By Jay Garrett,

I’d like to start this week’s gadgety update by congratulating Swindon on its new achievement.  It has officially become the UK’s very first Wi-Fi Town.

You may have heard about a little game called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Well, if you haven’t loads of others have – to the point that it has enjoyed the largest launch of any entertainment product in history – it’s even trounced that little Batman film.  You know the one. It’s got the Joker in it played by Heath Ledger.

If you cast your mind back to last week I was rabbiting on about some self-tinting contact lenses – well, if that’s not really your bag; howsabout some that overlay Augmented Reality right against your peepers?

Audio makers of note, Bowers & Wilkins have announced that they have some Zeppelin branded computer speakers on the way.  I’m sure they’ll be lovely and also not cheap.

Fancy tracking ghosts, ghouls and other things that go bump in the night?  Well, no self-respecting ghostbuster should be without this natty 3-in-1 device!

Have you got a bunch of data that you need to store for.......oooooooh.... let’s say 1,000 years?  Well, Cranberry will gladly slap it all on a stone DVD for a small fee.

By Jay Garrett

Here we are once more – faced with a joyful catch-up of titbits from the shiny world of gadgety loveliness.

What have I got to share with you 12 days in to the 11th month?

Well – howsabout some speakers? You can have surround sound coming out of what looks like an archery target, one that looks like a bird cage, one that clips onto your laptop screen or one that will dwarf the iPod that’s docked to it.

There have been a couple of female singers associated with new Nokia mobiles since we last met.

Rhianna is to perform live and this will be streamed on the Nokia-a-a-eh-eh blog on the very same day that the spanky looking X6 becomes available.

Not to be outdone:  Blonde pop warbler, Pixie Lott, just loves the girly chic-ness of the Nokia Illuvial range. Fact!

By Dan Owen


For many people, impressionists are only above ventriloquists on the ladder of entertainment. Both are "party trick"-style skills that audiences find diverting, but the actual content of their material can leave a lot to be desired. Consequently, both have their peaks and troughs in widespread popularity, but there's generally an appetite for lighthearted impressions-based sketch shows – something less politically-motived than Rory Bremner, and more along the lines of Alistair McGowan's Big Impression or Dead Ringers.

By Jay Garrett

Hello again Gadgety faithful!

It's catch-up time again as I have been a busy little Jay over the last couple of weeks.

First off – what has revealed itself since our last get together?

How about a tiny nuclear batteries or a projector that can make any wall a multi-touch display?

You may have caught wind (arf!) of Dyson's latest offering and that the Polaroid instant camera is making a return.

There seems to be a dual-screened e-Book powered by Android going by the name of Alex and a camera that will snap the progress of your life at 30 second intervals.

The next Wii Fit has been given the thumbs up by the NHS, Blackberry users will soon get their own Dick Tracy styling, there's hints about the Wii 2, NASA have an iPhone app and the dead get special Facebook priviledges.

By Dan Owen

RUSSELL HOWARD'S GOOD NEWS. Is he? Good news, I mean. Stand-up comedian Russell Howard is best-known as a regular on satirical panel show Mock The Week, and has proven himself a likeable enough panellist. But he's not a particularly extraordinary talent in my eyes. His comedy sticks to exaggerated anecdotes aimed at students -- the kind of stuff a witty 19-year-old friend would come up with in the pub and could themselves work-up into a five-minute set if they were so inclined. Maybe that's Howard appeal to student-kind; he's walking proof that a middle-class lad from the countryside can make a living telling forgettable jokes with enthusiasm and cheekiness.

By Dan Owen


We're waist-deep in new television just now, so I thought I'd share some of the new Autumn shows I've been watching that are airing in the UK. Here are six worth checking out, in alphabetical order:



Eastbound & Down, FX

I loathed the pilot (where a failed baseball player and egomaniac returns to his hometown with delusions of grandeur), but I tuned in for the next two episodes and enjoyed them a lot more. It helped that Kenny Powers, while still unlikeable and monstrous, earned a modicum of sympathy through various run-ins with people, and actually seemed to learn something about his soft touch family in episode 3. In some ways, this is a raucous American version of I'm Alan Partridge (faded celeb refuses to accept the fact he's a washed-up loser), only not as funny and twice as vulgar. Still worth checking out, as it's a brief 30-minutes of six episodes – unusually brief for a US sitcom, but all the better for it.

By Jay Garrett

Welcome to another gadgety update.

So, who else thinks that the Amazon Kindle is coming to these shores a little too late?

Anyhow, I'd rather curl up in some oversized knitting and wait for the Courieror Apple iTablet  to appear.

Every now and then something crops up that makes me nostalgic for simpler times – such as the joy of making a mix tape for a girl I fancy or for a buddy that's after some new tunes.  The great thing is when there's a tech way of satisfying the nostalgia – complete with sleeve to scrawl the track names on.

Looking for a good looking but cheap way of jumping aboard the Windows 7 bandwagon? Check out the EB1501 by Asus my gadgety faithful.

If you're in the market for some Italian thoroughbred super-car looks - but would rather plug it in than fill it up with liquid fuel then perhaps glide over and marvel at the e-Wolf e2 – not to be mistaken with Airwolf!

By Jay Garrett

OK gadgety fans it's October already – what's my pick of the last 7 days?

The end of an era has occurred. O2 no longer has its own way with the 3G and 3Gs iPhones as now Orange and Vodafone have joined in the party.

Other mobile phone news is that there's handsets made out of wood, the chocolatey LG BL20 is coming to Blighty and Samsung produces a camera that doubles as a cell phone!

Honda have made a more portable and more agile version of the Segway called the U3-X – you'll still look a bit of a prat riding it though.

The iPod gets some dude in trouble and Gear4 enables you to hook it up to a telly and the iTablet gets a launch date if Jobsy lets it go ahead.

By Jay Garrett

Hello Gadgety fans!

Since my last post I’ve witnessed a kettle from Bugatti, seen Apple TV prices cut and the 40GB version trashed, an iPod being controlled by a magic wand.

Speaking of magic: There’s also a tiny hand-held printer that seems to print by pure magic and a light that is actually powered by blood!

I am not ashamed to say that I have been tempted over to the Apply side of things.  I ‘heart’ my iPhone and have stroked many a MacBook thinking that, one day, I may actually make a purchase.

Thing is – I am a PC.

So; to readdress the balance of my many articles about iPods, iTunes, iPhones and the appstore – here’s some Microsoft flavoured news.

It’s been a while since any noise has escaped from Microsoft Pink-land but the Redmond HQ has been letting slip that it will be busting out a pair of smartphones, with the help of subsidiary – Danger.

By Dan Owen

All publicity is good publicity. When Charlie Brooker savaged DEADLIEST WARRIOR on You Have Been Watching, he actually gave it the kind of marketing push execs can only dream of. The eight-part Spike series was swiftly picked up by Bravo for transmission in the UK and, I have to admit, it's become my go-to for bad taste TV ever since. The series is a drunken pub debate brought to gruesome life, as a team of so-called experts test the killing prowess of two "warriors" (both modern and historical) in a series of tests and simulations, regularly involving pig carcasses.



Gladiator vs. Apache, Viking vs. Samurai, Pirate vs. Knight, Green Beret vs. Spetsnaz. Every wondered who would win in those match-ups? Deadliest Warrior will provide you the answer. You'll even learn what a Spetsnaz is. Of course it's impossible to know who'd be victorious for sure (especially in the case of the historical fighters), but the team have a "computer program" that they claim can run accurate battle simulations between the competitors, using data on the speed, accuracy and efficiency of weapons. I'd love to get my hands on that software, because it sounds like utter nonsense, which it almost certainly is. Every episode climaxes with a dramatized fight between grunting actors, so clearly the writers and choreographers have more sway over who's crowned the winner?