There are not many places that you can’t use your gadgets, but one place that it is illegal is while driving a car. For safety reasons you are not allowed to pick up your mobile phone and answer it while in control of a vehicle. And for good reason. So manufacturers have come up with numerous devices to get round this law while keeping the driver safe. One such gadget is the Car Steering Wheel Bluetooth Adaptor.

To handle your phone calls while you are travelling, this device has an FM transmitter and built in MIC and speakers. It clips snugly around your steering wheel whether you own a Mini, van or a lorry allowing easy DIY fitting without the swearing involved, like with other products.

At its centre, a backlit LCD display sits that lets you easily see information of incoming calls that are directed from your mobile phone via Bluetooth A2DP connectivity. To answer a call is just a matter of pressing the well placed control buttons. With the SD card and USB slots you can stream your music to your car stereo using the FM transmitter and see the song details on the LCD screen.

When answering calls is very important no matter where you are, this device will keep it safe in your car and keep it within the law.

Imagine a night out at a restaurant for a special occasion. The food is glorious, the drink is flowing and you take loads of photos to record the evening. The next day when you get to look at those photos you find that the drink has affected your photo taking ability and there are heads cut off or blurry images. It’s easily done when you are caught up in the occasion. So what is the solution? What gadget can help you out the next time you use your camera when influenced by alcohol? How about the Bottle Cap Tripod?

Most cameras have a tripod hole and what this little device does is utilise this hole. The clever thing about this gadget is that it can secure itself to any standard screw top bottle. Small enough to carry around in your pocket, it sits on top of the bottle cap and grips the plastic firmly. You then screw the camera to it and you are ready to shoot perfect pictures.

The Bottle Cap Tripod allows you to swivel the camera around 360 degrees letting you get photos of everyone around the table. It also tilts at 15 degrees giving you plenty of scope to get the correct frame.

Now you don’t have to worry about finding a stable surface with a good view to rest your camera when you set the timer. Just make sure you have access to a bottle.

If there is anything better than a BBQ during a warm summer’s day, I don’t know what it is. Even though our summers seem to be pretty short, the first sign of a warm day and we’re out in the garden trying to light the charcoal. This sometimes is where the first problem arises. You could be hours trying to light them, eventually pouring petrol on and standing back while you watch the towering inferno. Also, what if you want to BBQ in the park or on a camping trip? What’s needed is the Barbegrill.

Constructed from stainless steel for easy cleaning and durability, this gadget stands at 38.5cm x 23cm x 13.5cm so is easily transported anywhere. To prevent you from cremating your food there is a variable infra red heat control system. The mini A4 220g Butane Battery gas cartridge replaces the charcoal in traditional BBQs so saves you having to carry a bag of charcoal around when you take it on holiday. For safety purposes a pressure activated safety gas cut-off device is fitted.

The mini gas cartridge will last up to 4 hours if you are just simmering something or 90 minutes on full heat. It’s ideal for skewered meat as the Barbegrill comes with skewer supports and it will even toast bread as well as keep soup or milk warm in a saucepan.

If small and cute is your thing with gadgets then CompuLab has something right up your street. They released its predecessor in 2008 and with this version they have upped the spec. It is a full blown PC fitted into a 4 inch x 4.5 inch x 1.05 inch box and is called the Fit-PC2.

The case itself has no fan, dissipating the heat through the aluminium construction which means it is silent when used with a solid state disk. This also has the result of increased reliability due to no moving parts.

As for the components, it has a Z530 1.6GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, DVI with graphics acceleration, Hi Def audio, SATA hard drive, 6 USB ports and network connections including wireless.

This dinky little box of tricks tries to be as green as possible. With the low power consumption of its components it only uses 6 W in normal operation of using Windows XP or linux and 8 W under heavy load.

It can run full HD resolution with the HDMI connector and has IR remote control support. This could be an ideal addition to a home cinema. With such a small size it won’t take up a lot of room, but will provide high end multimedia capabilities.

If you are in the market for such a device you can get the XP version for around $400.

When I was younger I remembered a common thing in the older generation when their eyesight began to fail and they read a book or paper. They tended to use a magnifying glass. It looked like they were looking for clues like a detective. Nowadays you just get stronger glasses, but is there an equivalent gadget that has replaced the magnifying glass of old? Something that you can use, not only for reading if you want to, but for looking at bugs or intricate pictures or even for counting the sprinkles on a cake.

Extech have released a digital mini microscope that can do all of those things and much more. Designed for the lab, this microscope can provide up to 108 times magnification. You view the magnified image through a 1.8 inch LCD screen with the device having a 300,000 pixel CMOS sensor. For clearer viewing there are 3 LED’s that you can adjust the brightness on.

The digital camera sized device has 2MB of internal storage able to hold up to 60 images of 320 x 240 pixels. To power it you will need 3 x AAA batteries.

This sounds like a smart little device to have as a toy to play with occasionally, but with the price being just shy of £300 I can’t see many taking up the offer. This one is best left for the professionals.

Most gadgets come with rechargeable batteries these days. It’s a lot kinder to the planet for not having to replace dead batteries every couple of months or so. Accessories for iPhones and iPods include battery packs that blend in with the style of the device that you don’t see much of for other gadgets. All that are usually available are generic packs. Now, that is set to change for the Blackberry Bold.

A company called Case-mate have released a product specifically for the Bold to increase the amount of time you can use your device. It is the Case-mate Fuel Battery Pack. This pack is said to give you an added 7 hours of talk time or 20 days of stand by time in addition to the standard Bold battery.

As well as increasing the useable time of the Bold, the Fuel Battery Pack doubles up as a hip holster to carry it around in. If you fall in to the trap of overcharging, there is an on/off switch allowing you to control when the extra power is released.

If you find the generic battery packs are too bulky for you or they just don’t compliment your favourite device, perhaps this could be what you need. If you want to part with $80 USD, the Case-mate Fuel Battery Pack is available now.

There was a time in the distant past, when electronic organiser gadgets could only be dreamed of. The only way to keep track of your appointments was on paper. A common way to do this was to use a Filofax that was synonymous with high powered workers. The Filofax is still around, but now you can update it by removing all of the pages and putting in a Willcom NS.

This nifty little gadget has hole punches down one side allowing it to fit nicely in a ringbinder. The PDA, made by Toshiba, comes with a 4.1 WVGA touchscreen, can contain up to 16GB of storage via the microSD slot, has Wi-Fi to allow you to get online and runs Windows CE. With a battery life of up to 6 hours it seems like a smart little introduction to the gadget world.

I’m not sure why you would want to keep a Filofax or any sort of paper diary when there are devices like this around, but maybe these people, who find it hard to break out of the habit, are still around.

If you are one of these people finding it hard to make the transition, this MID could help you along the way. You will still have the Filofax feel, but with the latest technology to keep all of your appointments and special dates safe.

The avalanche of e-readers seems to be continuing at a pace. As the gadget is a new range of product, manufacturers are coming out with new versions thick and fast. With the latest Kindle changing the size of the viewing screen it remains to be seen if this new size will be the standard. Even so, the original size is still used by companies and the latest one is the Cool-er.

This UK-developed device is the creation of entrepreneur Neil Jones who is looking to get it out some time in June. To help it compete with the likes of the Kindle and the Sony Reader it will come with 260,000 paid for titles from major publishers. Europe and the UK will benefit from 60,000 of these titles.

It will come with similar e-ink technology as the other readers, a memory card slot, 1GB of internal memory and a removable battery. You can also play your music and listen to it through headphones via the headphone socket. You will have a choice of 8 colours and languages giving you a good range to find your favourite colour.

Another area that it will compete with the Kindle and Sony Reader is in weight. It weighs a paltry 5.6 ounces, almost half the weight of the aforementioned. Maybe a sticking point would be the price as it is set to sell for around $250.

With any luck we will have a decent summer this year. It will be nice to walk around in a t-shirt without feeling the chill from a cold wind. And with the sun you need to keep your head protected. The trouble with this is that the same thing that keeps you protected can make you hot and sweaty. You could always carry a fan around with you amongst everything else that you carry to work, or you could try using the Solar Hat Fan.

This gadget is for those of you that don’t mind standing out in a crowd because it will draw attention: a lot of attention.

Basically, it is a small fan that is connected to a solar panel. You clip the compact device to the peak of your cap with the fan pointing towards your forehead and the solar panel facing up to the sky. It gets all of its power from the solar panels so there are no batteries and you can feel happy in the knowledge that you are doing your bit for the environment with yet another eco-friendly gadget.

I don’t see this becoming the height of fashion, but if you are a true geek or are determined to do everything you can to help the planet this should be high on your shopping list.

Ever since Nintendo released the Wii with its motion sensing capabilities, Sony and Microsoft have been playing catch up in this area with no real challenge coming forth. Now Microsoft are to release a camera peripheral which they hope will put them to the forefront of motion sensing technology.

The ZCam is to be Microsoft’s gadget for future gaming if the path laid down by Nintendo is to be followed. This is the first low cost video camera that can capture depth information on video allowing you to play games without the need for controllers.

A principal called Time of Flight is used that allows sensors in the camera to measure the depth of each pixel. The 3D information is gathered by sensing the reflected light that bounces off of the objects in the scene when pulses of infra red light are sent out by the camera.

As well as immersing yourself in a game with this technology it will also allow you to manipulate computer software with the use of motion from your fingers. Think of the computer in Minority Report, but shown on a screen.

I’m not sure how it will fair with games such as golf or tennis where actually holding something in your hand adds to the reality of the game, but I suppose there will always be other peripherals that can be used.