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As a child I was always fascinated by all things robotic, much of this fascination was generated by the TV shows of the time, such as Star Trek and re-runs of Lost in Space. I was a sensible kid, I fully realised this fantastic mechanical devices that were walking and talking, displaying true sentience, were far beyond our technology at the time. I did think that we might see something very similar emerge in the future, definitely within my lifetime. So thirty years on from my young TV watching days, where are the robots?

You would think that after 30 years of incredible technological advances that here would be some recognisable for of commercial robotics? Certainly something that was a close match to my boyhood daydreams, but no, we are stuck with ridiculously expensive children’s toys as the pinnacle of robotic science.

Let’s take a look at one of these advanced robotic life forms shall we? Queue drum roll….. It’s Pleo the Robotic Camerasaurs! Can this really be the most advanced form of publically available robot known to mankind? Let’s take a look!

Pleo retails for around $299, making him a rather expensive electronic toy. He contains (hold a second, why am I calling it a he?) a range of sensory devices that enable him to hear, see, sense touch and detect objects. Anybody who remembers Furbies (those cute if somewhat annoying electronic pets) will be familiar with the whole concept of Pleo, he is just a rather more advanced version of the same thing. The manufacturers state that no two of the toys will develop the same habits, and his entire development is based upon the time the owner spends with him. Due to the fact he can only operate (be awake?) for an hour on a full battery charge and then needs four hours to recharge the owner isn’t really going to be spending much time with him.

The core of Pleo’s brain is Life OS; an impressively named piece of software that it would seem is designed to make something wag its tale when you feed it something it cannot eat anyway. I’m in the wrong business! This software has recently been updated to Life OS 1.1, brain surgery for your robotic pet!

Pleo can react to his surroundings and will display character traits such as sadness, happiness and excitement in a variety of ways, he will also let his owner know when he is tired or hungry. Many of his responses are geared towards affectionate actions such as petting and play.

As you can probably guess, I am not exactly impressed with this particular gadget. Quite frankly it is nothing new, ok the technology is more up to date than previous attempts at the same thing, but there is certainly nothing innovative about Pleo, and unless you are the kind of person who can afford to blow $299 on a toy that is likely to be forgotten within a week I can’t see the value of him.

There have been lots of gadgets that became cult items, such as the Tamagotchi (that weird digital pet thing), the Apple iPod (love or hate them, they are everywhere), and the Commodore 64 (considered the premier home PC of its era). It is very hard to try and attribute the title of Ultimate Cult Gadget to any one item.

My choice is going to be the Technics SL 1210 turntable. Why am I choosing this as my ultimate cult gadget of all time? Simply because unlike most gadgets, this one actually did an awful lot to encourage people to develop skills and get involved in new things, instead of hanging on a key chain looking pretty.

The SL 1210, is the best known DJ turntable hands down, it is a veritable industry standard in the DJ world and is used by everyone from back bedroom wannabes to $1,000 per minute super star DJ’s. This is truly a gadget that breaks into a huge cross section of the intended target market. The sight of a pair of 1210s has become synonymous with the image of a DJ. So why are these decks so popular? Why do people love them so much?

Firstly we need to consider the design. They contain every function needed by a DJ, and supply these functions in a single, easy to operate and robust package. All of the components are of extremely high standard, these things just keep working. Because of the great value they represent, they were quickly adopted as a standard part of the average club sound system. Of course, if you are a DJ in waiting, and you want to break into the club scene, then you had better practice on something that is the same as the equipment you will eventually work on right? So within a very short space of time, every aspiring DJ had a pair of 1210s on their Christmas list. This was a typical snowball effect, and sales of the SL 1210 grew exponentially.

Getting back to why I chose this as my ultimate cult gadget of all time, we need to consider what the SL 1210 is all about. It is about mixing music, entertaining people, learning how to play a pair of decks and having fun. Other gadgets just simply allow you to do something; the SL 1210 offers you the chance to be something. From the youngest teenager with his pair of turntables plugged into some old Hi-Fi system in his bedroom, to the international DJ’s who entertain crowds in excess of 50,000 people, all of them are following a dream, and living a lifestyle, of which the Technics SL 1210 turntable is a fundamentally important building block. Can the same be said about the iPod? Not in the slightest.

So this is why the 1210 gets my vote as the ultimate cult gadget of all time, a truly exceptional product, which for many people has changed their world.

In 1991, Sony unveiled a new form of recordable media, the MiniDisc. It was heralded as the replacement technology for the audio cassette tape, in many ways it was going to be the ultimate gadget of the early 1990s now almost 20 years later it has almost disappeared, why should such an innovative technology just fade away?

The largest problem with the MiniDisc format was the fact it was not taken up as a mainstream recording media by major music publishers. It was expensive to produce and the cost of the original MiniDisc players was extremely high. Due to these two huge issues, the MiniDisc never became a well accepted form of music distribution.

Within a few short years of the MiniDisc being launched, the CD was introduced as an extremely cheap and very accurate type of media for music reproduction. The CD was even more cost effective than the old audio cassette, and it was quickly adopted by the music industry. The fate of the MiniDisc was sealed; it had been superseded before it was even established.

Further competition was forthcoming in the form of MP3 file compression. With the up rise of the large peer-to-peer file sharing systems such as Kazaa, people began literally stealing most of their music, record companies were forced to cut prices and offer added value to consumers in an effort to entice them to purchase original recordings. The MiniDisc could not compete cost wise in this cutthroat market. Once the boom in solid state MP3 players was well underway, MiniDisc lost it’s only remaining advantage over other recording media as a very portable and reliable way of transporting and playing recorded music.

The MiniDisc is still extremely popular with musicians and music editors. The superior way in which it stores and accesses data makes it immensely useful for people who need to edit audio date on the fly. The MiniDisc still has many supporters, although it is becoming more and more difficult to source new equipment and even the media itself is becoming difficult to obtain.

In a controversial move, Sony revisited and refreshed the technology in 2004 by releasing the HiMD. This is a 1GB general storage device, capable of storing both audio and data on the same media. It was backwardly compatible with the older MiniDisc format and has the same physical dimensions. This format has been quickly accepted by professional musicians and music editors as a superior way of storing and manipulating music date.

The history of the MiniDisc is a story of a gadget that was introduced at the wrong time. Although it displayed superior characteristics to any competing product at launch, the world was not ready for an expensive high quality way of storing music, instead it was screaming out for a cheap and reliable replacement for the old and unreliable audio cassette.

Now and then, I come across a gadget that quite literally astounds me. This can be due to technical innovation, blatant stupidity or a whole bunch of other reasons in-between. However, this is the first gadget I have ever found that would definitely take my breath away if I used it. Actually, it would take far more than my breath away; it would also take a part of me I am very attached too!

I am speaking about the SmartKlamp, this device is… Wait for it… a disposable, single shot, self-circumcision device! Seriously, I cannot believe anybody would trust a piece of mass produced plastic to undertake this delicate and potentially eye watering operation on their behalf. I know darn well I would not.

The SmartKlamp is sold in several sizes and comes in a sterile package. It works by cutting off the blood supply to the foreskin and is left in place for a few days until the aforementioned piece of anatomy drops off! One can only imagine how this works; surely, if the blood flow has been stopped then it will start to rot before dropping off? The mind boggles trying to imagine how this entire process would progress.

The manufacturers recommend that a local anesthetic is applied before using the device, I do hope this is printed clearly in the instructions, you know how dumb some people can be. One particular fact that had me laughing was the statement from the manufacturer that tells us that although the SmartKlamp is currently only available in sizes to fit babies up to pre-pubescent boys, there are current tests being carried out upon an adult size model in Turkey. What sort of person signs up as a guinea pig to test a device like this? Would you?

Although the device is designed to be used by a doctor, it is stated that an individual under proper supervision can carry out the procedure upon themselves, and in fact, in the Far East where the product was initially developed, this is the major form of use. The local population has discovered that they can save on the cost of a doctor by combining the SmartKlamp with a sharp pair of scissors!

This is a prime example of a gadget that was developed for the benefit of the medical profession and has been adopted and adapted by the general population. The real problem here lays in the fact that although the SmartKlamp is designed to greatly simplify the circumcision process, it was never intended as an alternative to allowing a trained professional to undertake the operation. It is highly unlikely that the people who are using this as a cheap form of circumcision are trained to deal with any complications that crop up; certainly, they are unlikely to understand how to prepare a sterile environment to make sure the risk of infection is minimized.

Personally, I think anyone who decides to use this gadget outside of a medical facility is taking their life, or at least an integral part of it, in their own hands.

I remember as a teenager, going to visit an Uncle of mine who had recently retired. He spent an afternoon demonstrating his new gadget too me, a portable video recorder. This thing was huge; it consisted of a camera (fairly large by modern standards) and a portable video recorder and TV tuner, about the size of a briefcase. Sure it was portable, but it was not useful in my eyes, as it was just not convenient.

Several years passed, and things started to get smaller, in 1982 two new technologies were released that paved the way for current hand held camcorders to evolve. Sony introduced the Betacam, the first really portable camcorder (well OK it was still big but it was a single unit), and JVC released the VHS-C format, these were smaller sized VHC style tapes, which were used in camcorders to record video and then slotted into an adapter cartridge to be played on a standard VHS video recorder. The public was awake, and it took the concept of a portable video recording device to heart, the ball as they say, was in motion.

If a single gadget had to be given as an example of design and innovation driven by the consumer, then surely the camcorder is a good choice. The market loved the idea of portable video recording, but they wanted it smaller, easier, more reliable, and it was quite obvious they were willing to pay for it. A second major breakthrough came with the advent of digital technology, the old and antiquated storage methods were consigned to the scrap heap, recording tapes disappeared and digital storage took its place. More reliable, faster, cheaper and able to store far more than a video tape, it was quickly accepted as the best solution available. Digital storage took many forms from small hard disk drives to writable DVD, and was a major milestone in the camcorder lifecycle.

Since the acceptance of digital storage as the preferred recording medium for camcorders, most development has concentrated on making things smaller, the idea of the handcam was forming in many minds, Sony stated that after the movie Back to the Future was released, which featured a scene of the main character using a handcam to record an experiment, the amount of written and email queries they had, questioning plans of releasing smaller camcorders was huge.

Modern camcorders are often a hybrid unit, consisting of a full motion video camera, a still shot camera and a suite of video or picture editing software built into the device, allowing users to take movies and video, and then edit it into a single production, dunning video and adding subtitles, without eve moving the recording from the camcorder. Almost all current camcorder models have the facility of being linked directly to a TV so that recordings can be viewed directly from the device.