Despite the explosion in HDTV sales driven by a desire to watch every second of those vital matches, it would seem many people are wasting both their time and money. It really doesn't matter how sharp the image on your TV if the lens in your own eyes give a blurred effect.

With fans attracted by the prospect of improved picture quality, clarity and definition, it is estimated (by Kelco) that the World Cup will help to boost sales of HD TVs by 5% to a total of 7.6 million sets sold in this year alone. However a survey by Glasses Direct, the world's largest online prescription eyewear store, found that 35% of the UK's 32 million glasses wearers have not bought a new pair of prescription glasses in the last two years. They may be unaware that their potentially reduced vision will impede their viewing of the beautiful game which would be a real shame, as three million people have now subscribed to HD in the UK.

"Even a slightly short sighted person trying to watch an England match on HD TV may fail to take advantage of the superior picture quality. If you're investing the money to buy an HD TV to watch the World Cup, you ought to have your eyes checked to ensure you're experiencing the full benefit" says David Hutchfield, Dispensing Optician at Glasses Direct.

Jamie Murray Wells, Founder and Executive Chairman of Glasses Direct adds "We want to help the fans get as much out of the World Cup as possible so we're giving away a free pair of Fabio Capello style ZeroRH+ frames complete with prescription lenses to the first hundred people who now get their eyes tested and find they need a new pair of prescription glasses."

Take advantage of the free offer by visiting http://ww.glassesdirect.co.uk/fabio

Following 200 years of development, from the conspicuous ear-trumpet to the cumbersome ‘beige banana’ Phonak have now launched what is claimed to be the world's smallest hearing aid - the Audéo MINI. This tiny engineering marvel is equivalent to the size of a jelly bean - and has now been launched in the UK.

The Audéo MINI sits virtually undetectable behind the ear and offers a discreet solution for the twelve million people in Britain that currently suffer from hearing loss. Today one in five adults has difficulties with their hearing and this figure is expected to rise to one in three by 2025^*.

Audéo MINI's revolutionary design and unrivalled performance has just beaten more than 4250 products from 60 countries to win the prestigious red dot design award at the world’s largest and most respected design competition. An international jury awarded the Audéo MINI the coveted top prize and will see it showcased in the red dot design museum in Germany.

The Audéo MINI’s design was developed in response to a growing demand from the baby boomer generation, the young at heart consumers in their 50s and 60s, who want to boost their hearing to stay at their best but don’t want to draw attention to a problem typically associated with ageing. According to experts, people currently struggle for 15 years on average before seeking advice!

Valentin Chapero, Chief Executive of Phonak who developed the device, says: "The Audéo MINI is a landmark development for hearing correction and the next significant advancement in hearing technology. Powerful enough to provide the user with crystal clear sound quality whilst small enough to sit, almost invisible, behind the ear."

The Audèo MINI includes state-of-the-art functions including the ability to automatically adapt to changing hearing situations and selectively focus on specific speech sources to reduce the distraction of background noise. Thetechology is also claimed to make it possible for the wearer to detect the highest frequency sounds such as bird song or quiet whispers, which are often the first to go when hearing deteriorates.

Visit www.phonak.co.uk for further information.

^* Davis A. Audiovestibular Symptoms, Including Tinnitus, in the Ageing Population, ENT & Audiology news, 2009: 18(4):85-88

Image Courtesy of Apple

Hot on the heals of yesterdays news that Orange are to ship the Apple iPhone 3Gs we have news that Vodafone are to follow suit. You'll have to wait a little longer though - Vodafone won't be shipping until after Christmas. If you are a Vodafone customer though you can register your interest on-line. Orange expect to ship before Christmas.

In both cases this leaves around a three month delay before you can lay your hand on the iPhone. What impact will this have on the mobile market? Are you likely to delay signing up for a new contract until the iPhone is available? Could these announcements keep you loyal to your current provider?

Of course this does leave T-Mobile customers looking a little out in the cold.... but then again there's always tomorrow for yet another announcement.

Share your thoughts on the how this is likely to shake up the mobile market in the coming months by leaving a comment below!

Image Courtesy of Apple

O2's strangle hold on the supply of the much sought after Apple iPhone appears to be nearing an end with the announcement that Orange are to also ship the product iPhone 3Gs. No date has thus far been announced but interested Orange customers can register their interest now.

So... what does this mean to the average Joe? For a start Orange customers can stop looking enviously at every iPhone being flaunted by O2 customers walking down the street. They will also no longer need to make excuses like "Well - I prefer the [add your own phone] over the iPhone - it's just a gimmick".

There's also a chance the price might come down. The minimum contract for a free iPhone on O2 at the moment is £44 per month. As cool as the iPhone is, it doesn't actually do anything many other phones haven't done for a good while, and often done better (I'll be reviewing my new and rather cool Sony Ericsson W995 shortly :-).

What do you think? Are all you Orange customers going to be beating down the door at your local shop to join the cool brigade - or are you going to snub the Apple product because they snubbed your favourite mobile operator? Comments below!

Vodafone have put together the first real-time music top 40 using Twitter to cast votes.

If you hear something you like all you have to do is tweet the hash-tag #RealTimeTop40 (if you don't tweet then that will mean nothing to you!) with the name of the artist and the track. Your vote will be automatically counted.

Of course voting is only half the story - you need to see what's currently popular. Vodafone have a special web-site for this : http://www.realtimetop40.com/

The results change as you watch. Looking at it now Patrick Swayze is number one with "She's Like the Wind". You can also vote your favourites up the list by clicking the Vote for This button which takes you to twitter with the tweet already filled in for you.

If you take a look at the GadgetSpeak twitter feed you'll see my vote for Pink - Please Don't Leave Me :-)

Naturally you can buy the tracks from Vodafone's on-line music store!

Obviously there are still a few people out there that don't use Twitter.... aren't there?

There's been plenty of rumours around a new Internet table computer from Apple - described possibly as a larger form factor iPod Touch. Archos have just announced their own product in this space - the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, and being from Archos it supports just about every media option you could want: audio, video, photos, FM radio and games to name a few.

Advances in technology allow more to be packed in less, and this is the case with the new Archos product. There are two variants, one providing hard disk storage between 160 and 500GB, the other flash based with between 8 and 32GB - the hard-disk version being slightly thicker and at 286g slightly heavier. Front dimensions are about 14x8cm about the same size as my Casio scientific calculator and so easily held in one hand. The display is a 4.8" touch sensitive 800x480 pixel TFT LCD panel that takes most of the front space.

Behind the scenes this device is one of a growing number of products now powered by Googles Android software, which in turn is a derivative of the open source Unix lineage - much as Apples OSX. A flexible, efficient full feature operating system which can be seen from the wealth of software shipped with the product.

802.11 b/g/n provides Internet access where available and Bluetooth will connect you with wireless headphones or other suitable devices. A built in FM transmitter will allow this product to play-back through your cars stereo system.  For those situations where you don't have wireless access or want to provide bulk transfer you can connect via USB 2.0.

The system includes GPS and with the large display there's a good chance this could be an all-in-one solution for media and navigation in the car.

This Archos certainly looks impressive on paper - we'll bring you a full review when we manage to lay our hands on a sample!

Pricing from Amazon has a 30GB flash version for £244.77 and the 250GB hard-drive variant at £252.30, both including VAT and delivery. You can see other options here.

Full details are available on the Archos web-site.

Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom today announce that they have entered into exclusive negotiations to combine T-Mobile UK and Orange UK in a new 50:50 joint venture company.

The new joint venture will create the UK’s leading mobile operator. It will have a combined mobile customer base of around 28.4 million, representing approximately 37 percent of UK mobile subscribers*, based on figures at end December 2008. By integrating Orange’s broadband activities, the joint venture will also have the capabilities to offer convergent solutions to its customers in the future.

The companies claim that the combination of Orange and T-Mobile will bring substantial benefits to UK consumers resulting in expanded network coverage and enhanced indoor and outdoor network quality for 2G and 3G services. The combination will place the joint venture in a better position to invest in innovative new services and to exploit new technologies. The new enlarged business will also be able to compete more effectively with the other two large mobile operators in the market, Vodafone and O2.

What do you think? Good news for mobile customers in the UK - or will fewer larger operators simply result ultimately in less competition? Have your say below!

Well - not your own personal celebrity guide, although that would of course be nice.

Sony Ericsson have however engaged the services of three up-and-coming young artists to share with you their own favourite, and less well known parts of our capital. Each took a shiny new Sony Ericsson W715 on a walk about London to collect their thoughts.

Eliza Doolittle explores some of Camden's coolest hidden hang outs and shares her memories of growing up in North London while Amy Studt takes us to her East End party hot spots, before heading west to slow down the pace. Finally there is Zarif who shows us what's hidden in London Bridge station before exploring her favourite spots in east, south and central London.

Each of these tours last between one and 3 hours.

Now as I said - you don't get the actual celebrity all to yourself - but you do get the audio tour in MP3 format. All you have to do is download the one that interests you the most and save it on your favourite audio player or phone and away you go.

This could be an excellent way to get otherwise uninterested kids motivated and eager to explore - or just take one yourself next time your in the city with some time to kill - great fun.

All the tours are free and can be downloaded from a special Inside Tracks web-site that Sony Ericsson have put together.

If you do decide to take one of the tours please do come back and tell us all how you got on!

Your DVD player works just fine and you have no intention of upgrading to a Blu-Ray player until both the prices come down and your current machine finally gives up the ghost. Before that happens you're still going to buy more videos and they have to be in DVD format. While that's not the end of the world when you finally do upgrade your equipment you'll have a frustrating collection of lower quality movies that just don't take full advantage of that fancy new technology.

Taking these people in their sights, Disney have decided to test out the concept of shipping both standard and Blu-Ray DVDs in a 'combi-pack'. Use the DVD now put the Blu-Ray version away safely for later.

The first release will be High School Musical 3: Senior Year, on Febuary 16th. This will be followed by the 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition of Pinocchio (hard to believe that was made so long ago - I'm feeling old!). Further titles will then be released throughout the year with a platinum edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in October.

The standard DVD included in the pack will also give customers a format playable in standard DVD players around the house, so if you do upgrade you can pop your old player in the kids playroom.

No prices at the moment, but it would defeat the object if the combo-pack were to be priced at anything other than a marginal premium over the Blu-Ray only product.

Valves. Remember those? If you're under 40 quite possible you've never seen one. For many years though the valve, or Vacuum Tube, was the transistor of it's age - a key electrical component that enabled everything from your TV to your radio to your Hi-Fi.

It may seem a little odd then to talk about these tokens of a bigone age in the same sentence as the ultra-high tech Apple iPod. Not so however, as Logic 3 show with the latest addition to their range of iPod sound systems - the Valve80.  Hi-Fi buffs have long promoted the superior sound quality of valve technology - all but eliminating distortion and noise from the sound being amplified delivering it in unadulterated form to your ears.

The Valve80 can deliver 80W of power to two separate piano black speakers. It also looks completely different to your average black featureless iPod dock. This cool technology does come at a price though - £299, but for those that don't want to compromise on the quality of their sound this could be just the product.

We hope to have a full review shortly!