Hello and welcome to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California - where in the next hour or two we are expecting the internet's most powerful company to unveil its own brand of mobile phone.

Speculation's run rife over the past couple of months about a new handset from Google - just the latest in what seems like a never-ending about the company's plans to become a significant force in mobile.

Why does an internet company want a piece of your mobile phone? Is it just hi-tech hubris? As I told Guardian Daily podcast, Google craves data - and trying to make its Android mobile system ubiquitous is an attempt to place itself at the centre of the world's information. Phones are increasingly the way that most of the planet interacts with computers, and Google wants to be there so that it can sell stuff to us along the way.

There's not a great deal we don't know about the Nexus One, at least in terms of hardware - particularly given that the blog Engadget got a review unit and posted detailed videos and a writeup. But there are still some unknowns: when will it go on sale? How much will it cost? Are there any other services included? Will Google be partnering with British phone networks? Will it only go on sale through Google itself?

A lot of people have wondered why it's creating so much interest - after all, there have been plenty of "Google phones" before, and the company has worked very closely with networks and manufacturers in the past.

So is it a big deal? Well, in terms of the phone itself probably not. The handset is good, but just another iteration of the Android system. But this is Google, and the important thing is their long-term strategy. Yes, the company had previously worked on other handsets - but it always took a back seat, publicly, and let its partners do the visible work. This time Google's taking the reins - and if you want any bigger signal that the company intends to be the boss this time around, then just remember that the press conference is being held at its headquarters.

So. Does Google have any surprises up its sleeve? We'll find out shortly: the announcement starts around 10am Pacific time - that's 6pm in the UK - and is expected to last about an hour and a half.

Internet connection willing, I'll be bringing you the details as they're announced.

5.34pm: We're now inside Google HQ, but the small gaggle of press that's turned up for the event - a mix of camera crews, reporters and gadget bloggers - are being held outside the press conference room. Five minutes until we can get in apparently.

5.35pm: I'm told that whatever is announced today will be available in the UK soon.

5.40pm: And we're in. A fairly intimate gathering of media in a small room - plenty of cameras lined up to take a look at whatever emerges on the little stage. Still no word on the announcement itself, which is due to begin in about 20 minutes.

5.44pm: Sometimes at these events you try to divine what's going on by the music that they're playing. You know, a bit of Paint it Black by the Stones might indicate (shock) that whatever's being announced is BLACK. Smart, eh? It's like reading tea leaves, and just as accurate.

Today's soundtrack? We've had a mix of Official Chart Hits - a bit of Cascada's dirgeful Evacuate The Dancefloor. Then something that sounded suspiciously like emo scenesters Fall Out Boy, and now Katy Perry's Waking Up In Vegas. A nod to Sin City's Consumer Electronics Show, where I'm heading this afternoon?

Suggestions for how to read the runes on these tunes in the comments, please!

5.48pm: Scanning around the room, I can see Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering. He's masterminding the company's entry into mobile, as well as becoming the face of Google at an increasing number of events. The twist? He was poached from Microsoft a few years back - something that the big boys in Seattle are probably regretting these days, but also a sign of how the balance of power in the technology industry is shifting.

Commenter Bauhaus suggests waiting for the Nexus Six. Nice.

5.53pm: For anyone who didn't get the Nexus Six joke, give yourselves a slap on the wrist and go and watch Bladerunner. Immediately.

Well, as soon as I'm finished this.

6.00pm: Now we're listening to the Killers. Because it's an iPhone killer, see? OK, I'll stop there. I hate the phrase "killer" anyway.

6.01pm: OK, it's officially past 10am here on the Pacific coast, and gone 6pm in London. A dribble of people are still coming in through the secret Google entrance, but hopefully things will kick off shortly.

The media's been accused of hyping this event, but if you want excessive then take a look at this comment by G00GL3L0V3R: "The Nexus One will change the way we think about Smartphones. I applaud Google, as I always have. Kudos."

Erm... is that you, Eric Schmidt?

6.05pm: And the music fades out, the lights turn up and...

6.07pm: Apparently, we're about to hear "a series of short presentations". Mario Querioz, a vice president of product management based in Britain, who has apparently been one of the forces pushing this project through.

"Today we'll unveil the next stage in the evolution of Android," he says. "But before that I want to take a quick step back." He's giving us a history lesson on Google's intentions towards mobile phones - the Open Handset Alliance and so on.

6.11pm:

Querioz continues by saying how quickly Google's mobile ambitions are growing. From a single device - the G1 last year, Android now boasts more than 20 devices n 58 carriers in 48 countries and 19 languages.

6.13pm: The blurb continues, but I'm not going to worry you with the details - it's really just Google saying "this is still an open platform... even though we're in charge of it".

Commenter HobMcD says there looks to be one major thing missing from the Nexus One, as we know it so far:

"Wake me up when Google add Multitouch to the Nexus. Call me crazy, but I don't want a 3rd-party phone, and I don't want a interface that changes drastically phone by phone... which I why I stick to my homogenised iPhone..."

It's certainly a big downside. Anyone else?

6.17pm: "What if we worked even more closely with our partners to bring devices to market which are going to help us showcase, very quickly, the great software technology we're working on here at Google. We've done just that, and today we're announcing the Nexus One."

Tada!

It's "where web meets phone", apparently. And they're trying to coin a new term - forget phones, forget smartphones, this - they say - is a superphone.

6.20pm: Peter Chou, the chief executive of HTC - which built the phone - has taken the stage to talk about how it was made. "We were actually very happy working with Google," he says. "It's one of the best designed phones... it's very thin, it feels very good in your hand and has a beautiful, gorgeous 3.7 inch OLED display."

As we already knew, it's powered by a Snapdragon processor and runs Android 2.1 software.

6.21pm: After posing for a few pictures, Chou steps down from the stage. Querioz returns to introduce some demos of the handset.

Is this all we're going to see? On Twitter, enthuso-blogger Robert Scoble (who is here today) suggested that Google may launch more than one device. I think they definitely need a surprise, given that the scoop on the Nexus One really came when they gave Engadget a review unit.

6.25pm: Somebody bring me coffee! It's nice enough to go through the specs (for example, it glows different colours depending on what's happening - blue for Bluetooth and so on) and hear how very thin and light it is. But there's a certain flatness to announcing something that everybody already knew.

Thins you may appreciate, however: it's got active noise cancellation, a 5 megapixel camera with flash, and weighs just 137g - "less than a Swiss army knife".

6.31pm: "With the hardware, we think we have half the story - but it's not about hardware alone," says the guy who is doing the demo. "It's the combination that makes the package so amazing."

"Nexus One is running on Android 2.1. Applications like Google Maps navigation, Facebook integration... but we've also included some new innovations."

He runs through a number of interface adjustments that have been brought in for this handset; scroll sideways between different widgets and screens of information.

6.34pm: Seems like the idea of a "superphone" has got a few people sniggering. Analyst Michael Gartenberg wonders Do super phones need secret identities? , while MacWorld editor Jason Snell can't help but see the irony that superphones might need to change costumes in phone booths.

6.37pm: Now things are getting a little more snazzy. The Nexus One will sport a few different 3D viewing, . These things don't make a great deal of difference - the 3D helps you navigate a little, but doesn't significantly alter the overall concept. The company has worked with CoolIris to build some new viewing modes - they look nice.

More interestingly, though, they've included some really good search options that will let you zip to the right picture by looking for date. That could be handy.

6.39pm: Now, perhaps, one of the more interesting areas of development: voice. "Voice is such an integral part of a phone," he suggests. It's amusing that smartphones (sorry superphones have ignored improvements in this area.

Under Android 2.0, we hear, you can do the following: tell the phone something like "Ikea", and it understands what you say, does a Google search on the term and matches it against your GPS location to give you turn-by-turn driving directions to that location. Just two taps and you have the directions spoken back.

Now, however, Nexus One will now have full voice enabling for every text field: so that you can write text messages, emails and other simply by speaking.

The demo sentence comes out perfectly, in just a couple of seconds: "Check out this new voice keyboard! I just hope this demo works."

Fast, and accurate - at least under these conditions.

6.43pm: Now they're giving a sneak preview of the forthcoming Google Earth application for Android. Simply speak a location to it (their example is "Mount Fuji") and the app will fly you, virtually, to your destination and display it back in 3D graphics.

That gets a round of applause from the Googlers, though frankly it seems like window dressing.

6.47pm: "We're also pleased to announce a new, through a google-hosted web store. The objective of Google's new consumer channel is to provide an efficient way to link consumers with Android devices. A simple purchasing process, a simple offering of plans from operators, a simple worry-free delivery and startup of your device."

"Through the web store you can choose to buy a phone without service, or with service from one of Google's operator partners.
At launch, from www.google.com/phone, you can purchase a Nexus One with service from T-Mobile USA. We expect to add more devices and more countries to the programme."

6.48pm: This is an interesting move, and while not entirely unexpected, we hadn't expected Google to sell phones in partnership with phone networks.

For British users, Querioz says Vodafone are joining the programme in the near future.

6.49pm: The Google phone store, doesn't look particularly shiny. It's a website, largely text, where you select the handset and the deal that you want.

The prices for the Nexus One in America are pretty much what was expected: $529 if you buy an unlocked phone, or $179 if you get a contract. This coming spring, we will be bringing the Nexus One to market together with Verizon Wireless [in the USA]."

"Vodafone in Europe will also be added to our site, starting again in Spring 2010. We're working as hard as we can to make sure that the store is ready for business, but also to make sure we offer the different flavours of the phone with these different operators later this spring."

6.53pm: Here's a fun little extra: if you buy the Nexus One through the web store, you can get two lines of laser engraving on the back of the phone - across the little metal bevel that sits about two thirds of the way down.

And if you can't wait for Vodafone to launch the phone in Britain, you can buy the unlocked version through the US store and get it shipped to the UK, Singapore or Hong Kong.

"In the future there will be more operators, there will be more devices, there will be more countries."

6.56pm: They're preparing for Q&A from the floor. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments - or tweet them to @bobbiejohnson

6.57pm: For a company that has always been proud of how it grew through non-traditional means, Google's been doing a lot of very traditional things recently: billboard advertising, TV advertising, sales and so on.

Questions coming.

7.02pm: Why only 512MB for app storage?
Andy Rubin: It helps protect applications against piracy. In the future we'll increase the storage space.

If you order today, does it ship today?
Yes.

Can you put any SIM card in it?
Querioz: In the US, you have to use a 3G SIM. There are different 3G frequencies in the US, but in Europe the same frequency is more common.

Are you telling iPhone users that this is an alternative? Is it an iPhone killer?
Rubin: Choice for consumers is a great thing, but this isn't for iPhone users - it's for consumers.
Chou: It's a great phone.

7.05pm: Why was it necessary for Google to design the phone? Couldn't it have just been designed by HTC?
RUBIN: It's inaccurate to say Google designed the phone. We're just merchandising it online, similar to any retailer. Working closely with Peter, we were able to help them get the new software first.

Will these new features soon be coming to the Droid (or other Android handsets)
RUBIN: Everyone will get that software within a couple of days.

What will convince users to buy a phone that costs $530?
QUERIOZ: They have choice. This is day one, hour one, of operation. We've been very careful and very thorough.

7.09pm: Google is known for many things. Retailing is not one of them. How are you guys going to make that work?
QUERIOZ: It's not about retailing. It's about working closely with our partners to bring out a great phone.

Please clarify what the revenue opportunities are for Google. Do you get a piece of each phone sold on the website?
RUBIN: Our primary business is advertising. The superphone category is a great way to access the internet, and along with that comes our normal business model of advertising on the internet. There is an opportunity to make margin on unit sales, but that's not what we're doing here.

7.16pm: Went a little quiet because I was queueing to ask a couple of questions:

This is apparently your best phone - and it doesn't have a physical keyboard. Does that mean the keyboard is dead?
CHOU: What HTC believes is that there are different people who have different preferences. Our strategy is to have a product portfolio to let people select what they want and what is the best fit for them. This design really focuses on the screen and the form factor that has one of the best on-screen keyboards - for those people who like this kind of product, this is the best choice for them. We also have keyboard designs for those people who are heavy email or text users.
RUBIN: There's voice input too, it's a middle thing that gives consumers options.

Is this going to lead to Google selling more than just phones online - what about other products?
RUBIN: Small cars, lava lamps, electric vehicles.
QUERIOZ: We're not going to comment further on that.

7.19pm: Why is this just a US play?
RUBIN: We're shipping to three other territories outside the US. As soon as we can get the web store to .co.uk, .de, we will.

Will there be multitouch on these phones? There is multitouch on the Motorola Milestone, but not on the Droid (which is the same phone, essentially)
RUBIN: We leave the option open. It's a software thing... we'll consider it.

This is a nice phone, but it's not a revolutionary step. Why put all your energy behind all this? Why is the pricing structure so boring when you've talked about rolling out an ad-supported phone in the past?
RUBIN: Before we can revolutionise the world, you have to have a mechanism by which you're selling product. The first baby step is getting an online store going and putting best-in-class products on that store... then we can work out how to make it better.

What's the difference between superphones and smartphones?
RUBIN: The definition of superphone for us, it's the evolution of the platform - it's such that the openness of the platform and the applications, downloads and so on. The gigahertz processors, more memory, gigabyte storage - these didn't exist two years ago. We just thought the industry needed a new term to describe it; these are as powerful as your laptop was four years ago.

7.28pm: Some reaction in the comments, from different perspectives:

Fleetwood Max: "The only innovation here is the voice control, which isn't really selling it to me. OLED & 5mp cameras are all well & good, but where's that killer feature? It's ugly as well."

DavidAZ: "I am following this on my Verizon Droid (USA), which I like a lot. I am a bit miffed that I got this device on release weekend (November 5) and this is coming out TWO MONTHS later, and will be available soon from Verizon! But I am glad I will be getting Android 2.1 over the air soon."

I think the big move here is really the idea that Google is selling products directly to the public. It could easily be the first step in a wider retailing strategy, but they didn't really want to answer that question, hence the (eventual) glib response.

7.32pm: Questions have been flooding in via Twitter: I'll try and get them answered, either in this Q&A or in the demos afterwards.

Dude, I've been typing so fast my hands feel like legs of ham.

Now I'm thinking about ham. Should have eaten some breakfast, I suspect.

7.34pm: What's broken with phone sales at the moment? What do operators think about handing over an important part of their business
RUBIN: In the same way that web stores revolutionised the sale of digital cameras, and now you don't need to go into the shop and look through the viewfinder - you trust the sites that review the cameras. We think that online sales of phones will work the same way.
As far as efficiencies go, when you cast a wide net and have TV advertising and so on, it's expensive. That leads to increased device prices, increased service plan prices, and so on. We won't have some of those overheads.

7.35pm: Questions are starting to trickle away now. That's good news for me and good news for you: I'll get my hands on one, and give my fingers a rest for a few minutes.

7.37pm: Commenter Wikipedia asks "So Bobbie, did they let you use the Nexus One to check out the nearby restaurants and shopping?"

Not yet. But we're heading out of the press conference shortly, which should give me time to play and find some ham sandwiches. I'll write a hands-on later this afternoon as I head out to the Consumer Electronics Show.

7.38pm: Oh, and the questions are still going on - but I'm not going to inflict them on you because they're boring.

7.40pm: One useful clarification from Andy Rubin, who says that not all Android phones will automatically be upgraded to the latest version of the system - because some phones just can't handle it. "My old laptop won't run Windows Vista and Windows 7," he says.

7.41pm: Apparently, the brave few of us who ventured down here will get our own Nexus phones - which should give me a chance to play on it a little more outside the confines of the Googleplex.

With that, the press conference is over - thanks for joining me and leaving your comments and questions. Always a pleasure, never a chore.

To save money, emissions and indulge my inner geek, I've tested the Google Powermeter and it has not been an entirely pleasant experience

Not content with dominating the way we send email, find information and navigate the real world, Google now hopes to manage your home's energy use. In the spirit of saving some money, emissions and indulging my inner geek, I signed up to see whether its Powermeter really is the future. For the past two months, the software which arrived in the UK in November has been tracking and broadcasting to a web page how much electricity my early-20th-century, three-bedroom terraced house consumes.

It's not been an entirely pleasant experience. While I had it setup in 10 minutes using a small hub and sensor from British company AlertMe to plug into my web connection seeing my electricity use on an iGoogle page alongside my email, news, RSS and other widgets was sometimes a scary reminder of our profligacy.

Our house typically rests at around 150 watts running a computer, fridge and a couple of lights, but it's not uncommon for that to jump up to more like 3kW (3,000 watts) with the washing machine and dishwasher running simultaneously. In December as a whole, the Powermeter graph reminded my daily, we used a shockingly high 370 kWh but fortunately December's also probably our highest month for energy use, because it's one of the darkest and the one where we're most frequently at home.

Google Powermeter makes looking at your energy consumption almost fun at least in comparison with deciphering cryptic energy bills. While you can download the raw data of your electricity use, a quick look at the baffling spreadsheet showed the importance of a meaningful interface such as Powermeter's graphs.

Interestingly, while I was trialling the service, Google dropped Powermeter's comparison feature where you can see how your use compares with US regional averages because it felt homes varied between regions to the point of making comparisons meanignless. I'm inclined to agree. Usage for our three-bedroom terrace house was regularly described as very good and akin to a one-bedroom apartment, which doesn't tell me much, except how high US domestic energy use is.

I've also been trying British Gas's new EnergySmart tariff, which gives you an energy monitor gadget and makes you submit monthly meter readings. Charles Arthur has reviewed a version of the monitor he was impressed but the most useful part of the tariff for me has been the financial incentive to save money on a month-by-month basis, knowing that each kWh saved will be reflected on that month's bank statement.

Ultimately, the really interesting stuff for this technology will come when all this data gets shared socially and results in the sharing of advice and the application of peer pressure to make people change their habits. While iGoogle and Powermeter doesn't let you publish your energy use direct to Twitter or Facebook, AlertMe offers a personal "Swingometer" to post a basic image of your energy use on Facebook, Twitter or your blog.

Regardless of whether or not Powermeter takes off, we'll all have some sort of standalone energy-monitoring gadget showing electricity usage in our homes by 2020, thanks to the government's smart meters plan.

Meantime, the best way for most people to try an energy monitor without spending 69 plus an ongoing 3 monthly subscription for AlertMe and Powermeter will be to borrow one from their local library. A trial that started in Lewisham has since spread across the country, from libraries in Leicester and Brentwood to Cardiff and York. Not for the first time, old-fashioned institutions of learning could trump new-fangled technology and gadgets.

Another day, a new set of guesses at Apple's forthcoming (or is it?) 'iTablet'. Will it 'redefine how consumers interact with content'?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple will ship its "iTablet" (that's not the name) in March, after unveiling it later this month - according to All Things Digital (another Murdoch property) on Wednesday 27 January, rather than the Tuesday 26th everyone had expected.

According to the WSJ:

One of the people briefed on the matter added that Apple was working on two different material finishes for the tablet, though it was unclear whether the Cupertino, Calif., company was just testing them or planning to come out with multiple versions of the device at different prices.

Analysts currently believe an Apple tablet will be priced at about $1,000, possibly including a subscription to a nationwide Wi-Fi wireless service.

So far, so Kindle. Except the WSJ says it will let you watch films and TV, play games, surf the net and read books and newspapers. You can't do films or TV or games or (much) surfing on the Kindle.

Let's say that again. Read books and newspapers. But also all the other things. So far, so slate:

People briefed by Apple also say that the company believes it could redefine the way consumers interact with a variety of content.

Well, yes, it could. Or it could be a bit like having a laptop with a virtual keyboard.

Weighing in too is BusinessWeek, with "Five Ways Apple's Tablet May Change The World" by Ben Kunz (er - who he? "Director of strategic planning at Mediassociates, a media planning and Internet strategy firm", apparently) - feel the new hand of Bloomberg's ownership on BW - who suggests that "Magazine and newspaper publishing will bounce back as consumers rediscover paid subscriptions"; "Television and radio ratings will continue to fall" because "Unlike print, TV and radio won't fit easily into the Apple tablet's format"; "Augmented-reality views of the world will increase" (how does the tablet do that? Oh, never mind); "Two-way video on tablets will push communication costs even lower" (wait, did we know that the iTablet would do video?); and "Telecommuting may finally take off". No, I'm not really seeing how the iTablet makes telecommutes happen more than a laptop and a second monitor, but anyway.

Finally, since we're rounding up today's iTablet speculation, let's have Joe Wilcox's latest offering (one of a series, it feels like), who also happens to have a list of five: "five things I know about the Apple tablet" - which starts off unpromisingly with "it's mythical" but improves afterward. Though spelling fans may wince at No.5: "It meets the six tenants of good design."

Ah, yes. Would they be Handy, Easy, Choosy, Picky, Nifty and Smarty?

There's lots to save you from the Christmas/New Year limbo with this week's Guardian Tech Weekly. It's the annual predictions show, where we're joined by Charles Arthur, Bobbie Johnson and Robert Andrews, who will spill the beans on what they're expecting from 2010.

There's talk of the hardware over which we're set to drool, monetisation of our favourite sites, and even a touch of augmented reality - all recorded for posterity, so you can sit back and judge the accuracy of the statements in a year's time.
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Criticising social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook is as pointless as knocking people who discuss the weather

Here are some suggested things to say if you want to sound like an idiot when you talk about social media:

It's inconsequential most of the verbiage on Twitter, Facebook and the like is banal blather

Yes, it certainly is. The reason for that is that most of it is "social grooming" messages passed between friends and family members as a way of maintaining social cohesion. The meaning of the messages isn't "u look h4wt dude" or "wat up wiv you dawg?" That's merely the form. The meaning is: "I am thinking of you, I care about you, I hope you are well."

I don't call my parents in Canada and recount the latest additions to my daughter's vocabulary because they need to know that the kid can say "elephant" and "potty" now; I call them up to say, "all is well with your son and his family", and "you are in my heart", and "I love you".

Criticizing the "banality" of Facebook conversation is as trite and ignorant as criticising people who talk about the weather. There's a reason we say "Did you sleep well?" at breakfast and "How was your weekend?" when we turn up to the office on Monday (and it's not that we care about the weekend or the rest).

Yes, people sometimes say consequential things on social media. The Twitter tag #whatTwitterdidforme has lots of sterling examples. But these are rare events that are not Twitter's raison d'etre. People don't join Twitter because they hope that someday they'll be sprung from jail, land a job, or reunite with a long-lost friend. These are bonuses.

The real value of Twitter et al is to keep the invisible lines of connection between us alive.

It is ugly MySpace is a graphic designer's worst nightmare

The word you're looking for isn't "ugly", it's "vernacular". Graphic designers are paid to clearly communicate messages (both covert and overt) to strangers on behalf of clients. Kids who bling out their MySpace pages do so because they are exuberant and playful.

These pages are as deliberately ugly as the photocopied punk band-posters that graced every telephone pole and building-site hoarding a generation ago.

The kids who make "ugly" MySpace pages are hardly ignorant of the visual vocabulary of professional design. On the contrary, they have been saturated with professional design since birth, and can recognise a message crafted by a designer on behalf of a client at 100 yards and what's more, they can distinguish it from a page crafted by a peer at the same distance.

These pages are made by people who know to the femtometre exactly how ugly they are. They are supposed to offend your sensibilities. They are intended to make designers weep. Their ugliness is a defence mechanism that protects them from being knocked off by marketing/communications firms, because most designers would rather break their own fingers than commit such an atrocity.

Prediction: in five years, some of these kids will have grown up, graduated from design college, and will be industriously turning out clones that authentically reproduce the exuberant no-design every bit as well as today's high-street shops do Sex Pistols chic.

It is ephemeral Facebook will blow over in a year and something else will be along

Totally correct, but this is a feature, not a bug. The technology that underpins social media is changing fast, and social media companies' bone-deep intuitions about what it should and shouldn't do are made obsolete every 18 months or so. Most of these companies won't be able to adapt. They will die, and be replaced by a new generation of social media companies who have better, more contemporary sensibilities.

Only ancient, clueless dinosaurs like Rupert Murdoch are dumb enough to pay hundreds of millions for social media companies with the belief that they will grow to be immortal giants. Only lazy, fat media execs from firms that endured for decades without having to remake themselves from top to bottom think that a complete turnover in the corporate landscape is a failure.

There are plenty of things to worry about when it comes to social media.

They are Skinner boxes designed to condition us to undervalue our privacy and to disclose personal information. They have opaque governance structures. They are walled gardens that violate the innovative spirit of the internet. But to deride them for being social, experimental and personal is to sound like a total fool.

Internet pirates are moving away from safe havens such as Sweden to new territories that include China and Ukraine, as they try to avoid prosecution for illegal file sharing, according to experts.

For several years, piracy groups that run services allowing music, video and software to be illegally shared online have been using legal loopholes across a wide range of countries as a way of escaping prosecution for copyright infringement.

In the last year there has been a significant shift, say piracy experts, as the groups have worked to stay beyond the reach of western law enforcement.

The change is rooted in the evolution of "bulletproof hosting", or website provision by companies that make a virtue of being impervious to legal threats and blocks. Not all bulletproof services are linked to illegal activities, but they are popular among criminal groups, spammers and file-sharing services.

Rob Holmes, of the Texas law firm IP Cybercrime, which has worked to close down several bulletproof operations, said successful hosts were now starting to get stronger. "Some of the more popular ones have become more strongholds than they were previously," he said. "It's an industry and it always will be. When you think about it, bulletproof hosting is just a data version of money laundering."

Late last year a Swedish court found four men guilty of breaking copyright law through their links to the Pirate Bay website, one of the internet's most notorious gateways for pirated films and television shows.

That decision prompted many piracy services to seek jurisdictions beyond the reach of western law. Pirate Bay moved its web servers to Ukraine, while another popular file-sharing service, Demonoid, which started in Serbia, also relocated.

"Before going completely dark in October [2009], Demonoid physically moved their servers to Ukraine, and remotely controlled them," said John Robinson, of BigChampagne, a media tracking service based in Los Angeles. "Ukrainian communications law, as they paraphrase it, says that providers are not responsible for what their customers do. Therefore, they feel no need to speak about or defend what they do."

Not every controversial service has fled beyond traditional jurisdictions, however. Some problematic hosts still exist in the US, such as the infamous host McColo, which was based in San Jose, California, and remained in operation until last year.

Pirate Bay, after its brief excursion to Ukraine, is now run out of a Dutch data centre called CyberBunker, which is based in an old nuclear facility of the 1950s, about 120 miles south-west of Amsterdam.

Research published last year showed that most bulletproof hosts are located in China, where criminals are able to take advantage of low costs and legal loopholes to avoid prosecution.

Despite officials in Beijing talking in tough terms about computer crime hacking potentially carries a death sentence in China the authorities rarely co-operate with other countries to take action against hi-tech criminals. As a result, just a handful of firms in China are responsible for hosting thousands of criminal enterprises online.

A study of online crime conducted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in the US showed that more than 22,000 websites which sent pharmaceutical spam were hosted by six bulletproof servers in China.

Richard Cox of Spamhaus, a British organisation that watches spammers and monitors bulletproof hosts, said it was almost impossible to stop expansion of such services. "At the moment there are a number of individuals who are setting up bulletproof hosting sites in China," he said. "No matter how big a part of the Chinese network we block, the administrators there just do not care."

Not every controversial service has fled beyond traditional jurisdictions, however. Some problematic hosts still exist in the US, such as the infamous host McColo, which was based in San Jose, California, and remained in operation until last year.

But the long-term impact of offshore hosting is becoming more problematic as investigators worldwide try to cut the links between criminal groups and protected internet servers.

One notorious gang of hackers, known as the Russian Business Network, after disappearing for two years amid scrutiny from the authorities in Moscow, has also reportedly returned to action. The group started as a bulletproof host in St Petersburg but had connections to a wide range of criminal activities online. Widely known in the computer security community, it is being investigated by the FBI. The Russian authorities, meanwhile, have been keen to foster greater communication to stop the spread of criminal activity online.

Some are hopeful that greater co-operation between international governments will help prevent the development of new piracy havens, but others suggest that it is unlikely that a complete block on such activities will ever be possible.

"There will always be a place to run to," said Rob Holmes, of IP Cybercrime. "Each time a law passes, or a new country creates some kind of stumbling block for them, they'll always find another place to do this. It goes back to the speakeasies in the 1920s when one place got busted, they would just congregate in another place."

Now you too can play the role of the Australian government keeping all that pesky content out of the pristine continent

Censorship, the internet and the Australian government - that eternal threesome who never seem to tire of each other. Well, Australian internet users do seem to tire of the censorship, but the Aussie government seems to find it a constant, um, delight.

From the banning of Manhunt (and ever so many others) to attempts to throw a filter around the island (even though it is continent-sized, it's surrounded by water) - which go back to 2004, but were shown there to be a waste of time (and money) as far back as 2007 - the Australian government has shown an intriguing desire to raise the standards of its population by, essentially, not letting people see Bad Stuff.

And, realising how effective that always is, a Melbourne-based games developer called Conor O'Kane, who (as Kotaku puts it) "is no stranger to using games as a vehicle for political satire", has developed a Flash-based game where you can while away the hours trying to stop Bad Sites getting across the thin red line to Australia.

Of course, you could always just watch the video. But if you really need that game - will it be banned in Australia? - then you can head over to Ban This Game, where you can get versions for Windows or Mac.

I'm packing my bags for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where many of this year's hot products are expected to make their first appearance

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will be held in Las Vegas this week, and more than 100,000 people are expected to turn up to see 20,000 new products and even more old ones. It's still the main focus for the global electronics industry, though Google is expected to announce its Nexus One phone on Tuesday, before the show opens, and Apple will announce its iSlate/Tablet/oversized iPod Touch/whatever at a later date.

One of the main battles will be the one I reported through the second half of last year: between Intel-powered netbooks (which are selling like hot cakes) and ARM-based smartbooks (which barely exist, yet). The Intel-powered netbooks will take some big steps forward with the use of Intel's new Pine Trail chipset -- several dozen new machines are expected. But there should also be the chance to see some working smartbooks with ARM Cortex chips running one of the plethora of Linuxes.

Touchscreen tablet computers are also expected to appear again. Firms have been trying to flog them since the GridPAD, which pre-Windows ran Microsoft MS DOS, and the WebPads of the late 1990s. Microsoft has had several goes at the market with PC Companions running Windows CE, the Tablet PC edition of Windows XP, and its Origami design, without selling significant numbers. But it might be an idea whose time has finally come.

Following the success of Amazon's Kindle ebook reader another idea that goes back more than a decade I'm expecting to see lots of ebook readers. In particular, MSI is expected to show a twin-screen model. I'm also expecting at least a couple of companies to try ebooks with colour screens, which look attractive but can greatly reduce battery life.

Yet another old idea, 3D, could also get some traction. There must have been some sort of 3D TV shown at practically every CES in the past decade. Thanks to the recent success of 3D movies, there should be even more this year. How many will reach the shops and be bought by grateful punters is another matter, but the market can't really get any smaller.

But the real fun of CES is finding the oddball products you could never have anticipated. Of course, almost all of these disappear without trace. However, if you were only going to report the sort of Windows-based PC that's actually going to take the vast majority of the PC market, it would be hard to justify going to CES .

As video on demand enters the mass market, which player has the biggest likelihood of succeeding in the UK?

Now that iPlayer has lit the blue touch paper under catch-up TV, effectively creating the mass market for video on-demand, 2010 will be the year when a glut of competing services vie to be one of the UK's main video-on-demand (VOD) aggregators. They can't all win, so here's our bet on who has the biggest likelihood of succeeding

Federated iPlayer: 7/10

A year after it asked Anthony Rose's team to offer the BBC's super-successful catch-up technology to PSB counterparts as part of a plan to save them 120 million by 2014, the BBC Trust then blocked exactly that. But only on a silly Catch 22 - the trust didn't like the proposal for creating a new company that would license out the tech - but, under European state aid rules, the BBC is compelled to make a profit from such a venture.

If and when Rose finds a way around this in 2010 (the trust encouraged the BBC to do so), the iPlayer brand - with 729 million requests in 2009 - may prove so appealing that broadcasters simply can't forgo the kind of shop window it would give to their shows and advertisers. ITV is already copying iPlayer's every move - if "ITV Player" sounds roughly similar, then its slogan "amazing telly you can't miss", is directly in line with iPlayer's own "making the unmissable unmissable"

VOD collaboration from the PSBs on the now-approved Project Canvas will, by default, spur them to a similar end in web VOD. This will all raise concerns from commercial quarters about BBC expansionism killing competition. Those quarters should understand BBC online chief Erik Huggers' main motivation - building a domestic VOD foil to the large US aggregators

Hulu: 2/10

It's 14 months since the NBCU/Disney/News Corp JV, which has had an iPlayer effect in the U.S., told us it wanted to open shop in Britain. The main stumbling block was to await the conclusion of the Competition Commission's Kangaroo inquiry. When the commission blocked the BBCWW/ITV/C4 JV in February, many like Huggers feared the door was open for a Hulu landgrab

But, 10 months on, Hulu has still announced no content on which it can build a UK product launch. We continue to hear Hulu wants to carry broadcasters' content exclusively - but, with so much in flux, signing away their crown jewels to a platform that may be rubble in a year's time is the last thing content owners want to do.

More likely, broadcasters resolve with themselves that syndication generally is a good thing, then syndicate to as many quality aggregators, with big audiences, that they can find. Channel 4 and Five have already effectively shut the door to Hulu exclusivity by signing with both YouTube and SeeSaw. Hulu was believed to still be courting ITV with a promise of equity for exclusivity - but it may either have to give up this stipulation or risk becoming another Joost.

SeeSaw: 5/10

Where next for the technology, built by Sky Anytime creator Ioko, bought from ill-fated Projected Kangaroo by Arqiva? The transmitter infrastructure operator isn't exactly an obvious choice to succeed in online, being more used to licensing spectrum airwaves to broadcasters than leasing them broadband distribution.

But Arqiva has strong relations with the broadcasters, both by virtue of those transmitters and being a partner in the Freeview JV. That proximity should give it advantages in negotiating for PSB content at least. SeeSaw has taken its time announcing any content but, now it has matched YouTube in securing C4 and Five, as well as some BBCWW shows.

But this puts it only on par, not ahead, and - unlike YouTube - it doesn't yet have any brand name to trade on. But the SeeSaw name (also inherited from Kangaroo) is simply inspired, encapsulating both live and catch-up shows ("I see, I saw") - it would be easy to imagine SeeSaw referred to in trails on BBC, ITV, C4 and Five as the UK's main online catch-up destination. But not if a federated iPlayer really does happen - if so, SeeSaw may have to offer only the pay-for shows outside of the broadcasters' initial 30-day public catch-up window.

YouTube: 7/10

Already heavily advertising its new UK Shows section, Google's site is currently frontrunner in the race to be a UK VOD gateway. Having signed C4 and Five, it already has content from half of the main PSB operators.

Unlike either SeeSaw or Hulu, it's an established brand that already has a tremendous audience to push those shows to. Allowing broadcasters to sell their own ad spots around their own content was the thing that convinced C4 and Five to jump aboard. And it's a win-win for both sides - content owners aren't locked in to exclusivity, and YouTube gets more quality content without any skateboarding dogs. None of this necessarily makes YouTube the key destination (if broadcasters refrain from exclusivity, YouTube may get just the same content as everyone else) - but it's existing footfall as a video site will give it decent leverage.

Not everyone's convinced. ITV executive chairman Michael Grade last year stirred up a hornet's nest by calling YouTube a "parasite" (yes, he beat Murdoch to the same remark), but many expect Grade's exit to thaw relations, particularly if ITV decides to push "eject" on those Hulu talks. The BBC may regard a YouTube VOD win as a threat from across the Atlantic - but a recent commitment to customise and syndicate iPlayer to services with over 100,000 users, plus the BBC's need to distribute its content to as many people as possible, may compel it to add to YouTube. Still, the BBC Trust's upcoming review of iPlayer syndication is set to clarify this further.

MSN Video: 5/10

MSN UK executive producer Peter Bale says video is "probably the biggest thing we'll do next year": "We believe high-quality long-form video online is not only a monetisable product but is going to bring an audience." Having hired former BBC online and Kangaroo chief Ashley Highfield to run its consumer operations, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is primed to use his broadcast experience for a tilt at the area.

But, for MSN, what exactly defines success in the video space? This will be about rights and audience. As a portal, MSN is all things to all men, but pulls significant traffic through Internet Explorer - this will be an expansion in to an area that's non-core, but potentially additive. On rights acquisition, shows licensed from All3Media and BBCWW (Shameless, Peep Show, League of Gentleman) arent exactly going to set the world alight by themselves.

But 2009 was a tentative trial from MSN. After those two initial deals, and in lieu of broadcaster licenses, MSN is going direct to indie producers, having signed an agreement with their umbrella body that paves the way for more deals. This won't quite be the same kind of success as could offering, say, a syndicated iPlayer or ITV Player (ITV did a small such deal with MSN two years back, but it's gone quiet). If MSN merely gets the same broadcaster content as everyone else, it will be just another video destination - but that video will still be a useful addition to the portal.

Blinkbox: 4.5/10

An under-the-radar operator, Blinkbox is one of those that isn't shy about charging for some of the content it offers, for rental and download-to-own. TV and movie content from 16 studios means the site (which has extended from its original model of letting users send viral clips) has a decent enough portfolio - but, amongst the main UK broadcasters, only BBCWW shows.

There's something respectable, at this point, about charging for content. The service is good and the quality high but, as bigger-name sites rise around it, offering free shows from the main networks, Blinkbox may be squeezed on the pay-for VOD front. But we see plenty of success potential for Blinkbox as a pay movie brand inside a Canvas box, for example.

Canvas: 6.5/10

If Sky and a possible OFT inquiry don't manage to derail it (let's face it, the BBC Trust acknowledges Canvas will hurt pay-TV operators), the new JV has the potential to radially reinvent the UK TV viewing experience in late 2010. iPlayer has already popularised VOD on computers (forgetting, for a moment, its popular Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) TV implementation) - now imagine VOD from all the broadcasters on TVs.

It's a marker of how far the broadcasters have come with their licensing frameworks that they are all now ready to exploit the new world of catch-up on the living room telly. Canvas will extend what iPlayer has done for UK VOD consumption and amplify it by providing it through the screen people use most for TV, as well as introducing an innovative wave of internetty content widgets and services like Flickr, Twitter and more (get ready for your TV, finally, to become more like your computer if this comes to pass).

One of the most exciting Canvas uses is in finally giving the growing wave of desktop internet video distributors a mass-appeal route to the living room. Think YouTube, Dailymotion and Babelgum, alongside BBC One, on your widescreen from your sofa.

But all this excitement must be heavily qualified. While four broadcasters, two ISPs and two set-top box makers are now aboard, Canvas may struggle to convince TV makers like Panasonic, Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Sharp - all of whom are devising their own methods of integrated internet TV delivery - aboard. That could stunt Canvas' real potential as an integrated TV experience, relegating it to yet another box under the screen.

Sky Player: 6/10

Sky emailed to remind us it's showing signs of becoming a VOD aggregator of its own - though not in the same sense as above. Linked to the same kind of subscription model as is its satellite business, Sky Player groups not just its own channels but also the raft of third-party channels from its standard TV packages, as both live and catch-up. This will certainly have appeal to existing Sky TV subscribers who want to watch shows away from the living room., though its appeal will be limited in the wider context of mass-appeal aggregated catch-up.

Despite its dominant linear pay-TV position, Sky finds itself playing a kind of catch-up in the coming VOD race - it's satellite delivery method can't support true VOD like Virgin's cable network can, and it hasn't yet enabled a catch-up service to its boxes over their broadband connection, of which only the HD boxes have one. In the meantime, Sky has been taking its VOD on to other folks' boxes (Xbox, Windows Media Centre, FetchTV). When Sky tools its own boxes for VOD in 2010, it will involve expensive migration of non-HD customers.

The main issue will be: can it get catch-up VOD rights from not just its own channels and its core partners (ie NatGeo) but also from the main PSBs? Then, the biggest object on Sky's horizon is this: should it join the Project Canvas that it has fought against so hard? Canvas could prove a terrific distribution opportunity for Sky's content. It could take advantage of Canvas' pay-TV features to find a whole new subscription customer base. This could undermine the core satellite business on which Sky currently has nine million customers. But then, Sky has already divorced content from this in the Xbox and other relationships - perhaps, ultimately, splitting the content and distribution businesses can be split to good effect.

Broadcasters' own sites: 9/10

The one guarantee as all these services crop up - broadcasters will use their homegrown VOD options as the core proposition, and as a fallback against failed super-aggregator bets, until such time as a winner might emerge.

ITV is seeing audiences skyrocket from its iPlayer imitation ITV Player, Channel 4 recently invested in a web-based overhaul for a now-free 4oD . These will likely remain the key platforms trailed in TV idents through 2010.

MoD document written before deaths of 29 passengers in June 1994 highlighted concerns over helicopter's engine systems

Faulty computer software could have led to a Chinook helicopter crash that killed 25 of Britain's top intelligence experts, it was reported today.

An internal Ministry of Defence document written nine months before the 1994 crash and obtained by the BBC said the software was "positively dangerous".

Written by experts working for the MoD's aircraft testing centre at Boscombe Down, it shows there were serious concerns about the engine control computer software, the BBC claimed.

Deficiencies meant the pilot's full control of the engines "could not be assured", said the report for Radio 4's Today programme.

The crash on the Mull of Kintyre in thick fog on 2 June killed 29 people including more than 20 senior members of Northern Ireland's military and intelligence community.

Their deaths were described at the time as a "catastrophic loss in the fight against terrorism".

An official RAF inquiry concluded the aircraft was airworthy and found the two pilots guilty of gross negligence. But three inquiries since have found that the cause of the crash was inconclusive.

Campaigners and relatives of those killed have always insisted that flaws in the Mark 2 helicopter were likely to have caused the crash and not the negligence of the pilots.

They believe the aircraft was rushed into service and the pilots, Flight Lieutenants Jonathan Tapper and Rick Cook, were blamed to save face.

The MoD said the Chinook crashed in poor visibility and the fleet had a safe and successful service history.

In a statement it said: "Ministers have repeatedly stated that they would reopen the board of inquiry if any new evidence is raised.

"Despite numerous representations over the years, nothing has been presented to successive secretaries of state that would justify reopening the inquiry.

"This latest information is from an RAF document; it was available to the inquiry team and cannot be classed as new evidence."

The age of creation on the web will begin to yield to an age of curation

One of our more charming American sayings is that a time comes when you have to shit or get off the pot. We can only hope that moment has arrived in the debate over paid content online, and that in 2010, Rupert Murdoch and company will charge or not, and succeed or fail, and we can be done with this tiresome topic.

While old media moguls fret over collecting pennies, upstarts will be creating more competitive news businesses, having the advantage of much lower costs. We have seen not-for-profit news organisations march into Minneapolis, San Francisco, Chicago and Texas. Next year, for-profit local news enterprises will launch in Washington, from Politico, and in Hawaii, from eBay's founder, Pierre Omidyar.

Algorithms will play a greater role in the media industry and its economics. Demand Media and the slightly rechristened "Aol." are using automated editors to select and assign to human writers pieces that will attract the most interest and revenue via search at the lowest cost. We should fear what these content farms will do to quality. But as we see content continue to explode, we are also seeing more efforts, human and computerised, to cut through the chaff to solve the problem Clay Shirky calls "filter failure". The age of creation on the web will begin to yield to an age of curation. While internet media continue to evolve at the rate of a fruit fly, old media companies will continue to flirt with extinction. Newspapers' revenue and circulation will still fall and cutbacks will worsen their products, accelerating the businesses' decline as more papers die. More magazines will fold. Following the sale of NBC as an afterthought in Comcast's purchase of NBC Universal, the value of broadcasting will continue to deflate.

This will be the year when it becomes apparent that the future of news and media is entrepreneurial, not institutional. The year will see the rise of the new overtake the fall of the old. Even so, while we suffer moguls' death rattles, we will hear continued debate over government intervention to protect them through proposed changes in copyright, tax favours and direct subsidy. If the government steps in, it will be to bail them out as it did for bad banks and General Motors. And we know how well that worked. A concurrent debate in Washington will reach its climax this year over net neutrality and the means to bring broadband ubiquity to the nation. That is the intervention the entrepreneurs seek.

If, instead of the same tired debates over old media, you seek something new, go mobile. In 2010, we will see Google battle Apple for the right to connect us, not just with each other but with information about any place, any thing and anyone. As we also say in America, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Jeff Jarvis blogs at buzzmachine.com

Today, Google has a surprising animated logo to celebrate the birthday of one of the world's greatest scientists, Sir Isaac Newton, who was born on Christmas day in 1642

Sir Isaac Newton's birthday* is being celebrated today by a "Google doodle" that shows an apple falling from a tree: an event that inspired him to formulate his theory of gravity, and established him as one of the world's greatest scientists.

Google frequently commemorates events by changing the logo on its search page. Newton's doodle is unusual in being the first to include an action a falling apple and in having a photographic quality.

Newton's idea was that the force of gravity didn't stop at pulling apples to the ground, but extended into space; wouldn't it go as far as the moon? Newton was then able to show by calculation what he already believed: that the moon's orbit could be explained by the gravitational pull of the Earth.

The theory of gravity and three laws of motion, described in Principia Mathematica in 1687, went against traditional ideas that must have seemed "obvious" to many non-scientists. First, it was evident that the moon kept circling the Earth without any "motive power" beyond gravity to keep it going. This broke with Aristotelian physics, which assumed that some sort of force was necessary to keep things in motion.

Newton's theory of gravity also explained the moon's influence on the tides, "for there will be a stronger attraction upon that part of the water that is nearest to the body, and a weaker upon that part which is more remote," he wrote.

Second, gravity was an invisible force that extended over vast distances: its influence could be shown even on the planets in the solar system. To some, this seemed like a supernatural or even an occult idea.

Newton's theory of gravity and three laws of motion enabled people to make mathematical models and therefore to predict or confirm physical observations, but how gravity works and what it actually "means", if anything, are different issues. "It is enough," wrote Newton, "that gravity really exists and acts according to the laws that we have set forth and is sufficient to explain all the motions of the heavenly bodies and of our sea."

But the implications of this simple statement are profound. Newton is saying that the universe operates in a rational and predictable way, and its workings can be described mathematically without any reference to mythology, theology or religion. Many people still find this idea challenging more than 300 years later.

* Newton was born on Christmas day, 25 December 1642 under the Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, and still in use in Britain. We changed to using the Gregorian calendar in 1752, which was after Newton's death in 1727. Google is celebrating the Gregorian date today, but it's not one that Newton would have recognised.

Can the internet really bring about political change? Optimists point to the green movement in Iran, when the reformist campaign showed the power of new technologies to organise resistance and to break the stranglehold of censors on information; but the episode also showed that technology alone is not enough to secure democratic change.

As the Iranian regime cracked down on protesters and on international media, the story of the green movement was often brought to the world by those on the streets. Without mobile phone video, Neda Agha-Soltan might have become yet another protester denied a proper burial rather than the face of the struggle. The Iranian regime could send international journalists packing, but they couldn't stop the flow of information via Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and email. It is not surprising that technology played such a role in Iran. Over the past decade, internet use there grew faster than any other country in the Middle East, and more than a third of all Iranians are online. Iran is a country of bloggers, with many journalists turning to blogs after their newspapers were shut down.

However, only cyber-utopians believe democratic change is just a mouse click away and toppling dictators is simply a matter of "just adding the internet". Despite Iranians' net sophistication, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remains in power. The enemies of democracy are also learning to counter cyber-activism with cyber-repression. But when real change is afoot, technology can force the pace whether under a repressive regime or an established democracy. As Britain looks forward to an election with the scandal of MPs' expenses still fresh in the minds of voters, parties must use the internet to re-engage disenchanted voters not to resist real change.

Following Barack Obama's successful use of social networking, British parties have redoubled their rush on to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. A few engaged MPs use such sites not only to broadcast their views but also to listen to their constituents. However, too much political effort online simply mimics traditional marketing-driven campaigning treating voters as little more than shoppers, and policies as slickly packaged products. The overlooked lesson of Obama's campaign is that it treated voters as citizens with active roles in a democratic society rather than passive consumers swayed by party marketing.

As the campaigns ramp up, parties poking voters on Facebook or tweeting their latest policy proposals that amount to nothing more than business as usual is likely to end in farce. Facebook voters will simply rage against the political machine.

Your new iPhone may be able to pay your gas bill and tell you the quickest way by bike from Oxford Circus to John O'Groats, but which of its 90,000 downloadable applications will improve your cultural life? As Penguin launches its first ebook app this week and galleries and museums get in on the act, Ajesh Patalay offers his pick of the artiest apps for 2010

From South Park to Shakespeare - thirty top arts apps

Those of you lucky enough to have unwrapped an iPhone at Christmas are in for a treat. Yes, it gives you instant access to the internet, chat-style text messaging, GPS-powered maps and an iPod's wealth of music (the features that have made the phone so covetable since its launch in 2007). More importantly, though, you can now customise it with countless apps and enjoy their capacity to make your life better, easier and downright more fun.

That's "apps" as in "applications", which you download from the iTunes store and which bestow upon your iPhone life-enhancing resources as wide-ranging as video games, reference tools, lifestyle aids, business and finance planners as well as time-wasting gimmicks that simply defy categorisation (one bestselling app called Ocarina turns that iPhone into a wind instrument that emits a panpipe-like sound when you blow into the microphone; another called CatPaint superimposes cats on to your photos. Trust me, it's hilarious).

Since the App Store launched in July 2008, there have been more than two billion downloads of more than 90,000 different apps approved so far, making app development big business. Indeed, in app sales alone Apple has made around $45m ( 28m), a figure that looks likely to rise when the iPhone becomes available on Vodafone on 14 January (it is already on O₂ and Orange), at which point a whole new set of customers will become converts.

While the UK's bestselling apps still tend to be games (Sims 3, Scrabble, Worms) or travel-related (TomTom, National Rail Enquiries), the App Store has plenty to offer culture vultures. Recent figures show that one out of every five new apps for the iPhone is a book. Rivalling Amazon's Kindle and Sony's eBook readers, the iPhone has benefited from the development of apps such as Stanza, which gives access to over 100,000 books for free. Despite doubts over whether anyone would want to read a whole novel on the iPhone screen, the two most popular downloads when Stanza was launched in 2008 were Moby-Dick and Machiavelli's The Prince, which says something about the ambition of Stanza users.

Like Amazon, which last year acquired the company behind Stanza, publishing houses are keen to profit from this rapidly expanding business. This week Penguin releases its first ebook app (Paul Hoffman's The Left Hand of God) while Pan Macmillan has scored a hit with its app version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So has Canongate with its enhanced app version of Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro, the success of which perhaps owes to its integration of text with soundtrack, audiobook and films of Cave reading, thus exploiting the unique capabilities of the iPhone/iPod Touch. And independent publishers such as McSweeney's, founded by Dave Eggers, and quarterly literary magazine Electric Literature, whose first issue featured work by novelist Michael Cunningham (The Hours), are successfully packaging new short fiction for the iPhone.

In other fields, film-makers, galleries and museums are adapting their content to create some of the most promising new apps. "Potter has inadvertently created the best mobile application ever," wrote one commentator last year when Sally Potter's film Rage, a satire on the fashion industry starring Jude Law, was distributed free via video app Babelgum. This dovetailed neatly with the film's premise that it had been shot on a mobile phone.

Institutions including the National Gallery, the Louvre, the Brooklyn and British Museums, which have spent years digitally archiving their collections, have been quick to package much of that content into apps that allow users to browse high-resolution images of art on their mobile screen. (The National Gallery's Love Art app already boasts over 300,000 downloads.) This year will also see the launch of Artful Museums, an app developed by online retail site CultureLabel, which will aggregate art content from a variety of different museums and galleries as well as provide expert commentary on key works.

Other arts organisations have embraced the iPhone's possibilities to bring art and music to life. The Los Angeles Philharmonic's Bravo Gustavo app turns the phone into a baton that you wave in the style of maestro conductor Gustavo Dudamel to set the tempo to two orchestral pieces by Berlioz. Just as playful is an app from the Victoria & Albert Museum that allows you to animate one of its most famous exhibits, Tippoo's Tiger, and one from the English National Opera called Play Ligeti that lets you compose your own version of the car horn prelude from Gy rgy Ligeti's opera Le Grand Macabre, recently staged at the Coliseum.

Of course the boon of many of these apps is their social networking features which let users link and chat to others: great for trading recommendations, pictures or just thoughts as you listen to a piece of music or ponder a work of art.

These apps are not just about appreciating art but also about making it. Though none of these creative apps, which include music-making, storytelling, photo editing and songwriting aids, are included in our rundown of the 30 best culture apps, one deserves particular mention for being championed by David Hockney. "It's always there in my pocket," says Hockney of Brushes, the app that allows you to fingerpaint onto the iPhone's screen. "There's no thrashing about, scrambling for the right colour. One can set to work immediately, there's this wonderful impromptu quality, this freshness, to the activity; and when it's over, best of all, there's no mess, no clean-up. You just turn off the machine. Or, even better, you hit Send, and your little cohort of friends around the world gets to experience a similar immediacy." Hockney's enthusiasm surely hints at the benefits artists, writers, musicians and their community of fans will enjoy from the iPhone's apps in the future.

PS3/Xbox 360; 49.99; cert 15+; Vigil/THQ

There are surprisingly few contenders for the first must-have game of the decade and, at a glance, Darksiders doesn't seem like changing that situation.

Despite X-Men artist Joe Madureira contributing the main character designs, nothing much else strikes you as particularly new. However, if you're going to borrow, borrow from the best; and with a clear debt to games as accomplished as God of War, Zelda and Devil May Cry, developer Vigil deserves credit for fashioning a fast and furious action RPG studded with epic set pieces.

Darksiders casts you as War, one of the four Horseman of the Apocalypse, out for justice with nothing but his trusty steed and a selection of ever more oversized melee weapons. Each of these can be upgraded by the Vulgrim, demon traders who occupy portals within the game. The Vulgrim fulfil much of the game's RPG element, allowing you to purchase upgrades or new weapons for soul energy and forcing you to choose which aspects of your personality to upgrade.

As you might expect, Darksiders is mainly about combat. Much of the scenery can be destroyed or hurled as weapons, while other parts can be climbed, allowing your hero to demonstrate a wider variety of moves than his bulky frame might suggest. In play, you initially start using just the Square and Circle buttons for attacks with the X button for jumps and the joysticks serving their usual look and move functions. However, new moves are revealed by trial and experience all the controller buttons end up being used in some way, offering advantage to those with a good memory for all the combinations.

Weapon upgrades and special powers can be mapped to the D-pad, allowing you to choose whether a defensive or offensive style suits you best. Despite some initially sluggish controls, particularly when defending against attacks or responding with a shoulder charge, initial frustration gives way to a satisfyingly steady learning curve. By the time you acquire later standalone weapons such as the projective-firing Fracture Cannon and Redemption, you'll be taking on bosses and juggling combination moves with ease.

Although it's fun to play, Darksiders ultimately feels like RPG by numbers. Yes, the boss battles make exciting set pieces; however, what lies between is undeniably formulaic stuff. And what little illusion of freeform gameplay there is soon dissipates in the predictable challenges you face. Even the bosses, while impressive in terms of scale and design, are all dispatched using the same process of hammering away with blade or projectile until the creature weakens, whereupon it will wait forever until you administer the finishing move. That said, for a first game, developer Vigil deserves some credit for fashioning an eye catching, if formulaic, start to the new decade.

Rating: 3/5

Which Bond baddie does the 3008 resemble?

What do you get if you put an SUV, an MPV and a hatchback together? An "SUVMPV hatchback", obviously. But the motor industry is a capricious beast, so for reasons best known to itself, it hasn't taken to that perfectly useful title.

Instead, a CUV seems to be the preferred term for such a melange of auto genres. Depending on opinion, the CUV is a smart utilitarian compromise or a motorised crisis of identity.

In case you're wondering, CUV stands for crossover utility vehicle, a phrase that certainly sets the heart pumping and the imagination racing, at least when combined with a hefty cocktail of dangerous recreational drugs. But that sort of thing is not recommended when driving, so let's consider the Peugeot 3008, which is indeed a CUV, in a sober and sedate frame of mind.

With its bland shape, reminiscent of any typical urban family vehicle, and its chunky wheels and heightened position, the 3008 looks a bit like everything else and nothing in particular. Unlike its most obvious competitor, the Nissan Qashqai, it stops a notable way short of off-road styling and opts, instead, for something more reassuringly on-road. The one concession to distinctiveness is the grille, a sort of ugly wide mesh that is surely a homage to Richard Kiel's dental arrangements as Jaws in Bond films of the late 70s.

If nothing else, the grille can prove helpful in car parks, when you can't remember where you parked. However, this is not the sort of car that anyone buys to look at. It will be bought to look out.

Up front, the 3008 affords a clear and commanding view of the road. It's comfortable and easy to drive, conveying a sense of security without feeling cumbersome or heavy. One minor but not insignificant criticism, though, is the lack of a manual handbrake. Why does it need an electronic button when there are few pieces of machinery more satisfying or reliable than a good old-fashioned handbrake? After all, there is a sensible reason why it's called a handbrake. Never mind the hill start, what about the handbrake turn? What self-respecting getaway driver would attempt that most skilled of manoeuvres with a flimsy electronic button?

Peugeot says the car is the result of a process of "hybridisation", a word that, if it exists, should be used only by deranged genii in inferior sci-fis. Nevertheless, we live in an increasingly hybrid world in which innovation is rapidly cannibalised, regurgitated and reconsumed. Perhaps the 3008 is proof that the car industry will ultimately eat itself. But then, in its own oddly amorphous way, it's a CUV that's really rather tasty.

Troubled startup SpinVox - once a shooting star of the British technology industry - has been bought by an American rival in a deal worth $102m ( 64m).

After a difficult year that saw substantial losses and unrest among its investors, it was today confirmed that the company - which converts customers' voicemails into text messages that they can read more easily - has been acquired by US technology firm Nuance.

In a statement Nuance, which makes the popular voice recognition program Dragon NaturallySpeaking, said it was buying SpinVox to help expand its reach into new countries.

"Around the world, the voice-to-text market has experienced tremendous growth over the last year," said Nuance vice president John Pollard. "With SpinVox's robust infrastructure, language support and operational experience, we will broaden the reach and capabilities of our platform."

The deal marks a heavy loss on the investments made in the Buckinghamshire-based company, which had raised more than $230m ( 145m) in recent years to fund its ambitious expansion plans - and once valued itself at more than $500m.

While it boasted a legion of fans, however, the company had struggled to pay for major expansions around the world, while simultaneously fighting a series of claims that its automated voice-to-text technology actually relied heavily on call centre staff.

Over the summer, it rejected a BBC report suggesting that humans not computers - transcribed large portions of customers' messages and held a demonstration of its system for journalists.

The increased scrutiny exposed a series of fissures inside the company, however. The management team, led by chief executive Christine Domecq, came in for criticism, and in August, recently-appointed director Patrick Russo the former chief executive of telecoms giant Alcatel-Lucent - stepped down.

With losses mounting, the company raised more funding in August largely to service its debts and began paying staff with stock, rather than cash, as a way to save money. But in September one of its backers, Invesco, wrote down its outlay by 90% and confirmed that SpinVox was up for sale.

Rumours of the Nuance deal were reported earlier this month, around the same time that the company was given more time to repay a 30m loan that had placed extra pressure on its finances. However, early suggestions were that the company was closing in on a $150m price tag - significantly more than the $102.5m deal that was eventually struck.

Investors in the company who include Goldman Sachs, Carphone Warehouse chief Charles Dunstone and Peter Wood, the founder of insurance group Directline will receive a total of 42m in cash for the acquisition, with the rest of the money coming in the form of Nuance stock.

Shares in the Massachusetts technology company which had climbed by more than 50% over the past year - were down around 1%, to 15.97, on the news.

OLEDs may soon replace lightbulbs in homes and offices with panels of energy-efficient light built into walls

Wallpaper that can glow with light and bendable flat-panel screens are a step closer thanks to research into organic LEDs (OLEDs), which are widely hailed as the next generation of environmentally friendly lighting technology.

OLEDs use very little power to produce light, even compared with modern energy-saving bulbs. The chemicals they are made from can be painted on to thin, flexible surfaces, allowing them potentially to be used to replace traditional lightbulbs in homes and offices with panels of energy-efficient light built into walls, windows or even furniture. Other uses include flexible display screens, whose very low power consumption would mean they could operate without mains power, for example as roadside traffic warning signs powered by small solar panels.

Lomox Limited, a two-year-old company based in north Wales, awarded more than 450,000 today by the government-backed Carbon Trust to accelerate the development of its OLED technology.

Around a sixth of all the UK's electricity is used for lighting and Lomox claims its OLEDs are 2.5 times more efficient than standard energy-saving lightbulbs. The Carbon Trust said that, if all modern lights were replaced by OLEDs, annual carbon emissions around the world could fall by 2.5m tonnes by 2020 and almost 7.4mT by 2050. Replacing old, incandescent bulbs with OLEDs would generate even greater CO2 savings.

OLEDs have shown much promise in laboratories but must get over two major hurdles to become widespread consumer items: they are expensive to make and they tend to have relatively short lifetimes. "What our technology does, with the seven patents we have, is fix those problems," said Ken Lacey, chief executive of Lomox. He said his company's OLEDs have the potential to last as long as modern fluorescent lights and, for the display sector, as long as LCD panels. Lomox also claims its light matches natural light more closely than other energy-saving bulbs.

The company will focus its efforts on getting the first of its OLEDs to market by 2012, mainly for outdoor lighting. "The early part of the grant is to do the testing and take this out to that marketplace," said Lacey.

Mark Williamson, director of innovations at the Carbon Trust, said: "Lighting is a major producer of carbon emissions. This technology has the potential to produce ultra-efficient lighting for a wide range of applications, tapping into a huge global market. We're now on the look-out for other technologies that can save carbon and be a commercial success."

The grant for Lomox is one of 164 projects supported by the Carbon Trust for small companies working on a range of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies such as fuel cells, combined heat and power, bioenergy, solar power, low-carbon building technologies, marine energy devices and more efficient industrial processes.

Yahoo, Flickr and Microsoft introduce access filters

It may have given the world the Kama Sutra and the Bollywood wet sari scene, but it appears that India is not yet ready to be exposed to the delicate subject of sex on the internet.

A Guardian investigation has discovered that several internet companies have quietly introduced filters to prevent Indian users from accessing sexual content.

The Yahoo search engine and Flickr photo-sharing site (owned by Yahoo) altered their sites earlier this month to prevent users in India from switching off the safe-search facility. The block also applies to users in Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea.

Microsoft has also barred Indian users of its Bing search engine from searching for sexual content. Users who do try to search for sexual material receive a notice informing them that "your country or region requires a strict Bing SafeSearch setting, which filters out results that might return adult content".

The clampdown is understood to be in response to recent changes to India's Information Technology Act of 2000, which bans the publication of pornographic material.

That law, which is based on a 150-year-old statute (section 292 of the Indian penal code), defines obscenity as "any content that is lascivious and that will appeal to prurient interest or the effect of which is to tend to deprave or corrupt the minds of those who are likely to see, read or hear the same".

In October, the scope of the 2000 act was dramatically widened to enable action to be taken against a wide range of providers, from internet search engines and internet service providers to cyber-cafes. Under the new law, they are obliged to exercise due diligence and disable access to any content which contravenes the act. Failure to do so carries a three-year jail sentence and a fine of up to 500,000 rupees ( 6,690).

Search engine reports suggest that users in India are responsible for more searches for "sex" than those in any other country. Its popular daily newspapers are packed with pictures of young women in states of undress and Bollywood oozes sexuality from every pore.

But at the same time it remains a deeply religious country in which traditionalists regularly take violent offence at anything deemed to be too suggestive.

The latest attempts to constrain internet users come at a time when the vexed subject of sexual behaviour is once again dominating the domestic headlines.

Last week an Indian news channel broadcast video footage of a man said to be the 86-year-old governor of Andhra Pradesh, Narayan Datt Tiwari, in bed with three young women. He quit on Sunday, citing health reasons and still denying that the man in the video was him.

Today there was also mixed news for the tens of thousands of fans of India's most popular and only cartoon porn star, Savita Bhabhi.

The sexual antics of the energetic housewife won her website a daily audience of nearly 200,000 visitors, until it was closed down by the Indian government in June.

Now the site is back at a new web address but already it has fallen foul of the Internet Service Providers Association of India, whose president, Rajesh Chharia, warned that it faced closure again because its content was "not acceptable to our culture".

No one from Yahoo was available for comment today but a posting on the Flickr website explained that "Flickr is a global community made up of many different kinds of people.

"What's OK in your backyard may not be OK in theirs. Each one of us bears the responsibility of categorising our own content within this landscape. So, we've introduced some filters to help everyone try to get along.

"If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Hong Kong, India or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local terms of service (this means you won't be able to turn SafeSearch off)."

With 500 million users in its sight, questions are raised over future growth for world's favourite social network site

Even by Facebook's standards, the past 12 months have been remarkable. The site cemented its position as the world's favourite social network, reached the verge of profitability and even exerted its influence over the race for the Christmas No 1.

After an extraordinary year, experts say the site now faces a series of challenges not least the problem of how to keep getting bigger in the face of government interventions and its own internal strife.

With the astonishing landmark of 500 million users now in sight, internet insiders suggest that the pressure may bring more headaches to Facebook's 25-year-old founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his team.

"It's definitely an interesting time," said Justin Smith, whose Inside Facebook website has tracked the network's ups and downs for nearly four years. "While 2009 was a year in which Facebook saw really incredible growth... we'll see how they manage that growth."

There is little doubt that 2009 was the moment that the site truly exploded. In January, Zuckerberg announced the "milestone" of 150 million users worldwide. Less than a year later, the social network has more than doubled and now boasts that more than 350 million people log on each month.

The biggest difficulty is how to manage the privacy of users while growing so fast. With so much personal information kept on Facebook's servers, it is coming under increasing scrutiny from governments and campaign groups. Earlier this year it spent $9.5m ( 5.9m) settling a lawsuit over an intrusive advertising system launched in 2007, and last month it made a series of changes that exposed millions of people's information to the world.

The changes angered privacy advocates who called them "flawed" and "ugly" and led to an official complaint to the US regulator. To combat such threats to its future, Facebook has spent the past year hiring a team of lobbyists in Washington and Brussels to push its cause with politicians.

With no more than 1.5 billion people online worldwide, the company is already close to saturation point in many countries and is now looking further afield. Earlier this year Moscow internet group Digital Sky Technologies invested more than $200m in Facebook, with the explicit intention of making it the top social network in Russia and eastern Europe. And in August, Facebook's international manager, Javier Oliv n, told the Guardian that the company was putting more effort into places like Brazil, India and Indonesia.

"We're trying to do things in countries where we start seeing traction," he said. "We want to make sure people understand what Facebook's all about."

Such growth is crucially important to its business ambitions, and it has started cashing in on its popularity thanks to lucrative advertising programmes, brand campaigns developed with major TV, music and film franchises, and sales of virtual goods.

Those have not always proven a runaway success last month's live world premiere of a new music video from the Colombian singer Shakira, for example, took place exclusively on Facebook but drew less than 100,000 viewers less than one in 3,000 users tuning in. But with advertising picking up, the company says it is in good financial health and on the verge of profitability.

Rapid expansion into emerging markets is a double-edged sword, however, since the money to be made is smaller and harder to come by.

"There are challenges with making a profit in many places around the world where there's not as big an advertising market, or people have less disposable income," said Smith.

And amid all of its other struggles, the site has to worry about how to handle its staff while coping with such rapid expansion. Like any company growing quickly, Facebook appears to be suffering from its fair share of friction.

Testimonials on the employment website Glassdoor.com, where workers anonymously share their experiences from inside thousands of companies, suggest that some tempers are fraying.

"Burnout is more common, even as the company grows," said one comment.

"People are often not treated fairly, as egos get big fast when a company grows so quickly," said another. "You give up your life and soul with little career growth or monetary incentives."

However unassailable Facebook's position may appear today, history suggests that even the largest websites can fall spectacularly from grace in just a few years. A decade ago AOL was one of the most powerful companies in the world, worth so much money that it was able to force a $162bn merger with media giant Time Warner the biggest ever seen.

After 10 years of struggling to make the deal work, the company is now an internet also-ran valued at less than $3bn.

"Any time you get to the point where you're talking about 300, 400, 500 million users, you're starting to touch on some of the larger, global institutions you're starting to become relevant to governments and to politicians and to a variety of interests around the world," said Smith.

"I do think that will be a big challenge, and Facebook will need to navigate those questions."

Sales of Sony's premium product have disappointed so far, accounting for just 12% of DVD player sales in Europe

It offers pictures with up to six times more detail than standard DVDs, and should be the ideal way to view films on the high-definition TVs now reckoned to be in nearly 50% of households. But although big-name releases such as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Star Trek XI are expected to boost sales of blu-ray players and discs this Christmas, the format has not been the hit that many expected.

Two years ago, Sony was brimming with confidence: in April 2007 it produced an internal presentation of sales projections which reckoned that by the end of 2009, 27m players would be in use, and 85m discs sold.

Blu-ray player sales have grown rapidly this year , but they still make up less than 12% of DVD player sales in western Europe, according to data released recently by the analysis company GfK Group.

"Sales have been disappointing for the industry," said Richard Cooper, senior video analyst at the media analysis company Screen Digest. "They were expecting that it would be adopted more quickly. But you wouldn't choose to launch a premium upgrade product in the middle of a recession."

Blu-ray is a high-end product it is difficult to persuade people to upgrade to more expensive, premium products when they are surrounded with "good enough" cheaper ones. DVD was able to supplant VHS video because it offered direct access to any point on the disc, was more robust than tape, and had extras such as deleted scenes, commentaries and multiple languages. Even so, it took just over 10 years for DVD to completely kill off VHS sales.

Another problem was that like VHS, which outlasted Betamax, Blu-ray began in a format war with Toshiba's HD DVD format, another high definition video format. Although HD DVD bowed out of competition in early 2008, it had left people wary of committing to the new format.

The way seemed to be open. The difference is, instead of just one challenger, Blu-ray now faces many challenges in the fight for attention, including HD television and, particularly, the internet, where the iPlayer and YouTube - which both also offer high-definition versions - can be piped into TV sets via games consoles including the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3. And there are also legal and illegal downloads in growing numbers, plus Sky and Virgin offering what are effectively video-on-demand services in standard and high definition.

In 2005 Bill Gates commented that Blu-ray would be "the last physical format there will ever be" because in the future, "everything's going to be streamed directly or on a hard disk".

And now the film industry is moving to embrace a future of content delivered over the internet. Warner Brothers has launched a Europe-wide video on demand service that sees titles available to cable customers in some countries the same day they are released on DVD.

Apple, meanwhile, is reportedly sounding out leading US broadcasters with a view to launching subscription TV through it's online store iTunes. And in the UK, media companies offering video on demand, such as BT and Virgin, continue to expand their services.

But it is too early to read the last rites of Blu-ray. "There's a huge number of channels on TV, and it's easier to go to video-on-demand than it was before. Yet people still buy content in a package," said Cooper. Blu-ray can offer the complete package - discs, extras and, with newer machines, links to online extras, he explained.

Mike O'Mahoney, general sales manager at the consumer electronics company Pioneer GB, admits that take-up has been "fairly slow" but says that this year sales have been up 150-fold on 2008, helped by falling prices of players and discs.

One challenge has been that people can buy an "upscaling" DVD player - which will make an ordinary DVD played on a high-definition TV appear to fill the screen. Such upscaling players typically cost no more than 100, and the apparent improvement in quality over a normal DVD player (though using the same disc) is enough for many viewers.

But there are other problems. Ben Rose, an internet analyst, said: "The main issue is content. Most of the movie archive doesn't have an HD digital transfer and therefore can't be released on Blu-ray. Blockbusters like those from George Lucas or Spielberg are going to capture the public on the new format and they just aren't here yet."

Even among illegal downloaders, the preference is still for standard quality over HD, Rose notes, pointing to statistics from one of the largest "torrent" sites which shows that there were 12,500 "standard" downloads of the latest Doctor Who episode, The Waters of Mars, against 2,500 of the HD version. The same applies for Top Gear, also popular with downloaders, where only 1 in 3 went for the HD version.

GfK still expects Blu-ray players to be "one of the top-selling products this Christmas" and adds that the sales are underestimated because every PS3 sold is also a Blu-ray player. So far, 2.5m have been sold in the UK. It may be that Blu-ray is simply sidling into peoples' homes but whether it will be the success that was dreamed of in 2007 is quite another matter.

PURE packs a lot into its promising all-singing touchscreen radio, but it's more than its poor little processor can handle

Last year, digital radio maker PURE began integrating DAB with internet radio with their Flow range. Now they've taken this one step further with the Sensia, bringing internet applications to your radio.

Shipping with two of what PURE says will be many applications, the Sensia's 5.7in capacitive touchscreen allows you to check the weather or update Twitter. Taking a page from the iPhone-inspired mobile phone app stores, PURE plans to open up their radio platform to external developers.

You can see the weather forecast full-screen or watch a slideshow of images stored on your computer while listening to music. PURE's Flowserver software, a modified version of Twonky Media's Universal Plug and Play server software, allows you to stream media from your computer. And the Sensia easily recognised other UPNP software such as Windows Media Player 10 and 11.

The Sensia has a timer and a clock and alarms so is useful in the kitchen or bedroom. It also boasts a light sensor to dim the screen when the lights are off.

As with the other radios in PURE's Flow range, the Sensia is coupled with The Lounge, a website that helps you manage stations, favourites, podcasts as well as add programmes from the BBC's catch-up radio service. When I last checked, The Lounge had 14,354 internet radio stations to choose from, too many to sift through on the radio itself.

It's a good job there is a website, because you wouldn't want to have to rely on the touchscreen. Even after a firmware upgrade, the interface was sluggish. The radio has a lot of features, perhaps too many for its processor.

The Sensia also suffers from the same problems that all DAB radios do. Reception can be poor in metal-framed buildings, unless you put the radio near a window. As DAB providers cram more stations on multiplexes, the lower bandwidth stations suffer poor sound quality. Many of the internet radio stations had higher bandwidth rates than DAB stations and provided better sound. That's not an criticism of the radio, but of DAB.

However, for 249, sound quality on the Sensia could be better. In comparison to a PURE Evoke, the DAB sound lacked the rich bass and supporting mid-range on the Sensia.

The Sensia has a lot of features and a lot of promise. More processing power, to ensure that the touchscreen experience is smooth, and audio that sounded as good on DAB as it does for internet radio would deliver on that promise.

Pros: Multitude of sources including DAB, FM, internet stations and music stored on your computer; easily networked with home music collection.
Cons: The interface is sluggish; it's expensive and, for the price, the sound should be better.
pure.com

Rules that require battery retailers to provide disposal facilities come into force this month to divert heavy metals from landfill

New regulations come into force this month that require retailers selling batteries to provide collection and recycling facilities for their eventual disposal.

The rules, part of the EU's batteries directive, are meant to deal with the thousands of tonnes of harmful metals that pollute the environment when used batteries are burned or put into landfill.

According to the Environment Agency, which will be among the organisations to enforce the new rules, the directive will "affect any business that uses, produces, supplies, or disposes of batteries, as well as any business that manufactures or designs battery-powered products".

For consumers, everything from AAA cells to mobile phone batteries and button cells used in hearing aids and watches, must be separated from household rubbish and placed into designated recycling bins in shops or other recycling points. Though the details are yet to be worked out, among the schemes expected to become available to consumers are in-store recycling points, kerbside collection and post-back to manufacturers or vendors.

"The primary intention is to divert batteries away from landfill, to avoid metals such as cadmium and mercury in those batteries from getting into the environment," said Bob Mead, the Environment Agency's project manager. "For portable batteries, the current rate of collection and recycling are pretty low, the government estimates it at around 3%. The directive requires us to get that up to a minimum of 25% by 2012 and 45% by 2016."

Anyone selling more than a tonne of portable batteries a year will have to arrange for the collection, recycling and disposal of waste batteries in proportion to their market share. But Mead said this did not mean retailers would be burdened with layers of extra responsibility. "The retailers themselves are required to do nothing more than provide a point where one of these collection bins can be placed," he said. "They have no responsibilities themselves in treating or recycling the batteries they collect. They merely have to phone up one of the compliance schemes and say: 'I've got some batteries so come and take them away from me.'"

"We have made the system as easy as possible for consumers to recycle their batteries. Retailers that sell the equivalent of one four pack of AA batteries a day will need to offer a free in-store recycling facility. Consumers can take their used batteries back to any take-back point, and the retailers can then get the recycled batteries collected for free by approved Battery Compliance Schemes," said a spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The directive was created to deal with the approximately 800,000 tonnes of automotive batteries, 190,000 tonnes of industrial batteries and 160,000 tonnes of consumer batteries that are placed on the EU market every year. The metals used range from lead and mercury to nickel, cadmium, zinc, lithium and manganese.

According to the European commission, mercury, lead and cadmium are the most problematic substances in the battery waste stream and batteries made with these metals are classified as hazardous waste. When these waste batteries are burned, they contribute to air pollution and, when they end up in landfill, the metals leach into the surrounding land. In additioon, thousands of tonnes of valuable metals, such as nickel, cobalt and silver, could be recovered if batteries did not go to landfills or incinerators.

In 1985s Vodafone projected it would sell only a million phones
Cheaper tariffs and fashionable phones appealed to consumers

In the early hours of New Year's Day 1985, Michael Harrison phoned his father Sir Ernest to wish him a happy new year. There may appear nothing remarkable in such a private show of filial affection, but Sir Ernest was chairman of Racal Electronics and his son was making the first-ever mobile phone call in the UK, using the network built by its newest investment, a company based round the corner from a curry house in Newbury, Berkshire.

Later that morning, comedian Ernie Wise made a very public mobile phone call from St Katherine's Dock, east London, to announce that the very same network, Vodafone, was now open for business. A few days later, its sole rival, Cellnet, a joint venture between BT and Securicor, was also up and running.

At the time, mobile phones were barely portable, weighing in at almost a kilogram, costing several thousand pounds and, in some cases, with little more than 20 minutes talktime. The networks themselves were small; Vodafone had just a dozen masts covering London and the M4 corridor while Cellnet launched with a single mast, stuck on the BT Tower. Neither company had any inkling of the huge potential of wireless communications and the dramatic impact that mobile phones would have on society over the next quarter century.

"We projected there would only be about a million ever sold and we would get about 35% of the market and BT projected there would be about half a million and they would get about 80% of the market," remembers Sir Christopher Gent, former Vodafone chief executive who was at St Katherine's Dock a quarter of a decade ago as he prepared to take up his post of managing director the following day. "In the first year, we sold about 15,000 to 20,000 phones. The hand portable Motorola was about 3,000 but most of the phones we sold were carphones from the likes of Panasonic and Nokia."

The first generation of handsets quickly became synonymous with the yuppie excesses of Margaret Thatcher's Britain in the mid-1980s, and especially London, where the networks were first installed. But hardly anyone believed there would come a day when mobile phones were so popular that there would be more phones in the UK than there are people.

"Within both BT and Securicor, the view was [mobile communications] were not mass market," according to Mike Short, chief technology officer of Telefonica O2 Europe, Cellnet's successor, and who was with BT when Cellnet was founded. "That was also the view in Racal Vodafone. Some of us who were more active in the day to day business, certainly from 1986 to 1987 onwards, we could see a much bigger potential than that, but we never expected it would be as large as it has become."

For the first decade the predictions that mobile communications would not be mass market seemed correct. "In 1995, 10 years into the history of mobile phones, penetration in the UK was just 7%," according to Professor Nigel Linge, of the University of Salford's Computer Networking and Telecommunications Research Centre. "In 1998 it was about 25%, but by 1999 it was 46%, that was the 'tipping point'. In 1999 one mobile phone was sold in the UK every 4 seconds."

By 2004, there were more mobile phones in the UK than people a penetration level of more than 100%.

The boom was a consequence of increased competition which pushed prices lower and created innovations in the way that mobiles were sold, which helped put them within the reach of the mass market coupled with the switch to digital technology and a fundamental change in the way that the handset manufacturers viewed their products.

In 1986, Vodafone overtook Cellnet, Sir Christopher remembers, and BT was so irate that they did something which was to fundamentally change the way that mobile phones were sold in the UK. "Once we had got market share advantage over Cellnet they were desperate to get it back and they started subsidising handsets, bringing down the price of phones and we were obliged to follow them down that track," he recalls. Ever since then, the mobile phone networks have subsidised the upfront price of a phone, hoping to recoup its cost over the lifetime of a customer's contract. Cellnet also changed its prices, reducing its monthly access charge the equivalent of line rental and relying instead on actual call charges. It also introduced local call tariffs.

But there was still a fundamental block to mobile phones going mass market: not enough capacity.

"Mobile was still a business tool because frankly the analogue frequencies and capacity were not sufficiently big to think in terms of millions. But when digital came along, that really opened up the market," adds Sir Christopher. "I remember having a disagreement with my esteemed leader (Vodafone chief executive Sir Gerald 'Gerry' Whent) because I was thinking in terms of millions and Gerry said 'I am not a price cutter'. I said 'you are going to have to think about this because there is a bigger market out there'."

When the government introduced more competition, companies started cutting prices to attract more customers, leading to some of the cut-throat competition in the market today.

"The future's bright, the future's Orange" campaign, created by Wolff Olins, and the introduction of such novelties as per second and itemised billing helped give Orange a strong position in the market. Meanwhile, Rival One2One suddenly picked up a swathe of customers after a slip-up by Lord Young, chairman of Cable & Wireless, who in answer to a reporter's question said its offer of free off-peak local calls would last for life. It was only supposed to be an 'introductory' offer. When it launched in 1999, Virgin Mobile the world's first "virtual operator" that leased network space from rivals scored a major hit with the idea of pre-pay phones.

The way that handsets themselves were marketed was also changing and it was Finland's Nokia, which had been fighting hard with Motorola and Ericsson for dominance of the market, who made the leap from phones as technology to phones as fashion items with the Nokia 3210 device.

"The Nokia 3210 is iconic because it is the first phone that deliberately did not display any sort of external aerial," explains Linge. "Nokia in the late 1990s cottoned on to the fact that the mobile phone was a fashion item: so it allowed interchangeable covers, you could customise and personalise your handset."

In 1999, the film The Matrix was released, which featured Nokia's 8110 handset prominently. Nokia followed it up with the 7110, which was also the first device to fully exploit the new WAP mobile data service, the fore-runner of the 3G services of today.

Having seen mobile phone penetration soar above 100% in 2004, the industry has spent the later part of the past decade trying to persuade people to do more with their phones than just call and text, culminating in the fight between the iPhone and a succession of touchscreen rivals soon to include Google's Nexus One.

John Cunliffe, chief technology officer at Ericsson in north west Europe, believes the next wave of growth for mobile telephony will come not from persuading more people to get a phone because many already have one but connecting machines to wireless networks. Everything from vehicle fleets and smart electric and water meters to people's fridge freezers will one day be able to communicate.

"What we have at the moment is 4.5 billion devices worldwide, what we at Ericsson see is that going to 50 billion devices by 2020," he reckons. "This is all about machine to machine communication, touching all aspects of our lives."

At home, at school, on the bus Evan Baden's photographs show that wherever they are, kids are hooked up to hi-tech gadgets. But should we waste time worrying about it?

In many paintings of the Nativity, the Christ child gives off a bright light, and the faces of those gazing in worship shepherds, magi, the Virgin Mother are illuminated by it, as though touched by God. The effect creates a feeling of calm and reverence. Outside the charmed circle, dark shadows fall. But within lies grace and wonder.

Evan Baden's photos of young people hooked into hi-tech devices mobile phones, iPods, computers are similarly haunting in their use of chiaroscuro. Here are kids (as he puts it) "bathed in a silent, soft and heavenly blue glow", as digital technology shines its light upon them. They've eyes only for the luminous screen, ears only for the music in their headphones. The world beyond is outer darkness.

It's a troubling picture of technophilia. But then adults have always been troubled by kids' playthings: television was said to zombify kids; computer games to make them violent; loud music to turn them deaf. Now the new worry is connectivity. A generation of young people is growing up with no concept of life without a screen and a keypad. At home, at school, on the bus, in the street wherever they are, they're plugged in and hooked up. With its instant links and global reach, the web is a miracle but also a trap. It enables kids to feel part of a greater whole while simultaneously removing them from their immediate surroundings. The story Baden's photos tell is one any parent of teenage children will recognise. It's a story of absorption and withdrawal, of contact in the virtual world and solitude in the real one. The kids are there and yet they're not.

The case against juvenile dependence on electronic media has been forcefully made by an increasing number of social commentators, not least the psychologist Aric Sigman, who in his recent book The Spoilt Generation argues that time spent in a virtual world is displacing time that would once have been spent on socialising, and that the personal development of young people is therefore being arrested. The symptoms of the virus include reduced eye contact, loss of personal boundaries, lack of respect for authority, attention deficit disorder, sedentariness and obesity. Playing games used to mean going outdoors. Now it means hunkering down in front of a screen. The sort of kids who would once have been physically active have been immobilised.

So the theory goes. But the young people in Baden's photos don't look yobbish or unhealthy. One girl is checking her mobile while at the swimming pool. Others have an intensity of concentration that lends them beauty. At 25, the Minnesota-based photographer is barely older than some of his subjects, so it's no wonder his images are ambivalent, registering the lure of connectivity as well as the risks. As he puts it, "It's as if we carry divinity in our pockets and purses."

An illusion of omniscience is not the only danger. Parents worry their kids will be corrupted by stuff they're not ready for, the porn and violence all too available on apps and websites. But similar concerns were once voiced about reading, and it's unclear why using mobiles and laptops should be any more harmful than reading Harry Potter or the Famous Five. Increasingly, that's the way Harry Potter and the Famous Five will be read: as a download on an ereader or iPhone. Those of us who love the smell and texture of a printed page won't ever adjust, but to the young an illuminated screen is the primary site for all communication.

With calculators to do our sums, and spellchecks and predictive text to form our words, won't numeracy and literacy decline? It's an obvious thought. But with all the messaging and blogging they perform, kids do far more writing than they used to. Potentially we're a more literate culture, as well as being more dextrous with our fingers. And staring at a screen isn't as solipsistic it seems: there are sites for networking and search engines to expand horizons. As for mobile phones, their purpose isn't just to communicate with friends who aren't there but to forge bonds with friends who are. When teenagers hang out, they're constantly showing each other their texts.

Once they grow up, most children will spend their working lives in front of a screen, so it's natural to want to postpone that moment. But going online isn't like going down a mine. And though a couple of the kids in Baden's pictures look zonked out, as though they've overdosed on sounds or images, appearances can be deceptive: who can tell what's going on behind those blank faces? That's the thing with teenagers: with their headphones on or their bedroom door closed, you never know what they're listening to or watching. All you know is that they're starting to grow away from you. Perhaps it's that, not the technology they use to achieve it, which parents find so hard.

Do you and your partner have the same online friends? Or does he or she have way more than you, a bit like in real life?

Friends you have on Facebook
MINUS
Friends your partner has on Facebook
PLUS
Mutual friends you have on Facebook

Score more than 30

You have hundreds and hundreds of online friends, virtually none of whom you share with your partner. Maybe this is because they don't really like your friends, or maybe it's because they actually have real friends with whom they like to go out in real life. It may be worth checking to see if they're secretly seeing one of your online "friends".

1-30

You have a few carefully chosen friends on Facebook. Correction: everyone you know is your friend on Facebook you just don't know many people. Your partner also knows exactly the same number of people, possibly because you met through a very specialist fan group such as brass-rubbing.

0

You both have a life that doesn't involve gluing your heads to a computer.

Less than 0

Your partner has many, many friends online, very few of whom you share. In fact, it's likely that you've never heard of or met most of them. The normal view you have of your partner is the back of their head and you have to go online to check their emotional status. Your relationship will soon be over or it is already.

Online retailer may be on target for sales of 500,000 Kindle e-readers over Christmas

Spare a thought for the humble hardback this Christmas. It seems the traditional giftwrapped tome is being trumped by downloads, after Amazon customers bought more e-books than printed books for the first time on Christmas Day.

As people rushed to fill their freshly unwrapped e-readers one of the top-selling gadgets this festive season the online retailer said sales at its electronic book store quickly overtook orders for physical books. Its own e-reader, the Kindle, is now the most popular gift in Amazon's history.

Amazon's shares rose sharply today after it updated investors on a strong Christmas performance. On its peak day, 14 December, the retailer said customers ordered more than 9.5m items worldwide, the equivalent of a record-breaking 110 items a second.

The Seattle-based company's top sellers in its home market included Apple's iPod touch, Scrabble Slam Cards, Nintendo's Wii Fit Plus with balance board, the latest Harry Potter DVD, Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue and Susan Boyle's album, I Dreamed a Dream.

Although Amazon has repeatedly trumpeted "record-breaking" Kindle sales, it has refused to say exactly how many have been sold since the 2007 launch.

Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst with Collins Stewart in New York who has tracked the Kindle's performance, believes that across both models the paperback-sized Kindle 2 and larger DX Amazon may be on target to have sold a little over 500,000 units by the end of the year.

Nor does it divulge data about the Kindle-compatible books it sells from a Kindle Store that now includes more than 390,000 titles.

After first taking off in the US, e-readers are becoming increasingly popular in the UK and the Kindle went on sale in Britain in mid-October. The department store chain John Lewis highlighted the popularity of e-readers this Christmas, reporting a jump in sales of Sony's eBook readers.

British publishers have also been exploring the market for electronic versions of books in the hope of enjoying strong sales when e-book stores and reading devices achieve critical mass in the coming years.

The Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury made the 2009 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack available as an e-book for the first time this year, while Penguin has been selling a range of its classics in electronic form with extra features such as contemporary recipes.

Pledge for fast universal broadband access in peril
Dispute over terms of sale of analogue TV spectrum

The government's plans to bring broadband within the reach of every home by 2012 have been put in jeopardy by BT. The telecoms operator has warned that it will take legal action if the government presses ahead in the new year with plans to liberalise the nation's mobile phone spectrum.

BT's move could derail a key part of the government's Digital Britain programme. The government's pledge to introduce universal broadband access of at least 2Mb a second in time for the London Olympics was seen as one of the least contentious parts of the final Digital Britain report in June. But universal access requires changes to the way the airwaves are split between the UK's five mobile phone networks, so they can run mobile broadband services in rural areas where fixed-line services are too slow. It also requires the sale of new space on the spectrum that will be freed-up when the analogue TV signal is switched off in 2012.

The government appointed the former regulator Kip Meek as an Independent Spectrum Broker to try to thrash out a deal with the networks. Part of his proposals included letting them run mobile broadband on the spectrum they were given in the 1980s and 1990s for voice and text services. In return, the five networks would have the 3G licences, which they snapped up for 22.5bn in the dotcom boom, extended indefinitely. Those licences are due to expire in 2021.

Meek also suggested tying the sale of the old analogue TV signal with the sale of a new part of the airwaves at 2.6Ghz, which is perfect for super-fast broadband in urban areas. He also proposed capping the amount of spectrum that any one operator could own.

BT, however, has sent a "letter before action" to the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, raising serious objections to Meek's plans and threatening a judicial review if they are implemented. The company believes the mobile phone companies are being given an unjustifiable government subsidy by having their 3G licences extended.

It also wants the government to be more even-handed with new entrants when it comes to selling off new wireless spectrum. BT is believed to be interested in snapping up a sizeable chunk of the 2.6Ghz spectrum and using it for super-fast wireless broadband in towns and cities.

"BT has major reservations around the wireless spectrum proposals from the Independent Spectrum Broker," said a BT spokesman, confirming that the company had written to the government. "The proposal to extend current 3G licenses indefinitely represents a gift of several billion pounds from the UK taxpayer to the mobile operators and is a barrier to competition and innovation in the mobile market," he said.

"We would like spectrum to be auctioned in a way that is fair to all operators and stimulates competition in the market for both existing operators and new entrants," he added. "We are discussing our concerns with BIS and are hopeful that these will be addressed."

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has already extended the deadline for consultation on Meek's plans by a further month in an effort to appease BT. But senior figures within the mobile phone industry have warned that the new deadline of 5 February could leave the government with no time to enact the necessary secondary legislation before a general election.

Mobile phone industry executives are also livid at BT's opposition to changes to the spectrum regime, given that the company itself will benefit from the 50p-a-month telephone tax , which will be in next year's finance bill. The tax is designed to raise upwards of 175m a year to help pay for the roll-out of the next generation of super-fast broadband networks in rural areas. BT is expected to be the main recipient of the cash.

Some senior mobile phone industry insiders have also pointed out that while BT objects to anything that helps out their industry, it is currently fighting for the right to be able to demand that the entire fixed-line telecoms industry helps pay its pensions bill. BT is locked in talks with the regulator Ofcom about trying to narrow its pension deficit by raising the price that its Openreach business charges everyone else for access to its residential phone lines.

The 100 most voted for games in this week's Games of the Noughties list.

A few readers have asked for this, so as an epilogue to an interesting week of discussion, here are the top 100 games that made up our Gamesblog Games of the Noughties list. As you'll see, plenty of favourites were bubbling just below the top 50, although still no room for Dwarf Fortress!

1. Half-Life 2
2. World of Warcraft
3. Fallout 3
4. Portal
5. GTA: San Andreas
6. GTA: Vice City
7. Resident Evil 4
8. Bioshock
9. Call of Duty Modern Warfare
10. Civilization 4
11. Deus Ex
12. Pro Evo Soccer
13. Baldur's Gate 2
14. Halo
15. Super Mario Galaxy
16. Elder Scrolls Oblivion
17. Ico
18. Shadow of the Colossus
19. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
20. Football Manager
21. GTA 4
22. Elder Scrolls: Morrorwind
23. GTA 3
24. Mass Effect
25. Metroid Prime
26. Left 4 Dead
27. Rome Total War
28. Uncharted 2
29. Guitar Hero
30. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
31. Advance Wars
32. Mario Kart Wii
33. Wii Sports
34. Gears of War
35. Metal Gear Solid 3
36. Okami
37. God of War
38. Medieval Total War
39. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
40. Rock Band
41. Halo 3
42. LittleBigPlanet
43. Zelda Twilight Princess
44. Bejeweled
45. Final Fantasy XII
46. Gran Turismo 3
47. Metal Gear Solid 2
48. Team Fortress 2
49. Timesplitters 2
50. Call of Duty
51. Final Fantasy X
52. Diablo 2
53. Eternal Darkness
54. Halo 2
55. Jet Set Radio
56. Mario Kart Double Dash
57. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
58. Battlefield 1942
59. Silent Hill 2
60. SSX Tricky
61. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
62. Demon Souls
63. Fable II
64. Gran Turismo 4
65. Killzone 2
66. Operation Flashpoint
67. Perfect Dark
68. Psychonauts
69. Shenmue
70. Sims
71. Super Monkey Ball
72. Batman Arkham Asylum
73. Dead Rising
74. Lego Star Wars
75. Rez
76. Street Fighter IV
77. Battlefield Bad Company
78. Beyond Good and Evil
79. Braid
80. Championship Manager
81. Counterstrike
82. Crackdown
83. Far Cry 2
84. FIFA 10
85. Gears of War 2
86. Katamari Damacy
87. Animal Crossing
88. Assassin's Creed 2
89. Burnout 3 Takedown
90. Crazy Taxi
91. Dead Space
92. Dragon Age Origins
93. Fable
94. Fahrenheit
95. Far Cry
96. God of War 2
97. Max Payne
98. Mirror's Edge
99. New Super Mario Brothers
100. Quake III Arena