Denon have released four feature-rich home cinema receivers, with prices starting at just £250. Each model builds upon the feature set of the lower spec one.

All decks including the entry-level AVR-1507 feature:
- Discrete 7.1 amplifier with 7 x 110 W output
- Auto Setup with high quality Audio Technica microphone
- New easy to use ERGO remote
- 32-Bit floating point DSP, full 96 kHz processing, 192 kHz DACs
- Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, DTS-NEO:6, DTS 96/24
- Audio Delay (0-200 ms), Night Mode
- 8 channel EXT in for future sound formats
- S-Video, 3 component, 2 coaxial digital, 2 optical digital inputs
- Dock Control connector for ASD-1R dock for iPod

On top of that, the AVR-1707 (priced at £300) and above features assignable surround back amplifier for Front bi-amping, digital component video conversion, and 3 assignable component inputs.

Here we go again with another iPod dock. This compact curved CyrusLink LinkDock boasts 4 speaker units, touch sensitive volume keys, remote control of volume, treble and bass, iPod adapter, and line in and out. It features advanced Neodymium and alloy speaker technology as well as a built in amplifier.

It measures 11 x 21 x 10cm so is small enough to fit into luggage, and weighs just over half a kilogram. It does everything else a dock should do, charging and syncing your iPod.

It's actually been out for a little while, and received some decent reviews including a 5-star at What Hi-fi, who said "Quality, value and convenience - the CyrusLink iPod dock has them all. Plug in your player, and you’re off."

It's priced £70

Cyrus Audio

I find that I rarely use a mouse pad these days, as my laser mouse works quite happily on my wooden desk, but if I were to then I might try Lindy's new illuminated mouse pad complete with a 4-port USB 2.0 hub.

Though I haven't seen a spec sheet for it my presumption (always good for being told I'm wrong) is that it's not a powered bus, so you'll probably only get away with low-drain devices (all the really useful things like Christmas trees and mug warmers and fans, plus maybe a camera and iPod dock.

If you're prone to losing your mouse then a glowing blue perimeter on your mat might be just what you need. It looks quite swish (the pink mouse doesn't come with it), and should help with your USB-overloaded digital life.

It costs a very reasonable £14.99.

Lindy web site

Apple, Dell, Toshiba, and now Lenovo: yes another swathe of batteries due for recall because the lithium-ion cell was supplied by Sony.

Lenovo are recalling 526,000 batteries issued since February 2005 with particular serial numbers, though they say it will only affect around 5-10% of the notebook computers they've produced. It follows an incident where a ThinkPad T43 caught fire at LA International Airport (presumably at the time it would've been allowed on a flight - good job it wasn't)

Lenovo say that the way they put batteries in their notebook computers is different from other manufacturers. It's obviously still not immune from the lithium-ion core which is flammable and always carries this risk.

I'm wondering if this is the last recall or if any more manufacturers are going to recall batteries. Roll on silver-zinc batteries, perhaps?

The UK record industry and music writers and publishers, the MCPS-PRS Alliance, have done a 3-year royalties deal with Apple's iTunes and the four mobile networks O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone so that musicians receive 8% of gross revenue when tracks are sold online, and a lower 6.5% rate when music is streamed.

The UK's online music sales represent the biggest market in Europe, with 34 million 'units' of music already sold this year, so it's something the powers that be are obviously keen to get a fair stake of.

Apparently, though, this is only a partial settlement and a Copyright Tribunal is set to continue for other digital music issues.

I'm all for music creators getting a fair cut for their work (in fact, and it's a long-running debate, they probably don't get a fair cut) - and this is all well and good for these large legitimate services but isn't going to do much for all the illegal downloads going on. It may mean more legitimate music becomes available to these services, though.

The big cheeses of the BBC and Microsoft have met in Seattle to discuss how the BBC can better get its content online and keep at the forefront of technology.

BBC DG Mark Thompson met Bill Gates to sign a non-exclusive deal that will see Microsoft working on plans for the BBC's news archive, a web 2.0 project (BBC beta, perhaps?), and new ways of sharing content.

Thompson is keen that BBC 'embraces the creative challenges of the digital future' and this is a 'strategic partnership' with Microsoft. The two companies aim to find areas of common interest such as search, navigation, distribution, and 'content enablement' (inventing new words might be another area)

Do we want to see a partnership between Auntie and Bill?

New research from ntl:Telewest and Virgin Mobile shows that every 16-year-old they questioned thinks they know more about technology than their parents. Two-thirds of adults regularly ask their under-18 kids to help them with their mobile phone, the internet or TV.

Here comes another silly acronym: these kids are TANKs. Yes, really. Technically Able Noughties Kids. Great.

One-third of these TANKs (I can't carry on using that) have a MySpace account, and over half use YouTube, whereas 82% of adults hadn't even heard of it. Two-thirds of these kids would rather go without food than their mobile for 24 hours (what, no Burger King?)