Posted by: Jane Douglas

Climbing to the top of this week’s Tech & Gadgets most read news chart: Bill Gates falling out of love with Facebook (“way too much trouble”) and David Cameron dismissing Twitter’s trendy microblogging (“too many twits make a twat”).

Also popular was the submission of a Spotify app for iPhone; you can now read our exciting hands-on with said Spotify app.

The Powers That Be seemingly designate late July as time to start thinking about Christmas. Fewer than 150 days to go, right? So we were at both the Amazon and Xbox Christmas showcases this week, inspecting the games and gadgets we’ll be playing with come December 25 2009.

A particular favourite was the Star Wars Force Trainer (pictured): a thought-powered, sci-fi-looking headset based on ECG-like tech coupled with a ball in a clear vertical tube. Using the Force (concentrating hard) magically levitates the ball (spins a fan that blows it upwards).

We’re clearly short on midi-chlorians. Couldn’t lift the ball even an inch.

Moving swiftly on to this week’s T&G features:

 
The Clymo Brief: cutting power costs

10 concept gadgets we wish were real

Quiz: can you guess the game from the concept art?

Posted by: Nik Taylor

I'm spending the next few weeks wearing a watch that will apparently reduce my stress, help me sleep easier and generally make me an all-round chill-out king.

How does it do that, you might ask? Does it play relaxing music at times of stress? Does it sing lullabies while you drift off to sleep? Perhaps it burbles a discreet warning signal 30 seconds before Lily Allen appears on the TV? Actually, it does none of those things: the magic comes from crystals. 

Not any old crystals, either. Nope, these babies emit the frequency of the earth. Apparently, by wearing this Philip Stein watch 24-hours-a-day, my body will soon become in tune and at one with my surroundings. 

If your eyes are currently rolling skywards and your mouth forming the words, "yeah, right", then you're having roughly the same reaction I did, while listening to the marketing spiel at a trade show.

Used to such cynicism, the chap at the stand - let's call him Mr Crystals - had a cunning demonstration on hand, involving a bottle of red wine and his company's other product: a magic wand. 

As we all know, a decent bottle of red wine should be allowed to breathe before being drunk. Exposing the vino to oxygen brings out all kinds of aromas and flavours.

Despite this, some research I've just made up but which is probably very close to the truth shows that 98% of people leave their booze to breathe for approximately 32 seconds before knocking back the lot.

The Wine Wand is designed for such thirsty yet impatient folk.

Leave it in a glass of wine for three minutes and, I was told, you will have a beverage with a level of aeration that would normally take more than two hours to achieve.

And how is such witchcraft possible? You guessed it: frequency-emitting crystals. The same technology used in the Philip Stein watches.

Mr Crystals offered to prove his claim by pouring two glasses of wine. One would get the benefit of the Wine Wand; the other would be left au naturel. He was supremely confident I would be able to taste the difference. I, on the other hand, was trying to think of ways to let him down gently. 

Still, we waited for three minutes, during which Mr Crystals unsuccessfully tried to get me to understand how the technology works. Then it was time to try the taste test and... well, I was genuinely surprised. It works. Despite my having no real handle on why it should, it definitely works.

I'm no wine buff, but it was obvious as soon as I sniffed each glass. The aroma coming from the Wine Wand plonk was noticeably more defined. As for the taste, well that was something else. The standard wine had a stunted flavour that was completely at odds with the open, detailed taste that came from the other glass. Yet despite this, both had been poured from the same, just-opened bottle.

With the evidence still tingling on my taste buds, I felt a test of one of the watches was essential. After all, if these crystals can do that to a glass of red wine, what wonders could they achieve for me?

So, I've borrowed the rather smart timepiece you can see in the pictures and will wear it for the next three weeks. I'm assured I should see a number of benefits, such as deeper sleep and improved concentration. I'll post an update soon, presuming I'm not too chilled out to do so.

Posted by: Nik Taylor

There’s no doubt about the most-read story on Tech & Gadgets this week; it’s the news that there is a way to change the vanity URL you picked for your Facebook account. So if that comedy name you came up with is suddenly looking a little less chucklesome, now you can make the change.

The second most-clicked story concerns a piece of tech we can’t wait to get our hands on: Fujifilm’s 3D camera. Using two lenses and all sorts of high-tech jiggery-pokery, this smart-looking snapper can produce truly three-dimensional images. Keep an eye on the site for a review in due course.

Also, take a look at the main T&G site for these new features…

Preview - The Beatles: Rock Band

Top gadgets for video on the move

Gaming’s biggest rivalries

First look – Batman: Arkham Asylum

Posted by: Jane Douglas

Illegal activities top the most-read-news chart on Tech & Gadgets this week, with this Twitter hacker and Stephen Fry’s downloading of House making for popular reading.

Meanwhile, my fellow editor Nik – along with our podcast host Iain Lee – have been sampling the delights of The Beatles Rock Band, which is, quite possibly, the music game that music games were made for. Look out for a preview next week.

As for Tech & Gadgets’ finest features:

Techtastic toys and gadgets for kids

 
Gaming Goss: Playing for less

 
The Clymo Brief: On the Samsung Jet

 
Review: Rubik’s 360

Posted by: Nik Taylor

There’s been plenty of tech news to report this week, what with Google announcing its Chrome operating system and Toshiba debuting its TG01 Windows-powered mobile. But the most popular stories on Tech & Gadgets have been all about getting something for (almost) nothing.

Both Dell and Sony made what Frank Spencer would surely describe as ‘a bit of a whoopsie’ this week, with Dell advertising 19” monitors for sale at £9 and Sony offering its Vaio NW laptops for just £1.99. Dell’s mistake was particularly damaging. Its offer went up on its Taiwanese website, with 140,000 people ordering one before it was rectified. It’s since been ordered by the Taiwanese government to honour the deals.

Away from admin errors, our next most popular story concerns ‘the world’s fastest kettle’ – a British-built car which is aiming to break the land speed record for steam-powered vehicles. The British Steam Car has now arrived in America, where it must beat 127mph to crack the century-old record.

Elsewhere on T&G this week…

Preview: Left 4 Dead 2

Life lessons learned from games

Top 10 MP3 players

 
1 vs 100 brings big prizes to Xbox Live

Posted by: Jane Douglas

As MSN’s working Friday draws to a close (and with the rest of the editorial team glued to the Roddick-Murray match), let’s take a look at the week’s top stories – as picked by the good readers of Tech & Gadgets.

Our most read news story was that of Jean Anleu, the Guatemalan Twitter user arrested for undermining his country’s banking system with a single tweet, according to the prosecution.

Not far behind Anleu’s predicament came news of the inevitable first jailbreaking of the iPhone 3GS and the sale of Pirate Bay for £4.7m to Swedish software outfit Global Gaming Factory X.

Meanwhile, the highlight of my week was the Left 4 Dead 2 press event (look out for our preview next week), terrorised by snarling, sprinting, actual* zombies.

These guys almost made up for the disappointment of (just) failing to complete the final chapter of The Parish campaign, a gruelling gauntlet run across a semi-destroyed bridge towards rescue.

As for some of T&G’s own humble offerings over the last seven days:

Must-play July games releases

The comeback fight: Walkman v iPod

 
How to use Twitter safely