
By Becky Waring
Hunting for the perfect gift for the Wi-Fi addict in your life? Look no further than these four entertaining choices for both home and road:
Slingbox Solo
The Slingbox is the ultimate mobile warrior gift. No longer will your spouse (or yourself!) have to suffer missing all their favorite shows while on the road. With the Slingbox Solo, you can connect one HD or standard video source--including DVRs, cable boxes, and DVD players--and stream it live over the Web. Any channel or recording you see on your home TV can be sent to your PC or Mac laptop or Windows Media Smartphone. It even works overseas. Watch football in Paris and baseball in Sydney. And the quality is amazingly good with a broadband connection like those at iPass hotspots. You can even use Slingbox to schedule TiVo recordings from afar, since you have full control of the DVR remote. While you can watch anything live, Slingbox is best used with a DVR like a TiVo or Comcast box, so that you don't have to worry about time differences.
Roku SoundBridge Radio
There are several Wi-Fi tabletop music players but only one SoundBridge Radio. This compact, yet powerful Internet radio streamer triples as an AM/FM clock radio and MP3 player that grabs tunes from any networked PC or Mac. It works with Windows Media Connect, MusicMatch, iTunes and Rhapsody, for your choice of music libraries and subscription services. It can also tune into Internet radio directly, no PC required. But even more important than the comprehensive format support is the sound quality -- and the Roku sounds great, with a 20-bit digital-analog converter, 20-watt stereo speakers and a 30-watt subwoofer. Multiple SoundBridges can run on the same network, so you can put one in every room, with different songs playing on each. Bonus: no wires necessary.
Kodak EasyShare EX811 Digital Picture Frame
Wireless picture frames are one of this season's hottest holiday gifts. They connect to your PC via Wi-Fi and download images to rotate on display. Some, like the Kodak EX811, also connect directly to Web-based picture services (the Kodak Gallery), making them doubly useful. This 8-inch frame has 128MB of built-in memory for storing photos, slots for most memory card formats and a USB port for connecting to a computer or USB thumb drive. It plays back photos, music and video, although the speakers are too small for serious music listening -- they're mainly for video. Other frame sizes are available with similar features. Load it up with photos before wrapping, and you'll have smiles all around.
Zune 2 & iPod Touch
There will come a time when all good music players are wireless, for streaming radio and tunes off the Web. For now, the two smoking-hot Wi-Fi jukeboxes are the Zune 2 and iPod Touch. The iPod Touch is basically the iPhone without the phone. It has the ability to surf the Web over Wi-Fi as well as play your tunes, thanks to the built-in Safari browser. The Zune 2 uses wireless differently. It syncs music over Wi-Fi and also lets you share tunes with other Zune owners. We won't pick between them: Like the Mac-PC ads on TV, your recipient likely has a strong personal preference already. If you want to see what others say, check out these reviews from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

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