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"  Inside Job Internal transmissions aren&amp;#039;t a new idea in bikes--witness the old Raleigh three-speed--but GT Bicycles is making a mark by using a new Shimano eight-speed trans in a freeride mountain bike with long-travel shocks, front and rear. Unlike exposed derailleur shifters, the GT IT-1&amp;#039;s trans is inside the frame, protected from rocks and muck. In trail testing, the gears clicked by faster than with any derailleur. Of course, at 45 pounds--and a staggering $5500--the IT-1 is strictly for extreme mountain bikers. Yet, the technology seems fated to filter down to practical, everyday bikes. Wish List  Cold Comfort On a hot summer day, what could be better than relaxing with friends? How&amp;#039;s about blasting them with Hasbro&amp;#039;s Super Soaker Arctic Shock? With a 35-ft. range (we tested it), a hefty 40-ounce tank and a freezable ice core, you can get plenty of chilly soaks in before having to refill. It may be a little heavy for smaller kids, but it&amp;#039;s a lot of fun for the money. $15; www.hasbrotoyshop.com  Open-Door Policy If a Lamborghini blows the doors off your &amp;#039;87 Chrysler K Car, don&amp;#039;t get mad--think of it as an opportunity. Reinstall them with the Vertical Lambo Doors hinge kit from Number One Parts. The four-step DIY project involves no cutting, welding, drilling or painting. Your doors will open skyward, making ingress and egress on even the most humble car more uplifting. $999; www.nopi.com  Who&amp;#039;s Your Caddy? It won&amp;#039;t help you pick a club, but the E-Caddy cart will carry your bag for up to 36 holes on a single charge. Using two 250-watt motors, E-Caddy tracks its golfer via a radio transmitter that clips onto a belt--following obediently at a distance of 5.5 ft. $3800; www.e-caramerica.com  Hi-Fi From the Sky Satellite radio has come a long way in cars but it has proved an awkward fit at home. Tuning in requires extra components and a mess of cables. Yamaha&amp;#039;s RX-V557 is one of the first home theater amplifier/receivers with an integrated XM Radio tuner. $399; www.yamaha.com/home  Gigabytes in the Palm of Your Hand MP3 players have been sporting mini hard drives for years while more versatile machines such as PDAs and cellphones have made do with minuscule amounts of memory. This imbalance is corrected by the PalmOne LifeDrive PDA, seen here ($499; www.palmone.com), and the Nokia N91 phone (price not available; www.nseries.com), both with 4GB hard drives. They are pitched as multimedia devices, but that shortchanges them, as they have far more functionality than that. So when do they get the 60GB drive from the iPod Photo?  Power Pack There are many bags on the market designed to carry your electronic gear, but few of them can actually recharge your gadgets while you&amp;#039;re on the go. Juice Bags from Reware incorporate flexible, waterproof solar panels that promise to charge cellphones, PDAs and MP3 players in 2 to 4 hours through a 12-volt connector (our 4-hour test charged a Samsung S307 cellphone halfway). So if you&amp;#039;re stranded with a dead cellphone battery and no plugs in sight, break out your suntan lotion and catch some rays with your phone. $199; www.rewarestore.com  Robo-Mop Your floor seems to automatically get dirty, so why shouldn&amp;#039;t it automatically become clean? The Scooba robot (coming out in early 2006) from iRobot simultaneously scrubs and dries hardwood and tile floors. It uses a special solution developed with Clorox to clean dirt and wet spills. Price not yet available; www.irobot.com  Designated Driver Impact drivers are the musclemen of the screwdriving world, using gobs of torque to drive home gigantic lagscrews and to drill holes through steel framing. The 12-volt Hitachi WH12DMR squeezes this hard-hitting power into a compact frame. It has Buck Rogers styling, 1150 lb.-in. of torque (an 18-volt drill produces about 450 to 460 lb.-in.), a quick-release chuck and a belt hook with a light. $199; www.hitachipowertools.com  WILL IT BREAK? We walked into a Cingular store and asked for the most popular free phone they have--and then we beat it senseless. WE DROPPED IT Our first everyday disaster was a 4-ft. drop onto concrete. Our Nokia 3120 took a solid knock to the noggin, nicking the plastic. But when we picked it up and turned it on, all was well and our test call went through. WE STEPPED ON IT The second indignity suffered by our phone was the full weight of our 175-pound tester. The resulting damage amounted to nothing more than surface scratches. Our test call went through perfectly. WE DROWNED IT Pool party! The little Nokia got a 15-second dunk in water, causing it to freak out. The screen went blue, started blinking and then the phone shut off. We took it apart, gave it a day to dry out, and the 3120 came back from the dead. And, hey, it worked!  THE RESULT We never would have believed it had we not seen it ourselves. The giveaway phone is an overengineered marvel, and it passed our most brutal tests. Shred Reckoning  The rise of Internet scams such as phishing and now pharming (see POPULAR MECHANICS, August 2005, page 24) has given identity thieves the luxury of working from home, but a great deal of stolen information still comes from personal documents. The Federal Trade Commission recommends shredding receipts, credit card applications, insurance forms, bank statements, etc., lest they fall into the wrong hands. We sent a single page through three new shredders, then gave our intern, Wes Meltzer, 45 minutes to put each of them back together. Here&amp;#039;s what we found. BY GLENN DERENE Results photos by Burcu Avsar  ROYAL VF800 PRICE: $52 STATED SHEET CAPACITY: 8 pages FEATURES: Crosscut (1-3/8 x 1/8 in.); handles credit cards, staples and paper clips THE STRESS TEST Since we never believe what we&amp;#039;re told, we ignored the Royal&amp;#039;s suggested sheet capacity and kept feeding it until it jammed. True to its word, it started struggling at eight sheets, but by using the &amp;quot;forward&amp;quot; button, we managed to shove in 10 sheets before it ground to a halt.  RESULTS With its small bucket, few features and eight-sheet capacity, this is not the machine for your company&amp;#039;s first SEC investigation, but it is a bargain crosscutter for the home user. AMOUNT OF DATA RECOVERED BY INTERN: 58%  FELLOWES POWERSHRED P-55C PRICE: $80 STATED SHEET CAPACITY: 8 pages FEATURES: Crosscut (2 x 5/32 in.); top swings open for access to bin; handles credit cards and staples THE STRESS TEST First, we fed the Powershred its own manual, which it swallowed without complaint. Then we incrementally increased the page count to 11 sheets before the strain became too great. The shredder&amp;#039;s speed was impressive, but that high-velocity hunger made things only worse during paper jams.  RESULTS The Powershred has fast speed and smart design (we loved the garbage-can-style tip-up top). Its drawback was that its crosscut strips were a bit big, making them easier to reassemble. AMOUNT OF DATA RECOVERED BY INTERN: 64%  GBC SHREDMASTER 960X PRICE: $399 STATED SHEET CAPACITY: 10 pages FEATURES: Crosscut (1-3/8 x 5/32 in.); removable bin; handles credit cards, staples, paper clips, CDs and DVDs THE STRESS TEST The big boy of our test, the GBC has a 9-gal. bin, a CD slot and cooling vents. It sucked its manual down as an appetizer, then went on to swallow up to 13 sheets before its auto feed and auto reverse fought like dogs. For dessert, we gave it a sheet with 100 staples, which barely caused a hiccup.  Results The Shredmaster is a beast with an insatiable hunger--the destroyer of all media. But it is far too big for a home office. Plus, you could buy almost eight Royals for the same money. AMOUNT OF DATA RECOVERED BY INTERN: 49% Next Generation Gaming Consoles In 2001, Microsoft launched Xbox, taking on video game titans Sony and Nintendo, and a console battle began. Now that the three powers have unveiled their upcoming systems, it&amp;#039;s war all over again. Which one will conquer the $11 billion industry? BY NOAH ROBISCHON  XBOX 360 UNDER THE HOOD: Three 3.2-GHz PowerPC-based cores from IBM and a 500-MHz ATI graphics card with 512MB of memory. WHAT&amp;#039;S NEW: The 360 supports 720p and 1080i high-def displays, has integrated Wi-Fi, and supports a detachable and expandable 20GB hard drive. Built-in Media Center Extender software can sync with movies, music, etc., stored on a Media Center PC--if you own one. DISCS: Progressive-scan DVD COMPETITIVE EDGE: Xbox excels at online game play. The new controller will have a button that instantly connects to the Live service. LAUNCH DATE: November 2005  SONY PLAYSTATION 3 UNDER THE HOOD: The Cell Processor at the heart of the PS3 will be a supercomputer on a chip capable of running eight tasks simultaneously. The nVidia graphics card should be equivalent to two GeForce 6800 Ultra GPUs. WHAT&amp;#039;S NEW: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, plus HDMI outputs for two 1080p high-def displays. DISCS: Blu-ray COMPETITIVE EDGE: More ports than a wine cellar--Memory Stick, CompactFlash, Secure Digital (SD), Ethernet and six USB slots. Plus, Sony is already the market leader with 89 million PS2s sold. LAUNCH DATE: Spring 2006  NINTENDO REVOLUTION UNDER THE HOOD: Nintendo&amp;#039;s system is the most speculative, but should have 512MB of flash memory, an IBM processor and an ATI graphics card. The rest is up in the air. WHAT&amp;#039;S NEW: The Revolution should sport Wi-Fi, two USB ports and an SD memory card bay. DISCS: Special 4.7-in. optical discs, and DVDs through external player COMPETITIVE EDGE: A pure gaming machine, the Revolution won&amp;#039;t compete with the home entertainment functionality of PS3 or Xbox 360, but will offer backward compatibility with old Nintendo games.  LAUNCH DATE: 2006 ... maybe  Geek Bowl Scouting Report The early word on the games that will sell the systems. XBOX 360 Xbox 360&amp;#039;s platform is a favorite of developers. Highly anticipated games include the sci-fi shooter Gears of War and the voyeuristic Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball 2. But Xbox&amp;#039;s blockbuster will surely be Halo 3, expected to hit stores next spring.  SONY PLAYSTATION 3 At this year&amp;#039;s E3 video game convention, Sony teased crowds with demos of the beautifully rendered mayhem of KillZone 2 and Fight Night: Round 3. But what gets PlayStation players really hot and bothered is the promise of Final Fantasy VII.  NINTENDO REVOLUTION Ah, pity the poor Nintendo fan. Little to no information exists about the Revolution&amp;#039;s games, but expect to see facelifts of much beloved franchises such as Zelda, Donkey Kong, Metroid and, of course, Mario. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/a275/1661651/>