Surfing in the rain

The Umbrella - It's over 4,000 years old and just like most transport networks around the world, they have changed very little, until now. Boffins at Tokyo's Keio University are developing an umbrella that connects to the web via a wireless connection and projects images from the net on the underside of the umbrella.

My take - supercool..... Get one of these and everyone will want to stand under your umbrella, ella, ella, ella.....alright, I'll stop now.

And the winner is....

It's the bedrock of the gaming industry and it seems still the most popular - long live the FPS. In recently released figures from GFK, the most popular game of 2007 was Activision's Call of Duty 4. Accroding to figures from Activision, it has sold more than seven million copies since its launch. A special nod to the remarkable Halo 3, a fantastic end to one of the most successful gaming franchises, which earned more than £84m ($170m) in sales in its first 24 hours on release, according to Microsoft.

My take - I have played the COD series since the beginning and it's a great concept. The real trick here is cross platform - the more consoles you get it on, the more you sell. But that's not to take away from the achievement - keeping the concept so fresh after so long is amazing.

At Last.FM, some sense

Last.fm, the Social music network has agreed deals with both major and indie record labels to let fans listen to the music they want, when they want - without payment. The Deals Will allow fans in the US, Britain and German to stream music for free or pay to download MP3s via Amazon.com.

The new steaming scheme is entirely funded by ad revenue and fans get to listen to each song on the website up to three times before being urged to purchase a copy.

It's been six years since Lat.fm started trying to broker deal with music companies, Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel remarked "They wouldn't even take our calls back then"

My take - another win for the consumer, it appears that the music industry is waking up and modernising. MC Lars had a point.

Ring ring, Ca-ching, ca-ching

The apple still tastes sweet - at least, that's what budget sheet says. Steve and co saw record profits up 57% in the three months to the end of December manly lifted by demand for Mac computers and iPhones. That's right, for everyone that wrote it off as a Newton, there's a van round the back giving away large portions of humble pie.

the BBC reports "Sales of its iPhone, released in June last year, reached 2.3 million and lifted its earnings to $1.58bn (£806m), up from $1bn a year ago."

My take - Steve, you deserve a knighthood - as does Mr Wasniack and the rest of the Apple boffins. It ain't easy being that cool, but hey, someone has to do it.

Tune in next time, just not on this TV

A number of UK consumer electronic chains are set to stop selling analogue TV sets, focsuing entirly on integrated sets with built-in digital tuners. Currys, Dixons and PC World will all stop selling the old analogue sets in a move greeted with open arms by Digital UK, the body managing the analogue switch-off, which will finish in 2012.

Although certain areas of the UK have already had their analogue signals switched off (Whitehaven in Cumbria became the first) the rest of the UK still have the choose between analogue and digital. The move is aimed at helping customers buy "future-proofed" products

My take - it was always going to happen, but what about the waste - all those TVs that no longer work? Something for the entrepreneurs to think about - there could be a lot of money to be made!

No Wikipedia love for Corey

Corey's at it again - and he didn't actually do anything! This time he's managed to upset the good folk at Wikipedia , where there has been heated debate as to whether or not he deserves his own entry.

An entry for the most notorious MySpacer to date was created by a user called Fosnez and was online for a whopping 35 minutes before being deleted by other users. The deletion sparked a huge debate that Corey supporters eventually lost.

Run for PM, then you might get an entry....

The mother of all space games

Want to work at NASA - better get gaming then. The agency that put man on the moon is considering having a massively multiplayer online game developed to inspire the next generation of NASA employees. The game would be aimed at students and would include "real NASA engineering and science missions".

NASA has put out a Request For Information, giving interested developers the Chance to get involved with the project that NASA believes will help find the next generation of scientists and engineers needed to fulfil its "vision for space exploration".