This one is especially for all you chocaholics out there. The Chococlock is a clock, but with a difference. Every hour this lovely gadget will deliver a scrumpteous chocolate treat. It’s definately a gadget for the serious chocoholic. The Chococlock will even tell the time, but there’s a sting in it’s tail… you only have 30 seconds to get your hands on your chocolate treat. Obviously if you can’t wait an hour to get some chocolate the Chococlock has a “cheat” button, which will allow you to get a treat whenever you wish.

The Chococlock holds 30 pieces of delicious chocolate treats. Which is more than enough isn’t it? Coming in at under £20 it’s not only a chocolate treat, but a treat on the pocket too. The chocoholic in your life will love you forever for getting them this gadget.

I love chocolate and having to wait an hour for a treat helps me with my diet. But for some reason my finger keeps slipping on to the “cheat” button and a piece of chocolate magically appears, which is obviously a shame to waste. The only complaint I have about the Chococlock is that it’s pink. Pink doesn’t really appeal to me, but I’m sure you girlies will love it.

So what are you wating for… get the Chococlock today.

Wow! That’s what I said when I came across this lovely piece of gadgetry. And if you have shelves and shelves of video tapes, you should be going wow too!

Video cassettes have been around for a long time, almost 30 years in fact, so the USB VHS Converter has been a long time coming. The USB VHS Converter will let you convert those dusty, bulky, noisy cassettes into digital format. And according to the manufacturers, it’s idiot proof - which is good news for me
You just put the tape in the machine and let it do the rest. Not only will it convert your tapes into digital format, you can use it as a regular VHS player too. Just connect it up to your television using a scart lead.

I can see this being a huge hit with all those people who desperately want to get their precious memories converted to digital.
At present you have to send your tapes away, or invest in expensive equipment to do it yourself, but with this it’s a doddle, and at a price that isn’t going to break the bank. I’ve known some people to go to the trouble of buying a DVD Recorder and connecting all the cables between their VHS Recorder and DVD Recorder, only to find out that they’ve missed a vital step after going through hours of tape.

The solution is now a simple one. Get the USB VHS Converter. The only problem you’ll have after converting all your tapes to digital format is what to do with all the shelf space you’ve freed up.

The Beijing Olympics got off to a flying start yesterday with an absolutely fantastic opening ceremony. The Chinese have set a very high standard for any future games. I wish all the best to the Great Britain team.

Fancy having some Olympic fun of your own? You need to get your hand on Sega Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.
Developed exclusively for the Nintendo Wii and DS systems, it includes all of your favourite characters from Nintendo and Sega.
Mario, Sonic, Luigi, Knuckles, Yoshi and Tails all make an appearance plus many many more.

This game will keep you entertained for hours on end, whether it’s running the 100 meters, swimming or taking part in the high jump. Compete against 3 of your friends, on both systems, and the games really do begin.

Will you get the coveted gold medal?
There’s only one way to find out. Sega Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is a game for all the family and is highly recommended, receiving 3.5/5 from the reviewers on pricegrabber.

Hopefully Sonic and Mario can team up for many more games in the future and I’m sure they will. The success of this game has been amazing and for under £30 you can’t really go wrong.
It’s a must have game for the Nintendo Wii and with the Olympics on the television you too can pretend to take part.

Sega Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games has flawless graphics and the gameplay is amazing. Highly recommended

The weather we’re having at the moment is terrible. We should be out enjoying the sun, but its hardly to be seen.
My guess is that it will be hot in September when all the children are back at school.
So how do you keep the kids entertained when it’s too wet for them to go outside?

There are some great indoor games that they can play. I’m not talking about sitting infront of an XBOX360 or PS3 here. I mean the games that involve more than moving just your thumbs. A favourite in my household was Twister - we could play that for hours on end. Then there’s Lego. If you don’t know what Lego is let me explain. Lego are building blocks that you can piece together to create a huge number of things from houses to cars, boats to planes and even animals or spaceships. And, provided you have the right kind of block or accessory you can let your imagination run riot. I’ve spent many a rainy day playing with Lego.

Or what about a play tent? Set it up indoors, make a picnic and let your kids pretend they are camping in the safety of the house? They can even sleep in it, while you relax in the knowledge that they are safe. And when the rain eventually stops, you can take it outside and continue with the adventure.

So just because it’s raining outside doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun. There are a whole lot of things you can do, as I’ve pointed out, that don’t involve a television and control pad. So next time it rains reach for a board game, the hours will fly past.

Most of the drinking games that you see out there mostly consist of a couple of shot glasses, a piece of carboard perhaps with a little Twister-like spindle attached and a few cards with silly questions. Rarely do wee ever see a drinking game to buy in shops that comes with it’s very own table or court i suppose would be a more fun way to describe it. Let me introduce you to the drinkers take on the classic Ping Pong game…Beer Pong!

Ping Pong is already pretty daft as it is so when you add beer to the equation you can just imagine the possibilities. Although there is no official Beer Pong rulebook that i know of, the gist of the game seems to be that you are to set up your beer cups on your side of the table and try and bounce a ping pong ball into one of your opponents cups. Should you land your ball in your opponents sweet amber nectar then they are forced to guzzle down the cup contents. Whoever tanks all their cups first is the loser! Sounds better than boring old regular Ping Pong to me. College students all over will want to start up their own Beer Pong leagues. I just hope they let me play!

Have you ever wanted to feel like your watching TV in your very own living room while out in public? Or perhaps you want to feel like you are a part of all that virtual reality stuff that you thought you could only ever dream of. Well with a pair of Vuzix iWear shades you can feel both and still have a little bit of your mind left to be blown away. The Vuzix iWear with all the optical illusions that they are capable of will replicate the effect of watching a monster screen from a safe viewing distance, ranging from a 44″ screen viewed from 9ft to a 62″ screen viewed from 9ft. They come with built-in but removable headphones and are 3D enabled for automatic 2D/3D control.

With four different models for you to choose from it doesn’t matter if you are into video games, DVD’s or movies on your iPod there is one that will float your boat.

The IP230 model is the most basic of the four devices which works solely with iPods and it is the cheapest, priced at £99.95. It has been designed with 5th generation iPods in mind. The IP230 will connect to and draw power from your player’s bottom dock connector which means there is no need for any extra attachments, cables or any other unnecessary junk. Once you have slipped on your cool futuristic specs you will be wowed with a virtual display the equivalent to a 44″ screen viewed from 9ft.

The next model up is the AV230 version and it will work with DVD players, gaming systems and 5th generation iPods. It will also display the equivalent of a 44″ screen viewed from 9ft but it will also come with a rechargeable battery built into the cable which will provide up to 5 hours extra view time.

The AV920 model is basically the same as the AV230 only it will replicate a massive 62″ screen viewed from 9ft instead of a 44″. These will work with pretty much any video device.

The VR920 model is the most high tech of the four and is the most high priced at £249.95. It is built for the online gaming gang and will bring those pixellated online worlds into a whole new light. As well as boasting a virtual 62″ screen, the incredible specs will allow you to enter online worlds and communicate with your online chums as if you were really right in there with them. An integrated 3 Degree of Freedom (DOF) head-movement tracker and built-in microphone deliver the ultimate interactive online experience.

So in my last post I spoke about how I make the most of any downtime I encounter when travelling either on business or vacation. In this post I’d like to speak about what I think is needed to make the frequent travellers experience more enjoyable.

Firstly at the airport. Wouldn’t it be great if they had a gaming centre available. Now I’m not talking about an arcade setup, rather somewhere to go, pay some money and have access to console and PC gaming. I couldn’t think of anything more enjoyable that whiling away a few hours with the likes of CoD4, GT5 and WoW. Perhaps one reason why something like this hasn’t taken off, even in the larger airports, is they are afraid of how many people like me would end up missing their flights, as they just wanted to ding that last level in WoW. On the plane. Well this is an easy one. Wireless please. Now this I guess for some is a double edged sword, given that if I am connected, and travelling on business, wouldn’t I be expected to do a spot of work on the plane. Well to be honest I actually wouldn’t mind that, as it would mean once I got to my destination I wouldn’t need to check in on a host of emails, especially if I’ve been doing a long haul flight. With wireless on board I can also blog, surf, use Skype and perhaps even ding that last level in WoW I wasn’t able to make at the airport. Having now travelled on Qantas I can without doubt say their in-flight entertainment is 100% better than that offered by British Airways, simply because they offer Video On Demand. I found myself on the BA flight home from Singapore struggling to work out when movies were starting, whereas on the Qantas flights the choice was at the touch of a button. (all airlines should take a look at how Virgin America is changing the game with their in-flight entertainment choices) Both airlines, neigh all airlines, also need to think about updating their gaming choice. Come on would it really be that hard to stick some XB360 arcade titles down and make these available? How about offering rental of both PSP and DS hardware and games, I know some of the Asian airlines already do this. I think airlines need to look at their customer base and they would probably realise that a lot of people travelling on these would jump at the chance to rent such accessories, even if it came at a small cost. At the hotel. Again I’d love to see the ability to rent the likes of a PS3 or XB360. Perhaps they could setup their own little private network in the hotel for a spot of online gaming.

Oh and one last thing I’d love to see, this time while I’m away from home base, would be for the mobile phone network providers to abolish, or at the very least reduce, roaming rates. It’s astonishing how easy it is to run up a massive phone bill when on International duty with even just a few hours of web browsing. I expect some additional cost, but at present, even when roaming in Europe, these costs can work out to be very expensive.

So there you have it, my own thoughts on what is needed in the coming years to my make life, and that other my fellow frequent travellers a little bit more bearable.

So it looks like I won’t be able to make it as I’ll just be stepping off the plane from my travels, but if you are around the London area this coming weekend you may want to check out Play.Com Live, which is happening 15th, 16th March at Wembley Stadium in London. Looks like this is turning into quite an event with some of the top names in gaming, music and sci-fi being present.

If you are still stuck on the fence in regards to making the jump to Blueray, then you will be pleased to know that there will be a whole section devoted to the technology - time to really show you what Blueray can offer. For the gamers out there there will be the chance to play some, yet to be released games such as Army of Two, GT5 Prologue, and Rainbow Six Vegas (2). Also the chance to play some old favourites making it gamers paradise. If Pro Evo is you game then you may want to take part in the competition running over the two days of the show. Think you are the best? Now is your chance to prove it.

On top of all this, and if you still have the energy, there will be some of the top music acts ripping up the main stage including We Are Scientists and The Rumble Strips. Don’t forget as well the event will also give the Sci-Fi heads among you the chance to browse some of the most wanted memorabilia there is to have. Any Doctor Who or Red Dwarf fans out there? Well Tom Baker and Robert Llewellyn will be making special appearances throughout the weekend.

So even though I’ll be coming down from a serious bout of jetlag I think I’ve actually convinced myself to go to this event, perhaps I’ll see you there.

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.

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.