With the Christmas Holiday season almost upon us, it is time to start thinking about what to ask for and what to give as presents. Despite all the talk about the credit crunch and global recession shop owners and manufacturers are feeling optimistic for the upcoming shopping season.

Their biggest bet is on the new touch screen gadgets, which they believe will catapult sales figures. With more and more people are willing to spend their money on these types of gadgets even if it means they lose on quality or extra features.

Touchscreen technology has revolutionized the gadget industry this past year, leaving very few devices untouched, even digital cameras were affected.

Such technology has been around for many years, commonly found in cash points; airport monitors just to name a few. Now the technology is a must in consumer products, with Apple’s Iphone leading the pack with Googles new G phone the latest phone to feature multi touch.

Following Apple’s idea, are computer desktops, calculators, mp3 players like the Ipod Touch for example, even watches have touchscreens now that let the users control functions by tapping, dragging or sliding a finger.

Customers want touchscreen devices because they are well designed, are "cool" and have no buttons.

Touchscreen devices have less functionality and degraded picture quality compared with devices that are similarly priced. But costumers don’t seem to care as the demand for these devices don’t stop rising.

Apple have also been running high profile adverts for their touch screen iPod the Touch on UK television at peak times (during last weekends Brazilian GP for example)

Britain’s oldest working television the 1936 Marconiphone, is thought to have been made in the months that Britain’s first “high-definition” television service began.

The TV set belongs to Jeffrey Borinsky a collector of antique television and radio sets.

He bought the 12-inch screen 10 years ago and is still working on restoring it to its original state.

Mr Borinsky said: “The cabinet was beautifully restored by the previous owner, but my aim is to gradually restore its electronics to its true 1936 magnificence.”

He has now hooked it up to a Freeview box so that it can show digital channels, but Mr Borinsky has had to install a standards converter so that a modern television signal can be seen.

The grandson of television pioneer John Logie Baird says this set would have been of huge interest when it was first bought at a cost of 60 guineas – £11,000 today.

He says: “Television was a very exciting thing; it was something that the whole neighbourhood would come over to watch. People would crowd into the home of the owner.”

Wow what a great piece of history, it is safe to say that technology has come along way since then.

But if you’d rather just see this sort of old style in museum, then perhaps Giant Buyer’s vast LCD and Plasma television range is a more suitable choice.

We have products to suit everyone including Samsung LCD and Panasonic HD TVs, so why not visit the site today!

The latest must-have gadget the “dongle” reveals it has sold over 1 million of the gadgets.

The dongle is a pocket-sized USB device that provides internet access wherever there is mobile phone coverage and is proving to be a huge success.

Analysts have said that the strong sales of the 3 gadget proved that dongles posed a big threat to traditional landline phone companies such as BT and to the providers of “wi-fi” hotspots.

Ben Wood, of CCS, said. ‘As these mobile packages and speeds get good enough people will be starting to say ‘hang on a minute, why do I need a landline again?’.’

He also said that the rise of the dongle was a concern for wi-fi providers, as people would no longer be bothered to log into a wi-fi network and tap in a password if an easier alternative was available.

All the main mobile operators have jumped on to the dongle bandwagon. 3, which launched its service 18 months ago, offers speeds of up to 3.6 megabits per second.

Impressive, huh?!!

Telecom services provider Sprint are hoping to add wireless cellular connectivity to all your favourite gadgets, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

With this type of technology you could browse for restaurants on your GPS navigator or upload pictures directly from the camera to Flickr at anytime and any place.

Vice president of strategy for analytics firm Interpret, Michael Gartenberg says: ‘Sprint understands that we are getting to a point where almost every digital device would want to be connected to a fast ubiquitous network. Wi-Fi isn’t everywhere and consumers want the assurance of ubiquitous connectivity that wide area networks can offer.’

Through its partnership with Amazon, Sprint has already taken the first step towards creating this model.

Amazon has started off the first version of its e-book reader Kindle with Sprint’s wireless connectivity to help users download e-books over the air.

This kind of wireless capability is something other gadget makers are likely to jump at, Sprint is already in talks with many different gadget companies!

Gartenberg adds: ‘More and more we are going to see this become attractive to all sorts of vendors, especially if they can integrate it at a low cost.’

Sony Ericsson has launched the outdoor MS500 wireless speaker.

The company says the ‘superior sound quality and cool design of the MS500 will impress all your friends’.

And I’m inclined to agree, the speaker looks very sleek and would look great during the summer at the beach or a barbecue.

The MS500 speaker is available in orange, black, white and pink, and is designed for the outdoors with a durable splashproof shell and a strap, for attaching to a bag or the like.

But does the sound quality of this gadget match up to the look??

The Sony Ericsson speaker is powered by two AA batteries, which they claim allows for 5 hours of playback.

Measuring at 113 x 83 x 45mm, the speaker weighs 155 grams and can pump out 2 Watts worth of sound.

So that would be a yes I suppose, but I would like to try the speaker out for myself to ensure sound quality.

With Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, users can stream music from their phone as well as control the playback and volume.

What do you think, will you be rushing out to buy this trendy little speaker??

The device that was developed in Japan (where else) resembles a conventional set of headphones plugged into ears. Known as the Mimi Switch (Ear Switch in English), it connects to a micro-computer capable of controlling electronic devices of all shapes and sizes.

Using an in-built set of infrared sensors, the Mimi Switch is able to detect the smallest of movements in the ear caused by different facial expressions.

A mere wink, facial twitch or raised eyebrow is enough to activate the remote control to operate electronic gadgets such as iPods, light switches, dishwashers and TV sets.

Kazuhiro Taniguchi, creator of the Mimi Switch said: ‘You will be able to turn on room lights or swing your washing machine into action with a quick twitch of your mouth.’

‘An iPod can start or stop music when the wearer sticks his tongue out, like in the famous Einstein picture. If he opens his eyes wide, the machine skips to the next tune. A wink with the right eye makes it go back.’

‘The machine can be programmed to run with various other facial expressions, such as a wriggle of the nose or a smile.’

The scientist is planning to patent the new device in Japan and internationally before marketing it commercially in the next two to three years.

The ZTIC (Zone Trusted Information Channel) is a USB stick designed for secure online banking.

Developed in Zurich by IBM, this gadget opens an SSL connection with the bank’s servers, keeping the data safely on its side of things and displaying the transaction on the hardware itself.

Even if your connection is breached by a ‘man-in-the-middle’ attack, the hacker’s funny business will be exposed on the device’s display, which comes equipped with a big red ‘panic’ button just in case.

It is important to note that this USB has no storage of its own and is purely for secure online banking.

Pricing and availability for banking institutions has yet to be announced.

What a clever little stick!!

Amazon’s new version of the Kindle e-book tablet is a user-friendly device that could finally carve out a place in consumer electronics for a technology that’s struggled to gain traction, one reviewer has said.
 
According to David Pogue of The New York Times, the new Kindle – a wireless device that can hold about 1,500 books from an available library of more than 230,000 books, has emerged as the most convenient and eye-friendly way to read written words electronically, though it doesn’t signal the death of “real” books or, as some feared, audio-book sales.
 
‘It’s all a thousand times more convenient and more exciting than loading books from a PC with a cable, as you must with Sony‘s Reader, the Kindle’s archrival. As a bonus, the Kindle includes a simple Web browser, great for quick wireless Wikipedia checks and blog reading. Amazon calls it the Kindle 2, but Kindle 1.1 would be more like it; the changes are fairly minor. Fortunately, they’re exactly what was needed to turn a very good reader into an even better one.’
 
The Kindle 2, introduced this month is slimmer than its predecessor and costs about $359.
   
One criticism of the Kindle, Pogue said is that ‘Its list of available books, though long, is far from ‘complete.’’
 
‘You don’t have to look far to find important titles still among the missing; they include all Harry Potter books; “The English Patient”; and “The Associate” or anything else by John Grisham.’

Overall the reviews of the Kindle e-book have been positive, but can you really beat the feeling of opening a new book to read?!!

LG has confirmed it will be bringing a series of Android mobiles to the UK in 2009, and that it will play a big part in pushing mobile social networking.

Although the much expected slew of Android handsets never showed up at this year’s Mobile World Congress, LG confirmed that 2009 will still be the year of Android for the company:

Head of marketing for LG Mobile in the UK, Jeremy Newing said:

‘We have a huge interest in using it for social networking handsets, as these are going to be big pillars of our strategy for 2009.’

There has been some criticism over LG’s strategy to use Android for the first time on the KS360, a QWERTY-based mid range handset, but Mr Newing believes the economic downturn has made this the ideal handset for the job:

‘The KS360 will be brought out in a 3G version, as well as an Android model too. We chose this lower-end handset as we’re in a recession, and customers want a value proposition while still expecting a similar level of functionality, so the handset has to be right for the price point.’

However, Newing also says that LG’s new S-Class interface, which uses two chipsets to help keep the animation and transitions running smoothly without lag, will also be used to varying degrees in a large number of LG phones, as well as the new Windows Phone interface making a big impression in the UK next year:

‘We will have a similar UI to the S-Class in more handsets, running the same two chipsets; the reason we haven’t done it before comes down to a lot factors, such as the size of the components.’

The Wild Charge system is the first wireless charger to actually work and it looks great too.

This amazing gadget can replenish power in mobile phones, PSPs, notebooks and iPods without all the wires.

So how does it work??

It uses non-inductive technology to pass the current from strip to device without all that nonsense you usually have to go through to charge it.

The first charging strips will be in shops in March, following by the larger laptop-sized chargers which will be available in June.

This is brilliant, no more wondering where you’ve put that bloomin’ mobile charger or ipod cable, they can all be put on this very sleek looking metal strip!