Top-to-bottom in under five minutes? A double- black diamond run at a 45-degree angle? Seven hundred vertical metres of heart-pounding powder? A day's skiing can be relived, analysed and reinvented with the Polar AXN300 (€150, www.polar.fi), a wrist monitor that records altitude and vertical speed information to tell you how fast you've descended and how many runs you've taken. It can't determine the exact moment when your heart was in your mouth, but it will confirm which run generated the most beats per minute.
The BeBook (€330, www.mybebook.com) is an electronic book reader that is cheaper than market leaders, is not tied to a chain of bookstores and can read dozens of file formats, including MPEG music files and RSS newsfeeds. It comes with 150 books, and its 512MB of memory can hold up to 2,500 works. Four hours of charge will generate enough power for 7,000 page turns. There's one major hitch: it doesn't support purchase of copyright-protected bestsellers. But 20,000 classics and historical works are available for free download.
The Flaresafe is an ideal travel companion for tourists who can't leave their cares behind. It's a three-in-one smoke detector, 110-decibel SOS alarm and LED flashlight that's accompanied by holiday literature with a difference: a free guide for surviving a hotel fire (€38, www.flarebrands.com).
aharvey@irish-times.ie