GadgetMadness: We find the coolest gadgets first

I distinctly remember when hardshell plastic packaging arrived. I was amazed at how well it must thwart shoplifters from stealing, and even more amazed at how much of a problem it now was to get my purchase open. Since that day I have come to hate shoplifters even more for inspiring manufacturers to ship their products in plastic packages of annoyance and pain. Now there is OpenX, a nifty hand tool that slices those pesky plastic shells open like "lobster crackers on lobsters."

Of course, this now means that the "shoplifter-proof" aspect of hardshell plastic packages has flown out the window - shoplifters could purchase the OpenX as easily as you or I could. (The logical progression - plastic packaging will eventually be replaced with mini-forcefields that only disapear with the right DNA/RFID code sequence.)