We’ve entered the holiday season and, given the dearth of new products announced last week due to Thanksgiving, this week’s product roundup is a special holiday edition featuring gifts and gadgets for scientists, IT professionals, and their staffs.

Build Your Own Cool 3D Models
Need a 3D model of the latest new chemical entity your lab’s discovered? Or how about a scale model of your new data center or office space? How about just a cool model of a Star Wars spaceship for your desk? Lego might be able to help. The company’s Lego Factory lets you create your own 3D models and structures.

To get started, you download the free Lego Digital Designer software, which gives you a 3D pallet that lets you assemble Lego bricks of various sizes and shapes. You can start from scratch or modify one of the more than 30,000 designs stored on the Lego Factory site. Once you design and save your design, you proceed to the checkout area where the price is calculated based on the building blocks that comprise your model. Once you’ve decided to buy your creation, one neat feature of the service is that it tells you what other things you can build with the pieces in your model. Lego also lets you custom design the text on the box that the pieces are shipped in. (It takes about five business days for a completed design to ship.)

Scientific Spell Checker
While Santa checks his list to see if you’ve been naughty or nice, you might want to double-check your spelling with one or more of the Spellex scientific dictionaries. The dictionaries work from within common spell check routines, such as the one in Microsoft Office applications.

There are special dictionaries for biotech and medical terms. Each includes many words that are often marked as misspelled in a normal spell checker. For instance, the Spellex Biotech dictionary has more than 130,000 terms used in bioinformatics, structural analysis, molecular biology, toxicity, and other areas of research. Spellex also offers special dictionaries of legal terms and a package of pharmaceutical terms (including the generic and trade names of drugs). Any of the packages can be combined to work together.

(Spellex will be giving away a copy of its software at Bio-IT World’s Life Sciences Conference + Expo, which  will be held in Boston in April. Details on how to win a copy of the software at the show will be provided early next year.)

Pro-Evolution T-shirt and Exhibit
If you are offended by the attack on the teaching of evolution in some school systems or you are concerned about the science education of children in the U.S., you might want to help promote evolution with a T-shirt from IBelieveInDinosaurs.com. The T-shirt does not attack Intelligent Design or espouse any political view. It simply states “I Believe in Dinosaurs” under a silhouette of a dinosaur. 

Along similar lines, if you or your staff happen to be in New York over the holidays, you or they might want to check out a major new exhibit on Darwin at the American Museum of Natural History. The museum claims this is the most in-depth exhibit on Darwin ever put together. It features an overview of Darwin’s work, its historical significance, live Galápagos tortoises and horned frogs from South America, and fossils collected by Darwin. The exhibit runs through May 29, 2006. If you can’t make it to New York, you can use the museum’s live tortoise cam to view the tortoises in action. 

Portable Wireless Router
If you travel for business with colleagues or you have houseguests over the holidays who need access to your broadband Internet access, both groups could benefit from the Belkin Wireless G Travel Router. The device plugs into either a hotel or your home broadband modem and acts as a wireless hub. Using the device allows one hard-wired broadband connection to be accessed wirelessly by several computers.

The Wireless G Travel Router is small enough to fit into your hand and it can be used as both a wireless access point or a wireless adapter. It offers a number of security features, has a working range of up to about 300 feet, and uses 802.11g technology (which is backwards-compatible with the 802.11b Wi-Fi standard). More details about the router can be found here. The estimated street price of the router is $59.99.

Educate and Entertain
Many companies are using DVD-based educational products to help train their staffs on the latest equipment and techniques. While individuals often play the DVDs on their own computers, the Optoma MovieTime Digital DVD Projector gives managers the option of gathering a group together for a training session.

The MovieTime Projector combines a DVD player and a projector into a small, portable unit so DVDs can be played without the need of a computer. The unit has two built-in 5-watt speakers, and there is a stereo audio output jack so the system can  be connected to other sound equipment. Images can be projected on a wall or screen. And Optoma is currently offering a 92-inch screen with online purchases.

Computer on a Stick
Traveling for the holidays and need access to a computer? Or, do you frequently find yourself at someone else’s computer at work and they don’t have all the applications you need? The Fingergear Computer-On-a-Stick is a USB flash drive that combines traditional USB data storage with a bundle of open source applications. Specifically, the USB drive comes with its own operating system (Linux), the Gnome GUI Desktop, a Mozilla Firefox Web browser, Evolution e-mail, and the Gaim Instant Messaging Client program that is compatible with Yahoo and MSN Instant Messenger. Additionally, the stick includes the OpenOffice Productivity Suite, which has word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software that uses and generates files in a Microsoft Office-compatible format. And there is also a PDF viewer/creator program and a Postscript viewer.

The Computer-On-a-Stick works with any x86 CPU laptop that has at least 128 MB of memory (and naturally a USB port). Pricing starts at $99. Versions of the stick are available with memory capacities ranging from 256 MB to 2 GB.

Related Stories:

IT and Informatics Weekly New Product Roundup (week of Nov. 14 to 18)

IT and Informatics Weekly New Product Roundup (week of Nov. 7 to 11)

IT and Informatics Weekly New Product Roundup (week of Oct. 31 to Nov. 4)

IT and Informatics Weekly New Product Roundup (week of Oct. 24 to 28)