Fairly Odd Watch

Do you have any idea what time this thing is showing? Neither do we, but it's cool, isn't it? The limited edition gold Trip The Light Fantastic watch by PIMP pulses rows of colored lights to show the time. PIMP will only make 500 of these watches in gold, so the ¥18,000 ($162) price actually seems pretty reasonable. The watch also comes in black, but we think you should just trip the dork fantastic and go for the gold. Buy the watch from specialty importer Tokyoflash (www.tokyoflash.com).

Orange Ya Glad . . .

Brits spend large chunks of their summers out in fields with 50,000 other people at "music festivals" which combine all the muddy mess of camping with none of the relaxing privacy. For that crowd, cell phone firm Orange built the Text Me Home Dome tent, which glows orange (of course) when you send a text message to a special phone number. That way, you can tell your tent from the 49,999 other identical, mud-colored hovels. This year, Orange is only giving a limited number of tents to VIPs, but they say they may sell them publicly in the future—not in the United States, of course.

Light Of Love

Violet's Dal lamp is like a grown-up version of the Ambient Orb (see "CE Lite" in our July 2004 issue). Connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi, it changes color based on the weather, stock reports, traffic conditions, Web site changes, emails, SMS (Short Message Service) messages or sounds it "hears" in the room with a built-in microphone. Being French, the developers seem intensely concerned with using the lamp for romance, as you can set it up to shift colors based on keywords in emails. "A personal language and grammar can be created between two persons: Only they know what the lamp is expressing," says the manufacturer. The lamp is available at several French department stores and online at www.violet.net for 790 ($971).

Dream Theater

We can't control our world, but we can control our dreams—or can we? Japanese toymaker Takara seems to think so. Its Dream Workshop (¥14,800/$133) combines lights, smells, and sounds to help you control your dreams. First, you concentrate on an image, pick some music and a scent to associate with that image, and record a phrase on the built-in voice recorder. As you sleep, the Dream Workshop cycles soft lights, sounds, and smells to bring the image back to your drowsy brain, possibly giving you the dream you demand. Soft lights and music wake you up gently after eight hours, maximizing your chances of remembering your dream.

Dog Talker

Cell phones have screens that glow, so we're throwing one phone in here. Vodafone Japan's V602SH is the first camera phone with an actual optical zoom—a real zoom lens, not the "digital zoom," which is really just a PhotoShop trick common to most camera phones. The V602SH also packs in 2MP (megapixel) resolution (better than any U.S. camera phone) and the Bowlingual dog translation software, so you can take the dog for a walk, have a conversation with him, and snap pictures of the things you see together. The handset's price depends on your cell phone service plan.

Retro Remote

The TV remote control from May-Wa Denki is way too retro to light up by itself, but it controls that big glowing box in your living room. It's designed to look like an old-fashioned Japanese remote, evoking feelings of nostalgia in Japanese Gen-Xers, but the kooky '70s design is great even without the fond memories. Turn the big knob to change channels. U.S. shoppers looking to get one to go with a '70s-style rec room can buy it from specialty importer Audiocubes (www.audiocubes.com) for $39.