Steve Litchfield

I have to confess that I'm not often amazed by something electronic - this is my line of work, after all. But I turned on my new Apple iPod Touch and idly started up Google Maps. The bottom left-icon looked like a 'My location' icon, but, knowing that this was an iPod Touch and thus had no telephony and no GPS, was actually quite surprised when it defaulted to a map of the UK. Heh. At least I didn't have to spin a globe to find my country. I tapped the icon, expecting to be taken to the centre of London, or similar (it's our capital city etc). I was GOBSMACKED when I was zoomed in to the right spot on the right road, EXACTLY where I lived. Magic. Had to be. How the ******** did the iPod Touch know where I lived? Had it somehow absorbed the information from iTunes, which in turn had somehow cribbed it from something else on my PC? I took the Touch outdoors and went for a walk. The My location crosshairs FOLLOWED ME . Arghh... HOW? As far as I can tell, the Touch'...

What have Star Wars, the Apple iPhone and Brain Training for the Nintendo DS got in common? They all buck the rule that sequels suck. Star Wars 2 (or 5 if you're counting George Lucas style) - "The Empire Strikes Back" was arguably the best of the Star Wars movies, while the Apple iPhone v2 has yet to be formally announced but you can bet your last cotton-pickin' dollar that it's going to be vastly better featured than the original. And now we have More Brain Training on the Nintendo DS and it's not just better than the original, it's light years better. To have gone from average to outstanding in one version jump is very impressive. Maybe they should have called it 'Much Much More Brain Training'?

Exemplary sound quality over its speakers is not an Apple iPhone trait, alas. But it seems that you can now build your own iPhone amplifier in 10 seconds and just for a few pence! Or just buy a Nokia N95 of course, and have really loud stereo speakers. Oh, and games, extra apps, 5mp camera, DVD video recording, TV out, etc.