DIGITALLIFE Up your game when it comes to gifts

THE Paperwhite was already the best value for money e-reader you could buy – it has an unrivalled library of books available to read on a beautifully crisp and sensitively lit screen.

The Oasis is a better device, but is also much more expensive – its killer feature, though, is that it’s waterproof, which gave it the edge over the Paperwhite… until now.

Amazon has just released an update which gives the cheaper Kindle a waterproof housing, too. Now we can go back to reading in the bath and by the pool.

Happy days are here again. SKIPPING seems like a fun way to keep fit, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t know, of course, but I might be tempted to try if someone bought me one of these smart skipping ropes.

It obviously measures all kinds of stats via a linked smartphone app, but it also features an in-built array of LED lights in the rope, which can be used to display info in mid-air as you work out, like the number of skips you’ve managed. If that doesn’t get you going, nothing will. Facebook-owned Oculus is working hard to bring a viable system to the masses.

A fully-featured standalone headset for £199 would have seemed like science fiction not long ago, but now it’s here. OF all the smart-home hubs out there Google’s, astoundingly, seems to hit the sweet spot.

It sits there displaying useful info waiting for your command, and comes to life when you ask it for help.

Almost the best thing about it is that is has no camera, allaying many security fears, and there’s a hardware button you can test and trust to turn off the mic, too. Google’s AI Assistant isn’t quite up to Alexa’s standards yet, but it’s getting there and good enough right now. If you’re in Google’s eco-system, this is a great way to get Assistant help in the home hands-free...