Sony DCR-DVD300, DVD Handycam Camcorder

Why use tape when you can record straight to DVD? Hitachi had this bright idea three years ago with the first DVD camcorder, and now you can get one with no size penalty. This year, Hitachi, Panasonic and Sony all came out with palm-size models using 3-inch DVDs that store an hour of video.

Featured: Sony's DCR-DVD300 for its 3.5-inch display, 1MP sensor and easy-to-use software.

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Kirtas APT BookScan 1200

This ingenious device uses a four-step process to scan a book from cover to cover. (1) A vacuum arm gently lifts and turns each page. (2) Once a page has been turned, clips flip out to hold it in place. (3) A mirror rotates back and forth to expose the appropriate page to the scanner. This mirror flips the reversed image of the fixed mirror, so the scanned text won't be read backward. (4) The scanner captures an image of each page and writes it to a file.

The Internet can make vast libraries accessible to everyone, but only if the books sitting on shelves can be translated into digital form. That process got a lot easier this year with the introduction of the Kirtas APT Bookscan 1200, which automatically digitizes up to 1,200 pages per hour. The $150,000 scanner uses a vacuum arm to lift and turn book pages, so there's no need to take books apart at their bindings, or to have a dedicated operator set up each page for scanning. A tilting mirror system allows the stationary scanner to image both pages from the correct angle.

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