Top 10 last-minute alternative tech gifts

There's just over a week to go until Christmas Day and, while our guide to tablets and smartphones was no doubt helpful, they're fairly, well, obvious gifts aren't they?

You want the recipient to be surprised and delighted by their gift, and thankfully there's no shortage of crazy gadgets and nifty gizmos out there that could help you pull together a great last-minute Christmas shop for the tech lover.

So we've put together a few suggestions covering everything from books to music systems to help ease the strain of Christmas.

10. Smartphone gloves
Picture the scene. It's the height of winter, you've got your fluffy mitts on because it's 10 below outside with a howling gale and freezing rain.

As you sit at the bus stop with only one thing on your mind - the beautiful warm embrace of the number 12 - you decide to check your phone for the latest travel update to see when your chariot will arrive. At this point you're faced with a terrible decision: take off one glove to operate your touch-screen smartphone and risk frostbite, or do without the vital travel info.

Well, now that toasty smartphone gloves have been invented, this conundrum has been solved. It's all down to the conductive material placed inside the tip of each glove finger, apparently, which means you can swipe away to your heart's content.

As gadget haven Firebox says, trying to use a touch-screen phone while wearing gloves "is a bit like trying to pick your nose wearing a balaclava", so do the decent thing and give these to the smartphone lover in your life this Christmas.