The Shuttle D10 – a mini desktop with a 7" LCD touchscreen on the front

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We know what you’re thinking – WHY? So let’s get that bit out of the way first. The Shuttle D10 is for awkward places. Small holes. Places where getting a PC and a whopping great 24″ Samsung monitor in might be a bit of a squeeze. Caravans. The bedroom of a child.

It might also help calm your nerves a bit just to have a spare screen about the place for use in a broken primary screen emergency, or it could be good as a little media PC…

Asus and Skype team up to create world's ugliest gadget – the AiGuru SV1 portable videophone

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That deformed beast which looks like the remains of three microwaved mobile phones is an AiGuru SV1, the product of an alliance between globally beloved tech-maker Asus and quite loved chat-enabler Skype.

The SV1 is a self-contained video phone, using Skype software and its own little webcam to let users broadcast video calls from wherever there’s a wi-fi signal. In your bathroom, for example. There’s also an Ethernet socket, microphone…

Flickr user uses face, hands, fingers and Mac to illustrate the size of the Lumix G1

When it comes to the Lumix G1, Panansonic’s first compact-sized Micro Four Thirds SLR camera, there’s an unusual worry. The worry that it’s going to be too small. This is the fist time in gadget history that “too small” has been a possible issue.

SLRs need space. They have buttons and dials, plus that big lens you’ll be needing to rotate to stop the pictures being blurry. A small camera body might make that difficult, which has got big-handed people worried that the G1 might be too small and therefore a bit clumsy and dangerously droppable. So Flickr user Luc Saint-Elie took some pictures of it. Here it is, along with her fingers, in an active use scenario.

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It seems to fit. Her fingers don’t seem painfully bunched…

Over 60,000 portable gadgets left in London taxis over the last six months

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Oh, so that’s what happened to your previous phone. And your previous MP3 player. And your previous laptop. And your previous house keys, wallet, trainers, watch and coat.

A survey by security firm Credant Technologies asked London cabbies what devices they’ve found in the backs of their cabs recently, coming up with the amazing figure that more than 60,000 gadgets have been forgotten in taxis by people we would assume to have been massively intoxicated, over the last six months…

Government says Phorm is phine – the spying ad software can be rolled out in the UK

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The UK government has said the incredibly controversial Phorm software can be rolled out in the UK – but users must be told first and allowed to opt-out if they wish.

The Phorm system, which anonymously tracks your internet usage so it can offer you targeted advertising, was secretly tested on a small group of BT users without their knowledge, creating uproar among the sort of people who like to create uproars about privacy issues. The EU then got involved, asking for clarification about the hows and whys of Phorm, thinking that it might be a BAD THING.

So, the UK government investigated and has decided it’s OK and that Phorm is fine. Here’s what it told the EU investigators about its Phorm phindings and how users will be put in charge of turning it on and off…

Digital Camera of the Hour: GE E1050TW with HDMI output for HD Ready lounge synching

Here’s another marginally different image-capturing box to save your brain from having to do any remembering of what things look like. This one’s called an E1050TW. It is not a particularly romantic or evocative name, although maker GE tells us the TW at the end stands for “Touch and Wide” – because there’s a 3″ touchscreen round the back instead of your usual buttons.

Here’s what the front looks like.

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Inside the box there’s a 10.1megapixel sensor, mechanical bits to support a 5x optical zoom and image stabilisation…

Terrorists planning their next deadly attack using… World of Warcraft?

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That’s the 100% crackpot theory being investigated by the US military at the moment, as senior officials worry that shifty-looking foreign people are massing on WoW servers to practise unleashing death.

A man called Dr. Dwight Toavs, who is a professor at the US National Defence University, gave a presentation (PowerPoint file here) on how a virtual world…

When rumours become FACTS – Xbox 360 only £129 from this Friday

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And that is OFFICIAL. No more relying on dodgy scans and the assurances of 13-year-olds on internet forums. Xbox 360 Arcade, the non-hard drive model of the console, will cost £129 from this Friday.

The 60GB hard drive one, which Microsoft refers to as the plain old “Xbox 360” is also coming down in price, to £169, with the all-black Elite worrying PlayStation3’s arse by costing only £229. The war has just got DIRTY. Here’s what Microsoft’s chief European war commander, Neil Thompson, said…

Guess what The Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium is up to these days?

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It is sequencing the DNA of a potato.

The Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium, who we would very much like to work for, reckons it will have the white potato perfectly sequenced by 2010, which will help with things like making them grow in the apocalyptic desert wastelands of the future.

It’s not an easy task – even something as seemingly simple as a potato is made up of 840 million DNA pairs. One pair tells it how thick the skin is. One pair tells it what leaves to grow. Another pair is in charge of telling it to grow the potatoes underground instead of on branches…