XFLEX tablet computer stand
$99.99 at BiteMyApple.co

This elegant-looking accessory for tablet computer fans is just the thing for iPad owners who feel their arms getting tired. But while it’s a nice device, it needs a tweak or two to make it just about perfect.

As it is, the XFLEX isn’t half bad. You get a big, heavy but attractively styled base, with a slot on one side. Into that slot snaps a stout but highly flexible arm with a suction cup on the other end. You just press the tablet against the cup, then snap a lever to form a vacuum and hold the tablet in place. With the XFLEX, you can easily rest an iPad on your desk or kitchen countertop, leaving your hands free for other work.

But the suction cup makes me nervous. As the instructions warn, it could lose its grip if you attach it incorrectly, or you’ve left dust and dirt on its surface. One little slip, and your $600 tablet could meet an ugly end. The XFLEX also lacks an easy way to rotate the mounting so you can easily turn the tablet sideways. Instead, you must detach the suction cup. That’s an invitation to disaster if you’re as clumsy as me.

I’d prefer an XFLEX that holds the tablet around its edges and used a rotary mounting for easy turning. I’d also like one that’s a good deal cheaper. Still, it makes an attractive iPad holder for those who trust suction cups more than I do.

Picfari travel photo app
Free for iOS devices at the Apple App Store

With any luck, you’ll visit some new and unfamiliar places on your travels this year. No doubt you’ll take lots of photos. But of what? If it’s somewhere you’ve never been, how will you know the best places to get spectacular shots? Here’s an app to show the way.

Picfari is a social photography app, where travelers post geotagged images of interesting places. A user in Chicago might shoot photographs of its downtown area, the Loop. These photos are presented with precise geographic data, as well as the camera settings for each shot.

The pictures now serve as a guide for other Picfari users. If you’re going to Chicago, Picfari can guide you to the same area, and show you how to set your own camera for best results. The app comes with a basic photography guide to help you along. And of course, when you shoot pictures of your own, you’re encouraged to post them for the benefit of other Picfari users.

For now, Picfari’s photographic offerings are limited. No surprise, as it’s a brand new service. But as more people start using the app, it could build up a huge library of high-quality images, while encouraging visitors to shoot something even better.

Picfari--it’s a play on “picture safari”--is one of the worst names for an app I’ve ever heard. But wandering shutterbugs shouldn’t let that scare them away from this smart new app.

Snippet e-bookstore
Free for iOS devices at Apple App Store

Electronic publishing is quickly coming of age, thanks to the efforts of Amazon.com. Now here’s an upstart e-book service with a new approach to selling and publishing content.

Snippet is designed for readers who like their literature in small bites. Authors must create their works in chapters that can be no longer than 1,000 words each. Readers can purchase the work piece by piece. Each chapter can be priced between 99 cents and $4.99. Authors can supplement their works with photos, videos and audio files. It costs a flat $99 to publish a book on Snippet, and the author can keep half of all revenue generated by sales.

The Snippet app is lovely to look at. But there’s hardly anything to read there--a yoga manual and a couple of self-help books. Because if it catches on, Snippet promises to be an unusually good e-book system, with low prices and seamless multimedia integration. In addition, it offers a simple, inexpensive way to publish essays, short fiction and other worthy works that don’t require a full-length treatment. There’ve been lots of efforts to make short-form writing profitable on the Internet. Snippet is one of the most appealing yet.

Conclave Catholic news app
Free for iOS devices at Apple App Store and Android devices at Google Play

Leaders of the Catholic Church are assembled in Rome to pick a new pope, in the first papal conclave of the smartphone era. You know what that means--someone’s cobbled together a new app to let us track the proceedings from start to finish.

Conclave was created by Logos Bible Software, a major vendor of digital products for religious folk. The app has a clean and efficient interface that links users to the latest news about the papal selection conclave. There’s a link to videos from Rome and pointers to the best Catholic news sites. You also get a Twitter feed that singles out tweets relating to the selection process--even tweets that make fun of the whole thing.

Speaking of fun, there’s a section with mini-biographies of the cardinals, and a numerical “buzz” ranking that attempts to estimate the popularity and influence of each man. The Catholic website NewAdvent.org calculates the score by using Google Trends to measure how many people search for a particular cardinal by name. They admit that this won’t predict the outcome of the conclave, but it lends an enjoyable “hot or not” flavor to the proceedings.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re Catholic, non-Catholic or ex-Catholic, everybody cares about about the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, and the choice of his successor. Conclave is a fine one-stop location for the latest on who’ll get to be the greatest.

PowerFlask portable battery charger
$89.95 at Digitaltreasures.com

Here's a pocketful of power for you. Designed to resemble an old-school hip flask for carrying liquor, it's really a beefy rechargeable battery pack capable of charging your cell phone or tablet computer for hours of extra use.

The PowerFlask comes with an AC adapter for charging its own battery. It's a big one, and so fully charging it takes about half a day. The PowerFlask includes a circuit to prevent overcharging, so you can just leave it plugged in so it's ready to go when needed.

It's got two USB jacks. One of them delivers one amp of electric power, suitable for charging a phone; the other, with 2.5 amps, can recharge an iPad or other tablet computer. The device is compatible with the micro USB jacks found on most Androids and other smartphones. It also comes with two 30-pin adapters for connecting to Apple products, but there's no adapter for the new Apple Lightning connector. The designers threw in a welcome extra--a pair of brilliant light-emitting diodes at the top of the flask that serve as a handy emergency flashlight.

While it's hardly a substitute for a good swig of rye, the PowerFlask is a handy accessory for people who can't afford to be without power for their portable devices. As hip flasks go, this is one of the hippest.

Takes video app
Free for iOS devices at Apple App Store

Another day, another cool video app. If you’ve learned to love Vine, Twitter’s brilliant tool for shooting six-video clips, you’ll likely get a kick out of this smart alternative.

Takes acts like an app for shooting still images. Touch the shutter button, the screen flashes and there you are. In reality, Takes is shooting video, and the camera starts filming a couple of seconds before you hit the button. How it does this, I don’t know. But as a result, each shot is a little movie a couple of seconds long. Takes then stitches these shots together, with a nice dissolve effect the smoothes out the transitions. The results look like a slideshow, but one made up of moving images.

Takes doesn’t have a time limit on videos, unlike Vine. And like other popular video apps, Takes makes it easy to add visual effects and a music soundtrack. Of course, you can share your shots with friends via Facebook, Twitter or e-mail.

It’s a golden age for video apps, and Takes is another excellent entry in the genre.

Arro shopping app
Free at Apple App Store

With so many shopping apps available, is there room for another? The creators of Arro say yes, because their new app is so different from most others. Arro uses the collective experience of thousands of other shoppers to point you to high-quality choices.

For now, you can use Arro only to shop in a handful of categories--electronics, baby care products, fitness gear, personal care items like makeup, and home appliances. Pick a category and go shopping for, say, a camera. Arro asks you to narrow down your choice by choosing the features that matter most to you--ease of use, camera size and price, for instance. Touch “find” and you get a top 10 list of cameras that come close to meeting your standards, based on product reviews posted by consumers. You also get links to online retailers like Amazon and Best Buy, where you can purchase the camera.

Arro certainly isn’t the most comprehensive of shopping apps. But to quickly learn what shoppers are saying about products that may interest you, Arro is an excellent choice.

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Ecoxbt waterproof Bluetooth speaker by Ecoxgear
$94.91 at Amazon.com

It’ll be beach weather before you know it, and that’s the ideal environment for this rugged rechargeable Bluetooth speaker.

Sheathed in dense black plastic, the Ecoxbt is designed to tolerate sand and seawater. The manufacturer warns that it’s not designed to be submerged. But it’s buoyant, so if you drop it into Boston Harbor, it’ll stay afloat. It takes a few seconds to sync it up with any Bluetooth-equipped phone or laptop. And with a built-in microphone, the Ecoxbt doubles as a speakerphone.

Mind you, the speakers are nothing to write home about. The sound is muddy and undistinguished. But the Ecoxbt’s compact size and tough construction may still appeal to devotees of water sports.

D-Link wireless Wi-Fi range extender
$49.99 at Amazon.com

Wi-Fi wireless Internet technology seems almost magical, right up to the moment it stops working. If you live in a big enough house or work in a large enough office. a single Wi-Fi router may not have the range to cover every room. D-Link here offers a cheap and effective solution.

The D-Link range extender acts like a relay for Wi-Fi signals. There are no cables to fuss with. It simply plugs into any power outlet. On first use, you set it up to communicate with your main router. There’s a slightly confusing manual method for doing this, but if your router supports WPS--Wi-Fi Protected Setup technology--the range extender will hook itself up with a couple of button pushes. Now you can unplug the extender, move it to some distant corner of your home or office, and use it to get a stronger Wi-Fi signal.

If you’re plagued by spotty Wi-Fi reception in the basement or attic or even the bathroom, this little device will help ensure that your digital gadgets stay on the air.

Haze weather app
99 cents for iOS devices at the Apple App Store

As the February storms keep rolling in, you’re probably spending more time than usual with the weather app on your iPhone. Here’s an eye-catching alternative from Denmark.

Haze delivers the usual weather info, but uses a delightful minimalist design, an excellent combination of beauty and efficiency. It has three screens for tracking sunshine, temperature and precipitation. A glowing sphere in midscreen contains the single most important piece of information in each category--the current temperature, for instance.

Touch the central sphere, and it’s surrounded by smaller spheres that provide greater detail--today’s high and low temperatures, wind speed and direction, and wind chill factor. Swipe your finger downward, and you see predicted temperatures for the next five days. The other screens are equally informative, and you can activate a tilt control feature that lets you navigate between them simply by rocking the iPhone back and forth.

There are plenty of good weather apps, but its visual elegance and rich set of features makes Haze one of the best.

FaceSaver Facebook cleanup app
$2.99 for iOS devices at the Apple App Store; Android version under development

You’ll be shocked to learn that some people use foul language in their Facebook postings. And those who do are sometimes shocked to find that their vulgar ramblings can get them in trouble with parents or employers. Luckily, an Irish entrepreneur has come up with a way to help people track down and delete their most tasteless Facebook comments.

FaceSaver scans alll the text you’ve typed into Facebook, and compares your words to a blacklist of terms you shouldn’t use in polite company. All the scanning is done on the iPhone; the company doesn’t copy your messages onto a remote server, in order to protect your privacy. Yet the process only takes about a minute.

My search came up with a lot of false positives. The app developer said that the software casts a very broad net, looking for any potentially offensive strings of letters, even when they appear in innocuous words like “Massachusetts” and “analyst.” Besides, FaceSaver doesn’t delete anything; it just shows you the possibly salacious posts, leaving you to wipe them out or not.

My readers are clean-living sorts who’d never dream of using vulgar words in their Facebook postings. Still, FaceSaver may be a useful little clean-up tool for your dirty-minded friends.

Charge-Key emergency cell phone charger
$17.99 for Apple iPhones or Android phones at Amazon.com

There’s nothing mobile about a mobile phone when you have to plug into a wall outlet for a quick charge. Which is why people have come up with ways to use standard disposable batteries as cell phone boosters. Here’s a particularly cool example.

As its name implies, the Charge-Key fits on your keyring; the Android version actually looks like a traditional key, in black plastic instead of brass. Remove its plastic tip, and there’s a plug that fits either the Micro USB connector on Android devices, or the 30-pin jack found on older iPhones--a version for the new iPhone 5 Lightning connector is under development.

On its side, the Charge-Key sports a plug for connecting a standard nine-volt battery, which is included. Snap in the battery, plug the key into the phone, and a tiny green light tells you that the charging process has begun. You can use the phone while it’s happening, or just leave it alone. I found that one nine-volter would add about 18 percent more life to my phone battery, enough for a decent number of calls. And since you can buy fresh nine-volts almost anywhere, you can give your phone a jolt no matter where you are.

Designed in Billerica, Charge-Key is a fine phone accessory--compact, simple and smart.

Cycloramic photo and video app
99 cents for camera-equipped Apple iOS devices

With so many camera apps available, who needs another one? Anybody with an iPhone 5, that’s who. Because even though Cycloramic works with a wide range of iOS devices, this app lets iPhone 5 owners do something quite amazing.

In most respects, Cycloramic differs little from other photo apps. It’s got a still photo mode, a video mode, and it lets you automatically connect to your Facebook account. There’s no particular reason why owners of older iPhones should bother with it.

But install Cycloramic on an iPhone 5, and you’ll learn understand where its name comes from. The developers use the phone’s vibration feature to rotate it a full 360 degrees when it’s resting on its bottom edge. You just set it down on a flat, smooth surface, touch the screen, and wait. Cycloramic slowly pans the phone around, taking either a 360-degree panoramic still photo, or a 360-degree high-definition video.

Never mind that Cycloramic is a great way to take pictures. Just watching it work is a wonder and a delight. Cycloramic is a stroke of genius and easily one of the coolest smartphone apps you can buy.

Automatica audio download system
$99 at automaticaweb.com

Lots of us plug our smartphones into the car’s USB port, so we can listen to our favorite music downloads or podcasts during the commute. But the people at Automatica think they’ve got a better way--a phoneless device that downloads your tunes whenever you’re in wireless Internet range.

Automatica is an odd little device--a nearly featureless black box. You plug it into a PC or Mac to set it up and to provide it with power--there’s no battery inside. You install the necessary software on your computer, and set the Automatica to connect to your home or office Wi-Fi network. Then you program Automatica to download stuff from your favorite Internet cloud services, like Google Drive or Microsoft SkyDrive.

From now on, when you plug the Automatica device into a computer or your car, it’ll connect to Wi-Fi and start downloading podcasts and tunes into its built-in memory. It’s got two gigabytes of available storage and a MicroSD slot for adding more. Once it’s loaded up, just unplug Automatica, take it out to the car, plug it into the USB port and start listening.

If you park your car a block from home, it’s hard to see much benefit in Automatica. But it could make sense for people who park within range of their home Wi-Fi or some other open Internet hotspot. In that case, Automatica will download fresh content while you’re at work or in bed. If that’s how you roll, Automatica might be worth a listen.

Samsung SmartCam wireless security camera
$149.99 at iwatchlife.com, or $149 at Amazon.com

Video surveillance monitors are turning up everywhere these days, even in our homes and our pockets. This Samsung camera lets anybody with an Internet connection keep an eye on her house and her stuff, from anywhere in the world.

The SmartCam attaches to your home network either through an Ethernet cable or a wireless Wi-Fi connection. You set it up with password protection to ensure that only you can see what’s going on. The system lets you install multiple cameras to cover different zones of the house. Next, install software on your desktop computer--PC or Mac--or on your Apple or Android mobile device, and you can look in on your home while on the road.

You can buy the Samsung camera at Amazon.com, or through iWatchLife, a company that offers a security video monitoring service. For $4.99 a month, iWatchLife can automatically alert you to possible security threats. Say you’ve got the SmartCam set up in a corridor that ought to be empty when you’re not at home. You can program iWatchLife to send you a text message alert if the SmartCam detects a visitor.

Even if you don’t opt for the iWatchLife option, Samsung’s SmartCam is a good way to guard your home and possessions.

CoPilot Live Premium HD navigation app
$9.99 for Android devices; $14.99 for Apple iOS Devices at Apple App Store.

Now that Apple is providing free turn-by-turn driving directions on the iPhone, there’s no need to buy a separate navigation app. But this one is so cool that you might want to purchase it anyhow.

The CoPilot Live lets you download maps of the entire United States, so you can keep the maps permanently on your phone. That way you can look up navigation data even when you’re offline. The maps take up around three gigabytes of storage space, but you can economize by downloading packages of regional maps--for instance, if you rarely leave New England, download the northeastern US.map pack.

Also, CoPilot Live can work on the iPod Touch, a device that doesn’t have a built-in GPS chip. That’s because it can use signals from nearby Wi-Fi hotspots to calculate where you are. It’s not as precise as GPS, but it’ll do in a pinch.

CoPilot Live has a bunch of other clever features. If you use your iDevice to take geo-tagged photos, CoPilot can instantly display a map showing where each picture was taken. I also like the animated driving route preview that explains exactly how to get where you’re going. In all, CoPilot Live has enough smart features to justify its quite reasonable price.

Constant Guard Mobile security app
Free for iOS devices at Apple’s App Store. Android version under development.

The cable company isn’t in the habit of giving stuff away. But this freebie security app for mobile devices is an offer worth checking out.

Constant Guard is like a little data vault for your smartphone. Here you can store your passwords for vital online services--your bank, e-mail, or social networking services like Facebook. Constant Guard lets you log into the services automatically. The system didn’t work perfectly for me--it wouldn’t work properly with my Bank of America account. But it did fine with my credit union, as well as Facebook and Hotmail.

Constant Guard also offers a secure Google search window. It scans the results of your searches to warn you away from visiting illicit websites that might try to plant malware on your computer. Also, you can store your credit card data inside Constant Guard, and automatically enter the number when you’re shopping at an e-commerce site. The entire app is locked down when not in use; you must enter a PIN number to access its secrets.

If you lose your phone, Constant Guard could prevent you from losing quite a bit more.

Pocket Desktop pocket operating system
$19.95 for four-gigabyte version; $39.95 for 8 gigabytes; or $59.95 for 16 gigabytes at getthekey.com

You can’t carry a complete desktop computer in your pocket, but here’s the next best thing--a USB device that lets you turn any laptop or desktop PC into your own machine, while preserving your privacy.

The Pocket Desktop contains a copy of the Linux operating system, and a stack of popular free software. It’s also got a good deal of empty storage space where you can stash music, photos or documents. You just plug it into a computer’s USB port and reboot the machine, while holding down the “boot menu” key--usually the F12 key. This makes the computer boot from the USB drive instead of its own hard drive. The process takes a few seconds.

Now the computer becomes your own. You can use the Pocket Desktop’s software to create or edit documents, send and receive e-mails, or play favorite tunes. Once you’re done, just reboot the computer and unplug the Pocket Desktop. Your secrets are safe, because everything stays on the USB drive; nothing is stored on the PC.

The Pocket Desktop is more expensive than it ought to be, given its use of free software and the low cost of USB flash memory. But it’s an excellent way to protect your privacy when using someone else’s computer.

Soulver calculator app
$2.99 for iPhone; $4.99 for iPad

Why buy a calculator app for an iPhone or iPad? Apple has already included a perfectly good one at no extra charge. But the developers at Australia’s Acqualia Software Pty. Ltd. have come up with a clever variation that might be worth a few bucks to you.

With Soulver you can combine text and numbers, allowing you to make notes as you make calculations. This is very convenient for many tasks, like drawing up the household budget. You can type in a description of each number--salary, mortgage payment, car loans, and enter the relevant number right alongside. As you’re plugging this in on the left side of the screen, Soulver extracts the numbers, moves them to the right side, and instantly performs the calculation, with the result appearing at the bottom of the screen.

It’s also speeds up a variety of everyday calculations. When something costs $7.85 plus 8 percent sales tax, what’s the total bill? Just type “7.85 + 8%” and there’s your answer.

Pecking words into a calculator could get a bit tedious. But there’s a nice payoff--when you’re done, you’ve got an annotated description of your work, similar to what you’d get by building a budget in Microsoft Excel. And you can instantly save a copy of your work for future reference.

Soulver nicely updates the traditional calculator, at a modest price.

Arion foldable Bluetooth headset
$71.06 at Amazon.com

I never cared for those Bluetooth earbuds that people use with their cell phones. I just hate hooking something onto my ear. But I’m quite comfortable with old-fashioned over-the-cranium headsets. So these phones from Arion suited me just fine.

The phones have an angular, modern look, and rest lightly on the ears. You charge them up using your computer and a USB cable. The manufacturer predicts 11 hours of usage per charge, but I never pushed the limit.

Pairing with my phone was easy enough, and the audio came out clear and reasonably rich. In addition, the built-in microphone did a decent job of transmitting my voice when making phone calls.

The Arion comes in a variety of gaudy colors, so if you insist on something subtle, stick to those wireless earbuds. But for comfort and good audio quality, these wireless headphones are a very good choice.

Drift HD Ghost Action Camera
$399 at Amazon.com

As you go blasting down your favorite ski slope, you might want to take along a strap-on action camera to preserve your heroics for posterity. Drift Innovation Ltd.’s Ghost HD is more expensive than many rival products, but solidly built and stuffed with features.

The Ghost is sealed in a waterproof housing that can tolerate being dunked in up to nine feet of water. Its LCD viewscreen is made out of Gorilla Glass, the famously tough stuff found on Apple Inc.’s iPhone. And it’s got a pushbutton remote control, so a user can switch it on or off, even when the camera is bolted to his helmet or the fork of his mountain bike.

Like a growing number of digital cameras, the Ghost has built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking. A free smartphone app will connect phone to camera, and turn the phone into a remote control. The user will be able to start and stop recording, shoot still images, and adjust the camera’s settings from up to 300 feet away. The app is available for iPhones; a version for phones running Google Inc.’s Android software is under development.

The Ghost isn’t cheap, but its high-end features make it a worthy option for action sports buffs.

Burner disposable phone number app for Apple Inc. iPhones and iPod Touch
$1.99 at the iOS App Store

Fans of the classic TV series “The Wire” know that a “burner” was the show’s nickname for a cheap, disposable cell phone used by criminals to cover their tracks. Well, here’s an impressive app to let law-abiding types do the same thing, and without having to throw away an expensive iPhone afterwards.

Burner is an online service that lets you purchase a temporary phone number to use in place of the one assigned to your phone. Dial calls through the Burner app, and the person on the other end will see this temporary number. If he calls you back, the call is routed to your iPhone’s real number. But your caller ID will display the Burner number, so you know the call is from somebody you may not entirely trust.

The app includes a number good for 20 minutes of talk and 20 text messages. Once activated, this number automatically expires after seven days. You can purchase credits that let you keep using the Burner number and provide extra voice minutes and text messages.

But the true beauty of Burner is the ability to discard a number. Use a Burner number for those unpleasant chats with bill collectors or ex-boyfriends. To prevent them calling back, just hit the “burn” button, and the number no longer works.

There are lots of other temporary phone number services out there, but Burner is unusually simple and attractive, especially for those of us who loved watching “The Wire.”

GPS Heart Rate Monitor Digital Sports Watch by Pyle Audio Inc.
$115.74 at Amazon.com

If you’re finally ready to keep your annual physical fitness resolution, you might enjoy this highly capable gadget that’ll keep you headed in the right direction, literally.

This hefty wristwatch contains a GPS receiver, to pinpoint your location. But it’s got other navigational niceties, like a compass for tracking your direction of movement, a speedometer and even an altimeter, in case you decide to jog up Mount Washington. Of course, there’s a clock too, with a stopwatch function in case you feel like timing yourself.

In addition, you get a heart rate monitor that straps onto your chest and beams radio signals to the watch. Now you get constant monitoring of your heart rate. All this data is recorded in the watch’s memory. Plug it into your home computer via a USB cable, and you can load that data into a fitness tracking program that’s included with the watch. Now you’ve got a permanent record of your progress.

On the downside, the Pyle watch is clunky, ugly and uncomfortable. But as a sophisticated fitness tracker, it gets the job done.

Spike 1 keyboard for Apple Inc. iPhone 4, 4S and 5
$35 at spikeyourphone.com; available in February

Sneer at old-school BlackBerry smartphones if you must, but I still miss their pushbutton keyboards, They let you pound out text message with firm, decisive keystrokes that no touchscreen phone can equal. Too bad you can’t temporarily replace an iPhone’s touchscreen with real pushbuttons when you need to type something.

Oh, wait. You can. SoloMatrix Inc., a company in Washington state, has come up with a remarkable solution--a fold-away keyboard that fits over the virtual keyboard on an iPhone screen. The Spike 1 fits around the phone like an external case. Its keyboard is mounted on a hinge that lets the user fold it around onto the back of the phone when it isn’t needed. Now you can use the touchscreen as Apple intended. But when it’s time to type, you just flip the keyboard onto the front of the iPhone and start pecking away. The Spike 1 doesn’t require batteries, and it doesn’t tap the iPhone’s own power supply. It simply uses physical buttons to press the virtual keyboard buttons on the phone’s touchscreen.

Believe it or not, there’s still a little BlackBerry envy among iPhone users. But SoloMatrix’ slick, smart little keyboard might be the ideal remedy.

Luci solar-powered lantern by Mpowerd Inc.
$15.95 at mpowerd.com

Amidst all the flashy, costly gadgets on display at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, none was more impressive than this little device, which generates hours of brilliant light by capturing the power of the sun.

Luci resembles a cylindrical inflatable pillow. It’s flattened out when you rip open its package, and you blow into an air valve to fill it up. Inside sits an array of light-emitting diodes that radiate a brilliant blue-white light. A pushbutton control on the base lets you switch between bright and dim light, as well as a setting that makes Luci rhythmically flash on and off. Luci is bright enough to illuminate a small room, and makes an excellent reading light.

But what makes this product so special is the array of solar cells on its underside. You charge it up simply by turning Luci bottoms-up and placing it out in the sun. A day’s worth of charging generates enough power to provide about six hours of nighttime illumination, according to the manufacturer.

Luci would make a marvelous lantern for hikers and campers, but its creators have a bigger goal in mind. They hope to distribute Luci lights to people in developing countries, where electric power is unreliable or nonexistent. The company says its goal is the elimination of “energy poverty,” It’s a noble aspiration, backed up with an outstanding new product.