screen that can shift between portrait and landscape modes, and your choice of either a standard 60GB hard drive or 6GB of energy-saving solid-state storage. Integrated Wi-Fi lets you log onto the Internet; a docking station, a car mount and an external keyboard are optional. This ultramobile PC (UMPC) earns its name with a battery life rated by the maker at seven hours for the standard battery and 12 hours for a larger, enhanced unit.
Availability: South Korea (but at least the enhanced battery should last through the long flight back to the States).

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Soul Proprietor -- Samsung 'Soul' SGH U900
Samsung's sleek new cell phone is thin and rich: The 13mm-thick handset includes a 5-megapixel camera with 4X digital zoom, image stabilization and face detection, plus support for blazingly fast 7.2-mbps data connections. But the real innovation here is the interface: This slider phone offers both a numeric keypad and a touch-screen that vibrates when you press it; meanwhile, the Soul's Thematic user interface displays only the icons relevant to the task at hand.
Availability: Europe, starting this month

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The Sounds of Silence -- NEC ValueStar W
The W in this entertainment PC's name stands for "Water Silence" but "whisper quiet" would be just as accurate. The Vista Media Center PC wraps a liquid-cooled hard drive in sound-absorbing material to produce ambient noise of just 25 to 30 decibels -- quieter than a nearby human whisper -- so you can hear the movie, not the machine. The ValueStar W comes configured with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a 22-inch LCD and a combo Blu-ray/HD DVD drive (get 'em while they last).
Availability: Only in Japan.

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Bot's All, Folks -- Toshiba ApriPoko Robot
As if you needed another reason never to leave the couch. This 11-inch-tall robot -- which looks like the love child of a bird Pokemon and the Pillsbury Doughboy -- is actually a voice-activated remote control that incorporates artificial intelligence. If you pick up your TV's remote and start pressing buttons, ApriPoko will ask what you're doing and then memorize the IR codes associated with your actions. The next time around, you can just say, "Turn on the TV" and ApriPoko will take matters from there. That's the theory, anyway.
Availability: As yet, ApriPoko is nesting in Toshiba's research labs, awaiting its first solo flight.

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Sleek, Not Meek -- Sony VAIO G2
This superthin notebook breaks the 2-pound barrier with virtually no compromises, thanks to its durable yet lightweight carbon-fiber casing. Its 12-inch screen and full keyboard mean that you won't be forced to squint or engage in two-finger typing. You can choose a 100GB hard drive or a 64GB solid-state drive (SSD). Because they have no moving parts, SSDs are faster, quieter and more power-efficient (though also much pricier, at least so far). If you and your flight attendant muff a drink exchange, spilling club soda on the drip-proof keyboard, the G2 shuts down automatically before anything gets fried.
Availability: Japan (and on Dynamism.com).

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Drip Insurance -- Fujitsu F705i
At last, there's a 3G cell phone that you can drop into the pool without taking a financial bath. Fujitsu's F705i is the slimmest, most sophisticated waterproof phone on the market -- you can even wash its keypad with water. But the cool features don't stop at the marge of Lake Lebarge. Eight levels of zoom simplify reading e-mail in different lighting conditions, and the F705i's "super clear voice" feature automatically adjusts the volume of incoming calls to a comfortable and audible level based on the amount of ambient noise.
Availability: Japan only; distributed by NTT DoCoMo.

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High-Def Revolution -- Aigo USB Dongle
It's a laptop! No, it's an HDTV! Actually, it's both -- thanks to Aigo's USB Dongle, which uses Legend Silicon's LGS-8GL5 chip set to receive and decode high-definition TV broadcasts on the go. Plug it into any laptop's USB port to receive terrestrial signals from China's new mobile HDTV broadcast network, created specifically for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The dongle is one of dozens of portable high-def receivers that are being installed in buses, taxis and public venues throughout China.
Availability: China only.

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Three for One -- NEC LUI
LUI stands for "Life with Ubiquitous Integrated Solutions," and though we might have expected the acronym to come out as LUIS or maybe LwUIS, the underlying idea is simple: Store your digital media on NEC's home server (center), and then access it wirelessly via a nifty handheld device (left) or a slim 1.4-pound subnotebook (right). The server features two high-def tuners and a built-in DVR, and the whole system communicates via WiMax wireless. Just think -- if the folks at NEC ever produce a miniaturized version of this setup, they can call it the Shrimp LUI.
Availability: Japan only; NEC plans to roll it out this year.

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Conspicuous Consumption -- Face Bank
The Face Bank lets you put your money where its mouth is. Wave a coin in front of the bank's eyes (actually light sensors), and it opens wide to swallow your loose change. Afterward, it looks so pleased that you half expect it to emit a contented belch. The thing would be even cooler (and creepier) if it spoke with the voice of Vincent Price -- but alas, no. Created by Japanese designer Takada, the $50 bank is available in eight colors and textures, from lemon yellow to brick red.
Availability: Japan only.

Technology for the Obscenely Wealthy

Planning on hitting the jackpot soon? From a gargantuan HDTV to your own flying car, here are nine new tech toys you'll want to decorate your life.

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Kaleidescape Home Entertainment System
Price tag: More than $10,000 (depending on configuration)

Everyone knows what a hassle DVDs can be. The disc you want to watch in the bedroom is always to be found (or not) under a couch cushion in the living room. And forget trying to get the kids to put DVDs back in their cases -- especially now that they’re fabulously wealthy and think the governess should do it.

With the Kaleidescape, you can say goodbye to all of those problems. That's because this system lets you store all of your DVDs on Kaleidescape servers in your home and then play the movies back in any room you like through one of the company’s proprietary players. Now, some people might point out that you could do something similar for about $100 with a copy of DVD Shrink and a used Xbox. They might even say that for the money you’re spending on the Kaleidescape, you could hire a toady to organize your DVDs and put them into the player for you whenever and wherever you want. You know what those people are? Poor. So ignore them.

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Hardcore Reactor Extreme Desktop PC
Price tag: $10,866 (fully loaded)

You know what your mom told you about not using the blow dryer in the bathtub? Well, she was right: You really shouldn’t do that. But Hardcore has found a way to violate the whole no-electrical-devices-in-liquid law without causing immediate death to anything other than a lesser person’s wallet.

The guts of the Hardcore Reactor Extreme are immersed in liquid coolant. Hardcore says that the coolant -- which is circulated through the system at 2.5 gallons per minute -- absorbs heat 10 times more efficiently than air does. That means two things: For 10 grand you'll get a system that's as fast as anything we’ve ever tested. And after you finish an evening of awesome gaming, your personal pastry chef can fry up some tasty, homemade donuts in the Reactor Extreme’s coolant.

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Motorola Aura Cell Phone
Price tag: $2000

Extravagant cell phones slathered in diamonds and rubies are one of the sure-fire technological tools for separating fools from their money. Exhibit A is Le Million from GoldVish Communications: $1.45 million and ugly, ugly, ugly!

The $2,000 you spend on a Motorola Aura may seem like chump change in comparison, but with the Aura, you actually get something useful for your dough. For one thing, there’s the 16-million-color, 300-dpi circular display. And Motorola seems to have lavished attention on the mechanism for opening and closing the Aura: “Custom-engineered rotating mechanism has 130 precision ball bearings that drive the assisted-opening blade -- like opening the door on a high-end luxury car.” The rotation mechanism has a Swiss-made main bearing and carbide-coated gears, too. Oh yes, and once you’ve lovingly rotated the Aura open, you can use it to place and receive wireless phone calls!

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Tesla Roadster
Price tag: $109,000 (base price)

Normally cars give you a simple choice: You can be politically correct but plodding, as with the Toyota Prius. Or you can go very, very fast and burn through so much fossil fuel that Sarah Palin will start drilling on the North Slope just for you.

Tesla’s sports car represents a third way. It’s 100 percent electric, goes from zero to 60 in less than four seconds and can travel nearly 250 miles on a single charge. (Or so the Tesla Motors people say on the company's home page. But beware: The page is peppered with so many asterisks that it looks like a snowstorm.)

Of course, a skeptic might wonder where all of that electricity -- during peak acceleration, enough to power 2,000 incandescent light bulbs -- is coming from and how clean it is to produce. But at the speeds a Tesla can travel, you won’t have time for such concerns.

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Moller M400 Skycar
Price tag: ?

The point of having vast coffers o’ cash, as any filthy-rich person will tell you, is to pay your way out of the mundane hassles that afflict the hoi polloi: traffic jams, military service, child rearing, flossing. Regrettably, aeronautics expert Paul Moller can’t help with flossing, but traffic jams he’s got covered.

Since 1962, Moller, a professor at the University of California, Davis, has been experimenting with fixed-wing planes that can take off and land vertically -- the perfect profile for the fabled flying car. The latest incarnation, the M400 Skycar, can carry four passengers as fast as 375 mph while cruising along at 13,200 feet. As the Moller site says: “No traffic, no red lights, no speeding tickets.” Also, one hopes, no midair collisions, no terrifying plummets to a fiery death.

The site calls the M400 “personally affordable,” but it doesn’t quote a price. We all know what that means: If you have to ask, you can't afford it. But you don't have to ask, do you?

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Voodoo Envy 133 Laptop
Price tag: $3,599

For self-respecting millionaires who want to waste obscene sums on a notebook PC, it can be a frustrating world. Sure, you can spend $350,000 for the Ego Diamond edition, seemingly a clone of the old iBook toilet-seat notebook gussied up with white gold and platinum plates that are inset with diamonds in the shape of a tulip. Of course, those diamonds also spell a word, and the word is “Sucker!”

If you want to spend big bucks and get something more than floral bling out of the deal, the situation is tougher. The new Lenovo ThinkPad W700 retails for just shy of six grand, and it packs an impressive array of features: a 17-inch screen, 4GB of RAM, a Blu-ray drive, and even a built-in Wacom pen tablet. But this laptop hardly screams elegance. In fact, it looks like an ordinary ThinkPad that’s been force-fed Laptop Growth Hormone and then had every conceivable component jammed into its cruelly distended matte-black skin.

The Envy 133, from HP's Voodoo division, has the disadvantage of setting you back a paltry 3,600 bucks, fully loaded. But it is a beautifully designed machine with lots of high-end components, including a 64GB solid-state drive. And you can blow $600 -- the price of two of those déclassé netbooks -- on nothing more substantive than a Moroccan Blue paint job. Now that’s pointless extravagance!

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Panasonic Pro 103-Inch Plasma TV
Price tag: $69,995

One drawback of suddenly being richer than everyone you know is that you may become, well, an arrogant jerk. What better way to cut yourself down to size than with a really big TV?

With Panasonic’s 103-inch plasma-screen set, not only will movie stars be more attractive than you are, they’ll be bigger and perhaps even higher-def than you, too. Imagine a tight close-up of Daniel Craig in full James Bond glower spread across 7.5 feet by 4 feet of pixels. That’ll put you in your place.

And if your ego can survive even that reality check, wait until next year when Panasonic releases its long-anticipated 150-inch plasma.

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Trip to Space on Virgin Galactic
Price tag: $200,000

Being fabulously affluent isn’t all chocolate truffles and champagne fountains. There are days when all those stocks, bearer bonds and hedge funds in the Caymans just weigh you down, and you long to get away from it all. That’s when it's time to fly Virgin Galactic and take a load off.

The Richard Branson venture promises to transport the well-heeled on a three-and-a-half-hour round trip that’s literally out of this world. Virgin's specially designed aircraft will whisk you into suborbital space, where you'll experience weightlessness for a few minutes. Then, on the homeward voyage to Earth, according to Branson, “the spacecraft turns into a giant shuttlecock” -- an image that may alarm anyone who’s watched a game of badminton and noticed how often the shuttlecock spins out of control and crashes into the ground.

Surely, those fears are groundless. But just in case, Virgin Galactic will make sure that your check clears before you take off.

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Cryonic Suspended Animation
Price tag: $160,000

“You can’t take it with you.” As a rich guy, you’ll hear that often from your children, your elderly parents and other leeches and moochers trying to suck your fortune dry.

It may be true that you can’t take your money with you, but what if you never completely leave? That’s the idea behind cryonics. As the Cryonics Society of America describes the procedure, “at the time of deanimation” your body is cooled down and filled with a kind of antifreeze. Then you’re put in an insulated capsule and kept frozen with liquid nitrogen.

Once doctors figure out how to cure whatever killed you (and how to bring flesh popsicles back to life), they thaw you out. Then you can start suing whoever squandered your fortune during the intervening 1,000 years or so.

Haven’t amassed a small personal fortune yet? Try these gift guides for common folks:

The Best Compact Cameras

These 10 cameras are great for the casual photographer, and most have nice image quality for an affordable price.

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Canon PowerShot A590 IS

For a bargain-bin price of $150, the Canon PowerShot A590 IS has a lot of features: 8-megapixel resolution, 4X optical zoom, optical image stabilization, face detection (which recognizes faces in the frame and optimizes the autofocus accordingly) and a smaller-but-serviceable 2.5-inch LCD screen. And conveniently it runs on two AA batteries. Despite its rock-bottom price, the A590IS scored significantly higher in our image-quality assessments than point-and-shoots that cost more than twice as much and have higher megapixel counts. In particular, PC World judges noted superior colors and flash exposures in subjective tests.

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Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS

You'll get fast start-up, focus and shooting speed on this sleek Canon compact camera. In our lab tests, the PowerShot SD1100 scored higher on overall image quality than nearly all of its competitors. However, in this new PowerShot SD1100 model, Canon shaved 3mm off the wide-angle end of the 3X optical zoom, so you can't take wide-angle shots.

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Fujifilm FinePix F50fd

The Fujifilm FinePix F50fd may look dull, but its looks are only shell-deep. Though it weighs more than most of the units in this roundup, it also has a larger-than-average LCD panel, at 2.7 inches, and a higher resolution (12 megapixels) than most. And -- a rarity in a point-and-shoot -- the F50fd offers aperture- and shutter-priority modes. In image-quality tests, the FinePix F50fd received high marks for sharpness. Fujifilm gave the FinePix F50fd all the latest gee-whiz digital camera features too, including image stabilization.

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2

This Panasonic Lumix compact camera takes very accurate exposures and lets you snap photos in wide-screen format. The Lumix DMC-LX2 earned excellent scores in nearly all of our image-quality tests. Most shots -- even magnified enlargements -- looked sharp, and the camera earned our top score for exposure quality.

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Nikon Coolpix S210

The small and solid 8-megapixel Nikon Coolpix S210 is very straightforward to use, and isn't short on good looks. The S210 is available in an array of understated brushed-metallic colors. Priced at $180, this 0.7-inch-wide camera fits easily in the palm of your hand. Like many other Nikon point-and-shoots, the S210 was extremely easy to use, even without reading the manual. Reaching some settings, such as video and scene modes, took a few button presses, however, which may slow users down a bi

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Casio Exilim EX-Z80

About the length and width of a credit card and just 0.5 inch thick, the Casio Exilim EX-Z80 fits into a pocket with the ease of a flip phone. Encased in a combination of sleek brushed metal and matching faux-metal plastic, the EX-Z80 is available in a range of metallic colors. And at 8 megapixels, it produces acceptable prints at 8 by 10 inches, with nice colors but a bit of blur. The EX-Z80 records .mov files in YouTube's preferred H.264 format, optimized for online viewing. The software even includes a special YouTube video uploader. By and large, movies came out quite well, particularly at higher quality settings.

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HP Photosmart R937

Apple's iPhone has made big color touch-screens fashionable. But with its ease of use and good image quality, the HP Photosmart R937 may be the coolest touch-screen toy you could carry. It features a huge 3.6-inch LCD that is touch-sensitive, making the Photosmart R37 a breeze to operate. In PC World Test Center evaluations, images looked bright and colorful; the scores for sharpness and distortion, however, were roughly average. One note: Late last year, HP said it planned to find a licensee to manufacture and distribute its digital cameras.

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Canon PowerShot A460

The sophisticated and durable-looking Canon PowerShot A460 has a 4X optical zoom, whereas most cameras at this price level have only a 3X zoom. The A460 starts up quickly, in two seconds, and offers both an eye-level viewfinder and a bright 2-inch LCD screen. A simple mode dial lets you select full auto, manual (still automatic, but with some user settings), scene modes and movie mode. The PowerShot A460 earned an overall image quality score of Good from the PC World Test Center, with roughly average ratings for color and exposure accuracy.

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Canon PowerShot SD870 IS

The Canon PowerShot SD870 IS has an alluringly large 3-inch LCD and a wide-angle zoom, which starts at 28mm (35mm equivalent), a focal length to warm the heart of any ardent landscape photographer. A sibling to two other Digital Elph models PC World has reviewed--the PowerShot SD950 IS and the PowerShot SD850 IS -- the SD870 shares many of this trio's fine features, including a nicely organized exposure system that groups key controls into one simple-to-use, easy-to-read screen.

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Canon PowerShot A470

The 7.1-megapixel PowerShot A470, an inexpensive compact camera, performed as well as several far more expensive compact models. In PC World tests, the PowerShot received a Very Good image quality score. The PowerShot A470 lacks a viewfinder, so you have to rely on the 2.5-inch LCD screen. But you also get 14 shooting modes -- plenty to keep a casual photographer entertained.