It may a bit hard to fathom, but journalists who write about gift ideas for the December holiday (whichever you happen to celebrate!) are already on the case. It seems like companies start having their holiday line shows earlier every year... but luckily, they're fun to attend. You usually get food and a sample or two of the upcoming flood of present-worthy products to try out.

Earlier this week, Jen, Molly, and I visited Hasbro to see what kinds of tech toys the company will be offering this fall. We saw a slew of cool stuff, though much of it isn't finalized yet. (Full disclosure: Jen and I went girly for a minute, and had to tear ourselves away from My Little Pony.) Here's a sampling.

Last year Hasbro had the i-Dog Interactive Music Companion, an iPod accessory that moves to music and flashes multicolors; joining it is the i-Cat (left), which will do those things too. But it's a cat. So when you pet it, it purrs, meows, and makes "scratch sounds." (OK, I like puns as well as anyone, but ew!) The i-Cat will sell for the same price as its canine counterpart, $29.99.

Right is the ZoomBox Entertainment Projector; it has a built-in DVD player and can project the movie onto a screen or wall. The "tweens" to whom this is marketed will also be able to connect it up with most game consoles and beam the action wherever they want to. The picture isn't terribly crisp, but this does some cool stuff for $299. (Plays CDs, too.) And it's around the size of a boombox, with a handle; easy to carry around.

We all liked the Nerf Showtime Hoops "hiphop interactive basketball gaming system." It has built in speakers; you can hook up your music player and listen to your tunes while you slam those dunks. And emcee "Duke Tango" recorded some suitable color commentary to liven up the game. It has a spotlight in the base that will pinpoint where to shoot for the three-pointers. And an LCD scoreboard keeps track of your shots automatically. This will go for $249.99; it definitely needs to stay indoors!