Not your traditional Technology Deathmatch today but when I saw this post on Wired last week my hackles were raised to the point of crowbaring the issue into my regular Monday feature and, well, here we are - camera phones: should they have to make a sound when the shutter is released, or shouldn't they?

See, the deal is that it's already the case in Japan and they're looking to make it so in the States after Republican Congressman of New York, Peter King, asked for a new bill to force all mobile phones sold in the US to have no option of a silent camera click. The idea, of course, is that you can't then take photos of people without them knowing - well, not so easily anyway.

With Mobile World Congress 2009 just around the corner, it's very easy to get caught up in all the new, exciting and utterly misjudged handsets the manufacturers are set to unveil. But before you dive in to pick up your phone, I urge you to take your time deciding which network you choose to subscribe to. After all, what use is your iPhone 3G if there's only GPRS coverage down your road?

So, today on Technology Deathmatch, I move from hardware to, well, non-hardware in the kind of sidestep to left you'd expect watching Knightmare, only this time we've a much better chance of actually getting somewhere. So, without any further ado, it's Vodafone vs Orange vs 3 vs T-Mobile vs 02...

It was just over a year ago now that netbooks first hit the scene. Of course, we didn't know them as netbooks at the time. They were Eee PCs, until the world and his wife brought their own versions out and suddenly we needed to invent a new category.

We toyed with sub-notebook for a while and you'll still see me drop it in the odd post when I'm searching for another word for netbook but this isn't the point. The point is that they're here now. The game has changed. The paradigm has shifted and now that the dust is settling is the novelty wearing off?

So, today here on Technology Deathmatch, I'm affording you an entirely subjective view on the matter with the odd bit of balance thrown in. It's George vs the Dragon, David vs Goliath, Jonah vs the Whale - yes, NOTEBOOK VS NETBOOK!

As the netbooks slip more into the public consciousness, I'm getting a lot more friends and relatives asking me if they should get one, and which one they should opt for if they do, but the trouble is that the more I use sub-notebooks (see, I did it just there), the more I grow to hate them.

I think it was liveblogging the Samsung press conference on an Asus Eee PC S101 at CES a few weeks back that was the final nail in the coffin for me - the lack of available Wi-Fi probably helped as well - but let's break it down and have a good old discussion about it until we all decide that I'm right.

Good afternoon grappling fans and welcome once again to the only show in the consumer technology universe where hardware, software and ware between the two rip each other chip from circuit board in the quest to find out who is the greatest of them all. Last week's big event saw the iPhone 3G and BlackBerry Storm go five rounds trying to tear each other new recharge sockets and see who really was the smartest phone. The ringside gentry have only just managed to pick the solder out of their fur coats and the images of cracked WVGAs from their nightmares.

Today we've got a first for you as the specced-up smack down goes triple threat. We've gone three for the price of two to compete with all the other credit crunch bargain deals, not the we ever have any problem selling out the Deathmatch Arena. Yes, the -32nd floor of Shiny Towers is buzzing with anticipation this right now as we add a new twist to an age old debate.

Still half an hour before the fighters take the stage in our illegal den of high stakes and low morals but the mold soaked walls are already fit to bursting with the twice capacity crowd who've somehow pushed their ways beyond the gates and straight through our tech-tight ticketing system.

With viewing angle being of paramount importance in today's bout we steep-raked the seating on all four sides but the extra numbers have filled the two metre ringside gully and now everyone's on their feet. The back rows tell the front rows to sit down and the front rows shake their fists at the uninvited in the pit who push and bustle and shoulder and jostle to get elbows out of their ribs, heals off their toes and all for a better view of the action; a swarming sea of grey shirted arms and flat caps.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome once again to the dark, dank depths of the -32nd floor of Shiny Towers as we come to you live from the Technology Deathmatch Arena. Today's edition of the specced up smack down is a real clash of the modern day mobile darlings.

Tickets were sold out for this one long ago and the touts have been doing a fine trade standing shifty in their sheepskins as member s of the technological gentry have brushed by, heads high in LED top hats and electroluminescent tails, eyes low buried deep in devices Tweeting this carnival atmosphere for the world to read.

The middle class punters rustle in their seats, uncomfortable in their too tight too new glad rags as flustered wives quibble with irate husbands. The rest scrabble for scraps from the touts, mug the lost and unfortunate on their ways to gates and scuttle on drainpipes and scurry along ledges to secure their one-eye view of the feast to come, because tonight, tonight is the first time the undisputed heavyweight champion of the mobile world might just lose his crown.

Good afternoon grappling fans. It's taken an extra couple of weeks to have the broken glass elements swept up and the ring re-sprung after the inaugural clash two weeks ago between Nikon and Canon, but floor -32 of the sub-sub-basement of Shiny Towers is open once again for the bloodiest match-up in the world of the chipset smack down - Technology Deathmatch.

There's a chill in the mouldy air today. It's two-for-one at the arena with many of the rich, foreign businessmen abroad or in offices with their accountants assessing the damage to their stocks, but with cheap entry comes a cheap crowd: Guinness soaked mothers with their screaming children, gangs of late thirty-somethings waiting for Mecca Bingo halls to open and sacked City traders at the hollow ends of long vodka bottles just looking for a way to forget.

They cry blood, they scream, "entertain us" and that's exactly what they'll get in the 'Battle of the Mobile VoIPs'. Telecommunication giants were twitching but now it's the mobile operators that are all a-mutter with the rise of new ways to bypass their networks. There are many companies jumping in as mobile middlemen but today, going toe to toe, are two very different contenders.

In the blue corner with thinned turnbuckle pad and rusty post is the young contender from the streets of Maskina in Olso, Norwary is the Nokia favourite, the Scandinavian SIP supplier - Vyke!

Good afternoon grappling fans and welcome to the inaugural Monday afternoon beat-up smackdown that is Technology Deathmatch. Coming to you live from a grimy basement deep in the bowels of Shiny Towers, sweat drips from the dank, brown-stained walls as clamours of Far-East businessmen shake fistfuls of foreign, red bills and driving the temperature to boiling point.

Headlining the event today is the much contested, much debated, much anticipated re-match grudge match that is the battle of the cameras. Yes, ladies and gentleman today it's the big one, the shakedown, the pay off. In the blue corner with the dented spit bucket, founded in 1917, it's the Mightiest of the Macros, the Stepper Supremo - Nikon!