World's best travel adaptor

From, of all places, high–end luggage manufacturer Tumi.

Who knew they had an electrical/computer skunkworks?

One half of this elegant matte black device is an electricity adaptor (top) that converts anything to anything — U.K., U.S., European, Australian, it doesn't matter where you are.

The other part is a phone/modem adaptor (second from top) which again converts almost anything to almost anything else.

Jonathan Margolis featured this marvelous device in his Technopolis column in this past Friday's Financial Times.

He wrote, "Some may argue that the phone/modem part is a tiny bit tragic since, despite its cleverness, nobody really uses phone modem cables any more and broadband cables are standard worldwide. But there are still plenty of hotels where dial–up is the only option."

Margolis noted (correctly) that the adapter is not available on Tumi's website but that it can be purchased in person at the Tumi store, 170 Piccadilly, London W1 (020–7493–4138) and Heathrow Terminals 1 and 4, air side.

But what about those of us who won't be in London anytime soon?

Great news: you can get it online here for $95, a heck of a lot cheaper than the £80 ($146) you'll pay in the U.K.