Each holiday season, there's a new armada of high tech toys to warm the hearts of geeks everywhere, both young and old. But with everything to choose from, what's a well-meaning buyer to do? Here are a few suggestions that are sure to please.
For the lil'est geeks, look out for Zubbles, the first significant advance in bubble technology since... well, ever. The idea seems so simple'imbue that perennial childhood favorite with a solid shade of color.
It's not as easy as it sounds.
According to the November issue of Popular Science, it took Tim Kehoe 11 years of trial and error, a half a million dollars of funding and the help of an expert dye chemist (a rare breed) to successfully tint the little orbs with color as short-lived as the bubble itself.
Along the way, Kehoe's experiments created a bevy of not-so-successful bubble breeds. In 2004, the first public demonstration of his multicolored creations elicited cheers, gasps and even a few tears from those in attendance'until they were all coated in a rainbow of dyes. Worse still, Kehoe made a considerably more hazardous bubble years earlier, when he mixed nitric acid, a highly corrosive chemical, into his solution.
'I got it making a really cool bubble,' Kehoe admitted to PopSci. 'But it could've killed somebody.'
The difficulty in creating a colored bubble comes from its chemistry. Bubbles are just air surrounded by two layers of 'surfactant,' with an incredibly thin layer of water between them. The surfactant lowers the water's inherent 'surface tension,' allowing, say, your two-year old niece to dip her wand into the bubble solution and come up with a thin film of surfactant and water. Add enough air and the film closes in on itself, going off on its captivating, albeit brief, journey.
Traditional dyes don't bind with this mix'they just drip down the sides of the bubble, coalescing into a colored bead at its underside. The solution? Synthesize a whole new class of dyes that bond with the surfactants, providing transient color that disappears when the dyes' chemical composition changes the second the bubble pops.
Unfortunately, Zubbles just miss the holiday deadline'they'll go on sale early next year.
For the upwardly mobile geek, consider the unbeatable combo of an iPod Video and Tivo. Since the introduction of TivoToGo, pairing Apple's multi-functional player and the innovative TV recorder is a match made in heaven.
TivoToGo allows its user to transfer the latest episode of Law & Order or Scrubs onto their iPod, a computer, or a DVD. With a bit of networking know-how and an internet connection, you can even access your recorded content from anywhere in the world.
UW-Madison grad student and DoIT employee Fei Xiao had good things to say about this combo: 'It's like television your way... I don't have to wait for some broadcaster to put it on. I can watch whatever TV show I want whenever and wherever I want.'
For the lazy geek who has everything, Domino's pizza has the perfect gift'the Ultimate Man Cave Couch. With an array of built-in features that include two flat screen televisions, a mini-fridge, an Xbox, an XM radio receiver and two insulated pizza cozies to keep your slices hot, this couch is the pinnacle of high-tech sloth.
All it takes is $30,000 plus several thousand dollars in shipping and handling to render your favorite geek happily immobile for years to come.
Adam Dylewski is a junior majoring in Genetics. He is currently designing the ultimate man cave chaise lounge. Letters? Send them to adylewski@wisc.edu.
