Six awesome high-tech gift ideas for grads

Ah, graduation. Your ungrateful children probably don't feel that shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for four-plus years of higher education will be reward enough for actually making it through the rigors of high school. Like it or not, you'll need to pony up for a graduation present. Got a tech fan in the household? Consider one of these snazzy gift ideas.

Sony Vaio FZ Series

Still the reigning king of everyday laptops, the FZ is as powerful as anything in its class, doesn't break the bank, and looks pretty good, too. Campus will be crawling with kids and their MacBooks. Junior can make a real statement by proudly booting up his Sony instead. 

Canon PowerShot A570 IS

Why worry about higher education when YouTube promises immediate stardom for anyone with only the barest of talents? If your kid can rock 100% on an expert-level song on Rock Band or simply knows how to fall down in epic style, he'll need a nice camera to record it all. This Canon's stills look great thanks to image stabilization, and it shoots movies in glorious widescreen.  

Hands-free is already the law in many states and it's about to become so in California, where the crackdown on talking on your cell phone while driving begins on July 1. If Junior's going to spend a lot of time driving to and from college this fall, best get him legal. The VisorTalk works reasonably well and simply clips to your visor, working as a Bluetooth speakerphone for his cell. It's super affordable, and it has the great advantage of ensuring your grad doesn't look like the campus idiot wandering around the quad with a headset attached to his ear.

Apple iPhone

Wait a month or two on this one. The current iPhone is set to be replaced next month by the next generation, which reportedly will offer 3G speed and real GPS. Send your kid off to college with the next-gen iPhone and he'll instantly outshine his dorm-mates who foolishly bought the first, pokey-slow version.

Solo Urban at Ease Laptop Messenger Bag

Give your grad a stylish way to carry all this gear instead of forcing him into another nylon backpack. The canvas SOLO fits in stylishly in any academic or even neo-professional environment, and can be found for a mere 50 bucks.

Grand Theft Auto IV

Seriously, what else is he going to do all summer?