Dirt-cheap calls, no wires in sight

In today's paper, Log On reviews the Plantronics CS60-USB headset, which is an uninspiring name for a nifty headset which means your PC or Mac can damn near act like a regular phone. The base station connects via USB and integrates with phone-call software such as Skype.

When you make a call, the headset acts like a cordless telephone, using the reliable DECT standard to allow you to roam up to 50 metres from your computer (the manual promises 100m but it, ahem, lies).

Better still, if you're using the PC, you don't have to be at the computer to answer an incoming call. Press the talk button on the headset and bingo! You're in touch. Hit it again and the call is ended.

It works well, though it's uncomfortable to wear for long periods. However, the price tag is a heart-stopping €360. Ultimately, it's a good half-way house to a full internet-based phone you can use like an ordinary handset. That possibility is on the horizon with Siemens' USB adapter for its Gigaset cordless phones. I've been promised a review model soon.

In games, Star Wars, EP III: Revenge of the Sith (PS2, Xbox) is a repetitive travesty given the resources available to Lucasarts. Empire Earth II (PC) is an involving real-time strategy game spanning half a million years of history. Pariah (Xbox) is a dreadfully ordinary pastiche of Halo. Close Combat: First to Fight (Xbox) can't touch the heights of other squad shooters such as Rainbow Six 3 but doesn't disgrace itself.

3G goes pre-pay

Fair play to Vodafone, it's not letting anything as trivial as a ropey network from rolling out its 3G services to the masses. Today, Voda announced it would start selling 3G phones to pre-pay customers.

The range comprises the five handsets already available to post-pay chumps, I mean, subscribers - costing from €150 to €500. It includes the decidedly buggy Nokia 6610 but also its rather attractive successor, the 6680.

Also new today was Vodafone's tardy fulfillment of full-track music downloads, first promised for the 3G launch back in November. The catalogue and pricing can't hold a candle to iTunes, etc (only 250,000 songs, tied to your phone and €2 each) but no doubt some people will find buying tunes on the move attractive.

Hopefully, Vodafone will post more details of pricing, etc, on its site soon.

E3: See what all the fuss is about

Microsoft has posted 17 videos of Xbox 360 games in development. Naturally, they look rather spiffy in high-definition but unless you're on broadband the massive files (100MB and more each) are a pig to download.

If you've got the bandwidth or the patience, you can catch a sneak preview of the likes of Call of Duty 2, Ghost Recon 3, Quake 4 and Final Fantasy XI (yes, lots of sequels but some original IPs too).

Minister discovers blogging

Minister for International Trade Michael Ahern seems an unlikely champion of blogging but for some reason someone's decided it'd be a good idea if he shared his thoughts about a Seattle conference via moblog.

And how dull his insights turn out to be, full of the usual platitudes about what a great opportunity it is for Ireland, etc. How about some snaps of the drunken late-night parties? The blog seems to just an excuse to plug NewBay's moblogging software. But if the typo-free posts have been painfully tapped out on a mobile phone by Ahern himself, I'll eat my hat.

E3: In review

In today's paper, read an overview of E5 2005, a colour piece giving a flavour of what it's like to be on the floor of the premier games conference (man, it's loud). If you've been reading the blog all along, not much is new but, hell, buy the paper anyway, we can always do with sales.

Eircom ties up airport

After a bit of stand-off in which the provision of wireless access in Dublin Airport was left in chaos, Eircom has sealed a deal to provide Wi-Fi airside for the next five years.

Eircom had earlier signed a tentative deal which saw Dublin Airport refusing to allow other operators from even being allowed to go on-site to install Wi-Fi in competition. Presumably, this explains the farcical situation Log On noticed last week whereby O2's hotspot - installed during the EU presidency - was still visible but unusable. The company probably couldn't get in to deactivate and remove the equipment.

To ward off accusations of a monopoly, Eircom has committed to negotiate with other providers to allow them use its network. It's unlikely to quell the anger of other providers annoyed at the outcome.

Check out Eircom's wireless broadband map for details of the firm's other hotspot locations.

E3: Best in show

The last booth babe has put her clothes back on and the doors have shut finally on E3 2005 but there's still time to reflect on the best in show, bearing in mind that impressions were formed mostly on the basis of watching someone else (usually a developer skilled in avoiding showing the buggy bits) play.

In the case of PlayStation 3's titles, the opinion rests entirely on video sequences of what might be in-game footage. And although Killzone 2 looked astounding, my vote for best PS3 title goes to MotorStorm. Sure, much of it was definitely carefully engineered set-ups but if the game is half as frantic as the demo, I'm sold.

On Xbox 360, Project Gotham Racing 3 set a cracking pace, though most of it appeared rendered, while of the games that were actually playable, Gears of War appears the most promising, even if there weren't many new ideas to call its own.

From EA, Burnout: Revenge may not diverge far from the successful formula of B3 but, hell, it's just so bloody good fun. Even the PS2 version glistens with polish. Also on PS2, FPS Black is worth keeping an eye on, even if the developers warned that there'll be no multiplayer because they've got "a laser-like focus" on the single-player game.

There were a ton of PSP games on show but most seemed to be ports of PS2 titles, which is all very well until you try to play a full-blooded game on a tiny screen. Some were tortuously complicated to control, in fact. Maybe I'm too old...

The Xbox port of Half-Life 2 is coming along very nicely, not as lush as the PC, obviously, but otherwise functionally identical and, therefore, great. A close second was Far Cry Instincts, where the developers have spun out a slightly different story and refreshed the combat.

Roll on, E3 2006.

E3: Nothing but Star Wars

Over at the LucasArts room (no stand, just a private room, complete with cool SW props), it was all Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars, unsurprisingly. Three SW universe games are in the works.

First up we have the Revenge of the Wookiees expansion pack for PC MMO Star Wars: Galaxies. Great if you like that sort of thing and it will shortly be bundled with the other previous packs at a bargain price.

Then there was the RTS Star Wars: Empire at War which the LucasArts boys took great pleasure in showing us allows you, among other things, to control the Death Star and its massive weapons. One blast and Tatooine was toast. Cool. Out late this year, PC only.

Finally, SW Battlefront II revisits the enjoyable FPS of 2004. This time you can also control "hero" characters such as Obi Wan and - hurrah! - even the evil Vader himself. Lovely voice work too. Out for all formats later this year.

E3: World's biggest publisher's line-up

Electronics Arts seems a bit contrite over its patchy record in the last year during which it was regularly outgunned by rival publishers - but more importantly admitting at E3 that it needs to do better than trash like Catwoman, Urbz, etc.

But EA knows what sells, so we'll see more of the familiar names in the coming 12 months. Thankfully, that includes another helping of Burnout, the racing/smash-em-up par excellence. Burnout: Revenge (PS2/Xbox) tweaks the gameplay to introduce multiple routes and make wrecking other traffic as useful as narrowly missing it. Genius.

There'll be more servings of many of its hit sports titles for all consoles, including Xbox 360. Add in more Battlefield plus tie-ins including Harry Potter, Batman Begins, Marvel superheroes and 007's From Russia With Love. You know what to expect.

E3: Black restores faith in PS2 shooters

The PS2 is not overburdened with great FPSs so it was heartening, or even surprising, to see what the team at Criterion (makers of Burnout) have done with Black, a first-rate first-person shooter - or least it looks like it.

The developer said the team wanted to recreate the feeling you get when you hold a powerful machinegun and pull the trigger. Can't say for sure that it will but you won't believe that a humble PS2 could spit out the detailed environments, most of which are destructible, to the detriment of your enemies.

Hidden away in Sony's back-rooms was Buzz, a fun music quiz which could be as big a hit as EyeToy and SingStar. It simply asks you to identify songs from a quick snatch of the tune and then hit a buzzer to win. Expect it for PS2 with a special set of buzzers by about October.

E3: Who's the daddy?

The Xbox mavens are obviously riled by Sony's assertion on Monday that the PS3 has the edge in teraflops over 360. In an interview this afternoon with Log On, Michel Cassius, who is European director of Xbox, was cheerfully bullish about Microsoft's claim that Xbox 360 is overall a more powerful platform.

"It's not only about hardware: it's hardware, software and online," he said. "I've never heard anything from Sony about online.

"When you talk to developers, everybody tells you: to be able to develop the best games you need to have the best tools ... that's something we do at Microsoft on a regular basis, it's part of the genes of Microsoft.

"Go out on to the show floor today and see third-party publishers and see how far along they are with their games. It's not about a fancy technical demo. We can do that, it's no problem. I'm talking here about games... the real stuff.

"But with the hardware ... it was obvious the guys at Sony were going to say that (that PS3 is more powerful). I don't want you to be fooled by that. Of course they would say that. They say, wait, we're not here yet (but) we're the next generation.

"I've seen the chart (where Sony showed the PS3 is faster at floating-point operations than 360). I've asked people who know: how important is floating-point in the performance of games? They say: only about 20%.

"There are a few other things where, if you are going to compare, apple to apple, we are not two times but three times more powerful (than PS3)."

E3: Sims man goes megalomaniac

Many people at E3 are hailing Will Wright's Spore as potentially the biggest thing since, well, The Sims - which was created by, yes, Will Wright. So to grab a quick demo session behind closed doors with Will was quite a coup.

Basically, it's a life simulator where you start off as a single-celled organism and work your way up until you're controlling entire planets - or galaxies even. To me, it looked baffling difficult how you could monitor the development of entire species while keeping track of, say, the atmosphere on another planet.

But Will was adamant it would all make sense when it ships for PC in autumn 2006 - and who I am to argue? The graphics are fairly rudimentary at this point but the interface seemed relatively intuitive. The clever thing is the game can upload the creatures (or planets, etc) you create to a central server for distribution, where it will also grab other players' animals for integration into your universe.

"What we learned from watching people playing The Sims is that people love creating content and they also love sharing content that other players made," said Will. "Some people might want to go around collecting the weird creatures that get created. Others might want to conquer the galaxy. That way the game is very open-ended."

E3: Up close with PS3

When we first caught a glimpse of the PS3 at the unveiling on Monday night, my first thought was: um, it's a bit ugly. Certainly, compared with the last redesign of the PS2, the new machine looked a bit clunky.

Today, when Log On was the only Irish journalist to see PS3 in the flesh (it's not on public display here at E3 - by appointment only), the sleek curves and shiny casing were a little more apparent. The gleaming black model gave off the best vibes but, even so, for me the off-white and concave lines of the Xbox 360 pips the PS3 at the post.

Was there anything even inside the box? I couldn't say - but I doubt it. The hardware is not even finalised yet. Microsoft has been quite open about the fact there's nothing inside their machines. Any of the game demos we saw have actually been running off a couple of dual-processor Macs - cooled by pairs of household fans! This is because the Macs use the same family of PowerPC processors the 360 will eventually employ.

E3: Fun with Fiddy

A few feet from Ubi's giant booth is the only slightly less impressive construction from Vivendi, who were one of the many publishers at E3 eager for a piece of the GTA pie. So they've hooked up with bad-ass mofo Fifty Cent for an ultra-violent gangsta saga, with Fiddy at its core.

It's not quite autobiographical (he has been shot loads of times for real, though) but Fifty Cent: Bullet-Proof does play on his hardcore lifestyle of guns, girls and rappin'. The PS2 epic features new choons and vids from Fiddy plus a whole heap of grisly finishing moves as authored by the man himself.

Vivendi tried hard to talk up F.E.A.R. (PC) as the new Half-Life 2, even going so far as to suggest it was up for game of the show, but the nice little segment on show of this survival-horror FPS couldn't do justice to the claim. In fact, given that scariness is toted as its selling point, it was a crying shame the demo ended before any of the nasties emerged from the dark. Full marks for trying, though.

One low-profile title which looked really fun was Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (PS2/Xbox), where the fuzzy graphics are easily compensated for by the immense entertainment of the car-smashing, building-leaping green monster.

E3: Donkey Kong

One of my first appointments at E3 was with Ubisoft, who were making a hoo-hah about their tie-in with Peter Jackson's King Kong movie, due out at Christmas. For the presentation of the game demo (PS2, Xbox and next-gen), the host made a big deal of warning viewers in the little theatre that we must under no circumstances attempt to record any of the show. To emphasise his point, he gestured to a number of heavies around the room who would be monitoring us closely and warned we would be expelled at the slightest provocation.

Sounds like a PR stunt to me, though it was explained that the game footage gave away details of the movie which are not public yet. And yet we were happily permitted describe them in words? Doesn't make sense.

Anyways, the game itself looked pretty good, if not astounding. You get to play the humans and the big ape himself. The art style was a bit retro and the plot a bit linear but Jackson himself seems to be involved, so there's some hope it won't go all Matrix on us.

Then it was a quick hop into the next theatrette for a look at Brothers in Arms 2 (subtitled Earned in Blood). Same basic mechanics apply again in this excellent FPS but the combat is much more urban-focused, plus the AI is much smarter and can't simply be flanked every time. Xbox/PC/PS2 versions expected in October.

Far Cry Instincts is an impressive translation on Xbox of the excellent PC shooter. But it's not a straight port - the basic premise is the same but there'll be new maps, fresh moves and superhuman abilities. Due out later this year, FCI includes a nifty level editor which can create maps to be played online.

E3: The first day

This E3 virgin realises only now what veterans meant when they talk in awed tones about the cacophony that greets visitors to the LA Convention Center. A wall of sound, light and bodies washes over you as you step in the door and attempt to make sense of the din.

Giant signs, a thunderous roar of noise from every stand and scantily clad lovelies: these are the things which stick in the mind.

The convention centre is equivalent in size to 10 football fields and a record attendance is expected to top last year's tally of 60,000 journalists, retailers and game developers.

The two biggest booths are probably (as you would expect) enormous erections from Microsoft and Sony - but in completely different halls, separated by about a mile of walkway. The giant Xbox stand takes the honours for its glowing green curved finish.

The EA booth, with its head-wrecking 360-degree wraparound display, was probably a close second.

E3 exclusive

Slowly my hangover is fading from last night's mega-party in LA, where (separately) Sony and Microsoft officially launched their next-generation consoles.

The PlayStation 3 gig was a fairly sober affair, although it did have the attraction of being sited in a giant movie studio, part of Sony's sprawling back lot in Hollywood's Culver City. The presentation itself was quite dry and stilted, focusing on the tech specs of the Cell chip which powers the PS3 (and getting in a dig at Xbox 360 by seeming to prove it was twice as grunty as its new rival). Only when the showreel of launch games and tech demos cranked up (to ear-splitting volume) were we shaken from our stupor.

Thousands of jaws hit the floor when the supposedly in-game footage of Killzone 2 (update: see footage here) and MotorStorm blazed across the screen. Quite a few witnesses were suspicious because they remember the tech demos from the PS2 bearing little relation to the reality of games on the finished console.

Update: watch the Sony presentation via this link.

Then we hopped on a bus to zip across town to the impressive Shrine Auditorium in time for the Xbox 360 gala. Hosts Robbie Bach (chief Xbox honcho), J Allard (Xbox guru) and Peter Moore (marketing geezer) launched into a show which was ultra-polished but overblown with hyperbole.

Samples: "We are here to celebrate the launch of the world's most powerful game platform, Xbox 360." (Bach)

"In the HD era, we are going to reach 1 billion people with our medium." (Allard)

"We are going to deliver the Zen of gaming." (Moore)

But the bit that got the most laughs was a video sketch where Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer pretended to be queuing for Star Wars III cinema tickets while discussing the 360. At least they don't take themselves seriously (unlike Steve Jobs, who's banned all of one publisher's books from Apple stores because it printed an unauthorised biography of him - see review of iCon here)

Though the games didn't look quite as flash as the PS3's (possible exceptions: Project Gotham Racing 3 and Gears of War), Microsoft will have at least a four-month headstart because Xbox 360 goes on sale in November, while the Sony will not appear before Spring 2006, at the earliest.

Update: see more here and read the full transcript here.

As the hype blew itself out, we retired into the cool LA air for a night's boozing and, later, back inside for a thrilling show by The Killers. But by the time the Chemical Brothers took the stage about 11.30pm, the crowds had drifted away and the block-rocking beats echoed to an almost empty auditorium.

Understated but elegant

In this week’s column, take a look at Sony Ericsson’s K300i moby. Although unexciting on many fronts, it’s a solid low-end performer with a design that won’t scare the horses. Some people appreciate that kind of straightforwardness.

In games, there’s a quick look at the new Xbox 360, plus reviews of the inspired Forza Motorsport (it’s everything GT4 should have been – and then some), Street Racing Syndicate (a knock-off of Need For Speed Underground, Midnight Club, etc – but pretty palatable except for the peculiar handling) and Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (simplistic gameplay quite suits the GBA but appeal is short-lived).

The PR Shuffle

If you notice in the next few weeks a rash of newspapers or radio/TV spots touting the iPod Shuffle as the epitome of cool, it won’t be just coincidence. O2 is handing out the dinky little MP3 players like confetti to, er, movers and shakers around town (or hacks as they’re also known).

And good luck to O2 if its, um, generosity, drives a quid pro quo arrangement whereby the Shuffle (and its availability at O2 stores) suddenly gets loads of coverage in the media.

For the record, Log On turned down this kind offer. Erm, because we’d already got a free one from Apple. But AFTER the review in the paper appeared, mind.

The truth is hard to find

Despite the promises that the MTV Xbox special would deliver the goods on the new console, it actually turned out to be a bit of a joke. Just one direct glimpse of the console, one of four players going head to head ... and that was it. The rest of the half-hour broadcast last night was packed with (admittedly entertaining) performances from Snow Patrol and The Killers.

Luckily, the nitty-gritty on Xbox 360 has leaked through another outlet, the community site called OurColony. Drop by Eurogamer for a round-up of the specs - good jaysus, it's a beast! - and the link to a streaming video from the design team.

The even better news is that Log On will be reporting live from LA at the E3 games conference next week where more detail will emerge of the battle of the 800lb gorillas, Sony and Microsoft. The lowdown on the PS3 is expected on Monday afternoon LA time, followed quickly by an Xbox presentation. Tune in on Tuesday for more.

Xbox 2 exposed

In what appears to be Microsoft's attempt to maximise the positive spin on the launch of Xbox 2 (or Xbox 360 as it is almost certain to be known), a half-hour special on MTV Europe tomorrow night at 8pm will provide the first official glimpse of the new console.

Recorded last week (and remarkably leak-free given the number of drunken celebs who were in the audience), the special is presented by Lord of the Rings star (and, reputedly, Xbox fan) Elijah Wood. We're promised previews of the big games for the next-gen console and obviously revealing details of the hardware itself.

The special is being broadcast first tonight on US TV, so expect pictures all over the papers on Friday and Saturday, together with fawning stories repeating the spin from the TV special. Nice one, MS.

Never fear, though, for Log On will be reporting from E3 in Los Angeles next week, where more detailed insights on Xbox 360 will be delivered but this time filtered through a jaundiced journalistic eye.

New 'Tunes

Further fuelling speculation that Apple is planning to open an online movie store in the near future, the latest update to iTunes brings to the fore its existing ability to play video. A small number of songs and albums now have exclusive videos bundled with the music when bought.

Previous versions of iTunes could be used to play pop videos clips from the iTunes Store but this added-value bundling - perhaps to compensate for the less tangible nature of digital music - hints at Apple's greater ambition on the movie front. The purchase mechanism is already built into iTunes - so can it be long before we see films for sale by Apple?

This new version 4.8 also includes some security fixes and a couple of new features to make contact and calendar synchronisation with iPods easier.

Flashy Walkman

In today's paper, read the full verdict on Sony's new range of flash-based Walkmans (er, Walkmen?), which are something of a return to form. The NW-E400 (or E500, which has an FM tuner) is not only tiny and gorgeous, it has astonishing battery life of up to 40 hours.

Sony itself quotes up to 50 hours of running time but that's the usual contemptible marketing spin, assuming that every song would be encoded at a crappy 48kbps in ATRAC format. Yeah, right, as if. The figure of 45 CDs' worth of capacity for the 1GB version is based on that same stupid premise. Count on space for more like 20 to 30 albums in reality.

SonicStage, the jukebox software that Sony bundles with every Walkman, is now up to version 3 but is no better than its competitors were three or four years ago. No smart playlists, no MP3 encoding (though playback of that format is possible) and sluggish performance.

In games, Jade Empire (Xbox) is a martial arts beat-em-up grafted on to a simplified but engrossing RPG. Unreal Championship 2 (Xbox) takes arena combat to the next level with some manic melee fun but it might be too frantic for many gamers and really works only as a multiplayer. Enthusia (PS2) tries a new twist on Gran Turismo but comes up short on several levels. Finally, CT Special Forces: Fire For Effect (PS2) breaks no new ground as a shooter but is not a bad choice with its budget price tag.

Sony finally makes the Connection

Despite owning a major label and having thousands of bands on its roster, Sony took its own sweet time getting an online music store up and running. This time last year, Irish journalists were told Ireland would be part of the first tranche of European stores to get the green light.

But the mooted start date of June 2004 came (and went - the stores were late opening) and Ireland was nowhere to be seen. So when Sony's Connect store on these shores finally went live yesterday, it passed almost unnoticed and made none of the waves of the corresponding iTunes outlet.

With most track prices varying between €1.20 and €1.40 each, Sony isn't even attempting to compete with iTunes' uniform €1 a song rate. In fairness, the difference on an album basis is much less glaring. But it doesn't help the perception that Sony's participation in the online world is half-hearted at best.

The catalogue is estimated at 600,000, well short of the 1m in Napster (not available here) and other stores (some of which are). The compression is marginally better than rival stores but, of course, uses the accursed ATRAC format, supported only by Sony devices.

The store itself requires you download the generally awful SonicStage software (Windows only, like all of Connect) but at least the buying part is quite painless.

Shameless Creative eats its own words

Having derided the screenless iPod Shuffle as laughable, what do the smart guys at Creative do five months later? Er, a player without a screen. Great innovation, eh?

Clearly, Creative has decided the only way to compete with Apple is to copy them ... badly. Was it just coincidence that the Singaporeans cut the price of the Zen Micro within days of Apple trimming the price of the iPod Mini? And now we get the MuVo Mix, with an option of 64, 128, 256 or 512MB. Not much point in the 64, 128 or 256MB versions, I reckon.

Cream of the crop

The Oscars of the Web have been unveiled and the 2005 Webbys are the usual mix of quirky Amero-centric sites with a few token Europeans thrown in. OK, maybe that's unfair because the 50-odd nominees and winners make for an eye-opening evening's browsing and several warrant a permanent place in your bookmarks.

Quite why they needed to fuel Al Gore's ego any further - by giving him a special gong for his part in creating the internet - is a mystery. My favourite must be the prize for The Kleptones, British-based sonic terrorists.

Panther de-loused

Even as Apple ploughs ahead with its friendly Tiger, it hasn't forgotten about the previous generation of Mac OS X, known as Panther. A slew of security/bug fixes are now available via Software Update or Apple Downloads.

Although the page clearly recommends the update for "all Macintosh users", Tiger owners need not apply.

Tiger Tiger, burning bright

The title will be the last of the awful puns from me surrounding the launch of Apple's next generation of Mac OS X. Codenamed Tiger - or, more prosaically, 10.4 - there's a mini review in today's paper which concludes that although not a whizzbang upgrade, the €130 asking price is money well spent.

Due to reasons of space and time (mostly Apple's refusal to let review copies out the door before they hit the shops - cheers), the review skates over the chief reasons why OS X has matured into a polished, intuitive and powerful operating system with Tiger's birth.

Like Apple's best software, each day with Tiger finds something new to love. Many of the reasons lie with the Spotlight search technology, which tracks every file, and (almost) every bit of text on your hard drive. Not to mention tons of metadata about those files. Metadata includes details such as (with digital photos) the exposure of the picture or (in the case of documents) their author. And heaps more besides.

Automator is a simplified form of AppleScript and resembles Photoshop's Actions for automating repetitive tasks. But its uncomplicated interface means you don't have to be a geek to understand how to set it up. Like Spotlight, it's a feature with huge potential when developers get up to speed with it.

Dashboard groups several mini-programs - such as calculator, dictionary, etc - into one invisible layer which pops up and disappears with a press of F12. The selection of widgets ain't earth-shattering so far but the latent power is, again, tremendous.

None of this would be worth a toss if Tiger wasn't nimble on its toes. But once again Apple has continued its run of making each successive revision run faster (on the same hardware!). Can you imagine Microsoft making the successor to XP perform as well or better on a four-year-old machine? Granted, Apple was starting from a low base with the ultra-sluggish first edition of OS X and Tiger doesn't quite hit the high mark of OS9. But there's little meaningful between them now.

Also in today's column, there's a longer look at the Nokia trio unveiled last week. Just reading back my notes from the Amsterdam extravaganza a couple of points are worth sharing. Nokia reckons the cameraphones won't shoot up in resolution now that it has hit acceptable baseline of two-megapixels.

Although Samsung has demoed a 7MP cameraphone, manufacturers are more likely to concentrate on improving the optics (as Nokia has done), improving the flash (one Nokia exec told me a xenon flash - as found in real cameras - is a long-term possibility to replace current LED versions). In the short term, expect most cameras to feature 1MP at least.

It's unlikely we'll see an optical zoom in a Nokia soon either. The exec spoke of the difficulty in squeezing the mechanics inside a handset. This hasn't stopped Sony from creating a perpedicular lens in its cool little T series cameras, though, so there's hope yet.

Finally, this week's games include Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for N-Gage (buggy but enjoyable), Stolen (gammy SC rip-off) and Altered Beast (pretty dreadful coin-op conversion).