Gadget Guru’s magic box

Oh, Kickstarter, where would we be without your capacity to fund innovators and put products like automated wall-defacing machine Scribit on the market? Dangle this weird pen-toting circle from a pair of nails, feed it a design through an app, and off it goes, slowly daubing whatever you’ve asked for on your mum’s best wallpaper in four exciting colours. It can erase too, although it works best when used on the right surface. Pointless, distracting, a work of sheer folly – and yours for only $449 (about £380). Who could resist? Ahem.

GaGu’s own decorating aspirations have been more leaning towards a giant TV to hang from his office wall in a valiant attempt to do even less work than he already does. Weird thing is, it looks like the Chinese really are coming for a solid scrap with Japanese and Korean manufacturers. TCL and Hisense have made big inroads into the western market already, with (it appears) some quality screens chopping a big chunk off of the usual asking price; Seiki and Skyworth are brands to watch as well.

Although Guru is, as you might imagine, utterly sick of football, it seems GaGu Jr has gotten the bug and learned how to squirrel Daddy’s credit card out of his wallet when he’s not looking. Hence the arrival of the Zepp Play Football tracker (£100), a little rounded rectangle you shove in a special sock next to your calf. It pairs with an app (of course), keeps tabs on your distance, sprints, and measures a bunch of metrics about your kicks – perfect for pro players, but a little unnecessary for a boy who can barely get a ball to trundle along in a straight line.