Here are the gifts you should give to that guy. And by give, I mean quietly sneak up and shoving it in his mail slot, because if he's anything like the Holiday Haters we know, he'll have barricaded himself in and shut off all forms of communication with the outside.

And if you hate the gallery format as much as he hates the holidays, click here.

A Philips GoLite Blu: If someone hates the holidays, it's likely that they hate the holiday season as well. Part of that is due to seasonal affective disorder, which in layman's terms, means you're not getting enough sunlight and you're depressed as a result.

The Philips GoLite Blu, which we reviewed last year, really helps lift mood. It might not make your pal's mood go from a 2 to a 10, but it'll definitely get him up into the 6 or 7s. $150 [Amazon]

Cellphone Flask: If your friend really hates being around family, there's few (legal) ways of making the time go by faster than getting stupidly drunk. But what if they're gifted with at least a little semblance of tact and don't want to go all out with a flask? Then here's the cellphone flask. Provided the guy's family is as dumb as he claims, they might not realize that this silver beauty really hides a few ounces of vodka and not his office email. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll have to take this call. $10 [Amazon]

Yule Log Christmas Fireplace Blu-ray: This combines the traditional holiday tradition of sitting in front of a fireplace with the more palatable tradition of sitting in front of a TV. Your friend might hate the former, but he must still enjoy TV, right? Right? With the newly-updated Blu-ray version, he can just leave it on and enjoy the fake flames while doing whatever it is he does normally. Which, if our guess is right, is planning his own death. $11 [Amazon]

Festivus Pole LED Color Light Kit: Your loved one may hate the holidays, but what about Festivus? Bordering somewhere between a real holiday and a crappy meme that will not die, Festivus is the holiday for hipsters too cool or too poor to celebrate one of the "traditional" ones. On the plus side, you get a pole, so why not decorate it with some LED lights from China? $18 [Chinavasion]

Ex-lax Chocolate Laxatives: One hilarious way to a party is to have all the guests run home with Christmas sweaters tied around their pants. Any holiday hater will die to have these miracle pills in their arsenal of holiday-escaping gadgets, even if it isn't quite that gadgety. Think of it as Batman's utility belt if Batman really wanted to get out of a get together and was willing to wait 6 to 12 hours. $9 [Amazon]

Withings Wi-Fi Scale: Nothing pisses off a holiday hater more than someone actually enjoying themselves. How does one undo this mirth? By showing them how much weight they've gained since November. The Wi-Fi scale is fantastic because there's no hiding your weight—it gets uploaded automatically, online, and converted into graph form. Take that, innocent person who's just trying to celebrate the holidays. $160 [Gizmodo]

Swine Flu Protection Kit: Another thing holiday haters hate worse than the holidays is getting sick during the holidays. With the swine flu protection kit, even if your friend isn't actually safe from disease, he has peace of mind. [Amazon]

A Donation In His Name: For a person who hates the holidays and everything they stand for, giving him a present that's actually a present to someone else is the worst thing imaginable. It's like telling him that you HAD the excess money to spend on a present, but decided to give it to someone else instead. Or, like waving a bowl of food in front of a starving child and saying that there's a hungrier child that this is going to instead, and thanking him for his kindness. Don't do this!

All Giz Wants is our annual round-up of favorite gift ideas, including amazing attainable objects and a few far-out fantasies. We'll be popping guides catered to different interests regularly until Christmas, so keep checking back.

Electronic paper (e-paper) looks like conventional paper and the bright wash of color it generates uses the ambient light for rendition, just like conventional paint, so no backlight is needed. Which means that the vividness of the color is maintained, even in bright outdoor conditions. Philips' technology allows different colors of ink to be built into one layer with each color controlled separately. This means the layer can be transparent, the same color as any one of the inks or even a mixture of multiple colors. Moreover, the saturation of each individual color can be controlled accurately – so any shade can be produced. Recently, Philips successfully realized a simplified, yet advanced version of its e-paper technology: e-skin. Since it is less complicated and less expensive to realize, it enables new applications. And because e-skin makes use of the ambient light, it is an inherently energy-efficient system, making it particularly suitable for application in portable devices as well.

While portable devices might be the focus in the short-term, this sort of technology could also be used for larger equipment and even wallpaper in your home. In other words, it might not be long before we can change the color and the entire ambiance of a room with the push of a button. [Philips via Pocket-Lint]

Apple Patent Describes iPod UI "Pushed" to Other Devices

An Apple patent filed in May 2008 describes a way of pushing whatever UI Apple wants to non-Apple hardware, for consistency's sake. That non-Apple hardware could include car stereos or something like the Chumby One (which has iPod functionality, but with a lookalike UI). It's a nice idea for Apple, but could be tricky given the myriad different hardware that might want to take advantage. What if the hardware has a resistive touchscreen, or a shitty processor? Might it just be better to use a custom interface for iPod integration? Regardless, it's in Remainders because it's not really that unexpected or interesting in its implications. [MacRumors]

Philips Announces Very Pretty Pro LCD Line

Philips' new high-end LCD line looks pretty fantastic, with two important caveats. First, let's drool a little: The two models (40- and 46-inch) have a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 1ms response time, 5 HDMI ports (not sure why you'd need that many, but whatever) and a 200Hz refresh rate, with a nice brushed-aluminum look. Now, the caveats. First, they're UK only, and second, they're prohibitively expensive at about $3,000 and $4,100, respectively. Still, drool-worthy. [Engadget]

NYTimes Columnist Proposes Boycott of "Pro-Communist China" Bing

NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has proposed a boycott of Microsoft's Bing search engine due to its supposed pro-Chinese-government censorship of search terms like "Dalai Lama" and "Tienanmen" when searched in simplified Chinese characters. In English and other non-Chinese languages, the results you'd expect from "Tienanmen" show up, but in Chinese, apparently it returns sanitized results (no massacre, in that case). Since I'm not really sure how to type simplified Chinese characters on an all-Amurrican MacBook Pro keyboard, I haven't tested it myself—but if true, it's a little underhanded on Microsoft's part, although certainly paling in comparison to, you know, the Chinese government. What's odd is that Google's Chinese search also returns censored results, but "to a much lesser extent," so I guess it's okay. Weird stuff. [TechFlash]

Ooma Adds New Handsets and International Plan

Internet phone company Ooma began shipping its new Telo handset as well as offering a very cheap international calling plan (500 minutes for $5 per month). Ooma, for those who don't know (I assume this includes everyone) varies from other VoIP services like Vonage by cutting out the monthly fees, instead packing them into a fairly expensive set-top box, at $250. So this international plan requiring a monthly fee is a big deal for them, but it winds up in Remainders because I honestly had not even heard of Ooma until this morning. Oops. [Electronista]

The company is testing the implementation of their lighting technology alongside their medical technology in Ambient Experience suites across the world.

And luckily, the other 9 modes appear far more serene than the "Australia" theme in our lead shot. Patients, in fact, are allowed to choose their own color palette, along with accompanying sounds and video that will surround them during procedures. In fact, this media environment can be so relaxing (or simply distracting) that it was said to reduce sedation needs by 28% in one Chicago-based study.

Actually, on second thought, that pink freaks me out even more than the red. [Philips via CNET]

I don't know if they are military-grade or not, but their retrofuturistic blender, food processor, juicer, hand mixer, and stab mixer look like they can blend, process, juice, mix, and stab giant extraterrestrial cockroaches without getting a scratch. Their prices go from $210 to $570, with a five year general guarantee and 15 years guarantee for the motors. In other words: You and your spouse will have to fight for them at one point. [Appliancist, Appliancist and Appliancist via Unplggd]

Using Philips' software, you preload your fitness goals (the amount of daily activity you're aiming for) onto the device. Then, as you go about your day with the monitor in your pocket, its series of opaque dots will begin to glow green.

With each 15% you finish of your daily quota, this makeshift status bar fills that much more.

If you're as addicted to watching status bars complete while doing mundane tasks like downloading or copying files as I am, the device could lead to straight-up dangerous levels of exercise—especially since the meter leaves space for overflow should you give, say, 115%.

The Activity Monitor currently sells for $80, plus you'll need to pay a $12.50 fee every month, which also gets you personalized advice from a real person. And Philips tells us that they have a lot of custom algorithms to detect movement much better than a regular accelerometer, like the difference between running and jogging and doing housework and so on. If only Philips also sold a Wallet Monitor that could track their petty nickle and diming that turns us off to an otherwise promising device. [Philips via ubergizmo]

The oddly-named Rationalizer looks like a reasonably simple, if bizarre, product: A bracelet that probably detects clamminess and pulse, and wirelessly sends that data to an LED-laden bowl. The bowl turns red (red is always bad, you guys) when "stress" levels are too high, and the important businessman who's wearing this contraption knows he needs to stop day-trading or whatever and have a glass of water. It's still in the conceptual stage right now, but it's far along enough for Philips to make a hilariously overwrought teaser. Check it out here. [Philips via Engadget]

It's a simple idea, but I like the design: Soft cushion on the bottom, flat hard surface with nice built-in speakers on the top. Girl on spandex not required.

Spandex is never a good idea.

Each new Aurea will be bundled with this pod-style slider that we're only telling you about because it's a bit different than most. When closed, it's reminiscent of a first-gen iPod. When open, it feels like a cellphone aimed at tweens. And that ball at the top? No, that's not a speaker intended for your ear. It's the power button.

So we're gonna need a modder to dig into this thing with some Skype hardware or at least our MP3 collection from 2001—shouldn't be hard, it's basically a 4-hour loop of Lady Marmalade. [Philips]

This Philips non-spherical-biosphere is a self-contained farm for that produces hundreds of calories of various food sources a day. Its five-level design breaks down like this:

Levels 1 and 2: Plants
Level 3: Algae
Level 4: Fish and Shrimp
Level 5: Organic Waste

From what we can tell, the system is designed to cascade nutrients from the top to the bottom (back to the top). Optical fibers capture and redirect light to the plants during the day, while methane capture from organic waste can power lights at night. The algae create oxygen for the fish.

And while maybe we'd entertain the idea that this biosphere would actually work, it's only a matter of time before a cat scales the top just shatter a mix of waste and shellfish all over the floor.

Here's a clip of the Biosphere, along with a few other interesting Philips food concepts.

[Philips via Design Probes and RSR via TrendsNow]

The device is intended for roadside use by law enforcement agencies and includes a disposable plastic cartridge and a handheld analyzer. The cartridge has two components: a sample collector for gathering saliva and a measurement chamber containing magnetic nanoparticles. The particles are coated with ligands that bind to one of five different drug groups.

After 90 seconds, the device delivers its verdict on a color-coded readout. That's a lot of fancy technology to tell you that the naked, toothless guy trying to escape from the ghosts chasing him is probably high as a kite, but Philips, the company behind the tester, hopes to have the device in Europe by the end of the year. If it is successful, I would imagine that a US launch would not be far behind. [Technology Review via DVICE]

The Philips 56PFL9954H Cinema 21:9 uses the same aspect ratio of most movies out there, which means that it eliminates the black bars while watching a Blu-ray title. And while every single consumers electronics expert in the UK is raving about the amazing quality of this 8.3-million-pixel TV set, the Philips Cinema 21:9 still has to do zooming to make the movie to fill its 1080-pixel vertical resolution. In other words: It looks great, but it's still not perfect. [Daily Mail]

Their PowerSensor function works independently of the operating system, and basically allows you to save energy: Everytime you go away from your computer, the monitor will dim and reduce its power consumption by 50%. Hopefully, this simple but great technology will become a standard feature in every monitor in a not-so-distant future. [PocketLint]

As I said above, color e-paper boasts and chest thumping from the Philips camp is nothing new. However, this current concept (and really, this is still another pipe dream concept for now) uses a completely new technique that preserves screen resolution by literally turning the traditional pixel model on its head.

For some background, existing e-ink tech in devices like Sony's Reader and the Amazon Kindle use electrophoresis. This technique sees white particles suspended in a dark liquid. When an electric field is passed through them, they get happy, more vertically up and down, and you can read Stephen King on your Kindle.

But those crazy Philips folk in Amsterdam vaulted over all that and implemented "in-plane electrophoretics" so that they could move multi-color bits about horizontally, not vertically. The result could very well rival LCD screens someday:

Each pixel is made up of two microcapsule chambers: one containing yellow and cyan particles, the other, below, containing magenta and black particles. Within each microcapsule, one set of colored particles is charged positively while the other is charged negatively.

By carefully controlling the voltages at electrodes positioned on the edges of the pixels, it is possible to spread the colored particles across the pixel or remove them from view altogether by hiding them behind the electrodes, says Lenssen. This means that different shades of color can be achieved by controlling how many of each group of colored particles are visible. To create white, all of the particles are simply shifted to the side to reveal the white substrate beneath the two microcapsules.

There's more all all this in our fine Giz Explains feature about the absence of a "perfect" eReader, which you should check out.

Which leads to the inevitable caveat. This tech is "in its infancy," not ready, and about three years off, if not more. In the meantime, Amazon would like you to save the newspaper industry by giving them a $500 donation (ed. Note - Last line inspired by Mark Wilson's Twitter feed.) [Technology Review - Thanks, Ron]

It uses hundreds of little OLED screens to create a kind of funhouse mirror from the future, reflecting back whatever is in front of it. Cool stuff.

[Fubiz via NotCot]

It's true, you'd fill up the entire Philips Ultra-Widescreen with picture on a 2.40:1 movie, but you're just exchanging having black bars on the top and bottom when you're watching movies with black bars on the side when you're watching TV. You don't actually "miss" any of the action.

But still, that's a pretty awesome video, and that's a slick looking TV. [Philips Cinema and Beam.tv - Thanks Dave!]

The original concept was already solid. The main body consists of a small trimmer and a shaver, which you can then add one of three plastic guards onto to vary the length of your human forest. The new design keeps the side trimmer and the shaver face intact, but adds a new dedicated trimmer head, plus two attachments with five lengths each.

Shaving with the main head is essentially unchanged. You can maneuver and 'Tokyo' drift around corners to get in close without doing damage to sensitive areas. If you like looking like a gigantic, ugly baby then that's the tool to use.

If you don't want your logging to go all the way to the stump, there's the new trimmer head. This, my generously follicled friends, is where the action is.

Cutting through swaths of hair like small arms fire through decayed zombie flesh, the trimmer takes at most two passes to undo what 11 years of nature prepared your body for. It's painless, not too noisy and much more sanitary than using the same trimmer you use on your beard.

So the only question you need to ask yourself is whether you want the original, which retails for $30, or the updated version, which hits you for $50. People that are "sometimes" shavers, those that are closer to space aliens than apes on the evolutionary scale, can make do with the $30 BG2020. But those "people" that would cause Alec Baldwin to exclaim, "that's one hairy dude," need to splurge on the upgraded Bodygroom BG2030. Anyone who has to look at you naked will thank you. [Philips BG2030 and Philips BG2020]

Philips senior scientist Paul Lemmens and a team of researchers have devised a jacket—but sorry dudes, no matching pants—that augments your emotions with gentle nudges, squeezes and taps. The point? To cause "a shiver to go up the viewer's spine and creating the feeling of tension in the limbs," Lemmens told IEEE Spectrum, on the eve of the World Haptics Conference where he's presenting the jacket.

Lemmens says that during a Bruce Lee fight scene, the jacket can pulse with the gu-goong gu-goong gu-goong of an elevated heartbeat. (All good, until you remember that Bruce Lee's heart rate never went above 42 beats per minute his whole life.)

The jacket's versatile fondling techniques come from 64 actuators, clustered in groups of four along different parts of the torso and arms—eight in each sleeve, for instance. They are low-powered enough to be run on two AA batteries for an hour, but hopefully they'll make room for more batteries, since the average movie is over 2 hours, including trailers. The signals to pinch your arm, tighten your chest, or sooth your back would come from the film itself, kinda like how those D-Box motion chairs follow pre-determined cues that are synced with the action on the screen.

I'm willing to buy into the argument that a little more physical interaction would heighten my emotional appreciation of a movie, but I just can't help feeling it's the premise of a corny but terrifying episode of The Outer Limits? [IEEE Spectrum]

Fitting in a standard bulb socket, the mercury-free Master LED bulb sips just 7W while burning up to 45,000 hours, or about 30x the length of a normal bulb. It's actually already available in parts of Europe (we can't spot a price, anyone out there know? UPDATE: About $50-$70), but with the proper retail availability, I could see an LED light with this form factor exciting the mainstream US public, couldn't you?

Philips also has a few other models coming that you can check out at the link. [Philips via Core77]