Gadgets

Even if the family pet can't go along on the trip, or even if there is no family pet, the kids (ages 4 to 8) will enjoy making the little animals that populate Playmobil's Pet Clinic Playset feel all better. The company's popular playsets open on hinges, revealing a themed stage set. In this case there's a furnished and decorated two-story dollhouse-like pet clinic, with exam room, toy surgical equipment and monitors, recovery cages and medicine holders. "Patients" include puppies, kittens, and a bunny.

We have woven ourselves into a ubiquitous braid of tiny musics. Sweet, grating, deafening; ringtones, beeps, startup and shutdown jingles, notes of welcome, questioning, and warning. We have remade our sonic universe to reflect all the things we want our gadgets and tools to do for us. Sound is our ongoing conversation with all these aids. A Hamilton Beach microwave oven beeps a C when you hit a button, when a cooking task is done, or when it wants your attention for some other thing.

There's a new method of waterless cooking using cookware that has liquid sealed in its walls. And there's a new espresso machine from Saeco in Italy that does everything from grinding the beans to steaming to brewing. The next trendy food for the health-conscious is likely to be Jofu, a tofu- based, yogurt-like snack that's free of lactose and cholesterol and lower in sodium and calories than the dairy alternative. Meanwhile, Irish spring water is the latest in chic bottled water, following on the heels of last year's offering of bottled water from Hawaii.

That annual rite - one dreaded by many - is nearly upon us: spring cleaning, and its attendant urge to burn all the old furniture and buy new and, while we're at it, redo the whole house. Which brings us to the Philadelphia Home Show, which will set up in the Civic Center for 10 days, beginning next Friday. That's where homeowners and do-it-yourselfers can find a mind-boggling array of products and ideas for the home, with almost 500 exhibitors hawking their wares. For visitors whose idea of having fun doesn't include watching a demonstration of the newest widget on the market, a bit of entertainment is in store, although the guests don't stray far from the home theme.

It's a bird, it's a plane. . .it's Inspector Gadget? After 15 years as an animated superhero on TV, the beloved cartoon character appears on movie screens as, uh, Matthew Broderick. "Inspector Gadget" features a dumbfounded crimefighter who manages to save Riverton City from the annoying villain Claw (Rupert Everett), whose face and persona may surprise audiences. It was never revealed on the TV show, and may not be what cartoon viewers have imagined. "Gadget" fans are only used to hearing his distinct voice and seeing his unique appendage.

Looking for kitchen gifts for the cooks and food lovers on your Christmas list? A check of early-season sellers at the area's top kitchenware stores shows items high on holiday gift lists are those related to bagels and bread, garlic, tea, coffee and martinis. Bagel cutters became a hot item when we became tired of slicing a lot of fingers as well as bagels. Now, there's the guillotine-style Bagel Biter ($35) at the top of the line, followed by other holder-type versions (you need your own knife)

The economy may be lagging, but portable electronic gadgets keep surging ahead, with technological breakthroughs that make last year's models look practically archaic. Compact digital cameras can shoot faster, sharper, and with cooler-than-ever tricks - such as making facial blemishes and wrinkles vanish, or zipping between a huge range of focal lengths, from wide angle to super zoom. Wireless headsets provide stronger, more static-free reception, with fewer disconnects and easier pairing with cell phones and other devices.

It's getting to look a lot like gadget- and accessory-buying time, for those entertainment and technology lovers on your gift list. And isn't that just about everybody? The ideas on Santa's plugged-in gift list will keep them humming into the wee small hours of the night. LIGHTEN UP: As many as 5 million Nintendo Game Boy portable video game systems will be circulating after this holiday season, and many of them are in need of illumination. Game Boy's passive matrix screen is impossible to see in low light.

Video games and interactive multimedia computers sold in the millions last year, noted numbers crunchers at last week's Consumer Electornics Show in Las Vegas. Billions of bucks are now being invested in the so-called "information superhighway" of two-way cable and telephone communication we're all expected to ride on soon. No wonder curiosity was especially piqued at this year's electronics supershow by new products that require user participation. To succeed, the operative word of these gizmos has to be "effortless," warned some at the show.

Call it a bad case of wishful thinking, or an egregious act of chutzpah, but whatever it is it's mind-boggling: Rupert Everett, playing the maniacal villain in the truly terrible Inspector Gadget, promising, at movie's end, that "I'll get you next time, Gadget!" as though a sequel was a sure thing. It's not giving anything away to say that Everett's Sanford Scolex - an evil entrepreneur with a cat, a chauffeur and a robotic claw - is alive as the final credits roll, because there is nothing to give away.