One of the irksome things about voice-recognition technology is that it often doesn't recognize voices very well. That makes Moshi's line of voice-controlled clocks particularly attractive. In only one instance out of 10 did its travel alarm clock fail to understand a spoken command. You speak a few simple phrases, like 'set time' and 'set alarm,' and the clock responds by asking you for the times you want. The company says its voice recognition works because it has combined two separate voice-recognition technologies and sampled 1,000 voices across the Northern Hemisphere. Why would you want a voice-activated clock? If you've ever tried to set the alarm on a hotel's clock radio as you prepare to fall asleep, you could appreciate this type of product. And if you're blind or have limited sight, setting a clock by simply speaking commands (and then having the time read to you) could be a godsend. Moshi's clocks range in price from $25 to $40. Features include indoor temperature readings, multiple wake-up sounds and the ability to change background colors. It says it has voice-recognition clock applications for mobile devices on the way. -- ERIC A. TAUB NEITHER NOTEBOOK NOR NETBOOK: JUST CALL IT A SLIM BOOK There are no formal criteria for what puts a PC notebook into the 'superslim' category, but it probably should weigh no more than three pounds and be no more than an inch thick. Asus and Dell, both champions in the lighter and slimmer quest, have announced new machines that more than fit this category, which now seems to nestle between the netbook and the conventional notebook. They generally cost as much or more than either of those varieties. The Asus UX30, available now in Japan, has a three-pound aluminum body, selling for about $1,100. The profile of the machine is 0.77 inches, which is thin by anyone's definition. The $450 Dell Vostro V13 borrows from Dell's high-end Adamo XPS and aims at the business traveler. It measures 0.65 inches thick but is a little on the heavy side at 3.5 pounds. The Vostro V13, which is also encased in aluminum, is on sale worldwide, Dell says. -- STEPHEN WILLIAMS NARROWING DOWN THE FIELD FOR DIGITAL PICTURE FRAMES I was shopping for a digital picture frame for friends who are constantly snapping photos of their adorable 1-year-old, who has just learned to walk. Frames can do so much more than display photos. Many can connect to a Wi-Fi network to stream photos from online photo-sharing sites, play movies and songs, and even display weather forecasts and Facebook feeds. But I want one for less than $100, and I can do without Wi-Fi. Because most digital photos are snapped in 4:3 aspect ratio, I don't want a wide-screen 16:9 frame because it may crop or stretch the photos. My first choice is the Kodak EasyShare P725, $70 at Amazon.com. This 7-inch frame meets all my requirements, including 800-by-600 pixels of resolution, 512 megabytes of built-in memory and support for a USB drive and all the major memory card formats. My runner-up is the Pandigital 8-Inch Digital Photo Frame, on sale for $70 at Amazon.com. Pandigital's brand is not as familiar as Kodak, but it has earned a good reputation. The frame includes an alarm clock and calendar, but has only 128 megabytes of internal memory. -- RIK FAIRLIE APP OF THE WEEK: GOOGLE'S EYES ON THE GROUND Google Goggles is a new free app for smartphones using the Android operating system. With its grab bag of features, the app is a bit hard to define. Goggles uses a phone's camera for data entry, Web searching and shopping, with a little bit of augmented reality thrown in. Here's how it works. You use your phone to take a photo of a building, artwork, a bar code or some text and Goggles identifies it and brings back Google search results. A photo of a book cover brought back links to where the book is sold online, reviews, a Wikipedia entry on the author and more. A picture of the exterior of a restaurant brings back reviews, links to the restaurant's Web site and a link to call the place with one click. When the phone is held parallel to the ground, nearby points of interest, like businesses and restaurants, float by on the bottom of the screen in what is called augmented reality. It doesn't work all that well on photos of food, cars, plants, clothes and animals. But Google says it will keep improving it. -- ROY FURCHGOTT 