What’s gold and purple, costs $700, fits inside a eight inch by 10 inch by 12 inch cube, communicates via mobile phone, generates a centrifugal force of two hundred thousand g’s, and cleans your house? The new DC12 vacuum cleaner, going on sale now in Japan.

With all that high tech gadgetry, I was pretty impressed. Until I realized you still have to push the thing around. Small and powerful is good. But I’m sorry. It’s just not as impressive as self propelled robot road cones.