So I had a few minutes to spare yesterday, well around a couple of hours as the other half was in getting her hair cut, so I decided to spend it wisely - that’s right gadget hunting. I headed into a few gadget shops, doing the usual clawing over technology such as laptops, desktops, networking bits and bobs as well as a host of LCD and Plasma TVs. As I say, the usual gadgets treats for me. Oh before I go any further I had my first play with the Asus EEE PC, the ultra mobile laptop that costs considerably less than the usual ultra mobile devices. It’s a pretty cool little laptop which provides the perfect companion for a person on the road who needs to stay in touch !

Anyway I digress so let’s move on. Just then I rounded the corner and entered a place I sometimes feel quite uncomfortable in. Yes it looks beautiful, pristine almost, but I know the technology in this area goes against some of my in depth pre conceptions about how technology should be. Yes I know they make some of the most beautiful technology out there, and they have a vast and very loyal following. It’s just I’ve always been someone who didn’t quite get it, always saw the flaws in the technology, the stuff that was missing, instead as it were to turn out I should have been accepting those flaws, as I do with my current gadgets, and instead being focused on the technology in front of my face. You see I was in the Apple area in this store and was staring down a white aisle full of some of the sexiest kit on the planet. There were laptops, iPods and all types of accessories, all looking like they had been built by the gods. At the end of the row was the daddy of them all, the 24″ iMac. So I sat down behind it and stared to play.

Now I’ve played with these beasts before, but all of a sudden another thought popped into my head. I have already said on this blog that I’m in the process of looking for a replacement for my current desktop PC. I have been through the idea of another powerful gaming rig, or perhaps a laptop, but all of a sudden I thought to myself, perhaps my next home system should be a Mac !

For the next hour I was won over, the ease of the technology, which to be fair I already knew, but this combined with my own actual requirements and it all started to make sense. The iMac would be the perfect companion for me, who spends a lot of time in the media based world these days (music, video and photography) I find myself playing less and less games on the desktop PC, and to be honest those which I do play, mainly World of Warcraft, are actually available for a Mac.

So that’s it. I think in that short space of time I had been won over and once I get back from my travels I’ll be a Mac owner, and possibly convert. Ssssh, just don’t say it too loud in case my desktop PC gets the hump and decides to die on me !

There is only one drawback when it comes to Wi-Fi. When your out and about with your lappy and in frantic need of a Wi-Fi hotspot, dragging it out every fifty yards and checking it for a Wi-Fi signal can be a bit of a nuisance. Well now you no longer have to walk around laptop in hand checking or visiting the same old boring coffee shop with designated Wi-Fi, you can have your very own T-shirt that does all the searching for you.

The Wi-Fi Detecting T-shirt does exactly what it says on the tin or in this case, the cotton. The Wi-Fi T-shirt will detect and let you know when you are in a Wi-Fi zone with a graphical display. The glowing bars will indicate how hot a Wi-Fi zone you are in with the maximum five bars of course being that super hotspot that you crave. So if you were too lazy to whip out your notebook and check for a signal before and kept visiting that £4 a cup coffee house, now you only need to have enough energy to look down, you have enough for that don’t you?

How does this geeky garment work then? The Wi-Fi T-shirt works with a sleek little battery pack that is stashed in the hem. All you have to do is simply switch it on start scanning, easy! Available in four sizes (small, medium, large and extra large) no matter what form of geek you are there is one to fit you. Yours for £19.95.

This morning the rumours were rife that the much anticipated GTA IV’s multiplayer support and downloadable content will only be available on the Xbox 360. All of this was fueled by Microsoft’s entertainment boss, Don Mattrick saying that GTA IV’ downloadable content and multiplayer support was “unique” to Xbox. From this the presumption was made that the only way to see multiplayer on GTA IV was on the Xbox 360 and naturally this sent PS3-heads into panic mode, 360 lovers into raptures and bloggers everywhere into over elaborate posting sessions.

Before jumping the gun and blabbering on about how Microsoft now have a huge upper hand over Sony on one of the most wanted games ever made, i thought waiting on a little more info would be a good idea and what do you know, no more than a couple of hours later, Rockstar have come out and quashed all rumours of a 360-only multiplayer service. Rockstar have confirmed that both versions of Grand Theft Auto IV will have an online multiplayer component, it’s official.

So what was Mattrick talking about then? Did he just simply choose the wrong type of words? Maybe he was just talking about the Xbox multiplayer service in general and took a cheap opportunity to big it up. Or maybe Microsoft has an Ace up its sleeve and has some type of new online feature it’s keeping mum about. Who knows, maybe we will find out more come April 29th. Grand Theft Auto IV will hit the shelves on April 29th and is available for pre-order now.

Yahoo has rejected the recent takeover bid from Bill Gates’ Microsoft stating that the offer was too low. Microsoft recently offered Yahoo over $40bn (£20.5bn) to takeover the company and all its assets but Yahoo say that Microsoft’s evaluation of the company is undervalued and the deal is not in the best interests of the shareholders.

The offer which Microsoft made was worth $31 a share while Yahoo shares were worth $19.18 at the time of the original offer but sources have said that Yahoo are not willing to consider a takeover bid until a deal worth at least $40 a share is put on the table. Microsoft are expected to make an improved offer for the yellow, smiley faced company but by no means does this mean a deal worth $40 a share will be agreed. If a deal worth $40 a share is put forward, Microsoft will have to cough up an extra $12bn on top of the offer previously made.

Yahoo are also said to be re-opening talks with AOL over a possible merger deal, that might just push Microsoft into magically finding that extra $12bn in those deep pockets of its. For a greater view on Microsofts takeover ambitions why not check out our own Nigel Cookes thoughts on the Microsoft/Yahoo deal.

It’s been a pretty exciting week in the world of mobile devices. There has been news from Nokia, Sony, Apple and of course more updates on the Google Android platform.

Is it really 4 months since the first announcement for Android, the free open source software being developed by a coalition of around 30 mobile handset manufacturers. Well 4 months on and those lucky enough to attend the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona got their first hands on with devices running the software.  This is quite a milestone in the life of Android, and it hopefully means we are still on target to see the first commercially available handsets running the operating system within 2008.

The thing that really excites me about Android is that its open source platform should mean that the consumer will get a wide range of fantastic applications some of which I’m sure we will soon wonder how we ever did without. Of course this has always been the issue (sorry one of the issues) with the Apple iPhone, but again Steve Jobs has realised this and they plan to announce the SDK kit for the iPhone later this month (hopefully along with 3G - oh come on I can dream can’t I ?)

I know with my Nokia n95 this open source platform has meant a host of killer applications which I use on a daily basis, for both work and play, so I’m hoping this list will continue to grow with the introduction of Android. I also hope that these applications aren’t scaled down mobile versions of existing applications running on desktop computers today. I want to see fully functional applications running on our mobile devices, supported by fast connectivity, such as Edge or 3G. I believe this is the only way we will truly realise the dream of a personal computer in our pockets.  Speaking of Nokia, we also got the first glimpse of the replacement for the n95, the aptly named n96, which of course we have already covered in a previous post.

Sony Ericsson also made an announcement of their own with details emerging on the XPERIA X1 device. This device, which has an interface not unlike the Apple iPhone will have 3G (up to 3.6Mbps), support for video streaming, 3.2MP camera, a fully functional media player as well as support for office application such as Microsoft Exchange.

Looking at all the announcements over the past 10 days one thing is clear. Consumers are going to have a lot of choice in the coming months with mobile devices without having to sacrifice features, something I’m sure has been missing up to now. I for one am looking forward to this next generation mobile device era.

The Nokia N95 is still a beast of a mobile phone and is loved by many but the mobile giants from Finland have shown that there is no room for sentiment in this mobile phone game and have replaced the monster N95 with an all new monster, the Nokia N96.

Nokia haven’t changed the structure from which the N95 was built on. The N96 will still have the same dual slider function as the N95 but with its black gloss finish and rounded edges, the N96 looks far more polished than its predecessor. Also, new back-lit buttons have been added to add a bit more flash and colour to your button pushing experiences.

The N96 will be packing an iPhone matching 16GB in internal memory plus an added MicroSD card slot which can hold cards up to 8GB if you really feel that you have to add to the 16GB you already have, mind you, there is no such thing as too much media. But, with a possible 24GB available to you, you could run out of stuff to put on it! You may have to resort to filling it with lots of silly snaps and with two added LED’s to the 5MP camera you might just find more opportunities to capture those moments of madness.

The N96 will also be hosting a DVB-H tuner - the all important tool for mobile telly. Sadly we can’t use that yet here in the UK but hopefully it is not far away! Something we will be able to use however is the new Nokia 2.0 maps program which means we will never get lost again, although this will limit your excuses for being late.

Just like the N95, the N96 will have WiFi, AGPS and A2DP Bluetooth. It is expected to be available in the 3rd quarter of the year and will cost 550 Euros.

So as I continue my efforts in improving my home cinema I start to realise one of the major issues I’m going to have - lack of HDMI ports. Back in the day (and I’m only talking 18 months ago) I purchased a Sanyo Z4 720p projector. Two areas that concerned me at the time were the presence of only one HDMI port on this projector and the fact that the maximum resolution was 1080i. At the time however High Def, and in particular HDMI sources, were thin on the ground so I didn’t really deem it a major issue.

Fast forward to the present day and I’m starting to understand the drawbacks. I must admit, not really with the fact that the maximum resolution is only 1080i given that this, at present, is the resolution broadcast mostly by Sky HD, combined with the fact that I have my XBox 360 connected over component, again limiting High Def output to 1080i. In fact, the only source in my cinema room capable of 1080p is the Playstation3. The Playstation3 however, combined with the Sky HD box means that I now have 2 HDMI sources and only one HDMI port on the back of my projector.

Up until now I’ve been manually switching the HDMI cable between these two devices and although this is pretty simple to do it leaves me with a feeling of an unfinished cinema room.  Of course there have always been solutions available to allow multiple HDMI ports into one, however up until recently they have either been of poor quality, or very expensive. Well that is beginning to change and now I’m in the market for an HDMI switch.

These boxes allow you to plug multiple HDMI sources in, with one HDMI uplink to your screen or projector of choice. You can then either have ones which require you to manually switch them to the correct source, or automatically switch based upon which source is active.  There are some which also all for audio optical inputs, which again is something that a lot of home cinema enthusiasts welcome.

Of course my choice now is do I go for a box which offers 3 way switching, something that will more than cover me now, or future proof myself by going down the 5 way switching route.

It’s a good job I like these kind of decisions.

As I’ve said in previous posts I’m seriously considering moving from a desktop PC at home over to the laptop world. My thoughts on full size laptops will have to keep, today I want to talk about ultra small laptops, or to give them their official name, UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC).

When many think of a UMPC their minds go back to the viral marketing campaign run by some vendors supporting Project Origami, which had us all guessing  as to what this could possibly be.  This project, a joint effort between the likes of Microsoft, Intel and Samsung, was to come up with s semi-standard specification for small form factor, tablet PCs. One of the main boxes you had to tick to call yourself a UMPC was a 7″ or smaller touch sensitive screen with a minimum resolution of 800×400.

One of the issues I had with these early designs was the high price, given that the specifications, in terms of computing power, were pretty low - especially in comparison with some of the workhorse style laptops you can get today. Of course this didn’t bother many, as the form factor was the main selling point. Today, however, I’m pleased to see the UMPC world has come a long way, and we now have much better specifications, without too much of a price increase.

A new breed of UMPC has also sprung up in recent months - the low cost UMPC, from the likes of  Asus . A friend of mine recently picked one of these up, specifically for his trip to New Zealand, and he has not stopped gushing about it ever since. The ultra portability, along with respectable specifications, easy to use operating system and very low cost, make this a very loveable laptop. I don’t even think it has to be reserved for the jet-setter, as I can see this type of machine being the perfect system to sit on a coffee table as a pure internet device, or perhaps one for the parents to keep in touch.

The current model comes with  a 900Mhz chip, 512MB of RAM and a 4GB solid state drive. Some will say the resolution of 800×480 will make browsing some web sites pretty painful, but then again remember this system has a specific purpose and doesn’t ever profess to be a replacement for that 24″ 1600×1200 LCD sitting in your office.

I can’t wait to see what the 2nd generation of this model has to show, especially as it is reported to come with the addition of WiMAX !

Look out Star Wars fans, it’s the moment you have all been waiting for, yes i am proud to announce to you… Star Wars Mimobots, the USB memory sticks! OK they may not be the most flamboyant or most valuable of Star Wars memorabilia but these little memory sticks are cool and we all know that as soon as us Star Wars enthusiasts spot anything to do with the greatest movies ever made, we just have to have it! Resembling both the greatest heroes and villains from the Star Wars saga, these little babies are a must for any Star Wars fanatic.

Rarely can you describe a memory stick as a collectable, in fact it must be a first but that’s exactly what these are. There are four for you to choose from and collect in the form of R2-D2, Chewie, Darth Vader and the Imperial Stormtrooper. Chewie, R2-D2 and the Stormtrooper are available in 1GB capacity although R2-D2 is also available in a 2GB stick along with Darth Vader and he is also available in a larger 4GB capacity. This range of memory will give you enough space to store anything from Death Star plans and your excessive Princess Leia photo collection to mass music and spreadsheet files.

Although just looking at your 2″ tall Chewbacca stick is enough fun in itself, the fun doesn’t stop there. Each Mimobot comes preloaded with some great Star Wars content including Wallpapers, Videos, Avatars and Soundbites, sweet!

Star Wars fans, bring a galaxy far, far away right into your very own pocket, add to your geek profile with these cool Mimobots and store and transfer your files in true Jedi fashion, my order is already in!

The rumours were flying around everywhere this morning that a new iPhone was going to be unleashed upon us today, fueled by Apple shutting down their online store and bloggers “confirming” that the new iPhone would be in stores by as early as lunchtime. Well, as it turns out, those rumours were very close to home and they err… confirmations by bloggers all over the Blogosphere were spot on! The 16GB iPhone is here along with a very surprising 32GB iPod Touch, something that none of the pundits predicted.

The beefed up iPhone was called by pretty much everyone in the Blogosphere this morning but the new iPod Touch has really caught everyone off guard. The new 16GB iPhone will cost £329 - a £60 rise on the £269 8GB iPhone and there is still no sign of the 3G that we crave. The new 32GB iPod Touch will also leave your pockets £329 lighter and is also a £60 rise on the price of the previous top-end model. Both new products are available immediately online to both US and International customers and are expected to hit stores as well in the next couple of days.