Music Studio's Stripy Speakers certainly meet the basic requirement of being a gadget in 2006: looking modern and stylish. No matter what their sound quality is (and if the site hawking them is to be believed, the 9 watts of audio they pump out is "impressive"), you can rest assured that once you have them, you've successfully sexed up your desktop with the speakers' polished-aluminum curves. That goes double when the lights are down, since the central controller provides a cool glow while the speakers are active. The color of the glow changes depending on what you're adjusting — purple for volume, blue for bass, and so forth — and the speakers rotate on their bases so you can direct the sound to your liking. There's no iPod dock or anything, but you can theoretically plug any number of gadgets into the minijack iput: iPod, Media Center PC, ultra-hot DVD player — whatever's handy, really. Pick 'em up for $95. — Peter Pachal

Firebox, via Gizmodo