Games Digest reports that CNN Money's Chris Morris has played the Xbox 360, and like many of the others who have, his verdict is "good, but not great." Summarising, overall opinions on the Xbox 360 are: Hardware is well-designed, powerful and potentially very good for games. Xbox Live and online in general is again Microsoft's real strength. The "Marketplace", where you can download game trailers, exclusive content and potentially in the future, full games, is repeatedly praised as Microsoft's killer app.

Games are the weakest link. A line-up heavy on shooters and racers, which repeats Microsoft's mistakes for the Japanese audience, also fails to deliver anything genuinely new. Graphics are nice, but none of the games have that Halo "must buy" element.

Read his review here
More Xbox 360
Backwards compatibility mystery
Official Xbox 360 unveiling

Oscars Smoschars, Baftas Waftas, yep it is that time of the year when we host the one award ceremony that truly counts - the Telewest Shinys. Due to be held on December 1st in a glittering venue in London's fabulous West End - well that's what the club owner told us to say anyway - the Shinys salute all that's cool in gadgets, design, games and much more.

This year for the first time we are giving you dear reader the chance to vote for an award. As from tomorrow you tell us which you think is the coolest gadget of 2005 and we'll pop your name down on a bit of paper and plonk it in a rather large hat. Come the day of the awards, December 1st, we'll pull a couple of names out of the hat and they will be receiving some rather groovy prizes. Don't vote until we say, but here are the runners and riders

Apple iPod nano
Canon Digital ixus i zoom
Fujifilm FinePix Z1
Motorola RAZR
Navman ICN 550
Nikon D50
Nintendo DS
Philips WACS 700
Roomba
Sky+ 160
Sony Ericsson W800i Walkman
Sony PSP

Now that Skype had done the big deal with eBay expect to see plenty of other big name companies starting to back it. Like Motorola which today announced the first Skype-certified Bluetooth headset solution, the Motorola Wireless Internet Calling Kit. The system, which comprises a Motorola HS815 Bluetooth Headset and PC850 PC Adapter, enables users to make Skype calls, which as you probably know are free to other Skype users.

It also comes with 30 SkypeOut minutes so the owner can chat away to people on landlines or mobiles for free for half an hour. The system has six hours of battery talk time and can be used up to 30 metres away from the PC. It is in the stores today. Incidentally Skype now boasts more than 66 million registered worldwide users, which is quite astonishing growth by anyone's standards.

More Skype:
Skype phone reviewed
Skype and DECT in one

Earlier today satellite broadcaster Sky TV treated us to live HD demonstrations in London's Groucho club. But the broadcaster stopped short of naming a launch date and detailing costs.
The demo itself was pretty impressive with a large projector and several 40inch LCD screens carrying a trailer showing clips from movies, documentaries and the Champions League final in HD. After the demo, Sky's Director of Customer Products and Services, Brian Sullivan, gave a fairly detailed speech about why Sky is launching HDTV and followed up with some reasonably candid responses to questions from the floor.

What's happening at some of our other top blogs this weekend?

Bayraider (eBay Blog): Da Vinci Code signed poster, Paris Hilton's vodka bottle, Liberace's dress-down jacker

HDTV: LCD HDTVs now under £500, Someone else likes SED, Sharp and Philips offer 1080p LCD

Propellerhead (Computer Help): Top tip - Quick lock Windows XP, Problems updating Windows XP, Top tip - hidden desktop file finder

Corrie Blog : Sneak Preview - Sunday November 20, Corrie Christmas, Sad Sparra story

We've had our eye on the PQI mPack P600 multimedia player for a while now largely because this hard disk based personal video player has a kitchen sink of bonus features. So while it does all the usual stuff including replay MPEG1/2/4, AVI (XviD) video, JPEG photo and just about every audio format you can think of, it also has integrated GPS so it can moonlight as a satellite navigation system.

The PQI mPack600, which goes on sale at the end of the month in the UK for a little over £300 - you'll pay more if you want the GPS - also has PDA functionality (address book, calculator, text reader and clock) and can play back Java games. It has a 4" Wide, 480x272 high resolution colour LCD screen, supports 3D sound and Dolby Digital surround sound and has an interesting 'Clam Shell' style design. More info here.

More personal video

Samsung gets personal  Dream'eo's Windows based player

Personally I can't think of one single reason why you would want clips from one of Jamie Oliver's shows on your mobile phone (it's not like you're going to prepare some porcini mushrooms or toss a salad on the bus is it?). But maybe the guys at Vodafone have thought of an application we haven't, because they're offering film clips of 100 of his recipes as downloads for Vodafone Live! with 3G customers. The footage has been taken from Oliver's Twist, a show filmed for the US which has never been seen in the UK, and each recipe has been edited to three minutes. Can't wait to watch them.
Jamie Oliver's official website

ViewSonic has introduced two multimedia LCD monitors, both under £300. The 17inch VG720 (£229) and 19inch VG920 (£280) both come with integrated 3Watt stereo speakers. Analogue and digital (DVI-D) inputs mean that two PCs can be connected simultaneously with a quick switch option letting you alternate between the two sources at the touch of a button. The monitors, which are Mac and PC compatible, can also be wall mounted.
Viewsonic

More LCD TVs:
Sharp and Philips HD LCDs
Panasonic HD LCDs

You probably saw Little Britain on BBC1 last night (was it just me or was it a little disappointing?) Anyway now you can watch old episodes of the comedy series on your Nokia mobile phone too. The BBC has signed a deal with Rok Player - the company that bils itself as offering 'DVDs for your mobile' (well actually they're stored on an MMC card which they call a Digital Video Chip, but you get the idea.) However it's not exactly a cheap way of watching your favourite characters like Marjorie Dawes, Vicky Pollard and, of course, Lou and Andy. Three full episodes of Little Britain will set you back a rather steep £17.00. Also available in time for Christmas is the League of Gentlemen DVC (also £17.00). The chips are available to buy directly from the Rok Player store.

Here's news of another neat online compo courtesy of Fotothing. This one is another photography based challenge and the online photo blog is offering the chance to win a money off at Kanvastudios which basically means you'll be able to take one of your favourite digital pics and have it blown up to vast proportions to dominate your living room wall. The winner gets £100 to spend, second and third place get £60 and £40 respectively. The compo is pretty simple, all Fotothing members (registration is completely free) can upload one pic which they judge to best represent the caption 'Celebration Lights' so Xmas will probably be a major theme but it doesn't have to be a pic of the festive season necessarily. Winners will be judged on December 16th.

Link

More compos
Nokia's phone camera compo
(Interestingly this also has the deadline of December 16th; for an extra challenge why not try and win both with the same pic)

No presentation is complete without a huge projector and a projectee suffering severe arm strain from having to lug it round. Those days however might soon be history as Texas Instrument's new range of pocket DLP (Digital Light Processing) models hit the stores. The company has made a fairly significant breakthrough in that it has replaced the lamp, the mainstay of the projector, with LED technology. This has the twin benefit of significantly shrinking the size and weight of the models, while emitting much less heat - so for example users won't be able to fry eggs on them as they almost can with lamp-based projectors.

Three DLP Pocket projectors are due to reach the UK in the next month with the very striking and ultra tiny Samsung DLP Pocket Imager leading the charge. There are also slightly chunkier projectors - but we are still talking models you can hold in none hand- from Mitsubishi (PK10) and Toshiba (FF1). All the models will sell for between £500-800.

More projectors

Sony's slimmer projectors More on the Tosh FF1

If you like the look of one of those HTC Universal (like the T-Mobile MDA Pro and Orange SPV M5000) devices with their sizable keyboard and great connectivity options, but are put off by their pocket-bulging size then O2 and T-Mobile might have something for you. This week both have launched the latest in the seemingly never-ending series of Windows Mobile devices from Taiwanese manufacturer HTC which they are billing as the MDA Vario (T-Mobile) and Xda Mini S (O2).

Both phones, which are virtually identical, sport a much smaller form factor than the Universal, yet they do boast a full QWERTY keyboard which is accessed via the user sliding the bottom half of the unit. Unlike the Universal there's no 3G connection, but the phone features Wi-Fi as well as GPRS and comes with the full suite of MS applications that are served up by the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. Other niceties include Bluetooth, a 1.3 mega pixel camera, a 2.8inch 64K-colour TFT-LCD touch screen and an external Mini SD card slot. The O2 Xda Mini S is available from £260 for pay monthly contract customers, while the MDA Vario sells for from free to £149.99.

More Windows Mobile

Orange's music phone MDA Pro review

Vodafone and Sky are claiming a successful debut for the launch of Sky Mobile TV on the Vodafone 3G network says Mobile Marketing Magazine. Apparently customers have accessed one million streams of mobile TV channels in the two weeks since the service launched on 1 November. With Vodafone having 341,000 Vodafone live! with 3G customers at 30 September, this equates to just under three streams per 3G customer, though the figure does include viewing of additional 'variety' channels, including Channel 4, which are not part of the Sky Mobile TV service.

Sky Mobile TV offers 19 mobile TV channels, including 24-hour news, sport, entertainment and documentary programmes to all Vodafone live! with 3G customers. The channels come in two 'packs' - a News, Sport & Factual pack and an Entertainment & Music pack. The service is free to all Vodafone live! with 3G customers until 31 January 2006, £5 per pack per month thereafter. The service is exclusive to Vodafone UK until 31 March 2006. More here.

More TV on your mobi
Voda and Sky offer mobile TV
Nokia launches TV to go

Games Digest reports that all is not happy in the Blu-ray camp. Apparently HP one of the backers of the next generation DVD format, which will be used on Sony PS3, is considering adopting a neutral stance and supporting both Blu-ray and its rival HD-DVD.

HP is angry that two features it has demanded from the start are not yet fully implemented in Blu-Ray. "iHD" would provide interactive features, and would link in with Microsoft's next PC operating system, codenamed "Vista". "Mandatory Managed Copy" would let people copy the contents of their disc to a PC with digital rights management intact. The Blu-Ray consortium says both will be available, just not yet. Maureen Weber, from HP's Personal Systems Group, responded: "If they are unable to incorporate technologies we think are critical for the PC, we'll be more neutral. We could support both HD DVD and Blu-ray."

More next generation DVD squabbling
Blu-ray getting the upper hand?
Microsoft and Intel back HD-DVD

T-Mobile finally confirmed today that the Sidekick II, also known as the Hiptop II, will go on sale wearing the network's colours in the UK this week. We have written about the device many, many times before, but we are fans of its superb keyboard and excellent messaging facilities. We just wish it had a music player and better camera.

Anyhow maybe our dream will come true soon. Anyhow if you fancy it the Sidekick II is available from T-Mobile from between free and £49 depending on your tariff. It also works with T-Mobile's recently launched Web n'Walk service.

More Sidekicking
Sidekick II review
Sidekick III?

The folks over at sister site Gadget Centre recently got chance to have a hands on with the Nokia N92 - the first mobile phone to feature an integrated DVB-H receiver that delivers digital TV on the go. Read how it could change the shape of mobile phones.

From my brief play with the N92 I can vouch for the following.

It has a superb screen - the video images looked startling - way beyond another mobile. It is large - kind of like a cross between the Nokia N91 and a HTC Universal. The keyboard is excellent - very tactile and responsive. We won't however see its key features - such as on the fly video recording and interactive TV - until a DVB-H service launches next year.

More TV on your mobi
Voda and Sky offer mobile TV
Nokia launches TV to go

Well I guess Sky always knew that this day was going to come, but that probably doesn't make it any more palatable for the satellite broadcaster. The company, which has developed a hugely profitable business out of its exclusive deal to screen Premiership footballs games, now knows that as of 2007 it will have to share the matches with other broadcasters.

In a decision announced today the head of the Premier League Richard Scudamore confirmed that there would now be six broadcast packages up for grabs in 2007 with broadcasters able to screen up to 23 live matches per season. It is expected that the newly merged NTL/Telewest cable company will join the BBC, ITV, Channel Five and of course Sky in bidding for the rights.

More Sky
Sky gets into HDTV
Sky gets into broadband

Must admit that as we are super skinflints who are always last to get a round in, we like a bargain or two. But we still haven't decided if that extends to buying secondhand PCs. Our computer know it all, Rick Maybury, has been posting on the topic at our PC advice and tips blog Propellerhead.

He reckons you need to be careful about nasties lurking on 2nd hand PC's hard drives. There's loads more of this type of stuff here too.

Computer graphics are everywhere these days. So to shoot an entire commercial without any at all is rare. But that's exactly what Sony did for a new ad to highlight its latest range of BRAVIA HDTVs. Set to the stripped-down acoustic soundtrack of José González' Heartbeats, 250,000 'superballs' come flying, in slow motion, over the brow of a typical street in San Francisco, raining down on anything that gets in their way.

See how the ad was made: low res, high res

For more info on Bravia TVs click here

***Promotional Post in Association with Sony BRAVIA***

Forget wireless FM adaptors and mini-speaker sets; what your iPod deserves is an accessory so large that it not only dwarves the device itself but perhaps threatens to be mistaken for a futuristic, if ungainly, piece of furniture. This is the Geneva Sound System, whose mission statement is to convince the masses that high quality, stereo sound can be produced from a single speaker unit which should also save a lot of cabling. Perhaps it's a little unfair to brand this simply as an iPod accessory, it also has an FM receiver, plays CDs and any digital audio format contained thereon but, given that there is a special slot designed to take any breed of iPod (bar the shuffle) it is unlikely that non iPod owners will form much of the customer base. The Geneva Sound System hasn't actually completed production yet so it's registering interest only at the moment, but when it is finally unveiled it could prove an interesting fusion of home audio and digital music, which is something that is catching on very quickly.

Read via engadget

More digital home audio
Audica's iPod Hi-Fi
Saitek's wireless designer speakers