A Nokia application to the US Patent and Trademark Office has revealed its work on a handset that’s operated by cranks - no, not grumpy office-worker types - and which looks suspiciously like the troubled Sidekick Slide.

A Californian gamer has filed a class action lawsuit demanding damages in excess of $5m against Microsoft and software developer Bungie, all because his copy of Halo 3 allegedly doesn’t work properly.

Following the loss of the personal records of some 25 million child benefit recipients by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs this month, the UK government will be acutely aware of how quickly mismanagement of technology can lead to serious problems.

While technology wasn't to blame per se in the HMRC data loss, there are plenty of recorded examples where faulty hardware and software have cost the organizations concerned dearly, both financially and in terms of reputation — and resulted in some near misses for the public.

Here's our considered list of some of the worst IT-related disasters and failures. The order is subjective — with number one being the worst — so feel free to comment using the Talkback facility below if you disagree or have suggestions for disasters we may have missed.

I always get annoyed when there is a certain spot i would love to sit with my laptop and it just can't get reliable wireless signal. Check out these tips to now only boost your signal but also protect or monitor your signal. 

As LCD TV's lower in price everyone seems to be getting them and putting them in more interesting place. A nice place for a tv is the kitchen. You can enjoy the game while you make the nachos or acually follow along with the food network to impress your mate. The only problem is that there is a lot of stuff thats a little dangerous for a delicate LCD TV. Well the answer is here at frontgate.com. They have designed a sturdy stainless steel widescreen 20" TV that comes with a water resistant remote. It comes with all the normal fixens from a quality TV. HDMI connection, 15-pin D sub for input from a computer,16:9 HDTV ration,quality sound. The stainless steel will help protect from erosion and will match most of your appliances too. Looks like a quality TV, made for a specific location and at $600 is priced competitively.

Check it out here

Already available for the holidays is a PC for only $199 running Linux.  Every year we see Linux creeping into the Desktop market with Ubuntu now offered on dell's this PC from Walmart is a considerable jump. 

The USB Ecostrip is a normal power strip but with an added bonus, it turns off your devices when your not using them. The Ecostrip has a USB connection to your PC and determines when you shutdown, when you do, it powers down any peripheral devices you might have including your printer, router, monitor or anthing else. As your electric bill keeps rising this winter grab this easy gadget to help you trim a couple bucks off. On average you could save $70 in the first year. The strip only costs 34.95, so it pays for itself. It seems like a really great idea for the average home user.

Comcast's traffic management practices have landed the cable giant in court. Yesterday, a California resident filed a lawsuit in state court accusing Comcast of breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and violating the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act.
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John Hart describes himself as a Comcast customer who has seen performance hits when using "Blocked Applications" targeted by Comcast's traffic management application, Sandvine. In his complaint, Hart says that Comcast severely limits "the speed of certain internet applications such as peer-to-peer file sharing and lotus notes [sic]." Comcast accomplishes this by "transmitting unauthorized hidden messages" to the PCs of those using the applications.

Check the full stoy at ars technicia

Industry leaders have formed to develop the next USB standard 3.0.  Data transfer is predicted to be ten times faster then 2.0 while maintaining backwards compatibility.  As our mobile devices get larger and larger we need to transfer that data quicker and quicker.  Not only will this new standard be faster but it will also be optimized for better efficiencies.  This means that it will use less power and we will have longer battery life for our laptops and mobile devices.  The new standard will maintain the existing plug and play ease of use.  The new standard is expected to be complete in the first half of 2008. 

Hopefully hardware manufacters will integrate USB 3.0 into there devices and consumers will be able to transfer data securely and effienciently.  With this new standard, i hope they can iron out some of the annoyances of previous USB standards.  There needs to be a set standard of the kind of USB plugs, these proprtary plugs different types are utterly annoying.  Hopefully we will actually see performance of the theoretical bandwidth they claim, I have never actually seen transfer rates relating to the max of USB 2.0.  USB remains to be the most popular device transfer medium and hopefully it will be getting better. 

check out more at www.usb.org