Oh-boy, anoraks rejoice. The Pong-Story site lovingly delves into the history and glory of the world’s first video game. For those who really wish to re-live the buzz of two paddles and a square white ball, here’s the PC version of Pong for download. [via madville]

The creatively titled IE New Window Maximizer utility automatically maximises your Internet Explorer windows as they open. It also contains an anti-pop up ad feature. Works well, except that it insists on maxing out some of my generic IE windows as well as Web browser site ones.

Here’s cool. The PCGame Review site is a service offering computer game reviews done by users, rather than by jaded hacks. Sort of an epinions.com for games I s’pose. Nice idea anyway.

Philips has been getting a lot of press recently over their plans to develop teeny tiny optical discs which could one day hold gigabytes of information and effectively replace the DVD. The first fruits of their research is the 3cm disc which can hold 1 GB. What a shame that this comes at the same time as DataPlay – another company famous for trying to introduce teeny tiny discs – has announced that it is out of cash and looking…

TyperA is a little Java site which provides a free, simple and quick test of your typing accuracy and speed. It’s a bit depressing actually! :-)

Oh goody, just what we need, – a new multimedia data standard. Microsoft and Panasonic have just announced their HighM.A.T. technology initiative which apparently – Makes It Faster and Easier To Navigate and Play Back Personal Photo, Music and Video Collections on CDs For Consumer Devices Including CD and DVD Players. Fujifilm has also jumped on board. What’s the betting that Sony, JVC and Philips will introduce their own incompatible system within 6 months? Wot, no takers?

You’re a geek right? And you need to keep learning, keep up to date with stuff in your field right? But you’re fed up with sitting indoors at some dreary convention hall mausoleum. So how’s about a Geek Cruise? That’s right, step on board and learn about stuff like Java, Perl, Linux or whatever whilst cruising around to dreary sunspots like Ocho Rios or Grand Cayman. Sheesh, it’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it, eh? Oh and…

How really cool to invent your own instrument – the xaphoon – and hand carve it out of bamboo. How hard to make 15,000 of them yourself for people. Still, it’s a great story. [via bifurcated rivets]

Fujitsu-Siemens has officially announced its new Tablet PC, the Stylistic. I spent the afternoon playing with one, and came away sort of impressed. It’s got some neat features, like reasonably accurate handwriting recognition which would make writing emails on the move quite easy. It’s also got that neat ‘ink’ feature which lets you write as though on paper and store the results in a searchable database. Overall though, I still think that these ‘Tablets’ are way too heavy, pricey and…

Something to do with a satellite broadband launch in the UK. I don’t really care, I’m just amazed at how much effort some people will go to in order to get press coverage. Looks a bit dorky though, don’t it? :-)

Digit Life has posted a set of photos from China while asking the question – ‘is this the new Apple phone?’ No answer to that right now of course. :-)

The Hot Call Plus has been recommended by Ferret reader Kevin Warner as a good alternative to the seemingly unpopular Emerson Switchboard. Apparently it works more efficiently, and doesn’t slow down your connection speed. You can find his comments here.

The Quizid card is a Brit attempt to make things more secure for surfers and shoppers on the Internet. According to this BBC report, it is in fact ‘being heralded as a major breakthrough’. I’m not so sure. In my experience anything that makes shopping more complicated – witness Mondex electronic wallets and the like – tends to end up being quickly shunned by a tech weary public. Time will tell. Here’s the official company site.

The online World Almanac is a great little resource, chock full of information you never knew you needed on countries that you never knew existed.

According to this little story, the ‘authorities’ are closing in on the Nigerian 419 scammers. I’ll believe it when I see it, although it will be a pleasant surprise not to receive any more of the pathetic email messages. [via madville]