OK, so we’re heading for virtual actors and actresses, virtual doctors and virtual pets. How’s about virtual singers? Presenting the Yamaha Vocaloid synthetic vocalist program. Three versions coming next year – Leon (male), Lola (female) and Miriam (voice modelled on Miriam Stockley). Think this is a joke? Listen to the demos. ‘VOCALOID allows song writers to generate superb authentic-sounding singing on their PCs by simply inputting the words and notes of their compositions. The software synthesizes the sound from “vocal…

Why settle for a PVR with just one tuner? The Topfield TF5000PVR comes with every feature you would expect from today’s super recorders including an 80GB hard disk, USB 2.0 interface and PIP (picture in picture), but also sports two tuners. Whoosh – more and more hardware on tap for less and less decent TV programming. Is there a moral here somewhere?

Some people clearly love their car very much. Very very much. Enough to spend huge chunks of spare time installing a computer into the dash. Nice job though. Alternatively, why not just buy your own ready made kit?

The Keyboard Organizer is a fully functioning computer keyboard. That stores stuff. From $34.95.

The Making Faces site offers you an alternative to boring old text email. Type in your text message and send an audio animated rendition of it to your unsuspecting victim…er….recipient. Viral rubbish rulez, OK?

The Flatulence Filter – ‘The First Air Filter Disguised as a Seat Cushion! It is a super-activated carbon/foam filter system concealed in a simple chair cushion. It absorbs the odors immediately!’

The EJ Midi Turntable is the world’s first MIDI turntable system, and is designed to let hip, happenin’ folk scratch and mix video. ‘For the first time, DJs can scratch and beatmix music VIDEOS, using the turntables they already own. Imagine watching TV, but being able to rewind it, scratch it, or pitch shift it using a turntable.’

Hmm, learned something interesting last night. I’ve been testing a couple of the new wave of ultra-cheap home DVD movie players – which here in the UK are retailing for around �38.00 and in the US for $40.00? – and discovered that some of them appear to have almost no error correction buffering on-board. The symptom is that the DVD, in this case a mildly used rental Truth About Cats & Dogs, simply stops playing. Repeatedly. This makes it unusable,…

The Alpine HDA-5460 is a in dash car stereo system with built-in 16GB hard disk. MP3 capable, DJ music mix function etc. And all for just….$1000.00.

The Storm-Hawk is a PDA based GPS mapping system with built-in weather forecasting. ‘This hand-held system provides real-time and forecast weather for your location and travel route whether you’re on land or sea. It’s ideal for use in the car, RV, or on a boat.’

Wow, another ‘free’ site. This one is ‘stealmymusic.com‘. Yep, you get to order music CDs for free, but have to pay the shipping and handling charge. Weird stuff.

What do you give the child who has everything this Xmas? Why a MizuQ [failed – Babel] water purifying stick of course! Now he or she can freely drink from their nearest contaminated street puddle, safe in the knowledge that all those nasty bugs are being filtered away.

Dear Fishermen, If you see a long thing metal thing floating about on the top of the sea near your boat, please do not pick it up, shoot at it, take it home for the kids or otherwise disturb it. Because it is ours. It is a Slocum Glider and we’re using it to research the oceans and it is probably sending lots of very useful data up to our satellites right at this very moment. So please go away….

So now there are apparently three Segway versions – the p (for personally-sized), the i (for rugged ?) and the e (er..cargo?). And you can rent or buy. Is this gizmo catching on?

The World Telephone Numbering Guide is a great online service which ‘provides information on the world’s telephone numbering formats.’ You can search by country or service name.