Asus’s Skype tool helps connect the travel-weary

Ditto for cheeky robot maid. (Those clever “lifelike’’ Japanese androids you occasionally see spotlighted on the Drudge Report are, for the most part, animatronic tricks.)

But the videophone, which George Jetson uses to call in sick - and to lie to Jane about working late? - you can get that now, and set up in time for Christmas.

The Asus Videophone Touch (www.skype.com/allfeatures/videophones/) is a Skype WiFi appliance with a 840 x 480-pixel, 7-inch touch screen.

It opens a channel to loved ones too worried about H1N1 and outdated FAA computers to board a plane this year. The phone has a built-in 0.3-megapixel, 640 x 480-pixel camera and a microphone. Headphone and microphone jacks, as well as USB and Ethernet jacks, are on the back of the device.

It should be easier to teach Grandma - or Nai-Nai, as my girls call her - to use the Videophone Touch than to teach her to use a new application for her PC.

You can create Grandma’s Skype account from your end. But you may need to enlist a savvy neighbor to connect the Videophone Touch to her home network. (Wireless networking can be a bit tricky.)

The Touch does Skype-to-Skype calls (including audio only) for free. Skype charges for calls to landlines and mobile phones.

You can also pick up Skype voice mail and set up call forwarding from the Touch.

While you can participate in Skype videoconferences through the Asus device, you can set those up only with a PC.

There is one thing about the Videophone Touch that leaves me balking: its price. At about $270, it is not a bargain, especially when you consider that many computers have built-in cams and microphones.

Here, you are paying for the Asus device’s all-in-one convenience and near-zero configuration requirements.

Boomer tech

iPhone app brings small type into focus

The app, called Eye Glasses, is a small-type buster, a magnifier that reveals the secrets hidden in black-box warning labels on medicine bottles and the ingredients in Trader Joe’s goodies.

Eye Glasses works only with the iPhone 3GS, which has an autofocusing camera. The app’s cost, $2.99, is about $1.99 more than many will want to spend. But Eye Glasses is a great deal for those over 40 who feel the need for bifocals but are between eye doctor appointments. Eye Glasses makes sense, too, for older folks who would rather not carry an extra pair of glasses for the occasional quick read.

Eye Glasses, Freeverse’s first boomer app, demonstrates the company’s mastery of the simple sleek Apple aesthetic, which you will find in its other iPhone apps and in Big Bang board games for the Mac. To use Eye Glasses, you point your iPhone 3GS at the text you want to read and tap an onscreen button to magnify it, up to 8x, in increments of 2x.