Celebs showered with tech gifts at the Oscars

That magical night known as the Academy Awards is upon us, where celebrities put aside their petty squabbles and come together in a self-serving show of star worship, and more importantly (for our purposes, at least), limited edition electronics that are shamelessly bandied about in hopes of becoming the next celeb gadget-du-jour. Besides the iced-out Kodak V570 and special edition PEBL that we showed you previously, PC Mag has discovered several other gadgety gifts that will be bestowed upon the presenters, winners, and even the losers at tonight's Oscars. Among the rest of the swanky gift bag items will be a Vonage VTech Broadband VoIP phone system, the ip8100, that will go to presenters, as well as Solar StyleOne solar chargers for those who show up in green rides ("I'm telling you, my Hummer is modified to run on biodiesel- now gimme my damn charger!"). Losers will take home a less-glitzy GPS car monitoring device from Drive Sync, which seems more functional than a statuette but less aesthetically pleasing in a trophy case.

[Thanks, Sammy]

[Adam D @ Mar 5th 2006 5:18PM]

wow

[Adam D @ Mar 5th 2006 5:19PM]

w00t 1st comment

[MajorDad1984 @ Mar 5th 2006 5:27PM]

Just another reason for us to have a disdain for the Hollywood elite.

Why don't we just give the monetary equivalent of the "gift bag" contents for these kinds of awards programs to the poor in this country...and give the donors credit via mention during the presentation?

I'm tired of hearing about these "gift packages" for nominees, presenters, and probably the guys that will sweep up tonight. The celebrity recipients have the cash to buy these trinkets on their own. Let's allow them to do so.

See you on the high ground!

MajorDad1984

[Trebek @ Mar 5th 2006 5:31PM]

I agree with you 100% majordad. I hate celebs.

[100 great ipod movies @ Mar 5th 2006 5:44PM]

These bags are pretty expensive. A bag for each nominee is worth $75,000 while presenters get $100,000 worth. This is crazy! I hate 'em too:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=entertainment&id=3961553

[Gary Givens @ Mar 5th 2006 5:50PM]

It may seem petty to be giving out gift bags to these people, but when people at home see people using the items, they are much more likely to purchase the items. Great advertising.

[Casey Sumaylo @ Mar 5th 2006 5:51PM]

I also don't see the facsination with these people. Before the big screen these people were touted as the scum of the earth. They had no other skills other than to pretend to be something they weren't. Now they're touted as the elite of society? yeah, okay.

[Uncle Sam @ Mar 5th 2006 6:09PM]

What do you expect? This is a capatilistic country, if you don't like it go to China...where your comments on this forum will surely be edited if not censored.

[bryan @ Mar 5th 2006 6:37PM]

I find comment 8 troubling - since when was star/media worship the same thing as capitalism, and not agreeing with it being communist? Is this country really free if it's not okay to complain?

[johanna @ Mar 5th 2006 6:50PM]

I just discovered your site a few days ago, and I'm loving it!! I wish I had more time to check out all the cool links and info. I hope I win today's goodies. Happy Birthday!!

[threEchelon @ Mar 5th 2006 7:12PM]

I vote not to give gadgets to old fart celebs who don't know what a floppy is.

[Rusty @ Mar 5th 2006 7:59PM]

Heck, if they didn't give these "gift packages" to the idiots in hollywierd, 3/4 of them wouldn't bother showing up. They just can't figure out why movie viewship is down. Gee, can't figure out why eh? Lousy movies, too high prices, crappy theatre seats etc....Boy, Hollywood sure has fallen from its heyday of the 1930's to 1960's.
I kind of avoid "network" TV from Dec-April...to many "pat yourself on the back" shows.

[ken @ Mar 5th 2006 9:09PM]

The celebs wouldn't know there ass from there elbows, do you honestly think any of them could install that VOIP phone. That would be a great tech support call to be on.

[Nix @ Mar 5th 2006 10:24PM]

It is interesting that stars like these -- people who can likely afford to purchase the gift bags on their own, end up getting such items for free. Then they decide to auction the items up on eBay, so "regular" people like you and me can start bidding and outbidding (fighting) each other just to own shit that was held for all of 3 minutes by these celebs.. what an idiotic scam.

[dogman @ Mar 5th 2006 10:28PM]

I dont understand why these celebs need a Firefly cellphone for kids. Although, I guess it makes sense. I would bet about half of them have the intellect of your average 13 year old girl. But then again, I think your average 13 year old girl knows that tuna is not actually chicken from the sea. Maybe the good people over at Firefly Mobile just found theirselves a new target audience.

[Bryan @ Mar 5th 2006 10:37PM]

$75K-$100K? The items listed are worth a total of $10K tops.

[Ron Randle @ Mar 5th 2006 10:37PM]

This is exactly why I have no problem using bit torrent, cause these bastards already make too much money. Let's pay some teachers.

[dogman @ Mar 5th 2006 10:42PM]

Byran, I really dont think that their estimate could be off by 90k's. Especially when you consider that the price of every item given to the celebs is public knowledge. Those are just a sampling of items to whet your celeb gift bag envy.

[Mark Young @ Mar 5th 2006 10:54PM]

Before you guys go bashing the "stars", think for a moment about the reason companies do it...the same reason they pay millions of dollars to have baseball/football parks with their corporate logo on them, advertising - and it works. Don't hate the people who give them to you - if you can afford an Ipod, and someone gives you 20 free songs to download, are you going to give it away...no way. This is a way to get their products in the hands of the people who drive fashion - both clothing and technical fashion. It is "joe consumer" who buys the "in gadget" many times because it is being used by a number of big name people.

It is capatilism, companies would not do it if it did not produce ROI.

[^is right. @ Mar 5th 2006 11:26PM]

Mark ur 100% right. Most people don't even realize how many times a day they are being sold by advertising. Just one more of the thousands daily, only this time, millions of people all see it simultaneously on tv. They probably even pay the celebrities to show off their goodies and to talk about them in front of cameras. But understand this, if you ever found yourself on a red carpet, would you refuse? It's too easy to hate these days people. And just because there are a lot of crappy movies these days, think about this. Every great movie in existance never happened. Scum of the earth or not, the true talent deserve whatever goodies that get thrown their way.

[michael murdock @ Mar 5th 2006 11:27PM]

God Bless them for getting these things and God bless them for being rich! It's great energy to share and never ever say that you hate someone for being rich. When you do, you merely tell the Universe that you don't need to be or want to be rich. I am sure that's not what you meant when you said you hate them. :-)

Mike

[DT @ Mar 5th 2006 11:57PM]

Hey, you predicted the winner of Best Actress correctly! Good job!

[Casey S @ Mar 6th 2006 12:04AM]

In Hollywood, the rich and famous are glorifying themselves in a decadent orgy of excess, symbolized by golden statutes. Fame and money is not enough. They demand respect. Wallowing in the obsessions of their mindless fan clubs and tabloid photos, they believe they are the chosen ones; intellectually gifted, and destined to provide political leadership to the sheep that are the average American citizen/tabloid reader.

In another part of city, a nameless scientist labors the final years of his lifetime of work in sublime dedication to finding a cure for a little known, but wretched children�s disease. Managing to eliminate thousand of treatment options, his life�s work will be used by others to direct their efforts to the cause, and to a cure.

In another state, a police officer and a firefighter are working together, risking their lives to safe the lives of people they have never met.

In another country, Americans are volunteering to feed the poor and treat the sick, for no compensation, and at their own cost.

On another continent, American soldiers fight and die heroically, their recognition, if they live, might be a small ribbon they may attach to their uniform for the relatively few days in their life they will wear it.

[Dan @ Mar 6th 2006 1:12AM]

A little bit of hyperbole #23. Celebrities just fill a position in society. Sure I think that a lot of them are dumbasses, but that's a big generalization. I'm sure a lot of them are great respectable people who are very talented. And consumers still pay for tabloid magazines and go to see really expensive bad movies so actors are still needed to make those movies.

[brian @ Mar 6th 2006 2:05AM]

first off, i will agree that some of these celebrities are dumb (paris is a funny example) and yes, not all of them will deserve these gifts. But we must remember that not all celebrities are bad people and this is a potential marketing ploy- publicity. I will stereotype here: Rappers and RnB artists rock iPods and sidekicks in their videos. Remember when Paris and others started to "bling" their sidekicks? Or whenever cribs is on, cadillacs and H2s are the sensation. This is publicity, this affects the consumer's psychology, this drives the economy and create jobs.

[Jason @ Mar 6th 2006 4:59AM]

I knew that people were going to complain before I even opened the link. Come on! It's not like we're paying for these or something! It's ridiculous to hate someone just because they have more than you; that's called envy. Also, having famous individuals use a certain product is smart business for the manufacturer.

Life is not fair; power and wealth are not equally distributed and never will be no matter how many communist governments are founded. Even if a society managed to achieve equality without poverty and oppression, a society that rewards someone for doing something of value is still better. It makes more sense and is better for humanity's advancement.

And before you generalize rich celebrities for being selfish, just look at the people like David Robinson, Oprah Winfrey, and Bono, who give millions of dollars to impoverished people, found charities, and start schools. Glittering generalizations are for people of small mind.