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

A host of television and radio stations has announced the title ‘International Children’s Day of Broadcasting 2010’ for the first time in Malaysia.  Children had been encouraged at the earliest opportunity to read the news including sports, host programmes or voice their views, it has been suggested by organizers a media conference at Wisma UN.

The theme for 2010 is ‘All Rights, All Children’ as the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) marks its 20th Anniversary.  AI Fm, Era Fm, BERNAMA Radio 24 with other radio stations has been participated at the event.

Farah Harith, BERNAMA Radio 24 producer and CSR chief said “This is our second CSR programme after the Chinese New Year programme and it gives an opportunity to children to know about the broadcasting fraternity and learn how a radio station functions."

She further added "Be sure to tune in to the children with our participating announcers Reza and Dina (Era Fm), Jack Lim (My Fm), Jin (hitz Fm) and Revathy (THR Raaga) on March 6 and 7."  Unicef said in a statement the children will be able to learn the responsibility and will become an active citizens.

When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released last year, it brought some harsh criticism from some quarters - including a particularly stinging attack from the Labour MP for Leicester East, Keith Vaz.

So you would think that when invited to partake in a Westminster e-forum debate on games with industry figures and other MPs that Mr Vaz, who has a history of moaning about the content of games being too violent for kids (despite the fact that violent games receive an 18 certificate - therefore no children should be playing them anyway), would be very keen to air his views. But you would be wrong......

At the last minute, Mr Vaz let organisers know that "he couldn't make it". Thankfully, the rest of the panel, including Keith Ramsdale from EA, Richard Wilson from Tiga, Ian Livingstone from Eidos (who was Vaz's last minute replacement) and MPs Tom Watson and Ed Vaizey were all on hand to take him to task.

MCV reported that Ian Livingstone ripped into Mr Vaz, mockingly reciting some of his rabble-rousing buzzwords; "Games are evil, games are terrible, games are turning children into killers" and so on, while Ed Vaizey, in reference to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's recent outburst on games, said Mr Vaz should change his name to "Keith Chavaz".

Joking aside, this situation typifies the soap-box politics of today; too many MPs talking in moral panic-inducing soundbites to win votes from their constituents about things they know little of or have little interest in. Want to know what sort of a guy Keith Vaz is? Take a look at our past article from November after the MP had been spouting off about Modern Warfare 2.

The mobile phone manufacturer has announced a wide range of expansions which has kept straight forward for owners of the Nokia N900 handset from nowadays.

Customers may want to consider sell mobile phone to receive more money for their used mobile phone in order to make an upgrade.

N900 works seamlessly with new updates of Ovi Maps, changes in route calculation, and improvement in search performance which gives the quickest available route when you can make a move from A to B.

Full support with the combination of characters Italian, English and German will also be provided by means of virtual keyboard layouts.

As it turns out N900, it has been declared the most famous product of the year 2009.

The phone utilizes GSM frequency and is now fully compatible with all 3 networks of SIM cards as a small number of cards had formerly showed to be problematic.

Nokia has newly discovered that its Ovi Store is now exists for users of its Nokia N900 phone, allowing them to take the benefit of a range of games and apps.

Customers across the world can begin to take advantage of the updates within the next 24 hours.

You may have read my recent blog about Bletchley Park and it's importance to the history of the gadgets we've all come to love. This wonderful icon of computing history is in very real danger of being lost to future generations. The plight of this monument to a secret war of wits has caught the imagination of a diverse team of intrepid volunteers - both individuals and organisations - from many sectors of society both in the UK and abroad.

Here's your chance to help and have a very enjoyable day out!

As part of this fund raising initiative one organisation, the ACCU, will be holding a one day fund raising conference at Bletchley Park : "Security: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" on the 7th November. All the proceeds from this informative and unmissable day will go to the Bletchley Park Trust.

The day will include talks by experts in the history of Bletchley, code breaking and cryptography.

In his talk entitled How the Germans gave away their "unbreakable" codes Tony Sale will describe how human operator errors enabled code breakers to decipher vital German messages.

Simon Singh, author, journalist and TV producer presents a talk entitled Cracking the Cipher Challenge. Simon published "The Code Book" containing ten encrypted messages and a £10,000 prize for the first person to crack all of them. Simon will discuss how he constructed the Cipher Challenge and how the winners eventually cracked those codes, using this as a framework to introduce a brief history of cryptography. Simon will also demonstrate a genuine Second World War Enigma cipher machine!

Phil Zimmermann came to fame as author of the PGP e-mail encryption package which, despite three years of government persecution, became the most widely used e-mail encryption software in the world. Phil will discuss his latest project "ZRTP" - bringing encryption to Voice over IP systems (VoIP) and will also touch upon the issue of living in a surveillance society.

As well as these stimulating talks held in the elegant Victorian Bletchley Park Mansion the day will also include a guided tour of the entire Bletchley Park site and will include coffee breaks and lunch. The day will start at 8:30am in the morning with the first talk provisionally scheduled to start at 9:30am. The day will finish with an opportunity to chat with both the speakers and other members of the audience, finally wrapping up at around 8pm.

Bletchley Park is very easy to get to being just across the road from Bletchley Park railway station which is on the line from London Euston through Milton Keynes and up to Birmingham.

The entire day costs only £95 (or if you're a member of the ACCU £85) which for anyone with an interest in the history of computing and cryptography is excellent value. And of course you will be helping to ensure the future Bletchley Park!

There are more details on the Bletchley Park web-site and you can buy tickets online from their shop.

Today sees Microsoft launch Windows Phone, not as you may think a ‘phone’ but the operating system to power and control it.

It will apparently be available on almost all of the major handsets (with the exception of Nokia) I have seen it demoed by one of the top Microsoft people in the UK. However the real test will be when handsets become available to test in the outside world.

It is all about third party applications some will be free but other will be payable, however Microsoft promise that every application will have a trial period and should that application not do what you want they guarantee that the vendor will repay your money during that trial time.

More information and handset reviews as and when available.

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?