Take a good look at the illustration on the right. Remind you of anyone? Are you adrift in a sea of confusing new technology that promises to simplify and revolutionise your life? If so, then this guide is your liferaft. We profile the hottest new gadgets and technologies to find out which ones live up to their billing.

That’s the problem with gadgets. There they sit, in sumptuously packaged glory, on the shelves of department stores or in the pages of catalogues and magazines, each product confidently asserting: “I am the one for you. Buy me and you will wonder how you lived without me.”

You have the digital camera that promises instant gratification and a stored lifetime of happy memories, the computer that will house them and, when connected to an easy-to-use printer, reproduce them in glorious colour. Or, perhaps, you would like to view them on a giant plasma or LCD TV screen, with a clarity you never imagined possible, e-mail them to friends around the world or share them on the internet. For a small signing-on fee, we are constantly reminded, membership of this brave new world can be ours.

But how many of these things truly are indispensable? Or even useful? And, given a choice, which high-tech gadgets would people honestly want to invite into their homes?

To find out, we asked a group of people to do just that. From an 8-year-old girl to a young single professional, from a home-based worker to a teenage boy and a family of four — we assaulted them with mountains of catalogues and asked them to take their pick of the items that they might consider spending their own money on. We then left them to live with their choices for a few days and to deliver their verdicts. We hope you will find the mixture of frustration, fascination and downright awe entertaining, and, perhaps, inspiring.

The days when buying a TV set meant choosing the one with the nicest cabinet are long gone. In this information age, the consumer who wins is the consumer who is best informed.

NIGEL KENDALL

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