Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment has claimed that the Sony Playstation 3 is "not a games machine". Before you get confused, it's because the PS3 is going to be presented as an all round media centre. The PS3, apparently, "isn't designed to lean towards games".  He has also confirmed that the PS3 will store and play back video. Sounds a like a case of PR exaggeration to me, but I guess we'll find out in a year or so. More games news on fantastic sister blog Games Digest.

Via Gamespot

If it is all getting a little too crowded under your TV, now could well be the time for a cull. Why not pension off your old VHS VCR and replace with the LG LHCX245? You not only get a cracking VHS video machine, but it also come with an integrated DVD, amplifiers, full on Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and six speakers.

Courtesy of our chums at Richer Sounds we have a LHCX245 to give away. All you need do is tell us what surround sound system the model has?

All the usual terms and conditions apply and the competition will end on June 10th. Email answers to mail@bayraider.tv Check out the prize here

Nokia's press conference at E3 wasn't very clear. So the team from Games Digest sat down with the head honchos of Nokia after to find out what was going on. At the press conference, Nokia had announced that N-Gage gaming power would be transferred across to its range of smartphones in 2006. Then Nokia showed a video of gameplay that clearly couldn't be done on any N-Gage currently. So what was going on? The full story appears to be that Nokia's next wave of smartphones, launching in 2006, will use the N-Gage's library of 3D graphics and networking protocols. But due to their processing power, will be able to outperform the current N-Gage. Whether that means new N-Gage-branded handsets will form the top tier of these devices as a kind-of N-Gage 2, as would seem sensible, is another matter. And one currently unconfirmed by Nokia.

According to sister blog Games Digest the European launch of Sony's PSP handheld console will be accompanied by 29 games. Titles in the 29 for first day release include WipEout Pure, Ape Academy and Ridge Racer. 45 titles will be available by end 2005, including Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Burnout: Revenge and FIFA Football.

The other day we told you how live footage from the Big Brother house will be beamed direct to 3 mobile phones. Well it seems like BB is the tip of multimedia iceberg and that Channel Four has huge plans for getting its footage on to mobiles. A company called Volantis has announced that it has been chosen by Channel 4 New Media to develop and host the first dedicated Channel 4 branded mobile portal. The new video portal called Mobile.channel4.com goes live on 27th May 2005 and doesn't only feature BB, it will also have other Channel Four programmes including Channel Four news. According to C4 the service can be reached by anyone with web access via their mobile, and it will offer video for 3G users, alongside the usual mobile web staples like news stories and downloads.

If you want to get decent earbud earphones for your iPod or any MP3 player for that matter Sennheiser, which has a heritage in cans to rival Heinz, has been there with the MX 500. The trouble for those iPod owners is that the MX500s didn't come in Apple trademark white, so that when other people saw them with the phones plugged in, they might make the awful assumption they were using another music player other than the iPod. So to spare any embarrassing incidents Sennheiser is now offering the X500s in white for £24.99. They are also available in blue, and for some reason they are £5 cheaper. Maybe the white paint has sonic reflectivity powers built in.

If you fancy 'em features include a Inline Volume Control - a tiny volume control is fitted in the headphone lead so that the sound can be varied 'on-the-run', plenty of solid bass and exceptionally efficient 119dB to get loud sound from low powered portable devices.

Philips 23iF9946 is possibly the smartest product in its Streamium range. Its is a 23inch widescreen LCD TV with the streaming facilities - music (MP3, WMA) images (JPEG) and video (DivX) - already built in. So is this the TV you have been waiting for, or are you better off teaming up your set with an external media streamer? The Guardian has a review here.

Seems like everyone round here has suddenly got obsessed with Moblogging, or Mobile Blogging as us Brits prefer to call it. Now it could be set to go mainstream as UK mobile phone network 3 has become the latest company to offer its subscribers a mobile blogging service. 3's My Gallery enables users to upload images and video shot on their camera phones to their own dedicated website. Once the files have been uploaded users can then add a comment or a description of the image.  The files are transferred to the website via Multimedia Messaging (MMS) and not email, which limits the size and quality of the images. Users can also specify whether they want their gallery to be private or public. The picture hosting service is free to all 3 subscribers, though users pay standard MMS rates for each picture they upload.

Bluetooth specialist Plantronics is hoping to capture the high-end headset market with the Voyager 510. Set for a late summer launch the £50 model features noise canceling technology, which Plantronics claims significantly improves its performance, is fairly light at 15g and features a swivel boom mic that can be folded away. The headset, which supports Bluetooth V1.2, also features multipoint connectivity enabling users to switch between Bluetooth endowed mobile phones, PDAs and laptops. Battery life is rated at six hours talk time and 100 hours stand-by. It works with the handsfree or headset profiles of mobile phones from Nokia, Siemens, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Eight mega pixel compacts appear to be everywhere at the moment. The latest entrant is the Mju Digital 800 from Olympus. Set to go on sale in July the eight mega pixel model features a tough weatherproof body which is finished in either silver metal or dark blue. Features include a 3x optical zoom, nine scene programme automatic exposure modes and a Macro shooting option. Images can be framed and reviewed on its 6.4cm LCD monitor and then stored on either the camera's 19MB of internal memory or an x-D storage card. The camera also shoots video in VGA quality with sound.

Well, it may have been inspired by that Funnyjunk page originally recorded by a 17-year old (more junk than funny in this particular case) but believe it or not, the Crazy Frog Axel F remix is currently heading directly to the top of the charts, outselling Coldplay by four to one. What this means for the future of humanity is anyone's guess, but all I know is that I never thought anything would actually make me want to buy a Coldplay single.

The story of Crazy Frog

[Via Shiny Shiny]

The distinguishing feature of Sony's RDR-HX510 is that it's the first DVD/HDD combo recorder to be capable of recording to dual layer DVD-R format discs. Similar to other recorders of its breed, the HX510 is compatible with DVD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD+RW media and CD and CD-R playback. The built in hard disk has a hefty 80GB capacity, allows you to pause live TV, and is written to using high quality 15Mbps recording.

I doubt I'm the only one who is still a little bitter about FM adapters for the iPod, such as the iTrip or AirPlay, being illegal. Fortunately, in spite of draconian laws which label such harmless devices as contraband in the UK, Belkin have revealed The TuneStage, essentially fulfilling the same objective as an FM transmitter but using Bluetooth instead. Now anything you would normally listen to on your iPod in solitude can be shared with people around you by transmitting the output wirelessly into any Hi-Fi using either analogue RCA or 3.5mm jack.

For those not in the know, Podcasting has only recently emerged and is similar in concept to blogging. Podcasts are simply MP3 format audio files that contain pretty much anything from audio reports from a random geek's bedroom to comedies to full blown radio shows, the really great part is that with just a small piece of software you can keep track of the latest Podcasts from your chosen sources in the same way as blog feeds.

Despite the name obviously implying Apple's iPod, these can then be synchronised with any digital music player you want. Now Apple wants to make sure that its devices are at the forefront of this new type of media by implementing changes to iTunes software to download and organise Podcasts into categories.

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal D Conference where he showed off Apple's forthcoming release of iTunes 4.9. Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised Podcast support in the latest version of iTunes which will allow users to download and subscribe to pre-recorded audio content.

You read it here first, now iRobot has made good on its promise to bring out a counter-part to the much-loved Roomba. The Scooba can tackle surfaces that the Roomba could only dream of - hard floors! Perhaps the technical aspects aren't the most glamorous and I'm certainly not going to dwell on the merits of the jointly marketed Clorox cleaning solution; suffice to say it's expensive goop that goes inside the robot.

There we were starting to think that the Motorola iTunes phone was in fact vaporware so it is encouraging to hear that Moto's CEO Ed Zander has been parading it at the D: All Things Digital conference this week. There's still plenty of confusion surrounding the phone. No one knows whether it will be the ROKR phone that has been spotted before at Moto events, or if it will be branded Motorola, Apple or a hybrid of the two.

It will however boast a one mega pixel digital camera (not exactly big bananas as we are already seeing two mega pixel models in the UK) and that it will have integrated speakers (just like all Moto music phones). Must admit the whole iTunes Moto project is becoming a bit of a chore, and as for its USPs of being able to play tracks downloaded from the iTunes music store, as well as syncing with iTunes, well you can keep them. Most rival music handsets are drag and drop and we can live without the three songs we have nabbed from Apple's online store.

Besides the big issues with music phones are likely to be storage and battery life and in both of those areas, Nokia with its four gig hard disk handset and Sony Ericsson with its W800 which plays for twenty plus hours battery will probably have the Motorola iTunes handset licked.

Logitech recently launched the MX518 Gaming-Grade Optical Mouse, a beautiful piece of hardware designed specifically for extreme gamers. Following E3 2005 Logitech has revealed plans to continue this line of product development and release a whole range of premium dedicated gaming products called the G-Series.

Impaq group has recently concluded a MOBILE LIFE 1 survey of what we really want from our fancy new 3G phones: an answer to the niggling questions like how important is bluetooth in a phone? How about cameras? The web? In any case, the survey is available in its full glory below, courtesy of Impaq. Top of the list for current features is, unsurprisingly, voice (good to know the mobile phone generation hasn't been completely seduced by the dark side of techno-gimmicks), followed by SMS.

Gracing the list of tomorrow's features are using your phone to pay parking meters and using your phone as a key, as well as a credit card. Great to know that soon you'll be really screwed if you lose your phone.

An interesting development from Samsung for you today: it looks as if Samsung is developing a potential replacement for hard disks, a replacement based on flash memory. While flash memory is nothing new, its cost has made it prohibitive for hard drives. At current prices, flash memory costs at least £30 for about 150 megabytes. Although Samsung could probably mass produce for cheaper, it's unlikely to be able to compete with conventional hard drives in terms of price. Still, if you want a hard drive which uses next to no power and is blisteringly fast, you may want to get one: they're starting production in August.

The world is chocka with supposedly portable iPod speakers, though tragically very few seem to be truly portable and certainly not petite enough to be squeezed into pockets and bags. We do however have high hopes for the Propeller Speakers that have just gone on sale via BoysStuff. Small and light and sporting a bonkers design which means they can easily fold up into a tube-like package the Propeller Speakers deliver ten hours of music from a standard AA battery. They apparently work with any MP3 player, but are an obvious fit for either the iPod Shuffle or a sony NW-E400 Series player. Of course how that music sounds is another matter, but as they retail for £14.95 we weren't expecting an audiophile performance anyhow.