Home security It took years, but I’ve finally persuaded my wife, Lisa, to save a few dollars by killing our landline phone service. Some things can keep you tethered to landline service, however, such as your home’s security system. Not so with SimpliSafe Inc. (www.simplisafe.com).

Prototypes Dice-K shouldn’t be the only athlete worrying about his mechanics and how they might be pulling his body apart.

Smartphones I think GPS navigation, a technology meant to augment cognition, can actually weaken it.

Prototype In a wonderful moment in the upcoming sequel to director Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street,’’ the disgraced trader, Gordon Gekko, as he’s discharged from prison, receives his personal effects.

I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I pop a handful of supplements daily. And I hike in the Blue Hills most days of the week.

Shields up, people! Star Trek Online, the massive multiplayer online (or MMO) game from Cryptic Studios Inc., is scheduled for release tomorrow.

Augmented reality Millimeter by millimeter, stereo television eyeglasses are approaching a size worthy of wearing in public.

RFID Android phones and iPhones, with their ability to scan and unlock the secrets of remote objects, are taking on the characteristics of tricorders. I am not saying they are quite the same as the cooing, sensor devices that find survivors aboard wrecked ships or pinpoint the sources of mysterious, positron emissions. At least not yet.

Several companies at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas exhibited gadgets that combined the Google operating system with e-paper technology.

Perhaps you’ve already heard the pre-Consumer Electronics Show buzz about how your next boob tube or computer screen will probably come with a pair of 3-D glasses.

Videophones We may never get those hover cars we still dream about when we watch “The Jetsons’’ on Boomerang.