This brush watches your mouth

I'm not sure whether to feel grateful for Procter and Gamble's new RFID toothbrush, or insulted that the thing is watching over my morning routine.

Indeed, the Oral-B Triumph with SmartGuide must be the smartest (and at about $150, perhaps the most

expensive) toothbrush available.

It's an RFID-chipped power brush that transmits its sensor data to an LCD, tacked onto your mirror. Icons on the display tell you whether the brush is buzzing along in its gum massage or gentle mode, or its variable, aggressive, polishing mode.

If you are applying too much pressure with the Triumph, a red alert triangle pops up on the display.

The Triumph coaches you through a two-minute brushing routine, which P&G says is four times more than most spend scrubbing their choppers.

I have never timed myself, but my brushing time did "feel" longer than usual with the Triumph.

The brush automatically does a stop-start-stop routine every 30 seconds, accompanied by a flashing quadrant in a circle on the display. Once you finish your brushing routine, the circle on the display becomes a smile - your reward for complying with the system.

The Triumph does not know where it is in your mouth, so the honor system still applies. Its brush heads communicate with the brush handle, telling the system to tell you when it's time to replace the head.

BOOMER TECH

Nintendo last week said it had the hottest booth at the recent AARP Life@50+ convention in Boston, where the games company was marketing its Wii console to an older crowd. But there are more practical gadgets for boomers and seniors that are easier to come by than the Wii. For example, a $150 voice-recognition gadget called the SmartShopper (smartshopperusa.com) helps you keep your fridge adequately stocked, with a running grocery list that you can print out at any time.

The SmartShopper is not a mind-reading device. But when I pushed a button and said "chocolate," it did interpret the word as "gin," which may be what I really wanted.

Typically, the SmartShopper's voice recognition is pretty accurate: Say "carrots," and the word will be one of three the device displays on its LCD.

You select the word you want to add the item to your list.

By pressing another button, you get a printout, sorted by departments - a very handy feature.

Virtual Reality

A new 3DVR headset from Vuzix will make your virtual world, be it one of Warcraft or the Serengeti Plain, more realistic and easier to navigate.

The iWear VR920 (about $400 through vuzix.com) resembles one of the personal video headsets you can plug into your DVD player or video iPod. (Vuzix also sells this type of product.) The VR920 contains motion sensors that track your head movements, and a built-in microphone for two-way conversations in virtual worlds. It works with a handful of PC games, such as World of Warcraft and Microsoft's Flight Simulator X, but the list is growing.

Last week, Vuzix CEO Paul Travers placed me in the cockpit of an ultralight aircraft, a thousand feet above Serengeti. (All of this from an office chair, mind you.)

The VR920 slid right over my own thick, plastic eyeglasses. Its rubber nose-rest kept the hardware in place, as I looked down at my instrument panel and turned my head to see the villages and treetops below me. Looking up, I saw the roof of the ultralight. Behind me, I could see the whirring fan that kept me aloft. The VR920 sure beats using function keys to change my viewing angles.

The VR920 connects to your PC's VGA or DVI port and draws power and relays headtracking data via USB. It supports resolutions up to 1024 x 768, with a 32-degree field of view. Travers said the LCDs inside the headset create the effect of watching a 62-inch TV screen from 9 feet away.

TECH LAB Watch Mark Baard demonstrate some of the technology he reviews at boston.com/business. He can be reached at mark@baard.com.