Photos: Holiday tech gifts we don't recommend

3. Anything HD DVD or Blu-ray

So maybe you have good reason to know that someone on your holiday shopping list is going to actually have use for HD DVD or Blu-ray products, whether they be the discs themselves or the hardware to play them--PlayStation 3 owners, for example (the Sony console comes with a Blu-ray player), or someone who's actually taken the plunge and purchased an HD DVD or Blu-ray player (or the combo player that LG makes). But that's the exception to the rule.

The ugly hi-def format wars unfortunately aren't over yet. Maybe we'll know by next year, but this is still enough of a toss-up that it probably merits holding back on the holiday gifts.

Plus, there's always the awkward situation in which you thought your brother had a Blu-ray player, so you bought him the first season of Prison Break on Blu-ray, only to learn that he's actually an HD DVD devotee. Oops.