Gadgetory

as you shop this holiday season avoid the duds and head for the high tech gifts that are just plain cool here are our favorites for the young and young-at-heart the Lego Mindstorms ev3 adds new features to everyone's favorite building blocks allowing you to construct fairly sophisticated robots educational eyes these toys are great for learning to program learning mechanics at three hundred and fifty dollars it is pricey but a screaming solo and a guitar made entirely of Legos is priceless know a traveler who's tired of pecking at a tiny keyboard on their smartphone the 100-dollar virtual keyboard connects to your phone via bluetooth and uses lasers to project a full-size qwerty keyboard onto any flat surface all the new Phillip serves as a stripped down cell phone of sorts in wristwatch form the two-hundred-dollar device lets parents track their kids location with the accompanying app kids can also use the Phillip to make and receive calls but only from specific numbers in their contacts list for the tech fanatics on your list the eighty dollar leap motion controller offers a completely new way to interact with your computer forgo your mouse and keyboard and use your fingers to play puppeteer or get a science lesson for a learning standpoint this is the type of thing that gives you incredible detail incredible control and then uses your hand when it's appropriate or uses the keyboard when it's appropriate so you really get that augmented experienced cooks will appreciate click and grow these $80 smart planters take all the guesswork out of when to water your fresh herbs fill up the water tank power up the planter and in a couple of weeks you should see sprouts there's also an optional grow light to help in the winter months when there's less natural light available for more suggestions head to cnet.com and click on the holiday gift guide in San Francisco I'm Sumi das cnet for CBS News