LIKE DOGS, techie toys are not just for Christmas. So while cupboards around
the world bulge with gadgets bought on a whim and discarded once the novelty
value has worn off, it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are a few more durable
trinkets.
Philips has a neat solution to a perennial problem. MP3 coding compresses
music into one-tenth the space of a CD. But memory cards for portable MP3
players cost tens of pounds. Mini Discs are cheaper, but PCs do not easily
record MP3 files onto them, and while you can record onto standard 12-centimetre
CDs the…
