Be as high-tech as a Tom Cruise character

human-computer interfaces
Think "Minority Report" . . .

A new device from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based GestureTek (gesturetek.com) lets you point at any screen to manipulate images and objects, just as Tom Cruise did in the mesmerizing film adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story.

GestureTek's AirPoint System requires no tracking glove or remote control, as many tracking systems do.

The system is centered on a foot-long stick, the AirPoint Bar, which you can easily stuff into your laptop bag and set down in any boardroom or Precrime police station. The device has a strip of cameras that creates an invisible tracking field in which you move your finger to direct the action on a projector screen.

GestureTek says the AirPoint Bar provides pixel-by-pixel accuracy in all lighting conditions. The company sees a future for similar devices in touch-free (and germ-free) bank ATMs, healthcare, and consumer electronics.

Voice-over-internet calling

Adapter lets you use a cordless phone with Skype

The great thing about Skype phone adapters is you can use them to make voice-over-Internet calls with one of those rewired vintage handsets you've been hoarding all of these years.

Not all adapters will let you use the cordless phones in your home, however.

The 5900 Phone Adapter for Skype (less than $40 at many online retailers) does just that, however. It plugs into your cordless base station so you can putter about while making dirt-cheap long-distance calls.

You can also receive landline calls and make emergency calls while the adapter is plugged in.

Even better, you can make long-distance Skype calls from your mobile phone through the 5900. Simply dial in to your landline, punch in a security code and the long-distance number, and the 5900 will bridge the call to Skype for you.

The 5900 measures 3 by 4 by 1 inches and is USB-powered, so it won't add much to your desk clutter.

The 5900, from Boston-based Zoom Technologies (zoom.com), is Skype-certified. But it only works with Windows PCs. The company says it will not be making a version for the Mac OS.

Video Games

Two new titles for preschoolers

My 5-year-old daughter is begging for a computer. Just as I walked around at that age with my dad's briefcase and a serious look, Maeve's been sitting at my desk and telling her baby sister she has "important work to do." That typically centers on watching previews of Disney and Barbie movies, and adding them to our Netflix lineup.

If you are wary of Disney and Barbie (good luck keeping either at bay if you have girls), Sesame Street has two new titles (about $20 each) for kids who are barely out of diapers. Both teach the wee ones to work with a keyboard and mouse.

Sesame Street First Steps, for ages 1 1/2 through 3, is unlikely to meet with our pediatrician's approval, even if its publisher, Nova Development Corp., promises it will provide "a vital introduction" to letters, numbers, and shapes. I think the real agenda for First Steps is brand recognition: ensuring that our girls will dive toward Elmo whenever we pass him at Costco.

First Steps has more than a dozen games and sing-along songs featuring the red guy with the raspy voice, as well as Zoe, Ernie, and Big Bird.

The other package, Sesame Street Learn, Play and Grow Preschool, has 25 activities for kids 2 through 4. The software includes music and art activities and shape games.

Learn, Play and Grow Preschool also builds self-esteem in your child, according to Nova Development. That is an easy assertion to make, but a hard one to back up.

Innovative Last Week

Phone maker dazzles with diamonds

The Russian luxury electronics maker Gresso sells phones and memory sticks made from 200-year-old African blackwood for prices only an oligarch can pay. The latest phones in its Avantgarde Collection are called Black Diamonds, after the rare beauties embedded, along with 18K gold, in its keys. The Royal Black Diamond ($43,000-plus) has 23 gold-and-diamond keys. If you're looking for a throwaway phone, the basic Black Diamond (at left) costs a mere $13,000.