If the three wise men came to Bethlehem today, would one of them be bearing an iPod? Would the angels announce by podcast the birth of Jesus? Would the Maccabees find that their laptops miraculously recharged themselves for eight days? However you celebrate the holidays, plenty of you wouldn't mind seeing a gift-wrapped plasma television with your name on it. At well over $1,000, it's not exactly a bargain basement item. Still, reasonably priced gadgets abound to tempt even the professed Luddite.

Even people living in caves on the Outer Hebrides islands of Scotland know about iPod. But what they (and you) might not have seen are some of the latest ways to trick out the world's favorite music player.

>Weighing just 2 ounces and running on a single AAA battery, the curiously designed Zelco TriPod (www.zelcoinc.com, $35) stand/speaker system may not be the center of your next party, but it could help you rock out at the office. It'll help you learn to read upside down, too.

>The iGroove (www.klipsch.com, $279.99) iPod dock from Klipsch looks suspiciously like the Bose SoundDock that was plastered all over Philly's

subway stations. This one is a little cheaper and has an adapter to fit other MP3 players and some portable satellite radio receivers.

>Anyone who's connected an iPod to the car stereo knows it's the only way to listen to music on the road. There are cassette deck adapters (usually under $20) and FM transmitters (usually under $50). But for really fancy drivers, Harman Kardon's Drive+Play (www.harmankardon.com, $199.99) puts a display on the dash and a control interface near the stick—much better than fumbling with a click wheel.

Breakthroughs in processing and memory

have triggered an explosion of crazy gadgets and electronics toys. But enough with the science lesson. To the stuff!

> While not quite the moving photos found at Harry Potter's Hogwarts school, the Digital Frame DPF-56 (www.digitalframes.net, $199) shows a continuous slide show of your photos. It's a parade of fond memories for short attention spans.

> The 512 MB Sandisk SD/USB Combo Card (www.sandisk.com, $99.95)—a format found in a lot of digital cameras—has a very slick trick up its sleeve: It folds in half and plugs into the USB port of your computer. You'll never have to look for that damn camera cable again.

> Microsoft lovers who've lusted after Apple's Mac Mini need look no further than AOpen's Mini PC (usa.aopen.com, starting at $399). Inside its 6.5-inch, square metallic case is everything you'd find in a regular computer, including extras like WiFi and Bluetooth. It's being sold by Voodoo PC and Linspire (Linux version).

> Get lost a lot? You might need the Mio DigiWalker 136 (www.mio-tech.com, $499). It's a hand-held GPS navigator that looks a lot like a Palm PDA. It'll let you know where you are and give you directions to where you need to be. Maps stored on a 256 MB memory card also include points of "interest," like the nearest Chi-Chi's or the Liberty Bell. It can also play MP3 files. (But what doesn't these days?)

> Enough with the white ear buds! Why not try something more hip, like Curve Headphones (www.logitech.com, $29.99) from Logitech. Sure, they look like they came from IKEA, but that just means they'll match your living room.

> People get addicted to these things and it's not hard to see why. The RIM BlackBerry 8700c (www.rim.com, $299 with Cingular service) is a phone, e-mail device and daily organizer in one very slim package—the cell phones of 10 years ago were bigger. This model is for Cingular subscribers only, but the company has similar devices for other wireless providers.

> This January, Howard Stern is moving to satellite radio and Sirius is banking on fans following him. So the company is pushing cheaper ways of getting satellite radio into people's hands, such as the Sirius One (www.siriusradio.com, $49.99 plus $12.95/month). It's light on looks, but gets the job done.

> Though not as deluxe as the digital SLR cameras the pros use, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 (www.panasonic.com, $429) outperforms its point-and-shoot price range. The biggest plus is the well-crafted 12x optical zoom.

If you think the PEZ MP3 player (www.pezmp3.com, $99.99) is weird, check out its Web site. If it appears as if someone is building these in a garage, it's because someone is, actually, building these in a garage. But stay-at-home dad Pat Misterovich is apparently legit and has the blessing of the PEZ people to make these players.

> Receiving signals from some strange, free wireless broadcast, the Ambient Stock Orb (www.ambientdevices.com, $149) tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average. If it's glowing green, the market is up; yellow, the market's calm; when it's red, you'd best put away the credit card. No investments? No problem, the orb can track changes in the weather, too.

> Look for WiFi hot spots while looking for your keys. A bar on the Mar Ware WiFi Spy (www.marware.com, $29.95) lights up to determine how strong a signal you can steal… er… borrow.

For many of us, cutting-edge gear is strictly a "someday" proposition. But nothing gets cheaper faster than consumer electronics. Four years ago the average DVD player cost $175; today you can get one at the grocery store for $29.99. Keep your eyes out for that flat TV—in aisle seven, next to the eggs.

> It looks like one speaker, but in fact, Yamaha's Digital Sound Projector (www.yamaha.com, $899.95) actually has several speakers inside that use acoustic trickery to fool your ears into thinking you're hearing surround sound. One speaker box and no extra wires makes it great for apartment dwellers.

> While there have been reports of "bugginess" in Microsoft's Media Center devices, the idea of having one box that stores music, photos and recorded television (just like a TiVo), plays DVDs, reads e-mail and browses the Web is kinda cool. The Alienware MediaCenter (www.alienware.com, starts at $1,669)

can even do surround sound. Perhaps Bill Gates will rule the future.

> When Sharp came out with its 65-inch LCD screen HDTV (www.sharpusa.com, $20,999, and no, the price is not a typo), it was pretty clear that only the rich need apply. But the way prices have been dropping on LCD and plasma TVs, it'll be down to $3,000 in three years. In the meantime, PowerBall tickets are only $1.

David Dritsas is the editor of Philadelphia-based consumer technology magazine E-Gear.