Is Vodafone's TV on your mobile service imminent? And will it carry Sky's TV channels? Well given the number of handsets in its new 3G range which it is billing as TV compatible it seems very likely we'll see a service sooner rather than later. In the summer Voda promised to launch TV in the UK before Christmas. It has also been trailing a service in Germany which offers CNN, Eurosport, Fashion TV and a weather channel. The German service also has a series of looped channels including a special mobile version of a popular German soap which is transmitted on mobile before it is broadcast on terrestrial TV. It is just speculation now, but given Sky's announcement the other day, and the fact that the pair work closely together on content for Voda's 3G mobile serves, maybe Sky Sports live via Voda is just weeks away.

Vodafone has announced a host of exclusive 3G handsets for Christmas.  We already know about the superb three mega pixel camera phone the Sharp 903 but here are the others. The Samsung ZV30 is a compact 3G-er which weighs in at just 110 grams. It has a display with 262,144 TFT colours and a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels, includes a 1.3 mega pixel camera, Bluetooth and a large 40 MB internal memory which can be extended to up to 256 MB with Trans-Flash cards.

Then there's the Motorola E77V which has access to mobile TV, video telephony, an MP3 player and Vodafone Music Downloads. It also features a digital camera and a Bluetooth interface for use with a wireless headset.

In case you were wondering why Vodafone had decided to pass on the Apple Motorola iTunes ROKR music phone, here it is. Due to go on sale in the UK shortly is Voda's own music phone, the Toshiba 803. Nicknamed by the company the UMTS (3G) jukebox it is a clamshell handset with MP3 playback and integrated music playing control buttons. In typical style though it is very short on memory. It comes with 20MB built in which can be supplemented by a mini-SD card. Though if previous form is anything to go by it is likely to be 64MB. Suddenly those 512MB cards bundled with the Moto and Sony Ericsson phones look pretty generous. Also on board is 2.3 mega pixel camera with 20 x digital zoom (which is previous Tosh cameras on phones are anything to go by should be cracking), a display with 262,144 colours and Bluetooth.

Alas the Tosh 903, which includes most of the above and integrated GPS is only going to be on sale in Japan.

It is not often I get so completely overcome with techno lust that, horror of horrors, I start thinking about shelling out for gadgets. But when I saw the R2D2 phone it was love at first sight and I knew that we had to be buddies. Not only is the phone a dead ringer for my all-time fave Star Wars character (yep you can keep yr Jedi Knights) it also spins its head and flashes its lights when there a call. How cool is that?

The handset, which is located in R2D2's leg, features a volume control and last number redial. Yours very soon from Boys Stuff for £49.95

Sky TV looks set to become the first broadcaster outside of the far east to offer its TV channels to mobile viewers. In a speech given at the Royal Television Society conference today in Cambridge COO Richard Freudenstein confirmed that its news, sports and movie channels would be available to 3G mobile phone owners 24 hours a day. The service, which is slated to start in months, will be paid for via monthly subscription.

There's very little flesh to put on this particular bone at the moment other than to say that we suspect that Sky has done deals with networks, and that the service will be available initially to Orange subscribers via its already up and running mobile TV service (pictured above), with Vodafone and possibly 3 to follow soon after. Its seems that Sky will stream the channels using the web rather than opt for one of the new digital TV services that are being developed such as DVB-H. It seems highly likely though that the services will migrate to DVB-H and possibly even DMB (which Samsung was championing the other week at the IFA exhibition).

Fancy sixty hours of music playback from your MP3 device? Well Toshiba reckons those days might not be too far away for it has developed two prototype direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) units which have been tested with personal audio players. The results are amazing with the 100mW unit which is apparently similar in shape and size to a pack of gum, powering a flash-based player for approximately 35 hours on a single 3.5ml charge of highly concentrated methanol. Meanwhile the 300mW unit, which is slightly larger at W60mm x L75mm x D10mm delivers enough power to keep an HDD-based audio player running for approximately 60 hours on a single 10ml charge. Tosh now hopes to take DMFC units into production with first landing on personal music players in 2007.

In a speech in Cambridge yesterday the government's Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell (nice smile) confirmed that the great switch off of analogue TV transmissions would begin in 2008 and finish just prior to the Olympics in 2012.

Already however there's a huge controversy raging with some Britons facing the prospect of not being able to see any TV at all. On Radio Five Live! Last night The Guardian's Media Editor Matt Wells cited a Which report which concluded that over a million homes wouldn't be able to tune into digital terrestrial transmissions.

Their only alternative is to opt for satellite delivered services and due to geographical reasons - such as buildings and hills obstructing the angle of elevation  - and planning permission issues (i.e. listed buildings) there are still thousands of Britons who won't be able to see satellite services. The government is already exploring the potential of IPTV - TV over the web - but would need to be able to offer broadband services to these homes many of which are in rural locations. The upshot is that as many as several thousand Britons won't be able to see any TV service at all.

Many  Britons will also see their portable and personal TVs go blank and will have to ditch their models and upgrade to the new breed of digital TV devices which are being pioneered by the likes of Samsung and Nokia. There are full details on the timetable for the switch off here.

Well it has finally happened and I don't think anyone will feel disappointed; Nintendo has now unveiled exact details of its highly anticipated control pad for its next-gen console, the Revolution, and also rather stolen the show at the Tokyo Games Show 2005 (TGS). Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, had the honour of revealing the particulars of this highly innovative take on a console control pad, which promises to be little short of, well, revolutionary. What we're seeing is a TV remote style system, designed for one handed operation and covered with ports for peripheral additions. The main feature is the 'Direct Pointing Device' sensor which measures factors such as distance from screen, the angle which it is pointed in and where exactly on screen it is aimed.

Is this the smartphone you have all been waiting for? HTC's Universal finally arrives in the UK this month in at least two different guises. T-Mobile claims to have got the device first offering it as the MDA Pro. Not to be outdone O2 is also offering the phone this time calling it the XDA Exec. Vodafone and Orange will have their own version shsortly. So why all the excitement? Well the Universal is certainly a special phone and it likely to be a huge hit with both corporates and high-end prosumers. Its big story is that it is the first top-end Windows Mobile powered handset to offer 3G connection, so users can download large files to it or surf the web at broadband-like (or maybe that's broadband-lite) speeds. It also has Wi-Fi for when a person is in range of a hot spot and GPRS as a fall back.

'Yeah, but no, but yeah, but... You see, me and the other Little Britain dolls are all going on sale this week. Yeah but don't believe it. Cos Britney told me it and she's a slapper and she hasn't got her own doll. Loser! and yeah but we go on sale via Boys Stuff. And if you tickle our tumbs, you slag, then it is like we say really interesting things, but yeah. Like we are having a laugh. And if you like you can do what Melanie did cos she swapped her baby Darius for a Lou and Andy doll and they threw in a Westlife CD. Which is a terrible. Cos Westlife are rubbish and besides everyone knows you can only get pregnant by sitting on the toilet seat in the boys... Anyway Shaddup cos I never done nuthin' nor nuthin' and anyone says I did is well gonna get beatens.'

Bored of hearing about the iTunes phone yet? Well even if you are sick of the hype surrounding the Motorola ROKR E1 it seems that the great British phone industry can't get enough of it. Motorola had its big launch shindig for the phone today enlisting the aid of Mylo - who, if I was down with the kids rather than listening to nothing but Brian Jonestown Massacre CDs, I'd know is one of the UK's leading new dance acts.

Meanwhile Virgin Mobile has been giving details about its ROKR launch claiming that it'll be ready for the punters on September 26th, presumably a week after it goes on sale via O2 which has a week long exclusive on the handset. Virgin Mobile is charging £189 for the phone which seems roughly what the other networks are suggesting it will go for on pre-pay tariffs. Orange, the surprise network to take the phone, hasn't said a great deal about the handset but you can presume it will be available via that network sometime in October.

Tomorrow's papers are likely to full of stuff about digital TV as government Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is delivering  a big speech tonight outlining how unless we go digital with a few years (the switch off starts in 2008) all we'll see are blank screens. Tessa is quite possibly very excited then about the arrival of the first plug and play Scart Freeview digital terrestrial decoder that apparently is no larger than a pack of cards. Simply connect the Bush Idaptor to your telly's Scart socket, stick the infra red sensor on top of your set (for controlling the unit) and you are away. It not only delivers those 30 or so Freveiew channels, it also boasts a seven day on screen electronic programming guide. Expect it to retail for around £50.

Perky little sibling blog Bayraider has an ace story on a DIY football (that's soccer not any other type) playing robot. Apparently you whip out the soldering iron and flick a few screws into place and you can conjure up a bot that'll give you Wayne Rooney type skills without the attitude or the credit card frenzied girlfriend. Here's hoping Sven has got his bid ready.

Following the likes of Samsung and Sanyo, that other great manufacturer that begins with the letter S - Sony - is also bolstering its range of camcorders that record on to flash memory. Due in the stores in November, the Sony Cyber-shot M2 combines MPEG-4 recording movie mode at 30 frames per second with a  5.1 Megapixel resolution capture and a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar folded-path 3x Optical Zoom lens. Apparently the camera can store up to 50 minutes of footage on its accompanying Memory Stick Duo card. Footage can be reviewed on its 2.5in Hybrid LCD screen, The camera also features a stereo microphone and the ability to playback movies in 5 second clips.

Great news for footy lovers. It appears that as from next season you'll be able to watch live Champions League games online for nowt. Following a renewal of Uefa's existing agreements with ITV and Sky both have agreed to show live games on the web as well as on their respective TV conventional services. Sky, which screens six games on Tuesday and all eight on Wednesday will insist subscribers pay for its existing broadband TV service to tune in, ITV however, is likely to offer its pair of Tuesday games for free. The only query we have is will the web coverage be limited by geographic area, or will American football lovers be able to tune in.

A few months ago I remember getting rather worked up over some seriously sexy new speakers from Saitek. Well they have finally arrived. Pick of the range is the £100 A-250, a speaker Saitek worked on with great old British hi-fi company Mission, which is designed so that you can plug your MP3 player into it and listen to it wherever you fancy. It can also be connected wirelessly to a PC or Mac with the music streamed across the network to the speakers. Then there's its baby brother, the £80 A-200, which is aimed more at travellers who want speakers to accompany them on their journeys. Its key feature is something called EAVS (Expanded Air Volume System) chamber which when it expands apparently increases the air volume inside the speaker to boost bass and whacks up the sound. Saitek has also unveiled a pair of wireless, headphones in the £20 A-300.

Several years after it launched in the US and Japan High Definition Television, or HDTV, is finally set to arrive in Europe. It will deliver striking images in either the 720p or 1080i formats which broadcasters claim are up to four times more detailed than those we see on our current digital sets. Trouble is while the HD ready sets are already in the stores, there's precious little HD footage to view on them. New Shiny blog HDTVUK has the full run down on who's bringing HD servcies to the UK and when. You can read it here.

Ok, so it is not very techy, but this is for a very good cause. Oxfam's Suffolk division have persuaded a bunch of celebs to sign items for a charity auction, to be held on 1st October in Woodbridge, Suffolk.  Johnny Woss has donated one of his suits, Sk8Avril er-girl Avril Lasagne's offered a signed tie and photo, Cherie Blair's given a dress and scarf, and best of all, Queen guitarist Brian May has donated a  poodle wig pair of leather trousers. Brit celebs include Noel Edmonds, Gary Lineker, Bill Oddie and Julian Clary, among others. All the dosh goes to the Make Poverty History campaign. You can't bid online, but check this eBay auction for the phone number and instructions.

Being a lazy tyke, any innovation that helps cut down the number of keystrokes I have to make while writing Tech Digest, gets my vote. So I am a tad excited about new software application called AdapTex from Scottish company KeyPoint Technologies which apparently cuts down keystrokes by a whopping 80%. Essentially it is smarter version of the predictive text systems that's found on pretty much all mobiles. The big difference is that AdapTex system doesn't use guesswork like predictive text, rather it takes into account the context and the relevance of the text.

'It is about recognition of the patterns you use and is therefore unique to the user. It can remodel itself from any document to reflect the author's natural vocabulary, language traits and topics,' says KeyPoint Tech's MD Sanjay Patel. It is also smart enough to learn and reshape itself dynamically. The company claims to be on the verge of signing with one of the big PC manufacturers and is also in talks with mobile phone companies. Here's hoping it gets those deals.

Here's a real rarity - a personal video player that's landed in the UK that has seemingly come from nowhere. Available from online retailer Widget the Dream'eo PVP E320 is a 20 Gigabyte personal video player that does all the usual stuff - MPEG-1, MPEG-4 SP, ASF, WMV, AVI video playback on its 3.5inch 320x420 resolution LCD screen. It also has compatibility with both MP3 and WMA formats and comes with its own remote control. The downside; well there's no stereo speakers, just a mono one; playback battery life is a fairly rubbish three hours and there's no direct encoding of video from your TV. Much of these foibles are because it has a Windows OS, though it doesn't say if you get the benefits of this like access to downloaded copyright protected WMA files. Curious. Anyhow it is yours for a pretty competitive £200.