The Moppels are a family you might want to get to know. Shaped like strange little animals or anthropomorphic figures, they're small and flexible lighting fixtures that attach to almost anything with their suction cups or little magnetic feet. Their light comes from 100,000-hour LEDs, and they can run for an astonishing 100 hours on three rechargeable AAA batteries. When that power runs out, just plug them into a USB port of a nearby PC or Mac.

If you don't have any glow-in-the-dark paper on hand, toss out that midnight oil because these minuscule lights might be just what you need for transcribing text from paper to PC into the wee hours, giving you just the right amount of light right where you need it without bothering anybody else. Their $25 price is right, too. — Charlie White

Lights and Knives, via technabob