Want to cut out the outside world - except maybe your mobile phone? It might be worth giving the Skull Candy Proletariat NC 635 noise cancelling headphones a look, especially with a sub-£100 price tag.

These gold headphones cancel out background noise, so you can enjoy the music, rather than haveing to deal with a one-sided mobile phone conversation about the length of a train delay. However, you can still use your own mobile - the NC 635 headphones incorporate Skullcandy Link technology, which allows you to take mobile phone calls into the headphones.

The headphones fold up when not in use and run off 2 x AAA batteries. You can pick them up now, priced at £99.99.

Find out more

More headphones:
Aiwa UZ-PS128 recordable MP3 headphones
Saitek Audio bluetooth headphones

A bit worried about a seller? Want to hear the conviction in that person's voice as he/she describes that piece of vintage pottery? Well, now you can, as eBay is introducing Skype functionality to its listings in the UK.

Yes, now you can communicate "for real" via free internet voice calls or instant messaging, if the seller decides to add a "Skype Me" button to their listings. A pilot programme will start from mid-July 2006 and will be trialled in categories including art, antiques, stamps, coins, pottery & glass, sports memorabilia, real estate, baby products, musical instruments, and audio consumer electronics - categories eBay claims are more likely to get further enquiry requests.

eBay claims the addition of Skype will be a great benefit to buyers and sellers, smoothing out the purchase process. Cynics might suggest that it's just an attempt to boost the Skype userbase.

eBay website

More eBay:
eBay adds blogs and a wiki
eBay joins O2's i-mode

With hosepipe bans and water restrictions in use - and likely to be commonplace in future - it's a good time to check out water conservation gadgets.

Luckily, those eco-friendly folk at Hippyshopper have already done the hard work, picking out the most practical and best value on the market. Everything from the EcoKettle (which controls the amount of water and power used when you boil water) to Water butts (for collecting water) and aerating showerheads, which reduce the water needed to to shower in the morning.

Details of these, along with other water-saving gadgets and many other eco-friendly ideas can all obe found over at Hippyshopper.

Spanish company Fon is aiming to create a Wi-Fi commune around the world, offering a Wi-Fi router for just £2.75 if you're prepared to share your connection outside your home to create a streetwide and eventually global public hotspot.

The company, which has financial backing from Google and Skype, is aiming to have 50,000 working hotspots worldwide by September, 150,000 by year-end and one million hotspots by the end of 2007. To date, 54,000 people worldwide have signed up to become "foneros," up from 3,000 in February, according to the company.

Poor Apple - they spend serious time and money designing a minimalist player - then their customers pimp them up! Yes, forget the Vauxhall Novas, customising iPods is all the rage - and a new website, Pimpyaplayer, is showing off the best of them.

Head over to the site to check out pimped out iPods from all across the globe such as Deejay mikee-rokk from Amsterdam's Party Bag and Yu from Hong Kong's Bass Cannon, not to mention the rather fetching Three Knuckle Shuffle (pictured), along with site owner Romeo's top ten Pimpin' hints and the chance to get help via email from the man himself on how to Pimp your Pod to the max and get your Pimp online.

CMS announces a new version of the BounceBack software program for PC and Mac, a simple way to save and recover data from your hard drive.

Simple to use, BounceBack Professional Version 7.0 protects everything stored on your computer in the event of a failure - the backup CD created on installation can be used to restart a PC or Mac should it fail, providing what the company claims is the fastest possible method of recovery.

Protecting your PC is just a matter of installing the software and doing a full backup. Subsequent backups are automatic - just plug in your external hardware and BounceBack launches and updates. Bounceback is available with ABS Plus, priced from £109 + VAT or just as a software program, priced from £45 + VAT.

CMS website

External drives:
Seagate releases 160GB notebook drive
Plextor's portable drive with silicon skin

  Yes, it's another pocket-sized music player, this time from Dutch manufacturer Sweex, which has introduced its Blue Bay range of portable players, the follow up to its budget Black Sea range.

Available in four different sizes - 256MB, 512MB, 1GB and 2GB, the players can handle MP3 and WMA files and feature an LCD display with background lighting (in seven different colours oddly) for viewing your track data. Like most of these devices, you can also use it as a USB storage device, but unlike most of them, this also has a built-in microphone if you want to use it as a voice recorder when you're out and about.

The Sweex Blue Bay MP3 Player comes with earphones, a USB cable and one AAA 1.5V battery. We're still awaiting a price confirmation, but we'd expect it to sit firmly in the budget category.

Sweex website

More portable players:
Stormblue R4 clip-on MP3 player
Creative unveils Zen V Plus portable audio/video player

We seem to be going DAB crazy. First it was the radio, then there was talk of trialling TV to mobile via DAB, now the UBC Media Group, one of the UK's largest independent radio production companies, is testing a download service that allows music downloads via the DAB network.

UBC's system, which is being offered next month on a trial basis by the Heart radio station, allows digital radio listeners to buy the track they're currently listening to and have it transferred to a DAB-compatible music player. UBC's service broadcasts encoded and encrypted music files alongside a radio station's audio stream. These are cached for a short time in the mobile device and can be bought and kept immediately. The company said the purchase would also allow the transfer of the song to a user's web-accessed music library, allowing them to download the song to a PC and to copy it to a DRM-supporting portable player.

The cost of video projectors has fallen to the point where they can hardly be called an expensive luxury any more. They're also one of the best (and cheapest) ways to get a eye-bogglingly big picture in your living room but for those of you with shallower pockets or just plain mean and a creative bent the Lumenlab website has some simple plans for a DIY video Projector. All you need is an empty washing up bottle and some sticky back plastic (OK I made the last bit up...) but the site really does shows how to cannibalise an old laptop screen, and with the addition of a projector lamp (the one they suggest costs a fraction of the price of specialised projector lamps), a couple of lenses, some simple wiring and a box to put it in, Bob's your uncle's projectionist.

If you have been around PCs for any length of time than you probably have one or two old hard disc drives kicking around, gathering dust. The chances are they're in perfect working order but they've been retired because they're full up, or the capacity isn't large enough to for today's space-hungry applications. Propellerhead says don't throw them away, an old drive can be quickly and cheaply turned into an external HDD, which is ideal for data backups, file storage or transportation.

All you need is a USB to IDE converter cable and power supply, they're wisely available from PC suppliers, and they're cheap too, typically costing less then £20. Just plug it in to the back of the drive and connect it up to your PC and Windows XP should immediately recognise it as an external drive.

The UK VoIP market is certainly hotting up, so to get a service noticed, companies need to go that bit further - in the case of Orbtalk, it's to give away free VoIP accessories for new customers.

Orbtalk is backed by hardware retailer Broadbandstuff, so it's no surprise that they can dig out a few freebies. If you sign up, they'll give you a free USB phone with £25 credit and a free VoIP Phone Adapter with £50 credit. They'll also give you a UK phone number. And as the service is pay-as-you-go, there's no contract or set-up fee.

Like most of the other services out there, you get free calls over broadband, with discounted calls and call packages to landlines, mobiles and international destinations.

Orbtalk website

More VoIP:
Tiscali joins the UK VoIP market
Jajah - a simple way to use VoIP

As the owner of a laughably poor motor, a Mercedes is very much a car of my dreams. But I'm sure our more affluent readers might be in the market for one - and if you are, you should check out the optional in-car mobile phone system, which automatically conencts to your mobile, transferring the content of your phone's memory and sim via Bluetooth for handsfree use.

What does all this mean? Well, it means you can stay within the law, never having to touch your phone whilst driving. Just push the single button in the car and the unit grabs all your phone's information - contacts, call history, previous text messages - and as you drive, caller id and message will display on the unit's screen.

Developed for the more sporty types who like a bit of music while they exercise, the Stormblue R4 has enough about it to be worth a look for anyone in the market for a budget player.

The Stormblue R4 sells itself as the "clippable MP3 player". Not the most exciting of claims, but if you like a soundtrack to your jogging, cycling or machine pounding at the gym, it's certainly a practical one, especially as it's just 30 X 60 X 12.5 mm in size, so not much excess to carry round. As a music player, it plays MP3 and WMA files and also features an FM radio. There's a two line OLED for track and station details, seven equaliser settings and music is transferred via USB from your PC.

Worried about losing that prized gadget? Or (like me) always leaving your mobile phone somewhere, then forgetting where? Bluetrek's Serenity should keep it safe using a wireless tag system - and if someone decides to take it away, you'll hear and see an alarm.

Serenity sounds fairly easy to use, with a base that can protects up to three tags simultaneously and the tags themselves, which fix easily to the items you want to protect. The system has two functions - if your belongings go outside a set distance, the base will alert you by emitting an audible and visual alarm. Or if you want to locate a missing (or mislaid) gadget, the base allows you to find it via the allocated tag, setting off an alarm to discover its location.

As you may know, selective trials of HDTV over aerial began in early June, organised by a consortium representing the four terrestrial broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel4, and Five). 450 viewers are using specially adapted HD set-top boxes to see whether HD is a viable option to broadcast to Freeview once the UK's analogue service has been switched off by 2012.

Over at HDTV UK, they've managed to gain an insight into the service, courtesy of one of the people taking part in the trial. Is it a good reception? What's the quality like? Does the quality differ between broadcasters? And above all, is HD over Freeview proving a success?

All will be revealed if you head over to HDTV UK now.

We don't just want better PCs, we want greener ones - and we're willing to pay a premium for a green PC, according to a new survey.

The study by Ipsos-Mori for Greenpeace claims that consumers are willing to pay up to an extra £108 for a PC containing fewer chemicals. Previous research found that making the average PC required 10 times the weight of the machine in chemicals and fossil fuels. Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a massive global problem, with 30 million computers thrown out every year in the US alone. About 70% of heavy metals in landfill sites come from e-waste.

Are you constantly upgrading your mobile phone? Always wanting the latest personal audio player? Can't buy a new laptop for fear there's something better out there? Then you might well be a neophiliac.

According to new research reported by Media Life magazine, neophiliacs are people who are addicted to the new. And according to the study from the Yamagata University School of Medicine in Japan,  some people may actually be more genetically predisposed to wanting the newest things. Here's the science - it comes down to a mitochondrial enzyme called monoamine oxidase A. Those who produce the enzyme in high quantities are likely to be addicted to gadgets.

Admittedly, this particular scooter isn't going to turn heads on the way to Brighton on a bank holiday weekend, but if you want to nip around town without damaging the environment, the eGo Helio rechargable moped, spotted by the folk over at Hippyshopper, could be just the thing.

The Helio electric scooter can go up to 25 miles on a charge and as it's as small as a bicycle, it's easy to store. Even better, you can shave off part of the £1400 price tag because it's eligible for a Government grant (seeing as you're doing your bit to save resources). Want to know more? Find out about the Helio and much more from the world of ethical consumerism over at Hippyshopper.

So, you thought your 3.4GHz PC was pretty nifty eh? Well, I don't want to rain on your parade but the white coats at IBM and Georgia Institute of Technology have just succeeded in getting a silicon-germanium (Si-Ge) transistor to operate at frequencies above 500GHz. Mind you, I wouldn't worry too much about it coming to a motherboard near you anytime soon; the device in question had to be cryogenically frozen, and getting one transitor to operate at this speed is a very long way from doing it on a commercially viable scale, let along shoehorning the contents of small fridge-freezer into a CPU sized box. Nevertheless, the experiments prove that there is still plenty of life left in silicon semiconductor technology.

Don't you just hate it when you're playing back audio files using Windows Media Player WMP), having to continually fiddle with the volume setting because some tracks are louder than others? The good news is that WMP 10 has a built-in facility that lets you 'level' the volume of all of the tracks in the library. It has to be set up, though, here's the Propellerhead method.