The Ambient Orb from Ambient Devices

The latest device to help us deal with information overload is made of French-made frosted glass housing and bright, long-life LEDs that glow millions of colors.

The Orb, from Ambient Devices, arrives automatically set to track the Dow Jones Industrial Average, glowing more green or red to indicate market movement up or down, or yellow when the market is calm. The Orb doesn't require an Internet connection, as it receives data from a wireless radio network. To use The Orb, alll you need to do is to plug it into a power outlet.

If the stock market is not your cup of the tea, The Orb can potentially show summary information for anything available on the World Wide Web. For starters, Ambient Devices, the company behind the Orb, has also added weather forecast, pollen forecasts (for allergy sufferers), homeland security, public opinion polls, and more.

You can configure your The Orb using any computer or telephone. You can call customer support and tell them what you would like to configure The Orb to track and they will be happy to set it up for you. You can also customize The Orb to have it monitor your information differently, or monitor different information entirely, by going to http://www.myambient.com/ with any computer with Internet access.

In order for The Orb to work, you must be able to receive a signal from Ambient's radio network. Fortunately, the coverage exceeds 90% of the U.S. population, and generally the company has better coverage than cell phones. In almost every place you can get a cell phone signal, and many places you can't, The Orb will work. You may have some trouble if you live in extremely rural areas or in a lead-enclosed safe room 200 feet underground. In other words, The Orb is probably not an appropriate gift for Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Orb, which is about the size of a man's fist, retails for $149 and is available from Amazon. Follow the link below to explore The Orb is more detail.

Father's Day is not too far away. I'm already imagining using The Orb to monitor the tides in Kennebunkport this summer ..

Have you had an experience with The Orb? We'd love to hear from you.

-Tim