As things gear up for Christmas, we’re stocking a range of exciting new products. First up is a fantastic Arduino shield.

The GPRS ‘Playground’ slots over your Duemilanove, and gives it the power to send voice or data via the world’s cellular phone networks. Email, web, twitter, ftp, SMS – what ever you want to send or receive really. Onboard features include a microphone, reset switch, and SIM card holder.

This powerline modem allows data to be sent or received over your home/office mains cable. With speeds of up to 5Mbs, this is a great solution for when LAN cables and WiFi can’t cover the distance (or get through the walls!)

The powerline range includes handy ‘daughter’ modules that fit onto the modem’s expansion port. Ethernet, usb and Xbee are all supported. Happy days!

Serial LCD displays are all the rage, but this one is a little different. Small, light and easy to use, the TextStar even has four on-board buttons. If you need to show a bargraph display, this display makes it very easy. For RC fans, there’s a ready made servo diagnostic mode.

This cable has to win the prize for the most useful thing ever. It’s a USB-serial converter, with all the gubbins built in to the USB plug housing. Signals are both 5 and 3.3 V tolerant, and the breakout connector at the TTL end also provides a handy 5V supply. Don’t leave home without one!

The LPC-1766-Stk is a powerful development board for the excellent LPC1766 ARM processor from NXP. It has an onboard 128×128 x12bit colour TFT display, a 3-axis digital accelerometer with 11 bit accuracy, a temperature sensor, USB device and host connectors, a joystick and much more.

Finally, if you need your project to know exactly what time it is, you’ll need a real time clock module. We’ve programmed these with the precise GMT (Zulu) time, and they can be easily interrogated via I2C from an Arduino or other suitable platform. A battery means the time is never lost (until the battery runs out)
