This is the week when our children’s children will look back and ask “Didn’t they honestly know?” – the week we pass laws enabling State ID cards. And what’s the hottest story of the day? A mouse with a microphone!
The mouse is real. Every story written about it looks like they think it must be a joke; but it isn’t. It has a microphone in it.
Stick one of these little bugs in your ear, and you’ll be able to hear everything that the mouse user says.
Endoacustica makes wireless microphones, and wireless audio receivers to work with them. It’s an Italian-based firm which specialises in spyware; digital bugging devices, spy cellphones, shotgun microphones and even voice changers (so you can make a call and sound like it isn’t you). And of course, counter-measures.
In the case of the spy mouse, you’re warned. If someone gives you a mouse looking like this, you can obviously tell it’s not a standard Microsoft or Logitech mouse, and adjust your conversation to suit.
In the case of the Government’s ID plans, you’ve also been warned. It’s one thing being relaxed about Tesco building up a database of all your shopping tastes and preferences. It’s quite another to allow the Government to record details of where you go, who you see, and what you spent money on.
Oh, and like the mouse, what the Government is showing us today, may change in appearance as time goes by…
Frappuccino-supping designers desperate to run Adobe’s high-end Photoshop graphics suite on their shiny new Intel-powered Mac computers are going to be in for a long wait, according to Adobe engineer Scott Byer. 
Apple’s switch from PowerPC to Intel chips has forced software vendors to rewrite their code to accommodate the different architecture as the chips don’t share the same ‘language.’ 
Currently, only Apple’s iMac, MacBook Pro and Mac Mini machines are powered by Intel chips, with the iBook and PowerMac machines still using IBM PowerPC chips. 
If the market for flash memory-based MP3 players wasn’t overcrowded enough, big name electronics company Hitachi have decided to steam in with a collection of their own. 
Wrapping up the trio is the HMP-S3, housed in a slightly squashed square form factor and available in yellow or white (you could never accuse the Hitachi designers of being too ambitious with this range). 
LG have announced a unique new phone, the LG-SD910, featuring what the Korean manufacturing giants are describing as a ‘Duo Slide Design.’ 
Looking a bit of a moody number in its all-black skin and glowing red buttons, the LG-SD910 sports a large 260k colour QVGA* TFT LCD screen (*that’s 320 x 240 pixels in English). 
Despite its unusual construction and feature set, when all the slidey bits are tucked in the LG-SD910’s a surprisingly compact gizmo, measuring a pocketable 87 x 44 x 23 mm and weighing in at 90g. 
Back in our day, the only round thing that kids had in their pockets were marbles, conkers and gobstoppers, but German MP3 player maker Maxfield wants kids to shell out for their Max-Joy digital music player. 
There’s 256MB of on-board storage, with the option to add more song space via a SD memory card slot. 
The Max-Joy runs off a single AAA battery, which the makers claim will give up to 19 hours’ playback time, offering plenty of potential for parents to get a bit of peace. 
It has to be said that our last experience with an Onkyo hi-fi product wasn’t exactly favourable (see our 
Attractively clad in a silver finish with a large LCD panel, the X-N7UWX also comes with a USB dongle and separate Wi-Fi unit, letting you wirelessly connect the stereo up to your PC and listen to MP3s on your hard drive – or stream content from your desktop. 
There’s also an AM/FM receiver in there too, and possibly a DAB radio. 
No pricing or availability yet for either of the units, but even if this unit doesn’t make it to our shores, you can guarantee that we’ll be seeing a lot more Wi-Fi hi-fi units on the horizon. 
All-weather, lantern-jaw outdoor types and motorbike fiends should warm to the “ruggedized” version of the Pocket Loox N520 which has just been announced by the German based Andres-Industries. 
Motored by an Intel XScale PXA270 312 MHz CPU, the LOOX offers integrated wireless LAN 802.11g Wi-Fi, SD/MMC slot (with support for SDIO) and a large, 240×320 pixels 3.5″ screen supported by 64Mb RAM and 128Mb flash memory 
“Now that Macs have PC chips in them, they can run PC software.” Obvious, isn’t it. Except that someone recently managed to make the new Intel-based Mac run PC software, and it’s a big, big surprise, and it’s something many said would never happen. 
So Colin Nederkoorn 
French outfit Archos has launched what they claim is the first portable digital TV receiver/ recorder combining portable video recorder (PVR) functionality and two DTT (Digtial Terrestrail Television) tuners. 
The built-in DVR records digital TV directly to the hard disk in MPEG2 TS format, and there’s an onboard Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) for scheduled recordings (so long as you can get reception, natch). 
An optional 100GB version offers even more storage, which equates to, err, lots more videos, songs and stuff. 
We reckon that someone whipping out a large, expensive multimedia device on a London train would soon have no trouble imagining filling in an insurance claim, but with no UK launch announced, perhaps the muggers will have to wait for now. 
Slimmer than a stick insect with the runs, the new world’s thinnest phone comes in the shape of the EV-K100 handset, an ultra-thin gizmo made by Korean cell phone makers KTF Technologies. 
“We substantially cut down the thickness of the antenna incorporated into the EV-K100 and instead extended its length to secure all the necessary functions,” said a KTF spokesman. 
The company intend to market the bar-type EV-K100, codenamed “No. 7,” from next week via its parent firm KTF for around 400,000 won ($412).