by MICHAEL CITROME

Boomboxes and updated classics

If you’re going to bust it with some block rockin’ beats you need the correct equipment. For old-school heads and electroclash booty shakers, the solution is a vintage ghettoblaster. You know the style - three feet long, two feet high of chrome, knobs and flashing lights. You might pay top dollar for such a ghettoblaster or find one in the garbage - check pawnshops, Value Village and eBay. Or, check out www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/boombox. Prices vary.

Nintendo’s E-Reader for the Gameboy Advance lets you step back in time and play games from the early days of the NES. The games come printed on special E-Cards and include Ice Climber, Balloon Fight and Excitebike, identical to the originals, courtesy of the E-Reader’s built-in emulator. Even the way it works is a throwback to punch cards - you have to slide the cards through the reader. And you can’t bend, fold, staple or mutilate these either. Nintendo E-Readers are $69.99, games are $5.99–$7.99 and both are available at Future Shop and Wal-Mart.

The Nike Dunk SB might look old-school on the outside, but this retro-flavoured skate shoe is brand new technology from the floor up. It’s based around the Zoom Air insole, which uses tensile strings encased in a heavy-gas filled capsule to deliver shock protection in an ultra-thin package. This shoe is the star of Nike’s ultra-exclusive skateboard line and is only available in Canada at four shops. Nike Dunk SB’s are available exclusively at Alena MTL (5662 Sherbrooke W.) in NDG.

Spy on your friends - technology for today

Encased in a sleek, ultra-thin metallic shell, the Palm Zire is the latest consumer-oriented Palm organizer. It certainly looks a lot nicer than the old plasticky M-series devices, but the upgrade isn’t just cosmetic. It has two megabytes of RAM, enough to organize even the busiest life, a beefed-up 16-megahertz Motorola Dragonball processor and PalmOS version 4.1. The Zire, Palm’s new nameplate for consumer models, syncs with both Macs and Windows PCs, and includes a feature rarely found at its price: it’s rechargeable. No need for batteries. $169.99 or less, available at most computer stores.

The SiPix StyleCam Blink Digital Mini Camera is very tiny. At two inches square and 1.5 ounces, it’s small enough to conceal in the palm of your hand when taking very important photos of your friend adjusting herself. It has impressive stats for its size - eight megabytes of memory for up to 400 photos, 640x480 resolution and it can record short movies. The only thing it lacks is a flash, but that would compromise your location, secret agent. About $800 - available at www.thinkgeek.com and www.cdw.com

For kids who grew up on Hot Wheels and Penny Racers, these are a dream come true: tiny rechargeable remote control racecars that shoot across tables and run for upwards of two minutes on a 30 second charge. They originated in Japan, so many depict obscure Asian sports cars (Nissan Fairlady anyone?). Buy two and race ’em, just make sure they run on different frequencies or you’ll just be revving in duplicate. Tiny R/C cars, about $30, are available at toy stores and in Chinatown.

The future looks lazy

Self-grinding, self-regulating, self-cleaning and self-tapping, Saeco espresso machines do it all except make you a nice bowl of linguine and ask you why you look so thin. These Italian-made, space-age coffee preparation stations also come with high-end features like a cup warmer and steam jet for making tea, all controlled by a computer that includes an LCD screen. When’s the last time you interacted with your coffee maker? Prices hover around $1,200, available from Saeco Canada (8145 St-Laurent), 385-5551.

After months of speculation, zany inventor Dean Kamen’s Segway Human Transporter scooter was finally revealed last year. But unless you were a large institutional customer, like the United States Postal Service, you couldn’t buy one. Until now, that is. Segway retailers are taking orders for the self-balancing scooter, which resembles a manually-powered lawn mower and could raise American laziness to entirely unforeseen levels by eliminating all forms of walking. Preorder now for March delivery and put an invoice printout in someone’s stocking. The Segway Human Transporter sells for $4,950 (U.S.), available at www.amazon.com.

The IOGEAR Homeplug system claims to deliver on something long-promised: high-speed computer networking through existing electrical wires. The concept is simple - plug one end of the adaptor into your computer’s Ethernet port, plug the other one into a wall socket. Presto, network. Homeplug offers speeds up to 14 megabits per second, nothing compared to conventional Ethernet, but fast enough for sharing Internet access. Coming soon–see www.iogear.com for details. :