1. Cooliris-Web www.cooliris.com . Perhaps one of the most impressive plug-ins available for any browser, Cooliris takes images and video from your favourite sites and displays them for you in an interactive three dimensional environment . Once installed, all you have to do is hover your mouse over a picture or clip and click on the arrow icon that appears. Within Cooliris you can then find further categorised content, search within selected sites and email media to friends. Get a glimpse of what tomorrow’s interface will look like today for free.
2. Key scrambler- Web www.qfxsoftware.com . When you’re using your computer in a shared environment –even if it’s just a busy family home- you can’t be too careful about password security . Then there’s always the possibility that a WI-FI connection might be compromised , even if you think it’s protected. Finally, there are viruses that install ‘Key Loggers’ on your system; programs that record every tap on your keyboard, meaning they can steal usernames and passwords. Key Scrambler thwarts each of these scenarios by encoding everything you type using a strong security algorithm. The personal version  is free.
3. me.dium.com .Have you ever wondered who else might be browsing the web site you’re looking at? Me.dium is chat and social networking tool that lets you see and talk to other users while you’re on the same site. The idea of ‘collaborative browsing’ isn’t new, but Me.dium is slickly implemented and fun to use-though you might have to encourage some of your friends to join in the fun if you want more people to talk to.
4. Silverlight-Web www.silverlight.net Microsoft’s up-and-coming multimedia tool enables you to access rich internet content featuring animation, video and sound that you can interect with. With a powerful programming language enabling developers to build sophisticated applications, it’s

iRiver’S mp3 players have consistently impressed us with their solid design and decent build quality, and this latest L-Player takes the range a step further. Similar to the Clix 2 in design, it features the unusual D Click system, which entails depressing the edges of the screen to navigate the player’s interface rather than clicking buttons. The results is an incredibly small player-it’s just 60 x 13 x42mm-but one that still manages to squeeze in a bright, watchable 2in screen (the same size as the iPod nano’s). Sound quality is excellent, audio file format support takes in Ogg and Flac as well as the usual WMA and MP3, nad there’s a raft of features including an FM radio, voice recording and video playback at up to 30fps. An excellent alternative to the nano,and cheaper too.

A wonderful waterproof novelty , but better cameras overall can be had for the price.

The latest pistol –grip Xacti is an update to the company’s previous waterproof model, the VPC-CA65EW. Rather than attempting to beat the competition on storage capacity, price or even image quality, Sanyo has instead gone after the niche market of swimmers, surfers and holidaymakers who want the novelty of a submersible camcorder.

The necessitates a larger amount of protection and seals than other models in the Xacti range, so while it’s the size of the VPC-HD700, it only manages to house the features of the far smaller VPC-CG9.

The camera can be used at depths of up to 1.5m, though knocking it while underwater is a no-no, warns Sanyo, as one of the waterfight flaps may open and allow gadget-killing water inside. The camera also needs to be rinsed with fresh water after any dip in the ocean, and Sanyo recommends the rubber seals be replaced every year. Despite these restrictions, the image quality remains largely the same above and below the water, and even audio is captured.

But the image quality isn’t great: the ½.5 in sensor will only  capture footage at 600x 8480 pixels, though stills can be taken at 12-megapixels using interpolation when not filming. The video output is poor, while low-light perfomance leaves much to be desired, with detail suffering badly, and bright light similarly confuses the sensor.

Results aren’t much better in normal light. The auto-focus struggles to keep the image sharp when cutting between near and far objects, and the image stabilization is no match for the A-listed Panasonic HDC-H59.

The image quality is bad enough, but the price is worse. The Xacti VPC-CA8EX costs as much as cameras with better image quality and features, though without the water-proofing.

But the lure of shooting underwater is enough to forgive many of these problems. Considering the technical challenge of waterproofing a delicate and fragile piece of electronics, Sanyo has done rather well.

Sanyo VPC-CG10 HD Flash Memory Camcorder w/5x Optical Zoom (Black)

A midrange 6200-based card that delivers

When Nvidia inveiled its G200GPU, we were immediately drawn to the shiny, speedy GeForce GTX 280. Why wouldn’t we be? With the high core and memory clocks and 240 stream processors to churn through the toughest shaders, it was sexy and fast. We were less excited about 260, which sported 192 stream processors and slower clocks speeds but cost about $100 less than the 280( at the time). Since then ,ATI has released its R700-based Radeon 4870, which outperforms the original 260 but cost the same amount.

And that’s where the Core 216 edition of the 260 GTX comes in. With the same stock clock speeds but 24 more shader processors than the original, the new version of the 260 GTX delivers comparable performance to the 4870 at a similar price. The speeds and feeds are about the same as the original 260’s, although EVGA clocked this card’s core at 626MHz( up from 576MHz stock) and includes 896MB of GDDR3 running on a 448-bit bus at 1053MHz (stock is 999MHz).

Aside from the additional shader processors, the core 216 version of the GTx 260 is identical to the original. The card features all the video decoding and playback power of the GTX 280, including hardware accelerated H.264 decoding to accelerate Blu-ray playback. Performance was about what we expected; the card delivered scores that were slower than a GeForce GTX 280’S but slightly faster than the 4870’s in shader-intensive games such as Crysis. We’re seeing significantly better performance with both NVidia and ATI cards after recent driver releases, so we’ve rebenchmarked an even playing field.

We’ve seen this card for less than$300 online already, which puts it firmly in the midrange category. You can find 512MB Radeon 4870 HDs, which are slightly faster, for less money online, but the GTX 260’s extra memory will likely help the card do better than the 512MB Radeons with games released in coming years. Of course, the 1GB 4870 boards are available for about $300, but unfortunately, we don’t have one in the Lab for comparison.

PNY VCGGTX260CXPB XLR8 260 Core 216 896MB DVI + DVI + Graphics Cards