The first interesting external hard drive we've seen in a while

Portable hard drives are a commodity product, and it’s hard to make them interesting. Take a notebook hard drive, slap it in a bit of plastic with a SATA-to-USB controller inside, and presto, there’s your drive. If it’s USB 2.0, it’ll read at 33.3MB/s and write at around 29MB/s, and if it’s USB 3.0, it’ll read and write at the speed of the mechanical hard drive inside. Yawn.

If you can't appreciate a smartphone-controlled helicopter, then your character must be questioned

When we were kids, we played videogames with plastic Atari controllers—ours had teeth marks on the joysticks for some reason. But time marches on, and now we play games with all kinds of futuristic paraphernalia: a plastic Fender Stratocaster, motion-sensing nunchakus, and even a dual-camera, Wi-Fi-equipped, iPhone-controlled quadricopter.

One-touch, no-fuss espresso that actually tastes good

For much of the world, the aroma, flavor, and lightning bolt of energy that a café dopio delivers are magic. But a big part of the delight is also the ritual of preparation: grinding the beans, tamping the portafilter, and pulling the shot yourself.

So what can we make of Nespresso’s CitiZ Automatic Espresso Maker, which eschews this loving ritual in favor of a push-button system? Insert an espresso capsule, press a button, and 18 seconds later, you get a shot of espresso.