When it comes to Friday, our thoughts are drawn to life on the sea with the inevitable weekend sojourn to Monte Carlo (doesn’t everyone weekend there?).
Did you know that Yacht owners can be very snooty about those who own motor launches – floating gin palaces is what they call them. I’ve never figured out if this is a class-thing, or jealousy, but I do know that they are dismissed as flash-Harry’s. Yachties take tremendous pride (probably correctly) in controlling their craft, having invested years to learn the fine art. As far as they see, motor boat owners turn up, turn the key and drive off – far too easy, with not enough suffering.
The latest innovation from Volvo Penta is bound to add extra ammunition to the yacht-owners dislike of Motor boats and their owners. It looks like it makes it a doodle of maneuver a boat, with almost super-human skills.
They’ve launched the IPS, complete with joystick, designed to ease the handling of motor boats. The Inboard Propulsion System, to give it it’s full moniker, enables the captain to finely control the boats movements by twiddling a joystick.
They’ve taken the idea beyond simple X-Y joystick movements to incorporate a twisting action and a couple of buttons. X-Y provides the obvious forward/backward, plus an interesting side-to-side action, which doesn’t swing the boat around, but literally slides it sideways – neat.
The joystick’s twisting action rotates the boat, seemingly on a six-pence, in either direction, right or left – again, most impressive.
The joystick is only part of it. The rest of IPS secrets are hidden under the boat using what those in the know would call ‘two forward-facing contra-rotating propellers per unit’. To you and me, that’s a couple of engines that you can point in different directions.
With the engines able to act independently, when combined with the joystick, the IPS provides the ability to maneuver with tremendous precision.
We looking forward to getting our hands on it for a full review and are think which of the Digital-Lifestyles boats would benefit from retro-fitting this.
The days of smugness of Apple Macintosh users are coming to an end. Symantec is reporting that they’ve recently identified a virus for Macs. It’s a pretty rare occurrence, given there’s only been about 10 Apple viruses in the last 10 years.
By identifying the four most recently executed apps using Spotlight, it uses this information to attempt to infect these files.
There’s a growing reliance and expectance of networks in the home to handle all of this digitised media that we want to chuck around our homes, from room to room.
What’s involved in getting the network setup? Basically nothing. Take the power lead, plug it into one end of the NetPlug. The Ethernet (RJ45) goes in the other end.
There are different ways of creating a computer network. A traditional wired network is the cheapest but takes the longest time to set-up, unless you do not mind trailing cables. PLC devices cost more but are the quickest to set-up, and do not require any new cables. Wireless networks are the most expensive but can take less time to set-up than a traditional wired network, and offer out of doors networking.
It’s rare that there are inconsistencies in the Digital-Lifestyles clan, but there’s one subject that brings a split consensus. Some of us, me included, think that different forms of controllers for video game is a trend that is just starting – a more natural way of working with the games console is inevitable, like the 
Rock-power-fiends will set their fingers a flyin’ around the five frets, strum-bar and whammy bar. Beyond the buttons, there’s an alignment sensor used to gain extra style points when it’s played vertically. Expect the inducement of dizziness as heads are thrown around in a frenzy. 
With the Multiplayer mode seeing two players facing-off in what are described as ‘an electrifying series of guitar duels’, it’s quite unclear what will happen over artistic differences, or even usages of the power axe (otherwise known as guitar) as there’s only one shipped with the software.
Initial previews have been strong and it’s gained from PR boosts with the like The Darkness talking about on MTV Overdrive. It looks like there’s high hopes from this one.
Motorola has unveiled their new, mass-market Motorola W220 phone at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Spain.
There’s no external display for caller ID purposes, with Motorola instead offering a simple set of three icons on the outer fascia displaying call status, message status, and battery remaining. 
With such a slender feature set, we expect the W220 to be offered for next to nowt for contract deals sometime in Q3 2006.
Samsung have released a few more details about their new i320 Smartphone, which was unveiled at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona.
For a fully featured smartphone, the dimensions aren’t too bulky- 111mm x 59mm x 11.5mm only – so you won’t feel too much of a berk walking around with it stuck to your ear.
Connectivity comes in the shape of Bluetooth with the tri-band (900/1800/1900) GSM phone capable of GPRS/EDGE but no Wi-Fi as far as we can see – a major omission in our book. Bad Samsung.
Video : Video capture/playback
With PMA 2006 (Photo Marketing Association International) looming ever closer on the horizon, there’s been a flurry of new camera announcements, and of real interest is Fujifilm’s successor the award-winning 
The camera comes with a 3x (36-108mm equiv) F2.8-8 zoom and uses a sixth generation Super CCD and Fujifilm’s groundbreaking Real PhotoProcessor II.
As with the F11, the camera boasts a sizeable 2.5-inch LCD screen, coated with Fujifilm’s proprietary CV film for reducing glare and reflection.
We like the addition of a dedicated exposure compensation button on the back of the camera as we found some functions on the F11 to be annoyingly buried deep in menus.
Sony Ericsson has slipped out is slimmest-ever 3G handset at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Spain.
Naturally, there’s an integrated music player lurking inside the rounded lines of the K610, with supported formats including MP3, AAC and e-AAC+. 
Sony Ericsson K610i Specs:
Panasonic have released two additions to their popular Lumix digital camera range which the company are claiming are the world’s smallest in their categories.
The 5 megapixel camera comes with Panasonic’s well regarded optical image stabilisation system (you’ll definitely need that at the far end of its monster zoom) and sports the newly developed Venus Engine III, offering quick response times and an improved battery life (250 shots).
After the dire high ISO performance of the Lumix flagship model, 
There’s also 13.4 MB of internal memory onboard, a SD/MMC card slot and a 2.5-inch, 207k pixel TFT LCD.
The f/2.8, Leica zoom lens gives users a handy wideangle range of 28-102mm equiv., and the camera come with the usual smorgasbord of scene modes for every conceivable occasion.
The camera is also expected to be out in March for $349.95.