Looking for a big TV for your Christmas viewing? Evesham has launched a 47-inch true HD LCD TV - and it's on the market for less than £2,000.

Evesham's big screen offers 1080p High Definition viewing, along with both analogue and digital tuners, HDMI connectivity (along with 2x scart, S-VHS and PC input), 1600:1 contrast ratio, 550cd/m2 brightness, Nicam stereo, picture swap and sleep timer.

You can pick one up now for £1899.

Evesham website

Sony has unveiled a limited edition Pink Memory Stick Micro (M2) - that's the American pop act, not the colour, which is still black. Think they've missed a trick there.

Anyway, if you're a fan of Pink (or P!NK as she's referred to by Sony), you can pick up this 512MB Memory Stick Micro pre-loaded with exclusive content - an extract of the Stupid Girls single (about half of it) and a video interview with the singer. And it's copyright free - so you can pass it on to your mates (if they want a short interview and half an MP3 track).

The card is obviously only compatible with Sony Ericsson mobile phones equipped with an M2 card slot and should be available from early November. No price given - but it's unlikely to be more than a standard 512MB card.

Sony website

Has your hard disc drive ever let you down? Could it be about to do so? There’s no easy way to tell, it could pop its clogs tomorrow or next week, most likely never but it would be helpful to know in advance if there are going to be problems.

That’s something you might be able to find out with a freeware application that comes to you via Propellerhead from Hitachi Global Storage, called the Drive Fitness Test. It works with SCSI, IDE and SATA types drives and all you need to use it is a floppy drive or CD Writer. Once you have downloaded the file open it and it will create a bootable floppy disc or CD. Restart the PC and allow it to boot from the disc it runs through a barrage of tests, from a quick and simple ‘Exerciser’ to a ‘High Confidence’ test. It will identify problems with the drive’s tracks and sectors, cables and cooling and where necessary repair any serious problems.

Amidst all the excitement and celebrations of the iPods’ fifth birthday we quite forgot to say many happy returns to Windows XP, which has also just reached the ripe old age of five. The operating system was already well behind schedule when it was finally launched on the 26th of October 2001 -- sounds familiar -- and I recall it being a fairly subdued affair coming as it was just a few weeks after the devastation of 9/11.

Five years on and despite its fair share of problems XP has aged quite well and for most users it is a reasonably painless experience, at least compared with earlier versions of Windows, which made moving to the new more stable OS an attractive proposition. It will be interesting to see what sort of impact Windows Vista will be having in 2011…

Sporting a very elaborate web site with all kinds of games which I only investigated as part of my solemn duty, I report back that the Tyco N.S.E.C.T. Robotic Attack Creature is a remote-controlled arthopod that you can actually fire missiles from (making it unlike any other robot spider on the market). There's a pretty slick video of the N.S.E.C.T. in action on YouTube which will explain why, if age 20 is the new age 10, this toy is rated for ages 10 and up and likely to infest an office near you. [GT]

Tyco N.S.E.C.T. Robotic Attack Creature [via Technovelgy]

Related stories: KONDO KHR-2HV Humanoid Robot Kit | Robosapien wins Best Toy award | Net Tansor: The Voyeur Robot

It's not the oversized Mechwarrior battle gear we think of when we think robot exoskeleton, but then, it's intended for day-to-day use. The HAL 5 Robotic Suit, by Tsukuba University engineering professor Yoshiyuki Sankai, is a vaguely Tron-looking outfit that is so powerful that it allowed a man to carry a quadriplegic nearly up an entire mountaintop, and is marketed for "walking assistance and rehabilitation, nursing, factory work and disaster relief." 20 units are slated for production in 2007, at £30,000 each, with 400-500 projected for 2008. Cyberdyne, Sankai's development company, reports that someone who could normally press 100 kilos would be able to press around 180 kilos if they were wearing the suit, with results that it is expected to show up soon inhospital wards in Tsukuba city.

[GT]

HAL-5 robotic suit ready for mass production (in Japanese) [via Engadget

Related stories: Zou Renti and His Robot Clone | Kao + Kelo = feels-like-skin for robots | Actroid DER2 Fembot

This has to register highly on the 'cute' scale when it comes to iPod speakers. Forget white plastic and moulded corners, this is soft, fluffy, and friendly.

Yes, it's the DJ Bear (though that's perhaps a little grand given that the bear just sits there, neither spinning the platters nor making light, jokey conversation about current affairs in between top 40 pop).

What he does offer is a plug 'n' play pocket where you sit and plug your iPod or other audio device, and a press 'n' play paw which will turn the sound on and off. Stereo sound then emanates from the speakers in his feet.

It runs off four AAA batteries and measures 7.5 x 6cms. Priced at US$39.99.

Product page (via Coolest Gadgets)

MacWorld have been busy at last weekend's UK MacExpo in London, and have awarded ten products "Best of Show". The products must have either been debuted at the show, or be very new and generating significant buzz at the show.

Their ten for 2006 are:

The new 24-inch iMac
Quark Interactive Designer (Flash design software)
Sony Blu-Ray BWU-100A
HP Photosmart Pro B9180 (photo printer)
Google Earth Pro
Gear4 BluEye
Wacom Graphire4 Classic White Edition (A6 edition) (graphic tablet)
Miglia Dialog Plus (VoIP wireless phone)
Harmon Kardon Digital Lounge
Age Of Empires III (game)

What do you think? Good list? Were you at MacExpo? What would you add to the list?

(Via MacWorld)

Current TV, the channel founded by Al Gore which devotes a third of its schedule to user-generated content, isn't worried about the copyright crackdown that's sweeping through online video-sharing communities like YouTube. In an interview with the UK Mediasnackers podcast, director of viewer-created content Ezra Cooperstein says Current TV is already safe from being sued by Big Media.

"It's a scary thing for those players in the Web space that have taken that open-source mantra and are leaving it really open-source," says Cooperstein. "Current has taken the high road. We screen and we moderate and we make sure we don't open ourselves up to those types of issues. I think it will be sweeping through some of those very well known video aggregators, but we saw the writing on the wall, and put up infrastructure to guard against it."

Current TV is due to launch in the UK early next year on BSkyB. Cooperstein also says that in the States, Current TV's success has "sent vibrations" through boardrooms at the TV networks, who are keen to make more use of user-generated content themselves.

(Via Mediasnackers)

Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president of PC manufacturer Acer, has said that the Home Basic version of Microsoft Vista is so basic that users will be forced to move up to at least the Premium version, priced at £189.99, if they're to get any benefits of the new operating system.

He claims that some of the key features that have been touted as revolutionary about Vista won't be present in the basic version, including Aero graphics, remote control, and media centre.

And other Vista prices are significantly more expensive than the XP system they're replacing. Top of the line Windows XP Professional with SP2 is listed at £289.99 (but can be had for £234), whereas Vista Ultimate Edition costs £325.

Is the new functionality worth the price hike? Is that just the price consumers, businesses and PC manufacturers who'll pre-install the OS on new computers should be prepared to pay?

(Via ZDNet)

Sony have announced an upgrade to their line of USB flash storage devices with an 8 gigabyte Micro Vault 'Midi' device. 8 gig certainly isn't the largest drive around but it's a nice size to transport data around, roughly equivalent to a dual-layer DVD.

Sony have some nice touches built in such as a retractable USB connector port and a LED read/write indicator.

The Micro Vault range already comes in 512MB, 1GB, 2GB and 4GB capacities, with each bearing a different colour. The 8GB drive is done out in red lettering.

It will be available in November, price to be confirmed.

Sony

It might be the browser success story of the last couple of years, but opinions are split over whether Firefox's recently-released v2.0 upgrade is the best thing since sliced bread, or the mouldiest thing since that sliced bread you found at the back of your cupboard. Witness these two contrasting views.

FoxNews.com gives it the thumbs up in its review, saying that "when it comes to ease of use, mission accomplished" and claiming it has "the greatest out-of-the-box usability of any Web browser that we have tested" That's high praise. They also like the improvements in tabbed window management, the built-in spell checking and integrated search aids, as well as the ability to restore old browsing sessions after a crash.

It's fair to say Listvine.com doesn't agree, having posted 9 reasons not to upgrade to Firefox 2.0, saying that "the lack of polished improvements combined with a high level of user satisfaction with the older version of the browser have given rise to a growing sense that upgrading to 2.0 might not be a good idea."

Meanwhile, ZDNet falls somewhere between the two camps, albeit presenting its views in the provocatively-titled 'Is Firefox 2.0 a dud?' post.

The Carphone Warehouse today unveiled its new MyMobileLife service aiming to give mobile phone users access to a range of services as well as free instant messaging using any of the popular IM clients.

Some services, including the instant messaging, will be free, such as news from the BBC, daily horoscopes, and TV listings. Other premium services will also be introduced including a £9.99 per year 'near live' comprehensive football results and events service. You can build a favourite team list of as many teams as you like and every time one of those teams scores a goal or has a goal scored against them, makes a substitution, has a player booked or sent off, the subscriber will be alerted by the service.

This trend for horror movies to be named after DIY tools can't be a good thing: it's only a matter of time before we see Phillips Screwdriver IV: Jason Returns (And Sorts Out That Dodgy Shelf). But in the meantime, the three The Saw films have been doing a roaring trade at the box office. Now you can own one of the saws used in the third film, as it's being flogged on eBay. It measures 4x6 inches, is "very dirty and used-looking", and is currently going for $330.

Also today on Bayraider: a full set of My Chemical Romance action figures, and John Wayne's furry Alamo hat.

Fancy flashing messages from your shoes as you walk down the street? Probably not - but BamZ are aimed at kids rather than adults, who might like the idea of converting their shoes to walking message boards.

Essentially, BamZ are insoles, which can be cut to size for most feet. They're powered by pressure pads in the insole and as you walk, the BamZ unit is activated, displaying programmable sentences on the outside of the shoe. BamZ can be programmed with any sentence of up to 40 characters using A to Z, 1 to 9 and a variety of hearts, jumping logos and smiley faces. And as they're insoles, they can be moved from shoe to shoe.

BamZ will be available from early November as both single and double programmable units with a retail price of £9.99 and £14.99 each respectively.

BamZ website

Nokia's taking a break from mobile phones, dipping its toe into the satellite navigation market with the launch of the Nokia 330 Auto Navigation.

Apart from it being built by Nokia, there's little else to distinguish it from similar devices already out there. It features a 3.5-inch colour touchscreen and a speaker for spoken route guidance. This also doubles up as a speaker for music playback, as the device alos functions as an MP3 and video player, as well as being able to display digital images - all from SD card. The device ships with a 2GB Micro SD card containing Route 66 Navigate 7 navigation software and Navteq maps for UK, Ireland and continental Europe.

Expect to see it in the stores before the end of the year, with an estimated price of around £205.

Nokia website

Via The Register

Sadly, this isn't shaped like a monkey. But on a more positive note, the Power Monkey is a pocket-sized device that can give you a good amount of back-up power for a range of devices when you're out and about.

The Power Monkey has enough charge to provide around 96 hours mobile standby time, 40 hours iPod playback, 6 hours of a Sony PSP and 2 full charges of a PDA. It comes with a universal mains charger that works in over 150 countries, along with adaptors for the Samsung A288 series, Sony Ericsson T28 series, Motorola V66 series, Siemens C25 series, Sony Ericsson K750i series, Nokia N70 series, plus a mini USB for Motorola Razor V3, V3c and Blackberry and a USB adaptor for iPod, smart phones, PDAs, digital cameras and other devices.

You can pick one up now for £33.99.

Find out more

Denon has a new compact stereo system on the market - the S-81DAB stereo system - with an ease of use aimed at the family and full iPod integration as standard.

The system has been specifically designed to be easy to set-up and easy to use, right down to the speaker terminals being colour-coded for simple plug and play. Features include a CD Player with MP3/WMA support, DAB radio and RDS FM/AM radio (if your DAB signal is weak or non-existent), iPod integration, two-line Blue FL High-Clarity display for DAB station info, RadioText and iPod track and music info, 50+50 watt fully digital amplifier, clock radio and alarm and Euro-Design Two-Way Speakers tuned for UK ears.

There's also an ergonomic remote, which can also control your connected iPod. Available now, you can pick it up for around £600.

Denon website

I've lost count how many times I've heard "the world's smallest..." this year, so how about the world's thinnest instead? According to E-Ten, that honour goes to their Glofiish X500 pocket PC.

The crucial width is just 1.6cm. I've ust had the tape measure out and it is indeed, very thin. Packed into that skinny body is a Windows Mobile 5.0 device with quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone, 802.11b Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and a SirRFstar III-based GPS receiver. It uses a 400MHz CPU from Samsung with 65MB of RAM and 128MB of Flash. There's also a Micro SD card slot and a two megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and flash.

So far it's only confirmed for an Asian launch - and that should be sometime in November.

E-Ten website

Via The Register

Windows Paint is usually the first and sometimes the only graphics program many PC owners ever use and to be fair it does the job, but it is incredibly basic and really not much use for anything other than very simple editing.

Well if you like Paint but you hanker after something a bit more sophisticated then have a look at a free Open Source picture editor called Paint.net. All of the familiar elements from Paint are there but it adds a whole load of new features, including a very good assortment of special effects, it supports layers, and if you get it wrong there’s an unlimited undo facility. It could be the only picture editor you’ll ever need. Don’t forget there are hundreds more PC tips, tweaks and games to try over at: www.pctoptips.co.uk