In the last firmware update for the Sony PSP, it was announced that along with Skype, PSP lovers will soon be able to take advantage of the Go!Messenger software on their beloved portable players. Sony promised that the Go!Messenger service will be up and running in February and although they left it as late as they possibly could, they have stuck to their word.

From now on PSP owners of both Slim and Lite models and the older more stocky model will be able to make free video and voice calls as well as a bit of text chat with the Go!Messenger program on their PSP’s. This will be particularly useful for hitting up your fallen friend to gloat after you trounce him 8-0 at Fifa. Just like any other messenger you can add and manage your contacts with ease and the program will run in the background as to not interrupt you with calls and messages whilst you are in the middle of some button bashing.

The service is completely free to subscribe to and with 2,500 BT wireless hotspots in city centres all over the UK there is enough coverage for all of us, well, for us city boys anyway, PSP-loving country farmers can feel themselves a little hard done by. One thing you will need to spend on though is the detachable camera and microphone which will cost you about 30-40 quid but that’s nothing to grumble about.

Last week we told you about Nintendos revolutionary Wii Fit game (if you can call it a game that is) and that Nintendo had announced a release date being April 25th. The one thing that was missing in Ninty’s little announcement was the small matter of a price.

Nintendo have finally announced the price you’ll be able to get your hands on Wii Fit for in the UK and it is £69.99. So, if you have just signed up to one of those fancy health clubs, over-priced annual subscriptions, it is time for you to try and get out of it as quick as they managed to get you into it.

For your 70 quid you will get the Wii Fit game itself and the Balance Board so theres no need to go out buying it all separate. Nintendo have also said that the Balance Board will come in handy for about 10 other new games, so it looks as though we won’t be limited to just sweaty Balance Board experiences. Maybe my skateboarding theory was not all that far off!

The news of more Balance Board games to come has made Wii Fit even more appealing, knowing that your £70 will be still be money well spent after you have had enough of Aerobics and press-ups is always nice to hear, unlike those Health Clubs! It seems that Wii Fit will not only save you a few pounds in body mass but a few pounds in the wallet too.

So as I said in an earlier post I’m in Sydney at the moment - great vibrant city full of fantastic things to see and do. On the way over here I stopped off in Singapore. I had been before, but only to transit through the airport on the way to Perth - yup I do travel a lot !

Singapore, if you have never been, is just fantastic. So many different cultures, so many sights and smells - just wonderful. One thing I did notice about Singapore, was that it was full of young people. At first I just thought that we were just beside a college or something, but as my two days went on I realised that the oldest person I probably saw was myself, while gazing into an electronics store front window. What do they do with all their older people? Anyway I digress.

Given that Singapore, at least in the city, has such a young population, combined with their obvious love for technology meant that you could barely walk 100 yards without seeing someone, head down, playing their Sony PSP.  This is something you don’t see a lot of in the UK, people just walking around the City, head down tapping away. I must admit I do get quite a lot of weird looks when I’m out and about and pull mine out. Don’t forget people, it’s the Playstation PORTABLE ! And of course in the not too distant future you will be able to use your PSP to connect to your PlayTV kit (attached to your PS3) to watch live or pre-recorded TV.

The game of choice at the moment for most over here in Singapore seems to be Pro Evo 2008.  I must admit I was gutted I don’t have this as I would have been tempted to try and get some International button mashing soccer going on. As it was I just had to make do looking on and dreaming that one day our culture in the UK would mean it pretty normal to be carrying around our PSP devices as much as we carry around our mobile phones.

So once again the interweb was full of stories of the last few days about potential updates to the range of Apple products available. Would it be updates to the Macbooks, the iMac or how about something completely different. Well it turns out it was the turn of the Macbook to get a boost with both the standard and the Pro getting attention.

The main change is that both models now will have the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, more memory and the latest nVidia graphics chipset. Support for 2GB of memory as standard completes the picture, meaning the complete package is small, beautiful and powerful. I’m actually in Sydney at the moment, and I reckon this town is full of big Apple fans, as a lot were carrying the current generation of Macbook and Macbook Pros around with them - I hope they heard about the updates.

I must admit I myself was hoping that the iMac range would get a boost, given that I’m very close to buying one, but I just I will just have to wait on this, especially as the various technology commentators are suggesting that Apple could be set to release new products, or at the very least upgrade current ranges, every Tuesday in 2008 - that’s 52 product launches ! This is based on the fact that in one of Steve Jobs recent talks, he mentioned the fact that there was 52 weeks in a year. Can Apple actually manage to stick to 52 new product releases in 2008? That would be pretty amazing.

I guess one disappointment from todays announcement is that the much awaited SDK for the iPhone was not officially released. I guess given that Apple could be set to do releases every Tuesday may mean that we don’t need to wait too long for this.

As I said earlier I’m also over in Sydney at the moment and it was kinda weird watching the Apple updates this morning (really early) given that before I started thinking about getting myself an iMac I really could not have cared less. Perhaps I’m starting to become an Apple FanBoy !

The BBC and Apple are getting closer and closer with each other as each day passes, so much so that the wife of BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson, is bound to be getting sick of the smell of Steve Jobs’ Apple flavoured lip gloss off him when he comes home at night. Recently, Apple and the BBC seem to have been inseparable. First the BBC announced that its TV programs were to be available for download via the iTunes service and now they have announced that BBC iPlayer service is going to be available through the iPhone and iPod Touch in the next few weeks.

Personally i don’t really see the point in the whole BBC/iTunes service, well, from a consumer point of view anyway. If you have missed your favourite TV program on BBC 1, the chances are that it is going to be on, on BBC Three or something either later that night or the next day and most probably all throughout the course of the week. Even then, if your life is too hectic to catch it second or third time around, it’s available on BBC iPlayer for the next 7 days sitting there waiting to be downloaded anytime you see fit. At £1.89 an episode from iTunes, I’m not sure the likes of Robin Hood and Torchwood are even worth the hassle.

The iPlayer service being available on the iPhone on the other hand, that i am in favour of. I am a big fan of BBC iPlayer as are a lot of other people judging by the 2.2M people who used the service in January alone. I find it particularly useful for the stuff i miss at weekends when i am out dancing, such as Friday Night With Jonathan Ross (Yes, i know!). Well instead of catching up with it on the PC, i can put it on my iPhone and watch it wherever i am, most likely public transport. You can never find enough stuff to keep you amused on a train or a bus! Catching up on missed TV makes much more sense while on the move.

I do have a concern with the download quality though. The iPhone’s speed is not exactly the greatest, also will i actually be able to download and store files in an iPlayer library on my phone or will it just be a more simple streaming system, that could mean disaster. I suppose for now we can only wait and see but as soon as i hear more you will be the first know.

Microsoft has confirmed at this years Game Developers Conference that the second coming of Gears Of War, one of its biggest ever selling video games, will be unleashed upon us come November of this year. Fans of the Locust slaying gorefest will be delighted to hear the announcement of Gears Of War 2, especially those in the UK, who voted it Ultimate Game Of The Year for 2007.

Gears Of War 2 will continue the story of moody hard-man Marcus Fenix and Delta squad as they battle their way through the Locust hordes aiding to mankinds struggle for survival. The finer details of the new game haven’t been released as of yet but a teaser trailer has been provided to get your appetites all wet and your mind running. One thing that is for sure however, is that Gears Of War 2 will be bigger, better and more impressive than ever before. I do warn you though, don’t expect too much from the trailer, it doesn’t give away much.

In all honesty, the new look graphics and what not aren’t really what i am looking forward to the most with GoW2. I just want to know how the story carries on! The Gears storyline is one of the best i have seen for a long time, especially in this genre of game and with New Line Cinema making a Gears Of War movie which i believe is scheduled for 2009, that just proves how good it is.

For now i will leave you with the teaser trailer, enjoy!

The month of April is shaping up to be the month with the largest marked cross on the 2008 gaming calendar with more fantastic gaming releases being announced this week. Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are already welcoming the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 4 in April and now it is time for the Nintendo Wii to get in on the action. The much anticipated Mario Kart for the Wii will be hitting the Nintendo Wii shelves on April 11th but that is not all. Perhaps even more anticipated and certainly the most revolutionary form of video game we have seen in a while, Wii Fit, will be launched on the 25th of April.

The re-invention of the Super NES classic (or should i say the Wii-invention) is going to be bigger and better than ever before with a whole load of new cool gaming gimmicks and characters. For the first time ever, Kart-crazy fans will see bikes, giving them even more speed and silliness and to test out your new-found bike skills there are 16 new tracks along with 16 classic track remakes. Also, as we now live in an online gaming world, Mario Kart will have its own Wii channel so you can race your fellow kart loving friends from all corners of the globe.

Wii Fit is the game that stands up to couch-ridden gamers, encouraging them to get up and “enjoy” a little exercise. Using a white plastic board called the Wii Balance Board, which you stand on or jump around on, it will judge your balance, poise, dexterity, weight and various other motions. You can choose between yoga, some muscle toning and aerobic and balance exercises. Personally i am hoping the Balance Board will come in handy in the future for some skateboarding or something but i do think Nintendo’s keep fit approach is an excellent idea. Why not give us your thoughts on Wii Fit and the Balance Board by leaving us a comment, we love to hear what you think!

The Apple website was shut down again today but sadly it wasn’t due to the big announcement of say… a brand new 3G equipped iPhone, it was the significantly less appetizing announcement of a new iPod Shuffle.

Apple have introduced a new iPod Shuffle to their catalogue in the form a double the capacity 2GB model, so now you will be able to get twice the amount of random music bliss.

Other than the increased storage space, the new Shuffle is just the same as the old one that is favoured by joggers all over. It is the same clip-on with no screen, no FM radio and no speaker simplicity player that we are known to love.

The only other change is prices. The new iPod Shuffle will be retailed at £45 which is £4 less than the price of the current 1GB model and of course, keeping the 1GB model at £49 would just be barking so it is now down to a bargain basement £32. Nice!

In probably one of the worst kept secrets in recent times the news that a lot of us feared has this morning come true - Toshiba have officially announced they will be dropping HD-DVD as of March 2008, thus bringing an end to the format war with Blue Ray. Their decision also covers the worldwide end to development of all HD-DVD devices for PCs and games. I for one am a little disappointed that it’s come to this.

For me, an early adopter, gamer and movie fan I think one of the main reasons behind this win for Blue Ray is the heavy backing from the likes of Sony (read a massive pay-cheque to make sure their format won) In my experience so far the whole movie experience has been better on HD-DVD, with many more extras and special features appearing on these discs than those on Blue Ray.

Of course for the general consumer the end of the format war had to come, and over the past few months it was becoming clear that there could be only one winner in truth. It was only last week that the likes of NetFlix in the United States announced they were going to be only stocking BlueRay discs with other high street stores following. Now that the format war is over I’m just hoping that the consumer will benefit by seeing a reduction in both the hardware and media costs. It was only this weekend I was a few high street stores here in the UK and was shocked to see 3rd rate movies on Blue Ray and HD-DVD still selling for around £30 - that for me is just too much.

What however this does mean is that for the next few months the price of both HD-DVD hardware and media should drop in price and for those of us who already own an HD-DVD player it could see a windfall in terms of cheap discs. I’m keeping an eye on the Matrix boxset to see if it drops in price. Of course for those who don’t own an HD-DVD player as yet you could do a whole lot worse than pick yourself up the XB360 HD-DVD add on, which is probably one of the cheapest next generation players around - and it’s a pretty cool player as well. After all you will always have something around that you can plug it into so could end up with a decent HD-DVD collection without dropping your life savings.

And don’t forget in a few years time you may be able to take it along to the Antiques Roadshow and get them to give you a price.

Goodbye HD-DVD, gone but not forgotten !

On Friday we told you about the Wi-Fi Detecting T-shirt on the GottaHave blog and today we have another T-shirt to tell you about. This one is more for the folks who live for the weekend and rave their life away rather than those with a periodic table on their bedroom wall.

It is called the T-Equaliser (which gives it away straight away) so of course it has a whopping great equaliser graphic plastered across its chest. The T-Equaliser does not have just any old graphic however, its luminescent equaliser bars will actually react in time to whatever music is blaring at the time.

No matter what clubbing scene you are into, whether it be Trance, House, Indie or whatever, you are guaranteed to be the centre of attention. This is definitely not one for the self-conscious! However, if you are the life of every single party you will blow all your fellow clubbers away with your illuminating chest. So if you are still raving it up from those Acid House days, it is time to swap your happy, yellow-faced Tee for one more suitable with the new age.

It works in pretty much the same way as the Wi-Fi T-shirt using a sneaky little battery pack with a sensor stashed in the hem of the T-shirt and is available in sizes, small, medium and large priced at £29.90.