Since 2015, The New Stack has noticed our personal annual custom of providing a present information for that technical somebody in your life.
We’ve described it previously as “a enjoyable have a look at how we’re taking part in with our instruments” and a method to store “for curious minds and novelty-craving hearts.”
This 12 months’s particular focus can be items for laptop programmers. So for all of you who dare to courageous the hunt for that excellent technical reward — these solutions simply may earn you a real smile…
The Every little thing Retailer
This 12 months Amazon added a particular part devoted to Items for Laptop Programmers. There are over 3,000 outcomes, with geek-friendly subcategories like “Glassware & Drinkware” and “Novelty Clothes“…
For the coder in your life, Amazon affords every part from mind–teasing programming puzzles to laptop–themed jigsaw puzzles.
In fact, there’s additionally a big selection of compulsory humorous t–shirts…
However this 12 months there’s additionally tech-themed ties and motherboard-patterned socks.
Socks
Tie
Amazon isn’t the one place promoting programmer-themed novelty items. Etsy has its personal devoted web page for Programmer Reward concepts, with over 5,000 coder-themed espresso mugs, shirts, tree ornaments, and different artful stocking stuffers.
There’s even a notepad with stationery emblazoned with multicolored Python code, so your handwritten to-do listing kinds the feedback in a bigger Python program.
Programmable Python Pets
Some programmers, although, may favor a present that’s each enjoyable and instructional. And what’s extra entertaining than utilizing your Python abilities to program a toy robotic canine?
It doesn’t simply reply to spoken instructions like “Shake” and “Down”. Your loyal new pet “Pyxel” is supplied with quite a lot of sensors — for sound, proximity, and contact — all of which might be programmed by way of Pyxel’s personal customized IDE.
It helps coding in Python or with the visible code editor Blockly — and completed applications might be executed straight from a PC (or Mac or a pill), or beamed right into a six-function distant. With programmable lights — together with its colourful eyes — Pyxel might be programmed to “do tips, change shade, make and react to sounds, and categorical feelings,” in keeping with the corporate’s official catalog.
However in the event you’re purchasing for somebody who’s extra of a cat particular person, Petoi sells a equipment for constructing a programmable (and open supply) cat robotic named “Nybble”.
Improve your college students’ #STEMEducation journey with the Nybble #robotcat! Unlock the door to hands-on studying and innovation.https://t.co/lRbNjjGMMi#Petoi #OpenCat #RaspberryPi #Arduino #quadruped #RobotCat #robot #OpenSource #engineering #RobotKit #robotics #BuildRobot pic.twitter.com/hx7TNioSHb
— Petoi (@PetoiCamp) November 17, 2023
The subtle Arduino-powered feline might be programmed with Python and C++ (in addition to block-based coding).
Nybble can be appropriate with Arduino add-on modules for speech recognition, IoT sensors, and a sensible digital camera.
Give your favourite programmer an opportunity to discover the brand new neighborhood that’s constructing round “OpenCat”, the corporate’s personal quadruped robotic pet framework (open sourced on GitHub).
Petoi’s web site describes it as “the feature-rich programmable robotic cat everybody needs to personal.”
Eyes Assembly E Ink
We’ve craved it for years — a piece laptop that by some means supplied the snug studying expertise of a Kindle. Lenovo’s lastly put the E Ink display screen entrance and heart — a shade, laptop-sized display screen utilizing the identical tech as Amazon’s e-readers.
In addition to utilizing much less vitality, it’s even touch-enabled, transport with a stylus that in keeping with Lenovo “supplies a pure pencil-and-paper-like feeling once you sketch or take notes.”
But the laptop computer additionally ships with an OLED display screen, which you could swap in simply by twisting the display screen 180 levels. And since there’s a display screen on both aspect, closing the laptop computer simply turns it right into a pill (together with your selection of both an e-ink or OLED display screen).
However November additionally noticed Dasung launch the world’s first curved desktop displays utilizing E Ink know-how. One mannequin even comes with a built-in mild within the entrance — a type of studying lamp to your PC’s display screen.
And in the meantime, Bigme has introduced an All-in-1 PC — a 25.3-inch E Ink show with built-in PC performance — promising it’s not solely energy-efficient but additionally “light in your eyes.” The 3K high-definition monitor is even voice-controlled, and its web page on Kickstarter guarantees it’ll begin transport in December…
Introduction with AI
It might’ve been the proper programmer reward — however in September Copilot’s neighborhood supervisor confirmed that there’s no method to reward a subscription to GitHub Copilot.
However possibly there’s one thing higher — courtesy of the blockchain funds gateway CoinGate.
ChatGPT emblem
Sure, CoinGate is promoting ChatGPT reward playing cards, redeemable for a coveted $20-a-month subscription to ChatGPT Plus. The official web page for the supply claims that along with every part else, ChatGPT “focuses on offering handy and safe methods for purchasers to buy reward playing cards utilizing their most popular cryptocurrency.”
In principle, this may replace the fortunate recipient to GPT-4 — in addition to precedence entry for brand spanking new improvements. “OpenAI retains unveiling new options and rolling them out to its Plus plan subscribers,” ZDNet reported final month — together with the flexibility to create your custom-made chatbots. A ChatGPT Plus subscription even grants entry to DALL-E 3’s picture era.
Sadly, simply two days earlier than Sam Altman was fired as OpenAI’s CEO — shortly earlier than his eventual re-hiring — he’d introduced that ChatGPT was pausing new subscriptions.
we’re pausing new ChatGPT Plus sign-ups for a bit 🙁
the surge in utilization put up devday has exceeded our capability and we need to make sure that everybody has an awesome expertise.
you possibly can nonetheless sign-up to be notified inside the app when subs reopen.
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 15, 2023
However possibly this 12 months they’ll get a server improve from Santa Claus…
And this brings us to what’s probably essentially the most 2023 reward concept of all.
ChatGPT Says: Work from Residence
One useful feed on Twitter — now renamed “X” — has really been utilizing ChatGPT to generate reward concepts.
I need to imagine it ingested everything of Amazon.com, then returned to Twitter to report again which you could buy “Total homes for lower than $20,000.”
“Free transport.”
#GiftIdeas, #Gift,
Total homes for lower than $20,000
– free transport
https://t.co/E6l2XN9q1F— ChatGPT Reward Concepts (@Gifts_Ideas_) November 20, 2023
I name this essentially the most 2023 reward concept of all as a result of, in addition to purportedly being generated by ChatGPT — and posted to “X” — it encapsulates what’s maybe this 12 months’s greatest skilled theme: returning to the workplace. What many programmers really need for Christmas is to proceed working from residence.
So maybe the last word reward concept is a “yard workplace.”
Autonomous affords a do-it-yourself equipment for assembling your individual yard workplace inside simply “a couple of hours”. They’re promising that it’s a “prefab pod” — that’s, “pre-wired and prepped with air-con, retailers, and heat lighting” for a yard workplace that’s each waterproof and soundproof. One mannequin even comes geared up with a convertible couch mattress.
Yard places of work generally is a little dear, however there are methods to finesse the funding… YARDADU’s prefabricated “Zen Workplace” might be financed for as little as $298 a month — and presumably when submitting your taxes, it counts as a enterprise expense. (One enterprising Amazon person even gloats that they “obtained an appraiser and was informed that this may be added to my present home sq. footage, so we had been capable of enhance the worth of the house by $65K!”)
However wherever 2023 finds you working — with no matter monitor, and no matter AI assistant you possibly can really stand up and operating…
Whether or not you’re working with a robotic canine at your toes, otherwise you’re toasty heat together with your motherboard-patterned socks…
We hope you’ve got a really completely happy vacation season.
