Elmo has four touch-sensitive spots—his foot, stomach, back and nose—and he does different things depending on where you press. Here's some of the funny things he does when you touch his nose, such as sneezing and playing the "got your nose" game:

The little red monster is at his animatronic best when he is telling a story: He sits, stands, opens his mouth and flails his arms all around. It's a shame he only has two stories to tell.

It's good to see that Elmo still raps, and his instant classic "Elmo's Gotta Get On Up" is as head-bobbing as ever—especially when he's wearing some bling from our personal collection. When you touch his back, he says all kinds of creepy lovable things like asking for hugs or to scratch his itch. In fact, Elmo can get downright clingy.

So is he worth the $60 list price—or more realistically, the hundreds of dollars you'll spend buying him on eBay when supplies run out? He's not as cuddly and interactive as previous Elmos; you mostly have to sit back after touching him and let him do his thing. Despite all that you see here, I actually grew bored of him fairly fast. Worst of all, as you can hear, his motors are as loud as his voice, which detracts from the fun in a big way.

On the flipside, most of the kids on Good Morning America went nuts for the furball. I'm no Dr. Spock, but my theory is, if you love your kids and don't want them reliving their failed childhood in psychotherapy forty years from now, you really ought to buy this thing. [Fisher-Price Elmo Live]

I could hear the tunes clearly underwater, and the case when closed correctly is absolutely watertight down to 10 feet, so I don't owe Wilson a new iPod classic. (Naturally, due to tub limitations, I couldn't go down the full 10 feet, but if you have a deeper tub than me, feel free to dive down.) The sound was good and the earbuds did not fall out of my ears while I was listening. However, I did have some trouble keeping the buds locked into the headband.

The case worked great and the controls were surprisingly responsive, especially given the fact that there's so much case between your thumb and the clickwheel. I did experience a couple of momentary hang-ups, but they could have been from the iPod classic itself. (The classic is known for the occasional lag.)

If you're looking to take an absurd amount of media with you in the water for swimming, snorkeling, surfing or just the weekly bath, I know no better hardware—and the same waterproof system is available for nanos too. Of course, this level of duck-ass watertightness doesn't come cheap: the case and headphones sell for $90 and $50, respectively. [H2O Audio]
—Special thanks to Sam Mindel for the video help!

As you saw in the video, when you hail it with "Magellan!" it gives you a limited set of options, such as "Nearest Coffee," "Go Home" and "Where Am I?" If you are already in the middle of a route, the options are more limited, but useful. The two most important voice commands are "Cancel Route," which is great whenever you get to a familiar road and want to shut the damn thing up, and "Nearest Gas," which totally saved my ass just today.

In any case, you cannot speak an address; you still have to type those in. You can pick nearby restaurants, even by food type, but you can't use the same option to verbally request a grocery store or a park.

I love voice command on my cellphone, but just like that speaker-independent voice recognition, the Magellan's has its quirks. Most annoyingly, it will butt in on your conversations. Utter anything that remotely sounds like "Magellan" (we think "gel" is what it really listens for) and it will think it's being prompted. It even speaks up when radio announcers and backseat drivers are chattering away.

The Magellan Maestro 4050 also comes with traffic awareness, but like most systems, I haven't found it to be terrifically useful just yet. The radio to receive traffic data is there, but the fresh data is still missing. Not Magellan's fault, but not yet a selling point.

Voice command and the traffic kit differentiate the 4050 from the Maestro 4040. Are they worth a $200 premium? It's hard to say. I like Magellan's new Maestro systems for sure, but others will soon have voice recognition, and only then will we know if Magellan's is better or worse. Just yesterday, TomTom's US president told me that they too were working on voice recognition, and one that would recognize street names and more. Et tu Garmin? – Wilson Rothman

Product Page [Magellan]

Palm Treo 700p [Mobility Today]

David over at OhGizmo did a detailed review of the WickedLasers Nexus, which one of our fair readers won not so long ago. The video's pretty long, but it shows off all the coolness you can do with a $369 laser, including cutting tape, lighting matches, and damaging the corneas of stray cats.

Product Page [WickedLasers]
OhGizmo Review: The Nexus Wicked Laser [OhGizmo]

dl: Video Product Review - TORQ P120 [DLMag]