Holiday Gadgets On Display At Lawrence Tech

SOUTHFIELD -- A crowd of gadget fans got the latest lowdown on the tech toys that will be hot for the holidays at the year's final Last Thursdays Unwired at Lawrence Technological University.

The event -- held a week early due to the Thanksgiving holiday -- featured presentations by AT&T, Livio Radio, Microsoft, Parrot, Sprint and Verizon Wireless.

The wireless providers showed off their latest smartphones and tablet computers for both fun and games -- and personal business productivity -- all while on the go. Among the more impressive demonstrations was streaming HD video movies through a Verizon smartphone.

Parrot, which does most of its business in automotive electronics, showed off its AR.drone toy helicopter, with embedded video camera. The $299 helicopter is controlled by motions made with a smartphone or iPad.

Ferndale-based Livio Radio showed its car Internet radio system, the Kit -- a $100 device that brings more than 45,000 streaming radio stations to your car audio system, using the Web access from a user's smartphone.

And Microsoft let attendees play everything from golf to tennis to football using its Xbox 360 system with the Kinect motion sensing device.