Last Minute Techie Gift Guide & Last Minute XR News

Author

Lori-Lee Elliott
December 21, 2025

Add to Cart

Last-minute gifts for the techie in your life (including yourself).

  • Image 3D RetroViewer - 80s and 90s kids, cue the nostalgia. I have one of these, customized with pictures from our earliest days at Dauntless. It’s one of my favorite gifts that I've received.

  • Tech Stack Books, as recommended by Besidone: Humility is the New Smart, Thinking in Systems, and Inside the Tornado. Is it weird to read books to improve tech skills? I don’t think so.

  • Nex Playground - This game console is perfect for kids who are too young to play VR games, but still want those style games. It comes with four pre-loaded games that use your body as the controller, like a Wii, and it has single-player and two-player modes. You can purchase additional games or a subscription if you burn through all the included ones.

  • Quest 3 or 3S - The Quest devices are still the most accessible VR headsets with the most content. Make sure you are subscribed to see our Quest game recommendations over winter break

  • Meta Ray-Bans Gen 2 - For the person on your list who has everything and is constantly Googling, chatting with ChatGPT, or checking their calendar. Give them the gift of hands free querying with AI glasses.

  • Flight Deck - For the aspiring pilot on your list. Give the gift of making it to your check ride, available on Meta Quest.

  • Dell Pro Max - This is a gift that truly keeps on giving. Specifically, giving the ability to run AI models locally with the NVIDIA Blackwell chip. Even if you aren't running or training AI models, anything in the Pro Max line improves your quality of life when using ALL THE APPS with their own integrated AI.

  • A Traditional Scythe Set - if you work in tech, you probably will need to vent your frustrations in 2026. Multitask and take your anger out on the tall grass and weeds in your garden with this beauty (I’m joking, but if anyone gets one of these, send pictures).

  • Muse 2 Headband - If the scythe doesn't work out and you want a more stable way to fight burnout or just improve mental resilience, the Muse EEG headband is a good option. I have the Gen 1, and the biofeedback dramatically improves your ability to focus and lock in.

If 2026 is the year you upgrade yourself and want gifts that come with zero clutter, check out my Substack with recs here.

/

Tech News to Make You Smarter

  • 5 Safety Features to Look for When Buying Industrial AR/VR Software (LinkedIn). Dauntless XR Updated their safety feature guide for enterprises buying AR/VR software for training and on-the-job support. Send it to your innovation manager when you ask for new tech in 2026.

  • OpenAI poached Slack’s CEO, Denise Holland Dresser. (LinkedIn) Dresser will take over as OpenAI's Chief Revenue Officer. ikymi, last week we covered that OpenAI needs cash fast. What did they do? Hire a female CEO to drive revenue. And specifically, one that knows how to do enterprise sales. (Fortune reported female CEOs make 25% more than their male counterparts). OpenAI isn’t going to get profitable by selling ChatGPT subscriptions to you and me. They’re going to make actual money by giving enterprises access to their APIs. I’ll give OpenAI the benefit of the doubt that enterprise sales were always the plan and that the direct-to-consumer launch was really a long-term play to get employees to ask for ChatGPT en masse until businesses were forced into an enterprise license. Slack did the same thing.

  • Australia’s Social Media Ban Started (LinkedIn). We are seeing regulations trying to catch up with tech in real time. Passing laws is a blunt method to regulate technology, but as neither Australia nor the US has a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) equivalent for technology, laws are the best method we have. How do you benchmark mental fitness the way you do physical health? Salmonella and BMI is easy to test for. Mental health is not as objective to evaluate. Australia's ban will be a closely watched experiment. Do you think the government should be responsible for regulating consumer tech the same way they regulate other consumables like food and drugs?

  • Screenless, Wired, AI, and Smart. Google announced screenless AI glasses and wired AI glasses. Not a lot of details, but I suspect "screenless" AI glasses is an audio-only AI device like the one OpenAI was developing. Don't worry, we have a 2026 hardware glossary guide/decoder ring incoming. For ourselves, if no one else.

Saved on Socials

The posts, memes, job postings, and videos that caught my attention this week:

Recently Played >

What we listened to this week

Overheard on Slack

Enter the chat. What our devs are talking about…

  • “We came up with 2 new product lines for you to review when you get back. How does the video game version of We Are Bob sound?" - When your product manager leaves the CEO with the engineering team for 48 hours.

Don’t forget: