Samsung teaming up with Yahoo to offer web-enhanced TV, via the Widget Channel

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Samsung will, so it is believed, announce a deal with Yahoo to include a series of web apps with its forthcoming HDTV range at this week’s IFA tech show.

The apps, powered by Yahoo Widgets and operating under the name Widget Channel, will let you augment your TV-watching experience, having all sorts of little windows popping up to give you news feeds, tell you what the weather is doing outside and let you watch share prices plummet throughout that afternoon’s episode of Countdown…

Stinking (rich) students own six grand's worth of gadgets, instruments and clothes

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I’d better not hear any more students moaning about how little money they have, because a new survey suggests that the average student has over £6,000 worth of gadgetry, musical instruments, and clothes knocking around in their digs.

Two years ago students “only” had around £2,000 of goods, but Endsleigh Insurance found that it’s an increasingly high-tech world, with mobile phones, laptops, and desktop computers now winging their way to university. Interestingly, though, some students spend even more on musical instruments, with an average value of £689, though only one in four have such gear, while four in five have a laptop PC…

"Gadget consumers are arrogant and conceited" claims US survey. Us? Surely not!

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Obsessed with gadgets? Can’t stop talking about yourself? Yep, join the club – whoops. Turns out us gadget-lovers are nothing but arrogant consumers, according to new ‘research’ conducted by Nielsen Online.

Admittedly a hefty amount of Americans were polled – 25,000 to be exact – and the results showed consumers of technology were very strong leaders with huge amounts of assertiveness, however were all lacking in modesty. Sarah Welch, a lead researcher at the ad network Mindset Media, which…

Top Five Gadgets From The Skies Above America

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Anyone who loves gadgets and lives in the UK will know of the Innovations catalogue. Sadly it no longer exists, it went out of business a couple of years ago, but it was often found dropping through your letterbox inside the Sunday newspapers.

And what you’d find within its pages were some of the most weird and wonderful gizmos in the world. All the stuff you never really needed (ever) but bought from your hard-earned cash just in case – and because it looked “interesting”. I wasted a fortune back in the days of Innovations and was horrified when it bit the dust.

So imagine my joy last week when I caught an internal flight from Orlando to Miami in the States on American Airlines and found a copy of the SKY MALL catalogue in the pocket in front of my seat. It’s Innovations US-style and I’ve picked my five favourites
over the jump. Best thing about it, even those in the UK can order from it!

Top 5 choc-tastic and egg-citing Easter gadgets

IT'S Easter this weekend – so what better way to celebrate than with CHOCOLATE! Yes, it's the one time of the year we can all over-indulge without being accused of pigging out, well, assuming you don't go overboard and raid Woolworths on Monday for all those bargain-basement eggs that didn't sell in time for Easter Sunday.

Not that I've ever done that you understand (but you can get some egg-cedingly cheap deals). Oh no, the puns and jokes have started. Anyway, to help you get in the mood, here's our Tech Digest Top 5 Easter-related gadgets to get you really egg-cited. Sorry…

Opinion: Toshiba laptop face-recognition is a waste of tech time!

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Jonathan Weinberg writes…

So you’re buying a new laptop. Large hard disk, check! Fast processor, check! Windows Vista, well if I must! Face-recognition to stop unauthorised people from logging into it, blimey – what is this, Star Trek?

Well, that could be the newest addition to your techno-arsenal if you snap up one of
Toshiba’s latest notebooks, the Satellite U300, A300 or P300.

Not only are they full spec’d up to the nines, the most interesting bit of gadgetry inside
has to be the camera that matches your face to the one stored in the memory, before it’ll let you into the desktop.

And it’s also the most useless bit of gadgetry I’ve seen in a while…