If you've been wondering what to do with all that extra cash you're so sick of, I picked up some ideas at the Luxury Technology Show in Manhattan last week. Otherwise, you might not be aware of some must-haves such as the smart pillow.

Now, a truly smart pillow would have a mallet that knocked you over the head every time you couldn't sleep. (Well, every time you were in bed and couldn't sleep. You wouldn't want the pillow/mallet chasing you around the apartment.)

But this smart pillow, the $299 Zeeq, does things like detect when you are snoring. Then it gently vibrates so you'll shift position. This is an improvement on the old "smart device" you may have employed, also known as "your spouse," who would gently (or not so gently) kick your shin when you started sawing logs.

Other booths were filled with high-tech wrinkle reducers, headsets that look like iPhone earmuffs, apps to interact with your dog when you're on the road and ear buds that do everything but revive the dead. So it was refreshing to stumble upon a booth selling something that didn't seem too hard to operate.

"OPEN CAN!" I commanded, and voila! The voice-activated garbage can opened up.

This can is not actually on the market yet, explained Mia Fields, who works for Simplehuman, a line of home goods found at Bed Bath & Beyond and beyond. But come May, you will at last be able to talk to your trash receptacle. And if you don't feel like chatting, a wave of the hand opens it, too.

I didn't want to mention that there are already garbage cans on the market where you press a little pedal with your foot, no voice recognition or batteries required. So I shut up (like a garbage can messing with its owner) and asked Mia about the other item on display: A light-up makeup mirror.

The mirror's lights are controlled by, of course, your phone. But this is not a question of "off" and "on," or even "daylight" versus "Hollywood." "There are 50,000 different light settings," Mia said. So, for instance, "If you want to do your makeup based on the lighting in your office, you can take a photo in the app and mimic the same lighting on the mirror."

This struck me as the most "first world" solution to the most "first world" problem I'd ever heard. But when I mentioned the mirror to two of my friends, they both thought it sounded fantastic.

A male friend has a similar reaction when I tried to describe the "Fizzics" geegaw at the show. "If you take a can or bottle of beer and do a normal pour" — the Fizzics demonstrator proceeded to pour a can of beer into a plastic cup — "the bubbles are all different sizes. You lose the flavor and aroma."

You do?

I didn't want to drink the beer, so the demonstrator obliged by drinking it for me and shaking his head to indicate this sub-optimal beer experience. BUT, put your can or bottle into the "Fizzics" machine, and the ultrasound technology controls things so precisely that the beer comes out with bubbles as uniform as the periods on this page, and a head more impressive than Mt. Fuji.

And then there were the folks selling the LumiDiet — a belt the size of the one you get if you're heavyweight champion of the world (no pun intended), except lined with red LED lights that ostensibly melt the pounds away. The marketing specialist, Jay Lee, said, "We recommend you use it prior to exercise, for better, faster results."

Yes, I'll bet that helps.

"Can I eat while I wear it?" I asked, causing Lee to snap, "You can't eat five hamburgers a day and still lose weight."

Maybe technology still can't do everything we need it to.

Lenore Skenazy is author of the book and blog, "Free-Range Kids," and a hilarious keynote speaker at conferences, companies and schools. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy ([email protected]) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.