Maybe these gifts are better asked for than given on a college budget. 

Google Chromecast, Amazon.com, $35

When you’re spending time with your family, you might be stuck having to stream Netflix, YouTube or HBO Go on your phone, wasting battery life that could be better used posting tweets of embarrassing family quotes. Enter the Google Chromecast, a small dongle, which plugs into any TV with an HDMI port to stream some of your favorite TV shows, movies or cat videos in full-screen high definition glory. It’s a small price to pay to see Grandma’s reaction to the Red Wedding.

— Robert Starr

iPad Air, Target, Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, Apple Store, from $499

For a true technology fanatic, the one-pound Apple iPad offers Retina display, an A7 chip with incredible speed and two-times the Wi-Fi strength of its predecessors. And when you consider that Apple has made huge investments in their Austin offices over the past year and that the A7 chip was manufactured at the Samsung Semiconductor plant in town, you can’t really find a more Austin-y gift than the new iPad.  

Bitcoin, coinbase.com or another Bitcoin brokerage site, $1065 at press time

In the old days, grandparents used to buy their grandchildren a share of McDonalds or Coca-Cola stock. Today, buying a loved one even a single Bitcoin would be no small gesture and possibly a pretty good investment, too. 

— Jeremy Hintz