Target must be pissed. The company approaches the holidays with new gift cards that have a built-in 1.2-megapixel digital camera and what does its competitor, Best Buy, do? Best Buy tries a different route with gift cards that have speakers built in to them.

While not nearly as cool as Target’s concept, Best Buy has gotten this far by offering bullshit services like pairing your Bluetooth headset with your phone for $10 bucks. Being able to plug your gift card into your iPod right before you clear the $50 credit at the cash register seems pointless to me. Let’s see if Best Buy follows the way of Circuit City.

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Remember a few years ago, when the Nintendo Wii came out, how Target had light-up gift cards that made people go batshit crazy? Well Target realized how great free hype is for your company so it’s decided to up the ante this time. When you’re shopping this month, stop by a Target to get a gift card that features a built-in 1.2-megapixel digital camera. Yes. This is a gift card with a camera. It even includes a USB cable, driver disk, instructions and a voucher for 40 free prints. You really can’t beat that.

It requires two AAA batteries but no matter, you can find those buried in the sofa. You’ll need to load the card up with $50 to $1000 in order to snag one but it seems well worth the effort when your gift card is the best part of the gift.

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Who knows when the commies will start spying on us again. If he were still around, Joe McCarthy might recommend every man, woman, and child to own an Urban Combat Umbrella, an Umbrella with an attached target scope. While it’s by no stretch the first umbrella we’ve discussed, it might be the most useful.

Sick of people barging into you with their sopping wet umbrellas, making you even more wet than what you would be if you weren’t donning a rain protection device? Line them up in your scope and make shooting sound effects until your hearts content. — Andrew Dobrow

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Picture this. You come down with a horrible case of some horrible diarrhea inducing disease. Now imagine being able to take a pill that literally detects the illness, builds a custom remedy, and then delivers the drug to the necessary areas in need of healing. The University Of Maryland is working on a similar method in which magnetic nanofactories would literally build their own medication for whatever ailment was found.

We admit, the diagram above really doesn’t provide much in sight into the process unless you happen to be a molecular biologist, which odds are you are not. Though one ultra cool benefit of these nanofactories would be no side effects, since the process would target specific areas of disease, rather than circulating through your entire body. — Andrew Dobrow

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