It’s never too early to start thinking about Winter, even in the middle of a very nice heat wave like the one we are currently enjoying here in London. So what better way to plan ahead than to consider investing in a sweet little Backyard Blizzard snow machine for your garden? You see you can never guarantee when there’ll be enough snow falling on your head to make it feel really, really Christmassy. Yes folks, for a measly $2995.00 you…

OK, call me weird (but not too loudly) but I really am intrigued by the new breed of high intensity LED torches (sigh – flashlights) coming on to the market in droves at the moment. The EliteXRay seems to be one of the best around, offering a 4 LED powered beam, 700 hours of battery life from 3 AA cells, and a light that can be seen…er…3 miles away. Mind you it does cost $80.00. For more info on these…

Hong Kong is the most expensive place in the world to live now, followed by Moscow then Tokyo according to the Mercer Cost of Living Report. Moscow? Sheesh! [via metafilter] London is 10th and the highest EU city.

What could be more fun than taking an old game console and updating it with a Windows/Linux powered PC inside? Nothing I suppose, if you’re a geeky retro freak.

Japanese telco DoCoMo has come up with a jolly wheeze whereby users of its 504i handsets will be able to withdraw money from their nearest ATM cash machine simply by pointing the phone at the hole in the wall terminal. Yep, no need to lug around bulky credit or debit cards, just make sure that you’ve got your trusty mobile phone with its infra-red port handy, and Bob will be your uncle. Or something. I’m still trying to work out…

The Jhai Project is an initiative to bring affordable and sustainable computing to the poorer parts of the globe. Basically it’s a low powered PC powered by a foot crank – a fabulous idea if the team can get it working. The equipment will be powered by electricity stored in a car battery charged by “foot cranks” which are essentially bicycle wheels and pedals hooked to a small generator. The generator is connected to a car battery and the car…

This MSNBC report on the new Motorola i95cl mobile phone makes it sound quite swish, although really its only unique feature is the walkie talkie function. The pics make it look nice though, and it does make me think that Motorola could come through with a real smartphone competitor soon over here in Europe.

So UK mobile phone company Phones4U has come up with a ‘brill’ marketing plan. The company has set up a PhoneShui site which offers practical guidance to getting the best karma out of your mobile phone. ‘Your phone is a reflection of your mind’, eh? It’s all a load of tosh of course, but great for the guerilla marketing bunch. Just watch the Web and media pick up on it. [via Metafilter]

I read somewhere that this Northgate Integra PC was considered to be a rival to the Apple iMac system, but I really can’t see it. For a start it looks just plain ugly compared to the fabulously clean lines of the Apple box. What is it with PC manufacturers and these remorselessly boring design efforts?

DPReview is featuring a Japanese shoot-out between the two tiny digicams of the moment, the Sony CyberShot U and the Casio Exlim. The actual report is in a foreign language of course, but the gallery of photo examples is interesting enough to go on with. For my money there’s not THAT much difference between the two, although the Sony does manage to edge out the Casio when it comes to sharpness.

Hmm, Andromeda is yet another audio/video streaming server product which lets you beam multimedia content from your Web site to the public at large. As I mentioned before, these products are really starting to take off now, and this one looks to be particularly easy to set up and run. The personal version costs $35.00.

The Belkin Airflow Hands Free mobile phone kit transmits sound from the handset to your ear using air instead of wires, which means that it could end up being much better for you by limiting your exposure to potentially harmful electromagnetic radiation. Priced at $19.99.

Anyone who still thinks that the idea of our humble home appliances chatting to each other independently of human action is science fiction, should check out this short report. Apparently the boffins are already embedding IPv6 addresses into devices which will allow them to communicate with each other and with the world at large via standard Internet protocols. Sony has already started work on its games consoles, and toymakers and gadget makers are also working to make them accessible from…

The ColorVision Monitor Spyder is a little gizmo which lets you calibrate your computer monitor to make it more colour accurate. This is pretty useful stuff if you do a lot of digital photo processing and printing on your PC, and Phil Askey’s well written review is as thorough as ever. Mind you it does cost around $300.00, so it ought to be good.

The ENN supplies all the news about our environment – and issues – that you probably wish you could avoid. US oriented of course, but a good resource nonetheless.