See the rest of TIME’s Top 10 of Everything 2013 lists here
10. Nokia Lumia 1020
Harry McCracken / TIME
Every modern wireless phone is a cameraphone, but this Lumia is
something new: a phonecamera. Its oversized sensor packs 41 megapixels
of resolution; you can capture the most detailed phone snapshots you’ve
ever seen, and zoom in without reducing your pictures to a blocky mess.
(You have to download the high-res versions to a computer via USB cable,
but it’s worth the effort.) Even iPhone and Android fans who thought
they couldn’t care less about Windows Phones might find themselves
smitten with this one.
9. Leap Motion Controller
Leap Motion
This pint-sized USB accessory for Windows PCs and Macs is an $80
preview of where man-machine interfaces may be headed. Plug it in, plop
it on a flat surface, and you can perform tasks — from playing games to
reading New York Times stories — by waving your hands in the air. It can
even detect the angle your palms and how many fingers you’re sticking
out. The technology is also being built into laptops, starting with HP’s
Envy17 Leap Motion SE.
8. Nest Protect
Nest Labs
Silicon Valley startup Nest Labs specializes in making the most
mundane household devices a lot less mundane. In 2012, it introduced a
Web-savvy touch-screen thermostat. And its new product is Nest Protect, a
$130 smoke and carbon-monoxide detector. Rather than emitting an
eardrum-shattering squeal, Protect alerts you to hazards in a calm
female voice which says helpful things like “There’s carbon monoxide in
the den.” If it mistakes your smokey cooking for a fire, you can set it
wise with a wave of your arm.
7. Amazon Kindle Fire HDX
Amazon
Amazon’s third-generation Kindle
Fire tablets — a $239 seven-inch model and a $379 8.9-incher — are the
first ones which felt truly polished and pleasing from the day they
debuted. As always, they make it as simple as possible to consume mass
quantities of Amazon content — video, music, books, games and more. And
they’ve got one feature that’s a ground-breaking dazzler: Mayday, which
lets you get tech support from a real live Amazon rep who appears on
screen and can take control of your tablet.
Officially, Microsoft’s Xbox One is a game console, but its
aspirations go far beyond play. With built-in video calls via Skype,
integration with cable and satellite TV boxes and an interface derived
from Windows 8, it’s really a living-room PC. The most intriguing
technology is built into the new Kinect sensor, which understands spoken
commands, recognizes faces and can even measure your heart rate. Some
aspects of the One are still rough around the edges, but it’s going to
be fascinating to see where it goes.
iPhones with an “s” at the end of their model numbers are supposedly
snoozers, because they focus on refinements to the previous year’s
model. But the iPhone 5s introduces two of the best smartphone features
which Apple or anyone else has ever come up with. The Touch ID sensor
lets unlock your phone with a quick press of your finger or thumb. And
the camera sports a unique dual-LED flash which provides subtle, custom
lighting for an array of picture-taking scenarios.
4. Pebble Smartwatch
Pebble
Whether smartwatches ever turn into a booming business to rival
smartphones or tablets remains anyone’s guess. But Pebble is off to a
promising start. The $150 wearable gizmo acts as a satellite for your
iPhone or Android handset, receiving snippets such as text-message
notifications via Bluetooth and displaying them on its power-efficient E
Ink display. Third-party developers can write programs to let it do
everything from playing games to tracking your fitness. Did we mention
that it tells time?
3. Oculus Rift Development Kit
Virtuix Omni / YouTube
At the moment, Oculus Rift is only available in a $300 kit aimed at
game developers. But once you strap on this virtual-reality headset onto
your noggin and experience it in action, you’ll get itchy for the
consumer release, which is scheduled for 2014. Used with a PC or Android
device, Rift will let games create 3D worlds which surround you — you
can even look over your shoulder for enemies lurking behind. If the
games live up to the hardware’s potential, it could be an epoch-shifting
landmark.
2. Apple’s new iPads
Apple
Do you want a powerful iPad or a portable one? How about both? At
just one pound and .29-inch thick, the 9.7-inch iPad Air is much svelter
than previous full-sized models. And except for the smaller screen, the
7.9-inch iPad Mini with Retina has almost exactly the same potent
components as its big brother, as well as the same ten-hour battery
life. Both benefit hugely from the App Store’s 475,000 iPad-optimized
apps. It’s best tablet you can buy, in two convenient sizes.
1. Google Chromecast
Jared Newman for TIME
Instead of trying to do everything — like Google’s famously ambitious
and unsuccessful Google TV — this thumb-sized gizmo does one thing,
does it as simply as possible and does it for the impulse-purchase price
of $35. Plug it into one of your TV’s HDMI ports, and you can fling
videos and other content from your laptop, tablet or phone to the big
screen, no wires involved. Lots of companies have built devices to do
this; Chromecast is the first one that gets it right. Think we missed something? Tell us using hashtag#TIME2013 Follow @TIME Next
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