Swanky Tech for the Filthy Rich
Planning on hitting the jackpot soon? From a gargantuan HDTV to your own flying car, here are nine new tech toys you'll want to decorate your life.
By Edward N. Albro, PC World
Scenario 1: A black limousine runs over your left foot. From the capacious back seat, out pops a guy who looks familiar from those Microsoft "I'm a PC" commercials (he's the one who wears glasses). "Let's not bother with insurance companies," the guy, Bill, says, and he hands you a check good for a few million bucks, drawn from his "incidental expenses account."
Scenario 2: Turns out that the gawky kid who kept forgetting his lunch money in third grade was Sergey Brin. Sergey fondly remembers you sharing your Twinkies, and he sends you a few thousand Google shares, preferred, for Kwanzaa.
The details may vary, but you've undoubtedly had this fantasy: You're suddenly rich! But what do you do with all that money? Use it to help humanity? Of course not! Like any self-respecting geek, you'll want to redirect a sizable chunk of your windfall into tech toys.
But let's assume that the experience of suddenly becoming obscenely wealthy hasn't caused you to lose all function above the neck. You don't want to throw ridiculous amounts of money at diamond-encrusted cell phones or gold-plated MP3 players. No, you want to throw ridiculous amounts of money at products that offer really cool (though not necessarily essential) technology and design. Get out your credit cards because here we go.
Cryonic Suspended Animation
Price tag: $160,000
It may be true that you can't take your money with you, but what if you never completely leave? That's the idea behind cryonics. As
the Cryonics Society of America describes the procedure, "at the time of deanimation" your body is cooled down and filled with a kind of antifreeze. Then you're put in an insulated capsule and kept frozen with liquid nitrogen. Once doctors figure out how to cure whatever killed you (and how to bring flesh popsicles back to life), they thaw you out. Then you can start suing whoever squandered your fortune during the intervening 1,000 years or so.
