In Brief

By Wilson Rothman

ALICE GETS EVEN Lewis Carroll may have skewed his Wonderland writings for preteens, but the most recent trip through the looking glass is pitched for more mature audiences. American McGee's Alice for the PC (EA Games; $50) uses the popular Quake game engine to pay tribute to the classic with spellbinding visuals, witty mind games and gore enough for even the Red Queen.

'N SYNC-RONIZED For kids who divide their waking moments among Britney, Christina and 'N Sync, Trendmasters' three C-Watches ($20) could be timely stocking stuffers. Push a button, and video snippets appear, with the fave pop star pulling slick dance moves to an overplayed (but catchy) tune. The sound and picture quality of the $20 toy is far from good, but it's still fun--the first 20 times. Parents who suffer psychic damage from prolonged exposure should blame Trendmasters, not us.

INVISIBLE ORGANIZER It's not as powerful as a Palm or as colorful as a PocketPC, but Xircom's REX 6000 rex.net $149) goes where the others can't: inside a laptop. The tiny touchscreen PDA is really a PC card, the kind that can slide into the side of portables. If you don't use a laptop, you can buy the optional cradle to fill REX with content from the Web or synchronized schedules from Microsoft Outlook. REX is right for inveterate networkers who travel light and don't want to miss a single digit.

--By Wilson Rothman