I don't know what your router looks like, but mine is the BT Home Hub, which is better looking than many, but not terribly inspiring.  However, now the UK's largest broadbank provider TalkTalk has got together with artists at Goldsmith's College in London to tackle the creative question of how to make a router look beautiful.  Well the result is a fantastic testimony to the wonderful design skills of our young art students.

Taking the design project to heart, the students at Goldsmiths have surpassed themselves, producing routers that are Objet D'arts in themselves.  If only other products could be given the same treatment.  My other alter ego is as a creativity coach, so I'm blown over by Talk Talk's approach to router design - proving we can see things differently.

Here's a look then at the Route O'Clock.  This 24-hour clock uses colour to create a picture of the varying signal strength throughout the day, so people can make the most of their internet connection.  Complete with twenty-four glowing segments, the display indicates signal strength as time passes.

The Energy Saver is an intelligent router which switches off automatically when not in use. Team Goldsmiths’ execution is based on house-key hooks; on when you’re in, off when you’re out. Plus there’s an integrated timer for long downloads.

The Hybrid Router looks like a piece of 60's revival furniture, integrating router design into a hardwood side table. The team came up with a Hybrid Router that is a practical, sexy side table and a bold style piece, whilst still fulfilling its raison d’être as a fully functional router.

Finally, the funkiest of the four is the Jellyfish.  This rather large unit looks like something out of Dr Who and has Ethernet cables for many to link up at the same time.

Sadly, you can't get hold of any of these routers yet.  However, if you visit the Future Routers site you can vote for your favourite and you might just see it in the shops soon.  As I write the  Route O'Clock is ahead with 54% of the vote!!

I've seen there are some naysayers on the Future Routers site, but I say, go on - encourage our young artists - we need more design like this!

Visit Future Routers to vote.

Do you ever do this - put down your mobile phone, and then have to use someone elses phone to ring it in order to find it again.  Well that's just one use of this new nifty little device called Nio.  The Nio is a Bluetooth security tag that makes data rich devices such as Blackberry's, laptops and data sticks hard to loose and hard to steal.  You attach a nio to your keys and activate a personalised security zone between, for example, your mobile and your tagged keys.  If you walk away from your phone, or someone steals it, then your nio tag sounds the alarm. Costs £59.95. 

Of course, I'm not sure what happens if you loose your keys!!

More details at www.bluenio.com

Here's a little demo on YouTube

As from tomorrow (15-7-09) you can pre order Windows 7 at the reduced price of £49.99 for the Home Premium and £99.99 for the Professional version.

The retailers taking part in this limited time promotion are Amazon.co.uk, Play.com, Currys, Dixons, Tescos, Micro Anvika, Argos, Comet, Ebuyer, John Lewis Partnership, Staples, Littlewoods and PC World.

Full details of what is available are available from the link below

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/buy/offers/pre-order.aspx

My initial work with the release candidate version make this a huge advance over Vista as lots of PC's that would not work with Vista do work with Windows 7.

As I get more details I will add them here.

The weathermen are promising us a wonderful summer - just like in the old days. If they are right then you won't need this months GadgetSpeak prize, because you'll be outdoors enjoying all that fresh air and sun.

But...

Just in case (perish the thought) they've got it wrong - this month we have a shiny new Nintendo Wii that will be making it's way to one very lucky GadgetSpeak winner.

Lots of people seemed to like our competition question a couple of months back so we've taken the same path again this month - just to keep you all on your toes.

So - to be entered into the competition this month you'll have to:

• Be a member and login (or join for free and login)
• Go to our special competition page
• Answer the particularly cunning qualifying question

Please do be careful - last time 5 people answered the question wrong - and we really don't want that!

And of course please remember to check the terms and conditions to make sure you qualify (at the moment you have to be in the UK - sorry to all those readers elsewhere!)

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!

The year is flying by and it's Easter already and here at GadgetSpeak we have a special competition this month to mark the occasion. Rather than our single prize for the month - we have four separate prizes - each excellent in their own right. We'll break open one egg each week and one lucky winner will get the contents.

The prizes and dates are:

• 9th April: £25 Amazon gift voucher
• 16th April: SanDisk SansaClip MP3 player. The only product to be awarded a 5x5 smilies this year
• 23rd April: £50 GAME voucher
• 30th April: Nintendo DSi - that latest evolution of this popular console!

What do you have to do to enter?

If you're already a member all you have to do is make sure your profile is complete and remember to login each week to enter that weeks prize draw. Remember we are doing these draws at the end of each Thursday in the month - so make sure you do login before the deadline!

For full details, including terms and conditions, take a look at our special competition page!

You know how it is - you've changed your Facebook profile pic five times in the last week and you still look like a..... well... let's just say you're still not happy with the results!

If you're in and around London this weekend (7th March 2009) then help may be to hand. Eric (pictured right) and his Photo Envy Team will be in the 3Store at 423 Oxford Street from 11am onwards (here's the Google Maps link) courtesy of 3 and Sony Ericsson.

And what will Eric and his chorts be doing? Well the ‘Photo Envy Team' will be offering a FREE photo shoot and Photoshop session - each lasting around 10-15 minutes - to all customers, on a first come, first served basis.

A professional photographer will snap the photo, and a Photoshop expert will create a profile picture so flawless you'll look like the celebrity you know you really are! Having managed this astounding feat they will then upload the image directly to your Facebook profile.

If you're feeling particularly adventurous you can choose an extreme background to trick friends into thinking you're a real daredevil. Fancy convincing friends and colleagues that you spent your weekend sky diving, bungee jumping or snowboarding? Tempting isn't it?

Not all of us live near the capital so this event merely starts off a UK tour for Eric - if you can't make this weekend then how abount one of the following?

• Saturday March 14 - 23-24 Haymarket, Norwich
• Saturday March 14 - 15-17 Gallowtree Gate, Leicester
• Saturday March 21 - 84 Broadmead, Bristol
• Saturday March 28 - 27 Market Street, Manchester

For more information on Eric - and see his very one sky-dive check take a look at his very own web page.

We reviewed 'Blurb' back in November 2008 - a company that lets you create your own high-quality coffee-book style photobooks. A great way to get your best photos out for viewing rather than stuck on your hard disk gathering electronic dust.

To encourage this new idea in personal photo books Blurb last year started the "Photography.Book.Now" competition, open to anyone that has self-published a photo book. While it's very easy to submit your Blurb created book, the competition is not limited to their own publishers - anyone with their own photo book can enter (that's excluding books by professional publishing houses).

Entrants this year will be judged by a panel of editors, gallery curators, publishers, and photographers lead by noted photography book expert Darius Himes who servers as lead judge for the second year.

If you've published your own photobook and think it's worthy of a wider audience then maybe you should think about entering? The talented will will receive $25,000 (US). You have until the 16:00 (British Summer Time) on the 16th July 2009 to submit your self published masterpiece!

Want to know more?

Check out their competition web-site

A small note on this months Virgin Media bill has been brought to my attention. This friendly little note points out that Virgin Media are"...changing the cost of calls to UK landlines and the standard call connection fee on the 15th January.[...] For details go to virginmeda.com/callingcosts" - it points out that this does not affect calls made as part of a talk-plan (a scheme whereby you pay a monthly subscription in return for certain calls being free - generally only calls to UK landlines).

Curious about these changes (could they be *reducing* call charges to help out Joe Public during these uncertain times?) I duly followed the instructions and visited the web site. I think I can summarise the changes as an exorbitant price rise :

^* comparing against BT Unlimited Evening & Weekend Plan, because it's free (£0/month) on a 12 month contract

I also noticed that the day after these changes come into effect on the 15th of January 2008, BT will start to include 0870 and 0845 non-geographical calls in your call plan. As a Virgin Media 'Anytime' customer you'd pay 6.84p/min for 0845 numbers and 9.79p/min for 0870 numbers. Anytime costs £7.95/month as compared to the equivalent BT tariff at £4.85/month.

Good to see some companies aren't going to let a mere global recession and close to 0% inflation stand in the way of increasing margins! What do you think? Going to remain with Virgin?

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.