The Zscanner 800 looks like a nice gift for the budding 3d developer. It's a handheld trinocular camera with laser LED projector that interpolates points in 3d, in real time.
Just the right size for scanning the faces of your whole family so you can update their secondlife avatars. Output is .stl files.
At $50k for this version getting models from the real world into the virtual world is getting cheaper all the time. The intellectual property ramifications of this technology coming within the reach of common citizens must be astounding.
This is still out of reach for me, but I would not mind renting one for a few days.
