10 Great Gadgets From The Future

Memoto
Coming later this summer, Memoto is a small, wearable $279 camera that takes photos every 30 seconds, all day long. It relieves the wearer of the burden of deciding which moments are worth preserving for posterity. There's also an optional cloud service so users don't have to manage gigabytes of photos daily. Enjoy your privacy while it lasts.

YotaPhone
It's an Android phone with a twist: YotaPhone comes with two screens, a color liquid crystal display (LCD) screen and an electronic paper display (EPD) on the back. The EPD stays on all the time and remains in a visible, frozen state even if the phone's battery dies. So if it's storing a boarding pass or ticket barcode, that information will continue to be accessible, with or without power. Plus, EPDs are great for reading outdoors, unlike LCDs.

Kreyos Meteor
A smartwatch really ought to respond to voice and gesture commands. That's the goal of the Kreyos Meteor. How well it works remains to be seen, but you know that buttons and touchscreen controls aren't the optimal input methods for something as small as a watch. The Meteor is expected to work with Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices and has a software development kit for developers. And it's waterproof. It might be just as awesome as it sounds.

Securifi Almond+
Gigabit Ethernet, check. 867-Mbps data transfers via 802.11ac or 300 Mbps via 802.11n, check. A touchscreen, check. Support for ZigBee and Z-Wave home automation protocols, check. What more could you want? A $99 price? That's there too. Securifi's Almond+ router might just make routers fun again! Were routers ever fun? Well, maybe the Almond+ will be a first.

Evado Filip VIVOplay
Parents realize that mobile phones make it much easier to keep in touch with (and ensure the safety of) their kids. But most balk at the idea of giving children mobile phones until they approach being teenagers, particularly given the expense of popular smartphones. Evado Filip has an alternative for the 5-12 set, VIVOplay, a watch with limited communications and tracking functions. The devil is in the details, which haven't been released, but if the company can get the pricing and monthly fee at a level that's reasonable, it could have a hit on its hands.

Oculus VR Rift
Why bother with a stand-alone high-resolution screen when you can experience immersive virtual reality through a head-mounted display? The forthcoming Oculus Rift goggles make gaming up-close, personal and amazing. It also makes gaming rather geeky, but that's just more of the same, isn't it? Developers who order now can get one by August.

Firefox OS
You can get phones running Firefox OS right now, but really these are just previews of what Firefox OS could become. Mozilla and its carrier partners have aimed deliberately for the lower end of the market, but their ambitions are high-minded: To connect the under-connected and to nurture appreciation and demand for an open mobile operating ecosystem. It might be years before Firefox OS has meaningful mobile market share, but its mere existence should serve as a counterbalance that keeps Apple, Google and Microsoft from becoming too closed in their respective mobile empires.