Geek Gadgets Galore

By Maryanne Murray Buechner/Las Vegas and Owen Thomas/San Francisco

From a cell phone with a built-in TV to a classic bit of trade-showmanship by Apple's Steve Jobs, tech buffs had plenty to buzz about last week. At Macworld Expo in San Francisco, a long-overdue Mac operating system drew only polite applause and new PowerBooks rumored to be ready never debuted, but Jobs brought loyalists to their feet with an offhand remark that he will drop "interim" from his title and be the permanent iCEO (i for Internet). Meanwhile, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the throngs seemed almost as mesmerized by the cafeteria's curly fries as they were by the newest generation of high-definition TVs. The star of both shows is the iGadget, getting smaller and smarter each year.

PRETTY ON THE INSIDE Sure, the translucent look--dubbed "Aqua"--of the new Mac OS X (that's roman numeral 10) will go perfectly with your iMac or G4, but it's more than just pretty. OS X's brand-new code should eliminate system crashes and make special graphic effects easier to display. Due out this summer.

iFREEBIES With Apple's new iTools, you can use your iMac's iMovie software to make a cool video clip, store it on a free iDisk on Apple's server or publish it on an Apple-provided home page--no HTML code needed. Post a photo, and you can send an iCard by e-mail to anyone you like.

LIGHTWEIGHT Not only is the new 600x1200-dpi scanner from Canon compact, light (3.3 lbs.) and easy to use, but it's powered solely by a USB connection, so you don't have to plug yet another cord into the wall. A front button offers one-touch scanning. Available by March for $149.

AOL FOR COUCH POTATOES WebTV still hasn't caught fire, but that didn't stop America Online from pursuing its own dream of PC-TV convergence. At CES, the world's largest Internet service provider quietly unveiled AOLTV, an interactive TV service via set-top box that will introduce Instant Messages, buddy lists and AOL-style Web browsing to the boob tube by year's end. Hughes Network Systems showed a new form of its DirecTV digital satellite receiver complete with the AOLTV service, and Philips demoed a cable version. Prices were not announced, but current AOL members will probably get a discount.

WATCH OUT, VCR Electronics companies have been talking about recordable DVD drives for more than a year, but technical quibbles and piracy fears have kept real products out of the marketplace. Until now. Samsung's DVR-2000, which records onto DVD-RAM discs and plays regular DVD movies too, will go on sale in the U.S. in July for $2,000. Meanwhile, Pioneer is planning its own $2,400 DVD-RW version to come out sometime this fall.

TV, PHONE HOME Now that musical rings and quick Web news updates are old hat for cell phones, manufacturers are scrambling to find new ways to make them interesting. The TV Phone, which goes on sale in Korea later this year and could hit the U.S. in 2001, uses a collapsible antenna to display the soaps, soccer games and sitcoms on its tiny, 1.8-in. color screen. The MP3 Phone, due out by year-end, will download and play digital songs. It connects to a PC via serial cable to download music into its embedded memory.

TUNES WITHOUT BORDERS Bored with your local AM and FM radio stations? Soon you may have 100 new options. Pioneer presented its concept of a car radio tuned to XM, a 100-channel, national, satellite, subscription-only radio service due to debut later this year. Nicest touch: a text display identifying the upcoming song.

KITCHEN NET Next time you have an epicurious.com emergency, CMi Worldwide hopes you'll reach for its iCEBOX, a 9-in. TV with Web access, e-mail, an audio and video CD drive (but no DVD player) and spillproof wireless keyboard. The $500 unit, due out in March, only works with the company's own $20-per-month Internet service--a drawback for those already online with another service. Designed specifically for the kitchen--a bracket, sold separately, makes it a space saver--the iCEBOX can do something few other info appliances can: connect to closed-circuit cameras for monitoring the back porch or the baby's room while you slave away at that stove.

--By Maryanne Murray Buechner/Las Vegas and Owen Thomas/San Francisco